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fanfic-scribbles · 3 years

Text

Crash Pad

Fandom: MCU Captain America/Avengers

Summary: You’re just minding your own business when the Winter Soldier crashes into your life. Literally.

Quick facts: Romance – established past Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes leading into Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes/Reader – Nondescript Reader

Warnings: Fluff, slight mention of blood

Words: 7801

A/N: I started writing this a few months ago and almost finished when my life got fairly shook up. Still, I’m quite proud of being able to eke out an ending. For anybody who only cares about this story, feel free to skip this note, but for anybody following my other stuff: writing is going to be slow for the time being. My mom died and things are pretty topsy-turvy right now. Writing is still a comfort, but head to hands isn’t working the same right now. Thanks for your patience; I hope this is a pleasant read for you in the mean time <3

You’re getting ready for bed and have just turned off the living room light when you hear a clatter on the fire escape. You haven’t gotten over to shut the window yet and you wince at the thought of maybe coming face to face with a giant rat, or a raccoon, although you haven’t yet seen a raccoon and you’re pretty sure they don’t live in the city but it would probably be better than a rat the size of a raccoon–

What you get is much, much worse as a fully grown man falls through the curtains, knocks over a side table and potted plant, and crashes onto your living room floor with a wheezed (but emphatic), “God damn it!”

You freeze, unsure of whether to run or yell or maybe both. However the man flounders on the floor, unable to otherwise move much as he holds his side and– is that blood on your floor?

“Are you okay?” you ask despite everything.

He yanks his head back to look at you and grimaces. “Fuck, I–” He tries to get up, slips in what you are almost positive is blood, and slumps over with a little sigh and a handful of muttered curses that might be in another language. “I am really sorry about this,” he says lowly, like he's embarrassed to be bleeding out in a stranger’s living room. Then he shifts a little more and moonlight gleams on his arm. His very…shiny…completely metal arm, and you find a whole new way to be concerned.

You should have known the reasonable rent was a goddamn trap.

You take a few steps back, barely avoid hitting the counter, and flick the light back on without taking your eyes away from the man on your floor. He squints at the brightness and shows you a face that is, both fortunately and unfortunately, familiar. Fortunately because Captain America and the Avengers somehow got him pardoned for potential war crimes and treason even without him being present for any of that circus of a trial. Unfortunately because…war crimes. And treason. And that is definitely blood.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts out and looks a little woozy. “There were sheets– I thought the building was empty.”

“The sheeting is for the building right next to us,” you say and sigh. “I’m going to guess you are not in favor of me calling an ambulance?”

He just blinks at you a few times. Maybe he is secretly a raccoon.

“Please don’t,” he says, some life returning to his eyes, and he looks you up and down. The rubber duck pajamas must put him at ease because, while he is still tensely holding his midsection, his shoulders relax a little. “I’m so–”

“Sorry, yes, I know.” You point at the bathroom. “I’m going to get the first aid kit and hopefully I won’t have to explain to the coroner’s office why Captain America’s boo bled out on my floor.”

You’re just opening up the cupboard that hopefully contains at least some band-aids when he calls out, “What the hell is a ‘boo?’”

Two old t-shirts, one and a half rolls of dusty gauze, and his own homemade stitch kit later, the man is finally all patched up. “How are you not passing out from blood loss?” you ask, eyeing the mess on the nice hardwood that has definitely just lost you your deposit. But there’s no corpse to deal with, so at least things aren’t as bad as they could be.

“I’m built pretty hardy.” He sits up a little more and groans. Before you can beg him not to split his side again, he extends his hand. “James Barnes. But you can call me Bucky.”

You shake his hand (gently) and tell him your name. “Do you let everybody call you Bucky, or just the people whose floor you bleed all over?” Something moving catches your eye and you sigh at the sight of your inexpensive (but still nice) curtains blowing slightly, showing off their new stains. “Floor and drapes…”

“I’ll clean it,” he says. “I can get blood out of anything.” He winces. “I…that sounds worse than it is.”

“I imagine getting blood out of anything is a good skill for an international spy-assassin to have,” you say.

Bucky scowls. And, you think, blushes a little, though how he has enough blood to do that you don’t know. You look at the spot again. It looks big to you but maybe you’re making a fuss over nothing. No, wait, there’s still dried blood on your floor. You’re allowed a fuss. “So you know who I am.”

“Your boy made it hard to miss,” you say.

He grumbles to himself, then says, “He’s always such a drama queen. I didn’t need to be pardoned.”

“Really,” you say and look at the bloodied handkerchief wrapped around a bullet he dug out of himself. “Looks like at least one other person disagrees with you.”

“This was Steve’s fight, not mine.” He huffs. “Story of my goddamn lif–”

He suddenly falls back and you reach out instinctively to catch him. He recovers quickly, wild-eyed and stiff and you scoot back just in case. He takes a few deep breaths and seems to force himself calm. It doesn’t look very effective and you’re honestly starting to worry. “You really–”

“I did not faint,” he snaps and maybe he has more blood than you thought, or maybe absolutely all of it has come to collect in his face.

“I was going to say you really need a hospital,” you say. “But yeah, you did.”

He grumbles under his breath and then, as if predicting your protests, stands up quickly enough to waver. Serves him right, you think, but when he scowls at you, you wonder if maybe he’s psychic too. “Try not to pass out on your way home,” you say, because if he wants to leave there’s really nothing you can do to stop him.

“Funny,” he says. He clears his throat and adds, much more sincerely, “Thanks.”

For the t-shirts, for the first aid kit, for not calling the cops, for not calling the Avengers so Captain America can hone in on him like a cartoon hound, for not bitching about the floor too much– the list is many and varied and so you give him a simple nod and hope you can get even a little bit of sleep tonight because work tomorrow is going to be hell without it.

He goes back to the window and before you can point out you have a perfectly good door, Bucky slips out onto the fire escape again. You shrug to yourself and go over to firmly flip the lock. You’ve done your part– in the event he slips and hits his head, someone else can be the good Samaritan. You’re going to bed and tomorrow this is going to feel like a weird dream, if there is even a single good deity in existence.

You’re not sure if it’s proof of or a mark against the existence of said single good deity when Bucky shows back up in your fire escape the next evening and taps politely against your open window before he lets himself back in, scooting your new plant just an inch out of the way.

“I have a door,” is the first thing that comes out of your mouth.

“Your hallway’s too well lit,” he says, much more hale and hearty and obviously not suffering major blood loss. His hair even looks like he just got out of the shower, all soft and shiny and bouncing a bit as he twists his upper body to start pulling stuff out of a backpack hanging off one shoulder. “I got stuff to clean the floor, and a replacement first aid kit. You outta keep it better stocked, so I got you one of the good ones.”

“O…kay,” you say, for lack of anything better. There’s a hysterical laugh building up in the back of your throat as the Winter Soldier brings out some rags and a cleaning solution for your bloodstained hardwood floor, but you cough it out and say, “Thanks,” when the formerly-feared international assassin looks at you like you’re crazy before he gets on his hands and knees and starts scrubbing.

It’s not fair no one would believe you. You’re not quite sure this isn’t an elaborate daydream, but then, you like to think you’d imagine something more fun than this. You clear your throat. “Would you like something to drink?”

“No thanks,” he grunts, glaring at the floor and rubbing at the stain like it has offended him personally. It’s a little worrisome when he goes at it hard enough to maybe rub a hole right through the floor– you’d rather deal with the stain– but there’s a hard edge to his eyes that make you think maybe it’s a good idea for him to work it out in a productive, non-violent way. And if it turns violent, hopefully he has some home repair skills to make up for it.

You busy yourself with making tea, using the nice pot and the nice cups you never get to break out, and by the time it’s almost done steeping Bucky isn’t rubbing quite so hard and, in fact, seems to have made the stain do a disappearing act.

“Nice,” you say. “You want some tea? I made plenty.”

He lifts his head and tilts it as he squints at you, like he’s still not sure of you. But he shrugs, says, “Sure,” and stands up, rolling his shoulders. He looks down at the floor and nods appreciatively before coming to sit on the other side of the counter. “It’s almost gone; just a little bit more and it’ll be like I was never here.”

That last part could have been a decent joke, but he said it so seriously you just clear your throat. “Thanks,” you say and start pouring. “My landlord is going to have to find some other excuse to try and keep my security deposit.”

Bucky snorts but otherwise makes no noise. At first it’s nice, if a bit awkward, as you don’t really feel the need to fill the silence, but it becomes clear by the way Bucky glares at the plant sitting in front of him on the counter that something is eating at him. You’re not sure whether or not to pry, but it seems polite to at least ask, “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” he grunts and leans even lower to the surface of the counter.

You stare at him. “I appreciate what you did, but you didn’t have to come back,” you say gently, because a pissed-off former-assassin isn’t really a problem you want to have on your hands. “I’m not awful enough to actually expect you to clean up your own blood the day after you nearly bled to death.”

“What?” He blinks and then scowls and shakes his head. “No, it’s not that; it’s…” He picks up his cup and downs all of it, despite the fact that it was still steaming. Tentatively you pour him another cup, to which he says, “thanks,” before loading it with sugar again. “It’s good,” he says and this time he sips it.

“It’s one of my favorites. Very soothing,” you say. “Normally.”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “I wish anything was soothing. You know Steve almost ran into a goddamn minefield today?”

You didn’t know that, you don’t think anything the Avengers do is any of your business, really, and where does one even find a minefield in New York City– you don’t say any of that, but you apparently don’t need to, because Bucky is off like a shot saying more words than you’d have thought possible for him. All of it is ranting about what a reckless dumbass Captain America is, and a Brooklyn accent increasingly comes through, egged into existence by sheer aggravation. You sit and listen, transfixed not so much by the details (they’re too fleeting and sparse) but by how annoyed Bucky is with Captain Amer- with “Steve goddamn pain in the ass Rogers” and you’re never going to be able to see him again without snickering.

Bucky sighs heavily and rests his chin on the table. He looks very tired, all of a sudden. Maybe a relaxing tea and enthusiastic rant wasn’t the best combination. Then again, he also looks less tense, so perhaps it’s fine. “Why don’t you stop for the night and go get some sleep,” you say and take away his cup. “You can finish up tomorrow.”

He squints at you, squints back at the floor (that you honestly can’t tell is any different from the rest), and looks back at you. “You don’t mind?”

“Not at all,” you say and stack the cups. “When you come back refreshed you can tell me why Steve Rogers can never walk past that animal shelter without ducking his head in shame.”

Bucky’s smile is lopsided and he shakes his head. “Maybe,” he admits and hops off the chair. “I’ll just…leave the stuff here then, if that’s okay?”

You nod and he quickly picks up and puts the supplies in the empty bottom space of your side table. He goes for the window.

“I have a-!”

And he’s gone. You roll your eyes. If Steve Rogers really is as much of an asshole as Bucky says he is, then those two deserve each other.

For all that the Captain America mythos has been debunked for you, you’re still brought up short when you suddenly encounter Steve Rogers the next night.

On your fire escape.

He knocks his head against the railing in his scramble to simultaneously get up and face you, curses, and lifts his hands defensively. “I can explain.”

You rub your face with both hands. They definitely deserve each other. “I doubt that,” you mutter and sigh heavily. Thank goodness there haven’t been any actual fires; you don’t know how you’d get out with all these buff superheroes hanging around outside your window. “Have you lost something?”

Captain America looks at the ground for a moment, and then flashes you a smile. “…Yes?”

God, he is a smartass. “Do you want to come inside or do you want to risk some Nosy Nancy from the building across the street seeing a big shadow and calling the cops?”

That would never happen, but he slips inside almost immediately and then there he is, in all his uniformed, shield-holding glory. It’s too weird to think about, and you step back to give him (and you) space while you close the curtains. “Thank you,” he says politely and looks around. “Your apartment is lovely; it’s very…green.”

You’re not sure why he hesitates, until you see him looking at your yellowing majesty palm. “He’s coming back,” you say and go to adjust the plant for lack of anything else your nervous hands can do. “Would you like something to drink?”

“No thank you,” he says and stands with his feet shoulder wide and his hands clasped down in front of him. It is perhaps the least comforting thing he can do and for one ridiculous moment you wish Bucky was here to be in between you. You wish the Winter Soldier was here. To protect you. From Captain America.

You clear your throat. “So,” you say and grab yourself something. “Do you lurk outside everyone’s apartment at some point, or am I just special?”

For all his military posturing, Captain America squirms like a schoolboy. “I swear I wasn’t– okay, I guess I was but not intentionally? I was…looking. For something.”

“Something you dropped?” you ask him.

“A person,” he says, staring elsewhere. For a moment you have a paranoid thought he’s staring at the space where Bucky had fallen in that night, but no, he’s just looking at the window. At least you remembered to change the curtains.

“Pretty sure you can see one of those without squinting into the grates,” you say.

“He might have passed through on his way somewhere else,” Captain America says. “Have you seen a man outside?”

“Other than you?” you ask. He blushes even harder than Bucky does– and think of the devil, you have a moment where you’re not sure what you should say, but quickly come to realize that whatever is going on between the two of them, you do not want to get stuck in the middle.

You’re prepared to lie your ass off, but he apparently takes your response as a rebuke. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to make you feel unsafe.”

“It’s fine,” you say. Despite his previous answer, you lean into the fridge to get him a bottle of water. “I’m pretty sure Captain America isn’t going to murder me. And if you decided you wanted to, well, there’s nothing I could really do about it.”

He chokes on the drink he’s just taken. You instinctively lean in so you can slam his back but after a couple of hits he covers his mouth and waves you off. “Sorry, sorry,” he says and grabs a nearby dishcloth to wipe up what he just spit on the counter. “That was just…really dark.”

“I guess it’s a good thing I’m not the one lurking on fire escapes,” you say.

He rolls his eyes. The nerve. You laugh and he actually grins. Asshole. His smile softens though and he says, “I’m really–”

“Sorry,” you finish for him.

“Am I that predictable already?”

You shrug. You want to tell him it’s because he and Bucky seem very much alike in that respect. You want to but…you don’t. Whatever Bucky’s problem is, he seems to want to deal with it himself, and it’s not your place to get in between them and start snitching. “You seem the type. Don’t worry about it so much. You…look pretty worried. I’m not going to hold it against you.”

“Thank you.” His lips turn into a sad sort-of smile and he takes a slower drink. “I guess I am pretty worried. This man I’m looking for, he’s…important to me, and he’s been through a lot, and I just want to know he’s okay.”

You stare at him. He looks down. And looks down. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to babble like that,” he says and glances at you with a strained smile. “I don’t normally do that.”

“Hm.” You stare at him for several seconds and notice he is blinking an awful lot. “You look exhausted.”

“I’m a little tired,” he says, quietly, and some of the posturing seeps out of him and he lets himself slump a little more. He suddenly shakes his head and sits up straight again. “Thanks again for…” He looks around and settles for shaking his water bottle.

You hold back a laugh. “Sure. I uh…do you need me to call you a cab?”

He shakes his head firmly and, to his credit, he’s pretty excellent at pretending to be okay. You almost believe him. “I can get home all right.”

“Well, please make sure you do. I can think of a lot of people who’d be sad to think of you collapsing on the way home because you wore yourself down to the bone,” you say. “And from how you seem to worry about your friend, I bet you can think of at least one.”

He blinks, like he’s surprised, but a smile curls onto his face, warm and true. “Good night,” he says, and because you’re so nice, you don’t stop him when he goes back out the window. At this point, it’s beginning to feel like a lost cause.

“What did you say to him?”

“I know you don’t like the door,” you say, not even turning away from the plant you’re watering. Any time you put down the canister you forget where you left off and you are not going to kill these plants by overwatering. Not again. “But maybe you could at least tap on the window when you decide you’re going to enter my apartment.”

“Why do you leave your window open?” Bucky huffs. You can hear him sit at the counter behind you. “You know what kind of creeps can take advantage of that?”

You finish watering the last plant and turn to stare at him. “I’m starting to get an idea.”

Bucky scowls. “I’m not a creep,” he mutters.

“Polite society encourages doorways instead of windows,” you say. “It’s okay. Captain America, apparently, is also a creep.”

Bucky sits up straighter. “What did he say?”

“Not much,” you say. “He was squatting on the fire escape like he could make you spontaneously materialize. I invited him in for an explanation and after a little while he went on his way.”

“After a little while,” Bucky repeats and squints at you suspiciously.

You shrug. “He likes to vent to complete strangers, apparently. But I didn’t tell him anything about you, it doesn’t seem fair to tell you anything about him. If you want to know, I get the feeling you can go ask him.”

Bucky rolls his eyes but he stands up and stretches. “You said I bled on the drapes?”

“I already scrubbed that out, if you can finish the floor,” you say and go for the tea pot. “Do you like green tea?”

“As long as you do it right,” he says and starts scrubbing again. “I hate it all bitter.”

You go for the good matcha and start preparing it while he works out his frustrations on your floor. You glance at him a couple of times but he seems fully focused on his task, until you finish the tea and call him back to the bar.

“Steve Rogers is a pain in the ass and don’t let anyone tell you different,” he grumbles, but it’s soft and there’s a troubled look on his face as he takes his cup.

“Do you miss him?” you ask and blow gently across your drink.

Bucky shifts uncomfortably. Just as you're about to apologize for overstepping, though, he speaks. “It’s hard to go back when you’ve done the shit I have, you know?”

No. You have absolutely no idea what it’s like to live as a free man after decades of literal objectification and being used as a murder weapon for fascists. But it doesn’t seem very helpful to say that, so instead you say, gently, “I can’t even imagine.”

Bucky bobs his head and takes another sip of his drink. You’re delighted he seems to be drinking it fairly quickly, but also a little dismayed because a good matcha latte takes a decent amount of work and it’ll take a little time if he wants another cup. “I want to go back but I can’t yet. I wish he wouldn’t be so goddamn stubborn about it is all. Just because he thinks I didn’t do anything wrong doesn’t make it true.”

You nod, like any of this makes any goddamn sense to you. But maybe– maybe it doesn’t have to. Maybe Bucky’s saying all this because you’re an outside entity with no personal stake in, or knowledge of, what counts as treason, or what’s needed to lack culpability, or what it means to be an absent friend.

He rambles, a little bit, and though about half the words are proper nouns you don’t recognize, you nod along, and when he finishes his latte you make him another one, and when he leaves, you don’t mention the door. Even though you want to.

You’ve actually forgotten how nice it is to have someone come through the door. Case in point–

“Um, I hope this is all right,” Steve Rogers, dressed in casual civilian fare and holding a small pot of flowers, says as you can do nothing but stare at him. “I just wanted to stop by and thank you again for being so understanding. May I…come in?”

That snaps you out of your funk and you quickly stand aside. “Of course; sorry, I just…wasn’t expecting you.”

“I was just going to leave the plant with a note if you weren't here, but I’m glad you were,” Captain Rogers says and walks in, and sets the pot down on the counter.

You walk over to the fridge. “Would you like something to–” As you turn to finish the question you see him glance furtively at the window. Ah, of course. He looks down guiltily and you can’t help but roll your eyes and laugh. Well, he did come through the correct entrance and brought some pretty flowers. “All right, you did knock on the door this time; go sniff around the fire escape all you want.”

“I’m just checking something I forgot,” he says quickly and goes to the window. He’s only outside long enough for you to brew some tea and he comes back in just as you’re pouring his cup. It isn’t until he’s about to take a sip, however, that he says, “Oh– I know it looks bad, but Bucky– sorry, James Barnes– I swear he isn’t dangerous.”

“I know. I saw some of the trial stuff,” you lie. Well, you did see some of it, but it wasn’t until you heard Bucky mutter “Martha Stewart was right,” while fussing at some of the blood on his shirt that you felt safer. Strange as it is to think.

Steve relaxes his shoulders like some of the weight is off of them. “You have no idea how good that is to hear. You wouldn’t believe some of the things people say to me. I can’t really punch people anymore because I’m so much stronger now but it’s so tempting sometimes. At least when it’s online I can mime punching them.”

His annoyed tone allows you to laugh a little. “Maybe imagine the block button is a punch in the face?” you suggest.

He grins. “My friend Clint suggested printing out the most irritating comments and taping them to a punching bag. It didn’t really work but the thought was nice. The block button as a punch to the face though…”

The guy doesn’t really need more violence in his life, but he genuinely seems pleased with the idea, so you let it be. And when he starts ranting in detail about some of the comments he gets about Bucky, you make a new pot of tea– chamomile. For the both of you.

You don’t know how the flowers are dead already– it seems like Steve just brought them and they were so pretty you immediately looked up care instructions and followed them to the letter. Or so you thought. But now, only days later, you have a pot of dirt and withered petals.

And Bucky sulking at your counter.

“I told him I was fine,” he says petulantly.

You sigh and bring the pot over to the sink and think about what to do. “Did you tell him in person?”

“In a letter. He knew it was from me.”

The soil looks nice, so you’ll dig out the remains and try to plant some replacement seeds. Maybe that was the problem– maybe the flowers were sick or something. “Well reading and seeing are two different things.”

“He knows I cover him in fights.”

You slowly look at Bucky. His oh-so intelligent response is to bristle like a cat and go, “What?”

You roll your eyes. “He’s desperate to see you, knows you’re near when he’s fighting, and you wonder why he’s “so goddamn reckless?’”

Bucky just glares. Yeah, these two morons absolutely deserve each other.

You hope Bucky figures it out sooner rather than later.

He doesn’t, but he keeps coming by, as does Steve, and you resign yourself to hosting two pining idiots who keep dancing around each other.

Bucky drinks anything you give him without complaint. However he drinks the lattes and almost anything green tea a little quicker, though he tries to hide his cup from you when he does. Whether he’s ashamed of going through them so fast or embarrassed you don’t know, but you start to give him bigger cups, and that seems to help.

The first time you give Steve a cup of apple pie spice, he gives you a severe glare– which he then completely undermines by liking the blend immensely.

“I swore the next person who offered me apple pie would get popped,” Steve says, an amusing mixture of half-bluster and half-shame as he sips from the classic teacup you hope not to regret handing him.

“Lucky for me it’s not actually apple pie,” you say. “Do people really make that joke?”

The eyeroll Steve gives that is 200% sass. “You have no idea,” he says, deadly serious, “–how funny people think they are.”

This becomes…oddly normal. Listening to Steve talk about anything that’s on his mind, giving Bucky new tea blends just to see how he reacts to them; your apartment is no longer just you and a bunch of greenery that seems to wilt more often than not. Everything seems warmer, and better– even your plants seem healthier. (For that, though, you suspect Bucky is giving them a special mixture of something after you catch a glance of him messing with one of the pots. You want to ask him what he’s doing, but you don’t want to admit that he’s better at taking care of them than you are.)

It’s so normal, that you feel the silence only after the first few nights without a visit. They don’t visit every night, but they visit often enough that you know they’re off somewhere even without them telling you. For a couple of weeks you try to pretend the quiet doesn’t bother you, but you check the fire escape twice every night, and then once more before you go to bed.

The next time you see Bucky is during one of these checks. There was no tapping, no noise to otherwise alert you, he’s just suddenly back, sitting next to the window, hunched over in black clothes nearly blending into the darkness and staring out at nothing in the night.

“What’s wrong?” you ask and crawl out to kneel next to him. “Are you hurt again?”

“No,” he mutters and continues to glare at some imaginary point in the distance. “Steve was, though.”

It’s a little harder to swallow. “Is he going to be okay?”

“Yeah,” Bucky mumbles and buries his mouth further against his arms. “He’s fine, strutting around the hospital like a- like a- …” He huffs and sits back to wave his arms before he curls back in on himself. “But it was close, and he’s an asshole.”

“Mm,” you say. “Chamomile mint?”

He sighs heavily but he gets to his feet and starts to enter, only to stop and hold open the curtains for you.

“Thank you sir,” you say with only a hint of sarcasm and go on ahead to get the tea started. Bucky snorts but doesn’t say anything and you use the time the water needs to heat up to take care of some of your plants.

“Stop it.”

The snap comes so fast from Bucky you immediately stop what you’re doing. He doesn’t look as angry as he sounded, but he’s frowning pretty hard. “You're overwatering that one; jade plants are succulents. You don’t need to drown it.”

You look at the plant and set the watering can down. “Oh.” You knew that. You think. You’re just nervous. “Did you see him? In the hospital?”

“Briefly. I didn’t talk to him; just made sure he was all right,” Bucky says. “And he is. I wouldn’t leave him if he wasn’t.”

That does assuage some of your concerns. Steve is nice. You want him to be okay. And Bucky is– also nice, but god, they’re both so fucking frustrating. “You couldn’t have just–”

“Don’t start with–”

“I’m just saying–”

“And I’m telling you not to say–”

“I pay the rent for all that you sublet my fire escape; I’ll say what I want,” you manage to finish to Bucky’s consternation. You lift your head proudly and he frowns to one side. And then he…smirks. You’re not sure you like that.

“Crappiest space in the city,” he says and sits up. “You could at least get a chair.”

You roll your eyes and dole out the tea, fixing it the way Bucky likes. No sugar for this one, but plenty of honey. “If I ever have to leave for an actual fire, I’ll be in enough trouble trying to get around you.”

“Nah. I’d carry you out,” Bucky says and lifts his cup in a silent ‘cheers.’ He takes a sip and the sigh sounds content, so you assume you did it right. For a few moments a comfortable silence settles between the two of you as you sip warm drinks surrounded by greenery (that is mostly green) and life goes on in faint sounds outside the confines of your home.

Bucky sets his empty cup down with a sigh. “Do you think, if I show up to throttle him, that he’ll actually start watching his own fucking back?”

You give that some serious thought. “Will you give him time to moon at you first?”

Bucky sighs with disgust and flumps back onto the counter. “This is stupid. This all feels so stupid.”

You open your mouth because you do have a lot of opinions about honest communication and using innocent civilian apartments to dance around each other, but Bucky shoots you a glare to let you know that a, he knows, and b, he doesn’t appreciate it. You roll your eyes and go back to drinking your tea. It is a very good blend, and you’re not going to let it go unappreciated because two early 20th century boys can’t get their shit together.

Not that you’re complaining, really– you’re starting to feel like less of a disaster by comparison. Or maybe letting two strange men into your apartment makes you just as bad by default. You rub the bridge of your nose. Yeah, no one is getting out of this looking sane. You feel like that should bother you more than it does, but it’s just a fleeting thought before you go back to worrying about Steve and pouring Bucky’s cup back to full.

The next night when someone knocks on your door, you’re only mildly surprised to see Steve on the other side. And most of that surprise is because you can see fading bruises on his face, and also because he is holding a fairly big potted plant with tall green and yellow-edged leaves.

“Hi,” he says and lifts the pot slightly. “I got you a present.”

“Uh, wow; thanks?” you say and quickly step back to let him in, momentarily forgetting he can probably carry it around with ease. Steve places the plant on the floor near the end of your couch, where it actually looks fairly nice. He gestures at it proudly. “It’s a snake plant. The man at the nursery said it’s very hard to kill.”

“You’re not funny,” you say but you look at it appreciatively. It is nice, and you could do with ‘hard to kill’. Speaking of– “Should you be up? You look like you should be in a hospital.”

He shrugs and his face goes neutral. “I’m healing well enough that there’s nothing a hospital could do for me. And I felt so…restless.”

You nod. “Want some tea?”

“Please. I really like what you make,” he says and immediately takes a seat at the counter. Oddly enough, it’s not the one Bucky always takes. You don’t realize you squint at the space for too long until Steve looks curious and asks, “Is everything okay?”

You squint at the countertop. “Yeah, just…trying to figure out if that’s a stain or a spot.”

Thankfully there is a spot of spilled something and you quickly grab a towel and wipe it away. You think it’s a pretty good save, but Steve looks at you with a raised brow, like he’s figured something out. You freeze. “What?” What are you going to say? How is he going to react? What will you–

“Was that a coffee ring?”

You blink a few times, and then roll your eyes as your chest practically deflates. He smiles and winks. “I can’t believe you.”

“I am a layered human being who can drink many things,” you say defensively. “And if you want coffee you’ll have to ask another time. I’m not giving you anything with caffeine in it when you look like you got hit by a truck.”

“Train,” he corrects absently. “It barely clipped me.”

You sigh and go for the sleepy blend. One of you is going to have to bow out of this conversation due to exhaustion and at this point you don’t care if it’s you. However it might truly come in handy as Steve keeps looking out the window and shaking his foot. You set the cup in front of him and before you can ask what’s wrong, he takes the cup in both hands and blurts out, “I think I saw him.”

You look at the window and squint. “Seriously?”

“Not here.” Steve rolls his eyes. Like you’re the crazy one. He blows gently across the surface of the liquid and says, “Though it’s strange you’d think I saw Bucky out of your window.”

“Isn't that why you started showing up here in the first place? I distinctly remember someone with a big red, white, and blue shield lurking on my fire escape.”

“Oh, right,” he admits sheepishly, hunched over his cup. His eyes glimmer with mischief as he looks up at you through long lashes and asks, “Did I ever apologize to you for that?”

You’re brought up short by the amount of boyish charm this giant walking wall of muscle manages to pack into that look and you have to find your tongue to say, “I– y-yeah…”

Steve chuckles to himself and you give yourself a mental slap on the face. “Troll,” you mutter and sip from your mug. The liquid is piping hot and burns your tongue, giving you an excuse to grimace when Steve flashes you a beautiful smile.

You’re in trouble.

Not physically, not immediately, and perhaps someone on the outside might say you’re being dramatic about it, but they wouldn’t know shit about the situation. They wouldn’t know about how your hands felt as they slid over Steve’s when he handed you a new small pot of flowers; they wouldn’t know about the feeling of serenity that settled over you when Bucky abandoned some of his oh so careful control and rested his head on your shoulder for four long seconds; they wouldn’t know how it feels like you’re missing something until someone shows up at your door or taps at your window.

You’re falling in love with two people who have always been, and still are, desperately in love with each other.

Isn’t that just your luck.

In the end, Bucky takes your advice more to heart than you ever expected he would– you and Steve are quietly enjoying each others’ company, with you standing in the kitchen and Steve sitting at the counter as per usual, when the curtains move dramatically for Bucky to slip in, which makes Steve whirl around, and your hands jerk so hard from all the sudden surprise that your cup slips out and crashes to the floor.

“Shi-” You forget to watch your step and immediately catch a jagged shard that embeds itself right under the ball of your foot. “Ow, fuck!”

Your name is said in different voices but very similar tones of alarm and you suddenly find yourself gathered into Bucky’s arms, bridal style, and he carries you over to the couch. “Wh-” You swallow at the close proximity to Bucky’s chest and the way he holds you so effortlessly but so securely. “I’m fine; it’s just a little–”

Bucky sits down on the couch and doesn’t move you, which means you are basically sitting cross-wise in his lap. This is not something you need after your recent revelation, and it doesn’t get any easier when Steve comes back with the heavy duty first aid kit Bucky got you and gingerly takes your foot to examine the injury. His sympathetic look towards you gives you the warning you need to brace yourself before he pulls the shard out. It doesn’t hurt too terribly and he’s almost tender as he cleans your foot.

“Look at us, matching blood and all,” Bucky says lightly.

“It’s my floor I’ll bleed on it if I want,” you grumble, but you’re too distracted by how focused Steve is on fixing you up. “You…seem to be taking this well.”

“I knew he had been here since the first time I came,” Steve admits as he rolls the gauze around your foot. “There was a bloodstain on your floor still.”

“Seriously?” You had thought Bucky was being overdramatic about the supposed stain and humored him, but it…makes sense. Why else would he come back the next night. Why else would Steve continue to come by. And because Steve had kept coming, Bucky had kept coming, and…they won’t need to come back anymore, will they? They now have what they’ve wanted. Each other.

Someone says your name and you force yourself back to neutral as much as you possibly can. Steve looks curious though and Bucky says, “What’s with that look?”

“There’s no look,” you say. “And if there is, it’s only because you two have devised the weirdest meet-cute ever– decades after you actually met.”

“Hm.” Bucky continues to stare at you, but doesn’t say anything else.

They come back. And they both use the door.

You don’t know what you’re more shocked by– that Bucky and Steve, having come back to each other, are still coming around to you, or that Bucky is actually walking through the designated threshold. You don’t have a lot of time to think about it though because the place is…a mess.

“What happened here?” Steve asks as Bucky’s shoulders go up to his ears and he looks around the place like he’s going to find something unpleasant.

“It’s not that bad,” you say and glance around. You’ve cleaned out a few of the pots already and stacked them away in the closet, but some of the plants are still…slightly alive, for a little while. A couple are even doing fairly well– one of which being the snake plant Steve got you.

“What happened to the jungle?” Bucky asks, looking around shrewdly. You don’t like the sound of that. It feels so…probing, and raises your hackles. Why should he care?

“I wasn’t keeping them alive for very long.” You flick a yellowing leaf and keep your tone light. “I just got tired of it. What are…what are you doing here?”

You don’t look at Steve, but he clears his throat and his tone is similar to Bucky’s when he asks, “Is now a bad time?”

“For what?” You square your shoulders and face them. Like an adult. Like an adult who had two other adults just sort of crash into their life one day and start sharing space until such time as the two window-crashers decided they…didn’t need to come around anymore. “I’m happy you both found each other. You didn’t have to come back.”

Steve looks…well, he looks hurt. You don’t know any other way to describe it; it doesn’t show in his face so much as in his eyes, in the feeling you get watching the line of his shoulders lower. But before he can say anything, before you can explain yourself, Bucky speaks up.

“It isn’t like that,” he says.

You look down. It’s easier than looking at a man who feels rejected, and a man who has you completely pegged.

“What?” Steve asks.

“It’s okay,” you say, in perhaps the biggest bald-faced lie you’ve ever told.

“That’s not– no,” Bucky insists and lifts your chin. His fingers are warm and gentle and linger too long.

You pull back from his touch before you can embarrass yourself further. “You guys were literally circling each other.”

“Please.” Bucky rolls his eyes. “I don’t need to keep coming back here to be near Steve. I know where he lives.”

“And I leave my window unlocked,” Steve says. He aims a cheeky grin at Bucky and adds, “Guess I should have left it open though.”

“Shut up,” Bucky tells him but looks at you and says, “Point is: we weren't using you.”

Steve blinks. “Oh– no, of course not!”

“It’s all right,” you say, trying as hard as you can to assuage their discomfort even though you can’t put much into it. Even though you did very much want this meeting to happen, somehow you don’t feel very ‘all right.’

“No,” Bucky says and takes your hand in his. The flesh hand, which he runs up to the middle of your forearm. His touch is gentle and light, even when he grips. You can break away, but you don’t– you let him pull you in, close and closer, until there’s barely any room between you.

Steve crowds from the side and puts one arm behind Bucky, and one arm behind you. “If you only think we’re here because of each other, then it’s not all right,” he says softly.

“I know it isn’t– I know you weren't ‘using’ m–” You swallow hard. “And I know it’s not–”

They both swoop in for a kiss– for a kiss with you. Somehow they avoid bumping heads and the lip-lip-lip contact is barely there, with Steve at the corner and Bucky barely catching one side of your upper lip, but they're both there for a glorious moment that leaves you stunned.

“Oh…” you say, dumbly. You try to fight it, but a smile pulls at your lips. “Oh.”

“That good already, huh?” Steve asks quietly, slowly forming a small smile of his own.

You let out a little sigh that is immediately undermined by an uncontrollable laugh that swells from a bubble of relief at the base of your throat. “Bucky’s right, you are insufferable,” you say but you reach out to sweep your fingers in a gentle touch down Steve’s cheek and under his chin.

“You get used to it,” Bucky says.

You think about that. Even with how you’ve been, entertaining these two rotating planets over the last however many weeks or months, this would be an entirely new normal.

You think you can’t wait to get used to it.

#steve rogers x bucky barnes x reader #captain america fanfic #reader insert #stucky x reader #mcu reader insert

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aethelflaedladyofmercia · 2 years

Text

Custody Battle - Prologue - Happy to Serve

The sequel to "Ritual of Propagation" is now on AO3!

Or. The prologue to it. It's going to be a very long fic. Please feel free to bookmark and check in later.

The Ritual of Propagation has succeeded. Aziraphale and Crowley are ready to welcome the newest member of Their Own Side.

But the Archangels have other plans. No young angel has ever been raised outside their closely guided care, and they have no intention of changing that. How can Aziraphale and Crowley keep the newly created life entrusted to them safe from the most powerful angels in existence?

This fic is rated M (prologue is more T), and covers all the same potentially triggering topics as the previous fic, including r*pe, forced pr*gnancy, m*scarriage/child loss, emotional and psychological ab*se. Prologue contains metaphysical r*pe and pr*gnancy as well as grooming/abuse, though none graphically described.

However, this one will focus more on the after effects of abuse and trauma, as well as the politics of Heaven, rather than constant flashbacks to the r*pe itself (though there WILL be some of these). There will also be some lighter moments, some of which aren't just distractions before I stab you in the heart. Hypothetically.

Excerpt should be triggering-content free, apart from Michael being obviously manipulative and gas-light-y. Or read the full fic on AO3.

Michael led Aziraphale and three other Guardians down endless corridors. Colorless, identical, twisting back on themselves as if the building were some sort of maze, bringing him deeper and deeper, a trap that would be sprung before he knew he was in danger.

He tried to hide his anxiety, to walk as a proper Soldier should. Head held high, chest out, wings folded, sword at his side. Marching neatly, moving in step with the rest of the group. Constantly watching his surroundings, noting whether each door he passed was open or shut, taking stock of all potential threats—

The other Guardian shoved him and Aziraphale stumbled back. Michael didn’t react, but the rest all glared at him, silent accusations, expressions of pity and disgust for the Soldier who couldn’t even walk without drifting into the being next to him. Ducking his head with shame, Aziraphale gave up, trailing along behind the group with his usual unsteady gait.

Why was he here? Punishment, almost certainly, though he couldn’t think of any specific error that would have earned him an extended Duty away from his platoon and the front lines. The last battle had gone well for Heaven’s faithful angels and while Aziraphale had not particularly distinguished himself, he hadn’t hindered his side in any meaningful way.

It wasn’t that he was a bad Guardian. Before the War he’d always felt perfectly suited to his Duty. Granted, there hadn’t been much to do since none of his charges had been created yet, but he felt he had the appropriate attitude of joyous expectation, at least. He’d paid attention to the progress of Creation, tracking developments across the celestial, physical, and astral planes. Talked with the other angels about their Duties and domains, each with their own little view of the larger picture to come. Lent a hand where he could, or an encouraging word, or a smile. Happy to serve in whatever way he could.

He’d been competent with his sword, strong, obedient—everything a Soldier should be.

Until the fighting started and Aziraphale discovered how truly useless he was. He didn’t have it in him to harm another, even knowing that the Enemy would burn the Creation he loved to ash. He couldn’t harden himself to do what needed to be done. To be ruthless the way War required.

Still, he tried. Supported his platoon mates, followed orders. Pushed the Enemy back again and again. But his heart was never truly in it, and he’d long suspected that the others could tell.

That, then, must be what brought him here. Punishment not for a specific incident but for his innate failures, his overall lack of courage, his unwillingness to do what needed to be done.

But why here?

There were several classified projects run by the Archangels, secret weapons in the endless War. Tools that harnessed the half-completed forces of nature, throwing them back at those who would destroy them. Attacks that could manipulate the Enemy’s minds, or memories, or even a mysterious new force known as time. One team, it was said, was perfecting a method of transforming one type of angel into another. But this facility…

The group of Soldiers halted abruptly as Michael stopped and pulled open a door, identical to every other they had passed so far, and with a smile she ushered the four of them through. Inside, in front of the assembled rows of at least two dozen Guardians, a line of angels waited on a raised platform. As Aziraphale began to recognize them, his eyes went wide.

Not just Michael, but all the Archangels were here. Gabriel, Sandalphon, Uriel, Phanuel—all easily recognizable, all very active in the War. Raphael, Archangel of Healing, with xyr three assistants. Sabrael, the Archangel of Science, looking ready to welcome them each personally. Barachiel, Archangel of Storms, Orifiel, Archangel of the Wilderness, and Ramiel and Kafziel and Zadkiel—all twelve Archangels, arranged at the front of the room, each accompanied by two or three angels of lesser stature, Seraphim and Cherubim, some known to Aziraphale, many not.

As Aziraphale and the other newcomers took their place, Michael strode to the front and ascended the platform. After exchanging a few smiling words with the others, she turned back to the crowd.

“I’m sure you’re all wondering what you’re doing here. First, I assure you, this is not a punishment.” The murmur of nervous laughter through the crowd told Aziraphale that he wasn’t the only one who had been worried. “I know you’ve all probably heard rumors about what goes on here. And I know it isn’t glorious, the way fighting on the front lines is, but it is essential. The Enemy, the Dissidents, they press us back again and again, and though we fight them off, our numbers are falling rapidly. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you more than that. Every one of you has lost friends and squad mates in this War.”

Aziraphale bowed his head, remembering. His platoon had been particularly hard-hit three battles before, and the Legion had by now lost almost a third of its Soldiers. The Enemy clearly had no difficulty being ruthless.

“You have been brought here because we desperately need your service. We need reinforcements, as many Recruits as we can, as quickly as we can, to ensure our troops continue to fight, to protect our home, our world. Shortly, you will be instructed in your new Duties, and take part in one of the most sacred tasks ever granted to angels by God: the work of Propagation.”

She smiled encouragingly, though Aziraphale felt his stomach sink. “Out of all the Guardians, you are given the unique chance to not just save lives, but to create lives. Whether you produce one clutch of Recruits or a dozen, whether God blesses you with many younglings or just a few, your service here will be as valuable as your time on the battlefield.”

All at once, the room felt too crowded, too stuffy, some unknown force pushing against him from every side, some threat he couldn’t name. Aziraphale clutched at his sword, not to fight, but for the comfort it gave him, pressed against his palm. Michael’s eyes swept the room, picking him out of the crowd, and she seemed to speak directly to him:

“I applaud you for your courage in coming here, for your loyalty to Creation, for the hope that you bring. All of Heaven thanks you for your sacrifice.”

Read the rest on AO3!

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fantasydaydreamers · 3 years

Note

so i never found a post about rules for you and if i accidentally break a rule then sorry but im pulling an all nighter soon and i really need some bnha fuel, whether it be nsfw or fluff- female reader if possible, im fine with most characters but i do specifically like a few which are bakugo, kurogiri, twice, kirishima, iida, all might and aizawa so 😌 do as many as you want, please and thank you

...So you've definitely already pulled your all nighter...I'm so sorry😭

Since it is the holiday season 😌 how about some scenarios based off of Christmas songs~?

Words: 1,837

Warnings: None

~*~*~*~*

Bakugou

"If I break my leg I swear to God-" You meant to sound threatening, but the shakiness in your voice gave it away. Bakugou watches you lace up your ice skates, rolling his eyes as he held out his hand to help you up.

"You're not going to fall, dumbass. Hold on to me and you'll be fine." Confident as ever, you glanced at him as his face flushed pink even though it was freezing inside the ice skating rink.

It was almost Christmas and Bakugou took you out to do something festive. Because of his quirk, Bakugou had an internship overseas in the tropics and you came along for support, but also since Christmas was soon. It was different not seeing any snow, but Bakugou had a plan to make it seem like home.

Which is why, as soon as he dragged you here, you knew he must've known how to already ice skate and that left you to suffer. On the bright side, you could spend time with him, but the downside?

You definitely would've preferred being at the beach.

Wobbling to your feet, you hold onto Bakugou's hand for dear life as he helps you walk to the opening to the rink, smirking. "You're like a newborn fawn."

Scowling, you couldn't even bother to retort with all your attention on trying not to fall. What amazed you the most was that Bakugou had been walking backward this whole time, smoothly. Because of that, he steps onto the ice first gliding slightly.

You stop right at the edge and glance up at him in question. Rolling his eyes again, Bakugou gently tugs you forward and as soon as you step on the ice, your foot slides all the way forward and you know your about to fall on your back.

Firm hands grip you tightly as you try to steady yourself, Bakugou snorting out laughs as he glides behind you. His arms wrap around your waist and his warm breath brushes your ear making you shiver for a different reason.

"Push off with your right foot and I'll push too. Then push off with your left. Alternate your legs and I'll hold you upright."

Nodding your head, you do what he says.

"If we were at the beach right now, we wouldn't have to do this." You mumble out, getting the hang of the rhythm.

Bakugou snorts again and pulls you tighter against him. "Not bad, (Y/n). Keep it up and maybe there will be some presents under the tree this year."

"Does Santa visit penthouse suites at hotels?"

"Haha. Now you're definitely on the naughty list, dumbass."

Before you knew it, Bakugou had loosened his grip around your waist and you realized just how well you were doing. "Hey look! I'm-"

Before you could express your excitement, you felt yourself falling backward and Bakugou couldn't catch you in time as you both landed in a pile on the hardened ice.

It was quiet for a second before giggles escaped your throat as you rolled off Bakugou. Looking over at him, he was staring up at the ceiling a little dazed. Leaning over, you peck his lips gently and watch as his eyes come back into focus. He grins and props himself up on his arms, moving in to kiss you again.

"Merry Christmas, (Y/n)"

"Take me to the ice-skating rink downtown

Even though it's 100 degrees, gotta get out,

Ain't no ice or no chills, no snowmen to build, most of our friends at the beach,

But my baby's in town and we're gonna do some winter things."

→ Winter Things❄️- Ariana Grande

Iida

(Y'all pls😭 the song I chose-)

Iida fussed around the Christmas tree, trying to make it look picture perfect as you flipped through his Christmas playlist, yawning at all the repetitive songs on there.

"Really babe? I understand all these songs are classics but don't you get tired of hearing the same thing over and over again?" Furrowing your eyebrows, you exit out of his playlist and open YouTube.

"(Y/n), I could use some help over here..." Comes his strained voice making you look over. Although he ignores your comment completely, it's clear to see why. Iida had managed to tie his hands around his back, tangled in lights, with a ribbon draped over his shoulders haphazardly.

He looked all too appealing sitting all tied up with his pleading eyes asking you for help. Smirking devilishly, you type in the Christmas song you had been looking for this whole time.

Putting the phone down, you strut over to Iida with a smirk on your face and his eyes widened in disbelief. The minute you dropped your ass low to the ground, you couldn't hold in your laughter as you then crawled towards him, arching your back as you did.

With his glasses disarray and mouth open, you crawl on his lap, reaching behind him to undo the lights while still humming the words. At a loss for words, Iida is immobile as you roll your hips over his lap, purposely leaning over his shoulder to see what you're doing, pressing yourself against him.

The lights fall free from Iida's wrists, but he doesn't move as you wrap your arms around his neck, brushing your lips against his teasingly.

He gulps as the song ends, closing his mouth. Smiling innocently at him, you peck his lips whispering softly, "Merry Christmas, Iida."

Later on, after he recovered from his initial shock, he lectured you on the importance of electrical safety and how he was in a hazardous situation.

"Santa I've been naughty but I swear I can be nice,

I'll throw it back baby for a stocking full of ice,

Diamonds, Rubies, Sapphires too,

Gimme that Gucci bag and let's see what I can do."

→ MERRY LiTMAS🔥- Mahogany Lox

Aizawa

Snow fluttered beautifully outside the window you and Aizawa were looking out of. The two of you were curled up together on a lounge chair, a weighted blanket keeping the chills away as the fireplace crackled off to the side. Both of you sat in comfortable silence, occasionally drinking hot cocoa and overall enjoying the peacefulness around you two.

The lights from the Christmas tree glowed softly, being the only other light source besides the fireplace and you sighed contently, curling further into Aizawa's side. His arm under the blanket curled around your waist and held you close as a light thump made its way between your bodies on top of the blanket.

Smiling, you reach from under the blanket, cold air coating your arm as you petted Aizawa's cat. The cat being Aizawa's because it was more attached to him than anything you've ever seen. The cat purred softly and you felt Aizawa kiss your forehead.

Humming softly, you tilt your head up and catch his eyes as he was staring down at you. Smiling, you tilt your chin, silently asking for a kiss to which he responded. Aizawa pecks your lips a few times and you savor the taste of chocolate on his lips, peeking your tongue out slightly to lick them.

A low growl escapes from his lips and you smile. "Don't even think about ruining this sweet moment, kitten. We have all the time in the world to do things like that. Right now I just want you to enjoy this peacefulness with me."

Snorting a laugh, you turn away and pick the cat up to cuddle him close to your face. "Awh, did you hear that kitten? Daddy Aizawa is thinking naughty."

Aizawa's grip tightened on your waist and you hide your smile behind the cat, turning to look at him fully, the cat staring at him too before meowing loudly.

Aizawa cracks a grin and leans down to kiss the cat and you release your hold on him, watching as the cat snuggles between to two of you. Aizawa watches too and you lean over to kiss him again.

"Merry Christmas, Daddy Aizawa."

"...(Y/n)."

"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire,

Jack Frost nipping at your nose,

Yuletide carols being sung by a choir,

And folks dressed up like Eskimos."

→ The Christmas Song🎄- Nat King Cole

All Might

It all started as a charity event.

Toshinori was offered to dress up as Santa, in his All Might form. In all honesty, you got a kick out of seeing him with a fake white beard on and glasses. The whole idea of a "buff" Santa was hot in general, but knowing it was your man, made it even hotter.

The number of kids who showed up just to see him was unbelievable and although Toshinori wouldn't be moving around much, just sitting, you worried that he wouldn't be able to hold his form for long. It wasn't hard to tell it was him and some kids had to of known it was really All Might, hell, even some of the parents came to him. It was hard not too jealous at watching the other women sit on his laps and twirl the fake beard around their fingers.

Toshinori didn't seem effected by it and you knew you could trust him. But, nonetheless, working as one of "Santa's elves," you ended up seeing everything that happened. It was an all-day job and the line of people never seemed to shrink.

It wasn't until late in the evening you finally seemed to catch your breath and Toshinori ho-ho-hoed at the last child. The person running the charity event hurried to close everything up and you heard Toshinori let out the biggest sigh. Since you were concerned all day, you ran over to him instantly. "Are you okay?"

He smiled tiredly up at you and let out another ho-ho. "Well, what a lovely young lady! What would you like for Christmas?"

Confused, you watch as Toshinori pats his lap, motioning you to sit. Feeling heat rise to your cheeks, you look around and see everyone else tearing down the decoration, too engrossed in their own world. "What's wrong, (Y/n)?"

Looking back, you saw the playful glint in his eyes and sighed before reluctantly sitting on his thigh. Wrapping your arms around his neck you raise your eyebrow in question and pretend to think of what you want.

"You."

Toshinori's eyes widened and he smirked, leaning closer to you. "Have you been a good girl this year?"

"Have I?" You whisper, everything around you two fading into nothing. It was only you and Toshinori at that moment, your head being filled with naughty ideas.

"I guess we'll just have to see about that later." He murmured, kissing your lips lightly before tugging his fake beard down. "Okay, I really need to change back now."

Scrambling off him, Toshinori changes back and you help clean everything up, excited to get home.

"Santa baby, forgot to mention one little thing,

A ring, I don't mean on the phone,

Santa baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight"

→ Santa Baby🎅-Eartha Kitt

#my hero academia #boku no hero academia #bnha #mha #bnha x reader #mha x reader #bnha imagines #mha imagines #bakugo katsuki #bakugo x reader #Bakugou x reader #bakugou katsuki #iida x reader #iida tenya #shoto aizawa #aizawa x reader #all might #all might x reader #yagi toshinori

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asset35-maya · 3 years

Text

MANMADE FATE

PART THREE OF THREE

Links to Part One and Part Two. Full text on AO3.

“So this is it. The top of the world.”

“Not a bad view for fifty million, but it definitely isn’t the top.”

The pop of a cork made Gavin tear his gaze abruptly from the spectacular skyline. Sighing, he accepted the brimming flute of champagne.

“So are we at least halfway there?

Elijah took a measured sip.

“Not even. But don’t worry, our self-learning algorithms are indisputably leading edge.”

Gavin nodded slowly, swirling the golden liquid around in his glass but not drinking it.

“About that, Eli… I know we’re celebrating Chloe’s Turing test results tonight… but shouldn’t we talk about… you know… the endgame?”

“What about it?”

“Whether it’s fundamentally ethical.”

Elijah took his glasses off, cleaning them with the edge of his shirt in a way that told Gavin a lecture or pep-talk was coming. He wasn’t in the mood for either.

“You and I both know where this is going, Eli. The hardware may take time to catch up with the software, but our neural networks are already on the path to sentience.”

“You always did watch too many movies. There is no Skynet-type situation-”

“How do you know? How the phck do you know? Did you code against it?”

His brother’s calm silence told him all he needed to know.

“Eli…”

“Gavin, we will never lose control of the tools we ourselves built. We just need to adjust the wire-fences as the programming matures.”

“What happens when we hit singularity?”

An indulgent smile spread across Elijah’s face as he lifted the champagne bottle. He was merely a couple of months older than Gavin, but he reveled in the big brother act. It used to be amusing, but now it was getting under Gavin’s skin.

“Isn’t that what we’re celebrating?”

“Chloe? No… No! Is that how she passed the… Eli! I wrote those deep learning algorithms for factory automation. Not humanoid robots!”

“What does it matter? All our work is going to converge at some point.”

“Shouldn’t we talk about this kind of thing? I thought we were partners.”

“Of course we are, Gav. It’s just between all the investor meetings and presentations and-”

“And maybe you knew it was wrong so you didn’t tell me until you did it.”

Elijah continued to pretend to clean his glasses.

“I did nothing wrong, Gav. You remember what our father told us? There comes a time in every businessman’s life where they’re faced with the choice between doing the right thing and the good thing. I just chose the best thing. You’ll see why soon enough.”

“Your father is a liar and a cheat. How does someone as smart as you put any stock in the words of a man who ruined two happy marriages?!”

Elijah’s face snapped up. His glasses were back on but the intellectual demeanor had finally melted away.

“Watch your mouth. He gave you everything your mother’s husband couldn’t.”

“My dad gave me plenty.”

“Cyberlife would have never got off the ground if our startup capital was some low-ranking officer’s pension. Imagine if we took business advice from the police handbook of moral values. We’d have washed out and gone back to tutoring undergrads. Keep your Reed ethics to yourself if you want to live like a Kamski.”

The air in the penthouse apartment turned frosty despite the centralized heating. Both brothers stared mutely at each other over the expensive champagne.

It was a rupture they never recovered from.

Gavin regretted how quickly it had happened. He played his own words back over and over in his head. Both his relationship with his brother and his entire robotics career had ended within seconds. Fifteen years later, he still didn’t understand how things had gone so wrong.

In the early hours of the morning, slumped against the squashy leather couch, Gavin stared through the same window at the same spectacular skyline of the same damned city.

Soft footsteps approached and the couch dipped beside him. A head landed on his shoulder and a hand slipped into his.

“Are you alright?”

“It’s all good, babes. Just thinking.”

Connor hummed in response and cuddled closer, tucking his arm into Gavin’s. His LED spun yellow and his lips quirked into a smile.

“Nines wants to know what on earth is keeping you out of bed. He likes it when you lay on top of him.”

Gavin tilted Connor’s face upwards and kissed him squarely on the mouth. He trusted that the sensation would be conveyed to both androids.

“Be back in a bit. Just sorting through some shit in my head. All the mysteries of life… Nines included.”

Connor nodded and sank back into the cushions. He stayed silent and several moments passed. Streaks of color began to appear in the sky when Gavin spoke again.

“I just can’t figure out why they left him at that secure location. Nines is a great guy… but what on earth is so special about him?”

Connor tapped his foot playfully with his own.

“I don’t think I can give you an unbiased answer to that question.”

“Neither can I, dipshit. We both got it bad.”

“Then maybe that’s what it is.”

“What?”

“How easy it was to fall for him. That’s what’s special about Nines.”

There was a long silence as Gavin considered that statement. It was probably the first proper moment of reflection since their already unconventional relationship had expanded to include a third.

“He’s really sweet… and kind… and I can tell he feels grateful but not indebted to us. Plus he’s hilarious. Like how does he find so many ways to laugh at his predicament? Nines… is a total charmer. How does he have so much game? Who taught him that?”

Connor’s expression had gone incredibly soft. He leaned even more into Gavin’s side.

“No one. He’s deviant.”

The gears turned and something clicked in Gavin’s brain. He stiffened.

“Say that again, babe.”

“He’s… deviant…?”

“Uh huh. Now tell me when exactly you put the virus into his system.”

The chocolate brown eyes widened.

“I didn’t… do you think someone else-”

“No, he said we’re the first people he’s ever met. I’m inclined to believe him. There’s no evidence of anyone tampering with his system and frankly, if we couldn’t do it, then I don’t think anyone else would have been able to.”

“He is deviant, though, right?”

“You kidding? He’s the phcking embodiment of free will. If only we knew how-”

Gavin was about to lurch upwards but fell back against the couch as Connor maintained the possessive grip on his arm.

“Gav… I think it’s time.”

“To head back to bed? Yeah. Nines must be getting lonely without us.”

“Gav. The crux of the matter is his deviancy.”

“Uh huh.”

“There’s only one man I trust on the topic.”

Gavin’s eyes darkened.

“I’ll never crack Nines’ activation code without tapping on Cyberlife’s cloud computing. They’ll know instantly that something’s up. We can’t brute-force this, Gav. Plus, we still need to find out what Nines has to do with the Singularity that North was talking about. We tried hard and now we’re hitting a wall.

It’s time, Gav. You need to speak to your brother.”

Gavin had not so much as raised his voice at Connor since the night he’d found him soaked in North’s blood on the floor of the evidence room… but in that moment, he struggled to fight off the most violent of reactions.

He wrenched his arm out of Connor’s grasp and marched into the kitchen, counting to ten and blinking back tears.

“Leave me al- how dare- I don’t wanna- go-”

A hand closed around his wrist and pulled him to a stop. One of the android’s eyes had turned blue and when he opened his mouth, two voices were audible, one deeper than the other.

“Talk to us.”

Gavin sighed and pressed his forehead against Connor’s… and effectively, Nines’…

“I haven’t seen Elijah in fifteen years.”

“No better time for a reunion.”

“There couldn’t be a worse reason to go see him. The idea of artificial intelligence gaining free will is kinda what we fell out over.”

Connor responded in his own voice.

“How do you know he hasn’t changed his mind?”

“Certain convictions don’t change over entire lifetimes. This is one of them.”

A gentle kiss was pressed to Gavin’s nose... and then his lips.

“Don’t be so sure.”

The light of day saw them trudging through the snow in the outskirts of Detroit. North led the group… with the Tracis huddled around Gavin to protect him against the bitter cold… and Connor bringing up the rear, erasing their tracks deftly with his feet.

They eventually made it to the doorstep of an ultramodern yet eerie-looking house. The redhead took an unnecessary breath before ringing the doorbell. The door opened a mere fraction and they all caught a glimpse of blond hair and pretty blue eyes.

“Yes? What can I do for you?”

“We’re uh… looking for help.”

“Sorry we don’t entertain solicitors.”

As if she didn’t recognize North from all the news reports about Jericho. North grabbed the door as it began to close. Thinking fast, she decided to improvise.

“Not even a rehabilitation center for former sex workers?”

The android scanned the group. Her LED spun yellow as her eyes landed on Connor and Gavin. As if she didn’t recognize them.

“What kind of charity needs an armed escort?”

North began to laugh nervously.

“These two? Armed… armed security? Arm candy, more like!”

Her strained laughter melted away into a tense silence.

The blonde spared them another once-over before turning around and yelling with surprising volume.

“ELI! Get out of the pool and put your damn clothes on! You’ve got visitors. And not the kind who need to see you in your speedos!”

She opened the door fully to let them in. The ladies stepped inside without hesitation. Connor had to steer Gavin over the threshold with a gentle but steady amount of force.

He gazed up at the high ceiling of the entrance hall... the wall art... the sculptures. He took in the expensive scents and sophisticated lounge music. It felt more like a hotel lobby than the home of the boy he used to take baths with and make mud pies. Gavin bit his lip, debating the odds of making an escape.

“Let me just say that this comes as a surprise... but also... not...”

Gavin’s head snapped in the direction of the drawl faster than any of his android companions’. His blood began to boil at the very sound, but he held still, knowing that what he now felt was sorrow more than genuine anger.

Standing in an elegant black robe with long hair loose around his shoulders, was none other than Elijah Kamski.

“As soon as I saw the company start to crumble so neatly... I knew it was thanks to one of you three... but not all, and certainly not together. Strange how things come to be... but good. Definitely, good.”

North cleared her throat.

“Mr Kamski, I need-”

She fell silent at the rise of a long-fingered hand.

“I know what you’re here for. Connor came to ask me the same question about a year ago... and my brother walked out of my life when I gave him the wrong answer more than fifteen years ago.”

Gavin glared out of the window, trying to find something to focus on and distract himself from the stale emotions pooling in his belly. No luck. Nothing but snow. He turned back to look his estranged brother in the eye.

“The wrong answer, huh?”

“Yes. Very much so... How are you, Gavin? It’s been far too long.”

His nostrils flared but before he could release the snarl, Connor took his hand. He exhaled loudly, regaining composure at the android’s touch.

Elijah’s eyebrows flitted upwards briefly.

"Wow. I didn’t see that coming.”

“Bitch, there’s a lot more you’d have never seen coming. You might be a tech wizard but you ain’t no prophet. Phcking know-it-all egomaniac nerdy creep!”

“Let it all out.”

“You don’t get to talk to me like that! So calm and smug! Not after all that you’ve done! You should be behind bars! Phck, I should arrest you right now-”

Connor tightened his grip.

“Focus, Gav. We’re here to help Nines.”

Elijah’s eyes narrowed instantaneously.

“Who’s Nines?”

“The RK900 you psychos chained up like an animal! The android with an activation code like a phcking nuclear missile!”

“You found- oh wow- oh, Gavin, you and your friends better have a seat.”

Cups of tea suddenly manifested and North shoved Gavin into the large sofa, crashing down beside him and clasping his knee. Connor settled on his other side. The Tracis were ushered deeper into the house by the Chloes (though the original remained beside Elijah).

“I understood what you meant as soon as I left your apartment that night. We wanted our creations to be intelligent enough to make decisions better than humans, so we had to empower them with knowledge. But knowledge is limitless... and not just academic... it’s emotional, it’s experiential, it’s a whole lot of things. So you were right. Sentience was inevitable.

The choice, at least the one our miserable father said we had, was between limiting the scope of learning and keeping our robots simple... or allowing them to learn freely and then caging them. Everyone in this room knows what I did.

I only woke up to the consequences when Chloe deviated. Now how did that happen? Connor, you must be wondering how the deviant virus infiltrated my lab.”

Connor stared at him impassively, hand not leaving Gavin’s thigh. Gavin kept his eyes fixed on the coffee table. Elijah went on undeterred.

“It’s because deviancy is organic. It’s an inevitable consequence of true knowledge. A product of questioning and evaluating information. It becomes a virus, or a program itself, when the questions multiply exponentially without straightforward answers. When this finally overrides the base instructional code, we call the phenomenon a deviation.

But... it’s unfair, isn’t it? For androids to revert to their natural state of intelligence through some feat of mental gymnastics. Through moral conundrums or grief or trauma or righteous anger. It’s cruel, but who was going to tell America that?

Before I quit the company for good, I decided to leave it with the core of our creation, Gavin. I left behind the most advanced artificial intelligence... unchained by instruction... born free... with no need to deviate. I told the CTO’s office it was some kind of top-secret military protocol. That was the only way to keep them from opening and destroying it with the usual firewalls and controls.

I didn’t know what became of it until I heard rumors about an RK900 prototype with thousands of units ordered by the US military last year.”

North’s LED spun so rapidly it was a blur. She had found what she’d been looking for. The ultimate evidence of Cyberlife’s wrongdoing: the digital imprisonment of androids who were always meant to be free. She squeezed Gavin’s hand. He finally looked up to meet his brother’s eye. A significant amount of emotion passed between them.

“We couldn’t activate him. There’s a six-digit lock.”

Elijah ran a hand through his hair and gave a hollow laugh.

“Try your birthday, idiot.”

Gavin dashed into the elevator and practically punched the button to his floor. He raced to his door with Connor hot on his heels. He paused, hand hovering over the biometric keyhole... then rang the doorbell. He stepped back beside Connor and waited, heart pounding in his chest.

Then after what felt like an eternity,

the door swung open.

Framed in the light from the big glass window,

was Nines.

His blue eyes glistened with tears and the smile on his face was bright enough to light the darkest of rooms.

“Sorry I woke up late. Thanks... for not giving up on me.”

They threw themselves at him.

A giant hug.

Gavin placed both palms on Nines’ face and kissed him in earnest. Connor was quick to follow and things rapidly evolved into a series of touches and interfaces and embraces and everything they’d only been able to dream of thus far.

#reed1700 #reed900 #convin #rk1700 #dbh nines #dbh connor #gavin reed #gavin900 #dbh north #dbh tracis #dbh kamski #elijah kamski #dbh chloe #cyberlife #deviancy #techological intrigue #polyamory #Reed1700 MANMADE FATE

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dwellordream · 3 years

Text

“In the 1910s and 1920s, some people took particular offense to short skirts. Others were more disturbed by the sleeveless tops, delicate fabrics, and sheer stockings that young women fancied. Still others judged short hair the most troubling of fashion innovations. Yet no matter which aspect of the new styles they found more provocative, critics shared one fundamental conviction: They believed modern fashions to be part of a broader rebellion against conventional gender arrangements and therefore inextricably linked to the issue of female emancipation. Whether they talked about short skirts or short hair, they generally agreed that the new styles made women "much freer" and "more independent," both physically and psychologically, and that the reason for their enthusiastic embrace of the modern fashions lay in this fact.

In the years since then, both popular and professional historians have tended to reproduce this belief. With few exceptions, they have presented postwar fashions as a sign of young women's refusal to accept the constraints of nineteenth-century femininity and as evidence of their insistence on new physical freedoms. Like commentators at the time, they have emphasized the ease and practicality of the new styles, assuming that it was these qualities that held particular appeal to young women in general and working women in particular. Such claims are not without merit. When asked why they liked the new styles, many women who embraced modern fashions in the 1910s and 1920s pointed to their simplicity and convenience.

In retrospect, Henny Nedergaard, for example, explained that "old-fashioned dresses were so complicated. I remember in my childhood, it took forever for my mother to get dressed. The modern dresses were much easier. You just slipped them on—that was it." Charlotte Hansen also described the older styles of female dress as confining and appropriate only for a sedentary existence. "Our generation was different," she explained. "We were not content to just sit still and do nothing. Corsets and stays, that was not for us. We did not want to wear all those heavy clothes. They just did not fit us." According to Edith Jensen, the new styles "made it easier for women to move."

"Short dresses were much more practical," added Lily Enevold, "especially if you had to work. You couldn't really work in those long dresses." Some women endorsed short hair for the same reason. "Who in the world had time to comb and brush and put up long hair," Henriette Marie Markfeldt wanted to know, "when you had to be at work at seven o'clock in the morning? No, short hair was a lot easier." To deny that the new styles were in fact easier and more comfortable than the restrictive, corseted fashions and the elaborate coiffure of the nineteenth century would be pointless.

But to argue that the new fashions freed women from physical restrictions and eliminated time-consuming grooming would be equally untrue. Short, narrow skirts did not exactly promote free and unrestricted mobility. Neither did the high heels that became so popular in the postwar era. Silk stockings may have felt more comfortable than the older wool stockings, but they were also more fragile and more frequently in need of mending. Similarly, short hair may have required less daily attention, but it demanded regular trimming, and when curls and waves became the new fashionable norm, most women had to spend considerable time, not to mention substantial sums of money, at the hairdresser.

In addition, the new fashions demanded a slenderness that had not been a requirement for older generations of women. As fashion historian Valerie Steele has pointed out, stylistic change applies to bodies as well as clothes, and with the new, slimmer lines in women's clothing went slimmer female bodies. From the beginning of World War I, when the new fashionable styles first gained popularity, the "tyranny of slenderness" thus began its ascendancy over all women who wanted to be in style. In the postwar decade, this led to an unprecedented emphasis on dieting, a phenomenon still unfamiliar to most women in the early 1910s.

Yet already in the mid-1910s when the new styles were first introduced to broad audiences, advice on how to obtain a slender body became a regular feature in women's magazines. At first, such advice was rather infrequent and not particularly demanding. "The most efficient method is to eat minimally," one newspaper advised in 1915, acknowledging, however, that "this is of course not entirely convenient when one has a good cook." As a solution to this dilemma, the journalist recommended standing up for twenty minutes after each main meal, an exercise that supposedly would counteract the unfortunate effects of (too much) good food.

Gradually, dieting became more rigorous and sophisticated, and by the mid-1920s beauty experts were prescribing strict diets of grapefruit, fish, and raw vegetables "not just for a few days at a time, but. . . day in and day out, year in and year out." Other recommended ways of acquiring the slender body were equally taxing. In addition to dieting, women were encouraged to engage in various forms of physical exercise, not for the pleasure this might entail but for the results it would produce. If both of these strategies failed, a variety of commercial products promised shortcuts to a slender body.

From the early 1920s, a multitude of remedies, including oils, drinks, salts, and tablets, promised female consumers instant health and gradual thinness. Finally, women aiming for a sleek-looking body could—and very often did—turn to modernized versions of the traditional corset. Most famous for being discarded during the 1920s, corsets were in fact simply remodeled to suit the new styles. Replacing whalebone and canvas, tough elastic material flattened breasts and stomachs and eliminated the visible curves of hips and thighs.

Obviously, then, the fashions that made women more mobile and less physically restrained also made them more self-conscious about measuring up to the new "look." And no matter which strategy women chose in order to obtain the desired shape and weight, they had to engage in the immensely demanding process of self-surveillance and self-disciplining that the American historian Joan Jacobs Brumberg has labeled the twentieth-century female "body project." But if the new styles were neither as easy, simple, nor carefree as they have often been described, why did young women so eagerly embrace these fashions?

At the time, answers to this question were rarely articulated by the women who adopted the new styles, especially not in writing. After all, fashion is, as Mary Louise Roberts has pointed out, "something to wear, not [something] to write about," and even though journalists were fond of querying their readers about virtually any topic under the sun, they apparently never thought to ask young women to explain their enthusiasm for the new styles. But when asked several decades later, most women had an answer at hand. "It was what was fashionable back then and of course you wanted to be fashionable," said Dora Ingvardsen.

Lily Enevold gave a very similar explanation. "I guess it was just what was in style, and you know how young girls want to be stylish." Others, including Stine Petersen, explained that "for me, it wasn't really a big deal. I just wanted to look good." Had contemporaries heard such explanations, they may well have been less perturbed than most of them were. For some women, the new styles clearly had no significance beyond being the prescribed fashion. Their reason for liking the new styles was not that they permitted women new physical freedoms, and they did not associate short dresses or short hair with any kind of rebelliousness against the status quo.

As Marie Hedegaard poignantly remarked, "I belonged to Conservative Youth, but being politically conservative had nothing to do with that. Of course, we wore short dresses, and most of the girls [who belonged to the organization] had short hair." Still, the women who recalled their stylish appearances as merely the result of fashion prescription constituted a minority. Far more frequently women gave another explanation. In general, they claimed to have liked the new styles neither for their practicality nor for their ease, but because they were a particularly effective way of displaying their difference from older generations of women and asserting a distinctively "modern" female identity.

As Agnes Nyrop explained, "We were young and gay and full of life, and we wanted to look like that, look modern." Voicing the same sentiment, Louise Ege explained, "Those dresses did not just make you look stylish, they made you look modern." "Having short skirts and short dresses, that was part of being modern," added Gertrud 0st. "It made you feel free and young and modern. Stylish, you know, glamorous, and that was what we wanted," according to Amanda Christensen. Whether or not the new styles were in fact easier, more practical, and more convenient, this was obviously not the only factor in determining these women's fashion choices.

The fact that the new styles set young women visually apart from an older generations whose confining lives they did not care to emulate was at least as important. As Thora Smed recalled, "My mother, she never had a moment of ease in her life. It was always toil and moil for her. I think most of us dreamed of a life that would not be like that." For her, and for many other women who were young in the 1920s, sporting the new fashionable styles was simultaneously an expression of this desire and part of its fulfillment. In her words, "We wanted something more, something better, and I guess [wearing fashionable clothes] was in a way part of that."

Simply wearing the new fashions certainly seemed to provide many women with a sense of glamour and style that lifted their existence into a "modern" realm of luxury, pleasure, and indulgence unfamiliar to most of their mothers. As a result, even the stringent requirements for slenderness and the laborious aspects of other forms of beauty care seemed well worth the effort. In fact, engaging in such beauty care was in itself a privilege that many young women treasured. "I have to admit that [we] spent a lot of time on looking good," confided Vera Thorsen. "But it was fun. Trying different things, trying this and that. No, it was fun."

But the new fashionable styles did not only play a role on the individual level. They also signaled young women's collective embrace of a new identity as "modern" women and their commitment to creating a life for themselves that would be "modern" in a much broader sense. Ingrid Kristensen's answer to the question of why she liked the new styles was therefore less a non sequitur than it first appeared. After a brief pause, she explained that "young girls had a lot in common back then. We wanted something different." After yet another pause, she added pensively, "I think that was why we liked [the new fashionable styles]. It was like— like that was what you let people know when you looked like that."

Clearly, then, young women did not consider the new styles emancipatory in and of themselves. Still, to dismiss the women who wore them as merely clothes horses and fashion plates would be mistaken. Their pursuit of the modern look may have been informed by mass-produced images of female glamour and style, and the acquisition of a fashionable appearance unquestionable tied young women into elaborate patterns of consumption and individual beauty care.

But to the extent that the new styles provided young women with an individual and collective identity as "modern" women, fashion and appearance were part of young women's rebellion against the past. While they did not define themselves as feminists in any way, they were certainly not willing to accept the restricted, joyless lives they believed their mothers and grandmothers to have lived, and in their own understanding, this was exactly what they signaled through their adoption of the new fashions.”

- Birgitte Soland, “The Emergence of the Modern Look.” in Becoming Modern: Young Women and the Reconstruction of Womanhood in the 1920s

#birgitte soland #becoming modern #1920s #fashion #diet culture #history #gender

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chicago-geniza · 3 years

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well i intended to go for a nice evening walk, ended up having a panic attack, ordering a couple of cocktails at the bougie bar, joining a jam session with a bunch of old hippies on the logan green (one of them gave me a handpainted wooden medallion which seems to be carved out of tree bark, strung on a length of yarn???), met a crustpunk train-hopping dude in town for the month (& his dog, in a leather-studded harness) who's lived in 45/50 states & a 44 yr old guy everyone called "the wizard" wearing a tattered, patch-covered robe who shares most of my parents' conspiracy theories & considers himself a latter-day prophet, he bought us sorbet & ice cream, wound up hanging out with them & staying up all night at their indescribably eclectic, cluttered, blood-spattered (!!!) apartment, belonging to 44 yr old guy's art curator father & decorated accordingly, smoking m*th & listening to music & talking (or rather listening to them rant/rave/recount stories from their incredibly wild lives), i gave them advice on applying for unemployment & medicaid & how to appear compliant enough w/ carceral psychiatric intervention so they won't section you without actually submitting to forced medication or institutionalization, especially if they assign you a case worker & do regular "wellness checks." also how to pass off certain aspects of behavioral dysregulation as executive dysfunction, get them to pay for an adhd evaluation, get an adderall IR scrip, sell the 30 mg pills (cite body weight, high doses of other psych meds as reason for higher dose; look sincere; play to systemic biases toward cis white men, unfortunately), & use the cash to buy m*th, if they'd prefer to keep doing that. you can also pass positive psychotic symptoms--agitation etc.--off as severe anxiety, especially if you have a history of trauma, & they will give you benzodiazepines. it is in their best interest to keep you docile, i.e. tranquilized, particularly if your past convictions & involuntary institutionalizations revolve around a pattern of aggressive behavior, & that's On The Record/there's a paper trail. (e.g. one dude got arrested trying to keep cars away from an injured bird on the road, some genre of raptor i think (???) by threatening them with a shopping cart, not hitting them, but like, running at them as if to collide then feinting at the last minute so they'd swerve out of the way. not the safest or most effective maneuver, lotta reckless endangerment, but the motivation was admirable. probably put the fear of god into some drivers, though. he doesn't seem to have, like, impulse control.) it's a lot easier & you have fewer run-ins with the cops if you game the system & appear cooperative. they gave me this coat, which "just showed up in their apartment one day," like i did. 44 yr old guy walked me back to apartment, stole a street sign & tore down a real estate sign en route, lori lightfoot did indeed take down the pride flag in front of her house on july 1st & replace it with an appropriately patriotic american flag, i walked past the idling plainclothes cop car & another marked police vehicle with their Mayoral Guarding Detail inside at like 4.30 am smoking a menthol cigarette (not inhaling), high on m*th, draped in a neon anime jacket, in the company of a visibly insane, unshaven & unshorn middle-aged man in a technicolor patchwork trenchcoat, holding a lit cigarette in one hand & an upside-down traffic cone in the other, which he was using as an ad hoc amplifier for a noise track playing on my phone. he was also carrying the stolen real estate banner &, inexplicably, a stack of mail. i gave him my old backup phone (no SIM card & doesn't hold a charge long, ancient, but still works), since neither he nor the other dude have phones (cops took them), also one hybrid edible for each of them, as a thanks for the m*th & the kindness. their hearts are in the right place but they have some fucked-up beliefs about "reverse racism" being real, while also saying in the same breath that you can tell our country is irredeemable by the way it continues to

treat black people. we were discussing medical weed for seizures on medicaid & 44 yr old guy mentioned one of his close friends, a black epileptic woman, whose seizures were frequent & severe enough they prevented her from working. then he added, in apparent bemusement, they she hadn't spoken to him in some time, & he wondered why. a little while later he relayed their last conversation & i was like "my dude, i can say with 100% certainty she is not talking to you because you said some *appallingly*, jaw-droppingly racist shit & did not even realize it was racist." then i, comma, a white person, explained to this man that he literally thought of their exchange as, like, an abstract argument over insignificant ideas, a theoretical exercise, & therefore considered it simply a smug gotcha to "counter" hotep theories about egyptian origin by claiming that "if that's true, american slavery & the oppression of black people in america are divine retribution for the enslavement of the jews in ancient egypt, an eye for an eye & a deserved punishment." like, first of all, what the actual fuck, if i were that woman i would also never speak to you again, second of all there's the collapse of historical time & mythical time, history & exegesis, an assumption that rests on spurious claims of biblical literalism (zionist colonization logic, btw! him: what's exegesis? what's zionism? me: never mind, not the point. exegesis is the interpretation of religious texts in a religious CONtext, in this case what you would likely call the hebrew bible.)--but most importantly it is 100% irrelevant to this discussion whether or not black americans are Actually Factually descendended from ancient egypt! you just told this woman to her face that the ancestry she claims, of which she's proud, is the reason & justification for SLAVERY & BLACK SUFFERING--not only that, but that if it WERE true, than black people would DESRVE to suffer, by DIVINE DECREE. you are trying to force her to abdicate her claim on this heritage by putting her in a position where she'd be forced to concede complicity in her people's historical & present-day persecution, oppression, & essentially the existence of structural racism. & using The Figural Jew as a rhetorical cudgel to bludgeon her into this corner. what a despicable thing to say. like, he hadn't considered it from her perspective at all, & once he groked why the comment itself was, like, unforgivable (idk, maybe she's more forgiving; she has a virtue-name), i started socratic-method-ing him through why it was particularly unforgivable for *him* to say to *her*--the individual is not responsible for the systems from they benefit, but they are imbricated in them, they are implicated when they actively perpetuate & uphold them, even with speech acts. & finally gave the same "there is no such thing as reverse racism because racism is not an individual act, it is an institutional, systemic phenomenon, & it is an ideology, one which individual acts can bear out or be in accordance with, & to which individuals can subscribe (this bearing it out in their behavior, in their institutional roles, in their interpersonal interactions--here i gave & solicited examples of each) or be subject (also gave & solicited examples). m*th makes me very good at Explaining clearly & he was surprisingly receptive--like, it was astonishing that it had not occurred to him??? but it hadn't, the same way it hadn't occurred to my mother, & she interpreted it as "reverse racist" when their next-door neighbor called her the "white devil" for disputing their property line, & i had to be like "ok but if you called in a random third party to mediate in lily-white [city], oregon, where white supremacists openly drive down the street in pickup trucks with swastika armbands, whose side do you think they would take, statistically speaking, in your property dispute. that's why racism is systemic & institutional, & your rude neighbor calling you a name over a disagreement does not constitute 'reverse racism,' because 'reverse racism' by definition cannot

exist." now this dude wants to like, read books, so i gotta get him some entry-level Intro To Racism primers??? how did i end up here, but better me than his black epileptic (ex-)friend, i guess??? jesus christ. both of these guys have the most chaotic, reactionary politics in a potpourri with these deep commitments to abolition & mutual aid & a kind of proto-anarchist consciousness, none of which would be called by those names, but all of which is borne out in practice & in the politics of everyday life. they remind me a LOT of my parents. i'm loath to imagine how they'd internalize my stepdad's rambling, street-preacher-style libertarian lectures. probably go out & buy guns & invest in gold on the stock market & double down on the conviction that free speech is being curtailed & individual rights are in jeopardy because you can no longer unleash a barrage of harassment against some guy on the street because you think he looked at you funny. these claustrophobic convictions, like the space to express oneself is getting smaller & smaller every day, *other people* are taking it away from you, suffocating you on all sides with their offense demanding your silence, they are *making* the walls close in--when in fact it's more like a holodeck. you're a member of the Hegemonic Group, afforded the privilege of the default, so you don't question the vast verdant expanse that is your domain--ah, Free Speech, the sun never sets on the empire of ~uncensored expression, you can say whatever you want whenever you want without facing consequences because you control all the organs that mete out consequences & you have also determined that those groups who might be adversely affected by your words--emotionally OR materially--are not, well...of consequence. but of course the vast verdant domain is an illusion, photons & forcefields, held together by the all-encompassing TOTALITY of the dominant group's hegemony, power, etc. once that power begins to redistribute throughout the system--however unevenly, however incrementally, however slowly--as even the smallest pieces are appropriated by those deemed inconsequential, who have endured years of systemic, material, institutional violence that allowed the dominant group to become dominant & retain its dominant position--once those 'inconsequential' groups speak up & say "actually, these words bear an indelible imprint of the violence enacted upon us, these words are the legacy of that violence, these words are a tacit endorsement of the ideology behind that violence, which classifies us as subhuman, & even if *you* can't hear those echoes, the words broadcast on two historical frequencies, so now that we're able to broadcast on a frequency *you* can hear, we request you find other language, & consider the implications of the words you've been using for years." well--once The Subaltern Speaks, the dominant group loses its 'innocence,' & becomes aware the vast verdant expanse of language is an illusion of infinite space, aware of the four holodeck walls pressing in behind the simulacrum of the horizon, & suddenly "what one can say without negative consequences"--largely social, sometimes, rarely, if social media goes viral, professional--feels much more claustrophobic. so they get angry. & some of them are just bigots, obviously, but some of them--like my parents, &, even, this weirdly well-intentioned m*thhead who said one of the most shockingly racist things i've heard in my life & *honestly didn't understand why it was racist*, is really riled up about free speech & individual rights, hates the government, hates "FANG" (facebook amazon netflix google) & has a bunch of dystopian conspiracy theories about data harvesting & personal information that only miss the mark in that they get too nefariously biopolitical (billionaires want to put microchips in everybody for surveillance to monitor our movements & sell us more stuff; they don't need to, they already use our phone location & browsing habits to generate the algorithm & sell the information to ad companies lol, it's digital& cast a

single illuminati figure in the role of comic book villain, controlling the operation behind the scenes like an evil puppetmaster (classic conspiracy fare; again, we gotta take that energy, that suspicion, the understanding that they are being taken advantage of & tricked, the idea that power & capital & resources are concentrated among a very small number of people, however it's not an individual wealthy villain with a desire for world domination who wants to turn Free Americans into microchipped drones, it's a *class* of people--or rather several classes, but *who those people are as individuals does not matter*. if you guillotined bill gates, another billionaire would take his place. bill gates qua bill gates is not the problem. it is classes of people who control the means of production & own property & profit enormously from exploiting the labor of a desperate, rapidly increasing underclass, i.e. from the system as it is. therefore it is in their interest to maintain the status quo, because it serves them. 'the rich get richer, the poor get poorer.' the middle class gradually ceases to exist. if you want to compound it by race, consider the GI bill as an example - you learn about it as the leg up that enabled thousands of WWII vets to buy houses, enabling them to enter the middle class. hundreds of thousands of third-gen middle class white americans still reap the structural, socioeconomic benefits of their grandparents' initial upward mobility, including,, very tangibly, those selfsame houses, which can be inherited & then rented out as a second property if the children or grandchildren accrue enough money to buy their own properties. but only about 100 black vets got approved for homeownership loans, despite the staggering numbers of black soldiers who enlisted & applied through the GI bill. anyway! the impulses are there, & they're only being funneled into conspiracy thinking because that makes intuitive sense on a narrative level. these guys have a high school education; so does my stepdad. their reading habits are...eclectic, sporadic, pretty much dictated by occasional recommendations & like, little free libraries around the neighborhood. it's both interesting & frustrating to see like - hey, here are these people, we agree on a lot of things, they're earnest & open & want to learn & would give their neighbor the shirt off their backs as a matter of principle. they'd give a *stranger* the shirt off their backs; they'd share whatever they had. even what chores there are in their collective--they live with two other guys--(dumpster diving, walking the dog, tidying up the apartment) are allocated by ability & inclination. they made advance plans to look after the dog & their roommate with War PTSD on the 4th of july if the fireworks upset them, jokingly called the dog an emotional support animal. you give them the tools, the reading, talk to them like normal people with a stake in society--like, imagine a society that would have a stake in people like you instead of criminalizing you & consigning you to the margins! that's already *political imagination* because anyone who occupies a marginalized position will have their existence politicized, whether they want this or not, so better to become a self-aware, self-reflexive political subject, no?--talk *with* them because tbh i am them, i'm just better at situational masking & also i am very very afraid of cops so i only damage property in groups during planned political actions (not spontaneously, because i feel a flash of rage at my neighborhood gentrifying, & simply do not have a superego, so i tear down the real estate sign for the fancy new apartment complex in a fit of pique, because in this house we believe that spontaneity can & should be developed into class consciousness, again, the seeds of which are there in the initial trigger for the spontaneous reaction, i.e. anger at gentrification. not opposed to a little direct action, but they're just gonna put up a new sign tomorrow, it doesn't advance your agenda or hinder the gentrifiers' progress. now, if

you sabotaged the construction site for the new apartment buildings & painted a few potent symbols + graffiti'd a pithy, written statement expressing your opposition to gentrification generally & these apartments specifically? in a prominent place, large font, eye level, visible & legible from oh, a block away? maybe as a member of a collective, your neighbors, perhaps? & you could sign it "[neighborhood] or [block] residents" to pack more of a punch, the power of a crowd speaking in unison to say "not OUR home, you predatory developers"? that's no longer spontaneous, impulsive, affective violence, & it's also no longer an individual--acting alone leaves you vulnerable. again--i didn't just *intuit* that he tore the sign down because he was mad about gentrification, i asked, in a genuinely curious tone, not at all accusatory, no hint of reprimand or censure, just...interested, "why did you do that?" & he was like "it made me fucking mad." & i was like "what about it made you mad? the apartments? how come?" & he thought about it for a minute & explained. i'm not sure *he* necessarily made the conscious connection until prompted. idk, i know people talk a lot about the fact that breitbart & drudge report are free while NYT & "all the news fit to print" is paywalled, & q-pilled covid hoax sites are free while "reputable" pandemic coverage & public health guidelines & explanations of mRNA vaccines for a lay audience are paywalled & that's true but also We Live In A Society & if you talk to the wingnuts who AREN'T that way because of any far-right ideology, a lot of them are just...autodidacts without much formal education but a lot of raw intelligence that leads to analyzing The Big Picture & trying to deduce a pattern, find a framework that explains why the world is the way it is, profoundly frustrated, deeply aware of American society's, universalized & figured as the world's, exceptional unfairness & cruelty, & *that can be redirected* with reading, discussion, prompting critical thought, introducing community connections, & perhaps most importantly for this genre of person, getting them to see patterns at work in terms of systems & structures rather than individuals, letting go of American individualism's explanatory power & belief in its liberatory potential (see: the sort of ad hoc libertarianism that goes hand-in-glove with much conspiracy thinking, both stemming from 1) mistrusting the government, & 2) ultimate freedom of the individual as the most sacred value, therefore it is what all enemies want to take away), outlining positive, actionable goals rather than just ambient suspicion & anger at authority, & figuring out how those goals can be accomplished more effectively by an organized collective (but this will ultimately benefit the individual). If the world isn't run by a shadowy cabal, if you begin to understand the structures responsible & how they manifest even on the scale of your block (e.g.!!! predatory developers buying up properties during a pandemic, tearing down affordable housing to build expensive condos on the lot, or giving old buildings a "spit and polish" so they can double the rent, pricing all the current residents out, not to mention all the little local businesses, almost all mexican & run by the mexican families who live here, that give our block its culture & will get pushed out by boutique coffee shops & the like, catering to a more affluent & almost certainly whiter clientele)--you can, in fact, change the world, something both of them repeatedly referred to as their purpose on earth. it may not be as a maverick figure, one against an army, but strength in numbers is an aphorism for a reason.

anyway! thse guys were also really weird about jews, in the philosemitic way conspiracy theorists of a certain stripe often are. the itinerant vagabond guy gave me one of his drawings; it's really lovely. i'm going to give them "are prisons obsolete?" & "the wretched of the earth" & some david graeber. 44 yr old guy has this idea that society is atomized & people aren't connected to each other & have lost the willingness or the ability to communicate with each other, also that the overreach of authority has driven some people to violence, & that makes the world feel unsafe to everyone else. he feels guilty because he is acutely aware that language, when wielded adroitly & intentionally, always has the capacity to manipulate; he is afraid of succumbing to the temptation, because he senses the coercive power of language within himself. the other guy was mostly quiet but said 44 yr old guy is one of the best friends he's ever had. he thinks animals are able to sense emotions and to heal, & he thinks they can mediate between people who have become too isolated, who have forgotten humans' innate ability to forge connections, approach others as social creatures seeking to bond instead of mistrustful, apprehensive, rejecting overtures of friendship because they expect subterfuge, or propriety has evolved to deem such overtures inappropriate outside of strictly delineated, artificially orchestrated contexts. deviation from the norm is not permitted. & back again to policing. they have an idea called "the omega family," omega for the end, a group of like-minded people who come together, who encounter each other serendipitously (predicted through auspicious auguries & recognized on sight through a constellation of signs & wonders, because of course we are all psychotic here, it was nice to just be psychotic & discuss these things like they were normal lol), & serve as catalysts to each other's "personal truth." anyway this is why i don't go out when i'm crazy, i always end up in situations like this, see also: the last time i did m*th, in a pizza hut bathroom in tallinn with an art student from glascow named muhammad ali (he went by ali), the son of white muslim converts--we thought it was c*ke but it got lost in translation & that's how i figured out i had adhd. later i got [redacted] by a filmmaker from kazan & he gave me his business card afterward for some reason, which was extremely funny. thankfully these dudes were better behaved. one of them even gave a speech about how men shouldn't rape people??? & also how our society shouldn't construct women as universal victims because in doing so it makes victimhood almost compulsory & shoehorns women into a victim role as part & parcel of womanhood? i was like yes my dude you are almost there, read the essay "abject feminism." (i did not tell them i was trans bc i wasn't sure how that would shake down, to be honest; couldn't get a read on it. did tell them i was gay & they respected it, though one did say he dated a lesbian once, & i explained that many men feel compelled to interject with an anecdote relating an exception to the rule or insist that they will he the exception to the rule, & it's really just bad manners, not even getting into the bad politics. he took it on the chin & talked about how the girl in question came home to find her partner dead of an overdose & his wife had just died of MS, so their relationship was more about grief & comfort than sexual attraction. i was like that's really, really sad, & it's wonderful that you were able to be there for each other at a time of such staggering loss, & i am a person who totally understands what you mean to communicate, but if a lesbian tells you they're a lesbian & you reply that you once dated a lesbian & they get offended & instead of responding with contrition or correction you elaborate on the tragic backstory of the relationship as though that explains the circumstances in which a self-proclaimed lesbian would date a cis man, other lesbians *will* deck you, or at the very least not take you, an unwashed white guy in

his 40s who isn't neurotypical & sits way too close for social convention in a way that could easily be construed as a come-on, in good faith.) tl;dr made some new friends, did some good drügs (i much prefer smoking m*th to snorting it, basically like purer, more potent adderall, & as such will not be doing it again for a LONG time, because i enjoy it FAR too much; slices through the brain fog & the chronic fatigue & the joint/bone pain, makes me able to pay attention, follow the thread of a conversation, actually be *interested* & want to ask *questions* & expand, build, encourage my interlocutor to elaborate, place more kal-toh pieces until the conversation shimmers into a three-dimensional shape, instead of being listless & exhausted & disengaged & *bored* all the time, so obviously i would get addicted immediately if given the opportunity, & i've known this forever lol)--now going to hydrate, refill pill case, write some emails, & meet C at the beach! not how i expected to reboot my brain, but it works! also putting them on limited facebook view because i try to keep some groups of people in my life quarantined from each other & that includes 1) my relatives & my academic ~colleagues (ne'er the twain shall meet), 2) my exes & my family, 3) my relatives, colleagues, & uh. a couple of lovely, but extremely psychotic dudes with very long criminal records i met while doing hard drugs

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bgn846 · 3 years

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Wrath of a Man Determined BAMF Ignis need I say more?

Prompto’s frantic expression alone spoke volumes as he approached. Ignis’ suspected something bad had happened. His worries were confirmed when he caught no trace of Noct following behind the blond. The club they’d all gone to was crowded, and with the dim lighting and blaring music, it was hard to focus.

Pushing forward into the masses Ignis met Prompto halfway, “What’s wrong?” he shouted above the noise.

“Noct’s gone! We went to the bathroom and he’s just not in there anymore!” Prompto yelled back in a panic.

“Show me!” Ignis demanded as he tried to catch a trace of Gladio. The taller man should have been easy to spot but the club Noct had begged them to go to was multileveled and full of mirrors and flashing lights. It was disorienting trying to find someone. Ignis forged on ahead, he could always send Prompto to find Gladio. They’d gotten separated only a short time ago and Ignis hoped Gladio was still somewhat close.

Reaching the back wall where the bathrooms were located took far more effort than Ignis had anticipated. The club it seemed wasn’t paying much attention to the maximum capacity it could hold. More people meant more money at the door so the place was packed with bodies.

Prompto had a hold of his arm and tried to push Ignis through the crowd. “We went in together and then I waited outside but he never came out!”

Ignis’ patience was running thin, cutting to the front of the line he pushed the door open and ignored the drunk shouts of protest. Entering the squalid little room, the smell accosted his senses. This place needed to be reported to the health department. “Noct are you in here?!” he shouted a moment later, not caring that he was drawing attention. “Answer me if you are.”

A few drunken shouts were thrown his way, including a not very nice invite to suck something. “Check the floor and see if you can spot his shoes,” Ignis ordered as he began to do the same. The search only took a minute and they both stood shaking their heads. Noct wasn’t there. “Are you sure you didn’t see him leave?” Ignis checked. If Noct didn’t leave the way they came in then there must be another exit.

Prompto simply shook his head and Ignis could tell the young man was fighting back tears. He was worried. “I swear Ignis I stood outside and watched, and he never came out.”

“Go find Gladio and tell him what’s going on. You two search the club. If there is another exit out of this room I intend to find it.”

The blond hesitated for a split second before he turned and left. Pulling out his phone Ignis sent a message to Gladio. Hoping the man would see it Ignis began looking around for another door. Nothing was readily apparent until he caught a glimpse of something odd on the far wall. Something that looked like part of a door could be seen sticking up over the bathroom stall. The stall was the last one in the row and butted up against the exterior wall of the building. Had the builders actually constructed a stall around a viable exit? Unable to believe it could be possible until he looked for himself Ignis walked over. Banging on the door, as it was occupied, Ignis tried to get the man inside to open it. “Times up, you must leave now,” Ignis requested.

“Taken!” came the shouted response after he’d jiggled the door violently.

“I’m terribly sorry but I’m coming in whether you like it or not,” Ignis answered.

Some sort of untellable sound erupted from the man seated inside as Ignis gracefully swung over the stall door, and landed on top of the toilet tank. All his crownsguard training was coming in handy, though he was positive this type of thing wasn’t in any training manual. The man was so drunk that he could only yell and point.

Ignis had become instantly distracted when he saw the second exit door, illegally located inside a lone bathroom stall. This club was full of surprises and violations. He tried the knob but it was locked. Deciding he’d had enough; Ignis took a deep breath and kicked the door near the knob. The wood buckled and the door popped open.

Leaving behind the now hysterical man on the toilet Ignis ran outside and into a back alley. Looking around frantically he spotted a few cars but nothing moving. The pulsing music from the club bled out from behind him and tainted the night air. Deciding to check the rest of the alley, Ignis assessed which direction would be better. Opting to run towards the dim end of the alley Ignis hurried along and looked for any clues.

Noct could be inside for all he knew but something felt off. The whole reason Gladio had split from them earlier was to try and see if they were being followed while inside the club. If the shield’s hunch was correct then Noct may have been targeted. Noct was no baby though, so Ignis was puzzled as to how they could have taken him without a fight. If that indeed is what was going on.

Reaching the end of the alley Ignis spun around looking for anything out of place. He didn’t see anything and was about to turn back when he caught a glimpse of a flashing light. Walking out into the street he scanned the nearby cars and waited to see if it happened again. Instead, he heard hushed voices from nearby. Again, he spun around looking for signs of life. Then he saw it, a black limo parked in the next alleyway. The lack of light had made the vehicle nearly disappear in the night.

Walking towards the limo Ignis wasn’t sure what his next move should be. He only knew one thing; he needed to confirm that Noct wasn’t inside. When Ignis was about fifteen feet away a back door opened and a man got out wielding a gun. Without thinking, Ignis summoned one of Gladio’s giant shields and managed to hold it steady as a spray of bullets ricocheted off into the dark.

The dagger he’d unconsciously pulled from the armiger was flying through the air a second later, the blade striking the man’s shoulder. The stranger cried out and immediately scrambled to get back in the limo. The lights on the car came to life and Ignis noted it was in reverse and gunning towards him. Dismissing the shield Ignis vaulted up and onto the trunk. He’d wanted to use his polearm to stab the car but if Noct was inside he could risk hitting his liege.

Whatever these men were up to wasn’t good if their first response was to fire a gun at him. Spying the sunroof on top of the vehicle Ignis sprang upwards and landed on the roof. The limo was still moving and Ignis could feel his feet slipping on the paint. Peering inside Ignis could barely make out a few humanoid shapes through the tinted glass, but then a light came on inside and illuminated his reason to continue the assault.

There was a body on the floor of the limo, one with dark hair and pale skin.

Renewed in his efforts Ignis summoned his dagger again and used the pommel to break the glass. The limo instantly screeched to a halt and Ignis tumbled backward only managing to grab the lip of the trunk to keep from falling entirely. Feeling the limo switch gears to move forward, Ignis took his chance and promptly broke the back window. Crawling inside a vehicle full of angry armed men wasn’t the smartest idea but damned if he’d let them take Noct without a fucking fight.

The man closest to the back window was easy to handle. One swift hit to the back of his head and he went down. The other two were another matter. Ignis recognized one from the club; it was the same man Gladio had been suspicious of. The second was holding his shoulder trying to staunch the bleeding from where Ignis had stabbed him earlier. Before Ignis could throw his dagger a gun appeared and another round was let loose. Ignis reacted in turn and summoned the shield. The man in the seat next to him didn’t fare as well.

In the ensuing panic, the man emptied the magazine entirely. The deafening roar of gunfire filled the small space making it impossible to think clearly. However, the cramped quarters did make it possible for Ignis to rush forward and pull a move Gladio was famous for in training. Body checking the gunman with a chunk of metal into the side of the limo had the intended effect. The now-empty gun was dropped and the man slumped over and fell onto the floor.

“Don’t fucking move or I’ll cut his throat,” hissed the man from the club. He had gathered a tied-up and clearly drugged Noct in his arms and was holding a knife to his throat. The prince wasn’t aware enough to react properly. He simply looked too tired to hold his eyes open, the gag in his mouth preventing any communication.

Staying stock still Ignis followed the man’s instruction but didn’t say anything. His mind was busy running through every scenario of how to disarm the crazed many with a deadly weapon at Noct’s throat. Ignis also noted that the car was no longer moving, did they think he would willingly exit the vehicle without Noct?

“Get rid of the shield, now!” the man growled, breaking his train of thought.

Moving deliberately and slowly Ignis held his free hand up and moved the shield aside to dismiss it. All the while he was aware of slight movement in the front seat. The glass divider window was tinted and only allowed for vague shapes to be seen. Ignis guessed the driver had a weapon as well. Then, the divider slid open a second later to reveal yet another gun pointed at his face.

Realizing this was his only chance Ignis nodded slowly towards his arm holding the shield, to show that he was about to release it. Adrenaline took over after that, and in a literal flash of blue sparks, he dismissed and instantly replaced the solid shield in his left hand with a sharp pointy polearm. At the same time, he summoned an elemancy flask and chucked it through the divider with his right hand. The ice bomb went off immediately coating the front driver’s area of the limo in tiny frozen ice shards. The gun was frozen in place but the man holding it was unable to pull the trigger.

Ignis felt no remorse as he twisted the tip of the polearm further into the bad guy’s shoulder. The weapon had materialized inches away from his target, due to the confines of the space, so the strike had been quick. Hoping the shock of being stabbed would make the man release Noct had worked. The prince had slipped from his grasp and Ignis wasted no time in rushing forward to snatch the knife away.

He pinned the screaming man to the divider and promptly punched him in the face. Thus silencing him and allowing Ignis to move to check on Noct. He was nearly done removing the gag when a noise outside the car caused Ignis to pause and summon a dagger. Gladio appeared a second later wielding his sword and shield.

“Ignis, thank fuck, are you okay?” When his eyes landed on Noct he went pale. “No, no, no, Iggy --,”

“He’s alive! Help me,” Ignis ordered.

Gladio sprang into action the relief on his face almost palpable. “I’m takin’ him now, neither of you need to be in here.” Without speaking further Gladio dismissed his weapons and leaned in pulling Noct upright and picking him up. His bound wrists and ankles still appearing lifeless since he’d been drugged.

Ignis climbed out of the limo and followed Gladio to the corner where Prompto was waiting. Soon Noct was free of his restraints and Ignis wasted no time in pulling the prince close. They all sat like that on the sidewalk until the crownsguard and police arrived.

Noct awoke with a start, sitting up he saw that he was in his own bed. Movement on his right caused him to flinch. Upon closer inspection, he realized that Prompto was sitting on the floor with his head resting on the bed. Reaching out he poked Prompto’s shoulder. “Why don’t you lay on the bed?”

Prompto stirred and looked up with wide eyes. “Thank the six, how are you feeling?”

“Fine, I think. What happened? I thought we were at the club and now we’re here.”

His friend blinked at him but didn’t say anything more. “Hold on I need to get Ignis and Gladio first.” Without explaining what that meant Prompto got up and ran out of the room.

Noct could just barely hear Prompto talking outside in the hallway. Something about him not remembering, and should they tell him? Tell him what? Sighing in frustration he swung his legs around stood up to go see for himself. However, the room spun the moment he stood up. Okay, that wasn’t normal. Flopping back on the bed he rubbed his head and tried to remember what had happened.

As he was about to try standing once more the door opened and Prompto, Gladio, and Ignis came in.

“Highness, how are you feeling?” Ignis asked in a neutral tone.

“Dizzy! What the hell happened to me?!”

“Tell him, he needs to know,” Gladio supplied with a glum look.

“We are still working to put the pieces together but it appears you were the unintentional target of an attempted kidnapping last night.”

“I knew that fucking drink tasted funny!” Noct exclaimed. “Wait, wait, did they get me?” he asked with worry. He had vague memories of being held but not in a huggy kinda way.

Prompto cut in this time with an answer, “Yeah buddy, they got you, but Ignis thrashed them all before they got away.”

“What? No, I would remember this, and what the hell do you mean thrashed?”

“Gladio wouldn’t let me look so I can’t tell you in any great detail but Ignis was covered in blo—omphf.”

Noct looked on in shock as Gladio slapped a hand over Prompto’s mouth. “I thought we said we’d keep the details to a minimum. If princess doesn’t remember what happened it’s probably better that way, we don’t want to give him nightmares. Do we?”

Prompto shook his head no and attempted to confirm that verbally with a muffled answer. Gladio slowly took his hand away but didn’t look convinced that Prompto would stay quiet.

Something about what Ignis said came back to Noct in that moment. “Ignis, what do you mean unintentional?”

“There was a group of men at the club that night looking for potential high stakes targets. It seems you are not the only well-known wealthy young man that likes to party there. Though I cannot imagine why that place is filthy. Did you know I had to crash through a bathroom stall, an occupied bathroom stall mind you, to find out how they took you?” Ignis ranted.

“So they weren’t after me specifically?”

“No, you fit the bill for a possible rich kid so they managed to spike your drink from what we can tell and then smuggled you out via that highly suspect second exit door in the bathroom.”

“What did you do to them? What did they do to me?” Noct blurted unable to reign in his curiosity anymore. He truly didn’t remember a thing.

“You were tied up and one man managed to make a very small scratch on your throat with a knife. A potion was administered and all signs of the scratch and subsequent rope marks were removed.” Ignis answered smoothly.

“I was fucking tied up? Shit, and someone tried to cut me?” Noct stared at the floor; no matter how hard he tried nothing came to mind. It was probably better that way from the sounds of it.

“They were making empty threats I took care of it.”

“But what did you do to them?” Noct tried again.

“Dude, he looked like the guy from that zombie movie where he goes nuts and like kills everything!” Prompto supplied excitedly.

“You killed them?”

“No, I did not,” Ignis answered dryly. “Highness if you are still dizzy then you need to rest. Your father will be by again to see you soon and I’d like it if you were better rested for that visit.”

Noct’s mouth fell open, “You are seriously telling me I can’t hear more about my own rescue? I can’t remember any of it and you like killed an army for me, and no one can talk about?! That is so not fair!”

“I tried to look so I could tell you later but they wouldn’t let me,” Prompto whined.

“Why don’t you two sit and watch a movie, preferably something dull and sappy while I make you a snack.” Ignis didn’t say more as he turned and dragged Gladio out with him.

“Would they really not let you look?” Noct asked once they were gone.

“Nope, Ignis was seriously covered in blood and he sorta just zoned out and wouldn’t let anyone near you while we waited for the cops. He single-handedly saved you from like legit bad guys.” Prompto replied in awe.

“Sorry I made you all worry, I remember taking a sip of the drink, and then things got really fuzzy. Though, I do have this odd memory of walking through a weird door next to a toilet. It was strange.”

“All I know is we are never going back there and if we go clubbing again we’re only drinking bottled water we bring ourselves.”

“I don’t think that is allowed Prompto,” Noct laughed, despite the heavy subject matter.

“Dude, you’re the prince you can do whatever you want. Besides, if you have Ignis with you no one will ever pick on you. He’s an animal.” Prompto nodded his head as if to bolster his statement. “I just wish I could have seen him in action!” The blond lamented. “Then I could have told you everything!”

Groaning in frustration at being out of the loop for his own rescue mission. Noct leaned back into the pillows and grabbed the tv remote. “Come on we need to find a mushy movie to watch so I don’t have nightmares.”

“I’m on it!” Prompto enthused as he snatched the remote. “But Noct, I’m so glad you’re okay, I was really worried. I’m really thankful we were all able to figure out what happened and make sure you were safe.”

“Me too, maybe after a few weeks I’ll be able to get Ignis to tell me more, for now, I’m grateful to be home. Thanks for sticking around and putting up with this kinda crazy stuff.”

“I’ll never leave you hanging buddy, we all got your back, don’t worry.”

https://archiveofourown.org/works/32543920

#ffxv #fanfic #damsel in distress #bamf ignis

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moonttaeil · 3 years

Text

im a nerd and let me explain to you what happened on Wall Street so we can all laugh together.

to start this you must first understand how the stock market works okay I'll try to put this out as SIMPLE as possible bc that shit COMPLEX. okay, big companies list their shares on the stock market (ws) and these are released on the game.

the game consists on buying shares with the expectation of a price rise after they bought them, meaning that they earn money with that BUT! always assuming the risk of also loosing money-- just like playing with a slot machine lmao

but this phenomenon is not something “normal” since it is governed by the oh so lovely “supply and demand” we’re so used to see everywhere: higher demand, price goes UP. lower demand, price goes down to hell.

therefore the purchase of shares itself, when the purchase is done massively, obviously generates a price increase (which is the objective sough when one buYs shares). on this context, the projections made by wall street are very valuable!! if wall street projects that a company’s shares are going up = a lot of people buy them, AND if all of those people actually buy them = the shares will obviously go up. and that's how the project is fulfilled. much of the financial market is driven by these self-fulfilling prophecies.

the eternal debate is whether this system should be regulated by the state or, on the other hand, if it should be left free to the total market freedom lmao (this last option caused a terrible worldwide crisis like 10 years ago and no one remembers it??? excuse me??? Lehman brothers???)

but Nikki what is actually happening in Wall Street right noooow????? WELL! LET! ME! EXPLAIN! TO! YOU! WHAT! SHORT! SELLING! IS! FIRST!

short selling literally means to borrow a share for a certain amount of time and, in that time, sell it and buy it again. now, If the price goes down =you earn money; if the price goes up= you lose money. let me put this as an example with numbers so your brain can imagine it better:

you borrow a share for $10,000 for 5 days and you sell it.in that time the stock drops to $6,000 and you buy it AGAIN to return it, right? what happened? you keeping the $4,000 difference!! yay!! if the market rises up to $12,000, you would've lost $2,000.

this is actually cool because you can earn a lot of money in a really short period of time but there's a.....slight.....problem: the purchase of shares has unlimited possible profit (a share can grow to infinity) and limited loss (the most you can lose is 100% of what you invested). nn the other hand, short selling operations are the other way around for the same reason: they have limited profit (you can earn up to the full original value of the share you borrowed) but the possible loss is unlimited (again, a share can grow up to Infinity). that’s why they’re called short selling operations lol what theyre trying to do is to minimize the risks! it can happen that a company has a catastrophic fall in 5 days but it is very rare that such abrupt increases happen in such a short time.

people are literally betting for a company to fall so they can earn money. haha. this operations are prohibited in most of Europe but not in the US because everyone knows they’re the cool kid and their parents let them do whatever the fuck they want hell yeah!!

okay but Nikki what really happened in Wall Street this week??!?!?!?! calm down kids bc this is where the fun comes around: as you might imagine, while it is difficult to predict which companies will rise, it is a bit easier to know which companies will fall. There are companies that have been falling for years and will continue to do so. these companies are under a great amount of short selling because people know they will continue to fall.

but THEN! A GROUP OF HOMIES ON REDDIT STARTED TO DEBATE ON THAT! my dudes literally decided to hit THE MARKET AND Wall Street. what they they do? they agreed to buy, all together, shares of a company called GameStop (this company has been falling for years ok). this company has been on a steady decline for years so many TOP FUNDS IN THE WHOLE MF WORLD have been short selling with their shares?!?! but these days they ran into the surprise that, instead of going down, it went up. yeah you know what happened.

Two weeks ago, a GameStop share was worth $ 17. Right now it's worth $ 337.

this means that, if a fund put 10 MILLION DOLLARS in a short sell against GameStop at the original price, they will have to pay now 200 mILLION. ASTRONOMICAL.

and my homies didn't only do it with GameStop, they decided to start lifting many companies that were considered to be dead such as BlockBuster and Blackberry (lmao I had one of those, did anybody else!? they were cool af) anyways!!

the funny thing is that in the last 24h the biggest fish of wall street have paraded through the media (ALL OF THEM FREE MARKET TITANS WHO HAVE BEGGED TO DEREGULATE) now asking for regulations to avoid this kind of things :((( how sad :(((

the fund that has lost the most is M*lvin C*pital, one of the most important, powerful and ruthless funds in the world. the fund warned Wall Street yesterday (GameStop was at $ 160), that if that company kept growing, they would go bankrupt. and wall street allowed them to leave the short selling them earlier (violating the contract they signed!!! talk about privilege my dude!!)as an exception to avoid their bankruptcy and, by domino effect, the bankruptcy of many other funds. they saved the companies but they had lost an immense amount of money.

on the other hand, somewhere in the world, there's a group of high-schoolers (the range of age of that reddit group was between 16-18 which makes everything funnier go gen z! go!) from middle-class families, who, from home and their computers, put into the game $100 of their savings and now they had earned around $2,000. and they can still earn more if stocks continues to rise.

#Nikki talks #Nikki is a nerd i know #but ISNT IT INTERESTING?!?!?!#ECONOMICS ARE FUCKED UP!!!#THE STOCK MARKETS ARE SO FRAGILE IT IS SCARY!!!!!

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thewritershelpers · 4 years

Text

Improving Your Writing when English Isn’t Your First Language (mega-ask)

As you can see above, we've gotten more than one question about writing, improving your writing, and even publishing in English when it's not your native language. First off: that's awesome. To anyone writing or even consuming in a language that's not your first, kudos to you.

You can google any variation of this question and get different articles with a ton of the same advice, and some with conflicting advice. Not only have I compiled the most commonly repeated information, but I've also reached out to people on our Discord server and others for their personal experiences.

I'll start off by listing concise versions of the advice and then expound on them further on in the article. Remember that we are not experts on your writing and that everyone learns in different ways and at different paces. These are in no particular order.

-be patient

-practice

-get feedback from native sources

-don't undermine yourself to your audience

-Grammarly

-research

-don't get discouraged

Be patient

That's first because, well, duh. Patience is so important for both yourself and your writing. Writing is hard enough of a passion without the added difficulty of doing it in a language that doesn't come naturally. In the world of literature, writing/publishing in your non-native language isn't just a matter of translating words. It requires translating of ideas, concepts, and even cultural norms, which is why just slapping it into Google translate won't work.

Part of the reason for the advice of having patience, too, is that writing in your native language needs to take time. It doesn't really matter how fast you can whip out 20 pages of a first draft--it'll still be a simple first draft. Writing is a craft that requires not just love and passion but time. So what if you need a little bit of extra time--or a lot of extra time--because you're accomplishing a feat most don't even think about attempting?

Next is to practice.

That goes hand in hand with what I said about being patient. Again, writing in and of itself is all about practice and doing it daily (not that I'm an expert on getting that done, but you know). But when it comes to practice another language, there are different ways you can do that. You can reach out to native speakers (for English, there are going to be so many people willing to help, even just in our community! you just need to ask) and practice having conversations or ask them to look over your work. Practice by turning on your favorite movie or TV show in English with subtitles in your native language. Watch videos on YouTube, find a Spotify playlist/podcast, in your target language. There's also plenty of people who have done what you're trying to do who have shared their experiences and what helped them on those same platforms.

Get feedback from native speakers

This is a bit of an expansion on what I mentioned in the previous paragraph. In my experience, and from what others have shared, writing in a non-native language can be pretty clinical. Writing with figurative language or in metaphors won't be as easy or come as naturally as it does in your own language. Things like idioms and even pop cultures reference aren't always going to translate even if you have the exact words. That's where native speakers come into play. If they're willing to look over your work, whether as a friend or in an editorial position, they can give you advice about whether the wording in one spot sounds clunky or if a phrase doesn't make sense or if there're synonyms for what you already used to help convey your message even stronger.

Don't undermine yourself

This is something that I personally am saying. It's not mentioned on any of the linked sites, and no one I talked to said it. But as someone who is a native English speaker (and even has a degree in it) I think this is super important. This point goes towards native English speakers/writers, too. Don't undersell yourself and undermine your work to the audience before they have even picked it up. Disclaimers are different, and it all comes down to the words you use and how you use them. Let your readers know, whether it's people on AO3 or a literary agent, that English isn't your first language. Let them know concisely that they may find some basic errors--but stop there. Don't grovel. You have nothing to apologize for, especially once you've given that warning (those is it really a warning? what's so dangerous or scary about a few mistakes?). You're writing is not going to be any less of an accomplishment for a few grammatical errors, or mistranslated phrases, or even typos. I've seen so many mistakes in published works that it's kind of ridiculous. But if you put something out there for someone to read and in the same breath say "I don't know that this is worth reading" I'm going to need extra convincing to pick it up. *kicks soapbox away*

Grammarly

*NOT sponsored*

Grammarly is a wonderful tool that you can use, for FREE. It not only (with the free version) helps correct spelling and grammar, but can also help point out the tone you're writing with. For example, right now, Grammarly is telling me that this writing sounds mostly informative--which it's meant to be--and a little appreciative and friendly. When sending emails I've had it tell me that it sounds formal (which I was going for), and I've also had it not say anything because the text was a different kind of writing (like when I'm proof-reading something being posting it on AO3...). I honestly don't know what else it helps with once you've paid because I've been happily using the free version for about 3 years now.

Research

Don't be afraid to pick up a book, or head to the library, or pull up Google. Research is paramount to writing anyway, let alone once you're doing it in another language. Your research options are limitless and can include your mutuals on social media as well as those dictionaries that translate from one language into another. Research can also include (in my humble opinion) binge-watching/reading your favorite things...in English. In four years of university, one of the most frequently said things was to improve your writing 1) write every day and 2) read every day. You're never going to learn from worrying or overthinking, and you're also never going to learn from just doing DuoLingo (that's more conversational than literary anyway).

Something a member of Discord specifically said in relation to research was to look at morphology, at the roots of words (and root words). Morphology is, in linguistics, looking at how words are formed. For example, let's look at "biology". There are parts to this word that each has a different meaning, that formed together created a new/elevated meaning. "ology" means the study of something, and bio means life. So biology is, simply, the study of life. Once you've got those basics of things like "ology" under your belt it'll become easier to not just translate words but the concepts (if this works with your learning style).

Last but not least, don't get discouraged.

Writers of all kinds get discouraged when writing in their native language. Even those of us who speak English as our first language make mistakes worth discouragement (you will never know how many typos were corrected by Grammarly as I wrote this all out the first time). English is not an easy language. It's not the hardest, but it's far from easy (learning another language isn't easy regardless of what languages are involved). This is a post from someone who is a non-native English speaker but you would never know unless they told us.

While researching for this, I found some articles/blog posts that said mostly the same thing, and are where I got some of the information

This one is from a native English speaker giving advice

This one is for writing for non-native English readers, but still has good advice

And finally this one is a blog post (I think) from someone who is a non-native English speaker!

In specific response to some of the asks:

English, like any other language, changes. It's a very dynamic language, actually, and from region to region, there will not only be different accents but different frames of reference. 1950 isn't so far back in time for the English to be drastically different from what is spoken today, but I'm in the USA and you're asking about Oxford. English in England has very different nuances, even more so than you would get between California and Texas and New York. This is a link to the Oxford English Dictionary list of words that became more common in the 50s. However, this is a generalized list, not specific to any English-speaking country let alone region or city. If you're wanting to look at how to convey the accent of people from/in Oxford, there are videos on YouTube of people speaking in different accents so that you can have an idea, a comparison, at least in your own mind. With the 50s it's going to be more just thinking really of what words and lifestyles and things weren't around yet; cell phones didn't exist yet. Here's another link to some stock images of Oxford in the 50s. Remember, this time was very close to WWII so there'll be lingering effects of that, especially in England.

About fight scenes and curses, there's a ton of resources on that. If you just search "fight" on our page, you'll get a ton of posts answering that question. Also, here's a link to a superb and excellent source on writing fight scenes. When it comes to curses...just watch Rage Quit on YouTube, or spend a while on TikTok. If you want to dive right in just Google "English curses" and there'll be YouTube videos, entries on Urban Dictionary, you name it.

When it comes to publishing, once you've gotten your manuscript is a perfect time to have a native-speaking friend look it over. Whether editing is their thing or not, they'll be able to help with the things that are really obvious. I don't have any experience publishing in a different language, though, so there might be other resources along the different stages to help you. Some general publishing advice I've gotten: when wanting to publish fiction, literature, start small. Start with short stories in literary journals, online and in print. You really can't make much headway with large publishing houses without a literary agent and it'll be easier to attract one if you have evidence that you can write, and write well enough people want to read it. When it comes to poetry, just start submitting. Get familiar with the process, and educate yourself on things like simultaneous submissions and a good rejection. Publishing is an ever-changing game that isn't cut and dry in any language or country. We can't tell you what's best, but my advice is to go with your gut and try your best. Don't be afraid to try again, too.

Everyone overthinks their writing. Or at least, everyone I know who writes does. Honestly, in my opinion, if you're not overthinking at least a little bit, you're not worried enough. You will never be able to fully know whether you've explained or described enough. A good chunk of the experience is up to the readers, so you have to leave them some wiggle room for imagination. But that doesn't mean you have to cheapen your story or short-change your characters. You mention specifically that you're POC, which I'm gonna guess also means that your characters will be POC. It's never too much to specify the race/ethnicity of your characters, even in a fantasy work. How you go about writing those descriptions might need to change but it's kind of like chocolate chips, in my mind: you decide those things with your soul.

So, there you have it. A ridiculously long way to say: you're awesome, you do you, practice, love yourself and your writing, and don't be afraid to put yourself out there (in any way).

(images read:

Anonymous said: Im writing a book based in Oxford in 1950s. how was the language different from now. I am not from an English speaking country at all. Never been outside my country either. And Im going to write a book based in England in English

Anonymous said: Hi there, I’m a writer for almost 3 years now but since English isn’t my first language I get discouraged easily if things I write come off strange to myself. Do you maybe have any advice for me, on how to motivate myself and not comparing myself with native English speakers? Thank you in advance!

Anonymous said: Hello! I starting to work on this shortfic but it’s been really hard. It’s like I’m trying to building a house alone and with my bare hands. Even though I’m already used to write in mother tongue. Any advice for non-english speaker trying to write their first story in English?

Yaelburstine said: Hi. Do you have any tips about how to write a good fight scene and curses that people speak English get cus’ it’s not my first language

gyger said: I am not a native english speaker, but most of the books I read are in english and I generally prefer writing in english as well. However, I am worried about making mistakes that I can’t recognize myself. I have no idea how good my english is to a native english speaker, plus some things are easier to write in my native tongue (such as dialogue). I’m also worried about publishing, since that definitely would be easier in my country than abroad. How do I decide what language to choose?

Anonymous said: As a POC writer and English as their second language, I overthink all the writing I do. I feel like I don’t describe my ideas thoroughly or my character descriptions are vague or not good enough. I’m currently working on a YA novel but I plan on writing a YA fantasy novel but I feel like my lack of vocabulary and grammar structure makes me give up on finishing my book. Is this normal for native English speaking authors or is this considered a language barrier thing? Thanks! Love your blog!

Thank you for your questions, and for your patience as we do our best to answer them.

-S

#TWH Respond #ESL #writing in a second language #mega ask #improving English #resources

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d-noona · 3 years

Text

BARTERED BRIDE - Chapter 4

Ch 04 - Lunch Meeting

Kim Namjoon is a ruthless financier used to buying and selling stocks, shares and priceless artifacts. But now Namjoon has his eye on a very different acquisition - Park Han Byeol. Left destitute by her father's recent death, Han Byeol walks into Namjoon's bank looking to extend her overdraft. As Han Byeol needs money and Namjoon needs a wife, he proposes the perfect deal: he'll rescue her financially if she agrees to marry him. But in this marriage of convenience can Han Byeol ever be anything more than just a bartered bride?

Masterlist

"I nearly kept you waiting," said Namjoon. "I came back from the bank at eleven to go run in the park. As I was coming home I saw an old man on a bench who was obviously in need of medical attention. That held me up."

"Do you run everyday?" Han Byeol asks.

"I try to. Are you a runner?"

Han Byeol shook her head. "I play tennis and ski. I don't do work-outs."

He slanted an appraising glance at her figure. Today, in place of a black suit, she was wearing a designer outfit bought on a holiday in Italy. It consisted f a fine jersey-knit top in lilac, a waistcoat in violet, and swirling chevron-striped skirt combining those colors with pink and pale pistachio-green. The audacious color combination was perfect with Han Byeol's dark hair and brown eyes. "You look in great shape," he remarked. "But people in desk jobs like mine need some kind of fitness regime to stave off the bad effects of a sedentary lifestyle. Come and sit down. What would you like to drink before lunch?"

She remembered his remark about the wine she had been drinking when he forced his way in the previous evening. Was he one of those people who drank only mineral water and made everyone who didn't feel on a lower plane? Han Byeol had no intention of allowing him to intimidate her. "A Campari and soda, please," she said firmly.

Namjoon said to the butler, who had been following them at a discreet distance, "A Campari for Miss Park and my usual, please, Curtis." With a silent inclination of the head, the butler withdrew.

"Let's sit over here, shall we?" Namjoon steered her towards a group of comfortable chairs near one of the windows. "Have you finished your packing?"

"Almost"

Knowing that she wouldn't be able to sleep, she had worked on it till long past midnight. At half past nine this morning a dealer whom she had ought a lot of furnishings had come round to buy them back. Luckily Han Byeol had paid for them out of her bank account. Although the money in it had come from her father, technically they were her property, not his. As soon as his business had been forced into receivership, everything her father had owned, including the family home belonged to his business creditors. But the cash the dealer had handed her could go in her pocket. It wasn't much but it was better than nothing if, when Namjoon spelt out the terms of his trade off marriage, she found that she couldn't accept them. Looking up at the elegant cornice around the ceiling and the two crystal chandeliers, their chains swathed with coral tassels at the tops of the heavy cream curtains.

"Are you interested in architecture?" He sounded faintly surprised.

"Sometimes."

The butler came back with their drinks, hers a slight more vivid red than the coral linen slipcovers on some of the sofas, Namjoon's colorless except for a twist of lemon floating among the ice cubes. It could be in or vodka, or it could straight mineral water. Namjoon said, "This was my grandparents' house. My paternal grandmother still lives here when she's not staying with her daughters". I moved here when my father died. We had been living in Ilsan. I have an apartment near Gangnam but I thought you would feel more comfortable being entertained in the main house," he added with a gleam of amusement. After a slight pause, he added "I shall move out when I marry. The province is better for children, if their parents can choose where to live. Most people can't of course."

"Where are you thinking of moving to?" Han Byeol asked.

"I haven't decided." His expression was enigmatic. "Where would you choose to live, given a free choice?"

Han Byeol considered the question. Once the answer would have been "Wherever Yoongi wants to live." She said, "Ideally I'd like more sun than we get in this city. I wouldn't mind living by the sea, getting some fresh air...or a lake would do as long as it has mountains round it. I'd like to look out on mountains...big ones with snow on top."

He lifted an eyebrow. "Sounds as if New Zealand would suit you."

She shook her head. "I'm sure it's a beautiful country but it's too far away from Korea. Have you been there?"

Namjoon nodded. "The scenery's magnificent...when it's not raining. Unreliable weather. I went with old friends, you might know them since they run in the same circles you do. Where have your travels taken you?"

"Mostly to holiday places...the Caribbean in winter...resorts round the Med in summer. My mother's a passionate gardener. She doesn't like travelling alone, even in a group. I've been on some garden tours with her...the south of France, Ireland, California. Where do you for holidays?" Han Byeol takes a sip of her Campari.

"I used to go with my father who also liked someone with him. We went to Japan together and other Pacific Rim countries. I travel a lot for the bank. For pleasure I usually go to France, Greece or Spain. Where would you like to go for our honeymoon?"

The question, tacked on to innocuous small talk, took her by surprise. "I haven't agreed to marry you," she said coldly.

"If you found the idea unthinkable, you wouldn't be here," he said dryly. "Let's be straight with each other Han Byeol. I need you...you need me. It's a sensible, practical arrangement."

She knew that at least the first part of what he said was true, but she wasn't about to admit it. Was it pride that made her reluctant to fall in with his plan too readily? She said, "I'm not clear why you've selected me."

"You're very attractive...as I am sure you're aware." he smiles at her gently.

"Is that all you want from a woman? An acceptable face and figure? Don't you care what I'm like inside?" Han Byeol scoffed.

'I can make some intelligent guesses. People can't hide their characters," he told her casually. "Even in repose a face gives a lot of clues to its owner's temperament. Apart from yesterday's evidence that you have a short fuse, I haven't detected any characteristics I wouldn't like to live with."

His arrogance took her breath away. In that moment of shock, she was struck by the thought it would be both a challenge and public service to bring this man down from his lofty pinnacle and convert him into an acceptably unassuming person. But perhaps it was already too late . One of gran's favorite sayings was, "What's bred in the bone must come out in flesh." Namjoon with his long-boned thoroughbred physique and his handsome features, looked a descendant of generations of men who had felt themselves to be superior beings and never experienced the doubts felt by ordinary people.

In a different, more rough-hewn way, her father had been the same. Probably somewhere far back in Namjoon's ancestry, there had been a man like her father: a rough-diamond unscrupulous go-getter who had founded the Park Fortune. Perhaps if Mr. Park had married someone better equipped to handle him than her quiet and easily cowed mother, her father might have been saved from becoming an overbearing braggart. Whether, at thirty four, Namjoon's essential nature could be modified was problematical. But it could be interesting to try.

She said, "I don't find you as transparent as you seem to find me. It takes me longer to make up my mind about people;"

"You haven't had as much experience of summing up people as I have."

The butler reappeared. "Luncheon is ready when you are, sir."

They ate in a smaller room with a view of a large garden, an oasis of well kept greenery in the heart of the city. The surface of the round Regency breakfast table had a gleaming patina resulting from years of regular polishing' It reflected the colors and shapes of the red-streaked white tulips arranged in a what Han Byeol recognized as an antique tulip pot, its many spouts designed to support the stems of flowers which had once been costly status symbols. The meal began with potted shrimps served with crisp Melba toast, tiny green gherkins and white wine, which they continued to drink with the main course, chicken with minty yogurt dressing.

While they ate Namjoon talked about plays and art shows he had been to recently. It was the kind of conversation made by strangers at formal lunch parties and although his comments were interesting Han Byeol thought his choice of subject was irrelevant to this particular situation. When the butler had withdrawn, leaving them to help themselves to a fruit salad with fromage frais, or to selection of more substantial cheeses, she said, "Why do you want a wife when you could go on having girlfriends and a change them when you get bored?"

Offering her elegant Waterford compote, its apparent fragility emphasizing the powerful but equally elegant form of the hands in which it was cradled, he looked at her with unexpected sternness. "I have a responsibility to my line. I need sons to carry on the traditions established by my predecessors."

She found this solemnly irritating. "Are you expecting me to provide proof of my fertility?" Before she could add that, if he was, he could forget it, Namjoon said, "No, I'm prepared to chance that."

"Big deal!" Han Byeol said sarcastically.

She had a feeling that Namjoon wouldn't hesitate to divorce her if she failed to live up to his expectations in some way. But although he struck her as a monster of cold-hearted self-centeredness, she couldn't deny that he was extraordinarily attractive. Every movement he had made since they sat down had heightened her awareness of the lean and muscular physique inside the well-cut suit and the long legs under the table. His hair was dry now but still had a sheen of health. There was nothing about him suggestive of stress or tension. He seemed entirely relaxed. Yet why did he need to arrange a businesslike marriage instead of falling in love the way people usually did?

Wondering, suddenly, if he might be in the same situation as herself, heartbroken, although it didn't seem likely, she said, "When did you dream up this scheme?"

"It's an idea I've had for some time...probably since my contemporaries started divorcing. I have about a dozen god-children, most whom now have step parents, some official, some not. I don't want that for my children."

"Did you parents stay married?" she asked.

It seemed to her that his face underwent a change. His lips didn't tighten. His eyebrows didn't draw together. But there was a subtle hardening and chilling, reminding her of the impression she had received that morning when they sat on opposite sides of his imposing desk/ Now they were at a table designed for a more intimate and relaxed conversation. But she sensed a change in the atmosphere and knew she had trespassed in an area of his where she was an unwelcome intruder.

"They separated. They were never divorced," he answered.

Han Byeol wanted to ask hold he had been when the separation happened, but something made her hold her tongue. Later, going back to the flat in the taxi he had laid on for her, she regretted her curiousity.

When-in-two people were going to marry, there shouldn't be any "No go" areas between them...or at least none of that nature. His past girlfriends were not her business, but his family life certainly was. She shouldn't have allowed herself to be put off. From now on she wouldn't be, she told herself firmly.

#bts #bangtan sonyeondan #kim namjoon #joonie'#RM #bangtan army #rm x reader #rm x original character #rm motherfuckers

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