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imaginethatneathuh · 1 month

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Lies: Baldur - God of War (2018)

Baldur x Reader, friends to potential lovers

The reader is trying to sleep, but their friend Baldur interrupts. They eventually end up cuddling, leading to Baldur finding out something new about his curse.

TW/CW: Mentions of Baldur's curse, mental deterioration, insomnia, loneliness.

Word Count: 2.1+K

•

Staring at the wood above you, you make out the profile of a screaming face in the knot. You tilt your head to the side, and the face transforms in the faint firelight. It’s now a fist with a few missing fingers. Titling your head back into its original position, you giggle.

‘It looks better as a face,’ you decide.

You’d entertained yourself for hours like this, imagining random things and talking to yourself in your head. Despite the intent to sleep, you couldn’t seem to settle down enough to do so. A million and one thoughts wheeled around in your head. The one person who, without fail, quelled those thoughts wasn’t here. But you had to sleep one way or another, with or without him.

The smile falls from your face as you turn onto your side, pulling the heavy furs and blankets over your body. They act as an impenetrable shield against the chill of the late-night air that would likely seep through by morning.

Your mind drifted back to your friend as you tried to get comfortable.

Despite how odd he’d become over the years, your dear friend’s presence was a comfort that often allowed you to rest when you otherwise couldn’t. He was your safe place. Without him, you felt exposed and vulnerable to anything and anyone who could hurt you.

If you were lucky, he might come in later and lay with you. He did that sometimes. It was nice.

Closing your eyes, you take a deep breath and hope to find sleep soon.

•

You wake, mouth dry, to a cold, dark room lit only by the moon’s will.

The fire has long since been snuffed out by neglect. The chill in the air made you pause. Your small home usually held heat well; it was only when the door opened that heat escaped into the cold of the night.

In the shadows lurking around the room, you feel like someone is there, watching your every move. Just watching and nothing more. Their eyes bear into you as if probing, searching for something that remains hidden from them.

You sigh and tug the covers closer.

“How much longer are you going to stare at me, Baldur?” You ask, frustration flickering through your tone. It didn’t stay long, fading as quickly as it came. Though you tried, you couldn’t remain mad or even annoyed at the god for long. You cared for him too much.

A small chuckle sounds through the dark room. “I don’t know. However long I feel like it, I suppose.”

Opening your eyes, you sit and push your covers off. “Come here.” You pat the space next to you on the bed.

There’s a creak as Baldur stands from a chair he’d put in the corner. “You do know I can’t feel a thing, right?” He asked, almost teasingly, though there was a tinge of sadness and longing behind it. “I don’t know what you’re hoping to accomplish by getting me into bed.”

You snort as he nears. “If you must know, I plan on using you as a pillow,” you say as you move around some more, pushing yourself as far from the edge as possible.

It’s your bed’s turn to creak as Baldur sits, his eyes glued to it as he manoeuvres his way around. He’d learned early on that it was nearly impossible to navigate in the dark without touch.

It was yet another thing stolen from him by this damn curse.

“Lay down, Baldur,” you grumble as you grab the top layer of your covers.

With only an eye-roll, he does as you say, flopping onto your bed. Despite the force, it didn’t knock the breath out of him like it would have a normal person. Like it used to do to him.

It was strange how much he missed the little things like that. Things as simple as the wind against his skin, the feel of clothing on his body, and even getting out of breath. He longed for it all desperately now that it was out of his reach.

He watched you intently as you folded a blanket up and laid it over his chest. Baldur wished he could feel it. Not only did he miss the simple feeling of the cloth itself, but he also missed you. The absence of your warm, gentle touch left a hole in his heart.

“What’s that for?” He asked, focusing back on you in the dim moonlight.

He barely made out your shrug.

“Knowing you, you probably walked out here without anything more than your trousers, and I don’t feel like getting poked in the face by your nipples.”

That caused him to laugh as you landed on his chest with a thud, pulling your covers with you.

“Fair enough,” he muttered in the dark.

At that moment, he wished he could feel you trying to get comfortable on his chest. Instead, all he could do was hear the shifting of your covers and your light grunts and grumbles.

There was once a time when that wasn’t the case. Years ago, Baldur remembered, he could feel your warmth leeching into him, your skin against his own, and your nails tracing random patterns or the intricate curves of his tattoos.

He’d missed his chance back then to tell you how he felt. Now, though, he didn’t feel like he deserved what little you gave him.

Baldur knew that he wasn’t the same god as he once was. He knew he’d broken down mentally, little by little, as the years went by. Shit, he knew that even if he got his ability to feel back right this very second and started to get back what he’d lost mentally, it wouldn’t be fair of him to ask you to wait for him to recover. He loved you too much to ask that of you.

Baldur wondered why you still let him keep the key you’d given him, why you let him watch over you as you slept even though he no longer could enjoy something so simple, and especially why you invited him to stay beside you in your bed.

It felt like someone else should be here, in his place. Someone who could wrap their arms around you without needing to see precisely what they were doing. Someone who could feel you against them. Someone who was warm and wouldn’t poke your eye out with their hard nipple.

You didn’t seem to mind, though. Every night he came, you worked with it rather than telling him to stop coming, never complaining for more than a joke.

Sometimes, he could almost forget, even briefly, that he was cursed. If he recalled his last memories of this where he could feel you, he could almost believe the curse was just some horrid dream and nothing more.

The thought made him want to weep.

But he couldn’t do that.

When he was alone, he’d weep. Let the tears stream down his face until they were all dried up, and all that’s left is a yearning to feel their path along his cheeks and for your delicate touch to wipe them away.

But not here. Not now. The last thing he wanted was to scare you with his tears.

He released a shaky breath and stared at the ceiling, wishing this whole thing was just some cruel nightmare he would wake from.

It wasn’t, though, and he knew it.

Still, a god can dream.

•

You hummed as you snuggled against him, letting an ungloved hand dip beneath the blanket you’d laid on his chest.

It had been years since you’d touched him skin-on-skin. It was usually when you’d lay your head on his chest on nights like these. These times were the only times you could stand touching anyone’s skin. But you mostly let it happen because it was Baldur, and you enjoyed the feel of him. No one else mattered, not when you had him.

You sighed, content, as your hand met his stomach, flattening itself against the tattooed skin. You traced a few hearts over the inked patterns for a moment before stilling. You pushed your hand up in one fluid motion, nails wracking a path across his chest to rest on his other pec.

•

Baldur paused in his thoughts. He could have sworn that he felt something on his chest. A fleeting feeling that disappeared just as quick as it came. It was almost like a ghost of a sensation. In the back of his mind, he knew it was nothing more than a phantom of a touch once familiar to him, his mind tricking him into thinking he was feeling something based on old memories when, in reality, he was still as numb as ever. Still, though, he indulged this phantom feeling and let his mind wander back to his last night of being able to feel you. The caress of your hand against his upper chest, rubbing against his skin. Honestly, it felt so real it almost made him cry.

He swallowed the tears, though.

If his crying woke you up… Well, that’d be just another thing to feel guilty over.

He heard you hum quietly, swearing he felt your hand move against his body, your nails lightly tracing over his tattoos as if by memory.

It was just a lie, though. Baldur had to remind himself of that. His mind was just lying to him. After all, he couldn’t feel anything else. Not the air on his face, the blankets covering him, or the clothes on his body. It would be crazy, even for him, to believe he could feel you and nothing else.

It had to be crazier than even him, but he felt your hand move against him again, and it felt so fucking real, so real that it had to be.

Still, Baldur could not let himself get his hopes up. After all, he still couldn’t feel anything else.

He was quiet as he asked, barely a murmur as he said: “Are you moving?”

After you didn’t respond, he tried again, a little louder: “Are you moving?”

You sniffled and nodded lazily against his chest. Then, of course, you remembered he couldn’t feel anything and whispered a yes.

“Why?” You asked.

Baldur bolted up like lighting did down, pushing you and the blanket from his chest.

“Baldur!” You huffed.

“Sorry,” he said.

Baldur squinted, trying to make you out in the dark before touching what he hoped was your shoulder. Upon touching it, he quickly realised that it was not your shoulder but your neck.

“Baldur, that’s my neck. Let go.”

He let out a huff and a laugh in complete disbelief.

“I know, I know it’s your neck. It’s too big to be your shoulder,” Baldur said, his voice cracking. “Far softer, too.”

“What?”

“I- I can feel.” He paused as he gently cupped your face with one hand. “I can feel you.”

Tears fell freely from his eyes, but he didn’t know that. Nor did he really care.

“You’re all I can feel, but I can still feel you!”

You paused, astonished, before you grinned like a madman in the dark. Instinctively, you reached out to him, wanting to get as close as possible. Before the curse, he had craved affection like an addict. You knew his yearning had only increased after all these years of nothingness.

“That’s great, Baldur,” you said. “I’m happy for you.”

Then, something odd happened.

You felt his other hand resting on your cheek before he kissed you.

Soft and gentle like kitten fur.

Yeah, you were pretty sure that was a kiss. The pressure of another’s lips against your own made that clear. It was surreal. Still, your tired mind couldn’t catch up to what was happening until it was too late to respond in kind.

Taking this as a sign of rejection, Baldur pulled away. And, though you couldn’t see it, Baldur found himself cringing in wait, expecting your rejection.

He allowed his mind to wander as silence consumed your home. Would you hit him? Maybe yell and ask him what it was, exactly, that made him think it was okay to kiss you? Worse yet, what if you told him to leave and never speak to you again?

“Baldur,” you said.

“Yes.”

“Did you just kiss me?”

You could hear him gulping.

“Yes…”

“Could you do it again?”

Baldur giggled at that before giving your lips a light peck again.

You hummed as he pulled away, chasing his lips for one more kiss before he let his hands rest on your shoulders and trace down your arms.

Baldur rested his forehead against yours, and you knew he was grinning even without a light.

You squeezed one of his sides before speaking. “Can I sleep now?”

He snorted before falling back onto the bed. “Fine, but I’m not letting you go.”

“I’m okay with that.”

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imaginethatneathuh · 2 months

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Raindrop Race: Pietro Maximoff/Quicksilver - Marvel (Age of Ultron)

Pietro Maximoff/Quicksilver x Reader, established relationship, romantic

The reader is racing raindrops, but Pietro interrupts them. A short fight ensues.

TW/CW: Verbal fighting

Word Count: 1.6+K

•

Rain patters against the window as you watch the water run down the panes.

You glare at two of the drops. The right one is slightly larger and more ovular than its compatriot. It looked perfect for winning a raindrop race, particularly in comparison to the left one. As you watch, it falls, and the race begins.

Righty grows bulbous as it rushes down, gathering water drops left and right. It’s a powerhouse of a raindrop.

Lefty lags behind, though. Seemingly, it refuses to soak up more water. The weight of it isn’t enough. Fortunately, as more rain comes down, Lefty is hit by a stroke of luck – and another raindrop. The luck doesn’t end there, though. No, instead, this causes Lefty to grow massive as it runs down the window pane, quickly outpacing Righty.

As Lefty nears the end, Righty decides to get with the program and picks up speed.

Will it be enough to hit the bottom before its competition?

Lefty refuses to stop, but it leaves behind a lot of water weight, slowing.

Lefty and Righty are neck-in-neck—seconds before finishing.

But then, something happens.

A gust of wind blows into you, knocking you off balance, just as the winner is about to be declared.

Pietro, the annoying ass, pulls you back into his arms, distracting you. When you focus back on the water drops, the race has finished.

The winner? Unknown.

“Dammit, Pietro!” You huffed, attempting to pull away from him.

But, as always, the speedster was too fast for his own good, and he tightened his hold around you.

“What? Can I not hug you now?”

You turn and glare at him, pushing him away.

Feeling the strength of your anger, he reluctantly lets you go, fingers trailing your sides before finally releasing you.

“Not when I was in the middle of something, Pietro!” You snapped.

He raised a brow and looked over your shoulder at the window. “There is nothing out there, though? It is just the same thing as it always is.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Besides, I thought you liked my hugs.”

Sighing, you rubbed your forehead. “I wasn’t looking out there, Piet. I was looking at the raindrops—trying to see who’d win the big race! Now, I’ll never know because you distracted me.” You gave him an accusatory glare.

Pietro’s brow furrowed, and a frown came over his face. He cocked his head to the side like a confused pup. “So, you’d rather watch the rain than get a hug from your partner?” he asked.

“Yes!” you huffed in exasperation.

Pausing, you watched as Pietro’s confused look turned to one of hurt. “Wait, no, not like that. I didn’t–”

Before you could finish, Pietro ran off in a blue and grey blur.

Sighing, you fell back into the window and muttered, “Shit.”

•

A few minutes later, you’re standing at Pietro’s door, wondering whether or not you should even be here. A part of you said yes, as you knew letting him stew for too long wouldn’t be a good idea, but the other part of you was embarrassed and still a little angry at him for distracting you. But you did love him more than Raindrop Races. It was a close call between the two, but he ultimately won.

The real question was whether to knock or just send an apology text.

On the one hand, the text would be guaranteed to reach him, but it was a lot more cowardly.

On the other hand, there was no guarantee Pietro would answer his door nor even let you get a word out before slamming the door in your face.

The man had issues with any form of rejection, especially regarding you and his sister. You could never tell what might upset him or how long he’d be upset. Usually, a good cuddle session could fix it, but sometimes, he just wanted to stew alone.

That stewing often led him to the wrong conclusions, though—sometimes scarily wrong, like when Wanda told him she was going on a date with Vision. Now, that incident was an absolute nightmare.

Glaring at his door, you grumbled before deciding to just knock.

You’d text him if he didn’t open or if he slammed the door in your face. Probably something like, “I’m sorry. I was really into the race and wanted to see who won. I didn’t mean what I said. Your hugs are the best. I’ll make it up to you if you want?”

“Piet?” you asked, rapping your knuckles against the door. “Hun, are you in there? I wanted to apologize.”

Nothing.

You waited a few seconds to give him time to think and decide.

But, still, nothing.

Knocking again, you pulled out your phone.

Just as you unlocked your phone, the door opened.

Pietro stood there, only wearing his sleep shorts and a tank top. He set one hand on the frame and the other on the door, a defensive measure to be sure. “What? I thought you would rather be watching the rain.”

You sighed and looked down, slipping your phone away. “I didn’t mean that, Piet,” you said softly. “It’s kinda like how you get into your shows and don’t want to be interrupted unless someone’s life is in danger. I just got really into it like that. I’m sorry, hun. Your hugs are one of my favorite things, I swear,” you pleaded with a tentative step forward.

You searched his face for any signs of forgiveness. When he showed none, you added, “I’ll make it up to you if you want me to?”

That grabbed his attention, and his furrowed brow relaxed. His lips parted slightly. He crossed his arms over his chest and eyed you suspiciously.

“How exactly do you plan on making it up to me?” he asked.

You shrugged. “I hadn’t really thought that far ahead,” you said. “Maybe we can cuddle?”

A giant grin spread over Pietro’s face as his eyes lit up at the mention.

The man was just too easy.

“Cuddles? Like, under the blankets, settled-down, lazy day cuddles?” he asked.

“Yes, hun, cuddles.” You smiled at his boyishness.

Without saying another word, Pietro pulled you into his room and slammed the door shut. He picked you up and tossed you onto the bed as you squealed.

“Pietro! Don’t do that!”

He just grinned before joining you. “You promised cuddles, and I want cuddles. If it is anyone’s fault, it is yours.”

“Well, you better get settled before I leave then,” you huffed, annoyed.

Your partner rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t let you,” he whispered in your ear before gently kissing your cheek.

In a blur, Pietro shed himself of his tank top and climbed in.

As you both settled in, he pulled you to his chest and wrapped his arms around you. Gently, he pressed a kiss to the top of your head. His steady heartbeat was a beautiful melody, and the feel of his skin was nothing short of heaven to you as his warmth consumed you.

“Forgive me?” you asked quietly, not wanting to break the gentle quiet.

Pietro shrugged. “We’ll see after I get my fill.”

You paused and looked up at him, silently questioning the odd statement. Your brow creased as you studied him.

Thinking back, you remembered noticing him in your peripherals but too wrapped up in the raindrops to say anything. You also remembered the feeling of his gaze on you and how he knew how much you loved your raindrop races.

What he had done hit you then as you studied your partner. “Did you do this on purpose?”

Pietro refused to look at you and just held you closer.

“Pietro,” you questioned.

A long string of silence followed.

Finally, he let out a soft “maybe…”

You rolled your eyes but settled back against him anyway.

“You could’ve just asked, ya big baby.”

“But you could have said no! And I really wanted cuddles…, plus, you were ignoring me.”

You snorted at that, a small smile on your face. “You’re still a baby...and you know what, I think you owe me something for tricking me.”

You hear more than see the nervous gulp Pietro takes at your words and the no doubt sinister smirk that's slithered its way onto your face. His arms tightened around you as he spoke, "What did you have in mind, draga?"

He uses the pet name in his native tongue to try and dissuade any mischievous thoughts from swirling through your mind, a tactic he uses quite often, only topped by his habit of speeding away. But this time, you don't let it get to you; you remain firm in your decision to "punish" him for interrupting you on purpose like the little shit he is.

"Well, honey, it's pretty simple," you said, holding your next words back, letting the first half of your sentence hang in the following silence. This caused Pietro to become twitchy, anticipating what you'd say next: " Have a raindrop race with me?"

The words barely have time to leave your lips before a resounding "Yes!" clashes through the thunder heard in the distance. You're met with a brief feeling of weightlessness until you're settled in a pillow fort in front of Pietro's bedroom window.

You chuckle at his enthusiasm, leaning back against his chest, which practically vibrates in his excitement, "You know I could have gotten up myself, right?"

"Shh! You must pick your racer and prepare yourself for defeat."

Scoffing, you push his face away from your neck, the ticklish sensation of him running his nose along the sensitive skin causing you to giggle. "You're gonna be eating those words. You may be a speedster, but I'm an expert in raindrop races."

He laughs lightly, knowing it’s true. It’s why he was so excited; you rarely did this together.

#pietro maximoff #pietro maximoff x reader #marvel #age of ultron #the avengers

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