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iam93percentstardust · 3 years

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For the birthday prompt: [Winteriron or Stuckony] Omega Tony soothing Alpha Bucky after a panic attack/nightmare shortly after they get him back to the Tower/Compound. Maybe a little bit of the team being overprotective on the omega genius and had been keeping him away from the "dangerous" and traumatized alpha assassin. But in the end, Tony just struts in like it's nothing and Bucky just f'ing melts to do whatever Tony says (in a sweet way, not a creepy one). Please?

Tumblr is doing weird things with the asks so if this doesn’t work, bear with me and I’ll post the story in the notes.

This story got a little bit (okay, maybe more than a little bit) away from me so I hope this is still what you were hoping for! I went the Stuckony route here and I’m also headcanoning that after a few years of dating Steve, Tony has mostly gotten over his emotional constipation.

As always, everything I write is on ao3 but tumblr doesn’t like links so I’m not including that

The first time Tony sees Bucky Barnes, it’s through a screen.

It’s the first real lead they’ve had in months, since the flurry of sightings immediately following SHIELD’s collapse. The team had sent Natasha and Clint to check it out. They’re both betas, and Nat’s ability to control the calming pheromones all betas let off gives them an edge over an alpha they suspect is on the verge of going feral.

He’s not on the verge, Tony realizes when he sees Barnes on the screen for the first time. He is feral.

Eyes clearly gone red, clear even through the low saturation of the screen, baring his fangs at Natasha and Clint as they cautiously approach, growling so fiercely that the other people in the market are giving him a wide berth as they peer at him fearfully from under their lashes—Bucky has been pushed past the point of breaking into ferality. It’s not surprising. Their entire world crashing down—literally, in this instance—would be a lot for any alpha to handle, but for one trying to deal with seventy years of brainwashing and amnesia? Yeah, Tony’s not surprised.

There’s something slightly terrifying about it. Alphas going feral is supposed to be a nightmare story, something you tell children about at night to scare them into being good. It’s not supposed to be something you see in a crowded marketplace. And when Tony thinks about how easy it would be for something to go wrong, if they’d sent someone other than Nat or Clint—like Steve who had wanted so badly to be the one to bring his friend in or even Tony with his omega pheromones evolved to tempt alphas into paying attention to him and only him—he shudders.

But—there’s something almost piteous about it too. It’s clear that Bucky is terrified beneath his snarling veneer, clear that he doesn’t fully understand what’s happening, and something in Tony’s heart shifts the same as it had the first time he saw Steve.

Something thrums deep inside him to the tune of mine.

“I can help,” he says.

Beneath him, Steve shifts uneasily, saying, “Tony—”

“I want to,” he interrupts. He turns, Steve’s arm sliding from his stomach to his hip, and rests his head on Steve’s shoulder, watching Nat raise her hands placatingly out of the corner of his eye. “I’ve had six months to get used to—everything. It wasn’t his fault, I know that, and—and you still love him, Steve, I know you do.”

“I love you,” Steve says, which isn’t really much of an argument.

“I know.” He smiles when Steve rolls his eyes at the well-worn response. “But you love him too. And… he feels like you did when we first met.”

He can feel Steve tense, and he tucks his head deeper into the crook of Steve’s neck, purring quietly to force him to calm. He knows his alpha is only worried about his safety. Bucky isn’t the same person he once was and even if Steve still has feelings for him, it’s only instinct to be worried about the omega he’s also in love with. But he doesn’t need to be worried. Tony is more than capable of taking care of himself and his own instincts are screaming that Bucky won’t hurt him, that Bucky is his. Only once Steve is fully relaxed again does he continue, “Please, Steve. I want to help. I want to know him better and I want to know if what I’m feeling about him is real. Let me?”

Steve sighs but Tony feels his lips curve upwards where they’re pressed against his hair. “I don’t let you do anything.”

“And don’t you forget it.”

Bucky is still feral by the time he, Nat, and Clint return to the tower, but it’s tinged now with panic. Tony can smell the sour scent it all the way from where he and the rest of the team are waiting in the kitchen and Bucky’s still outside. He’s not sure if that says something about his strength as an alpha or the depths of his panic, but either way, it’s not good. He glances again at the screen where he can see Natasha trying to calm Bucky down enough to get him to enter the building—the windows blacked out so that Bucky doesn’t panic further at the sight of the team just inside the landing pad—but it’s no dice.

“I’m going out there,” he announces.

It’s meant to just let everyone know that he’s going, but everyone else seems to take it as an invitation to stop him. The noise in the kitchen swings up into an uproar. Even Steve, who knows that he has every intention of helping, has tucked him up against his side, keeping him from taking a single step out of the kitchen.

“He’s dangerous,” Bruce argues once the initial noise has died down a little. It’s telling that Steve doesn’t immediately argue with him the way he normally does when someone says something bad about Bucky.

“We’re all dangerous,” Tony shoots back, ineffectually trying to wriggle his way out of Steve’s arms. “I’m dangerous and biology practically dictates that my orientation is about as dangerous as a bunny rabbit.”

Steve, who has been on the receiving end of Tony’s intense heats, snorts.

“Look,” he continues, “Nat’s not having any luck getting him to calm down enough to come inside and right now I’m really worried he’s going to either steal the Quinjet and take off or jump off the tower and take off. Either option comes with a lot of paperwork that I have to sign so I’d prefer it if he just came inside so why can’t I try? We can’t send another alpha out there, he’ll take that as a sign of aggression, and we can’t send Sam. The last time Bucky met him, he kicked him off a helicarrier. So that means we’re down to me. Sucks that it’s me but I’m our best option.”

“If he hurts you—” Steve begins.

“He won’t,” Tony says softly and turns so he can nose at Steve’s scent glands. “You won’t let him. I know you’ll be right there, ready if something goes wrong.”

Steve clearly still doesn’t want to let him go out there but his arms loosen enough for Tony to slip away. He smiles at the others, hiding his own nerves beneath a façade of self-confidence that he absolutely doesn’t feel. It’s not like any of them are wrong: feral alphas are dangerous, and this one is more dangerous than most. But he’s not wrong either: Bucky is in more danger the longer he stays out there. Hydra is searching for him and it was sheer luck that the Avengers found him first. But he doesn’t know how long that luck will hold, so the quicker they can bring him in out of the cold, the happier he’ll be.

He straightens his shirt and steps outside, ignoring the way the rest of the team trails him to the door. Bucky’s red eyes snap instantly to him. It’s unsettling, a little terrifying, and Tony has to stop himself from reaching for his sunglasses or from jamming his hands in his pockets. Instead, he holds himself loose and open, hands at his side and palms open so Bucky doesn’t think he’s hiding a weapon in his fists.

“Tony, what do you think you’re doing?” Clint murmurs, alerted to his presence by the sound of the door closing. Natasha is still concentrating on Bucky, trying to soothe him. Even from where he’s standing, he can feel her pheromones washing calm over him and he revises his plan to include her. He’s never felt this kind of strength from her before but he’d be an idiot not to use it.

“It’s okay,” he says, keeping his eyes fixed on Bucky, who’s growling lowly now. “Go back inside, Natasha and I have got this.”

“Can’t do that,” Clint says. “Steve would have my head if—”

“Steve’s my backup. He’s right inside. Go inside; I can’t calm Bucky down if he’s worrying about you.”

“But—”

“Please.”

He thinks it’s the please that does it. By now, the team knows that the whole Tony Stark doesn’t use social niceties thing is bullshit but he still spends so much time in the workshop, and so much time teasing the others when he’s not working, that it’s still an indicator that he’s completely serious about something.

Clint doesn’t waste time asking any other questions. He, more than anyone else on the team except for Steve, knows better than to underestimate people and question them when they’re confident. And Tony is about as confident as he can be. There are ways that this can go wrong, absolutely, but they’re running out of options and what he’s about to try is something that’s been scientifically proven to be effective.

He doesn’t watch Clint go, though Bucky does, only to snap his gaze right back to Tony as soon as Tony takes a step forward. He places a hand on Natasha’s shoulder as he passes her, murmurs into her ear too low for even supersoldiers to hear, “Keep up the good work. You’re helping,” and comes to a stop within armlength of Bucky, knowing that Bucky could easily reach out and hurt him if he wanted to.

It seems to throw Bucky off, who blinks at him. Tony smiles at him and reaches up to his neck, loosening the scent blocker just enough to dilute the bonded scent pouring off of him and allow his own to filter in.

Bucky blinks again. “Omega,” he says eventually, voice rusty with disuse.

Tony smiles again. “That’s right.”

“And… Stevie?” Bucky guesses. In that moment, he sounds so young that it makes Tony’s heart break. Bucky had his future stolen away from him just the same as Steve did. He can’t fully regret that because it brought them both to him, but he knows how much pain and healing Steve had had to go through after waking up in this century and he knows what Bucky will still have to do, and he hurts for them.

“Steve’s my alpha,” he says. “Do you remember Steve?”

Bucky hesitates and then slowly nods. The red is slowly starting to recede from his eyes—though Tony isn’t sure that has anything to do with what he’s doing or if it’s just because he’s managing to baffle the alpha—and then Natasha shifts. It’s nothing more than a twitch of her leg but Bucky instantly notices it.

Before Tony realizes it, Bucky has snatched him to him, tucked him behind the mass that makes up Bucky’s body, and is snarling at Natasha, eyes scarlet red again. Just barely, he sees the door start to open and if it does, if the team comes out of it ready to fight, they’ll lose Bucky.

“No!” he shouts, startling Bucky. It’s enough though. The door pauses. Tony can see Steve through the crack, looking terrified, but he isn’t hurt. He’s okay. Bucky hasn’t done anything other than seemingly try to protect him.

He darts in front of Bucky again, wraps his arms around his shoulders, and tugs him down to his neck, tucking his face into the loosened scent blocker so he can inhale both Steve and Tony.

“Settle,” he commands. It’s usually a command an alpha uses for their omega but there’s precedence of omegas using it too. He draws on every ounce of strength he typically reserves for the boardroom and pushes it into his voice, ordering him again when Bucky lets out an answering growl.

It takes a moment but Bucky suddenly melts, going limp and boneless against him. Tony’s only half-expecting it; the alpha’s weight takes him by surprise and they sink to the ground, Bucky taking in huge gasping breaths as he breathes in their combined scents.

“Oh my darling,” Tony whispers, hands coming up to stroke through Bucky’s hair. “It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re safe.”

Without quite meaning to, Bucky ends up moving into the guest room on his and Steve’s floor. Tony means to put Bucky on his own floor but then Bucky spends the afternoon following him docilely around the common areas, as sweet now as he was feral a few hours earlier. The others still seem a little wary but as time passes and it becomes obvious that Tony is in fact doing some good, they start to relax. By the time they’d be heading up to bed, Bucky is stretched out on the couch, head on Tony’s lap and feet tucked under Steve’s legs, as the team watches a movie.

“I think he’s imprinted on you,” Clint observes dryly as he heads for the elevator. “Like a duck.”

Tony doesn’t look up from where he’s carding his fingers through Bucky’s hair but he feels the alpha tense. “That’s okay, darling,” he comments idly. “I’m pretty sure Steve and I imprinted on each other once we started living together too.”

Natasha groans. “Don’t remind me. It was like watching a Disney movie without the singing animals.”

“Disney movie?” Bucky asks, voice muffled by Tony’s thigh.

“I’ll show you,” Tony assures him.

The rest of the team starts slowly filtering out until it’s just the three of them. Tony and Steve exchange a look over Bucky’s head, not needing to communicate with words after the years they’ve spent together. They’re both concerned about where Bucky will sleep tonight. With a quick glance toward Bucky and a tilt of his eyebrows, Steve tells him that he would be more than happy with Bucky staying with them, but he’ll leave the decision up to Tony. No one likes the scent of a distressed omega after all, and the easiest way to end up with a distressed omega is by inviting someone into their space that they don’t want there.

Fortunately, Tony would be more than happy with Bucky there. He hadn’t been joking when he’d said that one look at Bucky and it had felt like they were meant for each other, just as it had felt with Steve—and, he suspected, just as it had felt with Steve and Bucky, even if they’d never made a move.

But he wants the choice to be Bucky’s, so he gently lifts his hands away from Bucky’s hair and asks, “Bucky? Do you want to have your own floor? We’ve got a few extras for when we expand the roster. Or you could stay on our floor, if you’d prefer?”

Bucky doesn’t even hesitate to say, “With you.”

He knows Bucky doesn’t mean it the way he wants, doesn’t mean that he’ll join them in their bed, but maybe… Maybe someday, once Bucky is better (he isn’t so naïve as to think this is the end of it; he only has to look at his own history with backsliding after Afghanistan and Stane and the palladium reactor to know that) and if he and Steve can figure out the right words to invite someone into a triad bond…

Well. Maybe someday.

He wakes up in the middle of the night to Steve gently shaking his shoulder. “Waz wrong?” he mumbles, blearily rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Did I have a nightmare?”

“No, sweetheart,” Steve whispers, leaning over to kiss his bare shoulder. “Bucky wanted to know if he could join us. Said he was worried about Hydra.” He doesn’t say if Bucky was worried about Hydra taking him away or someone else, Tony or Steve, he notes, but the answer is the same either way.

“’Course he can, long as he’s not a blanket hog.”

He fully expects Bucky to climb in on Steve’s other side. It only makes sense: the two grew up together so of course, Steve would be the middle in this instance. Instead, Steve tugs Tony closer to him so that he’s spooning up behind him, and Bucky crawls under the blankets so that he’s facing Tony, looking more relaxed as soon as his head hits the pillow.

Huh. Maybe there’s something to what Clint was saying about Bucky imprinting on him. He would be more worried, but alphas don’t imprint on someone unless they feel safe with them, unless there’s the beginning stirrings of a mating bond in the back of their mind, even though a full bond takes time, communication, and love to develop. Considering that Tony’s pretty sure he’s imprinted on Bucky the same way, he really isn’t that concerned about Bucky’s feelings.

Still though, he makes a note to sit down and talk with Bucky eventually about how they can’t just rush into this. They’ve all been through too much to immediately strike up a relationship. Bucky isn’t in the right mental state at the moment. And as for Tony, he wants to make sure they’re all on the same page and that Bucky won’t regret this two years down the line. Hell, he’s still uncertain that Steve won’t regret this at some point, so he definitely wants to know that Bucky’s sure of his feelings.

But that’s a problem for tomorrow-Tony, he decides. Tonight, he’s going to snuggle into his alpha’s warmth and enjoy having Bucky close by instead of somewhere out in the world where Tony can’t keep him safe.

The next day is weirder. Not in a bad way! Just—here: when Tony finally drags himself away from the warm spots in the bed that his mates (not his mates; his mate and his mate’s best friend… who might one day be his mate), makes his way into the kitchen, and sleepily grumbles, “Coffee,” there are suddenly two steaming mugs in front of him, one from Steve and one from—someone else. He raises his eyes slowly to where Bucky is watching him with hopeful eyes. That answers that question then.

“Uh, thanks, Snowflake,” he says and takes a cautious sip out of the one Bucky put down. It’s not that he thinks it’s poisoned. It’s just that Bucky has been here for less than twenty-four hours, there’s no way that he know how exacting Tony can be about his coffee, how particular—how—how…

Huh. This is pretty damn perfect actually.

He takes another, larger sip and then looks at where Steve is busy making breakfast for the three of them. Steve watches him with an amused look in his eyes. Tony knows Steve isn’t concerned about someone else preparing his coffee—Bruce has done it plenty of times and whenever Rhodey’s in town, he insists that he’s the only one who can make Tony’s coffee—he’s just enjoying watching the two of them together.

He thinks about the nights he used to wake from a dead sleep to the sound of Steve weeping over Bucky, about the concerns he used to share with Tony that Bucky wouldn’t want to stay with them or would want to leave. He wonders now how much of that was fear that Tony wouldn’t want Bucky to stay because he wouldn’t be able to stomach housing the person Hydra used to kill his parents. Silly alpha, he thinks fondly. As though Tony wouldn’t love anyone Steve loves.

At least that’s a fear he can put to rest.

Gulping down half his coffee in one go, he leans back in his chair and casually says, “Steve, you’re fired. Pack your things and go. I’m keeping this one. His coffee is lightyears ahead of yours.”

Steve bursts out laughing and crosses the kitchen to pull him up and kiss him soundly. Tony purrs into the kiss, answered with a low rumble from Steve and then, so low he almost misses it—another rumble from Bucky. He smiles triumphantly and pulls away with another kiss, hands resting on Steve’s broad chest.

“Better finish up that breakfast, soldier,” he says teasingly. “Got things to do today in the workshop and I need my alpha down there to stand around and look pretty. You too, Bucky Babe,” he calls over his shoulder. “Universe gave me two supersoldiers, be a shame not to take advantage of that.”

He doesn’t know what Bucky looks like but the kitchen suddenly scents like contended alpha, and he knows it’s not Steve’s scent because he knows Steve’s scent as well as he knows his own. He smiles again, nuzzles deeper into Steve’s chest and hums happily.

It’s not perfect yet, he thinks, but soon—soon it will be.

Tony was right that first day—it takes time, months really. Time for Bucky to backslide and Steve to backslide and Tony to back-shimmy because he doesn’t do anything as gauche as slide. It takes months of therapy, days of consultation with the world’s top experts on how to remove the brainwashing and programming from Bucky’s brain, hours of working together in the workshop on Bucky’s arm as Tony comes up with improvement after improvement.

It’s countless bad nights where Bucky wakes up in a nightmare and reaches to strangle Steve—never Tony, never his omega, but always his best friend—and countless bad days afterward trying to convince him to come back to their bed. It’s figuring out how to work around the myriad of triggers all three of them have and sometimes it doesn’t work. Sometimes Bucky doesn’t realize that Tony can’t handle baths anymore. Sometimes Steve doesn’t notice that Bucky’s afraid of heights. Sometimes Tony misses that it’s the anniversary of Bucky falling from the train.

It’s bad sometimes.

But it’s good sometimes too.

It’s figuring out how they curl around each other in bed and waking up warm and rested. It’s feeding each other by hand in the morning when they’re too tired to bother with silverware. It’s cups of coffee and donuts with sprinkles and warm hugs. It’s Bucky resting his head on Tony’s lap and tucking his feet under Steve’s legs during movie nights.

It’s Tony and Steve dancing together around the kitchen island as Bucky cooks, watching them fondly. It’s Bucky crooning old songs from the 40s when Steve’s on a mission and Tony can’t sleep without his alpha. It’s Steve and Bucky spending hours walking the streets of Brooklyn, reminiscing about growing up together.

It’s love, blooming slowly but surely for everyone to see.

And when one night as Tony is changing out of the charcoal suit he’d worn for the board meeting that day and into his pajamas and Bucky stops him with a hoarsely whispered, “Doll,” he smiles and guides Bucky’s hand to his waist.

“It’s okay, darling” he murmurs. “You can.”

Bucky’s kiss, when it comes, feels like coming home.

#stuckony #alle writes #alle answers #if you like please consider reblogging #fingers crossed that tumblr lets me post this #willowlark369

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ri-ahhh · 4 years

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Ooooh but like what if it's gray getting jealous and a teeny but insecure too when MJ mentions some of her work mates and other close guy friends w whom she hangs out and drinks and parties yk?And when he finally meets them he might not be able to get some inside jokes or be pissy on how touchy one of her guy bffs is?!And just goes like"baby am I too young for you?"🥺maybe some cute fluff and hot makeup sex?? ;p Sorry if this too much or straight up lame It's cool if you don't wanna concept this

Ok, first of all, I love this. Second, this is my first MJ concept and I’m soft af🥺

If there’s one personality trait Grayson Dolan wouldn't normally attribute to himself, it’s that of being easily jealous. Why would he be? His life, despite it’s occasional heavy downs, is relatively picturesque in the grand scheme of things. He’s got a loving family, an amazing career, a beautiful girlfriend, and he’s narcissistic enough to proudly say he’s a good-looking dude.

But the little green monster first starts to stir in chest when said beautiful girlfriend lays back on his chest one morning, scrolling through Instagram while the two of them laze in bed. MJ is looking through the pictures she had been tagged in at a company dinner the night before, double-tapping her phone screen occasionally and diverting his attention away from his own phone when she does.

“Who’s that?” he asks, trying to sound as casual as possible as he eyes a certain picture with slightly narrowed eyes.

“Hm?” MJ had already scrolled down to the next photo, but she goes back to the one in question. Grayson points to the guy standing next to her. “Oh. That’s Jesse. He’s one of my teammates.”

Grayson doesn't respond right away, his gaze focused on the way the attractive young man has his arm wrapped tightly around MJ’s waist in the group photo. MJ is leaning away from him, but it still gives him a bad vibe — not from her, but from him.

“He looks friendly.”

MJ glances up at him and slaps the other side of his bare chest with the back of her hand jokingly. “Relax, we all had to squeeze in to get the picture. He’s just a colleague.”

“Yeah, to you,” Grayson mumbles. He tosses down his phone and turns on his side so he can throw his arm over her middle, nuzzling into her hair.

MJ smiles and scratches her nails up and down his sculpted arm, his warm breath tickling her ear. He’s not really the possessive type, too confident in himself and trustworthy in her for this to have ever been an issue in their relationship, but her work world is one entirely separate from him. She doesn’t think it’s too irrational for him to be suspicious, especially since she can admit feeling a little iffy about the way Jesse had so easily sidled up to her for that photo.

She shifts her head on the pillow so she’s facing him, kissing his lips softly but soundly. It’s an unspoken reassurance between them, and they both let the topic go.

A few days later, they’re in the kitchen together, a pass only she is allowed while Grayson cooks. MJ sits on the island, her feet dangling over the cabinets as Grayson stirs the vegetables he’s sautéing on the stove, when her phone buzzes on the marble countertop beside her. She picks it up and chuckles, her manicured fingers typing away.

“What’s so funny?” Grayson asks nosily.

MJ hits ‘send’ in the text response she wrote. “Jesse sent a stupid meme that reminded him of this super difficult exec we have to deal with for one of our clients.” She holds up her phone so Grayson can see it, but without the further context he doesn’t really see the humor in it. It causes a weird sensation to bubble in his stomach, one he can’t quite place, but it definitely makes him give the veggies an extra vigorous stir that has some of them flying out of the pan on accident.

He draws the line on this guy in his head when MJ sends him a text the next afternoon while he’s in a Wakeheart meeting downtown, just a few blocks from her office.

ugh baby i’m so sorry i have to cancel our lunch date :/ jesse wants to keep working on this report we have due this afternoon and i’ll look like a dick if i leave.

Grayson huffs and feels the back of his neck flush with anger. Why is Jesse controlling whether or not she can take her lunch break? She has a habit of skipping it to begin with, which Grayson can’t stand and actively tries to make sure she doesn’t do, so his irritation with this dude is through the roof now. His mind can’t help but wander to the possibility that maybe Jesse is doing it on purpose; he knows for a fact all of her coworkers know about him, so who’s to say he’s not trying to keep her to himself today? Before he can type out a heated response, however, MJ double-texts.

i promise I’ll make it up to you tonight. whatever you want, on me. literally and figuratively ;)

She knows him too well, can probably sense his frustration a few streets away. Grayson sighs, but his mouth lifts in a little smile, because he loves her and he’s low-key looking forward to that promise now.

Alright. I’ll be thinking about that to get me through this meeting. Pls eat tho baby, it makes me worry when you don’t.

me too lol. and gonna order some kreation now, don’t worry. ily

She punctuates her message with a few heart emojis, and Grayson returns the sentiment before pocketing his phone once more. His mind is far from the financial projections he’s supposed to be paying attention to, but luckily this is much more Ethan’s territory in the business than his, anyways.

Friday, he and MJ are cuddling on the couch watching a movie when out of nowhere she gasps a little and sits up from where she’s leaning on him. “Oh, I almost forgot to ask. You and E doing anything tomorrow?”

Grayson chuckles and shakes his head, amused by the suddenness of her question. He pushes a lock of her hair, damp from their shared shower, behind her ear. “Not that I know of, other than we might go to the skatepark.”

MJ grins. “Well, my boss is making us do our monthly team-building workshop at a climbing gym, if you want to tag along. I don’t think you’ll be able to join us during the middle of it, obviously, but afterwards it would give you the chance to meet some of the people I work with, if you want.”

He considers it. He hasn’t been climbing in a while, and he’s actually been itching to get back into it. Not to mention, it’ll give him a chance to keep an eye on Jesse while he’s around MJ in the skin-tight lycra she wears to work out in.

“Yeah, I’m down. I’ll ask E if he wants to come, too.”

The next day, the three of them roll up to the gym in Ethan’s Tesla. Grayson wastes no time in taking MJ’s hand in his as they walk through the parking lot, just in case a certain set of eyes are watching. MJ squeezes his fingers reassuringly; she’s not dumb, not impervious to the fact that when he kisses her goodbye once they step inside and before they go their separate ways that he had caught a glimpse of the man from the picture that put his guard up to begin with.

When he pulls back but makes no move to join Ethan on the other side of the gym, MJ shakes her head with a grin and cups his cheek softly.

“No need to stake your claim, Neanderthal,” she says.

He looks down at her with a pout that makes her heart and her panties melt. His wide hands plant themselves on her hips and tug her a little closer to him, anyways. “Am I being obvious?” he asks.

“Only to me,” she winks, rising on her toes to give him one more chaste kiss. “Now go with E, before Chanel gets here and I have to reverse the roles.”

Grayson laughs but does as he’s told, giving her waist a gentle squeeze before they part ways. MJ’s company had rented half of the gym, which was roped off for them. He chooses the open wall closest to the one they're using, eager to keep his girlfriend as nearby as possible for the couple of hours they would be separated.

As he sits on a bench and slips on his climbing shoes, Grayson can’t help but search out where Jesse is. He’s easy to spot, that’s for sure. Not only is he already next to MJ, chatting animatedly while she smiles and nods politely in return, but he stands out with his curly mop of hair, caramel-colored skin, and pale blue eyes. Maybe his attractiveness is part of the reason Grayson is somewhat intimidated by his obvious interest in MJ, but he’s also part of her everyday life, one he knows nothing about other than what she shares with him.

It’s never been something that bothers him, because it’s healthy to have a life outside of a relationship, but he’s always dated — hooked up, whatever you want to call it — in his industry. There was always a mutual understanding of what work and life in general entailed with those flings, and it’s taken Jesse for him to suddenly realize he doesn’t have the experience or the knowledge of how to handle his feelings with that not being the case with MJ. It makes him feel out of control, not good enough somehow.

Grayson Dolan does not like to be out of control and he most certainly does not like being below his own standards.

“Who’s that?”

Grayson is brought out of his daze by his brother’s voice and the hand he had clapped to his shoulder. If he were able to laugh at himself in this moment, he might have found Ethan’s question funny, since it was exactly what he’d said when he first saw Jesse, too. Ethan’s gaze is fixed on MJ and the man in question, who had placed his hand on her elbow as he talked only for MJ to duck down to ‘tie her shoe.’

“Jesse,” is all he says, standing up to buckle his chalk belt around his waist.

“Oh,” Ethan replies, nodding his head a little. “Do we like him?”

“Nope.”

“Cool.”

Ethan becomes another set of eyes for Grayson while they climb, giving him nudges or a little whistle every time he catches Jesse standing a little too close to MJ, or finding a reason to touch her, or to ‘help’ her as she climbs up the wall. Grayson glowers over every time, trying his best but probably failing to not to come off as the jealous boyfriend. Every once in a while MJ will catch his eyes, giving him a quick wave or a thumbs-up with a pretty smile just for him. It makes his heart settle some, only for his chest to tighten again when Jesse starts cheering for her a little too loud.

The two hours pass by a little faster as he settles into the rhythm of climbing, trying to put her touchy coworker in the back of his mind. He trusts MJ with everything in him, but he knows how men can be — ignorant either by choice or by idiocy to a woman’s obvious signals of disinterest.

“Gray!”

He’s just reached the top of the wall when his girlfriend’s voice cuts clear through the loud chatter around them. He looks down and sees her on the mat, hair pulled back in a cute high ponytail, freckled cheeks flushed from the exertion of the day, as she waves him down with that same bright smile.

He grins, excited to have her to himself once again. “One sec!”

Once he’s made it back down the wall, he greets her with a kiss. She’s tied her jacket around her waist, leaving her top half covered only by a pretty green sports bra that happens to be both his favorite color and one that makes her eyes pop beautifully.

“I like this,” he says suggestively, hooking his finger in one of the straps and tugging gently.

MJ rolls her eyes and reaches up to adjust the center of the Wakeheart cap he’s got backwards over his hair. “Come on. You can meet the idiots I have to put up with every day.”

She leads him to the group, who are all standing around chatting, gulping down water, gathering keys and such as they prepare to leave. He gets introduced to them a couple at a time. Some of them he recognizes by name, such as Valentina and Jude (both of whom MJ actually likes and considers friends), MJ’s intern Alessia, and Chanel, of course, who bats her eyes so obnoxiously it’s almost comical.

And then there’s Jesse, who’s immediately sizing Grayson up with those striking eyes as soon as they approach him standing in the corner on his phone. Grayson doesn’t back down in the slightest, a smirk fixing itself on his lips when MJ leans into him and wraps her arm around his back. He drapes his own over her shoulders, pulling her that much closer to him.

“Hey Jess. This is the famous boyfriend I’ve told you all about,” she introduces, patting a hand on his hard stomach and smiling up at him for a moment.

Grayson lets go of MJ long enough to extend his hand. “Grayson.”

Jesse accepts and shakes his hand politely. “Jesse. MJ and I are teammates.”

“So I’ve heard,” he says, keeping a tight smile on his face as Jesse continues to square up to him, like Grayson has posed some kind of challenge.

Jesse nods, a grin of his own popping up as he gets the idea that MJ has maybe talked about him before. Grayson wants to roll his eyes, but he stays trying to be the bigger person here.

“So what do you do, Grayson?” Jesse asks.

Another hot flash overcomes him. He’s heard the question often enough to know there are two ways people ask it: innocently and genuinely; or knowingly and almost maliciously, like Jesse is now, waiting for him to say the ‘i’ word and berate him for it passive-aggressively.

MJ tightens her arm around him some, and it calms him down enough to answer with an even tone. “I do social media.”

“That’s just the tip of the iceberg, though,” MJ steps in for him with a grin. “He and his brother have a whole production team under them. And they're CEO’s and part-owners of a fragrance company, Wakeheart. I think I’ve told you, whenever you compliment my perfume, that it’s Grayson’s, right?”

She’s incredible, really. Grayson smiles and shows off the diamonds in his teeth, which glint in the harsh artificial light. “Well, Jesse, if you like MJ’s perfume so much, I’d be glad to send you our whole collection. Maybe you’ll find one that’s right for you.”

He can see Jesse’s resolve start to waver, especially when MJ stands on her toes to kiss Grayson’s stubbled cheek. “Very generous, huh Jesse?”

Jesse clears his throat and digs his keys out of his pocket tellingly. “Ah, yeah. Thanks, man, good to meet you. See you Monday, MJ.”

He brushes past the couple without another glance, and he at least has the decency to blush a little from embarrassment. MJ turns and wraps her arms around Grayson’s middle, staring up at him with big green eyes that sparkle with amusement.

“Do you think he got the picture that I’m completely, totally, head over heels in love with you?” she asks, swaying slightly as he wraps his arms around her as well. “And that he has no chance in this universe whatsoever?”

“I don’t know, I feel like you could’ve laid it on a little thicker. Hyped me up a bit more,” Grayson jokes, dipping down to brush her lips with his. A blonde statue glares at the pair of them when he pulls back and glances over MJ’s head. “Chanel is staring daggers at us. Should we make out right here so she can see how I feel the same about you?”

MJ giggles and shakes her head. “Unfortunately, nothing will faze that bitch.” She nuzzles his nose with hers affectionately, the chaste display a perfect disguise for the dirty whispers that comes out of her mouth next. “Mm, my CEO boyfriend can take me home, though, and fuck me nice and hard in the shower.”

Grayson’s eyes turn a shade darker, and he bites his plump lower lip. He wants to slip his hands down to her ass, but he’s also very aware of how public they are right now. “If we even make it to the shower,” he murmurs.

MJ scrunches her nose and raises her brow in a look of mild disgust. “Gray, if you think I’m sucking your dick after it’s been in a cup for nearly three hours, without you taking a shower, you better think again. I don’t think even Chanel is down for that.”

Grayson lets out a belly laugh and releases her, taking her by the hand instead to go find Ethan. “Noted, baby. Noted.”

#no smut but #might post some tomorrow👀#thank u again bb for sending this in it means a lot❤️#dolan twins #grayson dolan #grayson mj #grayson mj blurb #blurb #g blurb

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pracup · 3 years

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6 Ways To Improve Your Communication Skills

Communication skills are crucial as they are used extensively at every step of our lives. Most of the human resource management looks for the word "communication" in the skill section. A lot of people get hired easily based on communication skills. It is important to be good at both 'written' and 'verbal' communication skills.

Communication is an instrument used to reflect oneself. It is a process of conveying our thoughts. Communication skills also help in building great relationships with colleagues, clients, etc.

Continue reading to know the tried and tested ways of learning effective communication skills.

Means To Improve Your Communication Skills

1. Listen Actively To Your Partners

Most of us all might have heard that to learn communication skills we have to be good at listening. Listening is an entirely different skill.

To achieve the mark in communication skills first you need to excel at listening skills.

Don't just listen to reply to your colleagues.

Whenever you encounter yourself in a discussion with your teammates at the workplace, try to listen to what they are conveying. Treat the opposite person as your mentor and some elderly person to pay attention wildly. Rather than planning your response, consider what the other person is saying. Hearing the speaker and preparing your response at the same time is a challenge. Show genuine interest while communicating and show the speaker that you are listening actively.

Listen to understand

As said earlier, don't listen to reply but rather listen to understand. Listen as if the opposite person is teaching you a concept even if you submerge yourself in a general talk. You can use a picture or an arrangement of abstract concepts to create a mental model. Listen to the speaker's words and phrases, and do not rehearse what you will say afterward.

How to listen actively

—Use non-verbal cues such as nodding

—Maintain eye contact

—Ask questions at the end

—Clarify the doubts by asking to explain

—Use positive verbal affirmations such as "I understand", " I know", "I can relate", " Thank you" etc.,

—Demonstrating concern through facial expressions

—Do not try to interrupt, and if you absolutely have to, seek permission. For example - If I may interject or I am sorry I have to pause you here.

2. Observing And Grasping New Professional Jargons

Participate in a lot of workshops and debates conducted by your organization. Observe the participants and their delivery of the speech. Do not just involve yourself in listening to the speech or debate of the participants. Not every debate can be organised, a lot can be witnessed during meetings and gatherings.

Observe and grasp the usage of the words. For example, how certain typical words are being placed in a sentence. Professional jargon aids in hindering a lot of filler words. Most of us are habituated to pause and use a lot of filler words such as "umm", " hmm", "like", etc. These words are fine but they impede the true expression of our language and make it look less professional.

People in a debate professionally work on their speech and you can observe and grasp them to improve your vocabulary.

Tips to improve observe and grasp

Have a little book or journal to note down the new words.

Search for the meanings right after the discussion or debate.

Frame your sentences on your own using this vocabulary.

Try to use them often.

Also, observe and grasp the expression and body language of the speaker while using those vocabulary.

3. Have A Learning Attitude

World's greatest people have one thing in common that is " learning attitude". To have effective communication skills one must be a long-term learner.

Try to learn as many things as possible at your workplace.

"Earning money is important but it should not be the driving force at the workplace".

Have a learning attitude and not an earning attitude. A learning attitude keeps our mind focused & open to learn various things which also helps in personal growth.

Research. Find things on the internet, refer to social media, YouTube, e-books, articles, and take up things that interest you. In this way, you get a lot of exposure and you will be able to articulate your ideas by connecting thoughts.

4. Leap Towards Leadership

Effective communication is no longer described as two-way. Leaders need to recognize a lot more than the mechanics of sending and receiving information. Leaders must be competent to express themselves effectively without depending on two way communication.

Put yourself in the shoes of a leader, in this way you will push yourself harder to improve your communication skills.

A leader has to communicate and articulate a lot of aspects to his team. They face a lot of complexity while addressing conflict, proposing ideas, sharing information, managing ambiguity etc.

Things to remember while communicating as a leader

Listen to Engage

As a leader, your ability to listen is your most valuable communication skill. To be a good listener you need to pay attention to the message and any emotions that may be underlying it, as well as ask relevant questions about it.

Compliment

People want to be noticed for their work.

Most effective compliments are specific to the situation and you can write them down so they can be re-read many times.

Be authentic and sincere

Be sincere and truthful. Get rid of corporate jargons and stop sounding like someone you aren't. Make sure your communication reflects who you are and what you value. Individuals desire and value authentic leadership and influential communication.

As a result, forget about eloquence and focus on being real instead. Don't try to hide your true self. People will never follow someone they believe to be untrustworthy.

5. Read Great Books

The importance of reading cannot be overstated. The ability to read is essential for both personal and professional development. Books on a variety of topics improve one's general knowledge, imagination, and creativity, in addition to improving one's vocabulary and grammar. These benefits can also help bridge the gap between colleagues when working in distributed teams.

To get started reading start with the books you are comfortable with. Make a habit of reading books every day for a short duration. Start with 20 mins or 30 mins and gradually increase it to 1 or 2 hours.

Find the best-suited genre and immerse yourself in reading.

6. Practice With A Coach

While going on any path we need mentors/coaches. Similarly while learning communication skills you need to have a coach who can give you one-on-one feedback. Self-learning can take a long time. And also learning through videos can make the learning monotonous.

Most of us get stuck while improving communication skills since we do not know where to get started. There are many sources to better communication skills and one of them is PRACUP which provides you experienced coaches for each of the individuals looking to brush up on certain aspects of communication skills.

Are you someone who “knows” but unable to express effortlessly?

Do you want to use the right words at the right time?

Are you looking for an expert to elevate your communication skills?

Do you think a practice buddy will help you improve your communication?

If you have answered yes to all of the above questions then you are at the right place. PracUp offers a wide range of courses in communication such as:

Practice before a Client Meeting

Prepare for a Difficult Conversation

Practice before a Job Interview

Public Speaking etc.

Above all improving communication is about consistency. Regular focus on improving the way we articulate can make our journey to excellence seem effortless.

#leader #leadership #communication #books #self improvement #improvemnt

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blackfemmecharacterdependency · 4 years

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09. That’s How Hope Died

My apologies friends and familiars, but I absolutely don’t think that I can continue to do this story as standalone pieces anymore and to add on to the possibly not great news, there’s more chapters of story to be told here. But, those who can stay, I’m glad to have you here. 2721 Words, Trigger Warnings: Mental health issues, abuse, child death, grief

The key to having a successful “challenge” video or a hot “remix” was to have a plan proactively. Grace would have about a dozen different new choreos in mind at any given time, and she worked on beats a lot when she probably should be doing other things. She had various number outfits in mind. She had remix beats in mind and the clips of videos that she might want to add to such remixes. This was her happy getaway. The hours that she put into all of her dance training, her classical music instruments, and her academics made her feel like she earned a few to just create things that she enjoyed. And she had an outpouring of creativity from 14-16.

Whenever a new hot song would come out, she would hear it and wonder how it might sound if she remixed it with the R747 (she named all of her creations with “stock numbers” until they became associated with a released song). She might think to herself, the choreography C929 will be perfect for this! Even her performance outfits, “And if I wear the W23… well… This is gonna be fire!”

So, she might hear, for example, a new song by Ghairrisahn ft Fr8-Tre/in (for the old folks, that’s pronounced Garrison, ft Freight Train… See, Garrison is how it’s pronounced, but she spells it that way to stand out and well, Fr8-Tre/in’s name is Treyvon, they called him Tre growing up and you know, Freight TRE and add the “N,” sound like a play on words?) Her parents absolutely wouldn’t have listened to her explain. The hired help often had to, though, especially if they happened to be around while she was creating or putting together creations for presentation…

She would hear the song, decide and type into her phone’s notes: Shucky Ducky by Ghairrisahn ft Fr8-Tre/in. R747. C929. W23. As soon as she got home, she would check to see if any challenges or remixes of the song were released yet, because the Internet was fast and she was at school all day and sometimes, rehearsals well into the night. If it wasn’t already a thing, or if it was a thing, but the thing was null, she would make the remix of the song with her remix beat, then play it as she wore the outfit she prepped and performed the choreography she created. Then, she would post it, atting the artist, and hashtagging the song, TheApex, ApexChoreo, ApexBeauty,ShesBeautyShesGrace,Gracecore, (song title)remix and challenge, among others.

All of those would always skyrocket. Her favorite artists would always eventually see them, sometimes soon. Ghairrisahn even said that she wanted her to be in one of her videos. (Her mother was attentive to that bit of information when she shared it).

When she called Simon to tell him, he already knew. Of course he did. That dude was always on his computer. He always had hella tabs open. He was working on maybe 4 assignments for school, at least 2 of his stories, keeping up with his favorite fandoms, and checking social media - which he hardly ever got on to talk to people that he knew in real life, but he still was entertained by many of them and usually kept watch of all of her pages, whether or not it dawned on her.

When they were 15, she was invited on a summer tour with Ghairrisahn, to dance. It was a dream come true for her, even though her parents were very reluctant to agree to this. Filming a music video was one thing, but gallivanting across the country all summer was another thing entirely. “Mom, this would be just like if I had gotten the ballet spot in Germany!”

“No it isn’t. THAT was a world renown dance troupe and you BLEW it. THIS is some girl who sounds like she’s singing underwater, never wears a full sized blouse and almost unquestionably engages in recreational smoking.” Simon was typing on his phone. He didn’t get involved.

“She is a Grammy award winning icon! Everybody knows her. You know who knows that dance troupe? Ballet heads. That’s who. Mom, to be successful, in this day in age isn’t just about money and high standing. It is about fame and visibility! AND, if I’m on tour, I have that many places to use my products and promote the brand and bring in revenue to the company!”

Mrs. Monroe sighed, “Alright. That sounds like a good idea. But, I’m sending you with your team. You’re not to be in the same vehicle as that marijuana girl. You’re to only interact with her and her team for business purposes and you will adhere to the schedule that your team provides.”

She clenched her fists and jumped up and down, excitedly. Simon’s eyes looked up from his phone to watch her, but he didn’t react in any other ways until she rushed over and hugged him, “We’re going on the road with Ghairrisahn!” She squealed.

He sighed and wiped a hand down his face, “Grace, I can’t go on the road with you this summer. You know I have like 6 different major things that I need to do this year.” Her face fell. “I wish I could. I love Ghairrisahn. She’s my top five celebrities whose hair I wanna smell…” Grace and her mother both made disgusted and confused faces that he ignored and kept talking, “But I literally have a major engineering program, a science camp to prepare for this upcoming school year, the journalism workshop, orientation for the early college courses path, the Dean’s meet and greet, and I’m heading some things for the scouts that I signed on to before I realized that I’d have to do some of the other things. I can’t go right now. Junior year is the most important year of my high school career. Not to mention, you know that I’m being emancipated next year. I just… I don’t have time to tag along this time, Grace.”

She nodded her head, sadly. “Well, that’s cool. But, I mean, I’ll be able to fly you out to a show or two, right?”

He shrugged, “Send me the tour schedule when you get it, and I’ll let you know.”

“What’s your mom gonna do while you’re doing all of that?” She asked. He frowned and stared at her. She was concerned. He knew that she didn’t mean any harm. But, asking about his mother while her mother was still around was pretty inconsiderate, even for her. She must’ve realized from her face that it wasn’t something he wanted to discuss. Because she fell back and clasped her hands together, “Well, since we’re both still around, let’s go do something in town together. You do have a little free time right now, right?”

“Yeah,” he said defeatedly.

“Yeah,” she imitated and reached out for him with her hand to pull him up off of his favorite cushioned lounging chair. “Mom, we’re going!” Grace called. Her mother had stopped paying attention to them several minutes ago, pretty much whenever the conversation no longer concerned her. She didn’t even hear Grace excuse herself.

“It’s hot! Why do you ALWAYS have on a hoodie?” Grace asked.

“I don’t have one at school.”

“Because they aren’t allowed.”

“Exactly. We’re not at school. Nobody can tell me what I can and can’t wear,” he said.

They were quiet for a moment. She didn’t know what was wrong with him, but she knew that something was. “Hey, do you wanna record ourselves doing skateboard tricks?” She asked.

“Is that your way of asking me to record you doing some skateboard tricks, Grace?”

“You can do yours too!” She laughed.

“I just wanna walk right now,” he said. She bit her lip and danced alongside of him, singing Shucky Ducky. Simon looked over at her and the smile of his features returned. She was good for that. Making him feel better about things that really just didn’t feel good. After a while, some thought, letting it rush around in his head, he said, “She’s going to go live with my grandmother.” Grace stopped dancing and stared at him with wide eyes. “She refuses to go to a hospital. I can’t get dad to come home right now and I just… don’t have the time to care for her. I was gonna be gone in a few months, anyway. Leave it to her, I never did anything to even help her over these years. The story that my grandmother believes is actually quite different from the events that my mind has collected.” Grace rubbed his back, but didn’t say anything. Simon had tears welling up in his eyes. “Do you know how many times she’s taken a swing at me, and I’ve had to restrain her to keep her from connecting? How many times she’s yelled at me, berated me for innocent missteps and mistakes that children simply make? All of the times that I wanted to just put that pillow over her face and not let go until she stopped moving?” He was shaking. “Now, apparently she has bruises all over her that I supposedly put there and my grandmother just believes that I’m capable of it, because I killed my sister, why not try my mom too?” He roared at the sky and covered his face with both hands.

Grace looked around for some place to sit, and just decided on the grass under a tree. She led him over, sat him down and rested on her knees, looking at him, but not knowing what to say. He didn’t really talk much about his sister. What she knew about it was what she had looked up on news sources on the Internet (only to understand more, not to be sneaky or harm him in any way), and she never brought up what she learned, because she knew it would be very painful for him.

According to every source that she had found, the little girl’s death was an accident. She and her brother had been playing, they got into an argument, she ran off, he gave chase, she climbed up a ladder to try to hide in the attic, he pulled her leg and she fell and hit her head. It was an accident. A freak accident. She shouldn’t have been able to die from the fall. There were a few reports that the boy had possibly “thrown her hard” to the floor, but even knowing how angry Simon could get and not actually putting it past him to accidentally get that angry, she rationalized that even still, at 10, he wouldn’t have had the strength to cause reasonable damage to a 4 year old. She wanted to tell him that right now, but he didn’t know that she knew that much about it and it seemed like it might only upset him more to find out that she looked into it.

He was red in the face, hot, breathing hard, and crying, and he didn’t want her near him or looking at him at the moment. But, there she was. Where else would she be?

“Simon, I’m so sorry that your mom… is the way that she is. But, on the bright side, she’s not gonna be your problem anymore. She’ll be your grandmother’s and I mean… that’s her daughter. Who knows what she might have done to contribute to the person that she became…”

He looked up suddenly and stared at her in horror, “Do you think I’ll be like that? Do you think… I mean… I get so angry and I get violent, and I lash out… Do you think I’m like her? Am I gonna treat my family that way? My kid?”

Grace leaned forward to place her hands on Simon’s shoulders and said, “I think that you’re the best person I’m ever going to meet, that is of course until you have kids, because then they’ll be the best people, because you’re not going to make the same mistakes your parents did. I think for what you’ve been given, your anger and violence and lashing out is totally justified. And it isn’t like you just go around beating up the defenseless. I mean, yes, sometimes… we’re a little quick on the draw and maybe hurt somebody that probably didn’t deserve it that much, but there are actual school shooters and like… pedos and stuff out there. A kid who beats on people who deserve it every now and then, destroys some stupid property or whatever is like nothing compared to like… those types.”

“So… I’m not a good person, just not the worst,” he said.

“You’re the best person I KNOW.”

“You know like 3 people.”

“I know plenty of people!”

“Outside of your immediate family and me, name ONE.”

She stammered and he laughed a little. She was grateful for that, even if she was flustered. “The red… um… shirt… Cameron!”

“Cameron… The… guy who works at the Target right outside of the gated community?”

“Yes! See… I know people.” Now, he laughed heartily and threw his head back.

She knew kids at school who gave her presents’ names. She would always thank them and say something nice to them about their presents, whether or not they liked them. It was a trend to give her things and IF someone noticed her using or having the thing later, they had bragging rights, though no matter what anybody gave her, she preferred anything that Simon gave her over all of them. They never understood why, but she did. She knew that their presents came from wanting her to love them. His presents came from already loving her.

“Hey… do you want to go visit her?” She asked.

“Visit who?” he wondered.

“Hope,” she said. He looked startled. He knew that he never told her his sister’s name, but now that he was calm, she was testing the waters to see how he felt about her having at least some portion of knowledge.

He whispered, “I never go there.”

“I won’t try to force you,” she said.

After a moment, he said, “I want to…”

His hands were shaky until Grace took them in hers and smiled up at him, “Then let’s do it. We’ll stop by a shop and get her a nice bouquet.” She let go of one of his hands and pulled the other to follow her. He still didn’t want to say more about his sister, but some part of him wished that the visit would change something inside of him. He didn’t want to think about the word “Hope,” to describe his desires. It felt wrong.

He cried a lot. Grace smoothed her hand across his back and remained quiet. After a long while, and he was seemingly out of tears, she said, “Maybe I should skip the tour. I’ll probably have opportunities like this in the future. I’m pretty hot right now.”

“You always are.” He wanted to tell her not to do that. That she deserved to go on the tour and that she should have fun, but just like when she wanted to tell him that he didn’t have to write about his family to get into the academy, he didn’t have the nerve to openly oppose what was best for him.

What was best for him was that the one person that he could cry in front of was there for all of the summer nights that he was already certain that he would cry from stress alone. But it was up to her, just like it had been up to him to decide that he wanted to be at school with her, even if he was going to have to hurt a little to get there.

The difference was she ultimately decided that it was best that she went. He didn’t like it, but they had been apart before in the past and even if she had been in town, he was going to be constantly busy anyway. Still… he emotionally logged it as a time that she was not there for him when he needed her to be. Was it fair? Maybe not. But… it was simply how he felt about it.

#If They Didn't Get on the Train #AU Infinity Train #Infinity Train #Nesha Fanfiction #Infinity Train Fanfiction #fics

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ilovevarian22 · 3 years

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Making Them Forget Is The Only Way chapter 13

“Well I um decided the people who were fixing the wall deserved a break! So what better way to relax than a treasure hunt! So I’m making this so that I can pick the teams!” RAPUNZEL said. “Can’t you just use a hat?” VARIAN asked. “But it is a hat I call it the heratori automated team-builder or H.A.T.” RAPUNZEL said with a smile on her face!

VARIAN was about to correct her acronym intel EUGENE showed up

“Hey Blondie, VARIAN, how are you this morning?” EUGENE asked.

“Good so far, not much has happened!” VARIAN replies. “That’s great kid! Hey maybe we should get started on Are day! We have got some great plans, uh Varian?” EUGENE said. And VARIAN responded, “yup, I’m going to show Eugene how to make some bath bombs!”

“Well that sounds like you guys will have a great time!” Rapunzel said. “We will!” EUGENE said as him and VARIAN were leaving! RAPUNZEL started talking to the people that were just arriving. VARIAN looked behind him and saw the in entire city there!

————————————————

VARIAN’s bath bombs explode!

When VARIAN said bath bombs EUGENE didn’t think they exploded. It was fun but still VARIAN should have warned him! They were in the courtyard talking about what bath bombs were supposed to do, When VARIAN saw a stone thing there! He looked at it for a while. EUGENE notice and said “ that’s the map for the treasure hunt that Rapunzel was hosting!”

VARIAN looked closer and started to read what it said. VARIAN’s eyes widened, “uh Eugene, are you sure this is the map?” VARIAN asked. He had a bad feeling about this. “Yeah, why?” EUGENE said. EUGENE was nervous now too! “Because it’s cursed, there going to destroy everything, it will destroy everyone, Eugene we have to stop them!” VARIAN said. “I’ll get Max and Fidella, you make a copy of that map!” EUGENE said. VARIAN noded And got straight to work on that map!

————————————————

Max and Fidella ran as fast as they could and VARIAN had the map!

The people who were actually on the treasure hunt were mad! “There cheating!” They yelled EUGENE and VARIAN payed no attention to them they were saving lives that was what they were focused on! They made it to the temple and everyone was following them! So Eugene blocked the door!

“Stop! Everyone listen, you can’t take the treasure it’s cursed!” VARIAN said trying to save lives!

“How are we supposed to believe you? Seporian scum!” Feldspar said with a glare on his face. “I might be many things but a Seporian is not one of them!” VARIAN said defensively! He was so offended! A Seporian? Him? NEVER!!!!! “Guys he’s telling the truth please listen! What would be the point of him lying?” EUGENE said. That convince them! They didn’t trust VARIAN but they did trust EUGENE! So everyone was heading home, when Xavier was stopped by a gloved hand. “Hey Xavier, I haven’t seen you in a while!” VARIAN said with his usual smile. “Yes it has been quite some time!” Xavier said. Of course everyone knew VARIAN has lost his memory and Xavier knew VARIAN since he was little! So he knew exactly what to say!

“Wasn’t there a story I had promised to tell you next time you had time? Um which one was it?” Xavier said. “It was the legend of the cheating willows!” VARIAN said.

Xavier had already told VARIAN that one but he was glad to do it again!

After he finished the legend VARIAN was asleep in Xavier’s workshop where he was telling it so Xavier pick him up and took him to the castle! Because Xavier like everyone else was told that’s were he was staying for a while!!!

#Tts #Rta #Tangled #Tts Varian #Tts Eugene #Team awesome #Tangled fanfic #Tts Rapunzel #Tts Xavier #Tangled the series #Rapunzel’s tangled Adventure

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bread-elf · 4 years

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DWC 2020 - Day 21

Judgement

Warlords of Draenor

Deacon Hayward, a Kul'tiran man with dirty blonde hair and a gruff beard to match, sat at his usual table at the Pig and Whistle tavern. Drinking ale, flirting with the waitress, he sat upstairs as he waited for his usual contacts to come for their goods. Conducting a business in 'less than savory' deals he found Old Town the best place to cover his tracks, already littered with criminals that took all the attention of the Guards of Stormwind. A simple sailor only in Stormwind every few months, visiting his favorite eatery, though the ale tasted like piss.

The door to the tavern opens downstairs, and where Deacon sits he has a view of who comes in and out. Expecting it to be one of his contacts, but it turns out to be one he hadn't prepared on meeting this trip around, having seen her last time. Anxiety starts to swell, did he forget something? He had seen this Kaldorei get in a few scraps at the pub, beating people to a pulp with the fury worse than a sea wife.

As the Kaldorei comes closer he leans back in his seat, putting on his most charming smile to dissuade her, even though he had caught on that it just annoys her more than anything. Yet he sometimes wondered if she had a fondness of being annoyed. “Oi there, lassy!” Reaching up and running a hand through his hair as she comes closer, that hair that reminded him of the ocean waves sticking out like a sore thumb. “I- don’ think we wus supposed ta meet so soon…” As she stands by the table his smile falters, seeing blisters on her long ears and a X marked on the cheek of her pretty face. Her anger filled stare is the same as usual, yet the scars make it all the more intense. “Ope, lass, ya’ uh… Got in a bit o’ a scruff, eh?” “You have a connection to mercenaries, don’t you?” Jiroki asks as she leers down at the man, drawing a few eyes their way at her imposing nature. Deacon glances around a little wary, uncomfortable with the looks. “Lass, heheh, you know I’m just a simple sailor.” Putting emphasis on his words. “Guess I know a few sellswords…” Jiroki slams her hands on the table, causing Deacon to jump in his chair. “Cut the shit.” She hisses quietly. “I’m on a hunt. I need people to go with me, people with a backbone, hunters that can kill their mark. You’re going to bring these people to me. She will die the next I see her.” “Uh-” Deacon is a bit at a loss for words. But given how adamant and in his face she is, he starts to think. “Ya’ know I don’ run a charity here. Ya’ gonna needa-” A bag of coins lands on the table with a heavy thunk, Jiroki staring down at the Kul’tiran as he looks at it in shock. It’s a hefty back, and when he peaks inside he sees it filled entirely with gold coins. “I don’t care the price.” Jiroki straightens. “And I don’t care where you find them; they could be murderers for all I care.” Deacon purses his lips, giving a little bit of an innocent glance around before shrugging his shoulders. “Well iffin that’s wot the lady wants…” Reaching over and sliding the bag of gold towards him. “I’ll get ya’ a team.” ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jiroki could feel the new scar on her cheek itch as she stared at the cottage in the distance, hidden in the hills. It looked like such a quaint place, yet lurking inside is the woman whose blood she craved to spill. Beside her she could feel the cold presence of the Death Knight. A human woman, only going by the name of Jolean, though she never spoke. Instead her icy gaze pierced towards the college, waiting like a hound to be commanded. “Michael is returning.” A night elf, Moonshadow, says. Once a druid, relatively young with his deep blue hair pulled back into a bun. He had left their people years ago, using unorthodox means in their practice that were a disgrace. If A’llaen was still alive, they’d probably be around the same age. The Worgen, Michael Thyme, comes back with his pack of bloodhounds. They had scouted around the perimeter, investigating a suspicion Jiroki had. “Ya’ wer right.” Michael sniffs, his canine tongue coming out and licking along his snout. “She got some sort o’ workshop in dem hills. Ya’ want me ta rig dem explosives I brought?” “Yes.” Jiroki says firmly. “I’ll distract her. She’s probably expecting me.” Her fingers grip around the handle of her umbra crescent. She had last donned this weapon when still with the Watchers of Hyjal. But for this hunt she needed her best. Michael left to go get his explosives ready; she needed to destroy Ellie’s workshop, where she constructed the reapers she experimented with, like the ones that had killed her regiment and Gelt and Eilynne. While he prepared that, she would instigate the hunt, accompanied by Moonshadow and Jolean. Jiroki boldly walks up to the door. Uncaring of any pleasantries or surprised reactions, she brings her foot up and kicks open the door, the wooden knob splintering as it's forced open. Ellie looks over in alarm, at a work bench as she tinkered with some mechanisms. Her strawberry blonde hair pulled back in a messy ponytail as some oil streaked her cheek. The human has little time to react as the Kaldorei suddenly rushes in like a bat out of hell, bringing up her umbra crescent to slice it down. It meets with wood as the warlock Blinks herself away, a former mage before she went down a different path in life. She quickly rushes for the broken door, intent on making a mistake. A chill is felt down to the core as Jolean waits right outside, a broad sword in hand as she swipes it towards Ellie. The warlock manages to move just in time, but Jolean raises a hand and sends out a shadow grip, bringing the warlock back to her and cleave unto her broadsword. Ellie manages to cast a shield just in time to protect herself from it, immediately casting her own shadow bolts. Jolean raises her arms up and takes a few steps back, giving Ellie a moment to cast a raining demon bolt from the sky. Roots start to wrap around Ellie’s feet, causing her to struggle and spot the druid not far off from the cottage. His gaze focused on her as the roots begin to slowly crawl up her legs, squeezing hard. “I’m impressed Jiroki!” A crazed smile on her lips. “You’ve found me! I guess this means you want to play more games?!” Fishing into her pockets for something. “Stop her!” Jiroki shouts from the doorway of the cottage, moving with quick speed to try and get to her, but she isn’t fast enough. Having some sort of mechanism in her pocket Ellie pushes a button. The ground trembles, and from various spots mechanized reapers pull themselves out of the ground, tearing it up and dirt flies. Moonshadow starts to try and tangle the reapers with more roots, but they were coming quickly and he could only snag a few. Ellie burns the roots on her form, uncaring if the fel flames singe her clothes, invigorated by the hunt. She begins to cast some more and summons a large demon by her side, one with a long tail and four arms, brandishing swords. Jolean comes in to intercept the demon specifically, an apathetic look on the Death Knight’s features the whole time. Jiroki’s path is blocked by reapers, trying to weave around them but they are persistent. In frustration she lets out a yell as she lets the arcane erupt from her form, trying to push the reapers back and get Ellie in her sights. When a path is clear Jiroki Blinks through as well, swiping with her crescent and cleaving a slice into the woman. She yelps and moves back, throwing fire in Jiroki’s face to faze her. Ellie runs and Jiroki pursues, but more reapers get in her way. The sound of barking can be heard, and Michael’s pack returns as the bloodhounds come in full force. Michael runs among them on all fours, leaping for a reaper and tearing through its harvester clothing to get to its inner core. His hounds leap up and grab hold of the reaper with their maws, taking it down before they rush the next one. The hounds and Michael now helping take down the reapers it gives Jiroki a better opportunity to get to Ellie. Moonshadow had let his roots overrun the area, now able to capture more reapers and keep them in place. Jiroki catches up to her hunt, swiping at her legs. Ellie falls, Jiroki cutting more off than intended, but that didn’t matter. Reaching down Jiroki roughly flips Ellie onto her back, genuine fear in the eyes of the human. But even in this state she has the audacity to smirk, letting out a scoff. “How does it-” Ellie’s words are cut short as Jiroki slams her umbra crescent down onto the woman’s neck, beheading her and letting the blood spill. Ellie’s face contorts in shock and pain, the anger deep in her eyes, and then stays just like that. Jiroki takes a long, hard look, making sure to sink her crescent deep into the ground. In the background she can hear the other reapers being dismantled, Jolean doing her work now that the demon had been desummoned. After a moment she pulls back, taking the crescent out of the ground, and in a gruesome act of anger kicks the head of Ellie with all her strength, sending it far. “Jolean, Moonshadow, search the place for a Soulstone!” Turning to see them all watching her. They kept their comments to themselves, only here for the pay. “I don’t want to see her coming back, ever! Michael!” Turning to the worgen now, snapping her fingers at the corpse. “You know what to do.” Jolean and Moonshadow leave to go investigate the cottage, and later the workshop hidden in the mountains that Michael rigged with explosives. Michael sends his bloodhounds at the corpse, the ravenous dogs tearing apart the flesh. If Ellie did have a Soulstone, she wouldn’t be able to use her old body. Stepping away Jiroki clenches and unclenches her fists, a brittling rage through her as she gripped her crescent glaive. The hunt is done. Ellie is dead. If there’s a Soulstone it will be found, and it will be destroyed. But Jiroki still felt this bitter hatred for what’s been lost. Jiroki sits down on the grass. Nearby Ellie’s head lay on its side, facing away from her, that strawberry blonde hair messy with dirt and blood. Ellie’s judgement has been done, but Jiroki still craved revenge. A hand raises up to rub over her face, taking some deep breaths, trying to coax down the years upon years of anger. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jiroki sat with Sasil at a small outdoor table, the two enjoying an evening in Stormwind in Cathedral Square. They just had a pleasant meal and Sasil read the Stormwind Daily, Jiroki’s thoughts elsewhere as she looked down at a ring on her finger. “Well, it seems the efforts in Draenor are making progress.” Sasil comments while reading over the paper. “You know my Star I been meaning to share, some of my old colleagues have asked if I wanted to go with them on an expedition out there. There is a lot of activity with the Highmaul, it’s quite interesting.” “Hm…” Jiroki thumbed over the ring on her finger, Sasil having asked her hand in marriage a few weeks ago. It had been months since her hunt, and she had lost her will to do much. But Sasil brought her great comfort, and she cared for him. Gelt often passed by in her mind, still in grief, but there’s hope in the future. Sasil glances to her over the top of the paper, then begins to fold it up. “You’re always… More than welcome to join me, if you wish.” He offers. “A little excursion to a different world sounds fun, no?” “I’ve been thinking…” Jiroki traces her finger over the table they sat at, visualizing the shape of a shield. “I might start a company.” “Oh?” Sasil tilts his head curiously. “Why I- that sounds marvelous! What sort were you thinking?” “Mercenaries…” Leaning back in her chair and taking a look out towards the square, watching the people pass by. “I can’t sit still, at least not for long. And I’m tired of taking orders from others.” “Well, well, a lot of us have been there.” Sasil chuckles lightly. “I suppose I shouldn’t be so surprised to hear you’re interested in mercenaries, you’d be the best one, my Star. If that is what you wish, you have my support.” “Hm…” Jiroki hums in agreement, still lost in her thoughts. The faces of the dead pass by her mind, the decisions led by people in positions of power that led to some of those deaths. Jiroki can do better. “How does the Greyshields sound?” (( @daily-writing-challenge )) (( Insight to some IC inspiration to the formation of the Greyshields!))

#stories

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bruciewayne · 4 years

Text

i’ll see you with your laughter lines

stevetony, getting together, 1.3k

Tony’s read as many super soldier files as he can get his hands on, all of Howard’s journals, the records of the day, police reports, science papers of the time, some out of interest, bitterness, just what exactly he has to live up to.

They tell him, amongst other things, that his collagen production should, in theory, never decrease, or, at least, decrease at a much slower rate than average.

So, decades after he read that for the first time, in his father’s godawful scrawl, with some of Erskine’s graceful cursive in the margins, it comes to a surprise to him when he’s staring the great Captain America in the face, screaming obscenities as they do every other day, because Captain America is nothing like the war reels depict, if you asked Tony, because he has a small wrinkle, just between his eyebrows.

Logically, that shouldn’t be possible. Technically, Rogers is in his late twenties - barely old enough to have crows’ feet if he were a normal human. Logically, he should have the skin of an eight-year-old.

But, defying all of Tony’s expectations as normal, here he stands, with a small wrinkle, albeit not that deep, just under where his left eyebrow begins, at a 45 degree angle and stopping parallel to the top of where his right eyebrow begins. Not incredibly important, but Tony’s never seen it before, and it goes against what he thought. So he decides to do what any good scientist worth their PhD would do: he investigates.

With the knowledge that wrinkles are formed by repeated motions, Tony plans to watch Rogers whenever they’re together. Which turns out to be utterly futile, because Rogers is barely around.

“Where’s Cap?” Tony asks Natasha one morning after failing to see him for a week.

She gives him an odd look. “On a mission.”

“Since when?”

“Last week. It’s running over a bit.”

“JARVIS,” Tony says, “why didn’t I know this?”

“Maybe,” Natasha cuts in, before JARVIS can respond, “because Steve doesn’t have to report to you?”

Well, Tony can’t argue that point. Nor can he really explain his sudden interest in their good captain without sounding like a headcase, but then again, she’d been around the last time Tony had gone off the rails (as the tabloids, and his board members, liked to put it).

“Did you know he has a wrinkle?”

Natasha considers him for a second. Tony wonders lightly if he should’ve just stayed in his workshop.

“Not everyone spends their afternoons staring at his face, Tony.”

“I’m concerned about my fellow teammate, what if the serum’s failing? Then you’d wish you spent your afternoons staring at him.”

“Right.”

Tony nods and leaves the kitchen.

When Rogers comes back, he barely talks to any of them, which Tony probably should have noticed earlier, but in his defence, he’d been dealing with his own stuff.

He really lives up to the ‘legend’ part of ‘living legend’, Tony finds, as he actually pays attention to his teammates. Natasha is the closest to him, but Tony suspects that’s solely because of the sheer volume of missions they go on together, and even then, Tony’s pretty sure that the only reason she knows him so well is down to her secret spy training than anything else.

He only interacts with them out of necessity, during Barton’s mandated movie nights he’s almost never there, and he fucks off on solo missions more often than not.

It’s all severely impacting his study. (Something, admittedly, he’s forgotten entirely about until he’d found the file when he was cleaning out his desktop.)

When he uncovers it, he finds out (through entirely legal means) that he’s on a mission in Baghdad.

When Rogers comes back, they’re having a team movie night. He pokes his head into the living room, halfway into Raiders of the Lost Ark still ensconced in the cowl, then leaves. Tony thinks nothing of it, he’s probably tired, until he’s sent off to get more popcorn.

He walks in on Rogers glaring at the stove, cowl off, with most of the top part of his uniform hanging around his waist, holding a pair of tweezers over it with one arm and gripping his abdomen with the other. He jumps when he enters, clearly not expecting him. The look in his eyes dares him to tell someone, or tell him off, or tell him to go to the medbay to cauterize the wound.

“Not particularly hygienic,” Tony says, instead.

The glare deepens. “I’ll disinfect the place in a minute,” he grunts, before he take the tweezers off the flame and digs it into his abdomen and it dawns on Tony he’s not trying to cauterize anything.

“Are you fucking insane!?”

In the back of his mind, Tony supposes it’s not all bad if he’s using sterilised tweezers.

“Fuck off,” Rogers mutters, and Tony’s too busy opening a first aid kit to get some gauze to process Captain America swearing.

He hears the bullet clatter on the countertop and presses the gauze to the wound, still bleeding sluggishly.

“Should’a gone to the medbay,” Tony says.

“No-ones there,” he says, taking hold of the gauze in his own hand. His glare had lightened up, and he looks something more like the guy from the reels.

Tony’s eyes flick to the clock which tells him that it’s long past three in the morning, “What about us?” Tony asks, thoroughly washing his hands before he started on the popcorn.

Rogers gives him an odd look, something so similar to Natasha’s he gets déjà vu, “What about you?”

Something about that, the nonchalant, almost dismissive way he talks sparks something in him. “You are in a tower stuffed full of people far more qualified than you, and you have the nerve to ask ‘What about us’?”

Tony can practically hear his teeth grinding. “I am your leader. I refuse to let--”

“Let us what? See you bleed? Guess what, you’re pretty damn impressive, but you’re not Superman!”

“Thanks for the clarification, Bats,” Rogers says, making to leave, scowling.

“I think I just found our resident Kryptonian taking out bullets in the kitchen,” Tony mutters to Natasha.

“Did he use tweezers?”

Tony nods.

“Did he sterilise them?”

Tony nods again.

Natasha smiles a little, “He’s improving.”

“Improving!?”

“Last time he was trying to dig them out with his fingers, just, let him be, okay?”

Tony gets a sudden wave of… something for Steve Rogers. He tells himself it’s anger. And Tony Stark has never been particularly good at letting things be.

His conclusion, a month later, dampens his mood for reasons unknown.

Steve Rogers has a wrinkle at 45 degrees, between his eyebrows, on his glabella, because the only facial expression he seems to make is a scowl.

“JARVIS,” Tony says, after a moment of quiet, “how do I make a Capsicle happy?”

JARVIS tells him to be nicer.

Turns out, it takes a couple months of taking him out to places, teasing him, making him smile, then laugh, dragging him into the team movie nights, forming some sort of camaraderie with him.

And somewhere along the way, he falls in love with him

They’re face-to-face, but this time, the noise isn’t from them, but the New Years party inside.

The scowl wrinkle is still there, still as faint as it’s ever been, but now, he has crows’ feet adorning the corners of his eyes.

“You have no idea how happy I am to see wrinkles,” Tony whispers, stroking his thumb over them, lips still tingling from their kiss. He supposes it would have been more romantic to wait for midnight, ring in the New Year with a kiss, but after Steve’s confession, Tony couldn’t help but kiss him there and then, regardless of the time, and tell him of his scowl-wrinkle discovery, almost a year ago.

Steve grins wider, deepening the wrinkles, “‘M catchin’ up to you.”

“That’s rude,” Tony says, with utterly no heat, leaning in to kiss him again and again, long into the New Year.

happy steve bingo masterpost

#steve rogers x tony stark #stevetony #stony #stony fic #steve rogers #tony stark #happystevebingo #happystevebingo2019 #my fic #my writing #fun fact this is inspired by me bc i scowl sm i have a wrinkle between my eyebrows!

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takaraphoenix · 5 years

Note

I really want to drown you in Marvel prompts now xD But I'll try to be nice. How about WinterIronPanther and their punk kids? Maybe Steve walking in and being like "Bucky??? Bu you don't have a kid? Tony has Pete, and T'Challa has Shuri but you don't--" And Bucky just looks at him. Long and hard, waiting for him to realize.

It all started two years ago, when SHIELD fell. When Steve, Natasha and Sam came to Tony, not knowing where else to go. When Steve told Tony about the death of his parents. When the team actually started to grow together, knowing they could only rely on each other.

And then Zemo came along and tried to tear the Avengers apart. Only that that didn’t work. They had been a team for years now, they trusted each other, Tony and Steve led the Avengers together, as a united front. Together, they signed the Accords, with the right reserved to make amendments – because Steve knew they were flawed and so did Tony, but Tony had the lawyers to work on them and Steve knew that and trusted Tony on that. Granted, Zemo framing Bucky tore the Avengers temporarily apart because Steve was blinded and refused to even consider that Bucky might not be innocent – and in the end, he was right and after Tony learned the truth, him and his half of the team joined Steve in Siberia. Zemo’s endgame was to shock Tony by showing him the video of how the Winter Soldier had killed the Starks. Tony knew about that though. He had known that for years and while it hurt to actually see it, he knew that it hadn’t been Bucky Barnes who had killed them and he had come to terms with that. So, instead of playing into Zemo’s hands, Tony, Steve and Bucky went and pummeled Zemo before arresting him.

“Barnes isn’t safe in the US right now”, stated Tony seriously.

T'Challa had his arms crossed over his chest. “I owe him, for trying to take his life in a fit of rage when I thought he had killed my father. I will take him to Wakanda, he will be safe there.”

“Thank you, your highness”, whispered Steve, looking torn.

“Oh, stop it with the sad puppy-dog eyes, Rogers”, grunted Tony and rolled his eyes. “He’ll be safe there, that’s the important thing for now, while my lawyers get onto clearing his name.”

T'Challa looked bemused by the exchange. Over the past few days, he had seen the ups and downs of their dynamic. Steve and Tony bickered like brothers and even when it had gotten physical in Germany, they had been pulling their punches, not wanting to hurt their own team. Now that the truth was out, that the tension about Barnes was resolved, things seemed to be going back to what was considered normal to the Avengers. T'Challa, he was a good man, so he was going to repay his debt to Sargent Barnes. He was going to keep him safe in Wakanda and put his sister onto seeing if she could remove the Winter Soldier programming.

/break\

It was rough, adjusting again after what had happened in Germany. It had not been intentional, what had happened to Rhodey, and Sam was feeling the most guilty about it. Rhodey was still recovering. Wanda had been sent away. Even though Steve had been all for protecting her at first, only seeing her as a child – after he saw the physical evidence of what Wanda had done to Vision over being kept on house-arrest, after Sam sat him down and talked to Steve about it, he saw reason.

She had always been a threat. Not just in Johannesburg, before that. She had willingly joined Hydra, of all people, and allied herself with Ultron until it became inconvenient for her. A part of Steve wanted to see her as an innocent child and had refused the facts. But to see the reminders of the past and to see that she was still out of control… they had sent her away. Professor Charles Xavier owned a school for children with superpowers, where she would not be able to harm others and might learn to properly control herself. Because just sending her to prison was not going to do anything good; at the forefront needed to stand her learning to control herself.

Much had happened in the past months. They were busy adjusting the Accords and they were busy trying to free Bucky of all charges, considering the brainwashing. All the while, Steve played the moping puppy-dog about Bucky being literally on ice in Wakanda.

Tony worked with T'Challa’s sister on restoring Bucky though; BARF proved to be a good foundation for Shuri to build on to remove the Winter Soldier programming, apparently, and with it removed, Barnes got out of cold storage and into some solid therapy.

The Avengers became regular guests in Wakanda after that. After all, Wakanda opened its borders and as a sign of good faith T'Challa had joined the Avengers – on a strict emergencies only base. He was still the king, after all. But he wished for the Avengers to know that if aliens attacked again, they could call Wakanda for backup.

Things… developed, albeit Tony was not entirely sure how. There was a charming, handsome king on one side and an adorable goat-herding former assassin on the other… and Tony in the middle.

Tony and T'Challa had corresponded with each other a lot since Siberia, mostly Tony passing on notes to the princess, or them talking about the Accords and about T'Challa’s specific conditions to joining the Avengers. Steve was… too busy chatting with Bucky to really pay attention, every time it came to Wakanda, or more specifically every time they came to Wakanda. Tony was easily charmed by the king and brilliant king. And it wasn’t like Tony didn’t get to spend his fair share with Barnes too – helping the princess with the adjusted and modified BARF program.

Turned out that in the meantime, the goat-herding former assassin and the charming, handsome king had grown close too, during Bucky’s stay near the palace, his regular visits at Shuri’s.

It started one night, three months into Bucky’s stay in Wakanda, when the Avengers as a whole had come to Wakanda to celebrate together. Celebrate Bucky’s recovery – the last of the triggers had been successfully removed and he was overall doing so much better now. So they threw a party. There was booze, music, dancing, food, laughter. It had been a really fun night.

The morning after however was rather interesting, because Tony didn’t wake up in the guest-room T'Challa had given him. He woke up in an even more luxurious room, a large bed with purple silken sheets… and two handsome, naked men next to him on either side. T'Challa was on his back, one arm on his stomach, the other spread out next to himself. Bucky was curled together and wide-awake, staring over at T'Challa and Tony with curious and calculating eyes.

“Good morning Buckaroo”, drawled Tony slowly, grinning amused.

He turned to face Bucky with a broad grin. Unexpectedly so, he had grown very fond of Bucky. Once the man had recovered enough to be himself, not that empty shell and weapon anymore. Bucky offered one of those charming, sweet, soft little smiles and tilted his head.

“You seem in a good mood. That’s good. I was not sure…”, started Bucky.

“I didn’t touch a drop of alcohol last night, Buckster”, assured Tony, one eyebrow raised.

“But you were all…”, drawled Bucky, motioning awkwardly.

“That is simply Tony’s… personality”, offered T'Challa from the other side, quite amused. “He has taught me that you do need a good sense of humor to deal with politicians on a long run.”

“It keeps boring events fun”, chimed Tony delighted.

“So we were all very sober when all of this happened?”, asked Bucky, looking at the other two.

“I have learned not to drink while my sister is armed with a camera”, replied T'Challa dryly. “And now that, thanks to Tony, she has back-up… I am not risking that.”

Tony laughed delighted at that before leaning over to kiss Bucky briefly. “Don’t look like a startled deer, Buck. We have been flirting for weeks now, haven’t we? I figured we were all so… well-spirited last night, it just all came to the logical next step. Right, kitty-cat?”

“Absolutely. Though the nicknames already make me regret everything”, chuckled T'Challa.

“Aw, you don’t mean that, Simba”, gasped Tony, dramatically touching his arc-reactor.

T'Challa rolled his eyes fondly and wrapped an arm around Tony to pull him into a kiss. “Indeed.”

Tony smirked into the kiss before getting up and startling the other two men. “Well, I for one am absolutely famished. Your enhanced super stamina completely knocked me out. Feed a guy after you fuck him, will you? Or are you just going to stay in bed, staring at me?”

“I mean, I could do that”, nodded Bucky and turned to T'Challa. “You?”

“Most definitely”, agreed T'Challa with a delightful grin, wrapping an arm around Bucky.

Bucky looked pleased as he snuggled against T'Challa. The two looked gorgeous together. Tony felt rather good knowing those were his now. Wiggling his ass, Tony went to T'Challa’s closet to get dressed, throwing clothes at both Bucky and T'Challa too.

“Very well, let me feed the both of you”, sighed T'Challa and unwillingly got out of bed.

“My, our king has manners”, chimed Tony.

T'Challa pulled him into a brief kiss before getting dressed himself. “You too, James.”

Bucky made a displeased sound, but he obeyed. He was still getting used to his new arm – including actual feelings – that Tony had made him. It had been their greatest source of… bonding. Bucky had spent hours in the workshop with Tony calibrating the arm. They had quipped and talked, gotten to know each other. Tony was nothing like Howard, which, apparently was the greatest compliment Bucky could have given Tony.

“What… do we tell others?”, asked Bucky slowly when they exited the king’s quarters.

A couple of Dora Milaje stood in front of it. They acted stoic and didn’t react to the three exiting, but they still very well saw them. T'Challa greeted them before taking Bucky’s flesh-hand in his own and reaching for Tony with his other hand.

“What would you be comfortable telling them, James?”, asked T'Challa gently.

“I…”, started Bucky with a frown. “You’re the king. And this is the Tony Stark.”

“Heh, I like that”, laughed Tony amused. “I mean, we would certainly be quite the scandal couple. But the thing about Wakanda is that while its borders are open, paparazzi haven’t been stupid enough to try anything. They are way too afraid of the Dora Milaje. So, no one’s saying we gotta make a public engagement announcement, Bucky-Bear.”

“What Tony is saying is that we do not have to tell anyone, albeit I suspect most of the Avengers have been onto us for weeks”, offered T'Challa.

“Yeah, Nat knows. Nat knows everything. Rhodey knows, because I told him – hey, a guy’s gotta whine about the two hot guys tempting him”, argued Tony.

“Stevie knows about… uh, my feelings”, tagged Bucky on.

“So, basically, the only Avengers who don’t know are… Clint, Peter and maybe Sam, though Sam is a bright guy and I suspect he has figured it out too”, mused Tony.

“Might as well tell them”, sighed Bucky with a defeated nod. “If there is something to tell.”

“Well, I’m too old for this whole one-night-stand nonsense”, chimed Tony lightly. “And I think we should see where this could be going, mh?”

“We could. We should”, agreed T'Challa with a light smile.

The three of them entered the private kitchen of the royal family together. It was usually where the Avengers ate whenever they stayed over in Wakanda. And while not all Avengers were present, at least some had already found their way here. Steve and Sam were leaning against the counter, discussing something over coffee, while the teenagers were sitting at the table eating pancakes. Shuri, Peter and Ned Leeds – who was not actually an Avenger, but Peter’s best friend and also in on Peter’s secret identity. So while not a regular to go with them, since this was a larger outing of the Avengers, they had invited Peter’s best friend along too. Ned had been over the moon.

“Ah, look at our kids bickering”, chuckled Tony fondly. “It’s hard, raising a teen, isn’t it?”

Peter perked up and smiled at Tony, handing him a coffee. “Good morning, Mister St—Tony.”

“Good boy, he’s learning”, laughed Tony. “Thank you, Peter.”

“Yours at least adore you”, grunted T'Challa with a frown.

“Mister Stark is the best!”, exclaimed Ned enthusiastically.

“You’re just saying that because you’re still trying to butter me up to build an actual Death Star for you”, countered Tony amused and sat down with the teenagers.

“Look at them”, huffed T'Challa, staring at his sister. “How nice they are to Tony.”

“They do not have to live with Tony 24/7”, countered Shuri. “No offense, Tin Man.”

“No, that’s a fair enough argument”, chuckled Tony.

Bucky got them plates with pancakes and sat down next to Tony. “Have you considered how much you stress your brother by living with him 24/7, princess?”

“Oi, what are you accusing me of there, White Wolf?”, asked Shuri offended.

“You’re a little punk. With all due respect”, chuckled Bucky.

“I mean, Petey’s too!”, argued Tony, pointing at Peter.

Peter looked at him like a kicked puppy at this. “Mister Stark-”

“Going after the Vulture all on your own, without the suit or backup, you took ten years off my life!”, exclaimed Tony, running his fingers through his hair. “I had to dye to cover the gray!”

“Mister Sta—ark”, whined Peter, hanging his head low.

“I’m sure Shuri has taken far more years off my life by now”, stated T'Challa dryly.

“Oh, is this a competition now?”, wanted Tony to know, raising one eyebrow.

“You’re both gonna lose if we’re starting a competition about a punk-ass kid who took years off your life”, declared Bucky dead seriously, stirring his coffee.

“Buck? You don’t have a kid”, interjected Steve confused as him and Sam finally joined the table.

The kitchen fell very quiet. Ned and Peter exchanged a pointed look, while the adults all stared at Steve like he had grown a second head. Sam heaved a deep sigh and patted Steve’s back.

“You, you big, blonde oaf”, stated Sam pointedly. “He’s talking about you.”

“What-”, asked Steve surprised, looking around.

“Captain Rogers, sir, we literally learn about that in our history classes”, pointed Peter out.

“Yeah! The adventurous pre-serum times! How you used to be a stick and still chased bullies and had Bucky clean it all up afterward”, agreed Ned, nodding wildly.

“Wait. Why are you learning that in your history class?”, asked Steve flustered.

“It’s the great origin story of the righteous Captain America”, chuckled Tony amused. “Always fighting for the little guy, even when you were a little guy yourself. And judging from everything Buck’s been telling me in the past weeks, the history books were very generous on it all.”

“Punk’s got into a different fight every single week. Sometimes an asthma attack took him out before the bullies could”, grunted Bucky with a deadpan expression. “The number of times I nearly had a heart-attack because of you, Stevie-”

“Oh, come on, Bucky, I never-”, argued Steve.

“You literally signed up for a quite shady secret government program that injected you with an untested drug, all of this without telling Bucky”, pointed Peter out. “…Captain Rogers, sir.”

“Traitor”, muttered Steve beneath his breath, cheeks red.

“There, Parker. You and me aren’t the worst”, declared Shuri pleased.

“Yay to that!”, agreed Peter, high-fiving with Shuri.

Steve sulked and sank deeper in his chair. Sam chuckled and shook his head as he pushed some pancakes down toward Steve, who while still sulking started eating. Tony smiled bemused, resting his chin on his hand and staring at Bucky fondly, who looked rather pleased with himself.

“So, the three of you finally… did something about that cut-able tension?”, asked Sam.

“Yes, we did”, confirmed Bucky and cleared his throat.

“I told you, brother. Modern times. Polyamorous long-distance relationships can work”, declared Shuri pleased, nodding slowly. “You just gotta make them work. And use your words.”

“Yes, yes, if I had listened to you, I could have already wined and dined them both for weeks”, sighed T'Challa with a roll of his eyes. “Alas, it all worked out perfectly well.”

He gave Bucky’s hand a squeeze, earning a nearly shy smile from Bucky. Tony bit his lips at how adorable that was and he leaned in to kiss Bucky’s cheek on impulse.

“So, wait, are we related then?”, asked Peter thoughtfully. “Since my superhero-dad and your brother are together, are we then like in-laws or something?”

“We’re not married and I never adopted you. You need to stop making people believe I’m your father, Peter”, grunted Tony pointedly and a little flustered. “I have had to come to a board-meeting concerning your parentage and who I paid off to keep it quiet, kiddo.”

Peter looked the opposite of apologetic. Bucky grunted amused and shook his head.

“You’d think he’s Stevie’s apprentice”, muttered Bucky beneath his breath.

“Thank you, Sargent”, chimed Peter.

“That was not a compliment, kiddo”, snorted Sam amused.

“Depends on how you interpret it”, countered Peter with an innocent smile.

“You are all menaces in one way or another”, stated T'Challa seriously.

He pointed at Shuri, Peter and Steve equally. Tony laughed and leaned back in his chair.

/break\

“We’ll make this work somehow, even when you leave for New York again, Tony.”

The three of them had decided to take a walk through the palace’s garden together after breakfast – mainly to get away from the team’s teasing. They had come to sit down at a pond together, Tony in the middle, resting a hand on Bucky’s thigh and having one arm around T'Challa’s waist.

“Top notch technology will make it so you won’t even miss me”, assured Tony amused. “Besides, for now I’ll be here for two weeks, so let us make the best of that first, mh?”

“Oh, I believe my mother and sister have already planned at least half a dozen dates for us”, sighed T'Challa a little embarrassed. “They have been trying to be… useful.”

“That’s adorable”, grinned Tony and leaned in to kiss T'Challa’s cheek.

The king looked flustered at that, though also a little pleased. “But you are, of course, right. With Wakandan technology, we can see each other every day despite any distance and you are always welcomed here, Tony. I have a room in the palace for you.”

“I preferred your room, Bagheera”, grinned Tony and kissed him. “What do you say, Buckster?”

“I liked your room too, T'Challa”, agreed Bucky with a grin.

T'Challa laughed, eyes sparkling as he leaned back and looked at his new lovers. “Perfect, then.”

Read this here on FFNet & here on AO3!

#WinterIronPanther #or whatever their shipname would be??#Fanfiction #Marvel #Fluff #kimmycup

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fogmongers · 5 years

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L A N E K A T Z . history major. dorming with Robin. skater (amateur). photographer (amateur). musician (amateur).

a restless hipster born to an aggressively patriotic cop and his stepford wife in nowheresland, montana, the only thing that ever stood between lane and his parents throwing down to hell was his older brother and unaccredited role model jack: the perfect boy, and the only mediator empathetic and patient enough to not only suffer the arguments of ethics between his parents and their unfavorite child, but also to defuse them.

jack had the philosophical savvy to understand and relate to lane, but at the end of the day, didn’t have the passion or endurance to live the peace-loving ideology they discussed. loyal to a fault and desperate to make his insecurely lower-class parents proud in wake of lane growing up to be a smelly hippie who brought shame to the family in their rural town, jack enlisted in the army at 18, very much against Lane’s pleas advice, leaving his little brother feeling tremendously betrayed.

already showing early signs of manic depression in his teens, the feelings of angst and anxiety caused by and for jack led to lane losing his self-preservation instinct. his high school years would see him acting on his impulses of hyper-sexuality and letting his mood swings and irritability turn him into a toxic friend. he had days where he was endearingly quiet and earnest, but switched to moods of reckless thrill-seeking decadence, or venomous, moody irritability with no warning or signal of how he would feel at any particular moment. became a serial dater who got away with breaking hearts because he had the veneer of a sweet artist--- wrote a few songs and poems for girls, always taking candid photographs of happy times and posting them with lovely captions, knows how to give a good, personal compliment when he wants to--- but he wound up being kind of isolated by the end of his senior year after girls started talking to each other about his behavioral patterns and nowadays he doesn’t have many friends to visit back in montana.

his home life was an even larger abyss, especially around the times his brother would come home. with each subsequent visit, jack became more visibly hollow. everyone could tell that he lost the shine in his smile, and it was clear that his mind was somewhere else during conversations, even before you told him that your girlfriend left you for your best friend and he smiled and said “I’m so happy for you.”

when efforts to talk to jack again became increasingly futile and frustrating, no one in the family was able to cope constructively. while his parents promptly Bottled That Shit Right Up and, to this day, actively deny any of jack’s visible trauma, lane has reacted with a lot of emotions and crying and lashing out and, to this day, is not finished “grieving.” and it leads to a lot of tension between him and his parents. their relationship for most of hi high school life consisted only of radio silence and arguments– especially between lane and his dad, who wanted him to Man Up, stop “reaching for shit to get upset about” and “making up problems” and thought it was time for him to get his act together and stop partying so much, get more controlled like his brother, talk back less like his brother, put down the camera and guitar and join a sports team--- start thinking about his future.

it all built up to the peak of one typical argument about how shallow they are vs. how bratty he is, and his father declared that the family has been expecting lane to enlist at the end of high school to learn respect and discipline if he wants to keep his room in their house, and after lane lashed out, his dad raised his hand to hit him.

lane flinched away and the heat of the moment was cut soon enough for him to lower his arm, but the general threat of physical abuse is still there every time lane sees his dad, and the one time he tried to bring it up his dad denied that it ever happened--- basically tries to gaslight him into thinking he’s just overreacting and blowing things out of proportion and all in all the relationship has lost all hope. within a month after the incident, he stopped talking to his dad entirely.

his mom was, fortunately, there to witness the situation, and is still outwardly in denial about the whole ordeal, but she was sympathetic enough to keep them separated for the rest of lane’s childhood and support her son when preferred to go to college than boot camp. she helped him fill out his applications and apply for financial aid knowing, deep down, that she probably wouldn’t see him again after he pulled out of the driveway and headed to rainier the next year.

persona:

your standard artsy, pretentious white boy. fake-deep entry-level philosopher, hiding any vulnerability behind a fort of irony and alleged self-awareness. the guy “sarcastically” playing early 2000′s indie-pop hits on acoustic guitar in the quad because he won’t admit that he earnestly likes the sincerity of songs. teasing/negging girls who instagram pictures of their food and judging people for scrolling through their phones in public when they should be paying attention to him. would have dread locks if he went to college just ten years ago. wears his ziggy stardust or velvet underground tee shirts on the anniversaries of bowie & lou reed's deaths and mourns artists like them belligerently publically. reads sartre & marx in crowded spaces with the book cover as visible as possible.

a walking contradiction. uncontrollable mood swings. he flips between extreme arrogance and worrysome levels of self-deprecation at the strum of a chord. an alluring and unpredictable mine field of a person, flipping the switch between boughts of wrath and guilt, ecstatic passion and dreadful apathy, tyranny and self-harm. a rebellious party boy, very popular for a loner, with boyish charm and intrigue. but he’s much more self-aware than he used to be--- after realizing that he had no friends’ houses to stay at in his senior year of high school because he pushed everyone away, he tries much harder to be a better friend to people, both out of the need for self-preservation since he can’t spend summer breaks or holidays in montana anymore, and also out of a genuine empathy and understanding of other people’s behavior and feelings that he had to learn the hard way.

grew up extremely passionate about studying history; refuses to admit that it’s not really his thing anymore. constantly triggered by his own textbooks. he would really do better in some philosophy or literature or psychology (or being confident enough in his own potential to major in photography and grow up to be the war photographer he was born to be), but he’s developed a masochistic streak in recent years.

attached at the guts to robin dundee. they have a complicated friendship with, but robin’s overpowering energy kind of forces lane to default to being calmer to balance him out. the boys are always saying they’re going to start a band together but can never decide what kind since they’re never interested in the same extremely specific and obscure sub-genre at the same time (one week robin will say they should be a dark vaudevillian cabaret goth band while lane insists that they should play ethereal folk and by the time one of them gets into the other’s taste, the latter has already moved on to psychobilly) and they always push away each other’s recruits to the band since all of lane’s friends find robin too psychotic and anyone robin attracts finds lane too pissy and sappy.

wanted connections:

short-lived relationships or flings that ended ambiguously or badly because he’s kind of hard to handle for long periods of time. demure or ditzy/non-threatening friends who let him feel like the mischievous one for once (he tends to flirt with these kinds of people). unrequited crushes (on either side, but he should also have a huge crush on annona). dealers, or friends/clients of his dealer who he smokes with. a party squad. a white boy skater/weed/videogame squad (COUGH nate/sid/robin/lane what COUGH). someone who’s intrigued by his undiagnosed psyche and just wants to get close to him to figure him out - or - who finds him boring because they already have him figured out. people who are begrudgingly friends with him because he workshops and photographs their art for their portfolios (maybe someone whose name sounds like mattah sarhews). a friend of that friend whom he doesn’t realize is gay and keeps flirting with because he thinks she’s playing hard to get and just has a deadpan sarcastic sense of humor. someone whose family he spends breaks with (i’m assuming he usually winds up spending them with his fling at the time but a friend who he can consistently stay with would be good too), or someone who also on campus when school’s out; bonus points if they only talk when they’re having heart-to-hearts on the empty grounds. activists who recognize his energy and want to mobilize him (it’s tk i’m talking about tk @ nina bring tk to rainier please). good influence friends who are understanding of his behavior. someone who’s a little too forgiving of him and winds up getting stepped on because they assure him he’s safe to be emotional around them. bad influence friends who push him to act more like robin. enemies who do not have any patience for him or his antics, or anyone who actively tells people about what a bastard he is. maybe someone from his old school who he’s burned?

#╰ ☾ 🇹🇭🇪 🇵🇪🇳🇩🇺🇱🇺🇲. ⛧ ━━━ lane katz. ╮

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cami-chats · 6 years

Text

Double The Steve, Double The Fun

Title: Double The Steve, Double The Fun

Link: AO3 (full text also below)

Square Filled: Pre-Serum Steve/Post-Serum Steve/Tony Stark

Ship: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark/Steve Rogers

Rating: Mature

Major Tags: None

Summary: Of all things Steve expected to happen in his life, being jealous of himself wasn’t one of them.

Word Count: 1563

Created for @mcukinkbingo

Full Text under the read more

There were a few things Steve was sure of: he was in love with Tony, Tony was a good person, and it was ridiculous to be jealous in a relationship where you trusted the other person. The issue with the last point is that he and Tony weren't together, and therefore Tony could flirt to his heart's content and even sleep with other people, and he was never once breaking a promise to Steve in the process.

Steve was sure of a couple other things of course, like that Jurassic Park was a great movie but he preferred Timeline-- much to Tony's chagrin-- and most recently, he became sure that it was one hundred percent, absolutely, completely absurd to be jealous of himself.

A pre-serum Steve Rogers dropped into their lives though-- either Doom or Richard's fault, Steve could never tell-- and Tony was positively fawning over him. The only other time Steve had seen him make heart eyes at someone was when he was dating Pepper, and he sure as hell was making them at the other Steve right now. Everyone had taken to calling his pre-serum self 'Stevie', which made it a little confusing for Bucky since he called him that regularly, but it was easier for everyone else.

Also, he hadn't realized it at the time he was living it, but he was a little shit when he was pre-serum. All bossy and trying to prove himself-- which he remembered-- and egging on Steve. He was flirting with Tony, and when Tony would turn his back, he'd make eye contact with Steve and wink. He pretended it didn't get to him, but he was pretty sure he wasn't fooling anyone. He might have fooled Bruce, but only because Bruce wasn't paying enough attention to care. He could ignore it-- in a roundabout way where he was only pretending to ignore it and was actually obsessing over it-- until one day where he walked into the living room and saw Stevie straddling Tony on the couch, arms over his shoulders. Tony's hands were on Stevie's thighs even as he said, "I'm interested, but I don't think Steve would like us doing this."

"Do you do everythin' he tells you to?"

Tony snorted. "Hardly."

"Then why is this any different?"

"You're..." Tony's head hit the back of the couch with a groan. "This is far too complicated."

"We're different people. That's what all of you have been sayin' all day for the past week."

"Speaking of, shouldn't you have issues with two men being together?"

Stevie rolled his eyes. "Do you not talk to your Steve at all?"

"I thought you were two different people?" Tony pointed out.

"We are, but he used to be me. You don't stop liking men. Come to think of it, why hasn't he tried to take you on a date? You don't stop liking men, and you sure as hell don't stop liking you."

"As flattering as this is," Tony said drily, "Cap hasn't showed the slightest interest in me. I think you're cuter than anyone else I've ever seen, but as Steve has told me time and again, not everyone thinks that way. You like me because I like you, and you don't have other options. Cap has plenty."

"Hm yes, that explains why he glares at me all the time," Stevie said sarcastically.

"He doesn't glare at you," Tony argued.

"Yes he does." Stevie made a face as he thought of something, suddenly looking uncomfortable. "You only like me because of him, don't you."

If Stevie or Steve were expecting that to make Tony freeze, they were disappointed. Tony rolled his eyes, pulling Stevie closer. "Good to know you're just as dumb as he is."

"Shut up," Stevie mumbled, grabbing Tony's face and kissing him. It was a little messy and not at all skilled, but endlessly enthusiastic.

Steve had been frozen in the doorway this entire time, watching the scene unfold. But when Tony started kissing him back, he turned on his heel and left. He never should have stayed as long as he did, and it was pointless besides. Woohoo, Tony liked pre-serum him but not present him, throw a party. At least Tony ignored Stevie all-but telling him that Steve was in love with him. That was good.

~~~

The next time Steve saw both of them was in the workshop. He'd gone down to spend some time with Tony, maybe sketch a little, and play fetch with DUM-E if the bot wasn't busy with something else. He stopped cold in the doorway when he saw Stevie sitting on the couch. It wasn't in the exact spot where Steve set up shop, but he still didn't like it.

Tony glanced up and beamed at him. "Cap! What are you doing here?"

"Do I need a reason now?"

"Guess not," Tony said with a shrug, still smiling at him. He turned back to his work.

Stevie scooted a little to the side even though it wasn't necessary. Steve appreciated the gesture and gave him a small smile. Stevie was holding a book, but Steve recognized the restless twitching of his hands.

Steve held out his sketchpad and pencil. "You want to draw?"

Stevie reached out for them automatically, then pulled his hands back in. "Weren't you gonna draw?"

"I've got another one down here somewhere."

"I think DUM-E stole it," Tony chimed in. "You might have to sweet talk him to get it back."

"I could always give him a lighter."

Tony swiveled around to stare at him, eyes narrowed. "You wouldn't dare."

"You only told me not to give him a fire extinguisher."

"I don' think startin' a fire's any better," Stevie said, flipping quickly through the sketches to find a blank page.

"DUM-E with a fire extinguisher has bad history for Tony, it's not about the destructive capability."

"Well in that case..."

"No," Tony said sternly, pointing at the pair of them with the end of a screwdriver. "You are not allowed to team up."

"Aw but we've got so much in common," Stevie said, a sly little smirk on his face.

"We're the same person," Steve said, giving him a confused look.

"Oh didn't Tony tell you?" Stevie had his 'my wide eyes totally make me appear innocent' look on full force. "I'm from an alternate dimension, not the past."

Steve blinked once, then nodded. "That makes a lot of sense, actually."

"Really?" Tony asked incredulously.

He shrugged. "Me and Bucky thought we were remembering a few things wrong." Unprompted, DUM-E wheeled up to the couch and handed him the stolen sketchbook. "Thanks buddy." Steve pat him on the claw with a smile.

"You want to know what my idea is?" Stevie asked once DUM-E rolled away again.

"Stevie," Tony said. It sounded like they'd already talked about it and Tony had said it was a bad idea, but here Stevie was, bringing it up anyways.

"Just cause you thin' he won't be into it doesn't mean anythin'."

"Won't be into what?" Steve asked, more than a little worried about what the answer would be.

"A threesome."

"What." Steve glanced at Tony for help, but he had given up, face buried in his hands while his elbows rested on the table in front of him.

"Aw c'mon Cap, think about it. When are you ever gonna get a chance to see two of yourself fuckin' Tony?"

"Uhh, Tony?" he ventured, voice tight and perhaps squeaking on his name. "A little help here?"

"Stevie," Tony said, not moving an inch, "I don't think Steve's interested in anything in that offer."

"You're quick to assume," Stevie said. He sounded extremely self-assured, and while Steve might have turned him down just to be contrary, Tony hadn't said anything about not being interested in it himself and this wasn't the kind of opportunity that would come around twice.

"Okay," he blurted.

"Really?" Stevie asked, excited. Tony's head jerked, and he stared at Steve disbelievingly.

"Are you serious?"

He swallowed thickly. More than a little nervous but undoubtedly eager. "Yeah. I mean, why not, right?"

"My thoughts exactly," Stevie said, putting his hand on Steve's knee and moving it up slowly when he didn't flinch or otherwise look uncomfortable. "You might wanna come over here Tony, or you'll risk missin' out."

~~~

Despite what Stevie had said about Tony missing out if he didn't get a move on, they had made it all the way up to Tony's massive bed and spent most of their time there. Stevie was bossy as fuck, talking where Steve himself could now manhandle. For his part, Tony listened. Steve didn't know what to do with that, but it made him feel lightheaded when Stevie told him to do something and Tony didn't hesitate, even for a second.

Should he feel weird about having sex with a pre-serum version of himself? Probably. Did he? Not in the slightest.

Stevie was in their universe to stay apparently, and that one night between the three of them turned into another, and another, and eventually into dating. A couple months later, and Steve was forced to alter the list of things he knew to be a bit more inclusive. Tony was a good person, Steve was in love with him, he was also in love with Stevie, and the world was really fucking weird.

#mcukinkbingo #marvel #fanfic #tony stark #steve rogers #my writing

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ketch117 · 6 years

Text

Salty Teens AU/“Is that what you’ve been doing? Trying to make me hate you?”

It was going to be a beautiful day. Somehow he could tell. The perfect sort of day, crisp and clear, not too warm and not to cool. The perfect day for flying. And yet it was hard to be as enthusiastic about Quiddich as he normally would be. It just wasn't the same, Robert thought as he looked at the tattered remains of what had only last year been the team that had effortlessly soared from victory to victory over the course of a six year long undefeated streak - if admittedly one which had come perilously close to being broken the year before. And now what little remained of it was his responsibility, since Brandon had graduated and Professor Lannister had made him Quiddich captain. Somehow it felt less like an honour than it had when the big tawny owl had dropped off the badge over the summer holidays.

All he could see was the empty places in the line-up- if you could even call it that - which gaped like cavities where the attrition of graduation, a nervous breakdown, a teenage pregnancy, and most insidious of all a desire to cut extraneous extracurricular activities in order to focus on classwork had ground away at them. As far as the team went, the sole face looking back at him didn't seem much happier at the state of affairs than he did. There was a limit to how brave a face you could put on two members of a team of seven.

It was half an hour until Tryouts started, seven thirty, Saturday morning, and he had booked the pitch for the day, and posted notification on the Gryffindor Common Room notice-board. He'd done all the preparation, in other words, and now, while the rest of the school was getting breakfast he had to set-up. Frustrated, annoyed, and wishing he'd stayed in bed that morning, Robert tried to find a positive frame of mind. It didn't work.

"He's not coming back, then?" Robert asked, a hopeful note creeping into his voice unwelcome as his gaze fell naturally onto an empty space under the hoops where Ned ought to be standing.

His fellow Beater, the only other person actually on the pitch at breakfast time on a Tuesday shook his head. It made him look like a bit like a dissatisfied bear. "Maybe next year."

Robert let out a disgusted grunt. It wasn't that pleading with his best friend was beneath his dignity or anything - it was that he'd already tried and already got the same response. Ned had dropped out to focus on his studies, his new responsibilities as prefect, and to devote more time to Catelyn, the Ravenclaw (also a prefect) that he was seeing. Prefects got a pretty bad deal as far as Robert could tell, being expected to shoulder responsibilities and the dislike of the other students in exchange for what really wasn't very much authority - though he supposed that easy access to Hogwarts' only co-ed bathroom and the attendant luxurious facilities was better then sneaking down deserted corridors and hoping not to run into anything that might be the end of you (Hogwarts was a massive place and there were entire floors and corridors where nobody ever went, all sorts of old storerooms and junk-filled workshops that were very rarely as innocent as they appeared) the way the rest of the students had to (he'd always favored the astronomy tower, himself). Objectively, he knew that Ned was making the right decision, he'd made for a reliable Keeper but hardly a brilliant one, and that sixth years needed to prioritize - but he also knew he'd always played better when he had Ned to watch his back, and the thought of playing Quiddich without him was a sensation not unlike slipping from your broom without a softening charm.

"Well, how about Jaime? He's not abandoning us to study as well, is he?" They were almost half a team with Jaime - two Beaters and nothing else was a bad joke waiting for a punchline.

"He's a fifth year. Of course not." Alan scoffed.

"So where is he then?" Robert asked. He'd just assumed that Jaime would be here, the fifth year had a passion for the game equal to Robert's own.

"My guess is, he's doing the same thing he does every year."

"Give me strength." Robert grumbled, rolling his eyes. Of course, Jaime would be trying-out for seeker, the way he did every year. Robert had mocked him for that mercilessly, though it didn't seem as funny now that his was his problem. "Fine, well I suppose it's just you and me setting up then. You go to the supply shed and sign off as many of the school brooms as you can, I'll get the practice balls and the rest of the equipment."

His fellow beater grunted. Alan Fell was a burly seventh year who was taller than him (and not a lot of people could say that) with the girth to go with his size since no amount of exercise seemed to reduce his belly. He was a solid presence, so much so that it seemed ludicrous to imagine him flying, but there was a lot about him that was misleading. His fellow beater looked sullen, and Robert suspected it wasn't just the reduced circumstances of their Quiddich Team. "Tryouts are the worst."

"They really are. Though I don't think there's much chance you and I will win many games without other players." Alan said.

"Now there's a thought." Robert said, managing to grin. “Well, lets try and get some reserves this year as well, so we've got a few people who can take over once you graduate, and I don't need to worry about doing this again next year."

"We don't even have a team, and he wants to worry about reserves." Alan Fell grumbled. Robert gave him a pass on the attitude, being the only player he had went a long way towards that. It wasn't hard to figure out the reasons for his particular bad mood - the other Beater felt that his seniority should have meant he got to be Team Captain, but Robert figured he’d get over it. Alan Fell was reliable.

"How many first-year Hufflepuffs do you think will show up?"

"Oh, five or six." Robert replied, already sounding weary. "At least. Well, lets get this over with."

They split up. Robert collected the balls from their usual place in the changing room and took the chance to change pull on his team jersey. It was tight and a little short at the hem, he'd had another growth-spurt over the summer, but he fixed that, at least for the moment, with the application of an enlarging charm, and made a mental note to find a tailor who'd take it out next time he was in Hogsmede. Then he snuck a cigarette, even though he was supposed to be trying to quit, and promised people he didn't want to disappoint that he would. The smoke burned, but in sort of a good way, and he enjoyed watching the smoke lazily rise. He ground it under his foot when he was done and strode out onto the pitch like he had every reason to be confident.

It was a hard front to keep up with, and in the end he did have to sigh, as this years selection of quiddich hopefuls wandered their way onto pitch from the general direction of the castle. There were plenty of them, Quiddich was popular, and they were what was left of the best team in Hogwarts, so there was no shortage of applicants, but none of them seemed to have much to recommend them to him, though he supposed he should give them the chance before he completely gave up on them. With another moment to feel sorry for himself and to wish that Ned was here, he tried to think about his best approach.

He glanced at Alan again. Both boys were geared up, in their off-white trousers (with a red and gold stripe up the outside leg), scarlet and gold robes, long sleeved jerseys (also red); and kneepads, elbowpads, gloves and boots all of the same thick brown leather. Alan shrugged, which Robert took to mean that his fellow Beater had come to the same conclusion.

Well. Start with a demonstration, he supposed.

“Alan, get your bat.” Robert said, opening the old leather case where the balls were kept, passing over the Snitch and the Quaffle to the two jet black Bludgers, both of which were straining against the leather straps holding them inside the box, as if they could sense the presence of so many soft targets. “Come to think of it, get mine as well. Is everyone paying attention?"

He glanced again at the crowd who had come to the pitch in search of Quiddich glory. There were first years nervously clutching a selection of the sad old school brooms, or what passed as school brooms, most of which were scarcely any use for sweeping floors - much less flying. First Years hadn't been allowed to play when he first came to Hogwarts, but in the intervening time that rule had stopped being enforced for some reason or another. There were a few seventh years, towering above the crowd, all looking to pad out their extracurricular activities hoping that it would look good on applications, and everything in between. There were a few responses, lackluster attempts at humor with the occasional affirmation. Well.

He decided to power on. "Now, as you can see, we’re trying out for Chasers, a Keeper and a Seeker. Pretty much a whole team, really. And we'd better get them, or else we will have to forfeit, and Ravenclaw will take the cup this year because they're the best team at the moment." Robert began conversationally. He snapped his wand, and a roll of parchment unrolled hanging in the air. "Well, over my dead body. So, write down your names and what you are trying out for so I can keep you all straight. If you want to try out for multiple positions you can, but if you did that and then make the team you’ll be doing whatever I decide that the team needs. And the team needs you to give your all. Practice is three days a week, and I will push you as hard as you can take. You all got that?"

A few people nodded, a few people agreed, others mumbled or looked at their feet. "Now, Quidditch is easy enough to understand. We need…” Jaime still hadn't moved. Well, whatever. "We'll start with a few exercises to establish the basics of competence. So form into groups of six, or so." This took a while, as in the finest tradition of amateur quidditch they all did their best to form groups that didn't include anyone who was obviously overweight, the weird kid or anyone trembling with nerves. "Now, wait your turn, and when I tell you to mount your brooms and give me one lap around the pitch."

Robert hadn't been expecting much, but what they showed him did not make for inspiring flying. Three of them had to wait, since they hadn't brought broomsticks of their own and the brooms Alan brought had already been divided around. Half of them could not have made it plainer that they'd hardly ever flown before, and barely got airborne. One boy who managed it proved to know how to accelerate but not how to steer and promptly crashed into one of the goal posts. Two crashed into one another, bringing down a third halfway around the pitch. One fourth year tried to mount her broom backwards.

After an hour - far longer than such easy instructions merited, many complaints, several tantrums and a brief bout of hysterics, and more accidents than he had been prepared to deal with, one involving a crashed Comet Two Sixty that seemed to have spontaneously ignited, another involving several broken teeth, Robert had pared down the fifty or so that had shown up to twenty or so that had some idea what they were doing, or at least might be able to be taught. Alan, at least, had cut the shit, if anything he looked glad this wasn’t his problem. Jaime, however, still seemed determined to be Seeker, and was pointedly ignoring any attempts to engage him in conversation.

Robert next set them some basic flying exercises, which allowed him to remove another eight or so from consideration, who trooped off to join a not inconsiderable number of rejected Quiddich players on the stands, heckling those still in consideration. By now, people with nothing better to do were wandering over to see the spectacle, including Elbert Arryn, captain of the Ravenclaw Quiddich Team, who was a good sport, but not good enough not to smirk, and then conjure himself a bag of popcorn that he made a show of munching. Robert responded with a rude gesture, which only made Elbert grin all the more. By then, they had progressed to throwing golf balls which the players had to do their best to catch. When one of the players actually threw himself off his broom to catch the ball (and had ample reason to be grateful for a quickly cast softening charm), Robert had had enough, and called a break.

Alan joined him at the stands, as Robert lit up his second cigarette, this time making no effort to hide it whatsoever. There weren't any rules about smoking at Hogwarts - most of the teachers didn't even know what cigarettes were, much less that they should be banned as health hazards, but Robert didn't push his luck anyway, if only because the last thing he wanted was younger kids picking up the habit. Then he'd have to quit. "So, do we confer," Alan asked "or what?"

Robert grunted. For a while Robert was quiet, watching the smoke drift lazily into the air. No conversation was necessary, because they were both thinking the same thing, more or less - when it came to tryouts, anyway. They were going terribly. They were down to twelve, who'd test flown adequate, however that left twelve students who weren't up to it. Anyway, that was Robert's opinion - Alan Fell had thought that one or two of them might do (with a lot of training) but Robert remained adamant that they 'didn't fit'. Alan didn't really understand this, to tell the truth, but he left Robert to his foibles. He was going to have to compromise eventually, if he anted to play Quiddich.

"So," Alan started, when he judged the time was right.

"So?"

"So what do you think?"

Robert grunted again.

"I think we should pick a seeker, so we have Jaime to help us pick out the Chasers."

"That's actually not a bad idea. Why have you let me think you were coasting on looks all this time?"

Alan rolled his eyes. "Well, we got three prospective Seekers, not counting Jaime."

Robert frowned. "Right. Who was best?”

“Jaime.”

Robert rolled his eyes. “Right. Well, then we got three new chasers with nobody to take the lead or show them the ropes. So lets not do that - maybe once the new players know which way to sit on a broom. What were their names again?" He pulled out his wand, and waved over the parchment. Then he blinked. That was a hell of an oversight. How hadn't he noticed?

"Lyanna Stark is trying out?" Now that he thought about it, that tangled dark hair, firm jaw and intense expression couldn't belong to anyone else.

"Are you telling me you didn't you spot your best friends kid sister? Don't you spend half your holidays at their house?"

Robert shrugged his wide shoulders. "I'm not sure, but if I had to have a reason I'm going to say it's on account of all the other things I was trying to keep track of. With the way this lot have been, it's a wonder I can see straight." He thought about it a moment. "Well, she wasn't bad, and she comes from a family of great Quiddich players, and if we get Jaime back where he's supposed to be, I'm more than happy to call it a win. How did she do?"

"She caught three or so. Didn't miss any, but didn't try for a few she could have got, easy."

"Good enough. Let's try her out."

"How do we test Chasers without a Keeper?"

"With difficulty." Robert replied, beginning to feel hopeful now that they had started making progress, that perhaps, at the end of the day, he might have accomplished something. "But first, we'll test them dodging."

Of course it wasn't easy as that. Robert roared at people complaining of favoritism (which was truer than he would allow himself to admit), and had to threaten one of them with physical harm in order to get him to leave the pitch. Jaime was unhappy, but agreed to resume his usual position with a minimum of simmering resentment - again Robert counted that as a success, and they begun the second phase of the testing. The surprise turned out to be Lyanna, who stormed up to him in a fine prelude to a rage. "Jaime flew better than me."

"Much better." Robert agreed. "It's not fair you get the position. But it's up to me, and I'm not a fair guy."

"I'm not going to take the position I haven't earned."

"'kay." Robert replied, stepping past her and leaving her fuming.

"It's alright. You were next best. And he's a prick, but you can trust his judgement." Jaime was telling her. Robert shook his head. That was, he believed, the closest thing to a compliment Jaime had offered him since he had dated his twin sister a year ago.

"Alright. You can steer your brooms, and stay on them, which is a start. Now lets see how you do at sharper maneuvers. Ready Alan?"

Alan Fell nodded, and Robert hefted his bat. Robert handed Jaime the Quaffle. "Since you're the only one here who knows what he's doing, you can start. Fly to over to one end of the pitch, then cross to the other side, score a goal."

"In my sleep?"

"However you want."

Robert waited for him to mount his broom before he let the first Bludger free. As flush as the Lannisters were Jaime could have afforded anything, of course, and it was no secret that Quiddich was a gentleman's game. Jaime had a classic from the early days of broom manufacturing, a Nimbus 1800, carefully and lovingly restored. It was a hell of a racing broom, a complicated yet powerful beast that took a quick mind to handle, responsive and attentive, interpreting subtle movements and – when handled well, moving like an extension of the body, yet at the same time wild, never tamed or broken. It couldn’t be. The moment Jaime was airborne, the black ball rose high in the air and then pelted straight at for the nearest target - a fourth year named Jale Cafferen in consideration for Keeper. He cringed (and was rejected on those grounds), but Alan stepped in front of him and caught it seemingly effortlessly with his bat.

It was a very specific type of showing off - it was no one-off shot, though he sent the Bludger rocketing exactly where he had intended, just ahead of where Jaime was about to be and forcing the Chaser to do a barrel-roll under his broom, yet done so effortlessly as to show mastery, just as an expert might do some everyday craft so that you’d see their skill. Once a goblin (Robert had vague ambitions to work as a Cursebreaker, and so had taken a summer internship at Gringotts his father had arranged) had told him that any goblin might make one fine work, but that a master, a real one, made one every day just as good. A good beater was a bit like that, and Alan was very good.

Of course, the question was, could any of the people who the demonstration was for tell the difference, Robert thought as Jaime hooked a foot around the bristles and seemed to drop off, before swinging up and back to his seat in an almost unbelievably flashy bit of flying, weaved around the Bludgers returning strike, and put the ball through the middle ring like the toss was nothing. He landed to uproarious applause, befitting a show-off of his caliber.

“You all saw that?" Robert asked rhetorically. "Great. Now you do it too.” He paused a moment, weighing the pros and cons of warning them against flashy dodges, but in the end he figured it might be another useful way of disqualifying people who couldn't handle it. "Lyanna, if you're still on the team, get back to practicing your catching. If not, get out of here." She huffed indignantly, but did as he told her.

He was starting to think there might just be hope when Mitch Grandison flinched away from a Bludger nowhere near him and dropped the Quaffle.

+ + + + +

It was past dinner time when Robert climbed through the portrait hole carrying his broom, and threw his muddy sweatshirt on a chair. The Gryffindor Common Room crowded that night. Chess matches, gobstones games, intense rounds of exploding snap were taking place. The fire blazed, and everyone was chatting loudly - about completely normal adolescent things.

There was a small desk in the common room, and his Transfiguration Homework was still sitting there, open to the same page it had been over a week ago. Problem 53, half finished on the paper next to it, begged him to come complete it, to finish the assignment and turn it in for partial credit, something, anything. Staring down at the figures on the page, he shook his head, and went back to ignoring it.

"Come on. It can't have been as bad as that."

"We were at the pitch since seven thirty. That's nearly twelve hours, Ned." Robert said, and made a point of rubbing his forehead, far more theatrically then necessary.

"You took a ten minute break early on." Ned replied reasonably.

Robert gave him an incredulous look, then chuckled a little as the tension drained out of him. "You know, your sister tried out.” None of his new players had the old brilliance of the team of last year, but he had made peace with that as best as he could. Maybe he could beat them into shape before the first season of the game - they all showed a will, at least.

Ned’s Transfiguration Essay, he noticed, was finished, signed, and ready to be turned in. With no homework remaining, he was keeping Robert company in a touching display of solidarity.

"She told me she was going to. She was practicing all Summer with Benjen."

“She wanted to be a Chaser, but she wound up fitting better as Seeker, and only took a little convincing. She fit pretty well, actually. I don't want to jinx it, but we might end up with a halfway decent team this year.”

"Who's taking over as Keeper?" Ned asked. He didn't sound bitter to think of being replaced, just idly curious. That, more than anything, convinced Robert that Ned, at least, believed that the chapter of his life in which Quiddich was more than an idle amusement was over.

"In the end, we gave it to Marq Grafton. He's not all that talented, but he might shape up." He shot another look at his transfiguration homework, then resolutely turned away. He had better things to do than try and write an essay on vanishing. Slowly, the room emptied as people drifted off to bed. At last Robert stood up. "Come on, lets head down to the kitchens. I feel peckish." Robert said at last.

Ned stood up, and they headed towards the portrait-hole, then Ned stopped. Robert turned to ask him why, then heard it himself, a sort of snuffling sound, very faint, that eventually resolved itself into sobbing. Robert would have ignored it, but Ned wasn't blessed with his friends thick skin, and hastened towards it. The source of the noise turned out to be a small blond second year, who was hugging her knees to her chin. She was small, and looked smaller still, and it was such a pathetic sight even the hardest of hearts would have been melted.

"What's the matter?" Ned asked, projecting concern. Robert shook his head, and wondered how his friend did it.

"My…" she made a choking noise. "My Remembrall."

"That's not a thing to get so worked up about." Ned replied. Robert rolled his eyes, exasperated. The second year shook her head.

"Where did you lose it?"

"Didn't lose it. I was showing it to my friends…" she'd recovered enough by now to be able to form largely complete sentences "…and then he shoved me, and snatched it, and then he tossed it into the fire." To illustrate she gestured at the fire, where a sad blob of colourful melted glass testified to the fate of the bauble.

"Who did?" Robert asked.

In answer, she pointed to the chair where Meryn Trant had been formerly sitting.

Robert glanced at his friend, and his eyes narrowed as he slowly smiled. "You know, Ned, I haven't had detention in… ages."

+ + + + +

"Detention, Baratheon." Profeesor Lannister reprimanded the young wizard standing in the office she was sharing with her husband this year. Joanna Lannister was a handsome woman in her early forties. Slim as a runway model dreamed of being with a fierceness evident in her fine features, Joanna was regal, fashionable, comfortable in herself, and commanding without being domineering. She was also the Head of Gryffindor House, and known for being strict to a fault, which was why Robert was standing in front of her desk with an insincere imitation of remorse.

"Right you are, professor."

"You'll be pleased to know that Meryn Trant suffered no permanent damage."

"None?" He replied, sounding anything but. "Not at all?"

"None. He has been entirely restored."

"And did they fix it, for him?"

"Baratheon." She said, her tone a warning.

"It just seems wrong, somehow. I don't want to think it was a waste."

"You told me it was an accident."

"It was. A lucky accident. Fate works itself out in the strangest ways, professor. That's what professor's Melisandre and Thoros say, at least."

Joanna rolled her eyes. "Detention on Friday, Baratheon."

"Right you are, professor." He winked. "You look ravishing tonight, by the way."

"Out of my office, Baratheon."

"If you insist.”

”Baratheon?”

“Yes Professor?”

“That was an excellent vanishing spell. At least you seem to be living up to the magical potential you display in my class.”

Robert grinned over his shoulder.

Ned was waiting outside the door for him. "Detention tomorrow." Robert told him, before he could even ask, starting up the corridor.

"And was it worth it?"

"Sure, fuck him." Robert replied, then paused a moment. "Well, I thought it was at least…"

Ned looked at him.

"…Only I hear they've more or less restored it."

"Pyrcelle is a creep, but he used to be a senior healer at Saint Mungo's. He knows his stuff."

"And after all the trouble I went to vanishing it. That's a difficult spell, you know."

Ned sighed. "Robert, you taught him a lesson. That was what you wanted."

"It just seems like a shame, knowing it's been undone. I did us all a service, you know, and to hear it's already like it never happened."

Ned sighed. But he was clearly doing his best not to laugh. "You know I'll have to turn you in again."

"Our friendship has endured worse. Let's see, he's probably on his way back to the Tower even as we speak, if we take a detour…"

+ + + + +

The crystal trophy cases glimmered where the moonlight caught them. Cups, shields, plates, and statues winked silver and gold in the darkness. "So what did you do?"

"I was caught trespassing in the Forbidden Forest." Lyanna replied proudly.

"Well, that'd do it, I suppose. I hope you at least had a good reason."

"Not particularly, actually." Lyanna admitted, a touch defensively.

Elia shrugged, as though to say it was all relative, and if she wanted to endanger her life that was her business. Elia could say volumes with her shrugs. "Well take a rag. You're supposed to be doing this without magic, but I'm working on my ancient runes essay, so I won't notice if you enchant a rag or four so long as you keep them out of my sight." Lyanna was far too clever to question such unexpected good fortune. The spellwork was a challenge for a third year, as was getting the rags not to exhibit too much enthusiasm, but before too long she had the rags industriously wiping away at the trophies. Ten minutes later, there was far more talk than work on essays or polishing. "I've been meaning to ask you…"

Elia shrugged. She was polishing an apple on her sleeve, her parchment scattered on the floor around her in a semblance of order. "We're bickering more than we used to, but that's just stress." She replied. Lyanna looked at the ground a moment. She felt an uncommitted sort of guilt, which was stupid since she had no reason to feel guilty at all. "You're not… jealous…"

"No." Elia replied, shaking her head. "No, I'm quite happy for my boyfriend to spend time with his friends."

Lyanna wanted to protest that what they were doing together was important, not just socialising, but she knew Elia wouldn't agree. "Because I'd understand if you were…"

Elia sighed. "Look, no offence," she began, a little sharply "but you're thirteen and he's seventeen, and the two of you have nothing in common - there's not a lot to be jealous about, except that you're spending a lot of time together. And anyway, Rhaegar and I have a whole lot of problems that have nothing to do with you, or this ongoing obsession of his." She replied.

Lyanna sighed. "He's been different lately."

"I noticed as well."

"And I want to help him. But he won't talk to me about it. There's something off about him, lately. He's been looking pale, and moody and antisocial - not just me, his friends have noticed it as well. And he keeps starting arguments, and then storming off in the middle of them."

Elia patted the younger girl's arm affectionately. "Well, I didn't plan on announcing this so soon, but I suppose I have to now. Lyanna, Rhaegar's pregnant."

Lyanna tried not to laugh, but failed, and found herself giggling. "This is serious, Elia."

"I've known Rhaegar a long time. He needs to be doing something he feels is important, or else he gets like this, starts to feel trapped. He just needs space."

"Well, I'm here." Robert announced, as he stepped into the trophy room.

"You're late."

"Are you going to tell professor Lannister?" Robert replied, raising an eyebrow.

"No."

"Elia, you're a credit to your office. If we lived in a more enlightened, civilised time, they'd give you a trophy."

"They have - though not from not from my refusal to turn snitch. Take extra care scrubbing it. And no magic."

"Of course. And how are you, my Seeker?"

"It should be Jaime. Jaime flew better, he deserved the place."

"But alas, it never will. He's made peace with it. And soon, you will as well. Besides, you'll be a better Seeker than him, trust me on that."

"Stop that."

"Stop what?"

"Being nice."

"You'd rather the opposite? I can do the opposite."

"I'd prefer you to be consistent."

"Now that's unfair."

Lyanna scoffed, and moved away from him. But there was only so much trophy space, and soon he caught up to her.

"What did you do?" She asked.

"Meryn Trant was picking on someone. One of the Lannisters, I couldn't tell you which one. So I vanished his clothing. And - as a courtesy - a part of him he'd probably prefer not to be on display." He stopped polishing for a moment in order to make a suggestive gesture. "There's this muggle toy, it's called a Ken Doll. It's like a person scaled down, but smooth as the bonnet of a Ferrari in a key location."

Lyanna made a choking sound. "And you got a detention for that?"

"Yeah." Robert paused. "The first time, anyway."

Lyanna spluttered. "The first…"

"Well, you know how it is with accidents. They just keep happening. And now I got a months worth of detentions."

Elia checked her own laughter. "That's horrible. Really funny. But horrible."

"Eh, fuck him, it's Meryn Trant."

"Why did you make me Seeker?"

"Because I need at least one good Chaser, and I figured if I got you playing Ned might come back." Robert replied, in total honesty.

Lyanna's face went very red.

"Well, I think we're done here." Robert said, standing up. "Should I start at the next cabinet? Or help you with your homework, maybe?"

"Take Five. Better yet, head down to the kitchens, and come back with snacks. You know how to get into the kitchens?"

Robert snorted, and walked out.

"I think I hate him." Lyanna told Elia.

Elia sighed. "You know this is what I always try to tell you. You don't have to win every single conversation."

"I'm just…"

"You have to learn to let things go."

Lyanna scowled. "But winning is so nice." "That's what you did. You wanted to play Quiddich, and now you are."

Lyanna pouted a little. She wasn't designed for pouting, so the result was interesting, to say the least. "But I wanted to earn it."

"If Robert took School Work a fraction of as seriously as he took Quiddich, he'd become Minister for Magic the second he graduates. If you're on his team, he must have a reason."

Robert returned, with leftovers, which they spread out into an impromptu picnic. By this time, any pretence of detention was forgotten. "Why are you always such a jerk?"

"Always might be overstating it."

"So mean, and dismissive, and quick to put people down. Are you trying to make people hate you?"

Robert winked. "Tell me if you figure that out."

Almost exactly a week later, Lyanna put a chair through a window and showed up for Robert's next detention in the same predicament, ready to continue their argument.

#asoiafrarepairs #asoiafrarepairweek

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fenfyre · 6 years

Text

A Different Breed - Part VII

Part I Part VI

When Hunk emerges from the bulky machine he’d been tinkering with for the past half hour he is frowning.

“Weird?”, he asks, the wrench in his hand clattering back into the toolbox as he starts digging for something else. “Weird how? I mean that’s kind of his thing, he’s just a weird guy in general.”

Lance shrugs and hugs his bent leg closer to his chest, chin resting on his knee as he watches his friend work. It usually calms him, talking things through while Hunk tinkers with something. The atmosphere in the workshop is calm, relaxing and easy in a way that being with Keith isn’t.

No, Keith is burning and excitement, a constant challenge that Lance wants to rise up to and he loves it. Well, most of the time he does. Lately he hasn’t been loving it as much.

“Yeah, the not getting references or taking everything literally kind of weird. That’s his thing. Not the … randomly punching people who did nothing wrong kind of weird.”

Grabbing a pair of pliers Hunk ducks into the machine again, his voice has a tinny echo when he speaks next.

“You mean that thing with Shiro?”

“Yeah...”

“Isn’t it kinda normal for him to have random tantrums, though? I mean he likes you and he wanted to protect you. It’s kinda cute when you think about it.”

Lance takes a moment to mull the words over, then grunts indecisively.

“Also didn’t he like, apologize that evening?”

Sighing deeply Lance closes his eyes. One reason he likes talking to Hunk about everything that’s on his mind is that Hunk can be so very rational. Where Lance gets lost in his own confusions and suspicions Hunk always manages to take a step back and look at the problem from a different angle. He’s thorough like that and usually manages to talk Lance down from whatever frenzy his own thoughts whipped up for him. That’s why he’s the only one who knows about him and Keith. That and the fact that Lance just had to tell someone or he’d have exploded by now. Today the usual relief won’t come and instead the dark, squirmy feeling in his stomach intensifies at Hunk’s effort to calm him down.

Hunk doesn’t believe him.

“It’s … it’s not just that”, Lance tries again, his words slow and unsure as he’s trying to decide if he really wants to go there. But Hunk is his best friend, if there’s anyone he should be able to tell about this it’s him. “He’s also kinda … I mean Keith’s getting a little … pushy...”

The scrape of metal on metal quiets down and a moment later Hunk slides into view again, a dark smear of something oily along his cheekbone. He leans against the machine, head cocking to the side.

“Pushy how?”

At last he’s paying attention. Lance lets out a deep breath, then starts squirming as he remembers that he has to tell Hunk now.

“So, uh...”, he begins, uncomfortable but unable to take anything back. “You remember how I said we hadn’t … done anything, yet? Like … sexual?”

There’s surprise in Hunk’s expression.

“Yeah, I’m … not sure how many details I need on that?” It’s said with a trace of laughter but Lance knows he’s only partly joking. Still, they can’t just leave it at that.

“No, listen. He’s getting kinda … demanding? Like, trying to do stuff I’m not okay with and it’s...” Scary. It’s scary, that’s what it is. But Lance still has problems admitting that to himself, let alone another person. Even if that other person is his best friend.

A deep frown appears on Hunk’s face and he throws the pliers aside, plopping down in front of Lance instead to give him his full attention.

“What do you mean he’s trying to do stuff? Did he…?”

“No!” Lance shakes his head quickly. “No, he didn’t really do anything. It’s just, the last few times we … you know, he tried to … well, to take it further...”

There’s a storm brewing in Hunk’s eyes as he crosses his arms, muscles flexing.

“Did you tell him to stop?”

“Yeah...”

“Did he stop?” It’s more a demand than a question at this point, Hunk’s voice hard and firm and Lance feels his heartbeat speed up.

“...yeah.”

A moment of silence, then Hunk’s expression softens somewhat but the hard set to his jaw remains and he doesn’t uncross his arms when he speaks again.

“Do you want me to talk to him?”

Lance pauses. Does he?

Hunk might be the sweetest, most kind and soft-hearted teddy bear, but Lance had also personally witnessed other sides of him. Had seen how angry and scary Hunk could get when he felt he needed to protect his friends.

But after taking a while to contemplate the question Lance decides that no, he doesn’t want or need anyone to fight his battles for him. All he needs is someone to help him make sense of all this. Someone to tell him he isn’t going crazy.

Besides, they’re still a team and the last thing he wants is to cause any more friction.

Lance shakes his head.

“Just … talk to me, okay?”

Slowly Hunk uncrosses his arms and leans back onto his hands, but Lance notices the way he has to force himself to relax, to let go of the anger brewing in his eyes until they’re soft and kind again. “Okay”, Hunk nods back, his voice considerably calmer and more patient. “Let’s think about this, yeah? Can you remember when that started? Him being … more pushy?”

Lance doesn’t even need to think about it. He has every weird observation filed away in a neat little timeline, every single time Keith acted way too aggressive or possessive or demanding, every strange quirk since he came out of that pod.

Of course he can’t hit Hunk with all of that at once so he opts to simply answer the question for now.

“A while after we got him out of the pod. I think, maybe a day or two after he punched Shiro?”

Hunk nods and hums like he’s watching some puzzle pieces fall into place.

“And before he never did anything like that?”

“Never.” Lance shakes his head, thinking back to simpler times when Keith was all clumsy and cute and inexperienced, so touch-starved that the lightest brush of Lance’s fingers against his neck made him purr with delight and every awkward, beautiful kiss had him whimpering.

“Actually I used to be the one who started stuff but since he got injured he’s just...”

“Yeah okay, I get the picture”, Hunk interrupts, sounding urgent but decisive as he nods seriously.

“I got an idea. But first of all you need to know … that none of this is your fault. Keith is the one in the wrong and you should definitely tell him to cut the crap or else I’ll have to have a little conversation with him after all.”

Lance swallows at the subtle growl sneaking back into Hunk’s voice, the sharp flash in his eyes that melts away as quickly as it sparked to life.

“Okay?”

“I mean it, it’s not cool of him to wanna pressure you into stuff and there’s no excuse for it. But I think there’s a reason why he’s doing all that … weird stuff.”

“Oh yeah?”, Lance mumbles, suddenly very interested in is fingers and the scabbed skin around his nailbeds that he just recently started picking again. Hunk gives a deep sigh before he continues.

“Buddy, he almost died. I know it wasn’t really the first time but definitely the worst and, I think that’s more important, the first since you two got together, right?”

“Right”, Lance agrees quickly. He knows that, has thought about it at length, but that can’t be everything… “I know. I gave him time to get his shit together. But it’s been a while and he’s not getting any better and I … I just don’t know what else to do...”

“No, I don’t think you’ll have to do anything. And I think he does have it together, in a way...” Before Lance can frown and ask what the hell Hunk is talking about his friend continues.

“See, he almost died without doing a whole lot of stuff. Like actually treat you like his boyfriend or doing some other … things. I mean who wants to die a virgin, right?”

There’s a short, awkward laugh tacked onto the sentence that makes Lance bristle for some reason and he hugs his leg closer to his chest.

“So what are you saying, he had some cheesy Carpe Diem revelation?”

Hunk pauses and takes a moment to scratch his head, contemplating.

“You know, that expression is used wrong all the time...”

Lance frowns.

“What?”

“Yeah, I mean it does mean Seize the Day but not in the way most people think. The Romans actually used it to say that a day is short and in order to get anything done you need to work hard now to reach your goals. The actual flipside of that expression is Memento Mori, remember you’re going to die. Which was used to express that in the end all your accomplishments won’t matter when you’re dead and you might as well enjoy yourself while you’re still alive. That’s just kinda morbid so I think most people prefer the Carpe Diem concept … anyway, if you wanna put it like that, Keith actually had a Memento Mori revelation. Quite literally, too...”

Sometime during the explanation Lance feels his frown melt away, Hunk’s calm, steady voice washing over him and managing to mute the nervous, electric hum under his skin just a little.

“So...”, he mumbles when Hunk has finished, eyes flicking up to his friend again who is settled so easily across from him on the floor. “I should just try it because life is short?”

Hunk’s face falls, more quickly than Lance has ever seen, and he lets out a scandalized sound.

“No!”, he cries out, a noise that echoes in the workshop. “I said it’s an explanation, not an excuse! Just something to keep in mind while you talk to him about this.”

Lance chews on his lip, says nothing for a while as he thinks about Hunk’s words. Maybe he’s right. Maybe Keith has been acting this weird because almost dying made him realize a few things, like that he doesn’t want to die a virgin.

Or maybe it’s something else entirely. Something that none of them would ever even want to consider.

When Hunk speaks again his voice is quiet and careful, worried.

“You … will talk to Keith, right?”

“Yes”, Lance rasps without paying attention, way too lost in his own thoughts.

He won’t talk to Keith.

Part VIII

[If you enjoy this story consider buying me a coffee or check out how to commission me!]

#Klance #Lance McClain #Lance #Hunk Garret #Hunk #vld #horror #angst #fic: A Different Breed #fic: adb #vld horror big bang

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premk-blog · 4 years

Text

The power of culture: How to hire and attract amazing people

Before Amazon bought Zappos.com for $1.2 billion, the online shoe retailer was already known for two things: exceptional customer service and a vibrant company culture.

As CEO Tony Hsieh once said, “Zappos is a customer service company that just happens to sell shoes.”

Zappos empowers its call center staff to make emotional connections and to wow their customers in every interaction. That explains the service-driven reputation. But how do you create a strong, healthy culture — especially as your company grows?

Well, Zappos defined 10 core values that guide the whole organization. It’s their hiring process, though, that really stands out.

Zappos has two different interview types. The first explores the candidate’s abilities, experience, and team fit. The usual stuff.

Next, the HR department does another round, purely to evaluate culture fit. As Hsieh told Forbes back in 2010, you have to pass both interview types to get the job:

“We’ve rejected many talented people who we know would have made an immediate impact on our top or bottom line. Because culture is our number one priority, we’re willing to give up short-term profits or revenue growth to make sure we have the best culture. In fact, after orientation we offer people $2,000 not to work at Zappos. The ones who stay are right for our culture.”

Also, when an applicant flies in for an interview, the company sends a shuttle to the airport. Zappos leaders will later ask the driver if the person was nice, or if they were rude or standoffish.

No matter how talented the candidate, rude people never make the cut. Talk about living your culture — and your values.

Ambitious companies attract ambitious people

“Talent is the multiplier. The more energy and attention you invest in it, the greater the yield.”

- Marcus Buckingham, author and business consultant

It starts at the roots. Whether you’re selling airline tickets, eyeglasses, software, or burritos, you need to have a great product.

After all, talented people want to work in organizations that make an impact. They want to change the world — even just a little. And there are many ways to become world class.

There’s a terrific restaurant near our office that changes its menu every month. If you’re an ambitious, creative chef who’s hungry to learn, this is where you want to land.

Even if you provide a “boring” product (like, ahem ahem, web forms), your approach could make it an amazing place to work.

“If you are lucky enough to be someone’s employer, then you have a moral obligation to make sure people do look forward to coming to work in the morning.”

- John Mackey, CEO, Whole Foods

Culture can be a major asset. It helps you to attract top-notch people and encourages them to stay for the long run.

1. Ensure a comfortable work environment

Make sure your office is a place you and your team want to spend time in, even if it’s small. Equip staff with powerful technology, up-to-date equipment, and all the tools they need to work safely and efficiently. Free drinks and snacks don’t hurt (but you don’t need the ping-pong table). All these details are also cheap to provide, relative to employee salaries. Don’t cut corners on your most valuable asset.

2. Always choose positive, collaborative people

I know it might sound simple, but having smart, friendly, talented, positive people lays the foundation for your culture. Good people attract more good people, and you’re also promoting an inspiring work environment. Nothing will send people running for the door faster than a culture of infighting, gossip, and petty competition.

Leverage good word-of-mouth

You’re scrolling through Instagram. In one post, your friend tags a hotel they love. The next post is a sponsored ad for a competing hotel brand.

Which are you more likely to remember and try for yourself?

Real endorsements from our network are powerful. If you love your job, company, or work environment, you’re likely to tell friends and family.

We post our job openings on LinkedIn and online job boards. We’ve also used head-hunters for leadership positions. But nothing works better than word-of-mouth.

When valued employees refer their friends and former colleagues, we pay close attention. These are often our best candidates.

Interview efficiently and decide quickly:

According to a recruiting survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, employers hiring new college graduates take, on average, two weeks to make a job offer after an interview.

Beyond new graduates, author and HR expert Liz Ryan says companies should never take more than 3–4 business days to contact or share feedback with candidates after an interview.

Often, we call the candidate as they’re walking to their car — right after the interview.

If you don’t move fast, there’s a good chance someone else will snap up a great employee. Forget about waiting periods or outdated rules and do it your way.

How is it possible to move so quickly?

Well, we believe in having all the decision makers in the room. Everyone has the chance to observe and ask questions.

After the interview, we have a five-minute discussion. If it’s a long debate, the person is probably not right. But a quick, easy consensus usually means that we’ve found a great fit.

Hire for skills and knowledge:

Knowledge and skills are not the same.

Whatever position you’re hiring for, ask the candidate to perform a hands-on task. Over the years, we’ve encountered both “developers” who can’t actually code and dark horses who performed far beyond our expectations.

It’s equally important to talk with the applicant about their chosen field. Can you have an intelligent discussion? Do their ideas and arguments make sense?

Sometimes, people speak in buzzwords but they don’t have real knowledge. They’ve just memorized headlines and jargon.

Ultimately, it’s a matter of balance. Candidates need to have some real skills (and that level will vary by position), but the right person can also acquire what they’re missing.

The same goes for knowledge. Young employees will gain deeper expertise over time, but if they’re truly interested in the topic, they will already have opinions about marketing or data science or design.

One more note: Watch for people with side projects. If a developer has their own app, for example, that’s a great sign. It means they’re ambitious and engaged.

In different fields, this could also be a blog, a podcast, a passion for reading, participation in a professional group, or taking extra classes and workshops.

“Leadership is absolutely about inspiring action, but it is also about guarding against mis-action.”

- Simon Sinek, author, speaker and marketing consultant

Company culture is like the infinity symbol, or the old chicken-or-the-egg dilemma.

Which comes first: great people who establish a healthy culture, or a healthy culture that attracts great people?

Answer: it doesn’t matter.

People talk about culture as a static entity, but it’s constantly changing. Culture also has its own equilibrium. Sometimes it evolves for the better, and sometimes it needs to be nudged in a better direction.

Internal culture is a topic that can easily fill entire books, but here are my top lessons.

Culture changes as you grow

Our first 10 employees were men. That wasn’t my intention. It just happened, but then I learned about this mistake and realized we needed to attract more women. As the balance (happily) shifted, our company became more professional, just to name one improvement. Change made us stronger. These are the kind of culture shifts that organizations should always embrace.

People influence the culture

Let your staff contribute. Our small, cross-functional teams naturally develop their own cultures — and that’s a good thing. They enrich our entire company and make more interesting and diverse place to work.

Don’t enable incongruent behavior

Just as Zappos measured candidates’ humility and openness by talking to their shuttle drivers, it’s important to weed out both people and actions that don’t match your values.

For example, we care deeply about our users and we take responsibility when they make mistakes.

One day, we were watching a usability test, and an employee joked that the user was stupid. I realized that I had to immediately change the narrative, without publicly chastising the employee.

I told the team that we should assume people are busy and overwhelmed. That’s why our goal is to make a simple, incredibly easy-to-use product.

If we had all laughed, other team members would have assumed that it’s okay to mock our users — and that doesn’t align with our values or our culture.

“A company’s culture is the foundation for future innovation. An entrepreneur’s job is to build the foundation.”

- Brian Chesky, co-founder and CEO of Airbnb

While I’ve never offered someone thousands of dollars NOT to take a job, we do believe in humility and we reward learning. I’ll also share a little secret.

Every intern — whether they’re studying programming, marketing, UI, design, or business — spends their first week answering customer support questions.

Throughout this process, they are being rated; not just on their skills, but also on how they listen and treat our customers.

Sometimes, they think support work is beneath them. That attitude overshadows their skills and their knowledge.

And those interns will never have a seat in our company.

#recruitment #jobs hiring

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imaginetonyandbucky · 7 years

Note

Tony has terrible nightmares, but because of the chair Bucky no longer gets dreams at all (which makes him feel less human). Cue trying to support each other even when they are kinda jealous. Also, you guys are fabulous!!

A/N: I thought this would make a lovely short angsty-turned-fluffy ficlet…then I realized it’s me and that’s never going to happen. So it’s a bit of a Hulk-sized fic with enough angst to down an Asgardian demi-god, but enough fluff and fun to - hopefully - make it all worth it ^^ It takes place post-WS movie *glares fiercely at CW* and is entirely from Bucky’s POV. Enjoy the ride!

~Lantia

Dream a Little Dream of Me Ch1/4

I shuffle into the kitchen, nodding at the two early-bird occupants ingreeting.

“Morning to you too, grumpy,” Clint rolls his eyes and extends his hand tome, holding a large pot of coffee. “Here, try the Stark Potion of Life.”

I sit down, glaring at the offering. It’s a nice gesture from the archer,but the sight of the sloshing dark black beverage turns my stomach. And tothink he called it a Potion of Life.

Ridiculous.

“Yeah, good decision, dude,” Sam clasps a firm hand on my shoulder and ittakes all of my regained self-control and then some to not flinch away or worse– murder the birdman where he sits next to me. “That thing could kill anAsgardian demi-god with the caffeine high it induces. No idea what Stark putsinto it but it should come with a biohazard warning.”

“True, but it can also revive dead people,” Clint shrugs, putting the potback on the far side of the table. “Tony resurrects with it every morning.”

“S’what he gets for staying up so late in the workshop. JARVIS should set acurfew for him,” Sam suggests and removes his offending limb from my arm so hecan continue to munch down on his sandwich.

“I assure you, Mister Wilson, I havesuch protocols to execute, if needed,” JARVIS replies and this time I doflinch at the unexpected sound.

Even after months spent in the Tower, I still can’t shake off thejumpiness. At first I – and everyone else – thought it was just because it’s anew place for me, full of unknown things just waiting to catch me off guard. Sothey said it’s completely normal and fine, that I’ll get used to it.

But I’m not getting used to it.

No matter how comfortable I feel around the other Avengers, the moment oneof them breaks into my personal bubble, I all but physically shrink and have towill myself not to push them away – or straight up run away.

JARVIS’s disembodied voice never fails to startle me no matter how carefulthe AI is with me – I appreciate that he at least noticed my anxiousness andalways tries to announce himself first somehow, in a lowered voice too, but itdoesn’t seem to make a difference to my fried brain.

The Avengers on the other hand have little regard for my personal space orthe discomfort they cause with breeching it - mainly because Steve doesn’t andmainly because I don’t have the heart to stop them. I shrugged Steve’s friendlyhand off my back once and the face he made? I’m not quite ready to see that oneagain.

Everyone is just so nice to me even if they have all the reasons not to be.I don’t wanna ruin that even if it’s starting to threaten the bits and piecesof my remaining sanity.

“Sweet! What was it about?” Clint brings me out of my reverie with hisexcited whistle.

“What do ya think,” Sam wiggles his eyebrows.

“Oooooh, dirty dreams. Tell me everything,” Clint folds his handsflat on the table in front of him, leaning closer. “Who was it?”

(Read-more ahead!)

“Nah uh! I ain’t kiss and tellin’!” Sam pouts, leaning away from the table.

“A-hah! So there was kissing!Alright, now we’re getting somewhere!”

I watch the two bird men – as Stark affectionately calls them – trying tolook neutral. Although the idea of fleeing the room without a word is an optionI’m starting to consider.

“You’re married, dude. You don’t need frisky dreams, you’ve got real life!”

It’s Clint’s time to pout, but he aims it my way. “Married…so what? It’sgossip! Friskier the better, right? Soooo?” he adds, regaining his mischievousgrin.

“So?” I repeat and let a little bit of the Winter Soldier creep into mystare, despite trying to avoid everything connected to the HYDRA-made assassin.I know what Clint’s up to – he has this discussion with the rest of the teamevery morning, but I always manage to dodge it. Not today it seems.

Where is everyone this morning anyway?!

“What about your dream? Anything gossip worthy?”

Sam leans back on the table in apparent interest and that’s where Iseriously think about the run and hide maneuver.

I would love to answer his question, in high details, I really would. I’vegot issues, I know that. A little bit of small talk between guys is not one ofthem though.

Only if it wasn’t this damn topic.

“I…don’t remember,” I reply, hoping the lazy shrug gives my statement morecredibility than my voice.

I remember. Every little detail – in fact. The empty, dark nothingness thatare my dreams is not that difficult to remember.

“Boooring,” Clint groans and buries his head back into the cornflake bowl.

I didn’t lie to him completely, to be honest. I don’t even remember thelast time I properly dreamt. It was way before HYDRA, that’s for sure. Butsince my scattered memory is being difficult even at providing me with namesand faces of my long lost friends, remembering dreams or the process ofdreaming itself was out of the question.

I tried all kinds of things to coax my subconscious into dreaming. Just oneshort silly dream. Hell, even a nightmare, just something.

Instead, I close my eyes and see nothing. I fall asleep and see nothing.And when I wake up, that’s how it makes me feel.

Like nothing.

It’s what HYDRA wanted me to be and the sons of bitches succeeded. Afterthe chair, the conditioning, the mistreatment - there were no dreams. Even whenthey put me under and let me frozen to be used later for weeks, months and evenyears, I still dreamt of nothing. And it served as a perfect reminder of what Iwas – the Winter Soldier. An empty shell of a weapon for HYDRA to wield andnothing more.

I don’t know why this particular thing bothers me so much, but it does.It’s like HYDRA decided to take everything away from me – everything that made mehuman. Even the smallest of things like dreams. So now that I’m trying to takecontrol of my life back, I can’t seem to piece my humanity back together, nomatter how far I reach. And everyone around just reminds me how broken beyondrepair I really am.

They laugh, joke, hug and bicker playfully with each other.

Dream at night.

And I can’t do any of that, not without faking it. How do I even begin tofake dreaming?!

“Jeeeez…I think I’ve just seen all the way down to your bowels, Tony, whatthe hell?” Clint cringes, looking over my shoulder.

I glance behind me just in time to see Stark finish what must have been ahuge yawn and his admittedly exhausted face then twists into a squinty glare,burning through Clint’s head. It quickly melts away though when Clint onceagain makes the coffee offering.

The engineer’s eyes light up at the sight and in two long strides he’s bythe table, letting Clint pour an unhealthy amount of the black liquid into hislarge, crimson mug.

“Resurrecting twice in one day? Did you have that bad of a night?” Clint asks, putting the pot once again as farfrom them as possible, as if the coffee is a hazard just by proximity.

Stark halts his gulping for a second there and stiffens. With a nonchalantshrug he then rounds Clint to sit down near the coffee pot like nothinghappened but I notice the momentary slip. “How about three nights…Fury’s goddamn project is giving me a headache,” heexplains further and something about it just doesn’t feel right. Both Clint andSam just chuckle, clearly not finding anything wrong with his explanation.

“What does the Lord of the Kinks want now?” Clint snickers, but Starkdoesn’t seem to share his amusement. And that’s a red light right there.

I don’t know the man very well – from all the Avengers I probably knowStark the least – but whenever he graces the team with his presence, even inthese early mornings, he never fails to brightly smile and respond to Clint’sjokes in kind. I was trained to notice these things – or rather, the WinterSoldier was. Paying attention to the surroundings and the people was vital tomissions, after all. And it’s probably the only part of the Soldier programmingI don’t mind, because it allows me at least some insight while my social skillsremain to be questionable.

“What do you think? He leveled threehelicarriers with the ground. I would tell him to go demand new ones fromHYDRA, but I doubt they would indulge him…as if they even could with their nextto nonexistent technical skills,” he snorts into his mug, taking another longgulp. His eyes travel across the table, resting on my left hand with a frown,but at the same time with a spark of interest.

Steve warned me right away that the engineer will try to get his hands on my hand as soon as I move into the Tower. To be honest, I dreadedthat more than meeting Natasha – again. But contrary to Steve’s warning, Starkmerely offered me the option to come down to the workshop for repairs if neededand made no attempts to touch or handle the metal arm in any way since, clearlysurprising everyone.

Now that I think about it, it’s not just the metal arm but the whole of my personthat Stark stays clear from. Not that he would outright walk in gigantic circlesaround me or simply not even walk inside a room I’m in, but unlike the rest ofthe Avengers, Stark doesn’t touch.

No clasping on the shoulder like Thor and Sam, no half-hugging like Steveand Clint, no sudden – albeit gentle – hand on my forearm like from Natasha orBruce and not even any prompt for high-fives like from Rhodey. Stark partakesin the hugs and such with the others but never with me, specifically.

I’m grateful, really. But at the same time suspicious as to why. Maybe hedoesn’t like me, hates me…is afraid of me? But other than the touching, theengineer doesn’t behave any different around me, isn’t ignoring, glaring orotherwise mean to me.

It’s so confusing.

“You gotta save me and my gossip fix for the day then!” Clint demands afteranother minute of simply complaining about Fury. “Sam refuses to share hisfrisky dream with me, this dude doesn’t remember his and Nat said she wouldtell me…but would also have to kill me afterwards so…you’re my only hope, man!”

Stark does the thing again – pauses mid sip for enough time for a trainedeye to notice, body tensing and face neutral before falling back into the act.Because that’s what I recognize it as – an act. And here I thought I corneredthe market on acting.

“Sorry, bird-brain. Haven’t done much sleeping, remember? The doubleresurrection,” he adds, pointing at his second big mug of coffee this morning.

“Ah…damn! What now?” Clint whines, moving the half-empty cornflakes bowlaway.

“Wait for Thor to wake up,” Stark suggests casually. “He will definitelyhave some frivolous magicky dream story for you.”

Clint groans and finally collapses onto the table, head buried in hishands. “Never again,” he raises his head only for a moment to squint at Stark.“Last time he spent an hour telling me how he talked to a toaster in his dream.A toaster. A talking toaster.”

“And then he tried actually talking to this one,” Sam chuckles, nodding atthe toaster on the counter.

“So much for that…and I’m not waiting for Cap to tell me all about hisvanilla walk in the park or whatever, seriously. His dreams are more boringthan his war stories.”

“Hey now,” Sam glares at him. “Those are pretty funny!”

“The first time around. After a dozen it gets a bit…repetitive,”Clint returns the glare.

The two of them start discussing the other Avengers’ dream stories, whileStark quietly continues to sip on his coffee at the other side of the table.

I’ve had enough.

After yet another dreamless night I really don’t need to sit here listeningto this. So I get up without a word and leave, hoping perhaps a run could settlemy thoughts.

I catch Stark’s frown following me on my way out but try not to think toomuch about it.

#winteriron #tony x bucky #tony stark #bucky barnes #post WS #slow burn #angst #JARVIS is love #prompts #lantia #evererin

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meditationadvise · 7 years

Text

How to Be Mindful 24/7

" Let's play Ramona." Those three words from my six-year-old influence a deep inner cringe (that I try to be mindful of). "Ramona" is my daughter's invented doll game, based upon the precious timeless book Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary. Beezus is the "great" sis-- the dutiful, courteous, compliant daughter, while Ramona is the "bad" little sis who secures a pet dog in the washroom, scribbles in collection books, and chefs her doll in the oven.

Mira, my little girl, has exercised the game to ensure that she is Beezus and I have to act out Ramona's voice, however, did I discuss? Ramona is a mermaid doll with pink hair. Ramona endangers to do awful things like spray paint on the wall, struck individuals actually hard, and also pee on the rug. Beezus/Mira responds with horror and admonitions at Ramona's plans, and always manages to prevent the wicked intents. "Ha-ha Ramona, you cannot pee on the carpet since I sprayed magic fairy dirt on it!" "Rats," claims Ramona.

My mostly agreeable little girl is plainly delighting in acting out her shadow side, or a minimum of enjoying it acted out by me. For this reason I am ready to play this game, although that I essentially dislike it.

In order for me to play this video game all the time, I count on my best relational mindfulness abilities. I provide my little girl (as well as the dolls) a deep presence. When I get distressed or bored, which is the majority of the moment, I collaborate with my emotions. When I space out, I bring myself into today moment. I attempt to reveal up with credibility and love.

Whether or otherwise you have a child, all of us are relating, frequently. Whether it is to our companion, associates, friends, next-door neighbors, or the individual at the blog post workplace, being with an additional human being is an unbelievable possibility to exercise mindfulness, as well as we obtain to do it all the time long.

At the Mindful Recognition Study Facility, we call techniques that involve taking mindfulness "off the padding" (although most of us being in chairs) and out into the globe of talking, listening, and interacting, "relational mindfulness." Commonly mindfulness pupils claim they do not have time to exercise mindfulness in the midst of their hectic lives, but if they were to bring mindfulness right into the countless verbal communications they have throughout the day, they can be practicing mindfulness 24/7.

No one has to know what you are doing. It's a type of "stealth" mindfulness-- you could practice all day long and no one will know.

In a culture that is currently deifying interference, where people reside in a state of overwhelm, where virtual existence is considered equally as useful as actual visibility, where two-year-olds are proficient at apples iphone, where at any restaurant on any type of provided day you will see an entire family members overlooking each other while pecking at their gadgets, relational mindfulness could be a radical act, both directly and culturally.

When my colleague Dr. Marvin Belzer and I initially started showing these practices, it was with teens and university student. In among Marv's very early meditation classes at the college-level, he discovered that numerous of his students connected with a fundamental reflection method, yet some just really did not click with it. Maybe they were bored or uneasy, or really felt as well distressed to sit still. As soon as he started to present relational practices, consisting of speaking as well as listening in dyads and also triads, small groups, and also bigger team techniques, he found these hard-to-reach trainees were unexpectedly "obtaining" mindfulness. Students discovered they can focus on the here and now quickly while hearing their peers. They unwinded into an all-natural state of existence, without a great deal of initiative. And also it started to have causal sequence in their lives. While Marv continuouslied highlight the value of regular quiet meditation technique, particularly as an assistance to these relational practices, he knew by the trainees' responses that he was on to something.

Of program he was not the only one trying out such practices. We understand several various other instructors, coworkers, as well as buddies that have actually originated these kinds of practices, and also over the years we have been affected by different approaches varying from within the mindfulness area as well as the treatment world, to workshops on intimacy.

What we have actually found is relational mindfulness methods enable for a two-fold procedure. An all-natural, effortless mindfulness could arise as well as be sustained via these techniques, coupled with a deep exploration of our inner life, all assisted in via the existence of a caring witness/listener. When an individual offers their complete existence to an additional, without jumping in or aiming to take care of or transform the other's experience, amazing things could happen. And also via the high quality of attention provided to an additional, intimacy is cultivated. People feel seen, recognized, also in a dramatically short time. Often we exercise these dyad workouts for only a minute and also a half but people report intimacy, connection, as well as deepness. So how do we practice it?

Learn to Listen

Here's exactly what I see about paying attention these days. A lot of us are not so efficient it. Exactly what do we generally do when we're paying attention? Allow's put aside the increasing occurrence of individuals on their mobile phones Instagramming or texting when you're attempting to tell them something essential. Every person does other (often) subtler as well as similarly frustrating points: We reduced individuals off, we enter and attempt to "repair" people. We transform the discussion toward us considering that although what they are informing us is necessary, when the exact same thing occurred to me last Thursday it was sort of remarkable and just wait till you hear just how I managed it! We're responsive as well as lost in our responses rather of genuinely paying attention. Or we show up to be paying attention however our mind isn't really absolutely on it: Now was that dress white as well as gold or blue as well as black? ... oh, exactly what were you saying?

Yet we have actually all had the experience of being listened to by an excellent listener. There is an apparent outcome: we really feel listened to as well as recognized as well as truly seen. That individual may understand nothing regarding mindfulness, yet they are a mindful listener.

The guidelines above may be basic, but individuals have to practice them to find exactly what will certainly work best for each and every individual. Some individuals take a mindful breath once in a while. Some individuals periodically observe their feet touching the ground, or their hands on their lap, or their back versus the chair. Any physical feeling that can be easily seen and also gone back to will certainly function. For some people it could be a continuous awareness, nonetheless, for the majority of people it functions as a periodic tip to instantly come back to the present.

When I'm playing Ramona, I utilize my body to help me concentrate. I maintain my interest on my child, when I notice feelings of monotony emerging, I note them--" there's dullness"-- then go back to my center while articulating Ramona's most current escapade.

Speak Skillfully

Perhaps it's an understatement to claim we reside in a globe that is in brief supply of conscious speech, so we do not truly have clear models to go on. I specify mindful speech as speaking authentically from our heart. Usually we simply open our mouths and also let whatever comes out appeared. One friend utilized to call this "tiny mouth sounds." Frequently we talk when we want to load the area, when we're uneasy, when we don't understand just what else to do. With conscious speaking, nevertheless, words are spoken to a little bit much more treatment and also intentionality.

We could after that, every so often, verbalize exactly what it is we bear in mind. And this recognition can aid increase the ability to be a lot more mindful. For circumstances, if I'm having a discussion with a person and it's making me disappointed, I could explain in words, "Wow, I see irritation arising in me as we're chatting." This is not stated in a blaming means: "You're pissing me off!" It's regarding making mindful just what's taking place inside and after that expressing it to enhance the connection.

This requires time and technique to do masterfully, so I don't suggest delving into it. Simply begin to grow the internal awareness when you're chatting, as well as periodically make some aspect of that recognition vocally specific. It does not need to be that sophisticated: "As we discuss this I see my cheeks are getting purged." "Wow, I'm mindful of just how worn out I remain in this moment." The speech both fleshes out the mindfulness and permits the act of speaking with aid you discover more about on your own as well as what's occurring in the here and now moment. It keeps an internal recognition alive.

In my situation, I could state to my child, "Hmm, I observe my tummy hurts when I consider playing Ramona, I think I'm a little distressed since we've played it a lot today. Yet I do intend to have fun with you so I'll take a deep breath. Allow's just play for 10 minutes."

Be Mindful 24/7

So exactly how would mindful talking as well as listening work in actual time? As I claimed previously, it's not always proper for every circumstance. Occasionally curt, business-like, rather separated speech or fast sidetracked listening is all you could round up, or you merely do not have the moment. That's fine. Just exercise when the conditions feel ideal to you.

But if you choose you desire to practice it, you have limitless opportunities throughout the day. Never again will certainly you have the reason that you have no time to exercise mindfulness.

First, it's important to obtain to know just how these concepts can run for you in the real world. Not everyone is mosting likely to use every standard, as well as it's most likely you'll adapt them creatively so they really function for you. You could find paying attention is a lot less complicated and also you have extra energy for that, as well as you could just desire to provide your existence while remaining linked to your feet. Or establish a purpose to speak authentically, maintaining understanding of your internal experience in a specific situation.

No one has to understand just what you are doing. I duplicate: No person has to recognize just what you are doing. It's a type of "stealth" mindfulness-- you could practice all day as well as no person will certainly know.

Here's just what it could appear like:

Come house after work and also really hear your companion duct, without judgment, interruptions, or taking it personally.

Stay existing throughout a conference and practice deep listening even when you don't feel like it.

When a person asks you how you are, instead of reflexively stating "great," or "busy," sign in with on your own, and see what's really taking place in the moment.

Get off your phone as well as fully involve with the check-out person at the grocery store store.

The possibilities are endless.

Although individuals won't understand, they will certainly really feel the influence. Time after time trainees go back to our classes sharing how they existed wherefore seemed like the initial time with a relative and just how the family members member said on it.

As you technique, the standards might really feel initially clunky, but gradually, as you make them your very own, they will concern really feel entirely regular, they will certainly begin to be 2nd nature as well as you will certainly have symbolized them. It takes a little time making it through the trying out phase, after that practicing consistently, however with time speaking and listening this way will certainly be just "that you are."

I am aware that one of the most important thing in my relationship with my child is how I am, not just what I state or do-- although clearly these points are important. If I can remain existing, open, and connected, even during playing Ramona, I can most likely do it anywhere.

Guidelines for Conscious Listening

1) Give the speaker your full attention. This is much easier said compared to done, however merely needs an intent to do so and a little bit of determination. We could supply our existence in an unwinded means, just being there for one more. Mindfully concentrate on the individual. Allow them be your primary things of awareness.

2) Utilize your body to assist you stay present. Our body is an extraordinary entrance right into the here and now moment. Our mind could be anywhere: previous, future, lost, responsive, spaced out, imagining, pondering, mad, anxious ... however our bodies are constantly in the here and now minute. If we can remember to bring our minds into our bodies-- simply really feel a body sensation or 2-- while we are paying attention, we have instant access to the present moment.

3) When your focus stray (as well as it will certainly) simply return it to the present moment, which means hearing them. This standard is similar to how we practice our resting reflection: We concentrate on our breathing or whatever is our main object, when our mind wanders-- and also it always roams-- we carefully, but firmly, return our focus to our breath. This aspect of the method must be acquainted to any individual that practices mindfulness meditation.

Guidelines for Conscious Speaking

1) Talk authentically from our heart. Can we learn how to talk in such a way that we feel linked to our psyches, to ensure that we are sharing what holds true? Now absolutely this has to be well-timed-- we're possibly not going to bare our spirit to the barista making our coffee. But we can, in proper moments, actively consult with more intentionality and link to ourselves.

2) As with mindful listening, we can constantly go back to our bodies to come back to the present moment. When our speech gets detached, rambling, unhelpful, shed, we could take a conscious breath, or discover our bodies standing or sitting (or whatever it's doing). This can return us to the here and now minute as well as potentially renew our connection to mindful speech.

3) We could always use speech itself in order to help us be more mindful. Once again, this is time-sensitive as well as not constantly ideal in every situation, and also it's rather depending on the second standard. If we are tuned in to our body, also a bit, we could be knowledgeable about our inner life as we speak. We can see our thoughts and also emotions as well as sensibly determine when to talk and when not to speak.

Practice: Attach in Conversation

Find an eager companion. Someone will certainly speak initial and the other will certainly pay attention-- begin by choosing who. In this exercise, the initial speaker will certainly talk for 90 seconds on the topic below. The audience could nod and also smile and also show that he/ she is interested, but not interrupt. After 90 seconds, call a bell and take a silent time out to feel the influence of listening or speaking because method. Reverse duties as well as let the other person talk for 90 secs. Ring a bell, take a time out, then reconnect for a few mins (without any policies!) to share what it resembled doing the workout and also to follow up on anything you want to ask or claim based upon what your partner shared.

Use the adhering to subject: "What brings me delight?" (or develop your very own!)

Listener

Give your full interest to the other person.

Become knowledgeable about your body (breath, feet, hands, and so on) once in a while to assist stay present.

When your focus wanders, bring it back to being existing with the person.

Speaker

Speak authentically regarding just what is real for you.

Become knowledgeable about your body (breath, feet, hands, and so on) every so often to assist remain present.

Occasionally verbalize just what you know as you are talking.

#meditation #meditation classes #mindfulness meditation

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