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whimsicalworldofme · 1 year

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Saving Grace: Chapter Forty-Seven

Grace gets a little more proactive in the fight against the Sokovia Accords.

“Gracie, you’re home!”

Tony practically ran out of his workshop to greet her, smile beaming, but even across the living room he could see that something wasn’t right and his face fell. It didn’t stop him from running to her or wrapping her up tightly in his arms, holding her close to his chest. Grace didn’t fight it, falling into her dad and sobbing. She had pretended to sleep on the flight home so that she wouldn’t be bothered, so that Harry wouldn’t try to cheer her up, so that the flight staff wouldn’t feel they needed to console her. Somehow, she had managed to keep from crying the whole car ride from the airport to the tower, but as soon as she felt safe in her dad’s embrace, she couldn’t stop them from falling.

He didn’t ask any questions, didn’t try to distract with jokes or anecdotes, instead he rubbed her back and held her close, laying his head atop of hers. Even when Grace finally sputtered out, finding it impossible to cry anymore, her dad still kept her close. He kissed the top of her head and gave her one more squeeze before he finally spoke.

“You saw Rogers, didn’t you?”

Grace nodded slowly, knowing it was safe. He wouldn’t dare to turn in Steve, not only because he knew it wasn’t right, but because he knew it would only further devastate her. Tony sighed and when Grace looked up at him, he had a thoughtful expression on his face as he stared blankly into the distance.

“Ok,” he nodded and looked down at her, offering a faint smile. “He’s safe, that’s good.”

“I miss him so much, Dad,” she pressed her forehead against his chest. “What if he can never come home? I told him that wouldn’t happen but what if it does?”

“I won’t let that happen, sweetheart,” Tony reassured her. “All those fancy lawyers I’ve hired, they’re making progress. How about I make you some chocolate chip pancakes and tell you about it?”

“Ok,” Grace agreed, nodding and wiping her eyes.

Tony kept an arm around her shoulders, holding her close as they made their way into the kitchen. Grace sat on a stool at the counter and watched the chaos that was her father in the kitchen. For a man who kept his workshop fairly well organized, had invented a supersuit unlike anything the world had ever seen and had technically been the first to create a sentient AI, he was a mess in the kitchen. He could follow a recipe and even knew a few by heart, but he tended to use every available dish and utensil in the kitchen, and left a trail of crumbs and sauces in his wake. And since he liked to prove that he could be a dad in more ways than just paying for things, whenever he insisted on cooking for her, he refused to let her help. So, Grace sat, elbows propped on the counter, watching him haphazardly measuring flour and sugar, cracking eggs and splashing milk and vanilla. As he whisked, things went everywhere. Flour wound up on his black shirt, in his hair, and batter somehow smudged on his cheek.

“The legal team that I’ve been working with had the idea a few months ago to reach out to some local congressional reps,” he finally got into the explanation portion as he started to heat up the griddle on the cooktop in front of her. “It’s been very slow moving, but I finally got word, there’s going to be congressional hearings on the constitutionality of the Sokovia Accords.”

“Really?” Grace leaned on the edge of her seat, a spark of hope lighting in her. She paused, cocking her head to one side. “They’re letting you participate in a congressional hearing again?”

She snickered, seeing an impish grin spread across her father’s lips. She had enjoyed watching the hearings on tv when the government had tried to take his suit the first time, laughing at how easily and gleefully he ran circles around the people who were trying to essentially rob him.

“I didn’t think they’d even let you back in D.C. after the last one,” she teased, making her father laugh.

He began pouring batter onto the griddle and began grabbing handfuls of fresh berries and chocolate chips, sprinkling them wildly into the forming pancakes.

“I’ve been asked for a written statement instead of testimony,” he informed her. “Our legal team wants you in the hot seat, giving your testimony.” He nudged at the edge of a pancake with the spatula, lifting it up a smidge and stooping down to check if it was ready to flip. Satisfied that it was cooked enough, he flipped it over and made his way along the griddle, flipping each pancake. “I told them I wanted to bring it up with you myself.”

“Why me?” Grace couldn’t help but wonder, brow scrunching. “I mean, I’m not a superhero. I’m just…me.”

“Hey,” Tony frowned and pointed the spatula at her. “You’re my daughter. There’s nothing less than extraordinary about you. You’re not ‘just’ anything.”

“Dad,” Grace groaned lightly, feeling a flush of embarrassment in her cheeks.

“It is my job to remind you of the fact, embarrassingly and with frequency,” he stated with his trademark frank silliness as he began flipping pancakes. “I don’t take my duties as your dad lightly. But all of this is beside the point. You have a compelling story that people need to hear. It could change the course of this thing. Being you is viewed as more sympathetic than being me, or Romanoff, or even Rogers.”

He turned around to fish a couple of plates out of the cabinet and forks from the drawer. Spinning back around he stacked six pancakes, one on top of the other, onto a plate before sliding it over to her and plating an equally ludicrous stack on a plate for himself. Grace reached across the counter for the jug of syrup, which her dad pushed towards her as he turned around and went to the fridge, pulling out the carton of milk, before grabbing a couple of mugs and bringing them back.

“So do you think you’d like to do the whole congressional circus thing?” He asked, pouring the milk and pushing a mug to her as she slid the syrup over to him.

“Yeah,” Grace agreed with a nod, trying to figure out a plan of attack for the stack of pancakes in front of her. “Whatever I can do to help.”

It took a couple of months of preparations, meetings with the legal team to prep. Grace worked and reworked the points she wanted to touch on, the worst pain points. When the day finally arrived, she got through most of her testimony as expected. She spoke to trauma of being parted from her fiancée, the fear she lived with every day that at any moment if her father stepped out of line, she’d lose him too.

“Ms. Stark,” a congressman shifted in his seat, huffing when his time came to question her.

“Dr. Turner,” Tony’s voice yelled out from back in the public gallery, making her and everyone else in the room laugh.

“Dr. Turner,” the congressman rolled his eyes, clearly displeased with having been corrected. “With all due respect, you are a civilian, and while I understand how difficult it must be to be separated from your fiancée, your hurt feelings are not reason enough to enact legislative change. The Sokovia Accords were put in place to protect people like you and I from the collateral damage people like your fiancée and father cause.”

“So glad you brought that up,” Grace smiled with the sort of feigned innocence that conveyed a threat. “If you could bring up my exhibit A, please,” she requested of the technician who nodded and soon a video came up, showing footage recorded from her father’s suit the day of the Battle of New York, at the particular instant when he intercepted the nuclear missile that had been launched at the city. “You said that the Sokovia Accords are to protect people like you and me from people like my father. And that is how it was sold to him in a moment when he felt especially guilt-ridden, because collateral damage, whether it be human or property, does happen. But the government doesn’t care about collateral damage. They certainly didn’t on the day of the Battle of New York.”

“Dr. Turner what are we seeing here?” Someone else asked.

“The public was told that this missile was something from the Stark arsenal, a holdover from my father’s weapons manufacturing days,” Grace stated. “That it was all part of the Avengers plan to defeat the alien invasion. But if you zoom in here,” she circled a spot on a tablet that she had available to her, which displayed on the screens all around the room, “this is a military ID,” she zoomed in on the list of letters and numbers on the side of the missile. “Stark weapons had the Stark name on them, even after they were sold to the military. The Stark name isn’t on this missile. It didn’t belong to my father, was never a part of the Avengers plan. It belonged to the government, who authorized its use on the city. You can call in a weapons expert to confirm, but I can tell you this caliber of nuclear missile would have wiped out not only the entirety of New York City, but most of the surrounding cities as well. The government preyed upon the guilt of the Avengers in a moment of emotion, claiming they only wanted to limit collateral damage, but they were willing to senselessly murder the entire population of one of the largest cities in the country, including all of the Avengers, in a frantic, futile, and ill-advised attempt to stop the invasion, which could only be stopped by closing the portal, which the Avengers had almost accomplished at the time the government launched that missile.”

She tapped her way through her files of images and brought up another video, this one showing Nat closing the portal.

“This is footage from the Stark Tower security system,” Grace explained. “If you’ll note the time stamp, the Avengers had gained control of the portal and were closing it at the time the missile was launched. Millions would’ve died if my father hadn’t flown that thing into the portal, risking his own life to save the lives of every New Yorker that this government didn’t care about.”

She clasped her hands on top the table and looked over each person sat on the congressional committee.

“The Sokovia Accords are nothing but a power grab,” she stated firmly. “It strips superheroes of their inalienable right to liberty, threatening to put them in cages if they don’t do the government’s bidding. My fiancée is in hiding because he stopped the government from murdering a man who is innocent without due process. Our government now has ironclad control over all the heroes who didn’t go into hiding, meaning they can order my father to kill without due process, force him to sit by while bombs to hit cities, any number of things, or face lifelong incarceration if he doesn’t comply. Incarceration without cause, without a trial by a jury of his peers, incarceration without release, unless of course, he agrees to obey. That’s not protection, that’s bondage. And it’s dangerous, giving that sort of control to the government that wanted to vaporize New York.”

There were a few other questions by other members of the committee, but the rest of the time passed in a bit of a blur. Before she knew it, Grace was being escorted by her security detail out of the room.

“You did great, sweetheart,” Tony greeted her in the lobby, with Pepper standing beside him. He wrapped her up in a hug which snapped her out of the daze she’d fallen into the moment she got out of her seat.

“You were firm and authoritative, just like we practiced,” Pepper added. “You put into plain terms exactly what’s happening, so everyone can understand.”

“I just hope the right people were listening,” Grace sighed.

Chapter 46

Masterlist

Chapter 48

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multifandomrambles · 2 years

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Marvel: Part and Parcel

Meet Violet Stark

Chapter 1

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fbfh · 11 months

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busy busy busy (but never too busy for you) - dad!tony + stark!reader

wc: 1.5k

pairing: dad!tony + (gn) stark!reader

genre: minor hurt/mostly comfort

warnings: needing to spend time with your parent, crying, emotional comfort, if you have daddy issues this one's gonna hurt lol

summary: after traveling with your dad on business, you find yourself missing spending time with him. Tony can't have that, of course.

song rec: walking the wire - imagine dragons

a/n: first fic finished post top surgery!!!!!!! the next few weeks posts will probs be shorter until I finish chapter 1 of the next multichapter fic lol. Also if I didn't say it recently I love you guys, thank you so much for all your love and support <333 PS if you need more personalized dad!tony.... character.ai works well for that lmao

tags @afidiofobia @lizziebitch33 @hopefullhearts @thatawkwardlittlefangirl @dustyinkpages @inthehoneymoonwithconnorrk800 @liberty-barnes @followingthefanfiction @youkissedareaderinthedark @girlfriendwhoseawitch @mrscarolscaramoucheplease

You climb into the car, settling into the plush leather seat as Happy closes the door next to you. You set down your bag and try to get your seatbelt buckled while your dad sits next to you, wrapping up a phone call.

“No, no. I don’t care. I said-” He stops, listening to someone on the other end for a moment. He’s clearly annoyed. He’s had to deal with people simultaneously trying to kiss his ass and tell him what to do all week, and you can tell he’s getting tired of it.

“Throw as many conferences as you want, they’ll all be Stark-less. Throw a whole party, while you’re at it- you know what? No, don’t do that. I might actually show up to that.” He mutters the last part, something that would normally make you laugh. He glances over at you, but you’re still fussing with your seatbelt.

“Alright, how about this. I’ll refer you to Stark Industries CEO, Pepper Potts.” The person on the other end is already objecting, but your dad couldn’t care less at this point. He’s said what he needed to say, and this idiot doesn’t want to listen. He continues to wrap up this disastrous phone call as the car pulls into the street, and starts driving you to the airport.

“She’ll help you get this sorted out.”

He hangs up without saying goodbye, then looks over at you. As soon as he does, he knows something’s wrong. You’re not yourself. You’re staring at the bottom of the seat in front of you instead of out the window, or going on your phone. Usually you can’t wait for him to finish business calls, sometimes texting him in the middle of them - texts he’s always happy to receive. You’ve rescued him from pointless conference calls with those texts more times than he can count. You always have something to tell him or update him on, whether that be the latest social media drama, friend group drama, the show you’re watching on Netflix, or even Avengers memes you find online. You always have something delightful you’re excited to share with him without even having to try, and it lights up his day each time. Except now, with you staring into space.

He hands you the coffee he got you, taking his out of the cardboard holder that had been resting on his lap until now. You look over briefly, accepting the drink.

“Thanks,” you say lightly, but there’s something in your tone that tips him off.

“You okay, kid?”

You pause sipping your drink, wondering how he figured you out so fast. He’s your dad, you suppose. That’s kind of his job. You thought you’d been doing an okay job at masking the hollow sadness that’s been eroding you from the inside out all weekend. It doesn’t happen too often, and you tried everything you could to distract yourself until it stopped working. Until now.

“Is it school? Boys? Girls?” He asks when you don’t answer right away. There’s a note of humor to his voice, but there’s also a sincerity, and you know that even if it was school or boys or girls that he would help you through it. “C’mon, you gotta keep your old man up to date on all the tea. The hot goss.”

You let out a weepy chuckle, tracing the lid of your drink. He’s always the first to know when your Starbucks order changes, and he always knows exactly the perfect drink to get you without even having to ask. It’s a little thing, but it makes you feel even worse. You’ve spent the whole weekend trying to ignore how much you’ve been missing your dad, missing spending one on one time with him that’s not in between meetings or over a late dinner. He works so hard, and he has so much on his plate, but he always makes time for you.

That’s why he started taking you along on business trips like this, because you both hated being away from each other. Usually it’s fine, usually you’re off exploring whatever city you’re in, going shopping, or generally finding somewhat entertaining ways to pass the time that you can tell him about next time you catch up. It’s usually really fun, too. It’s just when it gets busy like this, you think, when he has all these meetings and you have all your stuff that you’re juggling that you start to get like this.

“No, no,” you say softly, rubbing the bottom of your eyes when they start to get misty. “Nothing like that…”

Tony listens intently in the silence that follows, waiting to see if you have more to share with him. The smell of his cologne is paternal and comforting, a familiar reassurance that floats around him and feels like a hug.

“I just miss you, I guess…” you start, speaking your mind before you can even think. Your dad has that effect on you, it’s so easy to share how you feel and what you’re excited for or worried about that it feels automatic sometimes, like it’s impossible not to. Tony feels his heart break as he realizes what a toll all the recent traveling has taken on you, both of you. He pulls you in for a tight hug. You feel the tears you’ve been fighting start to spill, Tony rubs your back reassuringly and it finally feels safe enough to.

He tries not to dwell on the fact that you got to feel like this in the first place, tries not to let that voice tell him he should have noticed how you felt sooner, that he’s a terrible dad, because he knows inside that he’s not. He’s not his father, and he sure as hell won’t make those mistakes. He could let himself worry about how he’s doing with you, let it keep him up at night - hell, it still does some nights, even when he doesn’t want it to. It’s been that way with you since he became your dad. Instead of worrying about that, he does what he does best. He takes action.

“You are such a sweet kid.” He states, pressing a kiss on your forehead when you pull away. He brushes away the tears spilling down your cheeks. “Unfortunately, sometimes being a genius-billionaire-superhero-superdad requires some meetings and boring stuff. But don’t think I forgot about the most important part of that.”

The dad part. He doesn’t even have to say it, you both know that’s where he’s going with this. You nod along, sighing as your breathing starts to slow back down.

“But you’re right. It has gotten to be too much lately.”

He reaches into the small mini fridge sitting between the driver’s and passenger seats, crisply cold and stocked with both your favorite drinks. He grabs a water bottle, opening it and handing it to you.

“How about this? We’ll spend the whole plane ride back watching movies together - or that show you were telling me about, the one with- god, what’s his name…” He tries to remember the name of that actor you’ve been talking about the last few days, and you chuckle, supplying the answer. He snaps his fingers in recognition, repeating it back to you.

“Yes. That’s the one. We’ll watch all those movies, and you brainstorm what we’re going to do this weekend. Dream big, kid. I’ll have Pepper help you organize the whole thing.”

Your eyes widen in excitement, and you hug him tightly again.

“Thanks, dad.” You smile. You really are both long overdue for some quality time together, and Tony knows if he has to attend one more meeting, he’s going to lose his mind. The cave he built his first arc reactor in was more interesting than some of the people he’s spoken to recently.

“I love you, kid.”

He looks at you fondly for a moment, basking in pride at what a wonderful, amazing person you’ve become. It’s not time for him to get all sappy on you with the dad stuff, not quite yet, so before he can, he grabs a fluffy throw blanket and spreads it across you.

“Now, we’ve got a big weekend ahead of us, so get some shut eye. I’ll wake you when we get to the airport.”

Right before you start to doze off, you hear him on the phone with Pepper, filling her in on the plan.

“Alright, so they’ve got about 25 more minutes of Stark business time, then I’m off the grid till monday.” Pepper says something about how they’re not going to like that, and Tony laughs, glancing over at you sleeping peacefully. “They don’t have to.”

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darsynia · 1 year

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Hand(s) Off | Ch1: Agony

(Steve Rogers/f!Reader sex pollen-esque multichapter)

STORY MASTERLIST | STEVE MASTERLIST | NEXT

Summary: Bucky Barnes is the most important person in your life. When he confesses to you that he lives at the Avengers tower, and the 'Steve' you've been hearing about for months is actually Steve Rogers, you think that nothing can top that revelation-- and then you find yourself trapped in Captain America's bedroom getting a second-hand dose of NYC's favorite new aphrodisiac, Mistress.

Length | Warnings: 3,271 | None this chapter; story will contain explicit sex descriptions and situations, MINORS DNI

Note: I want to make clear that I'm treating the issues of consent with sensitivity. This is not even a dubious consent story in my eyes; the choices these characters make are kind, as clear-eyed as possible under the circumstances, and respectful.

Excerpt:

“You grew up with Captain America?” you ask, impressed. Bucky Barnes can really keep a secret.

“Not at all. I grew up with Steve. Skinny, brave Steve. Never backed down from a fight, and now he doesn’t have to. C’mon,” he says, nodding toward the Avengers tower that’s visible in the distance.

There’s something in the back of your mind that’s important, something-- “Oh my God, Bucky!” you gasp, almost stumbling in your shock. “I dragged you to that trivia night, and you did so badly on the Avengers questions! You let me answer the all Captain America ones myself! I totally went on and on about how wonderful and handsome Steve Rogers is. I talked about his ass-- and he’s your best friend?”

“You squeak any higher you’re going to start catching the attention of every purse dog in the city,” Bucky teases gruffly. You shoot a look over, noticing that he’s trying not to grin.

“You jerk!” you say, nudging his right arm with your left elbow. “Were you feeling me out?”

Bucky starts cough-laughing. “You’re going to have to define that one for me.”

Chapter One: Agony

He’s falling and you can’t do anything about it.

Bucky’s shirt catches on a stub of a branch on the way down. You, the child whose balloon he was retrieving, and the kid’s mother all rush over when he lands in a heap.

“Oh my god, are you--” the mom starts to say.

“Here you go, kid. Hold tight, I’m not going after it again,” Bucky interrupts, hauling himself to his feet.

“Wow! That looks like it didn’t hurt at all!” the kid says.

“It hurts. Everything hurts. I’m just trying to impress her.” He nods in your direction.

Even though it makes you crack up (because he’s absolutely not), this seems to do the trick. The mom takes a minute to tie a more secure knot in the balloon string before smiling nervously at the two of you and leading her son away.

“I’m sorry,” you wince, taking a picture of the hand-sized rip at Bucky’s armpit that reveals the metal of his arm underneath. You’ve never seen the whole thing, but you’ve felt the arm through his sleeve a couple of times.

“Why are you sorry? You told me not to do it.”

“I’m sorry to have been right?”

“Yeah, okay,” he says grimly, scowling at the phone you handed him and reaching around to feel the edges of the tear. “It shows the join, doesn’t it?”

You’ve been trying not to look, because, yeah, it does. The skin edging the metal graft looks burned and painful, definitely not appropriate for your museum plans. Bucky takes in your uncomfortable nod and his jaw clenches.

“We don’t have to go,” you offer.

“We’re going. I just have to…” He trails off, twisting the shirt around to get a better look. The two of you had decided to take the long way through the park. There’s about an hour before the interactive exhibit opens, but it’s the last day. He wouldn’t even tell you how he got the tickets.

“Okay, what if we swing by a corner store so I can grab a sewing kit--”

Bucky interrupts in a firm voice. “No need to waste the money. I’ll head back home to change; we can get a taxi from there. It’s a bit of a walk.” He shrugs the shirt back into position and starts back the way you’d come.

You have to jog to catch up. “That works.” There are a million things you want to say, but it’s Bucky who speaks first, after fifteen minutes of silence. The two of you reach a crosswalk, and he stops you with his left arm, which in your opinion is a choice.

“Spit it out.”

“You were keeping things separate. You shouldn’t change your mind unless you want to,” you say quietly. He’d said he wanted to keep this friendship to himself for a while, with no connection to the past, and no expectation for the future. You’d found that unexpectedly refreshing at the time, and you still do.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Bucky says. “It’s time. I probably would have sat on it for another month anyway.”

It’s been a six month journey from friendly to friends to close friends for the two of you, and it’s only been two months since he’d opened up about his agonizing past. You don’t know everything yet, and that’s okay. You might never know. As long as Bucky knows he can trust you, that’s what matters.

The light changes, and he guides you across, his body language more relaxed now. Still, you want to make things as easy for him as possible.

“I can wait in the lobby--”

“Shit. That won’t help,” Bucky says, coming to a complete stop in the middle of the sidewalk. “Did you ever look me up?”

“No! You asked me not to.”

He looks at you like you’re some sort of rare creature for a minute, and a slow, appreciative smile grows on his face. You get it-- when he’d told you his actual birthdate, that he’d gone missing in the 40’s, you’d been tempted. But… when someone with a medically engineered metal arm asks you not to poke around in his past, you don’t. Not if you care about him.

“There was a good reason for that, I’m assuming?”

Bucky’s chuckle is deep and amused. “Yeah. I ah, live with the Avengers. Steve’s last name is Rogers. Steve Rogers.”

You’ve heard all about his best friend Steve, enough to feel affection for the man without ever having met him-- but this is not what you were expecting. At all.

“You grew up with Captain America?” you ask, impressed. Bucky Barnes can really keep a secret.

“You squeak any higher you’re going to start catching the attention of every purse dog in the city,” Bucky teases gruffly. You shoot a look over, noticing that he’s trying not to grin.

“You jerk!” you say, nudging his right arm with your left elbow. “Were you feeling me out?”

Bucky starts cough-laughing. “You’re going to have to define that one for me.”

“--stop by, that’s all I ask. Redwing would love it,” Sam grins as he opens the door to Tony’s lab.

“I’ll try, but did you have to say it like that?” Steve groans before heading into Dr. Banner’s workspace right next door. A new street drug named Mistress has been causing concern, and with SHIELD still in transition, the government has called on the scientific wing of the Avengers to help figure out how to combat the substance.

Mistress is an aphrodisiac, a potent one. Banner’s preliminary tests show that it’s likely not of Earth origin, which has slowed down their testing considerably due to safety concerns. That’s where Steve comes in; Bruce thinks his fast metabolism could be the key to figuring the stuff out without putting too many others at risk. That and his lack of a romantic partner.

Apparently the drug enhances a person’s desire to have sex to a strong need, strong enough that there’s no data on what happens if they don’t. The stuff reportedly burns through people, causing dangerous fevers that have officials fearful that someone’s going to get dosed and killed, not to mention the consent issues.

“Hey, Steve,” Banner says. “I don’t know if you’ve met Doctor Lyonne?”

“I haven’t. First or last name?” Steve asks the attractive female doctor.

“Oh, nice one. ‘Lyonne’ is my married name, though. Sorry to possibly disappoint,” she says easily.

Banner smiles at Steve’s wave-off gesture and says, “I’ll leave you two experts to the interpersonal stuff.” He ignores them in favor of a large glass jar with a bunch of warning labels stuck to it. The liquid inside is clear, and all signs point to it being the drug in question. “All right,” Bruce finally says, stepping away and scratching out about four things on his clipboard. “The plan is to expose you in measured doses and observe the results. It’s pretty volatile-- works if ingested, soaks into the skin, and we think it’s capable of being aerosolized under certain conditions. Drinking it will be the most controlled method, so Dr. Lyonne is setting up dosing cups for me. She’s got a class to teach in about forty minutes, so--”

“That’s his delicate way of saying I’ll be out of your hair and unable to observe anything you’ll be going through over the course of the tests,” Lyonne interrupts.

The door that joins the two labs swings open before Steve can respond, and Tony leans his head in. He’s wearing one of his Iron Man suits. “Before you ramp up Icy Hot here, can I show you my new toy?”

“This is a segue to a sex toy joke, Steve. Retreat, retreat!” Sam calls out from behind Tony.

“I’m wounded!” Tony says, muttering, “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that first.” He walks in and grins, holding up his left arm. “Check it out. Nav is still a little spotty, but--”

Steve watches as a shape lifts up from Tony’s bicep area on the suit, similar to Redwing but oval and smaller.

“Tony, I’d be happy to look at it pretty much any other time, but--”

“You have the whole rest of the day blocked out, Bruce, just give me this!”

The friendship between Stark and Banner always makes Steve nervous. They are the closest aligned in terms of work ethic and smarts, but farthest apart in temperament-- and that’s before the Hulk is brought into play. Steve inches closer to the large glass jug of Mistress as Tony gesticulates wildly, sending the drone careening around the room.

It starts beeping.

“Shit!” Tony shouts. “Uh… apparently something I did set the self-destruct?”

“Why does your drone have a self destruct, Tony?”

Bruce sounds incredulous and angry, and Steve doesn’t have his shield. As though Tony had set up the whole situation for maximum drama, the thing is headed straight for the jug. Steve lunges to protect it as Bruce maneuvers himself to take the explosion for the team. Someone screams for JARVIS to lock down the building.

Steve lifts the drug container high, meaning to leap out of the way with it, but there’s nowhere to go. The drone’s explosive impact brings forth the Hulk-- which sends Steve and the jug flying backwards into the lab equipment.

Things turn a bit surreal when you enter the tower. Bucky takes you to a secret side entrance (to avoid the press, he says) but when he gets into the elevator, he seems confused when he can’t talk to it. You’re just about to make a Star Trek joke when he explains there’s usually an artificial intelligence that runs the building, but it’s not responding.

You’re used to pretty much anything apartment-related being out of order, so you’re not fazed. Once inside his apartment, you point out that there’s a sticky note on the opposite side of the door, and Bucky grabs it, his brows furrowing as he reads.

“Shit,” he grins, holding up the note. “Stay here? You’re not authorized for this area.”

“Better hurry!” The tickets for the exhibit are for 1:30, and it’s already 12:50. With a nod, he jogs back into the hallway toward the elevator, and just like that you’re alone in Bucky’s apartment.

It is immediately apparent that he doesn’t live here alone. Underneath a coat rack with multiple jackets is a shoe tray with at least five pairs of shoes in two different sizes. The living room is cozy and lived-in; you see the familiar sight of a bottle of Bucky’s favorite beer sitting on an end-table-- right beside a coaster.

You’re about to reach for it when an alarm sounds, accompanied by an urgent voice.

=Tier One protection activated. Retreat to an interior room and wait for further instructions. Attention: Tier One protection activated. Retreat to an interior room and wait for further instructions.=

You freeze in fear for a few seconds, but when the instruction repeats a few seconds later, you hear a grinding noise in the wall. It’s frightening enough that you dart into the hallway and inside the first open door. The reason for the sound becomes terrifyingly clear a few seconds later as a metal panel encased in the doorframe slides down, too quickly for you to slip out underneath it.

The room turns pitch black in the space between one frightened breath and the next.

After taking a minute to listen for danger, you make your way by feel to the far wall, looking for the light switch. On the way, you trip over something that turns out to be a pair of men’s slippers. You’re glad to let your eyes adjust to the light as you put them back, but when you straighten up, you immediately feel like you’re trespassing somewhere you do not belong.

The room is neat as hell, the kind of tidiness that must come from enjoying a clean space rather than a sense of obligation. However, you soon reassess: this is lived in, less frighteningly neat than well-designed. Everything has its place. It’s different from the easy chaos that Bucky has shown on the few times he’s slept over after movie marathons, so you’re pretty sure this isn’t his room. That, and the white cat plushie you gave him that he swears lives on his dresser? Isn’t there.

Instead, the tray with grooming materials in front of a small mirror are the only objects on the dresser top. There’s a low bookshelf next to an easy chair whose footrest has a worn-in divot. The nightstand is equally neat and functional, with a slightly askew sketchbook hinting that the room’s occupant is an artist.

Unfortunately, these observations are making you more nervous, not less. An intrusive thought that the alarm could be about a fire and there’s literally no way out sends you into a frenzy of banging on the inexorable metal slab.

“Hello?? HELLO!? Please let me out, please, please let me out!” you scream, slamming your fists against the damned barrier until your hands hurt. You’re crying and frantic and yelling, and suddenly there’s someone else on the other side of the door also yelling, and in the next few minutes everything happens at once.

You can’t see anything through your tears and fear; all you know is the feel and sound of strong hands and a soothing voice that isn’t Bucky but it should be. That thought sends you into more frightened tears, because he’ll be worried, he’ll be upset, and it might send him into a spiral like the one from a few months ago when he finally explained about his past.

Then, awfully, the grinding sound is back and the warm hands are gone.

You hear several shouted, imperative commands before the man falls silent. He’d set you down in a huddle on the bed wrapped in a blanket, and you kind of… drift back into awareness surrounded by the strong scent of coconut, with a not-unpleasant buzz of awareness deep in your gut.

You pull the blanket closer before you recognize it. You’d been working on it during the first few movie nights you and Bucky had shared, and he’d bought it as a gift for his best friend. That’s what brings you fully back to yourself: you’d handmade the thing that’s warming you up. You’ll be able to tell Bucky that. It’ll help, when the time comes.

Taking in a long, deep breath, you look around, expecting, since you’re no longer alone, to see anything but a metal panel completely covering the door. You’re wrong. There’s damage to the frame, as though someone had pried the previous slab out of the way-- but there’s once again a solid-looking metal barrier between you and freedom.

“Are you okay?” It’s Captain Am-- Rogers. Steve. Bucky’s Steve.

The unreality of your situation is fully hitting you now.

“That’s what you’re going with? Not ‘who are you?’ or ‘funny story about the door…’”

Rogers says, “I did. You were too upset to answer.” He’s tense, clearly uncomfortable, and his clothes are soaked. You wonder if that’s the source of the strange fruity smell.

“Dee. I’m Dee.” It’s short for Chickadee, your stage-name-turned-favorite-nickname. You think you see recognition in his eyes. “Bucky needed to change his shirt. I didn’t mean-- you have to believe me, I never would have come in here, but he said he would just be a minute, and then a voice told me to hide and…” You’re babbling, but you feel like you’re out of your mind. Of all the people in the world, you’d probably pick Captain America as the one person you’d want to know that you’re eating your vegetables and being polite to your elders, that you wouldn’t invade someone’s private space. “Did something happen to the building?” you ask in a small voice.

“No, this--” Rogers winces. “Bucky asked for extra security or he wouldn’t move in. To slow him down.”

“The Soldier,” you whisper, closing your eyes tightly.

He makes a noise of understanding, then a louder, angry sound. “Everything has gone the exact worst-- I’m sorry,” he grits out. “I’m sorry.”

The depth to his voice prompts a heated curl of attraction that warms you from the inside out. It’s unexpected and strange, given the fear and confusion that’s ruled your reactions in the past minutes.

“I think I should be asking if you are okay.”

Rogers is looking at the floor now, his hands fisted in his pockets. “I was exposed to a… chemical. Tried to do everything right: activated security protocols, set the apartment Dark so I didn’t say or do anything I’d regret before the brain fog set in.”

“What happens when the brain fog sets in?” you whisper, sensing that the answer is what has this man’s body stiff as a board, in contrast with his broken and worried tone.

“How close are you with Buck?” Rogers lifts his head and the intensity in his eyes shoots you with an arrow of concern.

You lift your chin. “Truthfully? I consider him my best friend, why?”

“There’s nothing… more?”

There have been times, multiple times, when you’ve thought about it. But Bucky Barnes is a multifaceted man, and you don’t want to sully his progress towards becoming whole again by making things complicated.

“No,” you say, feeling heat in your chest from the look of understanding in his eyes. Your pause was unintentionally illustrative. “Why?”

“It’s important that I be honest with you: the building is on lockdown, its governing AI is too busy monitoring the Hulk to get us out of this room, and the chemical I was exposed to is Mistress.” He sounds like a soldier reciting battle parameters.

The name sounds familiar, but you can’t place it. Suddenly, you feel too vulnerable on the bed, his bed, so you slide over to the edge in preparation for getting up. The action bares your legs to mid-thigh, and Rogers immediately turns his back on you and hits the wall with the flat of his hand.

That’s when you remember where you’d heard that name. Mistress. The aphrodisiac is the reason many women have flocked to your cousin’s restaurant to hang out, instead of at bars. Many establishments are offering complimentary test kits so their customers can ensure there’s no residue in their food and drinks. It’s become fashionable to carry around your own cups, just in case. Some bars are actually trying to skip requiring women to pay a cover charge, desperate to return to the status quo. Drinks containing coconut aren’t even served anymore, thanks to the scent association.

“Shit, I’m sorry!” you blurt out, rushing over to the easy chair and covering yourself with the blanket. Jesus, the whole room reeks of coconut. He’s practically steeped in the stuff. “What can I do?”

Steve Rogers’ voice is husky, but pained. “Don’t let today be your first impression of me.”

Next chapter...

#allcapsbingo2023 #steve rogers smut #steve rogers x you #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers imagine #captain america x reader #captain america smut #captain america x f!reader #steve rogers x f!reader #captain america x you #marvel fanfiction #marvel smut #mcu smut #mcu fanfiction #sex pollen #humor #romance

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darcylewisbingohq · 5 days

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2024 Darcy Lewis Bingo Headquarters

Welcome back to Darcy Lewis Bingo Headquarters, friends and Darcy fans, and to the beginning of our 2024 bingo round! We’re looking forward to seeing our bingo friends from rounds past return again and we’re delighted to welcome new Darcy Lewis Bingo creators, too!

We’re trying some new things this year, beginning with our Darcy Bingo creator card for writers and artists and fannish creators of all sorts. After a successful soft-launch of a new prompt format during our Halloween bingo event last year, we’ve decided to go all in for 2024 on this new format for our Darcy Lewis Bingo 2024 creator cards. We’ll explain more about the exciting changes to the creator bingo card in the all new bingo guidelines below, but rest assured, friends, you’ll still have several fun ways to curate your prompts and creator bingo card this round. Only the method has changed to streamline and deliver curated prompts into your hands faster than we’ve ever been able to before.

We’re also introducing our first ever Darcy Lewis Bingo HQ Reader Bingo Event. Reader Bingo Guidelines will arrive here on our tumblr blog in just a few days. For now, let’s take a look at the new bingo guidelines, the 2024 bingo card, and talk about curating prompts for your bingo card, Darcy creators…

2024 Darcy Lewis Bingo Guidelines for Creators

Brand new format!—NEW for 2024, DLBHQ creator cards got streamlined for this round thanks to a successful experiment with the new this-or-that prompt format we trialed on our 2023 mini bingo Halloween event cards. Our new creator bingo card allows you to curate your card at a glance just to start, no need to request prompt changes before you can begin creating fanworks because every square on your card already begins with 2 prompt choices so you can curate your own ideal bingo card as soon as you finish reading these guidelines.

Squares—Your creator bingo card still has just 25 squares, now with 2 prompts on every square for you to choose from. The center square on your card also now features 2 prompts to choose from—FREE SPACE or AVENGERS ASSEMBLE. The choice of which to use and how to use them is yours. Any version of Avengers Assemble fills the prompt if you use it in a fannish work. You can still use the center square as a free space, but if that doesn’t inspire you to use it, you can use the 2nd prompt in that square, Avengers Assemble, like any other prompt on your card to inspire a new fanwork or new update to a fanwork.

Prompts—Prompts on the new creator card are all Darcy-centric to begin the round, meaning they’re derived from Dr. Darcy Lewis’ appearances in the MCU, many recent, but with familiar throwbacks to her early appearances, too. You need not have seen the newest films or shows featuring Darcy to use any of the prompts or to participate in this bingo. Prompts are only intended to inspire new fanworks. You are welcome to use them to write stories about everyone living in the tower or go all the way back to Puente Antiguo and the beginning of Darcy’s MCU journey. Or create entirely new AUs! It’s up to you. Note: Every bingo creator card bears 50 total Darcy-centric prompt options now, allowing you to curate your creator bingo card hundreds of different ways even before our curated prompt request form opens for this round. You can use the Darcy Bingo creator card attached at the end of this post to start writing today.

Fills—Aesthetics, drabbles, one-shots, multichaptered fics, series, drawings, paintings, sculptures, social media AUs, gif edits, video edits, moodboards, coloring pages, playlists, new additions to pre-existing series, and new updates to pre-existing fanworks are all accepted fills.

Truly, ANY CREATION inspired by your prompt counts.

Cosplay as Darcy, make it fit your prompt somehow, and take a selfie for the fill—we’ll count that, too. We’d also love to see you Darcybounding irl.

(A little fannish history sidenote on character-bounding: With the rise of popularity in cosplaying the past 10-15 years, the practice of guest cosplaying is no longer permitted or politely ignored within Disney Parks in order to add an extra layer of protection for impressionable children who can’t tell the difference between professional face character actors and adult guests in heroic cosplay. When cosplay in the parks was ‘outlawed’ for adults, Disneybounding was born to fill a certain fannish niche without breaking Disney’s park rules or getting frogmarched out of the parks. Or worse—banned from them forever. Character-bounding, or the generally more popular, Disneybounding, is a type of character dress-up that’s like cosplay, but you don’t literally dress up as the character in a costume identical to theirs as worn on screen. Character-bounding is similar to cosplay, but it’s more like a character dressed in modern street clothes that can’t be accidentally mistaken for a face character actor at a Disney Park playing a mythical princess or famous hero.

If you’re curious about the practice of Disneybounding or want to try your hand at Darcybounding some of your bingo fills this round, we recommend checking out the popular #disneybound , #disneybounding , #marvelbound , #marvelbounding , and #characterbounding tags on Instagram sometime. The fan creativity in the character-bounding community is off the charts!)

Back to fills!—To mark a square complete:

You must fill at least one of the two prompts in each square, unless you swap in one of your own curated prompts or swap curated prompts with another player (see Bingo Card Curation and Additional Bingo Card Prompt Swaps for more info)

Fill requirements differ based on the type of fanwork you create (see Fanwork Fill Requirements for a complete list).

There Can Be Only One!—Every creator begins this round with the same DLBHQ creator card—no exceptions! (Keep reading to find out how to curate your new creator card with our curated prompts request form!)

Bingo Card Curation

Fill out our 2024 DLBHQ Curated Prompts Request Form to request up to 10 curated prompts based on your favorite fanwork genres and other types of prompts.

You get a list of prompts—You will receive a list of curated prompts by email if you fill out the curated bingo prompts request form.

Curated prompts are for swapping squares—These curated prompts can be used anytime during this round as swaps for squares you’re not vibing with on your base creator bingo card. The only squares that can’t be swapped out on the base creator card are the four corner squares if you plan to complete our Four Corners Bingo Bang Challenge (we’ll explain more about that in a bit).

Player prompt trades—Your curated, requested prompts are the only prompts that can be traded with other players to use as square swaps for squares on your base creator card and theirs.

To be as clear as possible: the curated prompt request form is not a form to fill out for a second bingo card or a one-of-a-kind, custom bingo card as we’ve done in previous rounds. You are only requesting a list of 10 prompts curated for you to use as instant swaps wherever you want on the base Darcy Lewis creator bingo card anytime during the 2024 round.

We recommend the Chrome browser—We strongly recommend opening the curated prompts request form in a Google Chrome browser to complete it, if possible. (One of our beta-testers had trouble submitting the form in Safari after filling out the whole form.)

Curated prompt requests are limited to a maximum of 10 requested prompts. We strongly recommend maxing out and requesting all 10 curated prompts on your curated prompt request form when you submit it.

Each player may only fill out the curated prompt request form once during the 2024 round. So make it count. 😉

Though the option to request these additional curated prompts is available to all creators, creators participating in Darcy Bingo are not required to request curated prompts to supplement their bingo creator card if they like the base creator card just the way it appears.

The only curated prompts that can be replaced by Mods this round after you complete the prompt request form are those you’ve been sent as a result of your prompt request form that accidentally include something on your Omissions/Do Not Want list. Your DNW list should be clear and concise. Please don’t send us a lengthy essay on your dislikes. If you feel you would need to write an essay-length response about your dislikes to get just 10 prompts that you’re okay with writing, you may be better off (and we would strongly recommend) letting us know you’d prefer one-word prompts-only because one-word prompts are less likely to include or impinge on your lengthy and specific dislikes.

Additional Bingo Card Prompt Swaps

Trade curated prompts with Darcy Bingo friends—one curated prompt swap with another Darcy Lewis Bingo creator is allowed per month. Contact a mod to notify us if you and a friend have both chosen to swap one each of your curated bingo prompts with one another.

2024 creator bingo base card prompts are not tradable with other creators because everyone begins with the same creator bingo card prompts this round.

Monthly adoptables.—A fresh list of monthly adoptables will be posted at the beginning of each month, starting in July. Anyone can adopt a monthly adoptable at any time during the month. To adopt it, you must complete and publish the creation by the end of the month to use it as a completed fill for a square on your bingo card.

The Darcy Lewis Bingo Weekly Challenge continues in the DLBHQ Discord with a fresh prompt every Sunday.—New weekly prompts can be found on our Discord anytime once you join us there! Click this link for your invite to the DLBHQ Discord. The weekly challenge is very similar to monthly adoptables, but the time period allowed is much shorter—just one week to plan, create, and post your fanwork before the week’s 5:00 pm Sunday (New York) deadline.

Publishing Bingo Creations

Tag—@darcylewisbingohq in the A/N and use the tag #dlbingohq (all one word!) in the first five tags when posting your new creations on tumblr if you want your work reblogged. If we can’t find it, we can’t reblog it.

Each published creation should include an outline of the folllowing…

• the square filled

• trigger warnings for content consumers

• word count (for fics, descriptions for the visually impaired, and other wordy works)

• pairings/polycules/main characters

Please include appropriate warnings when you publish your creations.—If warnings are spoilers, put a warning in the tags that spoilers are in the end notes and then actually include the spoilers in the end notes.

Share your fanworks with other creators.—You may also post your fills in the appropriate fill channels on the Darcy Lewis Bingo Headquarters Discord to share your works with other creators and readers for our new reader bingo challenge. Posting your fills in our fill channels helps other readers find them to complete our new reader bingo. (We’ll post about that in a few days!)

A new Darcy Lewis Bingo 2024 Collection will be appearing soon on the Archive.—Please add your works to this collection as you upload them to make them easier for readers to find (especially those playing Darcy Reader Bingo!).

Please use the ‘read more’ feature on tumblr when possible to abbreviate the length of your fills if you’d like them reblogged by the Darcy Lewis Bingo HQ account.—There’s a shortcut on mobile now that makes it so much easier. It’s in the toolbar at the bottom of every post you create. It’ll look like two stacked em dashes with a squiggly line between them.

Fanwork Fill Requirements

• 100 words for written works or word art, with the exception of poetry with independent formatting rules (such as haikus).

• 1 image for artwork or handcrafts of any kind and a description for the visually impaired of the medium used and what it represents.

• 1 image for cosplay or character-bounding and a description for the visually impaired of cosplay or clothing and any other fashion influences incorporated into the costume or clothing (be descriptive! talk about fabrics and colors, tone and texture! describe the emotions the colors you used evoke in you as the creator!)

• 9 elements for moodboards (background, images, texts, ephemera) and a description for the visually impaired of the moodboard and what it represents.

• 6 images for social media AUs and a description for the visually impaired of the creation and what it represents.

• 10 songs for playlists and a text list of artists and songs to give credit to the original artists, plus a description for the visually impaired of what the playlist represents and how it relates to Darcy.

Still not sure if your creation will meet the minimum prompt fill requirements? @ a mod! we’ll create new requirements based on new types of creator fanwork submissions, as needed.

Deadlines & Masterposts

Deadlines—We have no deadlines. Really. We mean it. We’re not joking. There’s just a form to fill out when you’re done with the current card, completed your bingo, your blackout, completed all the badges you’re interested in, whatever. Set your own goals and fill out the creator bingo award badge request form whenever you’re ready to reap the rewards of your fanwork efforts.

Masterposts—Masterposts are due whenever you’re done with this bingo card creatively and have achieved whatever goals you’ve set for yourself. We recommend posting your masterpost before the next bingo round goes live, but it’s really up to you. We’re not your mom and this isn’t homework. No deadlines or due dates, we swear.

Creator Bingo Award Badges

You Tried Badge—fill any 5 squares anywhere on your DLBHQ creator bingo card.

Creator Bingo, Truly, a Classic Achievement—fill 5 squares in a row, column, or diagonally on your DLBHQ creator bingo card.

2024 Creator Mini Bingo Brownout Challenge—Complete 9 fills in a perfect 3x3 grid pattern anywhere within your Darcy creator bingo card to complete this challenge. (This badge may just be a giant poop emoji the size of a 3x3 mini card. Who knows? Certainly not us. 💩)

2024 Creator Bingo Blackout Badge—NAIL IT! Complete 25 fills on your DLBHQ creator bingo card and blackout all 25 squares for the ultimate 2024 bingo achievement award badge.

Four Corners Creator Bingo Bang—Looking for a ludicrous bingo challenge? Not feeling challenged enough? Bring it on. 😈 We’ve got a real one for you now, a bang within a bingo. Complete a minimum four-chapter story using one prompt each from all four of our bingo creator card’s corner squares (absolutely no curated prompt swaps permitted to be used to complete this badge challenge—you must choose from and use only the prompts as they appear in the four corner squares of the bingo creator card). Your Four Corners Bingo Bang creation must be at least 6,000 words in length to qualify for this bingo bang badge.

Creator Bingo Award Badge Request Form

Please direct any remaining questions to #ask-the-mods or @mod on our Discord if you have bingo questions you can’t find answers to in the bingo guidelines for creators above. If you’re on tumblr, drop us a DM with whatever questions you have or click that invite link in the guidelines above and come join us on Discord to ask your questions there or check to see if your question has already been answered!

The 2024 Darcy Lewis Bingo card for creators is attached below. Have fun creating new Darcy fannish works!

—The Darcy Lewis Bingo Headquarters Mod Team,

@chrissihr & @ibelieveinturtles

#darcy lewis #dlbingohq #2024 Darcy Lewis Bingo #bingo guidelines

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nekoamamori · 9 months

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Masterlist

Updated 9/11/2023

Loki - multichapter:

Loki and the Witchling - You are a healer working with the Avengers when Loki comes to join the team

Loki’s Witchlings (direct sequel to Loki and the Witchling)

Packless Monsters - You’re a werewolf who ends up in the company of Loki in the Avenger’s tower after saving Pepper Potts’ life.

The Sound of Silence - A mute Enhanced and Loki both move in to the Avengers tower on the same day.

The Witch’s Familiar - You’re a witch working with the team.Thor brings Loki to live at the Avenger’s tower after the events in New York. Problem is, Loki is in cat form and refuses to change back.

Winter’s Hearts - You’re a half-Jotun Valkyrie who has to live with the Avengers after helping them during a battle. Then Thor brings Loki to join the team. Can either of you thaw your frozen bruised hearts?

Monsters and Magic - You’re a vampire who helps the Avengers defeat an evil seethe of vampires. Loki befriends you after you end up in their custody.

Soulbonds and Fairy Dust - One of the fae decides to help out the Avengers. But there is more to this aid than what it first appears.

Beauty and the Beast - Loki is trapped in Jotun form under a curse. Can blind Morgan Stark somehow be the key to helping him break it?

Exam Day - Imagine Loki walking you home after a long school day. - On hiatus

Giftless - You’re Tony Stark’s niece, living with the Avengers, but have no powers of her own. Loki, a former villain, joins the superhero team, claiming that he has reformed, but can he be trusted?

Gifted - Sequel to Giftless

Handcuffs - Imagine you get accidentally handcuffed to Loki

You Have Heart - Soulmate AU where the first words you hear your soulmate say are tattooed on your skin. The reader has the words “You have heart” tattooed on her and learns what those words mean when it’s Loki who says them.

Hidden Strength - During the battle of New York, Loki meets a remarkable young woman. What will happen when he meets her again while he’s serving penance on Midgard for his crimes?

Omega Mine - You’re an unclaimed Omega who comes to live and work in the Avengers’ tower due to your healing abilities and Omega qualities. You haven’t found your Alpha yet, but things start to change when you meet the mysterious Alpha and former villain: Loki.

Prince's Mate - Prince Loki of Asgard is expected to present as an Alpha. Things don't always end the way they're expected to, even before the Battle of New York makes things even more complicated

Loki x reader one shots:

Day at the Beach - The Avengers decide to take a day off at the beach.

Sick Little Jotun - Imagine when Loki is ill he shows his true form and is very insecure about it, but you comfort him

Imagine Braiding Loki’s Hair - Post mission with the avengers you get bored on the flight home and braid Loki’s hair.

Sleepless - Imagine not being able to sleep and wandering around in the Avengers Tower, but then Loki sees you and he reads you a book until you fall asleep in his arms and in the morning, the rest of the Avengers find you cuddling on the sofa.

Surprise - NSFW - Imagine Loki admitting he secretly enjoys being submissive and asking you to tie him up.

Loki and the Coffee - Loki messes with SHIELD’s coffee supply

Bored - NSFW - You’re Loki’s wife, Sigyn, and make the mistake of telling your husband that you’re bored one day. Though is it REALLY a mistake?

Heat - NSFW - Loki goes into a Jotun heat, and he’s absolutely terrified of what he might do to you, (Mortals being so fragile and all) so he does everything he can to protect you from himself

Prayer - NSFW - Imagine Loki can hear the prayers of his worshipers. And he decides to come answer yours in person.

The Ball - NSFW - Imagine Loki and Sigyn get bored at a feast on Asgard and decide to sneak off to enjoy each other instead

Shield’s Monster - NSFW - Imagine Jotun Loki in heat, chained to the wall in the basement because SHIELD don’t know how else to deal with him. You’re new, you go down, intrigued to see the ‘monster’ people are talking about. And you ‘accidentally’ set a really horny Jotun Loki loose…

Feels Like Death - Reader is on her period and miserable and Loki saves the day

Loki one shots:

The Courting of Lady Sigyn - Loki realizes he wants his friendship with Sigyn to become more

Too Much Mischief - NSFW - Sigyn gets called to teach her husband a lesson for causing too much mischief around the tower

Loki Other:

Of Numbers and Strange Friendships - Loki & Spiderman PLATONIC - Loki and Peter Parker somehow forge a friendship after one flippant comment. No one on the team quite understands how it happened. But it seems to do the god some good to have Peter as a friend.

Winter Soldier x OFC

Alpha and Omega - The Avengers rescue a werewolf from Hydra. Can she warm the Winter Soldier’s heart?

Captain America x reader:

Savior from Fangirls - Steve needs a date to a charity gala and you get voluntold to accompany him… despite of, or because of your crush

Friendly Face - You help Captain America as he’s fleeing from shield the day he wakes from the ice

Original works:

Child of Darkness - A vampire’s slave escapes and fights for her freedom.

Daughter of the Night (sequel to Child of Darkness)

Chosen - Shapeshifters are immune from becoming vampires. What will happen to Samantha when she suddenly finds herself Chosen?

#loki #fanfiction #loki odinson #Loki laufeyson

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swarmishstrangers · 5 months

Note

Can we get a jealous mallek x reader pls i love him sm 😭😭

So so SO sorry for how utterly long this has taking me. Hopefully the fact that this has inspired an entire ass multichapter book makes up for it :]

I want to preface this though by saying I didn't exactlyyy follow the request to a T. This has kinda just veered off into something a little different entirely and my explanation as to why is this. I found it actually kind of difficult to write Mallek being jealous. I say it was diffcult to me because personally?? I just don't really see him as a jealous type. Unless you were to go out of your way to try and make him jealous (bad idea considering he'd trust you considerably less and would think it's fucked up of you to try and do) then I just don't see it. He trusts his partner!

So! I took the request into an entirely different direction in the form of. Maybe Mallek trying to avenge you in a way. In what way? How about a story where Zebruh spams the hell out of you. It leaves you overwhelmed and emotionally in shambles simply from the amount and Mallek, seeing this, concocts a plan to get back at him for you?

I hope even if I didn't follow the request completely that you still enjoy the first chapter and the chapters to come!

Chapter 1: The Development

On Earth, there are a plethora of ways one can wake up. The sounds of birds chirping, the sounds of people you live with already being up and about the house, maybe the sun peeking its way through the blinds. You sort of miss those days. Both because you miss the days when you can be in the sun without fear and also because it reminds you that you’re not there when you wake up.

Your eyes struggle to open and stay open. Your vision is blurry, and your eyes are still irritated by the musty air and the sleep still present in your eyes. You’re reminded some more as you slowly lift your head off of the part of the blanket you had bunched up, that you aren't and probably never will be back on Earth. You're on Alternia now. And mornings, replaced with nights, are different. Your gaze lifts, specifically to the window. You may not have the sunlight waking you up these days, but these nights, it’s replaced with the glow of the two moons. It's still what would be early, the moon's on Alternia's horizon.

You debate on it, venturing out or staying in and sleeping some more before you get the night started. Cause God damnit sleep is hard to come by these days. At least a full day's rest is. When was the last time you got to sleep for a full day on Alternia?

That seemed to be good enough reasoning to go for the ladder option. You settle yourself back down again, balling the soft blankets in your fist and bringing them to you as you usually did to make up for your lack of pillows. Plus your bed is still warm. Who in their right mind could refuse? But before you could reallyyy get comfortable, a loud buzz sounded and lightly vibrated on the floor somewhere around your head; a flash of light followed briefly before quieting.

You give it a minute. Nothing else is heard. Slowly, you wiggle yourself to get comfortable and close your eyes again, not thinking much of it. There are many possibilities it could be. Notifications from Chittr, a message from one of your many friends, or something even as small as an app notifica-

Another buzz followed by light. God damn it.

You rise from the blankets in defeat. You could at least check it out before you decide to message back..it shouldn't be anything too serious, if not, you could leave the message unopened and go back to sleep.

You turn the palm husk on, your eyes stinging from the light, so, you squint to read what pops up...

Read the rest of the Chittr Hijack chapter here!

#hiveswap #hiveswap friendsim #mallek adalov #mallek adalov x reader #mallek x mspa reader #mspar #mspa #mspa reader #swarms-asks #Chittr Hijack

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excelsiorfics · 13 days

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Classicverse 1.1 Avengers Assemble!

Date: 19 Dec 2007 Author: collb, Elspethdixon, Seanchaia Rating: General Word Count/Status: 13,416, completed Dynamic: N/A Characters: Tony Stark, Janet Van Dyne, Steve Rogers, Thor Tags: Alternate Universe

Summary: The Avengers find something interesting in the Arctic, which goes much better than bad science-fiction would lead you to expect.

#status: complete #category: multichapter #length: 10k to 50k #rating: general #rel: gen #char: tony stark #char: steve rogers #char: janet van dyne #char: hank pym #char: thor #team: avengers #tag: alternate universe #tag: retelling

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olderthannetfic · 9 months

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So I just want to vent here I guess

Some time ago I got into WB Sherlock Holmes movies. Great actors, upbeat pseudohistorical setting, captivating enough plot, a cool take on Holmes and Watson, making them both bastards worth each other, incredibly shippable dynamic between them — Holmes pinning over Watson is as canon as it gets, he’s openly albeit unsuccessfully competing with Watson’s bride/wife over the course of two movies. Sounds very promising, right?

However, this already relatively small fandom on Ao3 exists between two giants — fans of Sherlock (BBC) series who couldn’t tag their fics correctly if their life depended on it and MCU fans who, thanks to RDJ and Jude Law playing in both franchises, treat this fandom as basically another opportunity for Time travel!/Multiverse!/Reincarnation!/Victorian!AU of Avengers. Tony Stark alone seems to be featured more frequently than some actual characters from these movies. I’m not saying they can’t do that, to be clear, but it’s not what I’m looking for scrolling through this tag.

This makes all the usual offenders like RPF for actors mistagged as fics for movies and multifandom drabble collections formatted as a single multichapter fic instead of, you know, a collection even more exasperating.

Sometimes I just wish these two Holmes/Watson ships had separate tags at least, although I doubt it would stop Sherlock series fans from mistagging them as well.

Nothing will stop the Sherlock fans from mistagging.

I remember some good fandom for the first movie right after it came out, but some of it may have been on LJ/DW.

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suffarustuffaru · 3 months

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"i-it's not like i like you or anything but we're FRIENDS NOW. youre my friend. BUT ID STILL LEAVE YOU THE MOMENT THIS COMPANY FAILS OKAY ITS NOTHING PERSONAL" and proceeds to like clean up corpses for this guy on the down low. (Otto bdsm post)

I just find that last part so funny to compare pride if Otto with. Pride If "Otto was forced into destroying the kingdom for Subaru" vs Envy If "Otto was stopped from destroying the empire for Subaru" I'd love for those two to be able to talk.

haah i love how you quoted my own otto bdsm post... HAH (it is once again funny to me that ive opened pandoras box on this blog man........ now i get bdsm asks.... literally a dream come true and none of my mutuals will let me live it down BHAHA)

anyway!!! yeah yeah pride if otto vs envy otto are soo soo funny to compare <3 pfft i think ive seen you around in the comment section of my pride otto multichapter fic (ty once again for the nice comments and cool asks :O !!) but no yeah like pride and main otto are really funny. but the parallels too are super interesting..... you summarized them really well pfft.

like.... the way pride otto is Forced to do these things for pridebaru. like of course pride otto barely gets any screentime but theres stuff implied yknow? like he has to meet with subaru often, hes the messenger boy of sorts between subaru and russell fellow, otto also delivers the poison that kills julius, otto also dies somehow off screen before the climax of pride if.... and then main otto over here Choosing repeatedly to follow subaru and die for subaru and do all these sorts of things for subaru HAH - the contrast is really really strong!!

like of course wrath if otto is also a debt slave like pride if otto, but pride if otto's his own flavor of unique just bc hes forced to stay in proximity to subaru when he either may not want to or he feels similar to subaru (who goes "maybe in another life we couldve made good friends, but this Isnt that life")!! seeing how jaded and empty pride if otto is is super fascinating, bc you can kind of see the origins of it in main otto's tendency for cynicism and ruthlessness !!

but also on another level i feel like pride otto would be soooo confused and disgusted hearing about main otto. pride otto might be out here like "so not only are you friends with this guy but youre his boytoy too???? lmfao you loser" HAH

but yeah i think itd be fun for them to meet. pride if otto, the otto who never made friends and only learned to harden his heart and be forced to be an accomplice to horrible crimes...... main otto, the otto who made friends and is so so painfully devoted but it drives him to do drastic things some times.... crimes in the name of love versus being forced to assist in it.... like main otto learned how to make friends, learned the power of friendship with other people, but his loyalty is "poisoning" him while pride otto supplied the poison that kills julius...... ough......... and pride otto dies at the end...... all alone.... poisoned by other people, poisoned by what he had to do.....

but also i think my favorite bit of pride otto trivia is that word of god thing that pride otto took advantage of the fire and went to go kill russell fellow before he died.... specifically to avenge frufoo, his ground dragon.... like. ough. pain. absolute pain. pride ottos last act was to kill his main abuser??? to avenge his one and only friend????? im gonna bawl my eyes out HAHHA. but it seems that the power of friendship may have briefly won for a second there.... :,))) like im sure ottos most definitely killing russell fellow also bc thats Literally the guy that enslaved him but - the way its specifically noted that ottos main reason was Frufoo. im sobbing on the floor.

anyway i completely forgot where i was going with this but in conclusion pride otto is such a guy. 20 seconds of screentime??? dude stomped over my heart in 20 seconds. and if he met main otto i think he'd either go "wtf is wrong with you why would you do all of this for subaru??? him??? that CLOWN???? why???" or pride otto would wanna strangle main otto for being so lucky HAH. pride otto learns frufoo is still alive and well in main route and pride otto instantly launches himself at main otto like a feral cat -

#re:zero #rezero #otto suwen #pride if #ask #im reaaaally normal about pride if otto. i prommys. i totally dont think about the implications #the implications of “he killed russell fellow to avenge frufoo” IM GONNA BE SICK.... URGHHH.. PURE AGONY......#i do think the fun part of characters who change A Lot in the ifs is examining them and comparing their behavior to what we know about them #in main route to decipher what couldve happened and how they couldve developed to the point where theyre like That in the ifs!!!#very very fun. its like a mystery game HAH

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ernmark · 30 days

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Ask Game!

Thank you to @sapphosewrites for thinking of me for this <3

How many works do you have on AO3?

I'm almost up there with Sapphose-- I've got 141, though I really need to finish tranferring my really old fics from my fanfiction.net account.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

Those 141 fics give me a grand total of 969,127 words.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

My biggest fandoms are The Penumbra Podcast, Star Trek: Deep Space 9, Welcome To Night Vale (that's an oldie, hot damn) and Les Miserables, with Les Mis being the most recent one I've been active in.

4. Top 5 Fics By Kudos

I'm honestly surprised that Haunting, but not haunted (Penumbra Podcast ghost AU) has overtaken The Issue of Omniscience (WTNV). Just Like an Angel (WTNV Wingfic) ranks just behind those two, then The Case Files of J. Steel (a very very large Penumbra Poscast one-shot collection). What surprised me was I Could Be Your Own Avenging Angel (DS9 alternate take on Empok Nor) making the top five-- apparently that one's gotten some recs lately, which pleases me immensely. The fact that all of these are fairly sexy is not a surprise to me.

5. Do you respond to comments?

I read them all, I squee in delight at them all, but a lot of times I'm just flummoxed about what to say in response. I know theoretically just a quick 'thank you' is appropriate, but it feels... I dunno, trite?

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Listen, I'm an absolute sucker for angst, but I tend to go with bittersweet rather than outright angst in the ending.

Just a Little Wooden Boy (OFMD) is the most recent, and plays hard with the idea of deep hurt turning love into something cold that can't be fixed. (Like a Terrier (Sherlock) has a similar vibe.)

Stay With Me (Wolf 359) just plain tragedy. Eiffel succumbs to the Decima virus, the other humans are forced to flee the station, and so Hera is left to comfort him in his final hours. It's in the same vein as The Way Things End (Supernatural) and Off the Path (Bioshock Infinite) where they're very much about accepting death when it can't be fought anymore-- but in the other two, there's the hope of accompanying your loved one on the other side, where Hera is now just trapped alone with her grief and the body of her friend.

7. What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I genuinely don't know how you would even go about judging that.

Most of my multichapter fics end with the idea that there's still work to be done-- causes to fight for, mental illness to struggle against, relationship issues to work out. The thing is that they now have a framework for dealing with the problem at hand.

So given that-- Of the Rapture That Impels (Les Miserables) deals with sinking into grief and despair and ends with actually being able to see a light at the end, which is pretty much the epitome of a happy ending in my book.

Skin and Scales (Penumbra Podcast) has the most classically happy ending, I think.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Thank all that is holy, I haven't gotten direct hate on fics since high school-- the fandoms I've been in have been lovely, and anyone who has unkind things to say about them has been polite enough to do it where I don't need to see it.

9. Do you write smut?

Yup.

10. Craziest crossover

I almost never do crossovers, actually. But years ago (so long ago that it hasn't actually been migrated to AO3 yet) I wrote a 9/Labyrinth crossover in which 7 was in fact Sarah, transfigured by the Goblin King in order to save her from the machine apocalypse.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I think they might have been yanked over to wattpad or whatever once or twice. It happens, it gets reported, I move on.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I don't believe so-- or if it's happened, it was long enough ago that I've forgotten.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes. And let me tell you, I am very bad at being a co-writer. The more successful stuff looks less like co-writing and more like parallel play in the same sandbox.

14. All time favorite ship?

I'm with Sapphose here in that I don't have one favorite ship, so much as I have a favorite dynamic. I'm a sucker for damaged, self-loathing characters who are so determined to do right by the person they love that they wind up becoming better (stronger, happier) people for it.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Just one?

Probably A Dynasty of Liars (DS9). I love that story so much, but I genuinely have no idea where it would go next or how I would execute it.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I'm told that my angst is pretty damn solid, and that I can get voices pretty well.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Scene transitions, and particularly those detailed descriptions where we describe where we're at. It's one of the things I can get away with more in fanfic than in original writing, because a couple references will convey which setpiece we're in so I don't have to do the work. In anything remotely original, that's a much bigger problem.

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

I'm in camp 'translate if the POV character knows it', with the addendum that "and they continued to speak in[language]" tends to be much more effective than actually writing long stretches of that other language, particularly if it's one that the writer isn't fluent in. If the reader doesn't know the second language, it conveys about as much as a keysmash. If they do, then you're prone to embarrassing goofs where you translate something badly without knowing.

19. First fandom you wrote in?

Lord of the Rings. A self-insert, Boromir-lives AU.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Pretty much any longfic that I've actually completed, I think. But lately, I'm partial to A Change of a Bizarre Kind (Les Miserables), because I did some stuff with the POV and structure that I'm really proud of.

Now that you've gotten to see me ramble, I'll go ahead and tag @ryosei-hime, @aftershocked, and @alecjmarsh

#ask game #fanfiction

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whimsicalworldofme · 2 years

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Saving Grace: Chapter Thirty-Two

Another day, another disaster broadcast on the news, leaving Grace wondering if she'll see her boys again.

Tennessee, at least the little town where Harry lived, was charmingly quaint and reminded Grace a lot of the little town in the Midwest she had grown up in. The only difference was the mountains. Despite it being a work trip, there was time to enjoy leisurely activities and since Grace had arrived on a Friday, Harry had insisted on taking her hiking on Saturday.

“So, how long can I expect you to be hunkering down here?” Harry asked as they made their way up a popular trail in the area. Grace had said she wanted to see a waterfall and he knew just the spot. She raised a brow at him. “C’mon, Grace,” he sighed, “I saw on the news that there was some sort of disruption at Stark Tower. The next morning you call and say you’re headed my way so we can finish our proposal together in person.”

“Sorry,” she felt heat in her face, having been caught withholding information. “I mean, I did want to get away from home for a little while after what happened, that’s the truth and I probably should’ve told you, but since I can’t give all the details, I thought it best to avoid entirely.”

Harry shrugged and they kept plodding along on the dirt trail. It was a brisk morning, chilly enough to require a fleece pullover. The leaves were changing and it made Grace homesick for Steve and their motorcycle rides upstate. They went weekly for hikes and to visit local farmstands and secondhand shops. Tony liked to tease them for behaving like an old married couple, throwing in the predictable jabs about Steve’s age, but he always relented when they pulled out whatever gift they had bought him while out, usually some kind of fruit preserves, baked good, or some mechanical trinket they’d found at a thrift store.

“I suppose I should consider it a compliment that you feel safe with me.”

“You did walk me back to my dorm any time we were out past dark for class or study group,” Grace pointed out. “I think you’re the closest I’ve got to a big brother.”

Harry laughed and flung an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into his side.

“Be careful what you say,” he cautioned. “Kid sisters get noogies.”

“Don’t you dare!”

The waterfall was delightful and so was the microbrewery that he took her too the next day for lunch and drinks. The next few days she spent shadowing him in his office during the day then the two of them would huddle over their laptops together at his kitchen table to work on the necessary foundational prep for their charity. There weren’t any hotels or motels in the area with any availability, so Harry had insisted she stay in his guest room. He had a little piece of property a few miles out of town and Grace could sit out on the rocking-chair front porch in the morning, listening to the birds and sipping her coffee. The first two days were idyllic and peaceful, but Grace couldn’t help the gnawing worry for the safety of her father and her boyfriend. It didn’t help that cell service was spotty out there in rural Appalachia.

“Give me something,” she wandered around the porch trying to get signal one morning. Harry had already gone into his practice and she was supposed to meet him in an hour. He’d insisted she sleep in that morning, since she hadn’t been able to sleep much, worry consuming her thoughts. “Come on!” She growled, seeing the bars on her phone flicker in and out of existence. “Goddam it.”

She hadn’t gotten any pings in the last few days from her notification system that alerted her whenever the news had a new story about Tony, Iron Man, Steve, Captain America, or the Avengers, so she considered it a sign that they were, at the very least, still alive and working on solving the Ultron problem.

Not that a lot of what they would do would make it into the news anyway. Unless something goes catastrophically wrong and impacts the public, most of their work stays under wraps.

Wandering out into the yard, her bare feet freezing in the chilly morning dew, she continued to search for signal.

“Ah ha!”

Two bars materialized and she froze, holding her phone at an arm’s length above her head, tilting just enough so that she could properly see the screen. There weren’t any news notifications, but there were a few texts from Pepper, encouraging her to come to California after her visit with Harry if things weren’t resolved by the end of her trip.

“Nothing from Steve,” she sighed. She knew he couldn’t exactly take a break in the middle of superhero-ing to text or call, but still part of her hoped. “I just wish I knew he was ok.”

Giving in to the screaming pain signals in her feet, which were turning red from the cold, she hobbled back into the house and got ready for the rest of her day. Seeing patients with Harry took her back to their med school days and they always passed by quickly. As they were preparing to head out for lunch, the news station playing on the television in the waiting room caught Grace’s ear.

“We take you now to a developing situation in Eastern Europe,” the female anchor announced over top of a breaking news alert sound. The image on the screen changed from the anchor to footage that looked to be from someone’s smart phone, recording people running through streets and being waved into a S.H.I.E.L.D. hellicarier by agents, including Hill. She caught sight of Steve, in his suit, getting women and children safely aboard and her chest clenched. “The micronation of Sokovia is under attack by an unidentified source. The motivation behind the attacks is unclear but we are being told that a team of robots has…” she trailed off, and Grace wondered why until she began to speak again, her disbelief evident. “Witnesses state that the entire country has been unearthed and taken airborne. We will bring you more information as this story develops.”

“Oh my god,” Grace felt like she might throw up.

“It is unclear who is behind this or what their intention is, but the Avengers, as you can see, are on the scene. We’ve been informed that all citizens of Sokovia who were trapped on the landmass when it was taken airborne have since been rescued and evacuated.”

“Grace, sit down,” Harry’s voice seemed to come to her from miles away, but he gently took her by the arm and guided her to a chair, getting her to sit. “Angie, can we change the channel, please?”

“No!” Grace went wide eyed and reached out to grab Harry by the arm. “Don’t turn it off. I need to know.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

Some of his staff wandered into the waiting room, equally glued to the news report, trying to make sense of what was happening. It didn’t seem to make much sense, why robots would unearth a city and haul it into the sky. But Grace knew. She had heard Ultron’s declaration of intent, his desire to annihilate the human race. It wasn’t that hard to piece together.

“It’s a meteor,” she whispered.

“What?” Harry gaped as he knelt in front of her. Grace locked her eyes on his.

“Mass extinction event,” she said quietly, hoping no one else in the room heard her. “He wants to wipe out humanity.”

“Shit.”

Harry dropped to a seat beside her, the color draining from his face. He tapped the heel of one foot rapidly, his whole leg bouncing, a habit she knew he only displayed when he was afraid. He had done it a lot during particularly difficult exams and practicals. They watched as the news carried on without really revealing anything new. Live footage had begun from European stations, though all they could do was point their cameras at the landmass hovering higher and higher in the sky, and speculate.

Suddenly, a ball of red light, like whirling smoke burst into the air at surface level of the city and the local news crew who had been filming all began talking rapidly in their native language.

“We’re not sure what that explosion was,” the female anchor’s voice came over the feed again. “We’re trying to get answers and will forward them along to you once we have them.”

The speculation played for what felt like an eternity but was really no more than fifteen minutes, if that, before what appeared to be a quintjet departed from the landmass. The news anchor was speculating over who might have been on the quintjet and why, when the entire city nation of Sokovia blew into millions of tiny pieces, and so did the robots that had been holding it aloft, eliciting shouts of panic and confusion from the onlookers below. Before the view cut away back to the female news anchor in her studio, Grace caught a glimpse of her dad, in his armor, flying away after the quintjet.

“It appears that the incident is over,” the anchor stated. “The motivations and perpetrator of the attack are still unclear, but the Avengers appear to once again have saved earth from outside threats. We will bring you more information as we receive it.”

Slowly, Grace felt the muscles in the entirety of her body unclench, starting with her jaw.

Dad’s safe. She felt the familiar burn of tears in her eyes. Taking a deep breath, she could feel her bottom lip tremble. When she had gotten into Harry’s office that morning, she’d turned her phone off, standard practice for being in a doctor’s office. Now she fished it out and turned it back on, hoping to see something from her dad soon, letting her know this latest threat was over.

A text from Steve lit up her screen as soon as her phone booted up.

It’s over. We’re safe. Love you.

“Oh, thank god.” She felt like she could breathe again. Wiping her eyes, she typed out a reply.

I’m coming home. Will be there tomorrow. Love you, too.

“Is that the secret boyfriend?”

Grace nearly jumped out of her seat, having momentarily forgotten that anyone else existed in the same time and space as her. She realized in that instant, Harry had seen the picture of Steve that came up alongside every text he sent.

“Sorry,” Harry flashed a semi-apologetic smile, blushing with embarrassment. Grace simply nodded. “Didn’t mean to snoop. I get the secret part now.” He scratched the back of his neck. “And why I never stood a chance. Hell, I’d pick him over literally anyone else too.”

Grace couldn’t help but laugh, nudging him with her shoulder and Harry cracked up too.

“Come on,” he got up with a groan. “The world isn’t ending, I have patients to see, and you have to get home.”

“Are you mad I’m bailing before the week is up? We’re supposed to finish our proposal” She felt guilty, having come all that way only to flake before they could reach the finish line.

“We got some work done,” he shrugged. “And we’ll get more done from a distance. But I know you won’t be able to focus until you know firsthand that your dad and your boyfriend are all right. You head to the house, get your things, and get back to New York. I’ll be up in a few weeks, ok?”

Grace flung her arms around him in a hug, feeling comforted as he gently rubbed her back.

“Thanks, Harry,” she squinted her eyes shut and gave him a squeeze before letting go and stepping back.

“Anytime,” he smiled.

The drive back up to New York felt like it took forever and she didn’t get back to the tower until after one in the morning. Her dad had called her while she was on the road and let her know he was ok, that he loved her very much, and that he was going straight to California to be with Pepper. Since her dad wasn’t there, she rode the elevator straight to Steve’s floor and let herself into the apartment. The living room lights were still on and she found her boyfriend sprawled out on the couch, one hand under his head, mouth slightly ajar and snoring up a storm. It was so normal it made her laugh. She shut the door gently and left her suitcases by the door, tucked against the wall so they were out of the way, before heading over to the couch and sitting down lightly beside him, brushing his hair back. He had a few cuts and scrapes on his face and arms and Grace knew there were bruises she couldn’t see, but he didn’t look too beat up.

“Mmm,” he groaned happily and opened his eyes, still halfway asleep and groggy, a smile brightening his face. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Grace smiled, continuing to brush her fingers through his hair. “Were you trying to wait up for me?” He nodded and yawned. “Come on, let’s get you to bed. You can fill me in on everything in the morning.”

“Kay,” he mumbled.

Chapter Thirty-One

Masterlist

Chapter Thirty-Three

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