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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

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How monopoly enshittified Amazon

In Bezos’s original plan, the company called “Amazon” was called “Relentless,” due to its ambition to be “Earth’s most customer-centric company.” Today, Amazon is an enshittified endless scroll of paid results, where winning depends on ad budgets, not quality.

Writing in Jeff Bezos’s newspaper The Washington Post, veteran tech reporter Geoffrey Fowler reports on the state of his boss’s “relentless” commitment to customer service. The state is grim.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2022/amazon-shopping-ads/

Search Amazon for “cat beds” and the entire first screen is ads. One of them is an ad for a dog carrier, which Amazon itself manufactures and sells, competing with the other sellers who bought that placement.

Scroll down one screen and you get some “organic” results — that is, results that represent Amazon’s best guess at the best products for your query. Scroll once more and yup, another entire screen of ads, these ones labeled “Highly rated.” One more scroll, and another screenful of ads, one for a dog product.

Keep scrolling, you’ll keep seeing ads, including ads you’ve already scrolled past. “On these first five screens, more than 50 percent of the space was dedicated to ads and Amazon touting its own products.” Amazon is a cesspit of ads: twice as many as Target, four times as many as Walmart.

How did we get here? We always knew that Amazon didn’t care about its suppliers, but being an Amazon customer has historically been a great deal — lots of selection, low prices, and a generous returns policy. How could “Earth’s most customer-centric” company become such a bad place to shop?

The answer is in Amazon’s $31b “ad” business. Amazon touts this widely, and analysts repeat it without any critical interrogation, proclaiming that Amazon is catching up with the Googbook ad-tech duopoly. But nearly all of that “ad” business isn’t ads at all — it’s payola.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/27/not-an-ad/#shakedowns

Amazon charges its sellers billions of dollars a year through a gladiatorial combat where they compete to outspend each other to see who’ll get to the top of the search results. May the most margin-immolating, deep-pocketed spender win!

Why would sellers be willing to light billions of dollars on fire to get to the top of the Amazon search results?

Prime.

Most of us have Amazon Prime. Seriously — 82% of American households! Prime users only shop on Amazon. Seriously. More than 90% of Prime members start their search on Amazon, and if they find what they’re looking for, they stop there, too.

If you are a seller, you have to be on Amazon, otherwise no one will find your stuff and that means they won’t buy it. This is called a monopsony, the obscure inverse of monopoly, where a buyer has power over sellers.

But monopoly and monopsony are closely related phenomena. Monopsonies use control over buyers — the fact that we all have Prime — to exert control over sellers. This lets them force unfavorable terms onto sellers, like deeper discounts. In theory, this is good for use consumers, because prices go down. In practice, though…

Back in June 2021, DC Attorney General Karl Racine filed an antitrust suit against Amazon, because the company had used its monopoly over customers to force such unfavorable terms on sellers that prices were being driven up everywhere, not just on Amazon:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/01/you-are-here/#prime-facie

Here’s how that works: one of the unfavorable terms Amazon forces on sellers is “most favored nation” status (MFN), which means that Amazon sellers have to offer their lowest price on Amazon — they can’t sell more cheaply anywhere else.

Then Amazon hits sellers with fees. Lots of fees:

Fees to be listed on Prime (without which, your search result is buried at the bottom of an endless scroll):

Fees for Amazon warehouse fulfillment (without which, your search result is buried at the bottom of an endless scroll)

And finally, there’s payola — the “ads” you have to buy to outcompete the other people who are buying ads to outcompete you.

All told, these fees add up to 45% of the price you pay Amazon — sometimes more. Companies just don’t have 45% margins, because they exist in competitive markets. If I’m selling a bottle of detergent at a 45% markup, my rival will sell it at 40%, and then I have to drop to 35%, and so on.

But everyone has to sell on Amazon, and Amazon takes their 45% cut, which means that all these sellers have to raise prices. And, thanks to MFN, the sellers then have to charge the same price at Walmart, Target, and your local mom-and-pop shop.

Amazon’s monopoly (control over buyers) gives it a monopsony (control over sellers), which lets it raise prices everywhere, at Amazon and at every other retailer, even as it drives the companies that supply it into bankruptcy.

Amazon is no longer a place where a scrappy independent seller can find an audience for its products. In order to navigate the minefield Amazon lays for its sellers (who have no choice but to sell there), these indie companies are forced to sell out to gators (aggregators), which are now multi-billion-dollar businesses in their own right:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/10/monopoly-begets-monopoly/#gator-ade

This brings me back to the enshittification of Amazon search, AKA late-stage (platform) capitalism. Amazon’s dominance means that many products are now solely available on the platform. With the collapse of both physical and online retail, Prime isn’t so much a choice as a necessity.

Amazon has produced a planned economy run as capriciously as a Soviet smelting plant, but Party Secretary Bezos doesn’t even pretend to be a servant of the people. From his lordly seat aboard his penis-rocket, Bezos decides which products live and which ones die.

Remember that one of those search-results for a cat-bed was a product for dogs? Remember that Amazon made that dog product? How did that end up there? Well, if you’re a seller trying to make a living from cat-beds, your ad-spending is limited by your profit margin. Guess how much it costs Amazon to advertise on Amazon? Amazon is playing with its own chips, and it can always outbid the other players at the table.

Those Amazon own-brand products? They didn’t come out of a vacuum. Amazon monitors its own sellers’ performance, and creams off the best of them, cloning them and then putting its knockoffs above of the original product in search results (Bezos lied to Congress about this, then admitted it was true):

https://nypost.com/2021/10/18/jeff-bezos-may-have-lied-to-congress-about-amazon-practices-reps/

If you’ve read Chokepoint Capitalism, Rebecca Giblin’s and my new book about market concentration in the entertainment industry, this story will be a familiar one. You’ll recall that Amazon actually boasts about this process, calling it “the flywheel”:

https://twitter.com/rgibli/status/1561761732108107777

Everything that Amazon is doing to platform sellers, other platforms are doing to creators. You know how Amazon knocks off its sellers’ best products and then replaces them with its clones? That’s exactly what Spotify does to the ambient artists in its most popular playlists, replacing them with work-for-hire soundalikes who aren’t entitled to royalties.

You can learn more about how Spotify rips off its performers in the Chokepoint Capitalism chapter on Spotify; we made the audiobook version of that chapter a Spotify exclusive (it’s the only part of the book you can get on Spotify):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/12/streaming-doesnt-pay/#stunt-publishing

Entertainment and tech companies all want to be the only game in town for their creative labor force, because that lets them turn the screws to those workers, moving value from labor to shareholders.

Amazon is also the poster-child for this dynamic. For example, its Audible audiobook monopoly means that audiobook creators must sell on Audible, even though the #AudibleGate scandal revealed that the company has stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from these creators. (Our chapter on Audiblegate is the only part of our audiobook on Audible!)

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/07/audible-exclusive/#audiblegate

Then there’s its Twitch division, where the company just admitted that it had been secretly paying its A-listers 70% of the total take for their streams. The company declared this to be unfair when the plebs were having half their wages clawed back by Amazon, so they fixed it by cutting the A-listers’ pay.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/22/amazon-vs-amazon/#pray-i-dont-alter-it-further

Twitch blamed the cut on the high cost of bandwidth for streaming. If that sounds reasonable to you, remember: Twitch buys its bandwidth from Amazon. As Sam Biddle wrote, “Amazon is charging Amazon so much money to run the business via Amazon that it has no choice but to take more money from streamers.”

https://twitter.com/samfbiddle/status/1572667269284777984

As Bezos suns himself aboard his yacht-so-big-it-has-a-smaller-yacht, we ask him to referee a game where he also owns one of the teams. Over and over again, he proves that he is not up to the task. Either his “relentless” customer focus was a sham, or the benefits of cheating are too tempting to ignore.

Historically, we understood that businesses couldn’t be trusted to be on both sides of a transaction. The “structural separation” doctrine is one of the vital pieces of policy we’ve lost over 40 years of antitrust neglect. It says that important platforms can’t compete with their users.

https://locusmag.com/2022/03/cory-doctorow-vertically-challenged/

For example, banks couldn’t own businesses that competed with their commercial borrowers. If you own Joe’s Pizza and your competitor is Citibank Pizza and you both have a hard month and can’t make your payment, will you trust that Citi called in your loan but not Citibank Pizza’s because they had a more promising business?

Today, all kinds of businesses have been credibly accused of self-preferencing: Google and Apple via their App Stores, Spotify via its playlists, consoles via their game stores, etc. Legislators have decided that the best way to fix this isn’t structural separation, but rather, rules against self-preferencing.

Under these rules, companies will have to put “the best” results at the top of their listings. This is doomed. When Apple says it put its own ebook store ahead of Bookshop.org’s app because it sincerely believes Apple Books is “better,” how will we argue with this? Maybe Apple really does believe that. Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it does, but only because of motivated reasoning (“It is difficult to get a product manager to understand something, when their bonus depends on them not understanding it”).

The irony here is that these companies’ own lawyers know that a sincere promise of fairness is no assurance that your counterparty will act honorably. If the judge in Apple v. Epic was a major shareholder in Epic, or the brother-in-law of Epic’s CEO, Apple’s lawyers would bring down the roof demanding a new judge — even if the judge promised really sincerely to be neutral.

https://marker.medium.com/moral-hazard-and-monopoly-42e30eb159a8

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if Amazon’s enshittification is because Bezos was a cynic or because he sold out. Once Amazon could make more money by screwing its customers, that screw-job became a fait accompli. That’s why it’s so important that the FTC win its bid to block the Activision-Microsoft merger:

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/23/exclusive-feds-likely-to-challenge-microsofts-69-billion-activision-takeover-00070787

The best time to prevent monopoly formation was 40 years ago. The second best time is now.

Anti-monopoly measures are slow and ponderous tools, but when it comes to tech companies, we have faster, more nimble ones. If we want to make it easy to compete with Amazon, we could — for example — use Adversarial Interoperability to turn it into a dumb pipe:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/01/dumb-pipes/#original-asin

That is, we could let local merchants use Amazon’s ASIN system to tag their own inventory and produce a realtime database. Customers could browse Amazon to find the things they wanted, with a browser plugin that turned “Buy It Now” into “Buy It Now at Joe’s Hardware”:

https://doctorow.medium.com/view-a-sku-32721d623aee

But this only works to the extent that Amazon’s search isn’t totally enshittified. To that end, Fowler has a few modest proposals of his own, like requiring that at least 50% of the first six screens be given over to real results, not ads.

“Perhaps 50 percent sounds like a lot to you? But even that rule would force Amazon to show us at least some of the most-relevant results on the first screen of our device…Amazon wouldn’t comment on this suggestion.”

#pluralistic

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thequeendesi · 1 year

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hiii!! okay forgive me bc i’ve ever actually requested something before but could you write a fluffy fezco vibe where it’s the readers first time smoking (with him, they’ve gotten high before) and they’re being really funny and silly back and forth?

Dating Fez was definitely something… new. You’ve dated nearly all types. The jock, the alternative, the musician, the nerd, and now, the dealer. Surprisingly, he wasn’t your original dealer. You used to buy from sketchy people until your best friend, now estranged, Rue, told you about Fezco O’Niell.

“You wanna hit this, ma?” Fez asked, holding the fresh lit blunt. “Why not?” You shrugged. You weren’t a roller, you didn’t really know how to. Normally, you used a pipe, or a bong. Fez took a hit, then passed to you.

“Thank you.” You said, taking the blunt in between your index and thumb. You took a hit and leaned back against the couch the two of you were sitting on. You blew the smoke out and passed the blunt back to him.

“You ever put food in before a smoke sesh?” You asked him. “Nah. But that’s a good idea. We should’ve done that, huh?” Fez took another hit, passing it back.

“To late now.” You laughed and took another hit. “You ever think about aliens when high?” Fez asked. “Definitely.” You said, before blowing the smoke out.

“You think they fly pass earth and go ‘ew’?” You asked him, passing him the blunt. “I think they purposefully go out of the way to not pass the earth.” You followed up, answering your own question.

“I think all kinds of shit when high, ma.” He took a longer hit. “You know who’d be fun to smoke with?” He asked after blowing the smoke in your face. “Mm? Who?” You asked, looking at him, eyes already half-lidded.

“Adam Sandler. But the character he plays in That’s My Boy.” He answered his question, passing the blunt. “Oh true! I’d smoke with Adam Sandler in general… or like…” you paused before giggling and taking another hit. “I forgot.” You blew out the smoke.

“No no, I got it. My dream smoke circle consists of,” you passed the blunt before holding your hand out. “Seth Rogan, Seth McFarlane, Snoop, Pete Davidson, Adam Sandler, Matthew Lillard, and Tom Kenny.” You listed.

“Tom Kenny? The fool who played SpongeBob?” He asked, hitting the blunt then passing it back to you.

“I feel like he’d keep me laughing.” You shrugged, hitting the blunt, coughing a little.

“Why y’a’int list me?” Fez picked. “I keep you laughin’.” He half smiled. “You do, but I get to smoke with you.” You nudged him, passing it back.

“You ever get to thinking about conspiracy theories?” You asked him, passing him the blunt. “Conspiracy theories? Like Loch Ness and shit?” He questioned, raising an eyebrow.

“Exactly like that.” You said.

“You got one?” He took a hit of the nearly finished blunt. “I do. It’s gonna sound dumb.”

“Nah, lay it on me, mama.” He placed his elbow on the armrest, and held his head up with his hand. “Ok, so, what if all those mythical creatures ‘nd shit existed?” You paused, looking at him while you took a hit, and passed it to him.

“Possible.” He acknowledged. “What if they were real, but, they died and shit.” You said, trying to see if he was following your train of though.

“Mhm?” He took the last hit of the blunt and put it in the ashtray. “And what we see now are their ghosts?” You asked.

“See, you got me. But here’s where you lose me,” he adjusted himself so he was sitting in a way that faced you completely, which had you follow suit.

“What about when people see them in groups, like Bigfoot and shit?”

“Right… maybe they fucked and made more?” You laughed, which made him chuckle. “So this is what you think ‘bout when you smoke?” He asked. “Yup.”

“You think mermaids are real too, dontcha?” He leaned against the couch. “A thousand percent. Yes.” You nodded your head. “What you don’t?”

“No proof.” He shrugged.

“Exactly why I believe.” You added. “Over ninety-somethin’ percent of the ocean ain’t been explored. How do we know they don’t exist?” You questioned his reasoning. “Got me there mama.” He nodded.

“Wanna go get some McDonald’s?” He asked, standing up. “Oh God, yes.”

“You’ll say that later.”

#fez #Fezco #fezco oneshot #euphoria fezco x reader #fezco euphoria #euphoria fez #fez x reader #euphoria imagine #des’ writing #euphoria x reader #desi’s oneshot #desi’s writing #fezco x reader #fezco imagine

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loveronlineee · 2 years

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Band Shirts (Eddie Munson x Reader)

Masterlist

Eddie Munson x Reader (She/Her)

Warnings: underwear?? (do I have to put a warning for that?? For the context I used it in yh probably.)

Synopsis: Y/N and Eddie’s clothes get mixed up at the laundromat

Y/N notes: none

Request for an Anon! Loved this idea ofc I had to write it-

Wanna be on the Eddie Munson tag list? Look here!

Wanna request something? Look here!

The laundromat wasn’t exactly Y/N’s favourite place to spend her Sunday night, but her work uniform really needed to be clean for the next day and she hadn’t had time before hand.

She headed back over after an hour and a half. Change jingling in her pocket just in case it needed another spin. The dryers there were a bit hit or miss.

As she neared the building, a voice called out to her from behind.

“Y/N!” She turned to see Eddie Munson jogging up to her. “You doing laundry too?” He grinned.

Y/N’s trailer was a couple down from Eddie’s so they’d bump into each other often. They were also the only two people in their early 20s in the whole neighbourhood, so they had made a silent bond about it.

Y/N liked Eddie, an unpopular opinion in Hawkins but one she kept none the less. She saw how he was when he was at home. Helping his Uncle with things, playing with the stray cats, lending a hand to the elderly in their neighbourhood.

Eddie was sweet by nature, his love of metal just threw people off.

She smiled at him.

“Yup.” Y/N replied continuing to walked. “Wait. I thought you had a washer and dryer?” She questioned.

“You are correct, however the dryer’s busted at the moment. Wayne’s tryna fix it. I gotta get something for him tomorrow if he can’t get it working tonight.” He explained. Y/N nodded. Eddie stepped a little ahead of her and held open the door.

“Thank you.” Y/N smiled. She always liked how polite Eddie was. The rumours made people think he was an absolute menace to society. But he was in fact very nice, just a bit eccentric.

She’ll never forget the time she finished work and stepped outside to see in pouring it down. She had no umbrella, and the walk home was 20 minutes. She had been sitting outside the door for a while, hoping it would lighten but it didn’t seem like it would.

As Y/N was thinking of what to do, a familiar van blasting Metallica came round the corner and stopped in front of her. Eddie grinned as he rolled down his window.

“Need a lift?”

“Wha- Eddie? How did you-“

“I didn’t see you come home from work and put two and two together.” He said proudly. Y/N didn’t think anyone was paying that much attention to her. She was surprised to find that their daily exchange of hellos, as they both got home at the same time everyday, meant more to him than she thought.

She smiled and climbed into the passenger side.

“Thanks Eddie.”

“Anytime.”

As the pair walked to their machines, they realised the pile of clothes on the floor was in fact theirs.

Both of theirs.

Mixed together.

“Well that’s great.” Y/N said under her breath. Eddie had a similar exhausted expression in his face. The two bent down either side of the mound of clothes and began sorting through. “At least they’re dry.” Y/N said, making Eddie chuckle.

The two continued collecting their items. Y/N folding them neatly in a pile, Eddie just grabbing them all. As Y/N added a shirt to her side, she looked just in time to see Eddie accidentally picking up something of hers.

Her black lacy underwear. The bra to match somewhere still on the floor.

Eddie’s eyes widened as he realised. He looked back at her. She smirked.

“Whatcha got there Munson?” She tilted her head to the side. Eddie immediately dropped the underwear and stood up. He covered his eyes and walked away.

“Ah fuck shit shit shit sorry sorry y-you just find your stuff and I’ll get mine after.” Y/N chuckled to herself as she picked up the last of her clothes. She noted a Corroded Coffin shirt in the pile. Eddie had obviously made it himself, like the ones for his D&D club.

Y/N looked around. No one. She looked back at Eddie. Still turned away from her staring at the wall. She smirked and pulled her shirt off in favour of wearing Eddie’s.

Collecting her things and standing back up, she spoke.

“Okay I’m done.” Eddie turned around and stopped, noticing the change in her outfit. “Mind if I keep this one?”

The metalhead had a mix of surprise and glee on his face.

“Y-Yeah. Yeah I don’t mind.” He nodded exaggeratively. He grabbed his stuff and stood in front of her, still staring at the shirt.

“Cool.” Y/N looked down at her own clothes. “I think it’s only fair that you take something of mine then.” She held the underwear from earlier on the end of her index finger. “Since you seemed to like this one. Not sure if it’s your size but..” She joked as she placed the piece on top of Eddie’s pile. “I’m sure you’ll put it to good use somehow.”

She winked and walked out of the laundromat. “Good to see ya Eds!”

Eddie watched her walk away, cheeks beginning to burn. He gulped and looked back down at Y/N’s underwear, his breaths becoming shaky.

Yes. He would definitely put them to good use.

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#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #reader x Eddie Munson #eddie munson drabble #eddie munson fanfic #st eddie munson #eddie munson fanfiction #stranger things x reader #stranger things #stranger things season 4 #stranger things season four #stranger things imagine #stranger things spoilers #reader x stranger things

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bittenbyyou · 10 months

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Inferior Flames (2)

MCU!AU | MCU!Peter Parker x Stark!Reader | MCU!Spider-Man x Stark!Reader

genre: angst, some comedy, e2l (rivals to lovers really)

description: Your father asks you for another favor: keep an eye on Peter. Yup, this definitely can’t go wrong considering you two aren’t even friends.

word count: 7.4k

warnings: OC has superpowers, OC is a temporary Avenger, references to Spider-Man: Homecoming, MJ, Betty, and Ned are here, fake IDs, clubbing, fight scenes/battle scenes, muscle “enhancers” (dr*gs), burn wounds (nothing too graphic), angst, mentions of death, tension

a/n: Part 2 was highly requested! Please let me know what you think, it really motivates me and all writers. :)

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

“Mom said you needed me?”

“Yup. I need another favor, Firefly.”

You stepped into your father’s workshop, admiring the random contraptions cluttered on the work tables.

“If you want me to build something,” —you picked up a bizarre piece of machinery— “hard pass.”

Tony set down the soldering iron and swiftly plucked the metal from your sticky fingers. A pout formed on your lips when your beloved toy was taken away. “Yeah, no. Last time you nearly blew up the compound.”

“Sorry that I can’t carry on your legacy, pops,” you said, only half-joking. He put down the device and immediately wrapped his arm around your shoulder, pulling you into an affectionate side hug.

“I don’t expect you to, Flameling.” He gave you a smooch on the top of your head. “It’s too much work and your mom’s got it. I would never pressure you to do something you don’t want to.”

You embraced him tightly, closing your eyes to savor the moment. A mix of emotions swirled within you, and the weight of potentially letting him down added heaviness to your heart. His words meant a lot to you and gave you the assurance he would love you no matter what.

“You pressured me to beat Peter,” you joked, breaking the tension. He let you go but kept you at arm’s length, an amused smile spread across his face.

“I think deep down you enjoyed beating the arachnid.”

“Eh. I do hate spiders.”

A mischievous smirk spread across his lips, and you couldn't help but catch a glimmer of excitement in his eyes. “Well, don’t hate them too much. I’m going to need you to get close to one. The Spiderling to be exact.”

You pushed him off you, shaking your head and firmly crossing your arms in front of your chest, forming an ‘x” shape as a gesture of refusal. “No.”

Your father put on an innocent facade, lifting both of his palms upward as if to say, ‘What?’

“Whatever you want me to do with Peter, I refuse. He hates me.”

“Oh, he does not hate you,” your old man assured, waving his hands sideways in a dismissive manner. “The Avengers and I will be out of town for a while. Your mom’s also busy with her business meetings abroad, but I know the authorities will be okay handling things here with Spider-Man’s help.”

“But…?” You pulled up a nearby swivel chair, anticipating this conversation would take longer than expected. Your father copied your actions and sat across from you.

“I want you to keep an eye on him. Stay close by. You know, just in case he needs help. Be friends.”

“Friends? He’s depressed every time he sees me. All because he thinks I’m an Avenger, which I’m not. If people found out I have powers, I can’t live a normal life.”

“Pfft, you’re my daughter. Your life will never be normal.” You didn’t laugh at his remark, so he leaned back in the chair and let out a ‘hmm’ sound. “You’re not happy. Is that it?”

“I am happy. I love being here. But if people find out I have powers let alone that I’m your daughter, I can’t go to a normal school.”

He started listing reasons to counteract your statement and used his fingers to keep track.

“1) No one’s going to find out you’re my daughter unless you want them to. 2) You have a suit.” Leaning in closer, he playfully flicked his fingers against the shiny metal bracelet adorning your wrist, creating a delightful tinkling sound that danced through the air. “3) I need you near Peter. 4) If all else fails, you can get your GED.”

You narrowed your eyes at him, putting two and two together. “Wait… is that why Peter’s in so many of my classes? Did you do that?”

Tony simply shrugged. “Coincidence.”

“Dad, I’m not an Avenger. Stop trying to make me one.”

“I’m not. I’m basically asking you to babysit. But I am curious…” His voice took on a more grave tone. “What’s the real reason why you don’t want to be an Avenger? Don’t say school. Don’t say normal life. What is it?”

You casted your gaze downward, your hands fidgeting in your lap while your leg anxiously tapped the ground. The softening of your father’s gaze mirrored the festering guilt within his heart as he saw the evident disappointment on your face. Yes, he may be your father, but there was still so much he didn’t know about you.

“Hey. Don’t worry about it,” he said, patting your thigh. You looked up to see him getting up out of his chair. “But I am asking you to help Spider-Boy. So will you? How’s school?”

“It’s good. The American TV shows you made me watch were pretty accurate. Except the kids actually look like kids and not adults. Most of them are nice with the exception of some jerks. Nothing I can’t handle.”

“See? You’re perfect for the job. Who else would be mighty enough to tackle the horrors of high school?”

You let out a laugh. “Alright, I’ll do it. But you promise me you’ll come back safe from the mission.”

“You know I break promises often.”

“Promise me you’ll try to come back.”

“That I can do.”

You hopped out of your chair and hugged your father again. “I love you, Dad.”

“I love you too, Firefly. Remember, don't do anything I would do, and definitely don't do anything I wouldn't do.”

It’s been a few weeks since you kept your word about leaving Peter alone. Now were you successful? You’d say about 80% of the time. It’s not like you were completely off his radar as much as you’d try to be.

Chemistry

“Peter, you got a 99 on your chemistry test. Congratulations.” Peter held the test paper in his hands, a proud smile gracing his features. The teacher walked past him and handed your test to you next. “And you got a 100, Ms. [Y/N]. Impressive.”

You saw Peter's intense grip on his test paper, causing it to crinkle right before your eyes.

Gym

“Does she smell nice? I bet she smells nice.” Ned lent his support to Peter by resting his hands at the juncture of Peter's thighs and the undersides of his knees, providing the stability needed for him to execute each sit-up with precision.

“Shut up.”

“Do you know if she has a boyfriend?”

“Shh.”

“Can I help you beat her?”

“What?”

“I’ll be your guy in the chair telling you where to go. Like where to find the most dangerous criminals. I’d be better than K.A.R.E.N. That way Mr. Stark has to recognize your talent and realize his mistake. You can beat her.”

“Ned, no, shut up.” Peter was speeding up his reps without realizing it, annoyance laced in his tone. “I don’t need to beat her.”

“Looking good, Parker,” Coach Wilson said, pointing a finger at him. Peter immediately slowed down, easing himself down onto the mat with an expression of exertion etched across his face. “You too, [Y/N]. Look at her go!”

“Thanks Coach!” you exclaimed from afar.

Peter's gaze shifted to his left while Ned looked to the right, catching sight of you perched atop the climbing ropes suspended from the ceiling. Flash, who was on the rope beside you, pointed an accusatory finger at you for cheating, suggesting that you started climbing before he did and demanded a rematch. Peter and Ned gave each other a knowing glance.

“You/I need to beat her,” the boys chorused.

Pre-Calculus

Peter’s mind raced as he calculated and strategized, determined to outpace his opponent, which in this case was you. Both of you gripped the marker tightly as you two meticulously scribbled numbers, your hands dancing across the whiteboard.

There was an electric energy in the air, a palpable tension as you and him worked through the problem. Occasionally, a competitive glare would be exchanged, fueled by the desire to come out on top. As the final calculations fell into place, a triumphant grin from Peter marked the completion of his work.

“Done!” he cried, slamming the marker down into its holder. You continued working diligently, unable to leave a problem unfinished.

The teacher took a look at the board and shook her head. “Nope. [Y/N]?”

Peter’s face contorted with a mix of surprise, embarrassment, and a touch of disappointment as the realization of the incorrect math answer settled in.

You got your final answer and set your marker down. “Is this right?”

“Excellent work!” your teacher praised you. “Can you explain why Peter’s answer was incorrect?”

You pointed at the error in his work on the board, giving him a shy smile. “Um… you forgot to factor the 6. Here.”

“Thanks,” Peter grumbled.

“See Parker, being the fastest isn’t always the best if you are wrong,” Flash called out from the back of the class. Everyone (including the teacher) rolled their eyes at his hypocritical remark, but it affected Peter more than he’d like to admit.

So yeah, you’ve done an excellent job leaving Peter alone. However, with your dad’s latest request, you weren’t sure how to keep an eye on him now without being creepy.

“What’s your deal, [Y/N]?”

You looked over at the other end of the cafeteria table to see MJ staring at you. Despite her poker face, the intensity of her narrowed eyes left you feeling exposed, as if she possessed the power to unravel your defenses layer by layer.

“Didn’t see you there, MJ…” you said, taking a sip of your water bottle. “I don’t understand your question.”

“You’re staring at Parker. Like, a lot.”

Your eyes darted over to the table that was on the opposite end of the cafeteria from you, hoping MJ’s voice didn’t carry far enough for Peter to hear. Once you saw milk shooting out of Ned’s nostrils and Peter laughing his head off, you let out a sigh of relief.

“I’m not,” you lied. “Are you into him or something?” MJ scooted down until she was seated across from you, effectively blocking Peter’s face with her own.

“I’m not obsessed with him; I’m just very observant. If you’re not staring at him, you have no problem sitting with him, right?”

“No!” you shrieked. “Okay, I was staring.”

“I know,” she said, smirking at your easy confession. “You like him?”

“No. I mean, he’s cute, but it’s not like that. Why do you even care?”

“You’re my friend. Aren’t friends supposed to talk about their crushes or whatever?”

You raised an eyebrow, amused at the declaration. “We’re friends?”

“You’re the only girl that isn’t tone deaf our section. Or are we only friends in choir class?”

You couldn’t help but smile. “I’m honored.”

“Good. Now that we got that out of the way, what are you going to do about Parker?”

“I’m not going to do anything.”

“Aren’t you two friends? Ned announced that pretty clearly on your first day here.”

You groaned while taking a bite of your food, swallowing before replying, “We’re more so… acquaintances. Maybe even rivals.”

“Oh?” MJ leaned forward, curiosity brightening her features. “I love rivalry. Spill.”

“Uh…” You had to come up with something on the fly. “Well, you know how he has the Stark internship?”

“Yeah. He leaves a lot because of it. Dude’s always busy.”

“I might’ve gotten it too. Might’ve even taken it away from him in a way.”

MJ clasped her gaping mouth with her hand, shocked. “No way!”

“Keep it down,” you urged, seeing some students in your vicinity glaring at you both.

“Sorry, but I’m confused. Can’t Mr. Stark have both of you as interns?”

“I mean, he didn’t kick Peter out. It’s more like I got assigned a higher position than him.”

“So he feels inferior.”

“I suppose…”

“Has he been mean to you?”

“No!” you said with your hands up. “Never.”

“Hmm…” MJ said while rubbing her chin in thought. “I’m going to ask again. Why were you staring at him then?”

You bit your lip. “I want to be his friend, but he sorta hates me? I guess.”

She clapped her hands together. “Got it. Get up. Come with me.”

“MJ no,” you hissed, flailing your hands around for her to stop moving.

“Trust me.”

Reluctant, you grabbed your lunch box and followed her, your heart rate beating so loudly like it was battering around in your chest wanting to pop out.

“Sup losers,” MJ said, taking the seat in front of Ned. You sat next to her, which meant you were in front of Peter. He pressed his lips together tightly, the silent sign of unease not escaping your observant gaze. “[Y/N] has no friends, so we’ll be sitting here from now on.”

“MJ,” you said through gritted teeth. “I have you.”

“I’m sorry, was I hallucinating when you said you wanted to be friends with Parker or…?”

“MJ!”

“Of course we’ll be friends,” Ned said happily. Peter grabbed Ned by wrapping an arm around his shoulder, facing away from you and MJ to whisper-yell at him in private.

“What are you doing?”

“Keep your friends close and enemies closer. She can’t be as perfect as she seems.”

Peter groaned. “Dude, even her lunch is better than mine. How can she even beat me at lunch?”

“... Because you can’t cook.”

The death glare Peter shot him shut him up real quick. The two of them turned around the same time you and MJ were done talking. He gave you his brightest smile, hands placed on the table with his fingers intertwined like this was a business meeting.

“Yup. We’d love to be friends,” Peter said. Ned copied his body language and smiled just as brightly.

“With no ulterior motives,” he added. Peter stomped on his best friend’s foot beneath the table. “Ow!”

“Shut up,” he said in a low voice. You smiled to yourself and high-fived MJ under the table.

Having lunch with you was bearable for the most part. Sometimes MJ would probe him about the Stark Internship and feelings of inferiority would resurface, but at least you didn’t rub it in Peter’s face. You even offered to share your food with him, which he had to admit was delicious. Especially those orange chocolate cookies, ugh. He hated how tasty they were.

Meanwhile, keeping an eye on Peter proved to be easier than you had thought. He usually went straight home after school or sometimes stopped at his favorite food spot to get some gummy worms and a sandwich. If there was crime going on, it’d be the typical theft or car chase. Nothing you had to personally get involved in.

However, you noticed an unusual pattern in Peter’s behavior a week later and the AI your father gifted you, D.A.W.N (Digital Assistant with Navigational Intelligence) aided in helping you figure out what was going on. You rarely used the AI unless you deemed it to be necessary, wanting to give Peter some privacy because come on, you were already invading it.

You put on the glasses and pressed a button on the side of the frames.

“D.A.W.N, what’s Peter doing with Betty Brant?” you said quietly to yourself while sitting on the football field. The AI zoomed in on Betty and Peter sitting far too close to each other on the bleachers.

“You sound jealous,” your AI remarked.

“Can you focus?”

“Certainly. It appears Betty has given Peter a false identification card in exchange for some money.”

“What on earth would Peter need a fake ID for? Is he trying to get alcohol?”

“Would you like me to replay a conversation he and Ned had two days ago? A fake ID was mentioned.”

“What? Why didn’t you say anything, D.A.W.N?”

“You told me not to invade his privacy too much. This conversation took place when they were in the boys’ bathroom.”

You sighed. “I meant unless he’s doing something dangerous. I’m definitely telling Dad you need an upgrade. Please replay the conversation.”

“Ned, guess what?”

“What?”

“I caught this thug destroying city property for no reason and he kept on shouting ‘I’m the best! I’m the champion!’ over and over. He was jacked, like even more than Captain America.”

“No way!”

“Yeah, he definitely was on something because those muscles looked unnatural. I got him to confess that there's an illegal fighting ring going on at this club on the other side of town. Everyone there uses muscle enhancers and it’s killing them. I gotta go take them down before it gets more out of hand.”

“But dude, you’re not old enough. You would need a fake ID.”

“Shoot. Do you know how I would get one?”

“Leave it to me, your guy in the chair at your service.”

“Conversation over,” D.A.W.N stated.

“Oh my god, he’s crazy! D.A.W.N?”

“Yes?”

“Find me the nearest clothing store. I’m going to need a new outfit.”

Peter kept checking the time on his watch every five minutes, unable to contain his excitement. This mission would be huge because no one knew about it except him. Of course he cared about the innocent lives of people being under the influence and wanting to save them, naturally. But getting credit on something you knew nothing about was the cherry on top.

Once it hit midnight, he opened his window and snuck out, shooting one of his webs at the nearest building. Swinging allowed him to get to the other side of town in no time and he landed in a dark alleyway to fix his hair back into place, making sure his clothes weren’t too wrinkled.

When he stepped out of the alleyway and made it to the entrance of the club, he noticed there wasn’t a line. The only people outside were two bouncers adorned in black suits. He gulped, singing words of encouragement under his breath.

“Spider-Man, Spider-Man, will he die tonight, yes he might. No, no that’s not right. I can do this.”

Just as he was about to talk to the bouncers, you tapped on his shoulder from behind. He whipped around, his eyes widening to the size of marbles.

“[Y/N]? Whoa, what—you look gorg—what are you doing here?!”

You gave him a once over in his outfit, trying your best not to ogle. He wore a slim-fitting, black button-down shirt that accentuated his lean physique. His shirt was tucked into a pair of dark wash jeans that hugged his frame comfortably paired with black leather boots. His sleeves were rolled up slightly, giving off a laid-back vibe but all you could see were the veins on his forearms. And his hair? Styled with a casual yet intentional tousled look, making his stupidly handsome face more handsome.

If his goal was to look slightly older, he accomplished it and you had to try your best not to drool.

“What am I doing here? What about you? You shouldn’t be here!” You leaned in closer, causing his breath to hitch and whispered, “I know about the enhancers.”

Peter leaned back and stared at you, taking in your outfit first and words second. You had chosen a form-fitting sleeveless black jumpsuit paired with a cropped leather jacket in a fiery red shade, symbolizing your powers. For footwear you opted for ankle boots in stiletto heels, which were a pain to wear, but you’d manage. You also did your makeup, making sure to not overdo it and still show off your natural features.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Peter bluffed once he snapped out of his daze. He pivoted on his heels, coming face to face with the bouncers whose figures resembled towering boulders but with scowls on their faces. “Hey fellas, I know what you’re thinking. This baby face fools a ton of people, but you’re smart enough to know I’m 18, right?”

The men gave a skeptical look to one another, his lie painfully obvious, but before they could apprehend Peter, he whipped out his fake ID from his pocket and showed it to them.

“We good now?” he asked them, fluttering his eyelashes innocently. While they didn't appear entirely convinced, a sigh escaped them as they motioned for him to proceed. “Thank you. And oh, the girl behind me? She’s basically my stalker and is super crazy obsessed with me.”

“What?!” you shrieked, hands on your hips and fuming.

“Yeah, she’s kinda in love with me, but I don’t date minors,” he teased, sticking his tongue out a bit at you, relishing in your ire. “She’s a feisty one, so keep an eye on her for me?”

The bouncers apprehended each of your arms, which triggered your fight or flight response. With precision, you targeted specific acupuncture points on their shoulders and chest using your index and middle fingers. Instantly, a wave of paralysis surged through their body, rendering them immobile. They staggered and ultimately collapsed to the ground. Peter blew a small raspberry from his lips.

“Oof… sorry fellas. Told ya she was feisty.” Peter flashed you a mischievous grin before entering the club, not bothering to hold the door open for you. As you stepped into the club's chaotic atmosphere, your senses were immediately overwhelmed by a cascade of stimulation.

“I’m not in love with you!” you said, shouting over the blaring music.

“What did you say?!”

“I said I’m not in love with you!”

“I can’t hear you, the music’s too loud!”

Peter left your side and dived into the dense crowd. You couldn’t help but roll your eyes, hating how the place reeked of weed and smoke. It was difficult to navigate through the swarm of sweaty bodies and just as you were about to be engulfed fully, Peter reached out and firmly clasped your hand, swiftly pulling you into his embrace. Time seemed to slow down in that moment, each passing second passing feeling like eternity, as he delicately guided your arms to rest around his neck while his hands gently found their place on your waist.

“Bodyguards,” he whispered, his voice serious and husky. “They’re looking at us. Gotta blend in.”

“Right. Blending in… oh boy.” His cologne had your head swimming. You stared into his eyes while swaying to the music, gulping from the intensity of his longing gaze. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“I should be saying that to you.”

“It’s dangerous.”

“Isn’t that what Avengers do? Dangerous things?”

You scoffed at the audacity of this boy. “You don’t know what you’re getting into.”

“How did you even know I’d be here?”

“... Mr. Stark told me to keep an eye on you while he’s out of town.”

Peter poked his tongue against his cheek in disbelief. “So he doesn’t trust me.”

“He just wants to make sure you’re not in over your head.”

“Yeah. By babysitting me through you. And here I thought you wanted to be friends.”

“I do…” you said earnestly.

“So you were stalking me.”

“Not like I enjoyed it.”

“How do you think I feel?”

“Probably betrayed. Now can we please get out of here? I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

“You can leave. I’m staying. There are people dying because of those enhancers and I’m going to put a stop to it.” He let go of your waist once y’all reached the bar, where it was barely quieter than the rest of the club.

“Ugh,” you groaned. “Do you even have a plan?”

“Pfft. Yeah. Of course. Um…” His eyes settled on an unoccupied beer glass, thinking of ways to create a diversion. His plan was to shoot a web at the glass and propel it at a random dude’s head. However, the webbing took an unexpected turn, adhering onto an innocent woman’s shirt instead. “Uh oh…” Once Peter pulled on the web, the shirt was ripped off, leaving the girl’s boyfriend seething with anger, misdirecting his fury towards the nearest male presence. The unfortunate consequence led to a brawl.

Peter watched in horror and awe as the whole club erupted into chaos. But hey, at least the bodyguards were occupied. He ran to the back of the club and you followed along.

You both ended up in a dimly lit hallway, walking side by side in matching tandem. You let out a couple of chortles, trying your best to contain your laughter.

“Don’t say it,” Peter warned.

“Is your aim always that bad?” you teased.

“I was distracted.”

“By what, the woman’s breasts? At least ask a girl out before you start taking her clothes off. If you’ve ever made it that far, that is.”

Peter’s cheeks reddened. “I’ve asked girls out before.”

“Was that before or after the stripping started?”

“What, are you jealous?”

“No. I don’t date perverts.”

“And I don’t date stalkers.”

You two exchanged friendly smiles before laughing out loud. At the end of the hallway was a door, but you intercepted before Peter could open it, placing your hand on top of his.

“Wait.”

“What?”

“We should go back.”

“Why? We’re so close.”

“What are you going to do exactly? If there really is an illegal fighting ring here, how will you find the goods?”

“Easy. You participate in the illegal fighting while I find them.”

“What?!”

“Listen, I want to prove to Mr. Stark I’m ready for more. This is it. Something bigger than petty bicycle thieves or bank robberies. And you’re stronger than I am. I’m sure you can handle it.”

“And what if I can’t?”

He held you by the shoulders. “Look at me. You can. You’re… pretty incredible. Annoyingly incredible, actually.”

His voice was sincere, eyes shimmering with sweetness. “Had to add in the annoying part, huh?”

“I could’ve left out the incredible part.”

“Then you’d be calling me pretty.”

“You are pretty.” You blinked twice, wondering if you were the only one who heard what he said. When Peter’s face switched to one of realization (which was quite adorable), he let out an awkward cough later. “So will you help me?”

“You’re going to do this even if I say no.”

“Yup. And you’re the one who said it. Mr. Stark wants you to keep an eye on me.”

Peter gave you a toothy grin as he opened the door. Unlike him, you didn’t have a Spider Sense, but your gut was screaming for you to go back. However, he already entered and you knew you had to follow. You tapped on your metal bracelet in a specific way to activate your suit and helmet, letting the magical material envelope your body.

As you entered, boisterous shouts and jeers from a large crowd of people confirmed that you had found the right location. Their hands were gripping wads of cash, flailing it about like lightsticks at a K-Pop concert, all while a chaotic brawl unfurled at the heart of the room.

Once you ventured deeper into the scene, you got a better glimpse at the two challengers, who were almost as big as the Hulk, going at each other relentlessly. Their grunts were arrogant and feral, their eyes blazed with a rage that wasn’t human.

“Okay Peter… what do I do exactly?” When he didn’t reply, you did a full 360 to confirm he was indeed absent. “I’m going to kill him.”

With the ding of the bell, the brawl had finally come to an end as one challenger collapsed onto the floor. An employee rushed out to drag the loser’s body out of the ring. Up on the second floor was an announcer who had a microphone headset. His upbeat voice boomed throughout the room when he said, “Our undefeated champion!!! Will the next challenger be able to defeat him? Is there anyone out there daring enough to fight him?!”

“Me!” you called out, launching yourself into the fighting ring with a front flip and landing gracefully. Murmurs from the crowd were heard as confusion spread. You ignored remarks about your gender, using it to fuel your determination to show off your skills.

The announcer tilted his head in confusion. “And who are you, Miss?”

“You can call me Ember.”

An employee rushed over to the announcer, whispering something in his ear. You noticed him nodding in understanding and flashing you a huge grin. “Alrighty! We’re going to have Ember challenge our unbeatable champion tonight!”

You got into a low forward lunge, extending your arm to the side with your palm facing out. One second later, your trusty kung fu spear appeared out of nowhere. If the club didn’t allow weapons, they didn’t say anything. You figured they cared too much about the hype of betting on blood to do something about it.

“Begin!” The bell dinged and you immediately went on the offensive, giving it all you got.

Meanwhile, Peter ditched his prior outfit so he was only in his suit and mask. He found a vent he could sneak into, navigating his way to finding a hidden room. Through the slits of the vent cover, he spotted a tall man wearing some form of mystical clothing that glowed purple. And the dude had a cape, so Peter inferred that had to be the big bossman.

There were some bodyguards with the tall man, so Peter waited patiently for you to do your part before he could intervene. He spotted the silver briefcase on the table and noticed glass vials inside containing a powder of sorts.

“Boss. Ember defeated the champion,” one of the henchmen informed. The boss grinned like he expected that outcome.

“Excellent. It’s been so long since I’ve seen her.”

What? Ember? Is that [Y/N]? Does she know this guy? Peter thought to himself. He had to put his questions on hold because now with the boss gone, he could easily take down the remaining guards and snag the briefcase. Carefully lifting the vent cover, he crawled around on the ceiling, strategically ensnaring each henchmen with intricate webs, one by one. Every move carried purpose and he made sure to time it right to ensure nearby men remained oblivious to his presence. It wasn’t until there was one man left that Peter used a web to descend into the room upside-down.

“Hey man.” The guard whipped around and Peter waved hi. “I’ll be taking that.”

He launched a web at the briefcase and yanked it hard, resulting in it slamming right into the last guy’s face, effectively knocking him unconscious. Peter landed rightside up and held the briefcase close.

“That was easier than expected.”

It was then he heard people screaming outside when he dashed out to see the commotion. At this point, the crowd of people had diminished and there in the middle of the ring was a girl in a shiny red suit and helmet similar to that of a Power Ranger. Peter sensed it was you, but his sixth sense was more focused on the threat before you. The tall man from earlier transformed into his true self, which was a man with three dragon heads.

“You’re all grown up now, Ember.”

You pointed your spear at him, prepared to slice him in half. “You ate that man.”

“Yes. And I’m about to devour you next.”

“No, you won’t. That’d be a stupid move on your part.”

The man’s snarl echoed through the air as his three heads snapped toward you, moving in a sinuous and serpentine pattern. You took a defensive stance, twirling your spear with a propeller-like motion to keep your distance from his elongated necks. In that moment, your helmet opened partially and you took a deep breath, feeling the flames ignite in your lungs. You held your spear steady and unleashed a mighty blast of fire, causing the man to cry out in pain from the scorching attack. However, the fire soon dissipated, revealing that the cunning dragon heads had managed to swallow your fire. They were prepared to unleash your own flames back upon you until Peter reacted, swinging into action, his grip tightening around your body as he swiftly whisked you away from the clutches of the menacing demon.

“Spider-Man,” you breathed, stunned by his perfect timing.

“I got you.”

You quickly took notice of the briefcase. “No. Take the case somewhere safe. He’s mine.”

You wriggled free from Peter’s grasp, propelling yourself backward towards the villain, determined to finish the fierce battle. The sharpness in your words, dripping with venom, unsettled him. As he landed near the exit, he made a choice to disregard your request.

Carelessly discarding the briefcase, his attention was immediately drawn to the sight of you suspended in a mesmerizing electrical orb, hovering midair.

“Oh Ember… it’s cute you think you can defeat me,” the man taunted. You stabbed the orb repeatedly but to no avail. Each poke only unleashed a surge of electricity throughout your body, making you scream in pain. Seizing the opportunity, Spider-Man executed a flying super kick at one of the dragon’s heads. The blow infuriated the creature, causing it to release its grip on you and you crashed heavily onto the ground with a resounding thud.

“Ow…”

You pushed yourself off the ground to see Peter effortlessly swinging around, pretty much playing a game of tetherball with the dragon—except Peter was the ball in this unconventional match.

"Hey Mr. Dragon, three heads are better than one, but not when they're all after me!"

“Spider-Man, be careful!” you warned.

As Peter swung around the 3 headed dragon, narrowly avoiding its fiery breath, one of the heads caught him off-guard with a lightning-fast swipe. The impact sent him crashing into a nearby wall, leaving him momentarily disoriented and with a throbbing pain in his side. You rushed over and kneeled on the ground by his side.

“I told you to go!”

“Well, you know,” he said, groaning from trying to sit up. “I have a habit of sticking around.”

The man was growing impatient. His three heads parted their jaws wide, erupting with vivid purple flames as he launched a devastating attack toward both of you. Peter reacted quickly and shielded your body with his own, hugging you in a protective embrace. The searing pain coursed through your bodies, but as the initial shock subsided, you summoned the strength to put up a temporary barrier shield. Peter’s weight pressed upon you as he collapsed and you knew that retreating was necessary.

You watched as the man withdrew his three dragon heads, assuming his original face once more. “You know what I want, Ember. Give me the pearl.”

“Never.”

With a commanding gesture, you used your hands to bend the earth, causing chunks of concrete to rise from the ground. You hurled the makeshift projectiles at the man with precision. In that fleeting moment, you seized the opportunity to carry Peter to safety. You initially believed he had lost consciousness, but he had enough strength to shoot a web to secure the briefcase, ensuring the mission wasn’t for nothing.

“Are you the Avatar?” he joked in a weak voice.

“Shut up and let’s get out of here.”

You carried Peter back to the Avengers Compound, where there was a dedicated medical facility. However, you were aware whatever was causing Peter pain wasn’t something that could be solved by science. You laid him on his stomach on a medical bed, examining the burn marks all over his back. The heat singed his suit, leaving a patch of reddened skin and irritation. Tender patches of skin glistened with a subtle sheen, evidence of the residual heat that had seared his flesh.

“Well, I guess my superpower is now officially 'Extra Crispy Spider-Man.' I should probably trademark that before KFC steals it.”

You had half a mind to press your thumb on his burn wounds. “How can you be joking at a time like this?! You’re lucky it’s not more severe.”

You began rummaging through various drawers to find an ointment until Peter interjected with, “But you can heal me. Right?”

You slammed the drawers shut, taking in deep breaths to calm yourself down. He’s right. You could. You hoped you could.

“You idiot. I can only heal minor wounds. These flames aren’t normal,” you informed him. “But I’ll try.”

You extended your hand over Peter’s back, channeling all your energy into a healing aura. The radiant glow from your palm casted a spotlight-like illumination on his injured area. With precise movements, you guided the healing energy around to alleviate his pain. Unfortunately, it only healed a part of the pain and required further care. Not that Peter could tell, he was too busy ahh-ing at the temporary respite.

“That feels nice.”

“It’s not enough, I have to use something else. Wait here while I find it.”

You ran to your designated room at the compound, unlocking your safe to grab a black velvet box. With it in hand, you hurriedly made your way back to Peter.

“What’s that?”

“Something to heal you with.” You opened the box to reveal a luminous pearl the size of a large marble. With it in your palm, you could amplify your powers and fully heal his back.

“What does that do—oh—OH!—Oh, that’s nice.” He melted into the mattress of the bed and shut his eyes in bliss at the cooling sensation of your healing powers. With the treatment complete, you delicately returned the shimmering pearl to its designated box, taking a moment to regain your composure by sitting down. Peter, now revitalized, got up and instinctively reached back, his hand grazing over the spot where his injury used to be, a look of relief evident on his face. “It even fixed my suit! Wow. What is that?”

“It’s mine,” was all you said, holding it close to your chest.

“Right. Well, thanks, I feel so much better. Oh my god, that was so amazing!” he exclaimed, taking off his mask. “I fought a 3-headed dragon and secured the enhancers. Mr. Stark is going to flip out when I tell him.”

Your helmet vanished with the snap of your fingers. “Peter…”

The boy kept pacing around the room, rambling nonstop. It was as if he had never been injured at all. “You were all like ahhh with your fire breathing and then he slurped it all up like,” —he demonstrated a sucking motion as if he was sipping from a straw—“You’re lucky I was there.”

“Peter look—”

“That was the best mission ever. I get the credit though. Oh, we have to hunt him down and come up with a plan to catch him! We’d probably need a sword, right?”

“Peter!” you shouted, fists clenched. He finally stopped pacing around and stared at you with curious eyes.

“What?”

“Why didn’t you leave when I told you to?”

“That’s a weird way of saying ‘thanks for saving my life Peter’, but okay. Um… I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

His smile was so sweet, yet it pained you greatly. “I could’ve handled it. It was reckless of us to even be there tonight. What’s worse is you got hurt. ”

“Yeah… but you healed me. We did it,” he said, lifting up the briefcase from where he had left it. “I’m fine. We make a pretty good team.”

“No. No we don’t,” you countered. “You got hurt and next time it could be worse. I can’t. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t risk it.”

You held your head in your hands, hunched over in the chair.

“You’re grounded. Mr. Stark was right, you’re not ready to be an Avenger.”

He lowered the briefcase and let out a half-hearted laugh. “What?”

You stood up, mustering enough strength to continue. “This mission was too reckless.”

“I don’t understand. The mission was a success. Are you really so against me being an Avenger? Are you threatened by me?”

You let out a frustrated groan. “Will you get it through your head that this isn’t about some competition?”

“It sure doesn’t feel that way to me. You’re already an Avenger and that’s all I want right now. Were you sent to watch me or sabotage my chances?”

Your face twisted into one of hurt. “No!”

“Then why are you being like this?” he asked, pointing his hand at you with his palm facing upward. “God, it must be nice being all perfect. Sorry that I’m not, but that doesn’t mean I don’t deserve a chance.”

“I’m not as perfect as you think I am.”

“Yeah. Because I saved your life.”

“I didn’t ask you to save me! You should’ve left!”

“What, do you have a death wish?!”

“No! But I don’t need you to go after him. Stay down. You did great tonight, yes. But it stops here.”

“It’s because you want the credit, huh? I guess me getting the enhancers is one thing but stopping the big boss man is another. Of course. Little Ms. Perfect has to have it all.”

You winced at the impact of his words, feeling a sharp pang of hurt. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I just wanted to be like you,” he said, desperate and sincere. His defeat was palpable, and witnessing it shattered your heart."

“Why?” you breathed. “You don’t want to be like me.”

“Because you have it all. You’re strong. Your powers are far better than anything I can do. I mean, I have to make my own webs. You are your own webs. Which doesn’t make sense, but you know what I mean.”

“Peter…”

“You’re smart,” he continued. “You can cook. You treat others well. Mr. Stark is clearly impressed by you. I’m so jealous and I know I shouldn’t be. But I am. Everyday when I see you, I understand more and more why Mr. Stark chose you. And it hurts. You’re so perfect.”

“Please stop. I’m not perfect.”

“You are.”

You turned your back towards him. “Stop.”

“Why? Why should I? It’s true!”

“Because I’m not an Avenger!” you confessed, hanging your head low while resting your hands on the medical bed.

“What do you mean? Mr. Stark said—”

“It was a test. He asked me to beat you in our battle so that you’d stop asking about becoming an Avenger. Just until he feels like you’re ready.”

Surprise washes over him as the realization sinks in, followed by a hint of disappointment and perhaps a touch of betrayal.

“Wow… Mr. Stark really went the extra mile this time. And you agreed to it?”

“Yeah… I did.”

“But if you’re not an Avenger, who are you?” You didn’t know if you should tell him the truth. Peter thought about what the dragon man said to you, how his flames were similar to yours except they were purple while yours were red. “Wait… that guy back there called you ‘Ember.’ Like he knew you. Are you related to him? Is he… your father?”

You spun around to face him, battling your desire to shout at him. “He’s not my father. He killed my birth parents when they sacrificed themselves to save me.”

Realization hit Peter like a tidal wave. This was personal for you. And he said quite possibly the worst thing he could’ve at this point.

“[Y/N]... I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

“You shouldn’t have gotten hurt tonight. I can’t deal with anyone sacrificing themselves for me. Not like this.”

“I wasn’t going to let you get burned to a crisp.”

“And I can’t stand the thought of losing you!”

You two stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity. “... or losing anyone. I can’t stand the thought of someone dying for me. Not again,” you added quietly.

Peter reached his hand out towards you, but you shied away. “[Y/N], please. Tell me what’s going on.”

“You’ve done enough. Just leave me alone. And don’t go after him or I promise I will tell Mr. Stark to never consider you for the team.”

“Okay,” he said, retracting his hand back. “But I’d do it all over again.”

“Do what?” you asked, captivated by the sincerity in his eyes.

"I would save you," he declared, his voice filled with unwavering determination. "As many times as it took.”

“I know. Because you’re Spider-Man.”

With a heavy heart, Peter reluctantly put on his mask and silently made his way out of the compound.

Extra a/n: If anyone’s curious, OC’s powers are based on a drama I watched when I was little called The Red Kid (2005) as well as the villain. I also based this chapter Dekaranger episode 26.

Thank you for reading! Reblogs are appreciated so, so much! Hope you love this couple as much as I do. ₍˶ˆ꒳ˆ˶₎✼:♡*ﾟ✿

Tagging: @elicheel | @mininjageek |

#peter parker x reader #peter parker fic #mcu peter parker #mcu spiderman #peter parker mcu #peter parker x you #peter parker e2l #peter parker x oc #spiderman fanfiction #spiderman x reader #stark!reader #avenger!reader #tom holland peter parker #inferior flames #my writing

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bluecollarmcandtf · 10 months

Text

Hypnotized by the Boss

Aaron hated his job. Every morning, he suited up and clocked in, one day after another. Entering data into spreadsheets each week was more than monotonous, but he continued staring into his monitor and getting the work done.

He had nothing to show for all the hours he put in. Aaron honestly had no idea why he continued to work in this boring office. This place has made him miserable for years.

Like always, he sat at his desk, crunching numbers until 5:00 rolled around. Noticing the time, his coworkers began quietly rising to file out for the weekend.

Aaron stayed put. Earlier in the day, his boss had asked him to work late.

He hated when his employer did this. Once or twice a week, the boss would keep him in the office for no reason at all. He couldn't remember if these late nights were ever productive.

He couldn't remember much at all about these nights.

Still he sat at his desk waiting for his boss while impatiently checking the time. Aaron wanted to finish up and leave so he could hit the bar.

"How's my favorite employee?" his employer cackled, approaching his desk.

Aaron didn't bother responding. He was fed up, and hated the idea of spending another minute in the office.

"Look, I doubt there's anything I can get done tonight," Aaron sighed.

"Of course there's plenty to do!" the portly man cried back, "I figured you'd love the extra time."

"It's Friday. I just want to duck out," Aaron groaned tersely, collecting his briefcase and standing to leave.

"Oh come on," his boss grinned, "I know how you like to keep...busy."

That word made Aaron's eyes slightly glaze over. He placed his things back down.

"I have a lot of work I need you to get done tonight," his boss went on, "You do like to keep busy, right?"

Aaron's head emptied a bit more, "I do like to keep busy."

"So you'd love the opportunity to stay busy working tonight, then?"

"Yes," Aaron didn't hesitate to reply, already forgetting about his buddies at the bar. The only thought in his head was a subconscious need to get back to work.

"Perfect, Carlos has been slacking off, and we're a bit behind on his work," his boss explained.

"Carlos? The janitor?"

Aaron's employer had already thrown a fat arm over his shoulder, jerkily guiding him down the hall and stopping in front of the maintenance closet.

"Yup, he always cleaned the place on Friday. You don't mind filling in do you?"

"No," Aaron instantly answered, and he realized it was true. He was happy to pick up the slack for Carlos.

"Well, go ahead and get the stuff on. You've got to look the part if you're going to keep busy all night."

Aaron opened the closet and found Carlos' work clothes amid the cleaning the supplies. He didn't hesitate to pull off his own tie and slacks.

The employee's only thought was of staying busy at work. He didn't mind how menial the labor was. He didn't even mind that the janitor's work clothes smelled of body odor.

After slipping the unwashed coveralls on, Aaron turned back to his boss as the man listed off all the tasks he would keep busy with tonight.

"...empty everyone's trash, clean out the kitchen, mop the hallways of course, and definitely clean the restrooms. There's definitely several clogged toilets that will keep you busy..."

With each new task added, Aaron's smile broadened as he thought of how much work he had in front of him; how busy his night was becoming. It was the only thing he could think about.

Aaron's boss discovered long ago that his laziest employee was extremely susceptible to hypnotic suggestion. After just a few trances, Aaron had been implanted with a newfound drive to keep busy at work for his boss.

Knowing his entranced employee would toil the rest of the night away, Aaron's employer strode out of the office and left him there to lock the place up when he was done.

Excited and absolutely clueless to his manipulation, Aaron collected all the cleaning supplies he could carry and brought it out into the silent office floor. Aaron surveyed the work in front of him.

He would definitely be staying up late this Friday night.

A dumb smile crept on his face. He couldn't help but feel grateful for all the work his boss had given him. That mindless grin remained as he got to work, handling the supplies and chemicals with ease. It was like he had done it hundreds of times before.

Little did he know that Carlos had quit many years ago. The boss had been using Aaron as the weekly night janitor ever since.

#hypnotized #hypnosis #gay hypnosis #mind control #blue collar

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kiranerysismyhero · 5 months

Text

what if how we could have both ezri and jadzia in s7 went like this:

jadzia is mortally injured, and the destiny is trying to get her/dax back to trill while she's still on life support. ben comes along bc jadzia is not actually dead yet and he has good reason to distrust the symbiosis commission.

things take a turn and it's looking even more urgent for the symbiont. ben doesn't want to let anyone remove dax from jadzia (again) while she's still alive but is overruled by starfleet brass at the behest of the commission. the ship's surgeon joins dax to ezri, who in this version is still just as reluctant but now at least the 15 minutes of improvised lecture substituting for years of preparation comes from ben. like how would he approach that conversation?

ezri wakes up and meets ben this time as dax... but in the next bed over jadzia is still hanging on. an hour, then two pass and the symbiont's vitals are a lot more stable now in ezri while jadzia is not doing well but is still fighting for her life. the destiny's doctor is kind of lost because they tried to contact trill about how they should care for jadzia but all the symbiosis commission wanted to talk about was dax and how soon could they get their hands on ezri

and ben is like 'okay i know you just met me but also you've known me for lifetimes now... hear me out...' and ezri's like 'yup solid plan let's do it but also what if we took even more risk bc dax's got a bit of starfleet medical now too' and ben's gotta be 'oh i had more appeals ready that you didn't even wait to hear, okay'

basically action sequence now– the destiny had slowed down to respond to an emergency signal and pick up some escape pods bc y'know dominion war, and ben and ezri work together to sneak jadzia into a biobed and off the ship in a runabout. and we see some of ezri accessing previous hosts as they hide the runabout in the debris field and get some distance before the destiny realizes they're missing

and just when it seems like the destiny is going to find them as ezri's breaking down a little bit about 'i'm a counselor and i'm still in training and out of all these lifetimes i'm still the one with the most medical knowledge in here??' as she tries to keep this woman that she remembers being stable-ish in stasis... the defiant decloaks! grabs them! re-cloaks! outta there!

julian checks that ezri is really really sure and then does what the symbiosis commission was never going to consider as an option: rejoining dax to jadzia now that the symbiont has been rehabbed/bolstered by ezri

jadzia is able to recover, if slowly. ezri is physically relatively unharmed by the ordeal, but a whole lot of psychological upheaval just happened and this woman is sat here making jokes about remembering being ezri for a hot minute and while ezri no longer remembers being jadzia, she does remember remembering being jadzia... it makes her head hurt. and jadzia's just like 'nah it was still less traumatic than last time when i had to be awake for more of it' and ezri just desperately wishes she could remember what the hell she means by last time

the symbiosis commission is piiiissed. they reallly want to excommunicate dax, jadzia, and/or ezri for all this but ben's like 'i'm adding the viability of respite care for symbionts to the list of info that you don't want me to share with your whole society' aand the symbiosis commission concedes under the condition that ezri is now GOING to be the next dax, WHENEVER that may be, there has been eNOUGH hot potato with this worm already, you two are going to STAY CLOSE so you don't end up pulling anyone else into dax's chaos being another intermediary when the time comes

so now jadzia and ezri are bureaucratically handcuffed to each other and both alive and have fascinating things to talk about :)

#ezri dax #jadzia dax #ds9 #ds9 spoilers #star trek spoilers #deep space nine #ds9 s7 #worf: 'you are not going to move into our quarters and watch us fuck'#ezri and jadzia: 'NO ONE SUGGESTED THAT!!'#maybe she's given her own quarters but avoids spending any time in them bc suddenly it's lonely being alone in her head #maybe she still tries dating julian and it's not good bc she's using him for company and he's #well he's always spending more time with garak or miles anyway #when voyager returns to the alpha quadrant ezri and seven 👀👀

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justauthoring · 6 months

Text

the bond - chapter twelve.

*bond: a relationship between people or groups based on shared feelings, interests, or experiences.

word count: 7037

based off of: 3x01, 3x02 & 3x03

a/n: beginning of seasonnnnn threeeeeeeee

tag list: @ernyaeger - @luvelyxp - @urfictional - @decaffeinatedtealover - @ange-lica-3 - @midzuumi - @leiriswhore - @urfictional - @frasheliza - @echothy - @usernamehere91 - @happygirl5798 - @dwarfnip - @hegdus let me know if you’d like to be added!

“They’re fighting again.”

“They’re always fighting,” you remind, rolling your eyes with a quick glance in Historia’s direction. She smiles lightly at that, Mikasa choosing to remain silent, while you can’t help but snort softly to yourself, stepping ahead of the two of them to pull open the door. You let them slip by first, coming in after them, the second you’re in, you cast a quick glance at Jean whose eyes are already on you.

Almost instantly, both of your eyes divert from one another, a light blush dusting across your cheeks as you hear Mikasa call out; “we’re back.”

“Wait,” Armin calls out, eyes wide with concern as he makes his way over to the three of you. “Were you just chopping firewood?”

Mikasa shrugs; “gotta stay in shape.”

“You got grabbed by a Titan!” Armin recalls with urgency, stepping towards Mikasa, shaking his head. “You should be in bed.”

“That’s why we were there,” you offer, gesturing to yourself and Historia, leaning past Mikasa with a small smile on your face as you try to ease Armin’s worries. “I made sure she didn’t strain herself too much.”

Armin just continues to stare in worry, eyes flickering from your own to Mikasa’s.

“It’s no use anyways,” Eren chimes in, his grip on the broom in his hand slacking as he huffs in exaggeration. “I try to stop her, but she won’t listen.” Unphased as usual, Mikasa simply steps forward, leaving your side as Eren adds; “I saw her doing sit-ups earlier!”

Glancing over to Eren, you raise a brow, that’s bound to–

“How dare you, you peeping Tom!” Jean cries, voice twisting with indignation as he turns back toward Eren.

Yup. Figured.

“Huh?!” Eren calls back, just as frustrated, “how does that constitute “peeping”?!”

“That’s enough, you two,” you call, thoroughly exasperated with their arguing. It’s been non-stop lately, and although you cherished both of them deeply, you were, quite frankly, sick and tired of hearing them argue. Especially this early in the morning.

And honestly, you didn’t really want to hear them argue over Mikasa like that – or rather, hear Jean argue over Mikasa like that.

Reaching forward, you set your hand on Jean’s shoulder, giving it a light tug as you pull him back; “stop fighting.”

Both go to defend themselves, before;

“It’s almost like we’re back in the Cadet Corps.”

It’s Sasha who says it. Everyone’s attention falls on her in surprise at her words, an admittance you’re sure everyone’s been feeling but too scared to say – it did feel like you were back in the Cadet Corps. Only, you were missing some people.

“Yeah…” Armin agrees faintly, “why do you figure we were chosen for the new Levi Squad, though? Protecting Eren and Historia is such an important mission…”

“Because we’re talented, I assume.”

Honestly, you have to give her credit. Her words don’t falter at all – even as she slips a potato into her bag.

It seems you’re not the only one who notices either. Armin, face darkening with realization, calls out; “Sasha… what did you just put in your bag?”

“That would be bread,” you chime in, raising your finger in her direction.

She sends you a glare; “no! In fact, it’s nothing bread-related!”

“Why, you!” Jean calls out, stepping towards Sasha, Eren trailing closely behind him.

Connie turns to her, setting his hands on his hips; “give it back.”

“Hey, focus!” Eren calls desperately, “we gotta finish cleaning before the captain gets back!”

“Put back the bread!”

They all move to argue, and just as you go to help, a slam behind you causes you to jump, freezing in your spot. You slowly glance over to Historia who's still standing on your left, and it seems she’s noticed the same thing as a figure falls in front of her, blocking her from your view before you slowly flicker your gaze up, wincing when you realize your fears were correct.

It’s Captain Levi.

“What’s this commotion about?”

None of them except for Eren notices him, not at first.

“Guys,” you hiss, trying to get their attention.

But Levi doesn’t say anything. Not at first. He just steps towards the table in the middle of the room, letting his hand drift across the bottom of it, and it’s then that everyone’s attention snaps to him, waiting with bated breath.

You swear you hear it, through the thick silence that swallows you all, the sound of little dust particles hitting the ground as he pulls his hand away, glancing at it briefly before turning to the group. “I’m quite sure I gave you enough time,” he says, voice blunt and emotionless.

You wince, glancing to your feet.

“Anyways,” he continued, raising a cloth to wipe at his hands. You blink, surprised at the lack of anger — normally laziness (in his mind at least) was punished far more severely. “We’ll discuss your cleaning job another time. Eren.” The captain shifts his body towards said boy. “Hange is itching to get the experiment started.”

“R-Right.”

THE FIRST WEEK THERE

“You okay?”

Blinking, you glance up, eyes widening at the sight of Jean. he’s leaning against the door to the room you shared with Sasha, Mikasa, and Historia, a tint of concern in his eyes as he stares back at you.

“Jean,” you call, surprised, “what’re you doing here?”

“I finished helping Hange’s team with the cleanup, and I couldn’t find you. Eren said you practically rushed in here the second you got back.”

Cheeks warming, you glance at your feet; “Levi assigned me cleaning, as usual. I thought I’d start with the girls room.”

“And it’s got nothing to do with the failed experiment?”

Meeting Jean’s gaze, you frown. “No.”

But he just raises a brow.

“Fine,” you huff, crossing your arms over your chest as you glare at him. “But I don’t want Eren knowing that. He already feels bad enough as it is, I don’t need to make him feel more guilty–”

“Tch,” Jean scoffs, rolling his eyes as he makes his way over to you. “I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

“Jean,” you sigh, “I’m serious. It’s silly anyway.” You brush off with a shake of your head.

“No,” Jean says quietly, “it’s not stupid. Especially if you’re upset.”

Eyes widening, you try to fight the blush that threatens to flood your cheeks, averting your gaze to your feet as you swallow thickly. Why’d he have to go and say things like that? All the time? Always flustering you and catching you by surprise… he was lucky no one else was around to witness this, or you’d beat him up.

“I just thought I’d be able to go back home soon is all…” you whisper, digging your nails into the skin of your arm to hold back just how upset you really feel. It was selfish. You knew how hard Eren had been trying and this whole thing of him being able to shift into a Titan was still so unknown too – and to him most of all. You didn’t want him thinking he had another reason to feel awful about it, which you knew he would if he somehow found out.

“Oh, yeah,” Jean nods, “you came from Shiganshina, right?”

Biting your lip, you nod. “Yeah,” you whisper, and you swear if you close your eyes you can see the streets you used to run through, can see Ms. Schneider smiling at you from across the way and hear your mothers voice calling for you from the next room over…

“I just… when it happened, when Reiner and Bartholdt kicked that hole into that wall, I left everything behind.” Your mother included, but you don’t mention that. “I know it’s all destroyed, it would just be nice to see it again.”

There’s a beat of silence, before you feel Jean shuffle. He steps closer to you, and then suddenly he’s right in front of you, inches apart – your head raises and you feel your cheeks warm at the intimate distance. It was always like this between him and you. You never knew how to gauge his actions. He could be so oblivious sometimes, loud and boisterous and always fighting or yelling (specifically with Eren) and then sometimes, rarer–moments like these… it’d just be the two of you and he’d be so… different.

Not in a bad way and not in the way that you meant you didn’t like who Jean was any other time. You’ve long accepted that your feelings for Jean were less than simply platonic, but you were too afraid of saying anything. Sasha often teased you, but she at least had the decency to do so when Jean wasn’t around. And you didn’t miss the looks Historia or Mikasa would send you, small smiles on their lips when they’d notice you blushing after Jean had done something. You knew how you felt about Jean, but you didn’t know how he felt about you.

You liked to think, or maybe hope, that he returned your affections and moments like these made you feel like maybe that hope wasn’t so sillily placed. There’d be times where he was so gentle around you, his voice would lower and his tone would turn serious, his eyes focused on your own… he’d go out of his way to help you with things, rushing to open the door for you when your hands were full, or offer to help you with your chores. Things like that.

Things that made you feel like maybe, just maybe, he liked you too.

But then he’d argue with Eren, and some way or another the topic would hint at or lead to Mikasa and your hopes would get crushed with a blink of an eye.

It was confusing. Too confusing. It makes your heart feel like a scrambled mess of emotions and your brain loses focus.

Jean sets his hand on your arm, pulling you from your thoughts as your lips part and you glance up at him.

“I’ll make sure that one day you’ll get to see your home.”

Eyes widening, you feel your heart flutter, a warmth spreading through you.

“Somehow, some way. I promise.”

He’s grinning wide at you, in that typical way of his; cocky but endearing at the same time and you find yourself at a loss for words, brain fumbling for something to say as you feel your stomach erupt with butterflies and your chest tighten in response.

“So, try to cheer up, okay?”

Swallowing thickly, you nod; “o-okay.”

His hand is falling from your arm, and you find yourself missing the contact, his touch warm and comforting. His lips are moving and you’re pretty sure he’s saying something about having to help Armin with dinner that night, but you don’t hear any of it, simply nodding numbly as you watch him leave. The second you’re alone, a breath slips past your lips and you feel yourself hot, pressing your palms to your cheeks as you shake your head.

You were acting like a frazzled little girl. But still, you couldn’t help it.

Seriously.

Why did he have to go and say something like that?

Another failed experiment.

It’s hard not to feel discouraged after so many failed attempts, and the mission for retaking Wall Maria to be pushed back further and further with the looming threat of it being shelved all together. Although you hadn’t expressed it to anyone other than Jean, and even then that had been minimal, the idea of being able to return home had filled you both with hesitance and urgence. The idea of being able to reclaim the wall and go back home was a soothing one in the same way it was a harrowing thought; the village was demolished after everything that had happened, there would probably be remains of the people who’d been left there to die, objects left in the wake of their panic to get out. Houses destroyed, buildings unrecognizable, the same streets you’d walked along your entire childhood would be nothing but littered with the remnants of those who’d died.

That was where your mother died. That was where you watched her get stomped on, crushed beneath Titan feet, left to nothing but pieces of a body on the ground.

That was where Ms. Schneider died. All alone. Sacrificing herself so that you could get on that boat.

And yet, it was the place you’d grown up. Your home had been where you’d taken your first steps, where you’d stay with your mother for hours while she read to you as a little girl, those streets had been the same ones you’d walked every morning to Ms. Schneider’s house so you could help her out with the daily errands. You’d spent every moment until you were ten there, and despite everything you missed it. Craved for it. Even if you knew you’d be disappointed by what you’d see if you ever made it back.

Even though you knew it’d never be the way it was.

It was your home.

It was where all your memories of your mom existed. Of Ms. Schneider.

When the mission had first been told to you, you’d had to pinch yourself to stop a reaction that would get you in trouble. You’d been both terrified and excited, but all the same, you’d wanted to. You wanted to go back. You want to take back Wall Maria, and you want to go back to Shiganshina.

But now it feels like you never will.

Not to mention… finding out a man had been tortured and murdered for information on you all? On Eren and Historia? Because they were so desperate to find all of you…

Whatever your feelings on Pastor Nick had been, a man had still been murdered. Tortured.

Meaning only one thing, just like Levi had said, the Military Police was after you all, for information, because you were harboring Historia and Eren.

And now this? Forced to leave the house you’d been hiding in for weeks, forced to leave in a rush, hastily erasing every trace of any of you existing.

It was hard to stay positive after so many failures.

Staring ahead, you watch from a distance as the Military Police break into the house, forcing their way in and destroying everything in sight for even the briefest glimpse of any of you. It was hard to ignore the fear thick in your throat or the way your hand shook holding the gun Levi had handed you, standing there, shocked.

“That was close…” you hear Connie mumble, “if we hadn’t left right then, what would’ve happened to us?”

“But why?” Armin presses, “what would make Commander Erwin…?”

“New orders came from the government,” Levi explains as Armin turns to him. “There’s been a freeze on all Scout Regiment activity outside the wall. They’re telling us to hand over Eren and Historia.”

Eyes widening, you turn, facing Levi.

“By the way,” the Scout that had handed Levi the note from Commander Erwin, Nifa, says, “right after he gave me the message… the Military Police came for him…”

“So he’s been arrested?” you whisper, glancing around in panic.

“That’s treating him like some sort of criminal!” Hange calls out in disbelief.

Levi just shakes his head. “Someone’s not working from the shadows anymore. They’re moving for all eyes to see.”

“To go that far to protect the wall’s secrets…” Hange mumbles, “what’s more, why do they want us to hand over Eren and Historia? Not to kill, but for them to obtain?”

“Who knows?” Levi shakes his head, scoffing at the reality of it all. “Anyways, it’s clear the enemy is after these two. Loitering around here is dangerous.” He steps forward then, nodding to everyone. “We’re moving her and Eren to Trost District.”

That catches everyone's attention.

“Why?” Moblit argues, “that’s the same place Pastor Nick was killed.”

“It’s worse to head towards the interior. With Trost in a panic, it should be easy to slip in. and if somehow it comes down to it, we can use these in the city,” shifting, he pulls back his jacket, gesturing to his OMNI gear.

“True…”

“Plus,” Levi continues, “not knowing the enemy puts us in a tough spot. We need to find out who's behind this. Hange, lend me some of your squad.”

They agree without hesitation, “of course.” Then, pausing in thought, they nod to themselves. “All right, I’m going after Erwin. Moblit’s with me. The rest of you will follow Levi.”

“Roger!”

Turning, Moblit trails closely behind them as they move to their horses. Just as Hange’s about to climb on their own, Eren calls out; “Hange!” Stepping forward, he holds his hand out, a sheet of paper held out towards them, “here. I remembered a conversation between Ymir and Bertholdt. Didn’t get time to tell you, but it’s here.”

Taking the slip of paper, Hange nods; “all right. I’ll take a look at it later.”

They get on their horse, and then, both Hange and Moblit take off.

It felt weird walking in Trost.

Especially with the looming threat of not knowing who the enemy was. Who was watching.

You’d all only been walking through Trost for a few moments, Sasha and Connie muttering quietly to themselves as Levi ordered you all to remain calm and not to cluster as a group to look suspicious.

It was hard not to. Especially given that Levi had ordered you to keep an eye on ‘Eren’ and ‘Historia’, otherwise known as Jean and Armin disguised as both. It was obvious what Levi’s plan was, and you had to admit, for the lack of knowledge you all had and the disadvantage you all stood at, it was a smart plan.

You just hated the thought of Jean being used as bait.

It was bound to go wrong eventually. You’re not so much surprised at the fact it’s happened but rather at how quickly it had when Levi suddenly spins, hand stretched out before him as he cries out; “everyone, look out! Behind you!”

But it’s a second too late. A glance back, and you barely had time to move out of the way before a wagon comes barelling, knocking you off your feet as you stumble, losing your balance. The wagon disappears just as quickly as it had appeared, and gathering your bearings, your eyes widen when you see it racing off, both Jean and Armin having been grabbed along the way.

“Armi–” Stopping herself, Sasha holds her hand out, shaking her head; “I mean, Christa and Eren! They got snatched away again.”

Sitting up, you glance over at Levi for a moment, before pushing yourself to your feet.

There was no time to waste.

THE NIGHT BEFORE

“If she’s going in, so am I.”

“Honestly, Y/N, it’s not that–”

“No, Jean,” you cut off, meeting his eyes briefly, “it is a big deal.”

“Y/L/N–”

“I’m just as good,” you argue, spinning to face Levi, ignoring for a moment that he’s your superior and if you were in your right mind you would never talk to him like this. “I can fight hand to hand, and if you’re not going to listen to me about using them as bait then I’m going in with Mikasa.”

Sighing, Levi’s shoulders fall, pressing a hand to his forehead. “You’re usually not this disobedient, Y/N.”

Faltering slightly at that, you flush, glancing down at your feet. “Please, Captain, I can help. I’ll be more helpful down there then up with Connie and Sasha.”

“Fine,” Levi relents, “but you follow her lead. And you stay quiet. Don’t get yourself caught or you screw up the entire plan.”

Nodding without hesitation, he glances at you once more before stalking off. You glance over at Mikasa, who simply nods at you, but you see the faint smile on her lips, before walking off herself. Eventually, you realize, it’s just you and Jean.

“What’d you do that for? Captain Levi is not someone to mess with.”

Glancing over at Jean, you huff; “I wanna be there to help you.”

“It’s not like Mikasa wouldn’t be capable.”

You pause at that, turning away from him as you cross your arms over your chest. Of course you knew Mikasa was capable of handling all of those men on her own, realistically, you thought she could take down a whole army by herself sometimes. But still, did he not have faith in you? Maybe he thought you were being a burden just like you’re sure Captain Levi did…

But no. You were capable. Not that it mattered so much anymore, but you’d ranked only second to her – you were strong. And perfectly capable. What good would you be as a lookout? And it wasn’t like you had Sasha’s archery skills…

You could be back up. Miss the ones that slipped by Mikasa or… or something.

“I know that,” you hiss, shaking your head, “I just wanted to help.”

It must be the way you say it. You’re not facing him so you don’t even properly notice, but suddenly Jean’s eyes widen and he’s stepping towards you as you shuffle away from him, hugging yourself, before he sets his hand on your shoulder and tugs so you’re facing him.

“I’m sorry,” he offers gently as you slowly raise your eyes to meet his. “You’re the only one who argued against using me and Armin as bait. I understand why we’re being asked to but still… thank you.”

Swallowing thickly, you’re glad it’s dark out so Jean can’t notice how red your cheeks are.

“You’re welcome,” you mumble, unable to ignore the way your heart races in response.

The plan had succeeded without a hitch.

Nothing wrong had happened.

You were able to retrieve Jean and Armin with ease, and the men who had taken them were, quite honestly, idiots.

They hadn’t even been good fighters. You and Mikasa had been able to take them out in seconds, and you were sure that even if you or her hadn’t been there, one of you would’ve been enough – they were fools.

And that plan had finished with ease.

It was almost too easy.

“Gun shots!”

Raising a brow, you glance over at Sasha who’s stood beside you, taking in the look of wild panic in her eyes.

“From there!”

Connie presses his hands to the back of his ears, cupping them in an attempt to hear better but you just shake your head.

“This isn’t good,” you frown, glancing ahead of you in the direction she’d pointed. “Sasha’s hearing is seriously not something to doubt.” You glance up at Mikasa and Jean. “Something’s wrong.”

“You think something happened?” Jean questions, on the roof next to yours, slightly higher.

“Most likely,” Mikasa agrees with you, pulling your eyes on her in surprise. “The Captain had this message for us… from now on, we’ll be fighting humans, too, and not just Titans.”

Inhaling sharply, you shake your head.

“Huh?” Jean calls, “you mean…?”

She races forward in the next second, clicking her omni gear in action, and with a single glance Jean’s way you follow after her. It had felt wrong to you the second you’d been able to save Jean and Armin with barely any effort. No, it had felt wrong the second they even fell for this trap – you figured the Military Police wouldn’t be fooled by such simple disguises, and certainly not let them be saved without putting up more of a fight.

It’d be an embarrassment to them. It wouldn’t look good on their image.

There was something terribly wrong.

The rest catch up with ease, probably only having waited a second after you and Mikasa, and you keep your eyes peeled, trying to spot either Levi or Eren and Historia.

“Hey!” Connie bellows from your left, your eyes falling on him before lowering to follow his gaze. Your eyes widen. “There’s Eren!”

They’ve been captured. The wagon they’d been hidden in had the top pulled off and by the looks of it, the both of them were knocked out with their hands tied behind their backs. You didn’t recognize the woman steering the wagon either.

A second later, a blur breezes by.

“It’s Captain!”

As soon as the words leave your lips, a figure gains on him. Panic floods you when you see the man pull out his gun and aim it right at Levi, with the intent to kill.

“What the hell!”

If it wasn’t for how skilled Levi was, he probably would’ve been shot – instead, he’s able to narrowly dodge the bullet, swinging his body around and latching the hooks of his OMNI gear right into the man's stomach before zipping forward and slicing him right across the chest with his blades; effectively killing him.

Feeling sick, you swallow back the bile that threatens to come pouring out.

Is that what you were expected to do…

Landing on the side of the building, Levi glances back at the six of you as you get closer; “chase the wagon!” he orders.

“Yes,” Mikasa calls out in response.

“Listen up,” Levi warns, following into step with you, “they’re used to fighting other people! They already got three of ours.” A series of gasps leaves all of your mouths. “If we’re gonna get those two back, you can’t hesitate! If you get the chance to kill, you do it. Got it?”

It’s only a second before Mikasa responds; “roger.”

But you can’t muster the words.

Levi zips forward, pulling the guy standing on the back of the wagon off, before calling over his shoulder; “Armin! Jean! Secure the wagon! We’ll cover you!”

You glance back, watching as Armin calls out for Jean with urgency before the two land on the wagon. Just as the woman steering the wagon raises her gun, Mikasa flies into her, knocking her off her balance, so she falls right in front of Jean, his blade held at her throat. Even from where you are, you can see his hand shaking, and eyes focused on him, you see the woman’s body move before she does, his name leaving your lips in a cry as he’s flipped to his butt, a gun held to his head.

Your heart falls to the pit of your stomach, fear striking you. You don’t notice the body creeping up behind you, hyper-focused on Jean as you desperately try to make your way to him before the woman presses the trigger.

He can’t die.

You can’t… you can’t lose him too.

“Y/N! Behind you!”

It’s Levi who calls for you, pulling you from your thoughts as you gasp in surprise, glancing over your shoulder only to see the barrel of a gun staring back at you. The man holding it is grinning at you wickedly, and it feels like time slows as you see his finger move, pressing slowly against the trigger, twisting your body so that you shift to the right, before a sharp pain radiates through your entire left arm, a cry leaving your lips. The pain and pressure causes your left hand to twitch, losing the grip on your trigger so you don’t hook on the wall across from you properly, freefalling for a brief moment before your body crashes into the ground a second later, the pain spreading across your entire body as you skid across the ground.

Shit.

You fucked up. You’d been too distracted, too worried about Jean, you hadn’t been aware of your surroundings and you’d gotten hurt because of it. Had anyone else–

Forcing your body over, you just managed to catch sight of Levi slicing his blade towards the man who’d shot you, stopping him from coming after you like you realize he’d been about to. Levi’s head turns over his shoulder just as he finishes, obviously trying to assess how hurt you were, but you shake your head, trying to sit up enough to glance in the direction of the wagon.

Jean.

You needed to know if Jean was okay.

“Y/N!”

It’s Connie and Sasha, landing right next to you before the latter falls to her knees in front of you, pulling you into her arms.

“I’m fine,” you brush off, voice breathless, trying to ignore the excruciating pain radiating through your entire body. “I’m fine. Is Jean…” You’re trying to catch your breath, trying to force the words out as panic seizes your entire body. You haven't been able to see–you never had the time to make sure. “Is Jean okay?”

Sasha just glances up at Connie who, pacing on his feet, shuffling forward, tries to get a look. “He’s okay,” he calls, and instantly, your shoulders sag with relief, letting yourself fall into Sasha’s grip a bit. “Armin too. Mikasa and Captain grabbed them but they got the wagon. They got Eren and Historia!”

No.

Letting out a hiss, the panic comes back and you try to stand up; “we have to go after them!”

“Y/N!” Sasha cries, pulling you back. “You’re bleeding, you have to stop!”

Gritting your teeth, you reluctantly let Sasha pull you back down, your vision blurring momentarily as the pain catches up to you. It isn’t just your arm, your ribs hurt too… you must have hurt them when you crashed on the ground because your breath felt short and it hurt to try to breathe in more.

Everything hurt.

God, you shouldn't have let yourself get distracted.

But Jean… you’d thought Jean was going to die.

“Y/N?” A new voice calls, and you blink through the pain to see Jean racing towards you, Armin trailing behind him looking quite sick. He comes to a stop right in front of you, eyes wide with terror as he takes you in. You can’t see yourself, but you gather from the look on his and everyone else's face, it isn’t good. You know you’re bleeding, but Sasha won’t let you sit up enough to take a look at your arm.

But shit–it hurts.

“What happened?” Jean cries, “is she okay?”

“She got shot,” Sasha calls out, shaking her head, “I don’t know what to do. She’s bleeding really bad.”

Jean’s lips part to say something, but before he can a voice interrupts him.

“We need to get off the streets, now!”

“Captain!” Sasha cries, “It’s Y/N! She’s hurt!”

“I’m fine–” you try to argue, but Levi is suddenly kneeling in front of you, pulling you away from Sasha as he leans over, taking a look at your arm. “Shit,” he curses, then, slowly, his eyes flicker to you. “Did you get hurt anywhere else?”

Swallowing thickly, you hesitate.

“Y/N!”

“My-My ribs,” you whisper, turning away from him. “I got knocked off balance and I think I may have bruised them when I crashed into the ground. It hurts to breathe…”

Levi glances at you for a second more, before he looks up, surveying the area. “Okay, Jean, help me get her up.” Nodding, Jean rushes forward like he’d been waiting anxiously for the chance, and you feel the two of them slip their arms under you before pulling you up. They hesitate a moment when you let out a cry involuntarily, it cutting short as you bite your lip, ignoring the look Jean sends you as their movements slow, feeling the agonizing pain continue until you’re finally on your feet.

“Mikasa, Sasha, use your gear, get ahead and find a place we can hide in.” Mikasa only hesitates a second, sending one last glare Levi’s way before the two of them head off. “Armin, are you okay?”

Your eyes fall on the boy, taking in how pale he is.

“F-Fine.”

It’s obvious he’s not, but he’s trying.

“Okay,” Levi nods, “Connie, Armin, follow Mikasa and Sasha, keep an eye out. Jean,” you watch as his eyes turn to Jean next to you. “Me and you are gonna help Y/N, okay?”

Feeling embarrassed by how useless you were, you glance at your feet.

Jean nods without hesitation, worried eyes drifting across you briefly before turning back to Levi.

“Okay.”

“I pulled out the bullet, got the bleeding to stop and bandaged it. I don’t think your ribs are broken, just bruised. You should be okay.”

Glancing up at Levi, you swallow thickly, nodding as you keep your eyes trained ahead of you, up at the ceiling of the warehouse Sasha and Mikasa had managed to find. The second Jean and Levi had brought you there, Levi had ordered Sasha to find something for him to clean the wound with and some bandages before setting you up on your bed cot that Jean had moved to lay out for you.

Levi had then proceeded to bark at the rest of them to leave and get dinner ready, and all had followed without hesitation, though Sasha had lingered briefly with worry back at you. Jean was the one who didn’t move, just staring back at you as you tried to avoid his gaze, until Levi had ordered him to leave once more, voice sharp. He’d left then, eyes never leaving yours until you were out of sight. The second you were alone, Levi had gotten started. You’d gritted your teeth but had refused to cry out as Levi pulled the bullet out of your arm. He didn’t have the right tools, so you imagine it was more painful than it would’ve normally had been, but you tried to not let it show. You were embarrassed enough as it was, feeling useless and like an idiot.

You were skilled and you knew that.

You knew you were better than that.

You’d just been so afraid… petrified at the thought of losing Jean that nothing else had mattered.

At least it was you that had been hurt as a result. If someone else had gotten hurt, you wouldn’t be able to forgive yourself.

At your silence, Levi sighs, slowly pushing himself to a stand, moving to make his way over to the others.

“Captain?”

Pausing in his steps, Levi glances down at you.

You raise your gaze to his, frowning; “I'm sorry.”

You didn’t need to say what. You knew he knew.

His eyes drift across you, slowly, then, his eyes soften, just the slightest, and your lips part.

“Not your fault, Y/N.”

He turns with that, not saying anything else and not giving you the chance to say anything either. But, his words provide a sense of comfort, allowing your body to ease, even just a bit, as you turn your head. You hadn’t known what to think of the Captain the first time you’d met him. You’d known who he was, of course you did – everyone knew who he was. Humanity’s Strongest Soldier. But when you finally met him, he’d seemed cruel and distant and Mikasa had complained about him enough to you to sway your opinion a bit; calling him a heartless asshole because he’d beaten the shit out of Eren the day in trial when he’d been arrested.

Still, there had been something.

His words were short and not overly friendly or compassionate, but they’d been enough. Truly, if he had coddled you, it would’ve made you feel worse and you think he knew that.

Minutes pass as you lay there. You can hear the rest of them chatting in the next room over, but you just try to let your eyes rest, ignoring the pain that aches every time you shift just briefly. You needed to take this opportunity to rest, you refused to let yourself be any more useless than you already have been.

A pair of footsteps echo about an hour after Levi had left you, pulling your eyes over and onto Jean. He’s holding a bowl in his hands, and there’s a distant look in his eyes as he slowly makes his way over to you. You frown at the sight of the troubled look on his face. You’d overheard briefly what Armin had been forced to do in those moments where you’d gotten hurt, how Jean hadn’t, like you’d seen, been able to kill and so Armin was forced to – to save Jean. You couldn’t imagine how Armin felt, and from the brief seconds you’ve seen him, he hadn’t looked well.

But you imagined Jean felt terrible himself – in a different way. Riddled with the guilt that he hadn’t been able to do it and Armin had had to kill for his sake. It was a different feeling, one you couldn’t say you even understood; just like you couldn’t begin to understand how Armin had felt. You’d gotten yourself stupidly hurt while they’d all been risking their necks…

The guilt though? That you could understand.

“I figured you’d be hungry,” Jean offers when he feels your eyes on his, slowly blinking out of his own stupor to meet your gaze. Coming to a stop in front of you, Jean lowers himself so he’s sitting directly in front of you, glancing down at you. “How’re you feeling? Captain wouldn’t let me see you right away. Said he had to get the bullet out and then told me I should let you get some rest first. Was only able to sneak off with the excuse of giving you some food.”

A small smile curls on your lips at that; happy with the thought that Jean, despite everything, had been so worried for you.

Eyeing the bowl in his hands, you’re suddenly sick of being stuck on your back, and you shift, ignoring the sharp pain that radiates through you as you press your palms on either side of you to push yourself up. You hear Jean call your name in worry, but you continue to push yourself, lips pursed in effort as you feel his hands tentatively fall on you, hovering for a moment before he helps set you up so you’re sitting facing him, leaning against the wall behind you.

“You should be resting,” Jean frowns.

“I’m tired of laying down,” you argue, shaking your head as you take the bowl from his hands. It’s a small ration, something you’d expected given all of you were on the run and hadn’t had much time to grab anything besides the necessary. You let yourself ponder on how much everything has changed in such a short amount of time, how Eren and Historia had been taken…

So much had gone wrong.

“I messed up today,” you whisper, stirring the soup for a moment, feeling your chest tighten as you utter the words.

Jean breathes in, slowly, with how quiet it is you can hear it clearly, before he exhales. “I did too,” he mumbles, “it’s okay.”

“Everything just went to shit so quickly,” you huff, meeting his eyes as you frown up at him, trying to ignore the way you feel your eyes watering. You refused to let yourself cry, not now, not after everything. You already felt useless, you wouldn’t let yourself get emotional over it. “It’s just…”

And you pause a moment, not sure if you should say the words. But when you meet Jean’s warm brown eyes staring back at your own, not a single sound other than your voice, and the two of you tucked away from prying eyes of the rest of the team, you realize you want to. If there was one thing today had taught you is that you never know what might happen next, you never know when you might die… and as much as it hurts to think, you never knew when Jean might die. You would do anything to stop that from ever happening… but where you were now? What you were fighting for?

It would be silly to think it could never happen.

“Jean,” you whisper, “when I saw that woman point her gun at you, I… I couldn’t breathe. I felt stuck and this terror climbed up my throat and I wasn’t able to move even though I wanted to so badly… It’s why that man snuck up on me, if it wasn’t for Captain calling for me I might’ve been dead right now.”

Lips parting, Jean’s eyes widen; “Y/N, you…”

You set the bowl aside, half-hazardly laying it beside you that some of it splashes out in your rush. You ignore the pain that lashes out at you as you reach forward, with your good arm, and take Jean’s hand in your own, squeezing as you meet his gaze. “It made me realize how dangerous our lives are… with everything happening, Eren and Historia and being on the run, I…” Inhaling sharply, you try to ignore the nerves that crawl in your belly, making your hand shake and squeeze Jean’s own tighter. “It made me realize how-how I feel… about you…”

Jean doesn’t move. Doesn’t say anything.

The anxiety grows, thickens, and you rush to say more.

“When I saw the gun pointed at you, I nearly lost my mind.” You explain, “but I also realized that sometimes… I might not be able to do anything. Not with how our lives are. Someday, you could die… I could die… But I don’t want that to happen without you ever knowing my feelings.” Then, exhaling shakily, you add; “for you. I don’t know when they started, I mean,” you let out a small laugh, “I was so sure I hated you when I first met you… but then, I don’t know… something changed.”

Your voice trails, feeling you’ve rambled too long, feeling your cheeks impossibly hot. But the silence follows, swallows you whole, and when you finally dare to raise your head, to meet Jean’s eyes, he’s just staring back at you.

Swallowing thickly, you shift forward; “Jean?”

He’s shaking his head, pulling his hand from your own and your heart feels as if it’s being ripped apart as he hastily pushes himself to his feet. He still hasn’t said anything, not until he’s fully stood in front of you, glancing down at you with bright red cheeks and a wild look in his face, still shaking his head.

“Jean–”

“I’m sorry,” he finally breaks out, “I.. I’m sorry.”

And then he’s turning, not saying anything more, not giving you a single ounce of explanation, rushing out of the room before you can even attempt to stop him. You sit there for a moment, the scene replaying in your head, before settling, and the hurt wells all over again – but this time not physical pain. It hurts deep in your heart, like someone had ripped it out of your chest.

You feel your vision well, the tears threatening to burst through and with haste you press your palm against your lips, trying to mask the soft cries that manage to slip past you. The bowl of soup Jean had brought you manages to catch your eyes, and with a cry, you kick at it, ignoring the way it splatters across the floor or the clatter that follows with it. Your body screams at you in response, and a whimper leaves your lips then as you go to clutch your arm, before staring down at your lap.

Then, after a moment, you let yourself fall back down, unable to stop the tears that stream down your cheeks, back turned towards the entrance of the room. And because your back is turned, you don’t notice the pair of eyes on your figure, watching with a deep frown etched on his lips because he’d turned back the second he’d had a moment to breathe, realizing what an utter and complete douche he’d been and most importantly, what a mistake he’d made.

But the second he sees you crying, he freezes and doesn’t say a word.

Like the coward he knows he is.

#aot #aot x reader #aot imagine #attack on titan #attack on titan x reader #jean kirstein #jean kirstein x reader #jean kirschstein #jean kirschtein x reader #jean x reader #eren jaeger #eren jaeger x reader

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raewritesfiction · 16 days

Text

Wanna Find Out? [Alexander Skarsgard]

A/N: fleshing out a quick idea. Sorry for the formatting, I’m on mobile.

Plot: getting drunk with good friend Alex and a question arises.

Pairing: Alexander Skarsgard X Female!Reader

Warnings: Smut. Oral (M & F receiving), Unprotected sex (always use a condom!), Alcohol

[[ Lemme know if you wanna be added or removed from tags; no questions asked ♥️ likes are amazing however I really appreciate Reblogs to help spread my writing further! Thank you 🌈😘]]

Tag List: @thegreatlarryfisherman @iraniq @snewsome756 @vikkikrash @amelia-in-w0nderland @pandaliciouz @crispyimagines17 @marie-is-blogging @bonniebird @nutinanutshell @louise-buchan @differentcatcat @madsadgenius @sycochick @ravenmoore14 @heywhatssgood @purplerain85 @rockifresa @askarslibrary @1-800-imagines @venusbabysblog

—

Your day had been shitty but your evening was going much better as you had steadily gotten a little happy drunk with your friend Alex, relaxing on his sofa with random bad movies playing in the background as you set the world to rights and talked absolute bullshit.

Alex shuffles and sinks down, his head resting on the sofa back as you watched another horror with predictable teens getting drunk, fucking and then murdered before anyone could do anything. You could swear you’d seen it before but it could just be it was so similar to the previous one.

You tilt your head as a full frontal of a man comes on screen and you raise an eyebrow. “No way is that real… gotta be prosthetic.”

Alex chuckles and swigs his beer “maybe…. Dunno. He could just be an elephant.”

You laugh and finish your drink “….so what about you? I’ve seen Big Little Lies… was yours a prosthetic?” You pour another glass and can feel Alex’s eyes on your back but you don’t turn to look at him as you lean back.

“You wanna find out?” He raises an eyebrow and looks over to you.

Your glass rests on your lip as you blink and turn to meet his gaze “oh? That easy? I just had to ask?”

“Yup…” he nods and swigs his beer, finishing the bottle.

“Okay.. okay then.” You down your whiskey “whip it out..”

Alex puts his bottle down and pushes down his sweatpants to free himself. Apparently he had forgone underwear for comfort. Your eyes wander down from his face to his cock and you can’t help but let out a gasp “oh… no… no prosthetic needed.” You lick your lips at the sight and shuffle to face him.

“Nope…” he shakes his head and smirks “never needed one… though I will say it was damn cold in True Blood!” He goes to pull his sweats back up but you stop him, “no need to cover up so soon…”

“Oh..?” He raises an eyebrow and watches you shuffle to face him and lean down, dragging your tongue down his length. “Oh!”

You hum, wrapping your hand around him and lick the tip into your mouth, sucking lightly and feeling him harden under your touch. Alex groans quietly and moves his hips to your mouth as you slowly take him deeper into your mouth until he couldn’t go any further. Deepthroating was not your forte so your hand would have to make do for what your mouth couldn’t take.

He doesn’t seem to mind as you bob your head and swirl your tongue around him making him moan louder, a hand threading into your hair while the other grips the armrest of the sofa. You look up under your lashes and watch his chest rise and fall with each heavy breath he takes, a moan on every exhale. You massage his balls with your other hand and draw out a low low growl from him, his hips bucking into your mouth and almost making you choke. Almost. He settles his hips again and pants heavily as your mouth works along his length, around the head and your tongue teases the slit.

You moan around him, barely able to open your mouth wide enough to take him you pull away briefly and pant before sucking around the head and jerking his length with your hand. He stutters and groans pulling you away fully “god fuck, not yet…”

You wipe the corners of your mouth and watch him crawl over you, pinning you down to the sofa and kissing you passionately. His lips move over your jaw and neck while he pulls at your strap top, freeing your tits for his teasing amusement. Just as Alex had gone sans underwear, your idea of comfort didn’t include a bra.

Massaging and kneading while he kisses and sucks on your nipples, his teeth scraping lightly and his fingers pinching just enough for that pleasurable pain that makes you gasp and whine. Heat fires through you down to your core and you wish you could squeeze your thighs together but Alex’s hips hold them apart.

Once he was satisfied with the nip and bite marks on your tits he moves lower and undoes your jeans, pulling them roughly down over your hips and legs until he can throw them aside to the floor. His large hand immediately moves to your pussy; his thumb circling your clit as his fingers tease your entrance. “So wet for me…”

You whine in answer and nod “I’ve thought about this a lot…”

“Me too.” He moves your leg to lay over his shoulder and kisses your calf, pushing two fingers into you slowly with ease, drawing out a mewl of pleasure from your lips. He thrusts slowly and watches your hips move to the same rhythm before dipping down and flicking his tongue quickly over your clit. You gasp and moan his name, your hands in his hair as you rock your hips to his fingers and tongue. His scissors and thrusts, curls and stretches you out while his tongue works on your sensitive and hardened nub.

You feel a flutter pulsing through you, making you whimper and arch “oh god..”

Alex chuckles against you and slowly pulls away, withdrawing his fingers from you and holding them up to your mouth to clean him off and humming “that’s my good girl…” licking his lips as he watches your tongue swirl around his fingers. He soon resumes his previous position and lays your leg over his shoulder, lining up his cock with your entrance and pushing into you, watching your pussy stretch to accommodate his size.

You arch off the sofa as you feel him deep inside you, the head of his cock neatly against your cervix when fully inside you. He kisses your ankle and calf again, settling to let you get adjusted before pulling out and rolling his hips. You gasp and grip onto his wrist as his cock fills you out in ways you hadn’t experienced before; hitting all the right spots on every thrust and roll of his hips. You moan loudly into the room and lift your hips to his movements, another pleasurable pain as he stretches you out to take him fully.

Once accustomed to his size you rock your hips a little faster, watching his face as he grips your hip and thigh, pulling you onto his thrusts.

“I can take it..” you pant and groan needily. “Please!”

Alex growls low and speeds up; his hips piston into you, pushing deep and hard making you writhe and arch on the sofa with his name falling from your lips like a mantra. His eyes move from his cock stretching you to your blissful face to your tits, moving on every thrust of his hips.

“You feel so good…” he groans and grinds his hips into you making you bend double against him. His arm moves around your back and holds you as he leans his forehead against yours. “Let go for me… cum over my cock…”

You pant and whine, unable to make a sentence as his cock drives into you relentlessly.

“Good girl…”

You moan and drop your head back “fffuuuuuuuuck!!!” Arching suddenly against Alex as you cum; your muscles tightening in pulses and pulling him over the edge with you.

Alex lets out a long moan as your pussy milks him, his eyes on your heaving chest as you both relax onto the sofa after release.

He lays your leg to the side and then himself behind you, moving carefully and not pulling out of you yet. His arm holds you close while he whispers sweet things in Swedish close to your ear, against your neck and jaw where he leaves trails of kisses.

You close your eyes and turn your head to catch his kisses, stroking his face and whispering back how good he felt.

“Never been fucked like that..” you kiss him slowly, your tongue exploring his mouth.

He hums and nips you a little “gonna have to make sure I do it again some time then.”

“How about once we’ve recovered before breakfast…?” You chuckle and keep kissing him.

“Gimme ten minutes and I’ll make your legs stop working.” He smiles and rocks his hips playfully, making you gasp.

“Deal…”

-fin-

#Alexander Skarsgard #Alexander Skarsgard Smut #Alexander Skarsgard Imagine #Alexander Skarsgård #true blood #big little lies #imagine #smut

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where-dreamers-go · 4 months

Text

“Here And There” Eragon x Reader

(A/N: Requested by the awesome @shewhobreathesfire for a clumsy Modern! Reader who has been made an ambassador for Alagaësia and sent out to Mount Arngor.

Warnings: Very minor angst. Mild language. Use of (Y/N).

Word Count: 1,706 words)

Ambassador of Alagaësia, appointed by Queen Nasuada herself, tasked with exchanging ideas of changes in the land through meetings with Mount Arngor’s leader, and follow protocol.

You found it all to be rushed decisions, really. Not that you would risk voicing that opinion out loud. You couldn’t afford to be foolish in that matter even if all of this was a new experience. You would rather live to tell the tale. Then again, you felt safer away from Alagaësia. From the endless list of laws and social norms.

Mount Arngor, or whichever of the handful of names you wished to call it, stood tall against a blue sky. Grassland stretched out all around it with water sources running close by. The new stronghold grew on one of the many peaks at the base of the mountain, looking extremely tiny in comparison.

At least you had found your way easily enough.

Roughly almost three weeks into walking in your new ambassador position left you questioning yourself. Not only in business matters, but how you were around others. Eragon in particular.

The Dragon Rider had evolved more than you imagined and exactly as you hoped. He had grown well as a leader, working within the community.

All out of Queen Nasuada’s reach. Or so you liked to tell yourself.

She would never see you running your foot into a table after Eragon complimented one of your suggestions for organizing storage. Unfortunately, a handful of dwarves and the other ambassador did. At least they never mentioned it.

I need to pull myself together, you thought as you descended the stairs. Went the wrong way again.

You could surely roll your eyes at yourself.

Barely a month and I have a crush on Eragon. Good job. Very predictable. Making a face, you continued on. Just more work for me. But is it really a new crush or from years of…

“Turned around?”

The sudden familiar voice and presence spooked you. A foot moving where it shouldn’t and you stumbled with a small gasp.

One hand reached out to steady yourself on the wall just as Eragon grabbed ahold of your other arm. His grip helped keep you on your feet and away from tumbling down stone steps.

A quiet curse left your lips as heat rose on your neck.

“Thank you,” you said, muscles remaining tense.

“You’re welcome.”

His hold disappeared once you found your footing.

What are the odds? At least I didn’t hurt myself this time. You exhaled slowly.

“Are you alright?” Eragon questioned, brown gaze trying to read your expression.

“Fine.”

Setting your sights forwards, you took the next steps down carefully.

“Just…questioning my navigation skills.” You added and then muttered. “And gravity, apparently.”

The Dragon Rider kept pace with you. Quiet only for a few moments.

“I’m relieved you’re alright. It would had been quite a fall.”

“Yeah,” you breathed out and finally relaxed as you found yourselves on flat stone.

Tapestries, lights, and rugs decorated the area. Much the same aesthetic as other sparse places in the grand building. They were truly making it into a home.

“Um.” You glanced over to Eragon. “Thank you again.”

“You’re welcome. Again,” he smiled.

His expression could had melted you on the spot.

“I hope you never find yourself in the same circumstance.”

“So do I.” Clasping your hands together, you took a step in another direction. “I’ll…be on my way.”

“All right. Take care.”

“Yup. You too.”

With a quick nod and smile, you scurried off. Your feet taking you anywhere but where you really wanted to be. For how could you spend more time with Eragon when your increasing feelings for him made your very being act out of sorts?

Great job, you thought sarcastically. You have officially turned into a clumsy, stumbling person under the title of ambassador. And always in front of him. Why? Am I doing a good job regardless? Maybe.

Eragon didn’t even know your full story of becoming an ambassador. You never got to the point, the beginning, of how you met Nasuada.

How would you even start the tale? Would he believe you?

Nasuada hardly did.

Yet look how far you had traveled since then.

Have you done all that Queen Nasuada had asked of you of your appointed position of ambassador? On paper, yes. In the way she probably wanted you to, nope.

There was only so much enthusiasm and professionalism you could show with the list she gave you to do.

Send updates? Sure, but you were living in a world where dragons, humans, Urgals, dwarves, and elves existed amongst others. There was so much to experience and a letter to the Queen wasn’t high on your list.

It’s weird how I got this job in the first place, you thought. If I met someone dressed odd, visually confused, and falling out of a portal then I’d keep them under observation and question them more than a few days rather than checking if they have magic. You sighed, your thoughts running off. Then again, I’m alive. Can’t complain there. Less danger here anyway.

* *

A calm, quiet night lightened any mood held with Mount Arngor. Groups of peoples talking beside a fire and others busied themselves with a personal hobby. It made the common area warm in more ways than one.

Sitting alone by a wall light was better than cooping yourself up in your room all night. You had been welcomed into a community after all, might as well see some of it. Plus you might see the handsome Dragon Rider.

All good things.

Your nose was buried in your notes and a focused curve framed your brow. You bothered no one. Content in your own task even without a desk.

Little did you know, that it intrigued a young man. One who decided to indulge in his curiosity.

Eragon took up a seat beside you. No pretenses. No greeting.

“Who’s language is that?” Eragon asked.

Your hand rose away from the parchment.

Awh, crap.

You scrambled to think of an answer that wouldn’t be a paragraph long explanation.

Peeking over from the corner of your eye, you answered, “Human.”

Perfect.

Eragon leaned over, entering your personal space.

Your eyes tracked his movements and you dared not move.

“I haven’t seen script as that before.”

“My handwriting isn’t that bad,” you joked lightly.

“What? No,” he sat back, “I didn’t mean—.” He paused once he saw your expression.

You smiled.

Narrowing his eyes playfully, he asked, “Do you have to write notes all day?”

“No. They’re mainly for me.” You gestured to the dried ink. “I don’t think Nas—uh. Queen Nasuada…. I don’t think she’d be interested in these notes. I hardly think she enjoys my letters.”

“Why would you think that?” He pressed, an edge of seriousness in his tone. “Does she not want to know everything you do here?”

Tilting your head back and forth a couple of times, you finally answered, “Because I was writing about the weather.”

Eyebrows rose, but Eragon said nothing.

“I’m serious.”

Studying you through his brown eyes was enough to make you a little self-conscious. In the very least, his gaze made you overly aware of the proximity between the pair of you.

“Why would you write about the weather?” His seriousness broke down into full perplexity.

“Because I’ve never visited a huge lonely mountain with a bunch of snow on top. What’s it like when it rains a lot? How many sets of stairs even are there? Can dough rise properly here? How are my sinuses doing lately? Important questions.”

A small smile curved the Rider’s lips.

He thinks this is funny or agrees? You wondered. So many darn questions. And he’s cute. GAH! Not now.

“You should see the mountain in the winter. The winds are strong and the cold bites.”

You hummed in thought, saying, “Perhaps I should inform her of the weather extensively.” You bit back a chuckle. “She kind of threw this job on me without much warning.”

“She trusts you.”

“That’s the thing.” You whispered. “She doesn’t know me well enough or long enough to trust me personally, but…I’m here as an ambassador and I have no idea if I’m doing it properly.”

A concerned frown crossed Eragon’s features.

You did not know where you were going with the conversation, but you needed to tell him something about yourself. Your situation. A hint of the truth.

“You’ve literally seen me trip over my own feet. I cross my fingers and hope I don’t fumble when addressing people, Eragon.��

“You’re new to the position. Not everything turns out as you expect.”

Exhaling, you glanced at your writing. More than simple notes of the weather.

“You’re doing well.” His words were soft. Genuine.

The words of encouragement sprung a lightness in your chest you could not acknowledge without tempting fate with a surge of clumsiness in yourself.

“Thank you, but…uh… I literally talk differently, spent well over a decade as a student, and I’m not from here. And yet she still sent me here.”

“What?”

“Exactly. What credibility do I have? Why me?”

Eragon turned in his seat to face you directly.

The change in his demeanor caused you to lose grip of your pen.

“Why does where you’re from matter about being named an ambassador?”

Immediately, you opened your mouth to respond with an answer about your true origins, however you said nothing. Mouth closed. You shrugged.

Eragon held your gaze in time of two breaths before speaking again.

“Is there something you can not tell me?”

“I’m not sure you’d believe me if I did, but,” you glanced over to where an Urgal sat down, “this place is very different from what I’m used to. Magic and all.”

“Will you tell me more about where you’re from one day? When you’re not writing about weather.”

“I might…if you help me find my pen.” You leaned over to check near your feet.

“Deal.” Eragon placed the pen atop of your notes.

“Thank you.”

“You’re always welcome, (Y/N).” His voice was warm, inviting.

A flutter in your stomach teased you.

Oh. Why’d he say my name LIKE THAT?

~~~

Best wishes and happy reading.)

(If you love my writings and want to support me, I have a Ko-Fi where you can buy me a coffee. I would be eternally grateful.

coffee

~~~~~

DreamerDragon Tags:

Inheritance Cycle Tags: @shewhobreathesfire @

**Let me know if you would like to be tagged in insert readers, either through replies, ask, or message.**

#eragon x reader #eragon x modern!reader #modern! reader #eragon shadeslayer #where dreamers go #requested #eragon #the inheritance cycle #the world of eragon

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thisismeracing · 5 months

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ok so i was thinking about bonnington!reader's origins today

and with bono's jobs in f1 over the years:

2004-01-01 — 2006-01-01 Jordan Grand Prix (Data Engineer) 2006-01-01 — 2009-05-06 Honda (Performance Engineer) 2009-05-06 — 2009-11-16 Brawn GP (Race Engineer) 2009-11-16 — 2011-08-26 Mercedes (Assistant Race Engineer) 2011-08-26 — Present Mercedes (Race Engineer)

if we make little miss bonnington the same age as mick (born 1999)

she wouldve been around 10 when bono was at brawn before they turned into mrecedes

and at the same time she wouldve overlapped when jenson was at brawn

what im getting at is that her and jenson could have formed a familial connection to each other because of the two of them being in the same garage/hospitality/factory basically all the time

imagine she has a few trophies dedicated to her as well as a few of jensons helmets that he has signed

[side note: this girls helmet collection is STACKED, her collection is #1 on a lot of f1 fans rob list]

imagine she still has an old brawn gp hoodie that was way oversized on her as because she stole it from her dad and refused to wear the child sized one that was specially made for her by the clothing department

and any time she wears it around the paddock the adult who watched her grow up are reminded of how small she was and now she's a grown adult who is living her childhood dream

she's no longer the kid that would hide behind your legs waiting for you to be done with an interview (another side note: i think she's a tall girl 6' - 6'4" range)

or the kid that would sit on your lap and accidentally fall asleep with a pair of (oversized on her) headphones on her head while you were analyzing data

she's an aerodynamicist (im gonna get really good at spelling that word with the amount of thots i have about this girl) who takes her job seriously because she loves the people she works with so much and want them to be happy with their work performing well out on the track

she's mick schumacher's girl friend and if that boy ever hurts her she has an army of engineers (unbeknownst to her) at her side ready to fight for the girl they love

ready to fight for the little kid they watched grow up into the amazing person they see before them today

☕

omg yes! bono baby is def loved by everyone, and would totally have dedicated helmets and trophies for her

I feel like everyone who watched her grow up on the paddock would see her nowadays and suddenly get that flash of her walking around as a little girl with oversized clothes, always asking questions when she was comfortable with the group, watching everything attentively, and so on.

adding the angsty side (hehe): maybe she got her height from her mother's side of the family (bc bono is not that tall) and she got a lot of other stuff from her so sometimes bono will get that tight feeling on his heart because she reminds him of so much, so many possibilities, so many plans. she's the best thing that happened to him, but there were days when he would get overwhelmed with how similar they could be. this contributes to the narrative that he's not very keen on her and mick's relationship because secretly he fears that she'll leave him for either a lover, or anything honestly.

yup to the sleeping on your lap while you analyze data (but only after she watched everything attentively and got tired). bono reader is curious, but she's also shy so when she was a kid she wouldn't pass the opportunity to crawl into someone's lap and hide there.

her mom isn't in the picture, but mick can bet that there are at least fifty people that are and would get his head if he ever hurts her

#bonnington!reader #☕ anon #millies inbox #ms47 #mick schumacher #f1 x reader #thots

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atonalginger · 2 months

Text

Stowaway Savior

The first day of the latest story starring Goose and Ruby is now live on ao3. The first day is covered by 10 (short) chapters. The story is rated E for graphic depictions of violence.

Ruby always has a good read on people and situations. So when her older brother, Goose, decides to help a Rook she doesn't trust, Ruby decides to tag along, whether her family likes it or not. After she was proven right Ruby must get her and her brother to safety and wait for their family to find them, not knowing the UC has thrown a wicked curve ball into the mix.

You can start reading by clicking here

A preview:

Everyone was gathered around the war table, not a single butt in a chair. Somehow Ashta managed to stand still next to his pastel queen, though the restless energy radiated off of him like a thick fog. Jazz and Voss stood at either end of the table, tablets and slates detailing everything they’d found with the Freestar intel spread out in front of them. The lieutenant was posted up on the wall near the door, his closed off body language telling Delgado that the young pilot did not want to be there. He wanted to be out there searching.

“He just gave himself up?” Atomic asked, glancing over to Voss.

“As soon as the alert that we had moles hit our system,” Voss held out his wrists like he was waiting for chrome plated bracelets, “said he was already trying to find a way to come clean and swore he was hampering the team’s efforts, which I buy only because this team is responsible for a lot of previously clean ops with no detection.”

“He was also able to tell my crew exactly where to look on Stone’s ship,” Jazz added, “and that we found one of their team on her ship was another big misstep for them. Rookie mistakes for such an experienced team.”

“Our turncoat said the group viewed this job as a cakewalk.” Voss rolled his eyes, “and now they’re in cells.”

“It was a fucking cake walk for them,” Delgado snapped, “they got balls deep into our systems, sending fuck knows what back home and managed to get the jump on at least one of our captains!”

Voss shrank back from the table a bit, avoiding eye contact with Del. Jazz simply sighed, shuffling slates around on the table.

“What are we going to do?” the Freestar pilot asked, “we’re just wasting time while the UC could be tailing them.”

“We don’t know where they went,” Jazz turned her head to acknowledge him, “I agree with Ashta, no way she actually scatter jumped. Hell most our experienced pilots don’t do it because it costs a lot of helium 3 and can be exhausting.”

“But then where?” Voss asked, “none of her coordinates make sense. I’d assume she was hiding something in them but right now the data is too corrupted to piece that together.”

“I already sent a team to orbit Andraste III,” Del looked to Ashta and Atomic, “Samina sent her assistant with them. They’ll wait a few UT week and then return if no one shows up.”

“I think for now we need to operate like she did attempt the maneuver,” Atomic said as her head dropped, “Ruby is a little stickler for protocol and that’s been the rule since she’s been here: flit through the starfield to shake UC tracking and then make your way home once you’re confident you’re free.”

“You mean search the systems she listed?” Jazz asked.

“Yup, scan each rock and comb every series of rings we find to see if we find the Golden Squid.” Lila was staring at the table, the four systems already pulled up.

#starfield #sam coe #starfield fanfiction #the coemancer crew #atonalginger writes #crimson fleet #oc: Goose #oc: Ruby #oc: Cooper Benbow #oc: Lila Aiza #starborn!Sam Coe #starfield Delgado #Stowaway Savior #Goose/Cooper #Sam/Lila

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chen-chen-chen-again-chen · 1 year

Text

Things about AWTWB that I forgot about or just noticed for the first time, upon a recent re-listen:

Lady Ruth as an unreliable narrator: “I’m not one to hold grudges” but next page “I would dance on his grave and throw a fiesta and then resurrect him so I could kill him again” (My poor paraphrase)

Baz, about vampires: “They’re less like murderers - more like sexy bedbugs”

Baz, about Petra and Sophie: “I thought twins were supposed to be best friends, but all they do is eat jam and butter sandwiches and throw things at each other" (Me, adding to my Jelly Babies notes folder: “Yup, that tracks”)

Simon (about Baz): “I mean, have a look at him. He’s the most fuckable person alive. Or otherwise” (#facts)

Dev is a PITCH cousin, not a GRIMM fuck me why did I think he was a Grimm sljk;dskljdskjldsaljks

The door knocker for Salisbury House is shaped like a SMILING CYCLOPS (adding to my Rosethorn girl notes folder)

Simon, to Baz: “I’m not letting you fuck with my face. Although I’m starting to get the feeling you really want to.” Oh-okay, horny boi

Simon notes like three times in three pages that Smith Smith-Richards is fit like hmmmmmm-kay

Every time Smith Smith-Richards mentions Simon: "I'm not jealous okay I'm a little jealous how is he so hot" they're a li'l mutual admiration club

Simon, to Baz: “I can get one of those poles” (clothes racks) but because of Yuri on Ice!!, my brain went “pole-dancing Simon Snow??”

Shepherd holds the secret key to being magic even when you don’t speak magic: “The world is magic, and I’m a part of the world.”

THE GRIMM KIDS HAVE A DOG: “a Tibetan mastiff that they bought when they moved to Oxford.” (In my head canon this dog is named Amblewise, or another name from this list of medieval dog names, THANK YOU GOOD NIGHT)

I continue to have Complicated Feelings about Malcolm Grimm but he is So Soft for Daphne: “He treats her with as much polite tenderness as ever. He dotes on her, in his way. Caters to her every whim without making a show of it.”

JAMIE knew about the Goats of Watford when none of the folks who actually went to Watford did, besides Niamh, like JKASDJKLDSAJKLSADKLJADSKLADSKLJADSKJL UNCLE JAMBY FOR THE WIN

Penelope Bunce is a Fucking Queen: “Being comforting isn’t one of my core competencies. Breaking people out of towers is.”

Pippa Stainton is a Goddamn Empress: “I don’t forgive you. I never want to see you again. Tell Simon I say thank you.”

Simon and Jamie get fucking KFC in a stolen van after the hullabaloo with Smith-Richards and if that’s not nephew-uncle bonding at its finest, I don’t what is

Miss Christie, the school nurse, is the only person (I think) who basically says to Simon, “I’m sorry for your loss” instead of “The Mage was a flaming sack of shit”

I’m not crazy… Penny really is a year younger than the rest of them (thought I was mixing this up with Hermione)

LUCY also started Watford a year early fsalkjsadsjlkfsdljkdfs (now I have to go back and fix my timelines for Rosethorn girl, FUCK)

Just like Lady Ruth, Mitali hoped that Lucy would come out of hiding after the Mage died (just stab me harder in the heart, Rainbow)

I DO really want a fic of bisexual Martin Bunce making bread; I feel like our core competencies overlap in many ways

There are magical swans in Oxford. I bet they r gay

Simon cries when Baz plays the violin

They're all good dogs, Bront. 16/10 will listen to this audiobook again for like..... the sixth time

#AWTWB #AWTWB spoilers #queue tea so no idea when the ocean tides of tumblr will throw this up

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missbunnybunny · 1 year

Text

Yup, Widow has finally lost it, well, more than what she had already lost. Why, you may ask. Well.....

Ghost: When we're actively gettin' shot at that's your suggestion?

Gaz: Not the time, Widow.

Soap: lass, with all do respect shut the fuck up.

Widow: I was just sayin' cuz i got 6 grenades left.

* 141 wonder why she has that many on her *

Ghost: that changes the story now.

Widow: Good, cuz am about to start some fun. * takes out a grenade*

Soap: Did you rob the armory?!?

Widow: noooo...🤷🏽‍♀️😶 * She DID IN FACT, Rob it. But we not talkin' about that. *

*✨️ Another crime has been added to the list - Reckless bombing or this a war crime? ✨️- we shall see what else she commits *

- daily life of 141 in just a few gifs -

* Soap doing his chaotic routine *

🎵 I woke up in a new Bugattiii...🎵

* Gaz questioning if this is what he signed up for * 🎵They ask you how you are, and you just have to say that you're fine, but you're not fine 🎵

* Ghost being done with this shit, like it's 7 in the morning!*

* Also Ghost *

* Captain Price watching all of this go down. An incident report smells fresh in the air 🫠*

* his thought process *

König:

* Poor könig going through it, so many things happing all a round him And where is Widow ?*

🎵 I wanna goo home, I wanna goo home🎵

* and last but not, it's our favorite girl widow *

Let's see... donde estas ella - where is she.-

* Widow is helping truck-kun isaki?? Girl the fuck 😰? Widow how? she drivin', HELP! we gonna DIE😭.*

* ✨️new crime unlocked : Crimes Against Humanity✨️ *

🎵 Pullin' out the coupe at the lot..

..Pour up the whole damn seal, I'ma get lazy

I got the mojo deals, we been trappin' like the '80s 🎵

Widows crimes gave no limits. None at all, I have created a menace to society 🤣. May the gods have mercy on us. Cuz Widow sure ain't gonna.

__________

I think I had way too much fun making this one. Peace out y’all- Author-san

Please like,reblog, or boost this post, THANK YOU!

__________

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kazoosandfannypacks · 11 months

Text

"Window Seat" by kazoosandfannypacks

Pairing: Captain Swan Rating: General Word Count: 3K Summary: Emma's son, Henry, befriends the man sitting next to them on an airplane- and Emma is impressed by how well the stranger bonds with him. Tags: au, fluff, captain swan, one shot, captain cobra swan Author’s notes: I've always loved interacting with children. They speak genuinely, they love life, and they ask questions that aren't (usually) too hard to answer. When I was flying back from my last vacation, I sat next to a four year old girl who was an absolute delight to talk with. (She once had a dream about zombie turtles! She invited me to play with her dollhouse sometime! She said the Obi-Wan keychain on my backpack looked like a monkey!) By the end of the flight, even though I'm six times her age, we considered each other friends. This fic is inspired by kids like her. Taglist:@zahara@kmomof4@jonesfandomfanatic@booksteaandtoomuchtv@jrob64@tiganasummertree@anmylica@teamhook@undercaffinatednightmare@gingerchangeling@lonelyspectator@caught-in-the-filter @ultraluckycatnd @cs-rylie @silver-the-phoenix @pawshapedheart [if you’d like to be added to or removed from this list, hmu in my dms or askbox!]

Also on Ao3!

Emma held her son's hand firmly as she walked to the back of the plane, trying to find their seat numbers. Navigating an airport was hard enough as is, but bringing a four year old boy with you makes it even more difficult, especially when you're managing him on your own.

Fortunately, though it hardly felt that way, Emma was used to taking care of her son by herself.

"Are we almost there?" Henry asked.

"Our seat numbers are 83D and 83E," Emma said, "And here's number 80, 81," she counted and pointed them out to her son, "82, 83."

"That's us!" Henry said.

"Yup," Emma said, "your seat's the middle one in this row."

She helped Henry take off his backpack and put it under the seat in front of him, then they both took their seats as Henry, in spite of being warned many times about strangers, introduced himself to the passenger next to him.

"Hello!" Henry said.

"Hello there," the man said, "looks like we're traveling buddies today."

Emma had been distracted by switching her phone into airplane mode, but when she heard the stranger's accent, she looked up to see if his appearance was just as attractive- and was delighted to find that it was.

"Have you ever been on an airplane before?" Henry asked him.

"Quite a few times," he said.

"Are you going to grampa's birthday party too?" Henry asked.

"I'm afraid not," he shook his head.

"Why not?"

"Well for one thing, I wasn't invited," the stranger gave a good natured smile, "and another, I've never met your grampa."

"My mom and I can introduce you!" Henry said, pointing at Emma, "and you can come with us."

"Henry," Emma interrupted, "let's buckle your seatbelt, okay? And don't pester this nice man with so many questions; he probably wants to just take a nice, quiet flight to Maine."

The reason Emma wanted Henry to keep quiet wasn't solely out of decency towards the other traveler, and it wasn't of a motherly caution about strangers either. She'd be lying to herself if she said it wasn't borne of not wanting to annoy one of the cutest strangers she'd ever met.

"It's no trouble, really," he said, "I've never minded children; I was a camp counselor for quite a few years in my younger days."

"Henry'll talk your ear off if you let him," Emma ruffled her son's hair before adjusting his seatbelt.

"I don't take people's ears off!" Henry protested.

"It's one of those expressions," Emma explained, "it means you talk a lot."

"Oh yeah," Henry said, then turned back to the stranger, "are you friends with my mom?" The man looked up at Emma and smiled, his eyes a deep and overwhelming blue.

"I don't know. I haven't met her yet," he said, not taking his eyes off her, "but maybe by the end of the flight we will be."

"I'm Henry," Henry piped up.

The stranger looked back down at Henry and held a hand out to him. "Pleasure to meet you Henry," he said, "my name's Killian."

"I'm Emma," Emma said.

"What a lovely name," Killian smiled.

"Okay, so he's a bit of a flirt," Emma thought, though she didn't stop herself from smiling at his compliment.

"Have you ever been on an airplane before, Henry?" Killian asked.

"Nope!" Henry said.

"Are you excited for your first flight?"

"Yeah!" Henry said.

Just then, the stewardess' voice came over the plane's speakers.

"Okay Henry," Emma whispered, "we have to be quiet now, okay?"

"Okay," Henry said.

He tried his best to sit quietly, but four minutes is an eternity when you're only four years old. Every now and then he'd start to ask a question, and Emma would remind him to be quiet- and once or twice he tried to ask Killian something, which led to a similar gentle reminder to be quiet.

Soon, they were allowed to talk again, and the plane began down the runway. Emma pulled a pack of gum out of her jacket pocket.

"Here, buddy," Emma handed Henry a stick of gum, "remember what I told you?" "That my ears will pop off if I don't eat it?" Henry asked, already putting the candy in his mouth.

"No, they'll pop," Emma corrected, "but the gum will help keep that from happening."

She took a stick of gum for herself, then held the package out to Killian. "Would you like one?" she offered.

"Thank you," he smiled, taking a stick of gum from the pack, "I certainly would hate for my ears to pop off."

Emma giggled a little- only half a giggle, almost more like an annoyed sigh, but a giggle nonetheless, and a smile along with it.

Henry was looking past Killian out the window, watching the runway as they drove across it.

"Why are we still on the ground?" Henry asked.

"It's like flying a kite," Killian answered, "you have to have a lot of room to run, so the kite is already moving fast before you let go of it, and then it gets into the air. The plane has to run really fast too."

"Cool!" Henry said.

They neared the end of the runway.

"Here we go," Killian said.

Henry let out a little squeal as the plane turned its nose up, and up they went. He looked up at his mom, and then at Killian, and then laughed a little.

"We're really high now!" Henry said.

"Indeed," Killian said, "look at the clouds!"

Emma looked out the window as well at the clouds, which were now next to, then below them.

Soon, the plane stabilized, and the stewardess announced they were free to roam about the cabin, if needed.

Henry continued asking Killian question after question, probably more questions than the stranger was in a mood to answer.

Emma pulled out her phone and opened Disney+, where she'd downloaded a few movies for Henry to watch on the plane.

"Here, kid," she handed Henry her phone, then grabbed his backpack to get his headphones out, "do you wanna pick a movie to watch?"

He looked at the downloaded titles- Treasure Planet, Peter Pan, Aladdin, and a few Lego Star Wars specials, before selecting Peter Pan.

"That's an excellent choice," Killian said.

"It's my favorite movie!" Henry said, as Emma put his headphones on his head.

"It's one of my favorites too," Killian said.

"Henry's been going through a bit of a pirate phase recently," Emma said.

"Ah," Killian nodded, "I take it you've watched Peter Pan a few too many times recently, then?"

"The things we do for our kids," Emma said, as Henry tried to lay down in his seat, resting his head in his mom's lap, incidentally kicking Killian.

"Here, move your feet, Henry," Emma said, trying to move her son's sneakers off Killian's pants.

"That's alright," Killian said, "I really don't mind."

Emma gave up the losing battle of keeping Henry's feet to himself.

"Do you have any kids of your own?" Emma asked.

"Oh, no," Killian half laughed, "but I remember what it was like to be a kid. I was a rather talkative lad myself, much like your boy."

Emma wrapped her arm around her son. "He's a pretty special kid," she said.

"His parents are very lucky to have him," Killian said.

Emma shook her head, "One of us certainly is."

Killian raised her an inquisitive eyebrow. "His father's not in the picture?"

"In the picture?" Emma rolled her eyes, "I wouldn't even say he's in the same gallery. He walked out before Henry even got to know him."

"Well, he's missing out on a charming family," Killian said, "from what I've seen, you've raised a great son."

"Thanks," Emma smiled, "I try my best."

"Well, if you ask me, you're doing great," Killian said, "it can be hard to raise a kid on your own."

Emma wrinkled her brow. "What do you know about raising kids?"

"I was on the other end of the equation," Killian said, "my mom raised three boys herself. My dad has been out of the picture since just before my little brother was born."

"From what I've seen, your mom raised a pretty good kid," Emma said.

"I try to be- my older brother was always the best of us though." Killian said, seeming a touch saddened, "he practically helped raise us. In my father's absence, he was the one who showed me how to be the man I am today."

"I'd say he did a pretty great job at it," Emma said.

"Indeed," Killian said, "I wish I'd told him that more."

Emma wasn't sure why that question was so solemn, or why it was past tense, and was unsure how to ask what he meant, so she waited for him to follow it up.

"He passed away this past week," Killian said, "that's why I'm on my way to Portland."

"I'm so sorry," Emma shook her head, unsure how one could even begin to cope with that loss- if anything happened to one of her siblings, she'd be devastated.

"Thank you," he said.

"How're you holding up?" Emma asked.

"As well as I can be," Killian shook his head with a sigh, "it's a weird feeling, really. He's just always been there, and now… now he's not. I used to say I didn't know what I'd do without him, and now- now I get to figure it out."

"I'm so sorry," Emma said, "I can't imagine what this must be like for you."

"I'm getting by," he said, "that's how you have to make it in this world, isn't it?"

"You got that right," Emma said.

"And being distracted from it helps," Killian said, "which is why I was delighted to have a seat next to your charming little chatterbox."

Emma looked down at Henry, who had fallen asleep before the characters in his movie even made it to Neverland.

"Seems the lad's a bit tuckered out," Killian said.

"After the TSA line we went through and waiting two hours in a terminal at seven a.m.?" Emma asked, "I'm surprised I'm not 'tuckered out' myself."

"Me too," Killian said.

"He sure is excited to get to meet his grandparents," Emma said, stroking her son's hair a few times.

"He hasn't met them before?" Killian asked.

"We've called them once or twice, had a few video chats," Emma said, "but the trip from Tallahassee to Maine isn't one I can shell out very often. My dad insisted on seeing his grandson this weekend though- it's the only thing he wanted for his birthday, to have the whole family together."

"How precious," Killian said, "your folks must be so excited."

"It's all my parents have been able to talk about for the last year," Emma said, "my brother and sister both still live in the area, and they said Dad's more excited than they've seen him in years."

"Does all your family live in Maine?" Killian asked.

"Pretty much," Emma said.

"Then what brought you to Tallahassee?"

"Doesn't matter anymore," Emma said, "because I didn't find it."

"Then why are you still there?"

"I've never been one to stick around the same place too long," Emma said, "but that's no life for Henry. He needs roots."

"I see," Killian said.

"I take it your story's not much different," Emma suggested.

"What do you mean by that?" he asked.

"You're flying all the way from Tallahassee to Portland for a funeral," Emma said, "what's keeping you down there? Job? Friends? Girlfriend?"

She hoped it wasn't the last one.

He smiled, "Don't have a girlfriend, and friends are few and far between. I do quite enjoy the weather down south though, as well as my job."

"What do you do?" Emma asked.

"Captain of an authentic tallship," Killian said, "The Rolly Joger, a magnificent vessel- one of those little three-hour tour tourist traps."

"Oh, that's so fun," Emma said, "Kind of like a real pirate." She patted her son's head, watching on the phone screen in front of him as Captain Hook's crew sang a little shanty.

"Aye," he smiled, "once or twice she's even been booked for 'pirate parties,' where the kids all come dressed as pirates."

"Oh, that sounds so fun," Emma said, "I wonder if Henry might like something like that for his birthday in a couple months. He's never been on a boat before either."

"Well, you're always welcome onboard The Rolly Joger," Killian said.

"We might just take you up on that," Emma smiled.

"And what did you say do you do for a living?" Killian asked.

"I work for Yellow Bug Bail Bonds," Emma said, "apprehending people who skip bail."

"Like a modern day bounty hunter?" Killian asked.

Emma laughed, "something like that."

"That sounds exciting," Killian said.

"It pays the bills," Emma said.

She wasn't sure what to say, and apparently he wasn't either, as they were both quiet for a bit.

Eventually, Emma pulled a book out of her carry on, not about to take her phone from Henry and risk waking him, but also not about to sit there doing nothing for the next few hours.

"What are you reading?" Killian asked.

"Oh, it's a book one of my friends is writing," Emma said, "he asked me to read through and give some feedback."

"What an honor," Killian said, "what's it about?"

"Some kind of historical fiction," Emma said, "fairy tale characters in the American Revolution, or something like that. I'm only a couple chapters in."

"Sounds interesting," Killian said, "I'll, uh, leave you to it."

"Alright," Emma said.

And even as she got lost in the world in her book, she found herself glancing more than a handful of times at Killian.

A couple hours later, Henry woke up, and after a "good morning, sleepyhead" from both Killian and Emma, she restarted his movie for him- and this time he watched without falling asleep. Emma continued reading her book, engrossed in the character developments her friend August had intricately woven into his story.

"Oh, Henry," Killian said, tapping him on the shoulder to get his attention, "look at that view. You can see the plane's shadow on the clouds beneath us."

Henry took off his headphones and looked out the window.

"Woah!" Henry said, loud enough that Emma looked over as well- and she did so to see Henry throwing her phone and his headphones on the floor.

"Henry!" Emma said, reaching over to pick them up off the floor- which was difficult, with her seatbelt still buckled.

Apparently, Emma wasn't the only one who had a problem with seatbelts, because she looked back up to see Henry had unfastened his, and was now climbing onto Kilian's lap to get a better view out the window.

She was about to stop him, but she was taken aback by how Killian responded- after an initial second of confusion, he put a hand on Henry's shoulder in case of unexpected turbulence, then pointed out the shadow of the plane, and a few other notable clouds next to them, talking with the boy like he wasn't an outgoing child who'd just overstepped his bounds, but almost like an equal, one who'd done nothing wrong as well.

Something about the scene, and how the boys interacted, looked to Emma like something out of a storybook, or like the picture you'd find in the dictionary if you looked up the word "father."

Then, Killian helped Henry off his knee and back into his own seat, and rebuckled him, reminding him that while the plane was in the air, it was probably a good idea to keep your seatbelt on and stay in your own seat.

"I am so sorry about that," Emma said, then put a hand on Henry's shoulder, "Henry, you need to respect other people's space."

"No worries, Emma," Killian said, "it's the price of having a window seat, I suppose."

He didn't seem at all as embarrassed or annoyed with the entire ordeal as Emma was- and he then turned to Henry and added, "but not all strangers like it when other people get too close to them, Henry. It's a good idea to keep your distance from strangers."

"But you're not a stranger anymore!" Henry insisted, "I think you're my friend."

"Aye," Killian smiled, "I suppose I am."

"If you come to my house sometime," Henry said, "you can play in my fort with me. I can show you my Legos too!"

"If I ever do come to your house," Killian said, slowly, his words carefully selected, "I'd love to see your Lego sets."

"I just got a really cool Star Wars set," Henry said, "it has Luke Skywalker, and his X-Wing, and Artoo Detoo!"

"That sounds awesome, Henry," he said, "I hope I get to see it someday."

"Oh yeah," Henry said, "It's really cool."

"You know, I had some pretty cool Lego Star Wars sets back in the day too," Killian said.

"Really?"

"Oh yeah." Killian said, "I had this one set…"

As Emma watched Killian and her son talk about Lego Star Wars sets, she put away Henry's headphones and swiped out of the movie on her phone, sensing Henry might be entertained for the rest of the flight with his new friend.

Henry wasn't the only one entertained by Killian, though Emma's interest in him was for an entirely different reason.

Henry's father had left shortly after Emma's pregnancy, not ready for the commitment of raising a family. After that, Emma had decided that all she needed was herself and her son. Between finding her job and raising her son, she hadn't had time for a boyfriend anyways, at least that's the excuse she used when her friends asked why she'd never gotten back out there.

But deep down, Emma knew part of the reason she'd stayed single was Henry- any boyfriend for her was a potential father for Henry, and as rare as it was for her to find a date, it was harder to find a date who was comfortable with kids- and soon she gave up on dates altogether.

She and Henry had always been content just to have each other- but as she watched her son talk with this man about Star Wars, Legos, and pirates together, she realized how much both she and her son would benefit from a guy like him in their life.

As they walked off the plane, Emma and Henry stayed close to Killian, Henry still chatting away with him the whole time.

"Alright, Henry," Emma said, once they got back into the terminal, "I think it's time to say goodbye to Killian."

"Already?" Henry asked.

"I'm afraid so," Emma said.

Killian got down on his knees at Henry's eye level.

"It was a pleasure flying with you, Henry," Killian said, "I hope I see you again sometime."

"Me too!" Henry said.

Killian held out his hand to shake hands with Henry, but instead Henry ran to his arms and gave him a hug. Killian looked up at Emma for her approval, and she nodded, so he returned Henry's hug.

Once Killian stood back up, he held a hand out shake with Emma, and she half desired to respond the same way her son had. Instead, she took his hand and shook it.

"It was a pleasure meeting you, Killian," Emma said.

"The pleasure was mine, milady," he said, and he then brought her hand to his lips and kissed it.

"I didn't know you were so old fashioned," Emma said, in a voice that said that wasn't a problem at all.

"I hope to see you again sometime?" he asked, letting go of your hand.

"Yeah," Emma smiled.

"Will you wanna come to my grampa's birthday party?" Henry interrupted.

Killian and Emma's eyes met, like the meeting between old friends.

"I don't believe I've been formally invited," Killian said, more like a question than an answer.

"I could send you the details," Emma nodded, "if I had your number."

"Yeah," Killian said, "I might be able to find time, uh, here."

He handed her his phone, open to the contacts app. Emma quickly typed in her phone number and handed it back to him, and she handed him her phone too.

"I'll text you later," she said, their fingers brushing against each other as she took her phone back from him.

"Aye," he said, "Can't wait."

"I'm really glad to have met you." Emma said.

"Me too," Killian said.

"Me too!" Henry said, "See you soon!"

Emma took Henry's hand again, glancing back at Killian quite a few times as they headed their separate ways.

"Mommy?" Henry asked.

"Yeah?"

"Are you and Killian friends now?"

"Yeah, kid," Emma said, a smile spreading across her face, "I think we are."

#captain swan #once upon a time #killian jones #emma swan #henry mills #captain cobra swan #captain cobra #swan believer #once upon a time fanficton #cs ff #cs fanfiction #once upon a time season 3

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