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book-place · 1 year

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Everybody Wants to Rule the World

Warnings: various marvel movie spoilers, cursing, violence, drinking, weapons, death, let me know if I missed any :)

Pairings: Avengers x reader platonic

*not my gif*

Summary: You became an avenger at a young age, and grew close with your team

A/N: Welcome to book place’s one year event!!

Inspired by: Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Tears For Fears

Please don’t plagiarize my work, you may reblog if you like but I’m asking that you don’t steal my hard work

Welcome to your life

Your eyebrows shot up as you let out a low whistle and turned on your heel, taking in your surroundings, “This place is nice,” You commented.

Tony smiled proudly from beside you, placing his hands on his hips, “I designed it myself.” He announced.

Natasha scowled, walking up from behind him and efficiently delivering a harsh slap upside his head, making the man yelp and grab onto the back of his hair, eyes filled with betrayal.

“Don’t let him fool you,” She said calmly, “Pepper did most of the work, he just likes taking the credit.”

You chuckled lightly at their antics, still taking in the sight of Avengers Tower in all its glory.

“Yeah, yeah,” The man scoffed before turning to and regarding you once more, “Come on, we’ll show you up to your room.”

Being recruited by the Avengers was the very last thing you had expected after a lab accident gone wrong, one that ended up giving you the power to create force fields around yourself and others. But it happened, and now you were being welcomed with open arms into your new home, even though you were just a teenager.

The three of you rode side by side up an elevator. A machine that though simple and common, was even fancier than almost anything you had ever seen.

Everything you looked at was ten times more expensive than anything you had ever even been allowed to look at in your life.

It came to a stop on a floor too high for other buildings and your two newly found teammates allowed you to exit before them.

You had already met the rest of the team, so you weren’t overly nervous about running into any of them on your first day.

“-and this is your room,” Tony concluded his tour of the floor that consisted of all of your rooms and a living room and kitchen, as well as a dining room.

He had explained to you that it was considered the living floor, but there were many others identical to this one if a case or purpose ever arose for it.

Yet again, you couldn’t help but allow your jaw to drop as soon as Natasha gently pushed the door open, revealing a room that could be an entire floor of the house you used to live in.

Tony walked off, calling over his shoulder about having JARVIS alert you of when dinner would be ready, but the redhead stayed behind.

She smiled gently at you, reaching out and squeezing your shoulder gently, “Welcome to the Avengers.” She said softly.

You exhaled a long breath when she began to walk in the direction Stark had just left in, and you tried to wrap your mind around what your life was becoming. The new life you were beginning to lead.

There's no turning back

All of it was too overwhelming. Too loud. Too dangerous. Too unpredictable.

You couldn’t breathe, you couldn’t see, you couldn’t even hear yourself think.

It was your first mission as an Avenger and of course, it was going horribly. It was nothing like all the training and simulations you had been put through, or even the sparring you had done with Steve.

This was real- this was deadly. The gunshots wouldn’t just momentarily stun you, they would take away your life in a second, without hesitation.

You could barely even register the arrow that whizzed right past your head, narrowly missing you in such a way that had to be done purposefully, and ending up in the chest of a soilder you had been too distracted to even notice charging at you.

For the first time since the battle had begun, the first clear thought fought through the fog of your brain and became clear to you.

You needed to get out of there.

There were no further thoughts after that. No regret or guilt for leaving your team to fend for themselves. No shame for being a coward on your first time out in the field. Just the rapid, uneven, rising and falling of your chest and the constant ringing in your ears that wouldn’t go away.

Somehow, you had been coherent enough to stumble behind a flipped over vehicle that gave you shelter from the fight.

You sank to the ground unceremoniously and automatically brought your knees up to your chest and your hands to your hair, pulling harshly on the roots.

“Hey, hey-“ Clint dropped into a crouch by your side, placing a hand on your shoulder as his eyes swept over your face in concern, “What is it, kid? What’s wrong?”

All you could manage to do in your pathetic state was snap your eyes up to the man as your breathing came in and out unsteadily.

Suddenly, a look of realization overcame on his features and he reached his arm over and began to gently rub your back up and down. Much to your surprise, his expression was entirely void of the anger and disappointment you would have expected to see there after being found cowering pathetically away from the fight.

“I remember my first mission,” He spoke softly after a moment, eyes still scanning your surroundings for any sign of danger, “It wasn’t even as an avenger- mine was a whole hell of a lot less pressure than yours is. I was just some rookie shield agent on a mission that mattered, but wouldn’t have devastating effects if it went sideways.”

Slowly, your body unconsciously began to relax under his comforting hand and gentle words. He continued with a small chuckle to himself, “I couldn’t even hold my bow correctly. My hands were shaking too much- I’m pretty sure I shit my pants.”

That, at least, made a shaky smile make its way onto your face. It was small, but it was still something.

“It’s okay to be nervous and scared,” Clint spoke again, “Hell, I still feel the fear every time I step into one of these things. But I promise you,” He ducked his head so he could look you in the eyes, “We wouldn’t have picked you to be on our team if each and every one of us didn’t think that you were more than capable of doing this.”

“Really?” The question came out quietly. You hadn’t known that it had been their decision about whether or not to let you onto the team.

The man clapped your shoulder gently, “You’re an avenger, kid. We would never force you into a mission, especially one like this, but we could always use your help. So do you think you can go back out there and help us kick ass?”

A wave of confidence surged over your body and you straightened up and strongly nodded your head once.

He cracked a grin, standing up and helping you to your feet, “That’s what I like to hear.”

Even while we sleep

“Y/n, Y/n, come on. You have to wake up.” Steve shook your shoulders gently but firmly, “We have a mission.”

An incoherent grumble left your lips and you pushed your face farther into the pillow, refusing to open your eyes.

He sighed, “It’s in Sokovia,” He continued to shake you, “And it’s really important, people are counting on us.”

That finally caught your attention, and you reluctantly opened your eyes and threw your blanket off of yourself. You sat up and stretched your arms to the ceiling, “No one told me being an Avenger would mean waking up in the middle of the night,” You whined.

The blond man smiled at you sympathetically, “If we don’t do it, then who will?”

We will find you

“Shit!” Tony exclaimed through the comms, no doubt dodging something as extreme as a missal as he spoke.

“Language!” Steve chimed back instantly, almost as if it was second nature, the sound of his motorcycle revving sounding in the background.

You laughed loudly as you threw up a forcefield around yourself, successfully stopping a round of bullets from penetrating your skin.

“Wait a minute,” Tony chimed back in, “Is anyone going to comment on the fact that Cap just said ‘language’?”

“I will!” You cackled, punching a very confused soldier in the face, “He’s such an old man!”

Laughter from the rest of your team came through your ears as Steve let out a small huff, an explosion coming from the general direction you knew he was in, “It just slipped out,” He defended, “Plus, there’s a kid here.”

A gasp of offension left your lips and you could hear Clint take over your cackling from over comms, Nat even snickering a bit.

“I’m not a kid, Rogers!” You whined in a very child-like manner.

Turning your head to the side, you saw a large group of people rush their way over to Clint, no doubt hoping to overwhelm and overrun the man with their numbers.

With a slight tut of your tongue, though, you threw your hand out in his direction, making a force field form a protective barrier around him, to give him the time he needed to prepare for their attack and take them down with ease.

He turned his head to you with an appreciative nod and you called over with a playful grin, “We’re even now!” Referring to your first mission, merely a few months ago, that he had effortlessly saved you.

It was a joke between the two of you, everytime one of you would save the other, you would say that you were either even with one another or they owed you one, even though you had both long since lost track of all the saves.

Acting on your best behavior

You let out a loud cheer, raising your pool cue in victory with a large grin adorning your features, laughing as Steve let out a playful groan.

The blond man’s friend, Sam, laughed loudly and clapped Cap on the shoulder, “I can’t believe she beat you, and it’s her first time playing!”

Steve jokingly rolled his eyes, reaching over and ruffling your hair in a way that made you scowl.

“Hey! What’s with the long face?” Tony strode over and swing an arm over your shoulder, “It’s a party! There’s no negativity allowed at my party! What did Rogers do to you?”

Said man adopted a look of mock offense as he flitted his eyes over, “Why would you think I did something, Stark?”

“Because it's always you,” He replied simply before steering you away and towards where Bruce and Nat were at the bar with a laugh.

You got there and leaned your forearms against the counter whilst giving the two members of your team smiles of greeting.

“Want a drink?” Tony asked, sliding one across the surface towards you.

Just as your eyes lit up and you began reaching for it, Nat scowled and snatched it just before your fingers could brush against it, “Absolutely not.” She was glaring dangerous daggers at Tony.

“What?” He asked innocently, holding his hands up in surrender, “I was sneaking them at parties when I was way younger than her!”

“And look how you turned out.” The redhead retorted.

Tony’s smile dropped and he let out a noise of offense, but before he could open his mouth and snap back, a large hand clamped down on one of your shoulders.

“Lady Y/n!” Thor's voice boomed, causing you to spin around on your heel with a grin, “Are you enjoying the festivities?”

“I am, Thor, what about you?” You laughed.

“Well, it’s no Asguardian party, but you humans know how to have a much better time than I thought you did.” He exclaimed, eyes still shining with excitement.

Only a little while later, the guests had slowly but surely simmered out, leaving only you and your fellow avengers, along with Doctor Cho and Maria Hill, to lounge around on a couple couches.

“But it’s a trick!” Clint insisted, leaning his head back against the couch while twirling a drumstick in one hand.

“Oh no,” Thor laughed, taking a drink from his glass, “It’s much more than that.”

“‘Whoever be he worthy shall haveth the power!’” He mocked in a deep voice, guestering dramatically to where Thor's hammer rested on the coffee table in the middle of everyone. Clint scoffed, “Whatever, man! It’s a trick!”

You laughed from where you sat on the floor by Nats feet, the woman unconsciously running her fingers through your hair softly.

“Well, please, be my guest.” The Norse god seemed thoroughly amused by the entire situation and waved a hand in his hammer's direction.

“Come on!” Tony encouraged, clearly slightly buzzed from the drinks he kept pouring himself.

“Really?” Clint’s eyes widened, he clearly hadn’t expected to actually have his words entertained.

“Go Clint!” You cheered, pumping a fist in the air as your team chuckled all around you at your words.

Barton pushed himself to his feet and strode over, trying to appear to have much more confidence then he actually was.

“Oh, this is going to be beautiful,” Rhodey snickered, and you nodded in agreement.

“Clint, you've had a tough week, we won't hold it against you if you can't get it up.” Tony called to the man. Everyone laughed again.

“You know I’ve seen this before, right?” He thought it was just a parlor trick.

As soon as he placed his hand on the handle and moved to lift it though, he was met with much more resistance than anticipated.

He turned to Thor and blinked once before moving back to sit down, “I still don’t know how you do it.”

“Smell the silent judgment?” Tony snickered at his own words.

“Please, Stark, by all means.” He gestured towards the table.

“Oh, here we go.” You mumbled in amusement.

You watched as one by one, almost every member of your team tried- and failed- to lift the ancient object off the table, all while you sat back, cackling at their attempts.

“Lady Y/n,” Everyone’s attention was turned back to you, “Why don’t you give it a try?”

You glanced back at Nat, who shrugged with a small smile and took a sip from her beer, before shrugging yourself and making your way over to the table.

Readying yourself, you wrapped your hand around the handle and began to use all your strength to try and pull it up.

Perhaps you had been imagining it, maybe your mind was playing tricks on you, but you could’ve sworn that you felt the object shift slightly under your fingers.

But before anything else could happen, a loud screeching noise rang out through the room, making everyone flinch and divert their attention to where a robotic looking figure came limping through a doorway.

Turn your back on Mother Nature

You turned your head and gave Pietro a firm nod, who smirked at your signal before running at full speed through a row of robots, destroying them in the blink of an eye.

When he did so, you let out a whoop of celebration and stuck a hand out for him to rush back over and high five you.

The twins had realized their faults with being on Ultrons side and immediately rushed to assist your team. And as much as you loved the avengers, and while the Maximoff’s were both technically older than you, it was nice to have people closer to your age again. The three of you immediately clicked.

“Nice one!” You cheered, throwing your hands out to create a force field around the two of you just in time to stop some debris from falling over and flattening you.

“As glad as I am that the two of you are getting along,” Cap grunted through the comms, a background sound of clambering metal coming through, “Please keep your focus.”

“Why, we are very focused, Captain America.” Pietro’s thick accent rang through, sending you a cheeky smile.

Nevertheless, the two of you did get back to taking everything more seriously, and you quickly rushed to aid a panicked group of people who were trying to get to the helicarrier to get them out of the city.

You threw your hands up again and created a force field around all of you and you ushered them towards more help, “This way!” You called over the nearby sound of gunfire.

Waving off the cries of thanks you received from them after handing them off to some other helpers, you began jogging over to where you knew Wanda to be- wanting to check in on the girl- all whilst taking down Ultron's soldiers along the way.

“How’s it going?” You asked when she came into view.

A small smirk made its way onto her face, one so similar to Pietro’s that it left no doubt in your mind that they were twins, and she quickly sent out a beam of red energy into an incoming bots chest. It shattered into a thousand pieces upon impact.

“I think I’m handling it well.” She replied.

You laughed, wrapping a forcefield around one that was close to you just as it sent a bullet flying at you, making it bounce back at itself.

“Y/n?” Clint’s voice suddenly came through the comms, making your head snap up, though he was no doubt at least a few streets away, “I need some backup over here.”

With one final nod to Wanda, you turned on your heel and began racing to where you knew he was positioned, “On my way.”

After only one slight misstep in an alley that almost caused you to tumble into an ever collapsing brick wall, you pushed your way into a clearing and came to a sudden halt, breath catching in your throat and eyes widening at the sight before you. You could have sworn that your heart had even stopped beating all together.

It all happened in a slow motion fashion, only about ten yards away, Clint was in a squat position, cradling a kid to his chest and using himself as a shield to protect him. One of Ultron's robots hung in the air, aiming all of its available weapons at the man.

Without your mind even beginning to register what it saw, your body jumped into action and you leapt forward at full pace, throwing your arm out to send a shield the duo's way.

You were too slow. Too slow. Too slow. Too slow. Too-

Pietro got there before you could, before his faster than light brain could even compute that you had already gotten them out of harm's way, and he stood in front of them. His arms were stretched out to the sides as he used himself to barricade them from the incoming round of bullets.

He fell to the ground less than a second later, mumbling something that you weren’t able to hear over the ringing in your ears.

Immediately, you fell onto the ground beside him, your defenses collapsing as you did so, and a sob ripped through your throat as you hurriedly turned the boy over, searching for the lost cause of any sign of life.

You didn’t know how long you sat there, crying out and rocking his body back and forth. A boy you barely knew, yet felt so connected to. Someone who deserved to live.

Everybody wants to rule the world

Collateral damage.

You never liked those words. It always insinuated that something was broken, something that could no doubt be made whole again. But that word was too often used for people. People that could never be fixed- be brought back. People that could never be replaced.

This was the first time you ever experienced losing someone on your own team while out in the field, let alone someone you would consider a friend.

The rest of your battle with Ultron had been done numbly, your brain having gone into autopilot mode and leaving you to not even be able to think about what had just happened.

But then it was done, and you and the avengers were left to patrol Sokovia while everyone else was safely taken off, just in case something else were to occur.

Immediately, you had wandered off and found a quiet spot near the edge of the floating city and plopped down a safe distance away from the end, pulling your knees up to your chest.

The sound of soft footsteps made you look up, only to come face to face with a tear stained Wanda.

Guilt pooled in your stomach when you automatically came to the realization that you had been mourning a boy you barely knew while his own twin sister was left to suffer with it alone.

“Wanda, I’m so-“

“Shh,” She shushed you as you began to cry again, tears of her own slipping out of her green orbs, “I know, I know.”

She sank to the ground beside you and you held each other, both crying over the boy who hadn’t had enough time.

“I should’ve saved him- I should’ve noticed him there.” You hiccuped, clinging tightly to her shirt.

“It’s not your fault.” She whispered, resting her head atop your own, “You did nothing wrong, it wasn’t at all your fault.”

You were the only one that seemed to care- really care- about what happened to her brother. And not just that, but you were still just a kid- a kid that blamed herself for what had happened to him. Something that was completely out of your control, but you still took on the burden of the incident anyway.

Despite what you may think, Wanda could never hate you after today. If anything, it made her like you even more.

It's my own design, it’s my own remorse

“Are you getting a sense of deja vu? I’m getting a sense of deja vu.” Tony rambled.

“What do you mean?” You turned to him with a single raised eyebrow.

“You, me, Romanoff.” He gestured to the three of you walking in a line through the newly built Avengers Compound, where you and your team would all be staying now.

The redhead shared a playfully suspicious look with you, “What about us, Stark?”

The man grinned, as if having been waiting for the question to be asked, “This is just like the first time n/n moved into the tower.”

Nat chuckled when she realized what he meant and she threw a fond smile at you, “That’s true.”

“You were so little back then,” Tony teased, reaching over and ruffling your hair.

You scowled slightly at the action- no real anger behind your expression, though- and sidestepped his hand while moving to fix your hair.

“I was not.” You grumbled.

“I mean, you still kind of are.” Natasha smirked a little as she spoke.

Your mouth dropped open in betrayal, “Hey!”

Help me to decide

“Which color?” Wanda asked with a wide smile, holding up the different vials that all varied wildly in shades.

You quieted, eyes jumping from one to another as you thought it over for a moment before pointing to the middle one excitedly, “That one!”

“I’ll do the red.” Nat piped up from behind you, sinking down onto the mattress by your side.

“Perfect,” Wanda cheered, taking out your designated colors and one for herself as you all got ready to paint each other's nails.

The three of you had claimed to the rest of the team that you needed a girls night, before quickly retiring to Natasha’s room and promptly closing the door in Tony’s face, who had pouted and whined about not being invited.

You sighed happily, relaxing against the bed's backboard as Nat painted your nails and Wanda braided the woman’s hair, “This is nice, I needed this.”

“Believe it or not, I’ve never had a girls day,” Natasha had a slightly amused tone as she spoke.

“Me neither!” Wanda chorused.

“Same!” You piped up. The three of you fell into laughter, “But this is how it looks in the movies! So I thought, why not give it a try?”

Help me make the most of freedom and of pleasure

“Voila!” Tony announced dramatically, throwing his arms out to the side to present what lay inside the dining room that had been practically untouched for the first few months of living in the compound.

Everyone looked around in shock, even Nats lips parted a bit.

Covering the table in the center of the room where foods of all shapes and sizes. All different kinds, with desserts and fast food bags, and even some food that looked homemade.

“What is all of this, Stark?” Steve looked around at the sight before him.

“Dinner.” Tony replied in a ‘duh’ tone.

An excited squeal left your lips and you latched your hand onto Wanda’s and quickly pulled the girl over to the table, taking a plate and beginning to fill it with food.

The girl chuckled along with a couple other members of the team at your antics, before the others quickly followed on your tail, filling their plates to the brim before taking seats around the vast table.

For the most part, everyone ate alone on their own times, so this was the first time that you were all doing it together since moving in.

You watched with a wide smile as everyone interacted, telling stories and filling the space with laughter. This- this is what you would picture if someone ever brought up the idea of a family dinner.

Nothing ever lasts forever

You didn’t like this- not one bit.

The heavy stare of Secretary Ross made you squirm uncomfortably in your chair. His gaze held enough accusation and judgment to make you more than a little bit uneasy.

“The world owes the Avengers an unpayable debt,” The man continued a spiel that you and the rest of your team sat through in a heavy silence, it felt like you were children being lectured by a teacher for doing something wrong in class, “You have fought for us, protected us, risked your lives . . . but while a great many people see you as heroes, there are some . . . who would prefer the word ‘vigilantes’.”

The word made you cringe slightly, but you stayed silent, eyes trained ahead. You didn’t even look away as you felt Steve and Tony’s eyes both flicker towards you simultaneously. You sat between the blond man and Natasha with the rest of the team spread out around the table.

“And what word would you use, Mr. Secretary?” Nat tilted her head to the side, eyes narrowing slightly in a way that promised danger, though her tone was as innocent as it comes.

Ross scoffed, “How about ‘dangerous’?” His eyes swept back and forth over each and every one of you, “What would you call a group of US-based, enhanced individuals who routinely ignore sovereign borders and inflict their will wherever they choose and who, frankly, seem unconcerned about what they leave behind?”

Your hands tightened around the arm of your chair, knuckles whitening slightly from the sheer grip you had on the wood.

When all of you stayed silent, he sidestepped to reveal a large screen behind him. He pressed a button on a small remote he held.

“New York.” He spoke as news footage from years prior flashed onto the screen.

The Chitauri Leviathan crashing into skyscrapers. Citizens running around in a panicked frenzy. Bruce in his Hulk form smashing into buildings.

“Washington DC.”

The three Helicarriers from that day firing at each other, crashing into one another. Massive waves caused by their crashes engulfing nearby citizens.

“Sokovia.”

The city rising from the ground. Citizens screaming a crying. Fires erupting across various buildings. A brief clip of you and Pietro fighting side by side.

From the corner of your eye, you watched Wanda’s head fall at the sight on the television, and anger immediately began flickering in a small flame in your stomach at Ross for making her watch that.

“Ireland.”

Your eyes immediately snapped back over to the news footage playing in a horrifying montage across the screen.

Ireland had been where you were for your first mission. The one that you had frozen up on, where it took Clint to snap you out of your daze.

You had later learned that your mess up had cost many lives of innocent civilians, and that was something you had to live with to the day.

Clips of dead bodies littering the streets flashed across the monitor.

Painfully, you ripped your eyes away, unable to look at it any longer in fear of throwing up at what you saw.

“Okay. That’s enough.” Steve immediately sat up straighter when he noticed your pained look, his voice coming out as a demand to the Secretary.

He didn’t argue, clicking off the screen, as if he knew he would get that exact reaction out of all of you, “For the past four years, you've operated with unlimited power and no supervision. That's an arrangement the governments of the world can no longer tolerate. But I think we have a solution.”

A nearby aide shuffled over and handed him a thick document that he immediately passed to Wanda, who briefly glanced at it before sliding it over to Rhodey.

“The Sokovia Accords. Approved by 117 countries . . . it states that the Avengers shall no longer be a private organization. Instead, they'll operate under the supervision of a United Nations panel, only when and if that panel deems it necessary.” He explained as if it were as simple as that.

Your ears were ringing. This was starting to become too much- everything about this ‘meeting’, and you were beginning to get to the point where you didn’t know if you could handle it.

“The Avengers were formed to make the world a safer place. I feel we've done that.” Steve argued.

Almost as if he anticipated that, Ross didn’t miss a beat, “Tell me, Captain, do you know where Thor and Banner are right now?”

Your head snapped up at the sounds of their names and you met the Secretary’s eyes.

“If I misplaced a couple of thirty megaton nukes . . . you can bet there'd be consequences. Compromise. Reassurance. That's how the world works. Believe me, this is the middle ground.” He finally tore his eyes away from you to address the rest of the team.

“So, there are contingencies.” It wasn’t a question, Rhodey already knew the answer.

“Three days from now, the UN meets in Vienna to ratify the Accords.” He glanced at you once more, “Talk it over.”

Just as he was about to turn to leave, Natasha’s voice drew him to a halt, “And if we come to a decision you don't like?”

It was silent as you all waited for him to answer, and he gave her a plain smile, “Then you retire.”

It wasn’t too long later that you were all sitting around one of the many living rooms in the compound, you on one of the couches with your head in your hands as Steve read and reread the Accords from beside you.

Sam and Rhodey were arguing back and forth about what to do, while everyone else silently mulled it over to themselves.

“Secretary Ross has a Congressional Medal of Honor, which is one more than you have.” Rhodes pointed out, as if that would be the deciding factor in everything.

The other man shot back his retort that only lead to more bickering that you couldn’t be bothered to even try to listen to, some other teammates of yours getting roped into it as well.

This was not good. Your team- your family- were going in circles as they argued with each other about the fate of the Avengers. This could very well be the day that they ended, because if the Accords weren’t what teared you apart, it would be the endless disagreements that were coming with this whole thing.

You sat back and watched as your family was slowly pulled apart by the seams.

“Tony, you chose to do that- if we sign this, we surrender our right to choose. What if this panel sends us somewhere we don't think we should go? What if there is somewhere we need to go, and they don't let us? We may not be perfect, but the safest hands are still our own.”

You had no idea who you agreed with, which side you were taking- it was all too much at the moment for you to properly think it out- but you had to admit that Steve did have a good point.

“If we don't do this now, it's gonna be done to us later. That's the fact. That won't be pretty.” Tony’s voice had almost shifted to one that resembled begging. He didn’t want you all to split up over this anymore than you did.

“You’re saying they’ll come for me.” Wanda whispered, her arms moving to wrap around her stomach.

“We would protect you.” Vision automatically assured her.

“Both of you.” Tony added, locking eyes with you as he said it.

You bit down on your bottom lip and cast your eyes downwards.

Even though you didn’t know your own viewpoint on the matter, you didn’t understand why your team couldn’t pull together- now more than ever- to come to an agreement on something. At least to ensure that you would all stay together.

The bickering just kept going and you couldn’t take it anymore, you pushed yourself off the couch and hurried out of the room, not paying any mind to how the team quieted behind you and sadly watched you go.

Everybody wants to rule the world

“So,” Tony strolled over, leaning forward and resting his forearms on the railing before bumping his shoulder against yours playfully, “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

You were out on a balcony, standing there and overlooking the compound grounds as you thought, “I don’t know what to do.”

“That’s okay,” He assured you, “You’re just a kid, you don’t have to know what to do about all of this.”

You bit down on your bottom lip gently, “I hate it when you all fight.”

Tony sighed, shoulders sagging and head dropping a little bit, “I know, I hate it too.” His voice was quieter than before

“Why can’t we just keep doing what we’re doing?” You asked softly, eyes trained somewhere in the distance, “Why can’t we just go back to the way things used to be? Without the government dictating what we do.”

The man’s head turned to you in surprise, “You don’t mean that.”

You shook your head, “No, I do.” You were finally getting a sense of what you thought about everything going on.

“Listen, I know you’re upset about everything, but you don’t have to-“

“Why would we let them control us?” You turned to face him as well, “That’s not how we’ve always done things, why would we change now? We’ve been fine on our own.”

“I know you think that,” He tried again, eyes and tone growing slightly desperate, “But signing these Accords and letting the government have a little bit of control over us will be what keeps us together. Not signing them will tear us apart.”

Again, you shook your head stubbornly, “No, the UN will just tear us apart. Things will change. I’m not ready for things to change.”

“You need to sign these Accords, n/n,” It almost sounded like Tony was begging at this point, “I promise, once you do that we can figure out everything else.”

You looked at him sadly, “I’m not ready for them to control us, Tony. I’m not ready for things to change.”

Before he could even open his mouth again, you turned on your heel and went back inside, searching for Steve to let him know of your decision.

Tony dropped his head into his hands from behind you.

There's a room where the light won't find you

Your eyes swept back and forth, going over the plan again and again, letting Steve’s previous words ring out in your head.

Though you tried to keep your face neutral, you knew that your nerves were portrayed through your expression, showing everyone in the airport how scared you really were.

As you looked over the faces of those who signed the Accords, you couldn’t find it in yourself to blame them- as much as you tried.

At the end of the day, they were just doing what they thought was right, just like you were. Except their methods didn’t involve going back to the way things used to be, theirs included being controlled by people who had no idea what being an Avenger was really like- what it took.

Before you knew it, both sides began charging at one another, forcing you to do the same.

You didn’t like this, the thought of fighting against your loved ones made you sick to your stomach, so you had come up with a plan beforehand. All you would do was protect those around you by channeling your powers to generate force fields around them and come to their aid when necessary.

Before the fight had even begun, you relayed this to Steve, who had nodded in understanding.

So that’s what you did.

When T’Challa automatically sprang forward to lunge at Bucky, you threw a shield around the man, sending the king flying backwards upon impact.

You cringed a little, “Sorry, your majesty!” You called.

That wasn’t exactly how you pictured your first interaction with the king of Wakanda going.

You ran around, helping others when they needed it before moving on, making sure you were constantly rotating to be there at any given moment for anyone.

Your steps faltered though, when Tony flew down in his suit and touched the ground only a few yards away.

“What are you doing, kid?” He asked sadly, “Please get out of here, you’re going to get hurt.”

“I need to help them, Tony. I’m not going to leave them behind.”

“Listen-“ He lifted his hand subconsciously as he spoke to you, not meaning anything by it, but he froze when you flinched at the gesture and threw your hands up to create a force field all around yourself.

You realized what you had done too late, and you swallowed thickly as a deadly silence settled between the two of you, both completely tuning out the sounds of chaos from the battle going on around you.

“Did you-“ His words came out slightly stuttered, “You didn’t think that- that I was going to shoot you, did you?”

You didn’t. You really didn’t. But that didn’t explain why your body had worked by itself to try and naturally protect you. As if you had been in any danger in the first place.

Before you could even try and open your mouth to speak, Visions voice cut you off, calling out from a far, “Mr. Stark!”

Steve and Bucky were making their way to the hanger that held the quinjet, the blond man desperately trying to get your attention to flag you down and get you on the plane with them.

You realized though in that moment that getting over there wasn’t in the cards for you, but you could distract Tony so the duo could make their escape.

Subtly, you shook your head, and you watched Steve’s face drop in slight horror, but you didn’t allow yourself to dwell on that as Bucky gently took his best friend by the shoulder to continue to steer him out of there.

Taking Tony’s distracted form to your advantage, you threw a shield around him just in time to stop him from moving to go after them, keeping him stuck in place.

“I’m sorry, Tony,” You spoke, “But I can’t let you do that.”

Holding hands while the walls come tumbling down

“Y/n.” Your head snapped up and you sprang to your feet, hand already moving to the gun you had concealed under the table.

You froze in place though, standing in the middle of your kitchen, staring at two of the people you quite honestly didn’t know if you would ever see again.

After what happened in Germany, Cap had freed you and the others from prison, thereby forcing every one of you to go into hiding for what you had done. He had begged you to come with him- all of them begged for you to go with at least one of them- if only for the fact that they could look after you. You were still just a kid.

But after everything that had gone down between the team- not that it could even be called that anymore- you had been too full of pain and betrayal to even handle being around any of them at the moment. So, you refused assistance from any of them and slipped away the first chance you got. You couldn't stay with them, not then at least, you had to go out on your own. You had to take time to process everything that had happened.

You had somehow ended up in a small town in Ireland- maybe it was to stay in touch with a small part of who you used to be when you had still been an Avenger- but you were old enough at that point to get a job and buy your own apartment. It was by no means a luxurious life, not like the life you had been living in the tower or the compound, but it was peaceful and quiet. Exactly what you needed to lay low and sort yourself out.

But now, you stood face to face with Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff and you didn’t know what to do. You could physically feel your heart contracting in your chest and you found it hard to breathe.

Limply, your hand fell away from your gun and the three of you just stared at each other in silence.

Steve cleared his throat, “Something big’s about to go down. In Wakanda.” It was like he wanted to say something else, but forced himself to get those words out.

“Why come to me?” Your voice was scratchy, the question pained you to speak aloud.

They both had sad looks on their faces, “We need you.” Nat spoke softly.

You shook your head back and forth, “You don’t need me.”

You knew it. They knew it.

“Of course we do.” Steve insisted, “You’re a vital part of the team.”

An incredulous laugh left your lips, you couldn’t help it, “Team? What team?” Your eyes hardened, “There hasn’t been any team in a long time.”

“N/n, I know you’re hurt-“ Rogers moved as if to come closer to you.

You took a stumbling step back, an expression full of pain overcoming your face. You had thought you moved past this, with all the time you had, you really did, but seeing them again, it opened up new wounds you had thought long since closed.

“Don’t.” You spoke firmly, doing everything in your power to keep your voice from wavering.

He stilled, releasing a small sigh through his nose.

“There’s a threat,” He spoke from afar, “Far greater than anything any of us have ever faced. And he’s coming here. We need your help to stop him.”

“What kind of threat?” As hurt as you were, you still felt as if it was your responsibility to protect the world, and you couldn’t just back away after hearing that it was in danger.

“His name is Thanos.” Nat informed you, hesitantly taking a small step forward, continuing when you didn’t flinch away, “A lot of us are going to Wakanda to hold him off, he’s trying to get to the mind stone.”

“Vision?”

True, you had both been on opposite sides of the fight in Germany, but that didn’t mean you didn’t still care about him.

The nod of confirmation you received from both of them was enough to make you suck in a breath.

“He’s dangerous, we can’t let him get that stone.” Steve spoke.

Finally, you locked eyes with the blond man, taking a moment before speaking again, “Fine, I’m in.”

You would be fighting with the Avengers again. Side by side with your family, having each other's backs and looking out for one another. Just like the way things used to be. The way things should be.

Nat smiled softly, taking the final step to reach you before lifting her hand and gently cupping your cheek, “You’ve grown up so much.”

Subconsciously, you leaned into her touch before bringing your arms gently around her for a long overdue hug.

After her, you moved to hug Steve too, biting down on your bottom lip to try and stop the incoming tears, “I’m sorry.” You whispered.

“You have nothing to be sorry for.” He reassured you softly, knowing exactly what you were apologizing for, “You left because it was the right thing for you to do.”

They ushered you into the Quinjet they brought to get you shortly after, and you finally piped up again once you set a course for Wakanda, “How did you find me, anyway?”

Natasha briefly looked over her shoulder at you, “We tracked you down shortly after you left, but knew that we needed to give you your space for as long as we could.”

You swallowed, “Oh,”

“Tony knew where you were too,” She explained, “He kept tabs on you.”

Your eyebrows furrowed, “He knew where I was but he didn’t have me arrested again?”

Steve looked at you, “You know he never wanted to do that to you in the first place.

You nodded slightly, you did know.

Slight embarrassment took over you though, you thought you had been good at covering your tracks, but apparently not against an assassin and billionaire.

After a while, the quinjet landed and the three of you exited. You sucked in a sharp breath when you saw Wanda, Bruce, Vision, T’Challa, and Bucky all standing near the ship, smiling welcomingly at you.

Though you didn’t know Bucky or T’Challa that well, you gave the former a small hug in greeting and the former a polite wave before moving to tightly hug Wanda, Bruce, and Vision.

“It’s good to see you guys,” You said after pulling away.

Wanda smiled, “It’s good to see you too, n/n.”

“I hate to interrupt,” The king of Wakanda did in fact sound very guilty, “But we must be going.”

“Y/n, I want you to stay here with Wanda and Vision, help protect the stone.” Steve addressed you, and you nodded in affirmation.

So there you stood, watching with a worried expression from the windows as your team along with hundreds of Wakandan soldiers marched into battle.

You cast a glance at Wanda after a few moments, “I can’t just stand by and watch.” You whispered.

She smiled, nodding and reaching over to squeeze your shoulder, as if she had been expecting you to say that, “I know,” She admitted before nodding her head out the window, “Go. We’ll be fine.”

After one last bit of hesitation, you spun on your heel and took off running outside, joining in on the fight that had already begun. Your first fight back as an Avenger.

When they do I'll be right behind you

Not once, but twice your team had been ripped apart. Once by their own undoing and once from the hands of Thanos. You didn’t know which hurt more.

What had happened? What had made the universe decide to leave you alive and well while half of the Avengers- half of the universe- got snapped to mere dust and blown out of existence?

How cruel could the world be that you were forced to sit there, screaming and crying until your throat was raw as you watched your family be teared away from you while you sat back, completely unharmed?

You should never have left Wanda in the first place, you should have stayed like Steve had specially told you to to protect the stone. Everything might have turned out differently if you had.

You didn’t know how long you had been there, collapsed in a heap on the ground in the spot right next to where Wanda had gotten snapped away and Vision's dead body lay off to the side, until Natasha and Steve had broken through the trees, eyes frantically searching every which way.

When her gaze landed on you, the woman let out a breath of relief and rushed to your side, falling to her knees and scooping you up into her arms, holding you tightly against her.

So you sat there, hands desperately grasping at her clothing and cried into her chest while she rubbed your back up and down, tears of her own swimming in her eyes.

“I know, I know.” She spoke gently, rocking you both back and forth.

Steve dropped onto his knees beside the two of you, a look of pure exhaustion and despair on his face as his tearful, devastatingly blue eyes locked with your own orbs.

“I’m sorry,” He whispered as if it was his fault. A million different apologies laying behind his eyes.

I’m sorry for dragging you back into this. I’m sorry that we lost. I’m sorry I couldn’t stop him. I’m sorry-

You threw yourself into his arms, wrapping your own around his neck and continuing your crying as he hugged you back tightly.

You had lost.

So glad we've almost made it

“It’s my fault.”

It had been five years since that day in Wakanda. Since half the universe had been erased from existence.

Only twenty days after the battle, a woman named Carol had showed up with a ship that held none other than Tony Stark, a man you thought to have been snapped away with everyone else.

You, along with Nat, had lived in the compound, desperately trying to keep together a world that was no longer there.

It was almost always quiet, nothing to report, nothing going on in the world. Most of your days consisted of sitting around with Nat, waiting for something that might never happen.

The woman looked up from her breakfast at you in surprise, “What do you mean?” She asked.

You sighed, this was the first time you were going to open up to her about the guilt that had been eating away at you about what had happened.

“I left Wanda and Vision,” You whispered, eyes clouding over with sadness. You learned long ago that you had almost no tears left in your body to cry. “Even after Steve specifically told me to stay and protect the stone, I left them and Thanos got to them.”

Nat looked startled, never had she thought you were blaming yourself in that way. Sure, everyone that hadn’t been blipped felt some form of responsibility for what happened, but after all this time, how could she not have noticed just how much of the burden you took upon yourself?

“That wasn’t your fault,” She spoke immediately, “Nothing about that was your fault. Thanos would have gotten what he wanted, whether you were there or not.”

You quieted after that, neither of you bringing the conversation up again, allowing the day to pass without mention of it again.

Pretty soon though, Steve showed up, Scott following shortly after- a man who had supposedly been blipped away.

The three of you were quick to usher him in and demand that he explained himself, only to come to the realization that for the first time in five years, a tiny flicker of hope was set off within you. For the first time in five years, there may be a chance to set everything right. To bring everyone back.

Only one thing was left to do, you all had to pay a visit to Tony and convince him to go along with the plan.

Almost right after getting back, Tony had slipped away, and you let him, figuring he just needed a little time, but you hadn’t seen him a single time in these five years. The only form of communication going between the two of you was the occasional text to make sure the other was doing alright.

You took a deep breath, stepping out of the car and gently closing the door behind you, taking in the sight of Tony’s house, which- even in the middle of nowhere- was beautiful.

The man stopped walking on his porch when he caught sight of the group of you, and the two of you briefly made eye contact before you watched him break it and heave out a sigh.

You all walked up to him, and he pulled you in for a hug, planting a quick kiss on the side of your head before turning to address everyone else, “What is it?” He cut right to the chase.

So Scott began explaining it to him- everything you had been told earlier.

“In Layman's terms, it means you're not coming home.” Tony sighed, running a hand down his face.

“I did.” Scott argued.

“No, you accidentally survived.” Tony immediately shot back, “It's a billion to one cosmic fluke. And now you wanna pull off a... What do you call it?”

“A time heist?” You offered- no doubt- unhelpfully.

Nat looked down to hide her smirk at your words.

“Yeah, a time heist. Of course, why didn't we think of this before? Oh, because it's laughable? Because it's a pipedream?” Tony’s sarcastic words had a bite to them.

Your amusement, along with Natasha’s, immediately dropped and you averted your eyes to the ground.

“The stones are in the past. We can go back and get them.” Scott never gave up, you would give him that.

“We can snap our own fingers.” Nat continued.

“We can bring everyone back.” You whispered, eyes lifting to meet Tony’s, and you saw the briefest flicker of hesitation for the first time since arriving.

Then, all at once, the hesitation was gone and the incredulousness was back, “Or screw it up worse than he already has, right?”

“I don't believe we would.” Steve sounded like he truly believed his words, and that made you feel better.

You began tuning the rest out after that, when they still kept bickering back and forth. It was bringing back too many memories of the Accords.

“Tony,” Steve spoke softly, “I get it. And I'm happy for you, I really am. But this is a second chance.”

“I got my second chance right here, Cap. I can't roll the dice again. If you don't talk shop, you can stay for lunch.” He seemed genuinely sad.

Everyone turned to leave, but Tony called to you, making you pause, “N/n, wait up.”

You exchanged one glance with Nat before pulling yourself to a halt and letting the others part way and you turned to Tony.

“I really am sorry,” He said, “I just can’t risk it.”

You smiled a soft, understanding smile, and reached over to squeeze his hand, “I know, Tony, it’s alright.”

He shook his head, averting his eyes, “It’s not that I don’t want to bring them back- of course I do. I would do anything to be with them again, but I refuse to let my family become in danger because of it.”

“Tony,” He turned his gaze back to you, “Don’t worry about it, we’ll figure out another way.”

He bit down on his bottom lip before slowly nodding his head and letting his hand drop from yours, “Alright.”

With one last smile, you turned yet again to go, but he stopped you again.

“N/n?” You turned your head, “You’re always welcome here- always.”

So sad they had to fade it

You couldn’t believe it, you could hardly breathe as your head whipped around in shock.

For the first time in five years, tears of happiness and relief instead of despair and regret filled your eyes as all around you, Wakandan soldiers, Avengers- your family- that had all been snapped away filed out of portals every which way, joining you, Steve, Thor, and Tony to fight against Thanos and his army.

You could have sobbed in relief when your eyes landed on Wanda, Bucky, T’Challa, Stephen, Sam, and so many more of the ones you lost came to stand by your side, all looking exactly as they did the day they were torn away.

You didn’t even get to reunite with any of them though, as everyone began charging forward and beginning the fight.

More than anything, you wished that Nat was still there with you, that she hadn’t sacrificed herself for that damned stone and she could see that she hadn’t given up hope for nothing. That what she had died for was worth it- it was all worth it. Everyone was back and it was all because of her, because of her sacrifice.

Forcing those thoughts out of your mind, you purposefully shifted your attention so you could focus solely on the fight at hand.

Immediately, you placed a force field around yourself as a Chitauri lunged at you, stumbling slightly at the sheer force it used as it continued to claw at you, before you quickly thrust your hands out, sending it flying backwards into some other nearby aliens. They all went tumbling to the ground upon impact.

That continued, Chitauri after Chitauri, before another one coming at you was swiftly thrown to the side by a familiar red wisp of light. The same kind you never knew if you were going to see again.

Your head quickly whipped to the side where Wanda stood, eyes glowing red and hand outstretched.

Choking back on a sob, you dropped all your defenses and flew across the couple of yards separating you and jumped into her arms, pulling yourself tightly against her.

“Wands…” You cried, hugging her as tightly as you could despite the ongoing battle around the two of you.

“Hi,” She breathed out, hugging you with the same amount of desperation that you held her with and you quickly realized why.

For you, it had been five years. For her, it had been just over five minutes. Five minutes since she was forced to kill Vision, the man she loved, and lost against Thanos.

When you pulled away, you caught T'Challa's eye, who was only a short distance away, and exchanged a nod of greeting with him.

“We’ll catch up later,” She moved to cup your cheek and look you in the eyes before placing a gentle kiss against your forehead, “Be careful.”

You smiled, leaning into her touch, “You too.”

Quickly, you spun on your heel and rushed off, taking down soldiers left and right.

“My, my, that’s an interesting talent.”

For a brief second, you froze before turning to face Thanos, the person responsible for every piece of pain you had felt in the last five years.

His unnerving eyes were trained solely on you, and you couldn’t help but feel a wave of rage hit you and you let out a scream, charging at the man with outstretched arms, immediately encompassing him in an unbreakable force field.

Thanos’s eyes flickered with surprise and he swung his sword out to your shield, only for it to bounce back and narrowly missing his arm.

Slowly, you moved your hands together, making the shield shrink around his large frame in the process, forcing him to condense his body to try and fit the space growing increasingly smaller and smaller. It would only be a matter of seconds before it crushed him entirely.

You made the fatal mistake of being too distracted with extracting your revenge that you hadn’t noticed the Chitauri that was creeping behind you until it tackled you to the ground.

A small scream escaped your lips as you went crashing against the hard floor and Thanos smirked as your concentration was dropped, bringing your shields down with it. He rose to his full height and stalked over to you, picking you up by the neck, effectively cutting off your airway.

You began gasping for breath immediately, trying to thrash around in his hold, trying to do anything to make him drop you as your feet barely even touched the ground.

Dots began to dance around your vision and you could tell that it was all about to go black in less than a second, before the hand swiftly dropped you, and you fell into a heap on the ground, coughing violently.

“Lady Y/n!” Thor immediately sank to your side on the ground, “Are you alright?”

Steve and Tony, who- along with Thor- had knocked Thanos off of you, continued to go after him, hitting him with blast after hit in hopes of making any sort of damage.

With one last cough, you took a gasping breath and shakily looked up at Thor, “I’m alright.” Your voice was scratchy and you moved to stand up.

The man’s eyebrows furrowed and he gently held you down, “You are in no state to go on with this fight.”

Your eyes widened, “But, Thor-“

You cut yourself off as you caught sight of something over his shoulder, and you paled further than you thought as possible, becoming nauseated.

“I am inevitable.” Thanos’s voice traveled and he snapped his fingers.

You tensed, eyes immediately whipping around as you looked for any sign of yourself or others to be dusted.

But nothing happened, and your gaze slowly dragged over to where Tony was, collapsed to his knees on the ground, and a scream left your lips at what you saw.

His was in physical pain as energy surged through him from all six of the infinity stones sitting on his armor, and he briefly made eye contact with you.

It’s okay, is what his eyes so desperately tried to relay to you.

Tony Stark turned back to Thanos with a hard look, “And I… an Iron Man.”

He snapped.

Everybody wants to rule the world

Pepper walked by all of you with a sad smile, tightly grasping onto Morgan’s hand as they went by.

You were frozen, stuck with a stiff form as you watched the woman placed a wreath memorial to Tony in the lake. It was a small tribute to the man, it had his first arc reactor placed in it.

Everyone stood around you, tears of their own laying unshed in their eyes, only for a few of them to drop when Pepper took in a sharp breath and stepped back.

You were yet to move, even after everyone had slowly disbanded and began muttering amongst themselves, you just stared at the wreath as it moved slowly from side to side in the rippling waves.

All at once you had lost Tony and Natasha. The first two people to introduce you to your new life as an avenger. You lost two family members at the same time and you were so numb inside that you could hardly feel much of anything.

The numbness had come after the searing pain that had taken place in your chest at their loss, now nothing but a dull sting that you knew was bound to come back in full swing at any moment.

“Hey, kid.” Clint greeted gently, coming over to stand beside you.

You couldn’t even manage a hum of acknowledgment.

Wanda moved up to your other side, extanching a glance with Hawkeye as she did so. But you paid no mind to their concerned looks.

Wordlessly, the woman wrapped her arm around your shoulder and pulled you to your chest, perhaps trying to comfort and receive that same comfort.

It dawned on you suddenly, something you had never thought about before that moment.

After everything you had gone through all these years, you were nowhere close to being the same girl that had first wandered into Avengers Tower in awe.

You were older, wiser. You were stronger, more broken.

For so long, you had been scared of change, of everything and everyone you had loved moving on from the times that you were a happy family, fighting side by side. All while you were completely unaware that that life was almost nonexistent. It had gone on for a little while, then disappeared through your fingers while you so desperately kept trying to cling onto it. Unaware that all you were holding onto was empty air.

We Are Groot 🤎- @lovanitu @jvdethirlwall @ineedmorefanfics2 @sambucky8 @spidyyparker @irethepotato @femalemarvelself @mukbee @its-hell @ip747 @i-writes-things @popfishjr @mitsuki-murakami @mythixmagic @ladyagagaslefttoe @etanordoesbullsh1t @wolfmoonmusic @nutellani @hyunzrii @kiyomi-uchiha777

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heliads · 1 year

Text

One Mission

Based on this request: "can you do an avengers x teen!reader where the reader is 14 and the avengers don’t want her to go on a mission and they get kidnapped and she saves them"

masterlist

It is impossibly cruel to put a girl such as yourself in a position such as this and expect her to do absolutely nothing at all, yet that is the predicament you find yourself in at the moment. The Avengers had always been a far-fetched dream of yours, some golden vision verging on paradise. It seemed as if all of your problems would be solved the second you stepped foot in Avengers Tower and could call yourself a part of the team.

After a year of official Avengers status, however, you think you’d factor in a new and wholly important clause to such a declaration. It is beyond wonderful to be a part of the Avengers, of course, but only when they actually let you do things. Things to do would include being able to train with the other agents without them being terrified of hurting you, not having Tony bring up the fact that you should be doing your homework every other hour, and oh, you know, being able to actually go on missions like you were meant to do in the first place.

Truth be told, it’s been wearing on you for a while. You know you shouldn’t complain. A thousand kids would kill for a chance like this. You’ve lost track of the number of times your friends from school have begged you to let them walk around Avengers Tower, or meet Black Widow, or experience any one of the countless little details that makes up life on the team. You mention a team bonding Monopoly session once and they’re practically turning green. From jealousy, not rage, of course. They may adore Bruce Banner with all their hearts, but not enough to try and emulate his career path.

You are happy with the Avengers, truly you are. They go out of their way to make sure you’re having a good time. You think they feel guilty in some part for what has become of you. You became an inhuman after a freak accident, and now you’re stuck with the weird life you lead. You’d be lying if you said that the Avengers didn’t hold themselves responsible in at least some way.

After all, if they’re supposed to be protecting the world from unusual activity like what gave you powers, what happened to you should never have happened at all. Even if they weren’t aware of the incident at the time, their lapse in being able to keep the entire world population safe led to you never being able to lead a normal human life again.

Obviously, the logic is a bit lacking there, but that’s what they feel nonetheless. You’ve made your peace with your newfound extraordinary abilities, but you might be the only one. It feels like some days you’ll only ever be a poster child for what happens when the Avengers don’t commit to their job and follow all the rules. They slip up, people get hurt, and that includes kids like you.

That’s not the way you see it, of course, but the fact remains. The Avengers treat you like you’re a window of stained glass– wonderful, to be sure, bright and cheerful, but breakable at the slightest touch. When you first joined the team, you were filled with hopes about doing missions all the time, proving yourself to be as valuable as you saw yourself.

It’s been about a year now since your first day, and that dream has been swiftly crushed underfoot. You think you’ve gone on about two missions total, and given the fact that opportunities for such assignments seem to come up at least once a week if not more, that number’s a little disappointing, to say the least.

You’ve brought this up with Tony and Steve and the rest about a thousand times, but they say the same things every single instance they can. You’re too young, too experienced. The real world out there isn’t going to be pulling their punches like your instructors. You point to that as a reason that your teachers should stop babying you so you can be ready for what will actually come your way, but they just shake their heads and laugh. Maybe when you’re older, you can join the team on their missions. Until then, you’re going to be left behind, abandoned to the intermittent radio reports and the thrill of looking over the shoulders of the S.H.I.E.L.D. teams hired to watch the team’s progress.

Obviously it gnaws at you. Being told to wait is infuriating, especially given the fact that you’ve already done a year of it. All of these people are on this team because they started too young, because they were forced to confront the world and its injustices far too early. You know they’re just trying to protect you from what they had to go through, but you’ve already faced your fire and brimstone beginning. There’s no way you can leave this life, so you might as well commit to it, right?

That’s what you tell yourself, at least. It still burns like acid at the back of your throat when the Avengers bring up their latest missions. They talk about it over meals and in the halls. Every word seems to strike you like a paper airplane launched by a coming-of-age movie villain, the bully in class who can’t seem to leave you alone. Every single moment spent in the Avengers complex reminds you of the fact that they’re not going to trust you to actually do your job until you’re too old and jaded to care about going on missions anymore. All you wanted to do was save the world. Surely your own team shouldn’t be getting in the way of that, right?

The Avengers are heading out again this morning. There’s a HYDRA base tucked away in the mountains somewhere, another one in a string of what feels like hundreds. You cut off one head and two shall take its place, indeed. This excursion should be at least a little more exciting than normal– you’ve heard there’s an inhuman on the enemy base, one given to leaving S.H.I.E.L.D. agents mangled and bloody whenever someone tries to rid the complex of HYDRA foes.

That’s why the team has been called in. As per usual, you begged to be allowed to go along, and as per usual, you were denied. It’s too dangerous, obviously. They do take pity on you and allow you to ride in the Quinjet with them to the base, but only after extracting promises from all the agents on board that you won’t be allowed to leave the ship, which will be parked very far away from the scene of the drama. It’s a terrible compromise, but it makes the other Avengers feel like they’re not locking you up in the tower, so it’s going to have to do for now.

Sighing, you adjust your earpiece and watch the holographic display of their progress along with the other agents. The team left the Quinjet about half an hour ago and are on the edge of the HYDRA base now, just making their way inside. They had to take out a few patrols along the way, but no alarms have gone off quite yet.

This tentative peace is blown once they step foot inside the walls, however. The base, supposedly only half occupied, is practically full to bursting with enemy agents. You watch as your team launches themselves at the waves of HYDRA forces gunning for them, occasional radio transmissions crackling through your earpiece with calls for aid and directions to head towards a nearby source of shelter from the endless waves of bullets spiraling their way.

The Avengers are able to fight their way into a nearby radio control room and bar the door, but it’s clear that the situation isn’t good. If they can make their way into a central control room a few halls down, they can shut down the base, but that’s going to take a lot of luck.

Luck which, by the way, they don’t seem to have. The Avengers rally and force their way back into the surrounding corridors, but they only make it halfway to the control room before they’re greeted with a new, certainly not friendly, face. The HYDRA inhuman is a menace, you can tell that from the blurry camera streams if not the collection of curses that ricochet through the team comms. The guy is massive, his head practically touching the ceiling as he glowers down at the Avengers. When he raises his hands, he can conjure up a tower of fire just as tall as him that rushes down the hall towards your team.

The Avengers give it their all, but when they’re so severely outnumbered in such cramped quarters, there isn’t a whole lot they can do. They’re taken alive, at least, and marched to a row of cells in the basement of the HYDRA base. The last thing you hear before the comms lose their signal is that HYDRA was expecting them, and that’s that.

You stare at the other agents, who all seem to be in a similar state of shock. The Avengers don’t mess up, they just don’t. They never lose. This is stunning.

A thought occurs to you, the only solution. “You have to send me in.”

The agent in charge of monitoring the mission shakes her head. “Not a chance. We swore to Tony that we’d keep you safe.”

“And Tony’s doing such a great job of keeping the rest of the team safe, isn’t he? Look, you heard what they said. HYDRA was expecting the Avengers, now they’ve got them locked up. They don’t think anyone else is coming, certainly not me. We have to hit now while they still think they have time before S.H.I.E.L.D. comes to collect. Let me go,” you reason.

The agents exchange glances. “It’s not a bad plan,” one of them admits at last, “but I think you’re missing the point that the rest of the Avengers couldn’t get in. What makes you think that you can do it all by yourself?”

“Easy,” you declare, “I’ve got something to prove.”

They don’t seem to like that as a battle plan, but seeing as losing the Avengers would look really, really bad in a mission report, the agents eventually sigh and agree to let you out. No one wants to be the one to call Director Fury and admit that the other Avengers are all sitting pretty in HYDRA cells, so letting the resident teenager handle the problem sounds good to the rest of them.

It sounds good to you, too. You brought your armor in the off chance that everyone might come to their senses and let you on the mission, so you’re able to be ready in a matter of minutes. You’re given a live camera and your comms are double checked, and then you’re off, hurrying through the surrounding area on the way to rescue your team.

Despite the pressing danger, you can’t stop a delighted grin from crossing your face. This is what you’ve always wanted, a chance to prove that you can do this, you can take part in the missions. They’ve been doubting you all this time, and now you’re on your way to save them all from certain doom. Sure, the situation isn’t looking great right now, but you can at least admit that this feels pretty freaking fantastic.

Your hunch was spot on, and when you scale the walls of the HYDRA complex, you’re pleased to note that the waves of enemy agents that had been waiting for the Avengers to arrive are nowhere to be seen. They’re all inside, toasting the fact that they’ve been able to do the impossible and capture the Avengers. Your uniform is nondescript, so you’re able to slip inside so long as you just walk around like you’re supposed to be there.

Sticking to the shadows, you make your way down to the cells in the basement. You haven’t run into the HYDRA inhuman yet, which is great, although you have no doubt that he’s lurking about somewhere. Until then, all you can do is head slowly but surely to where the Avengers are being held. You do have to take out a fair amount of guards, but you’re able to shove their bodies into storage closets and smaller rooms without being noticed. The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents on the other line are able to talk you through the conflicts without too much trouble.

Before you know it, you’re rounding the corner in the cell block and there they are, the team behind bars. They haven’t noticed you yet, and you give yourself a moment to treasure this victory before you make yourself known by knocking out the guards in front of their cells.

You catch the Avengers’ attention the second you spring into action. In a matter of seconds, you’re nonchalantly dusting off your hands after taking out the half dozen guards previously posted in the cell block. The Avengers stand slowly, at first unable to believe their eyes.

“Kid,” Steve says slowly, “what are you doing?”

You just grin. “Saving you. I thought it was obvious.”

Nat chuckles. “You have to hand it to her, Rogers, she couldn’t have better timing.”

“Actually,” Clint says, staring at something behind you, “I think she could have gotten here just a few minutes earlier. That probably would have been better.”

You turn to see what he’s staring at and bite back a few choice words. The HYDRA inhuman must be able to add a superior sixth sense to his list of abilities, because he’s chosen this very moment to come check in on the prisoners. He starts for a moment when he sees you, clearly not expecting anyone else to be down here, but soon enough he’s raising his palms, ready to torch you to smithereens.

You, however, aren’t particularly fond of being reduced to ashes, so you charge up your own inhuman abilities and prepare yourself for a fight. The thing about HYDRA’s resident inhuman is that he’s not used to losing. After all, the guy just took down the Avengers a short time earlier. He’s on his home turf and feeling utterly unbeatable.

All this means to you is that you have to be the one to show him what’s what. HYDRA’s inhuman has prepared himself for an easy victory, so he strolls towards you casually, not too worried about what’s about to happen. That’s his mistake. When you get in the first hit, the enemy inhuman has to take a moment to realize what’s happened. His mental game comes crashing down in a heap, and suddenly he’s not fighting to win, just to survive. Just like you.

You’re not going to say the fight is easy, because it isn’t. You certainly take a fair amount of blows, and hearing the gasps of the Avengers behind you only serves as a reminder of how bad things are getting. However, failure isn’t an option, not for you. When the battle ends, you’re the one who’s still standing, and so you’re the one who gets to limp over to the cells and unlock your friends.

The Avengers look stunned, probably because you just took out the villain by yourself when they couldn’t do it as a team.

At last, Thor breaks the ice. “Excellent work, Y/N.”

Bruce nods quickly. “Yeah, that was great.”

“Great enough to let me start doing missions?” You ask pointedly.

The Avengers share significant glances, and then Tony chuckles. “Yeah, kid. Don’t let it go to your head, but yeah. You just saved all of us from certain doom, I think that’s grounds enough for a promotion.”

You break into a beaming grin. “Really?”

“Really,” Steve says, “you earned it. Now come on, let’s get out of here before HYDRA decides to check in on us.”

As your ragged group leaves the cell block, you feel like you’re lighter than air. This couldn’t be a better first mission, and judging by your success today, it won’t be the last. Nothing could make you happier.

requested by @luvherfairy, i hope you enjoy!

marvel tag list: @thatfangirl42, @rogueanschel, @mycosmicparadise, @ellobruv, @caswinchester2000, @with-inked-solace, @sher-lokid7, @amortensie, @23victoria, @watchreadfangirlrepeat, @gods-fools-heroes, @w1shes43

#avengers #avengers imagines #avengers x reader #avengers oneshot #marvel #marvel imagines #marvel x reader #marvel oneshot #mcu #mcu imagines #mcu x reader #mcu oneshot

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cricket-reader · 2 years

Text

Teddy

Masterlist | A03 | Wattpad | Recommendations | Inbox

Summary: The Avengers find a biological experiment from HYDRA. The problem? She’s only a child. The other problem? The thing she calls a stuffed animal will not leave her side. It can’t be that hard to separate a child from their toy, right?

Warnings: Language, HYDRA, Torture (Implied), angst, naïve (unnamed/not described) OFC

Word Count: 712

A/N: this is based on a post I found by whumpndump

Read Part Two Here

It unnerved them. It unnerved them a lot.

The fact that such a young child was in the clutches of HYDRA. Born and raised. Nothing but an experiment for them to use.

The only grant of normalcy was the stuffed animal she kept in her clutches.

She held onto that thing like it was her saving grace; in a way, it was. It was the only thing she had. The only semblance of comfort she had ever received. It stuck with her through thick and thin. Every night upon returning to her cell she would hold it tight against her lacerated skin.

It was sad, really. The poor little thing clinging onto her stuffed animal, refusing to let go—almost as if somehow it would rescue her from any danger she may encounter. Even though the creature was mangled beyond recognition, matted with blood and heaven only knows what else, she never let it out of her sight.

The Avengers shared their worries about the item. Steve and Wanda even tried to offer the girl a new one. That only led to her clutching it tighter and avoiding them so her stuffie didn’t get taken away.

There was no separating her from it.

“We have to at least wash the damn thing,” Tony grumbles, still convinced that thing is going to give someone a disease.

“She won’t let us even touch it, Stark,” Sam deadpans. “How are we supposed to get it away from her to last an entire cycle?”

“We could just wash it once she falls asleep,” Natasha suggests, taking a sip of water afterwards.

Steve shrugs, “sounds like a good enough idea. She barely moves when she hears us talking, so I’m sure she won’t even notice it being gone.”

It is movie night with the team again. This is the second time they did it with her and her Teddy. Last time Steve had to carry her sleeping figure to bed. They can only hope for the same outcome.

Much to the team’s relief, she had fallen asleep halfway through Moana.

Steve gently pried the plushie from her grasp. He silently made his way to the laundry room as the other team members left to go to bed. Putting the wash on a gentle cycle, he sighs. He’s glad that’s taken care of.

Rubbing her eyes, she takes a while to come to. The first thing she notes is that she is alone. The second thing she notes is that the television has been turned off. Yawning, she reaches down for her teddy.

Breath stopping, she frantically whips her head around. It must have fallen onto the ground. No. Maybe someone accidentally kicked it under the couch? Nope. It could have fallen in between the cushions. Yet again, her search is fruitless.

Tears welling up in her eyes, she stumbles into the kitchen. Maybe she accidentally left it here when she was watching the popcorn maker with wide-eyed fascination.

It’s nowhere to be seen.

Continuing to shuffle around the common floor, she searches for her companion. She accidentally bumps into Steve at the door to the laundry room. Shocked to see her awake, he moves his body to block her from entering the room.

Eyes squinting, she swiftly slips past his large figure to enter the laundry room.

To her horror, she finds her best friend. The stuffie is being submerged under water spinning slowly around and around and around. She can make eye contact through the clear surface blocking her from reaching it.

Collapsing to the harsh tile of the floor, she sobs. Her pleading voice sends a sharp pain through Steve’s heart. She almost has him crying too.

“Please! No! Stop hurting Teddy! She can’t breathe. Please, stop hurting her! She doesn’t deserve it—I do! Please I’ll do anything, just–just stop hurting her!”

“Sweetheart, I just-”

“-if you wanna drown someone, do it to me! She didn’t do anything wrong!”

Steve has to stop the cycle, pulling the soaking wet toy out. He couldn’t stand having to see her cry—especially because of him. Before he can even attempt to dry it, she snatches it away from him and runs.

Steve can’t even find it in him to complain about the massive trail of water she leaves behind.

Part Two ->

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bulkyphrase · 7 months

Text

Halloween Fic Recs 2023 Week 1: Gen Fic

Happy October! Here are some more scary and/or supernatural stories for your Halloween reading pleasure. This year the lists will be divided up by ship, starting with fics that don't focus on shipping!

the darkness calls us to our doom and we follow to the end by agentx13 (@agentxthirteen) (Gen, No Archive Warnings Apply, General Audiences, 10,274 words)

Summary: A young woman goes missing in the woods; her two friends report ghostly figures in their cabin and voices trying to lure them into the woods. With the park's history of rescue volunteers going missing, Steve and the team are called in to find the woman before a blizzard strikes. What they find is more powerful than they could have imagined. Separated, lost, and hunted, they might not make it out alive. Sequel to we walk the knife edge with the voices of the dead.

One More Tune Before I Die by Arukou (@arukou-arukou) (Gen, Major Character Death, Teen And Up Audiences, 7,646 words)

Summary: On the rocky shore, Tony hears and sees, but he still can't quite believe that his new beach house is haunted.

Wonderful, Wonderful by awesomesockes (@awesomesockes) (Gen, Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Teen And Up Audiences, 1,370 words)

Summary: Steve is excited to be moving into his new apartment. That is, until he meets his eccentric new neighbour: Dr. Anthony Stark, the landlord’s son.

The rest are below the cut!

The Miskatonic Project by copperbadge (@copperbadge) (Gen, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Mature, 26,451 words)

Summary: Abraham Erskine may have invented something new with the Serum -- or maybe he re-created something very old. Something...Elder. And now the elect of some very peculiar new heroes are gathering for a fight against horrors they can't even imagine yet...

Something Strange by enigma731 (@enigma731) (Gen, No Archive Warnings Apply, Teen And Up Audiences, 7,770 words)

Summary: “Heimdall detected a disturbance,” says Thor, “in the mystic energy that lies beneath this city. I’ve been tasked with investigating the threat. It seems the best way to do that is through--infiltration of some Midgardian organization. In light of the recent tensions.” That last sounds vaguely reproachful. Clint blinks, letting this news sink in. “Wait. So what you’re saying is that you need to go undercover. And you want Nat to help you?” Ghosts in New York City would be a perfectly good reason to assemble the Avengers. Too bad that team doesn't exist anymore.

Autumn Ghosts by gloria_scott (Gen, No Archive Warnings Apply, Teen And Up Audiences, 1,367 words)

Summary: After a mission, the Howling Commandos take refuge in a seemingly abandoned farmhouse - but they may not be alone.

Dollhouse by JinxQuickfoot (@jinxquickfoot) (Gen, No Archive Warnings Apply, Mature, 12,236 words)

Summary: The torture bingo card. It was an old joke that had been passed around the SHIELD agents with a darker sense of humor. Phil had disapproved. Fury had pretended not to know. Clint had joined in right away, only to find he had been able to fill out half the squares before the game had even begun, courtesy of a life of bad cards, poor decisions, and worse luck. No one was ever supposed to win. -------------------------------------- The Barton family gets an uninvited guest, and it has no intention of leaving.

A Cesspool of Pure Dread by Lauralot (@lauralot89) (Gen, No Archive Warnings Apply, Teen And Up Audiences, 4,783 words)

Summary: Rumlow doesn't have time for his teammates' idiocy on STRIKE missions. Or ghosts. He doesn't have time for ghosts either.

I Can't Believe It's Vampire Cap! by Linedragon (Sameshima_Shuzumi) (Gen, Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Teen And Up Audiences, 2,627 words)

Summary: Steve seemed less traumatized-mad-vampire than... truant schoolboy. "There wasn't much difference in body temperature. Perceptually." "Fascinating," said Bruce, trying to keep his science-boner down. "I got bored. And then I learned how to astral-project." The implications dawned, so to speak. "OH MY GOD," Tony screamed.

If I Was Gonna Haunt Somebody, It Would Be You by Linedragon (Sameshima_Shuzumi) (Gen, Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, General Audiences, 20,507 words)

Summary: A creepy house they can't leave. A blond giant who can't stay. A promise that they'll be fine if they stick together. One little problem: his name's not Bucky.

Labyrinth by Mikkeneko (@mikkeneko) (Gen, Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Mature, 68,212 words)

Summary: A strange metaphysical disturbance has taken over an isolated rural town, and it's up to the Avengers to find out what's happening and stop it before it engulfs the rest of the country. And get out alive -- if they can.

Headshots by punahukka (Gen, Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Mature, 1,597 words)

Summary: “Steve, you’ve seen these before?” “Yeah. A Hydra experiment to reuse dead troops. Tested it on civilians as well.”

Shadowplay by SummerKnight717 (Gen, Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Mature, 14,025 words)

Summary: Stephen Strange is used to bad surprises. But the worst, he has to admit, is this. When Tony Stark stumbles into the Sanctum Sanctorum with terrible news, the Sorcerer Supreme finds himself faced with a disaster that even he cannot set right...but he must.

All-American Afterlife by Zekkass (Gen, No Archive Warnings Apply, General Audiences, 4,983 words)

Summary: Bucky's been haunting Steve since he fell off the train.

The Haunting of Captain America by celeste9 (@serceleste) (Gen, No Archive Warnings Apply, General Audiences, 2,309 words)

Summary: Steve's being haunted by the ghost of his best friend. The other Avengers find out.

#marvel fic rec #halloween #gen fic

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aelaer · 1 year

Note

for the whumpy prompt list: 🎧

I don't even know if you remember submitting this babywarg, and I *know* it took 3 years, but in my defense, 2020 was a shitshow after I asked for whump icon prompts. If you don't remember, this one stood for sensory deprivation. And here's a 6k fic to fill it!

This originally started very differently, then Wong took the reins and never let go. The first two parts were deleted/moved around entirely, and Stephen's POV disappeared as Wong decided this story was going to be from his POV. I would apologise that I am using the kidnapping trope *yet again*, but I'm not that sorry, either.

So canon Endgame doesn't exist in this fic world though I don't get too much into it beyond some hints with character endings and the timeline. It's probably mid-2019 in terms of timing (no 5 year jump). I'm not sure who, if anyone, is Sorcerer Supreme because of this. I also accidentally did the "insert plot into the prompt" thing that I have a bad habit of doing and made this way long. And finally, I don't know Latin; I just used a dictionary and a conjunction table to try and make something cool.

Grem's a character from a side-issue comic that I've appropriated and who has appeared in some of my earlier works. He's "played" by Rupert Graves. With a beard.

Thanks to @coolnemmythings for betaing the majority of this and helping me brainstorm an ending because it finally pushed me into completion (more on that below).

———

Finding the Way Back Home

The Avengers found out Stephen was missing by happenstance. Peter, once he had discovered where Stephen lived, made it a habit to visit the Sanctum on what he called "slow days" when he was in the area. Wong had gotten used to him over time.

Naturally, one of his visits corresponded with when a team of sorcerers uncovered Stephen's ambush site. Normally this would be fine as official Kamar-Taj matters were discussed nowhere near Peter. Wong couldn't hear the passing conversations of the distant apprentices and acolytes in the hallway adjourning the foyer of the Sanctum, so it should have been fine. He would entertain the young man for a few minutes, tell him Stephen was busy, and then lead him out.

Just as Wong was about to give his excuses, he learned that the kid had super-hearing and that the conversation Wong couldn't hear was very, very audible to Spider-Man. It was a rather unfortunate time to discover such a fact.

And once Peter learned the news, it was just a matter of a few texts before every Avenger knew.

"We'd like to help out," Tony said, being the first to call Wong. Wong had given his number to a couple Avengers on the off-chance Stephen was wounded while working with them. He hadn't expected his number to be used in this fashion.

"Us sorcerers handle our own affairs," was Wong's gruff reply. "Besides, aren't you supposed to be retired?"

"Special occasion."

Wong said, "We're fine," hung up before Tony could retort, then sighed. Stephen would be displeased if Iron Man ended up dying after all the work he did to save him in the multiple future fiasco. He was just happy Stephen managed to get to 16 million—from what he understood, a couple other "winning" timelines were absolutely dismal on a global scale—but that was another topic altogether.

Then Tony gave out Wong's number to the others.

"It really would be no trouble," Steve said. "We consider all of you our allies after Thanos."

"You're supposed to be retired, too," was Wong's exasperated retort.

A pause. "Well, I did pass on the mantle of Captain America to Sam, sure, but that doesn't mean I don't go out in the field here and there. Just less public."

Wong hung up on him, too.

"We really would like to see him safe," was Bruce's call.

Bruce was a little harder to hang up on; he had been visiting the New York Sanctum frequently for meditation purposes, to better understand and work with the other side of his personality and come to some sort of balance with it. According to Stephen, Bruce had achieved something like this on his own in other futures, but he was certain the resources at Kamar-Taj could help him achieve this faster and with potentially better results.

Still, Bruce Banner was not a sorcerer. "I appreciate the offer, Doctor Banner, but this is a matter for our order," he told him, then hung up before the other could retort.

"It's pretty slow right now; you'd be doing everyone a favor in letting us help," Natasha admitted when she called.

Wong pulled the phone away from his face to sigh; if it weren't for the very slim chance of Stephen potentially calling him, he would have turned off the damn thing. "Weren't you supposed to retire from field work, too?"

"People like me never retire," she answered. "Think on it, Wong."

He grimaced and hung up.

"You have to let us help!" was Peter's plea. Peter had been barred from the Sanctum until the issue was settled—Wong knew that Stephen wouldn't want the kid involved—but apparently Tony Stark was more than happy to give Peter Parker his phone number, as well.

"Stephen would want you to stay out of this," he told the kid without ceremony, and hung up on him, too, though he felt a little bad doing it.

This was getting ridiculous. The other Masters had decided the Avengers shouldn't be involved, but if they had to endure what Wong was enduring, maybe they'd change their minds. Besides, the extra eyes wouldn't be a bad thing to have, at least in Wong's opinion.

By the time a sixth call from an Avenger in under an hour occurred, Wong was ready. He surrounded himself with sorcerers in the Masters' strategy room as they discussed leads and next steps, then let the phone ring.

The Masters caved in less than two hours. Part of it may have been due to the Avengers' resilience, but Wong liked to think that setting his ringtone to Beyoncé's "All The Single Ladies" helped encourage the use of outside help. They agreed that the Avengers could assist them, though they were taking absolutely no responsibility if anything untoward or deadly happened to them. The Avengers didn't seem to care about the warning, which didn't particularly surprise Wong.

The dead security cameras near the site of the ambush suggested magical tampering, which meant that every two to three Avengers was paired with one or two Masters. The tracking was long and it took everything within their power to narrow down the search to the three most likely locations out of the many that Mordo had passed through over the last year.

(They were 99% certain Mordo was behind Stephen's disappearance. For the past several months Mordo had been stealing former students' abilities to do magic—and on three occasions, ended up killing the former student instead. The Masters of Kamar-Taj had been actively hunting him down for some time, doubling down when they learned Mordo was gathering followers. That Stephen's body wasn't found instead is a miracle, but it made Wong worry as to what Mordo could possibly want with him.)

They decided to infiltrate the three chosen locations as soon as they narrowed down the list. All the Avengers that had been allowed in (eight of them sans Peter because no, Wong wasn't going to be responsible for a minor no matter how close he was to 18) were on standby and allowed themselves to be split into groups by the Masters without contest.

Wong ended up with Master Grem of the London Sanctum and Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, and Natasha Romanov—all the supposedly-retired-but-not-quite-yet Avengers. Exasperating.

Still, he couldn't say that he minded having them at his back in such an unknown situation. With a lesser sorcerer, the Order could have set monitoring wards on all the rogue sorcerers’ known locations to go off whenever another made a gateway into the area. But Mordo was one of the best and such magic would immediately alert him and his followers to the order's knowledge of their current bases and send them into hiding, and all that work of the last few months in tracking them would be lost.

The original plan, before all this, had been to track Mordo's movements for a pattern until they could ambush him and his followers. With Stephen taken, though? The time for waiting was over. Still, it was largely unknown what they would find at their assigned location—a dilapidated, Soviet-era warehouse in Eastern Europe—so having experienced company was no bad thing.

He was especially grateful for the Avengers' presence when it turned out that the warehouse was not devoid of life. Ten of Mordo's recruits (only four of whom were former students of Kamar-Taj) were present and quite willing to kill him if necessary. He and Grem alone would have been very hard-pressed. With the three Avengers helping them, the fight took only a couple minutes, the most difficult of the group being two of the rogue sorcerers that proved more creative than their counterparts.

Those that survived the fight were quickly disarmed and restrained for later questioning, and it was easy enough for Wong to push a portal around each person to the rarely-used cells of Kamar-Taj. He frowned as he considered their number; that was a significant number of recruits in what seemed to be an unimportant building.

"That's convenient," Tony said as he watched the portals take the surviving combatants.

As Wong opened and closed the portals, Grem scanned the building for any remnants of magical use, carefully scanning above and below as he slowly circled around a single point. He stilled, then squinted. "There's something in that corner office." He pointed.

Wong saw Grem, Steve, and Natasha take off to the office, then turned back to his own task. Tony Stark stayed with him to guard his back as Wong finished securing their prisoners and had the bodies of those who did not make it portalled to the morgue within Kamar-Taj.

As the last body was flown through the portal, a streak of red burst out of the corner office and onto the larger warehouse floor. Wong would recognize the Cloak of Levitation anywhere, and it currently darted to and fro about the space as if searching.

"As you can see, the Cloak's fine," Grem called as he left the office, the other two Avengers in tow. When he got closer, Wong could see the scowl on Grem's face. "But I don't think that's the only thing this building's hiding. There's something else here, Wong, but I can't see what."

"How did they manage to separate it from Stephen in the first place?" Natasha asked. "From what I've seen, that thing is quite protective of him."

"It is," Wong agreed. "But there are some complicated spells in existence that may temporarily incapacitate a relic, even one as unique as the Cloak. Mordo is a skilled enough sorcerer to perform such a spell."

Grem hissed between his teeth. He was performing another pivot on the spot as he searched the area with his third eye yet again. As he ended, he shook his head. "Nothing. We're going to need to do a more manual search, and we may need to split up to better cover ground."

Wong, though, remembered something that happened after one of the fights during the War of the Infinity Stones. "That may not be necessary," he said, and looked over to the man beside him. "Tony, you are able to scan for heat signatures with your suit, correct?"

"Sure can, Wong." Tony paused and began to scan the interior, slowly pivoting on the spot, then froze halfway through. "Basement, northeast corner. One person lying down. Looks like it's empty otherwise."

"Useful," Grem remarked as he immediately headed towards the stairs. As one they followed him, hurrying their way to the stairwell, descending to the basement, and then making a sharp left to head in the indicated direction. They encountered no one else along the way, as expected. Despite this, when Tony said, "That door up ahead," both Wong and Grem paused before they could reach it. Wong held up a hand to halt the others. The Avengers wouldn't see it, but the magic upon the door was very evident to them.

"Wards are more your thing, Wong," said Grem as he eyed the door up and down. "But even I know this is quite a piece of work. I didn't realize Mordo knew all these warding spells."

Grem was right; the warding was very intricate. It was no wonder they could not find Stephen through his magical signature alone; the spells set about the room were put in to prevent such magic from having any use. A closer study of the details within the intricacies of the design showed that any attempt to remove the wards or force one's self into the room by magic would have dire consequences for not only the caster, but the person held inside.

Wong pursed his lips together unhappily, then glanced over at the Avengers. "The wards set on this room mean I will not be able to enter, not in the usual way. Not easily."

"Do we even know if it's locked?" Natasha asked, eyeing the door up and down.

"It doesn't matter if it is or isn't. The warding includes spells against non-approved visitors touching the doorknob, and the side effects of doing so are not pleasant."

Tony's repulsor flared. "I can blast it open."

Wong shook his head. "No; too much kinetic energy. The wards might see it as spells and react negatively to you."

"Yeah, but if it's Stephen inside, I'll take my chances," Tony shot back.

"The same consequences that fall upon you also happen to the individual contained within," Wong said, and he heard the man hiss in frustration.

"I hear you," Grem muttered in sympathy. "Wong, your dispelling is faster; how long do you think it would take you to remove all these wards?"

Wong shook his head. "Hours, likely. Too long of a time for my comfort." Behind him, he heard Grem mutter a curse under his breath.

Steve stared at the door thoughtfully. "So we don't want to touch the doorknob, but we can't blast it with firepower. What about just—knocking the door off its hinges?"

Again Wong shook his head. "I can't use magic against the door to do so."

"No, I mean, I can do it," Steve clarified. "Just brute force, no firepower. It would be a lot less kinetic energy than a repulsor blast and I won't touch the doorknob."

Grem looked sidelong at Wong. "I don't see anything in the wards that would react negatively to that scenario. I don't think the average person could knock this down, but they weren't expecting us to bring anyone else."

Wong studied over the wards once more himself, and brute force that didn't have enough energy to be mistaken as magic was not warded against. "I think that may be our best shot," he agreed.

"Then step back," Steve said, and the team gave him some room.

The Cloak, on the other hand, continued to hover closely beside Steve with an urgency that Wong wouldn't have known was possible on a piece of fabric before seeing the Cloak with Stephen.

"Cloak," Wong said. As it turned to him, he told it, "You can't enter the room. That warding could do you serious harm." The Cloak stiffened, as if offended by the suggestion. Wong resisted the urge to roll his eyes and gestured to it. "Come on. Stephen would be very upset if you got hurt."

That Cloak remained stiff and unmoving for another three seconds, but Wong gestured again and its shoulders slumped in resignation and it moved itself beside Wong.

Steve then put himself in a braced position. He had a shield—not the iconic Captain America shield, but a smaller black one that was more rectangular in form—and used that in his lead up run towards the door to force it open with his shoulder.

The door flew open and Wong watched Steve—and Tony, who immediately followed—carefully for any side effects. When none happened, he spared a quick glance at Grem.

"I'll keep a watch out here," Grem said quickly. Natasha nodded in agreement and moved her gaze down the hall.

Wong inclined his head, again told the Cloak, "Stay out here," then followed the other two men in. He immediately felt when he was cut off from his magic by the wards and grimaced at the foreign wrongness of the feeling. But he could still sense the wards, so at least Stephen would have hopefully realized that he was in a warded cell rather than drained of magic.

Speaking of.

The room was mostly bare except for a cot, a chair, and an IV pole in the corner. Laying on his back on the cot was Stephen, stripped of his outer clothing and left with only his tunic and pants. His upper left arm's sleeve was cut off and the arm itself was bandaged, while further down an IV tube was connected to his forearm. A neat line of stitches crossed over his left temple, and some sort of feeding tube was inserted into one of his nostrils and taped down to his face. Both lines led to the IV pole, which held what looked like saline and a bag that Wong guessed was used for tube feeding.

Steve slowly approached the bed. "That noise should have woken him up. Is one of these lines drugging him?"

"Possibly," said Tony, "But this doesn't look drugged. I'm getting really weird readings on his vitals."

Feeling unusually bare without the connection to his magic, Wong approached the bed with the same caution as he asked Tony, "What are you seeing?"

"Elevated heart rate just under 120 bpm, and—" He paused as if listening to something, then said, "Right, the suit can't quite scan brainwaves of other people to the detail of an EEG—yet—but I can get a good picture. FRIDAY's saying that it looks like the brain of someone awake, not someone drugged or asleep."

"Does that mean he can hear us?" Steve asked.

"That means he'll be pissed we're talking about brain stuff without his contributions," was Tony's remark, but his tone fell flat. Suddenly his helmet disintegrated away as the nanites retreated from his face, and he turned his attention from Stephen to Wong. "What're we doing here, Wong? Is this magic or something else?"

A good question. "I won't be able to find out here," Wong answered, then strode forward and carefully removed the cannulas from both Stephen's nose and arm. "Grem, do you see anything on Stephen that prevents him being removed from here?" he called as he worked.

Beyond the warding of the room at the open doorway, Grem performed a gesture before tapping his own forehead. He squinted. "Nothing I can see, Wong. They weren't expecting anyone to get through the door or enter the room through a portal. You can carry him out."

Wong nodded once, then frowned down at Stephen's tall, lanky body. He looked at Steve and Tony. "I don't suppose one of you could—"

"Got it," Tony volunteered, and Wong stepped aside as the other man bent down and carefully picked Stephen up. The way Stephen's body remained utterly limp made something clench in Wong's stomach.

He's alive. Stop it.

They left the room soon after that. The second they were out the Cloak was fretting about Tony back and forth from side to side, and in the hall Grem already had a portal set up and ready. But it led to the infirmary at Kamar-Taj.

"No, his room at the Sanctum," Wong said.

Grem frowned, but closed the portal. "Why?" he asked as he started up another.

"You know he's not fond of being in the infirmary. He complains that it's 'too open.'"

"That was before shit hit the fan and everything changed," Grem answered and, well, Wong knew that Stephen had changed significantly in ways he still hadn't come to full terms with. It hadn't been that long since he had Returned, not really. What was eight months, after all? But he hadn't gotten Stephen's opinion since, so, his bedroom.

The portal opened in the hall now led to Stephen's chambers in the Sanctum, which was a sizable bedroom with an ensuite bathroom. The Sanctum had sensed Stephen's love of the dramatic when it had formed this room for its Master when he was first instated there: the building had installed a bedroom with dark mahogany furniture with intricate carvings and delicate curves around the edges, with even the computer desk and bookshelves not being spared the finery. The star of the bedroom was the ostentatious four post king-sized bed with a top canopy and a cream-colored comforter that had red accents with a design that resembled the embroidery on the Cloak of Levitation.

Now that he thought of it, the motifs on the furniture looked similar to the faded design in the checkered lining of the Cloak, too. Interesting. He spared them no further thought as he walked in and flicked on the light switch from across the room, bathing the dim room in a golden light.

Tony lowered Stephen into his bed as Grem and Natasha entered last, and the portal closed in behind them. The Cloak immediately lowered itself over Stephen once he was laying down. Wong, in turn, started casting what Stephen liked to call 'diagnostic spells' and ever since he said it, the term had stuck in Wong's mind. That was largely what they were: spells that identified what was wrong with the body and spirit, and so could aid a sorcerer in narrowing down the possibilities in what was happening to the person and if it was magical, multidimensional, or mundane in nature.

"I'm not quite sure what I was imagining for a sorcerer's bedroom, but I don't think I was expecting the computer," Natasha said.

"Why not? He has a phone," Steve asked.

"That Tony gave him," she answered.

"You should have seen the brick he was carrying around before," Tony complained. "And if that hadn't drowned in the Hudson, I'm not sure if he would've taken mine. I had to nearly threaten him."

"We find email quite handy, actually," Grem said. "And I really love the Google suite. Calendar, Docs, Sheets."

Tony cracked a smile. "So wizards do their business over Google's servers, huh?"

Grem winked in reply. "Wouldn't you like to know." He cast a look at Wong. "I'll let the others know that we've found him. I warrant they've seen the cells and morgue by now, but I'll double check on that. I'll send an apprentice to wait in the hall in case you need a runner." Wong only grunted in reply. With a quick, "Thanks for your help, mates," Grem made a portal and left the room.

It took a few minutes of various spells and analysis, but eventually Wong came upon an answer as to what was keeping Stephen unconscious—and he felt his heart drop into his stomach as the realization came. His poker face fell and he murmured, "Oh, Stephen." But he banished the sorrow quickly; such an emotion wouldn't help Stephen. Instead, his face became stone as he began to bark orders. "One of you needs to get the lights; make it as dark in here as possible. When I remove this spell from him, I need you all to be as quiet as possible, and if you must speak, do so in a whisper."

Natasha's loose stance immediately stiffened and she took a step closer to the bed to look again at Stephen. She pursed her lips as the rest of her face hardened. "Sensory deprivation?"

"Unlike anything you can imagine," Wong answered grimly.

Steve was now frowning. "Do you think he was like this the entire time? How long was he missing?"

"Between thirty to thirty-six hours," answered Wong, already starting the preparations for the removal spells. They would take a couple minutes to fully set up. "I don't know how long they have kept him under this spell. If it has been for that full length of time, just note that he might not—be fully in his right mind."

"Then we should give him some room," Tony said, with a note of sympathy that admittedly startled Wong. Before he could make anything further of it, however, Tony was already ushering the other two away. "We'll wait in the hall, Wong."

Steve's expression was clearly one of worry as he walked away, Tony's prodding quickly understood. "We'll be here if you need anything." He flicked off the light switch as they left, and the door softly closed behind them.

Wong slowly exhaled and looked at the Cloak. "Up," he ordered. The Cloak raised its collar, but like the stubborn, fickle thing it was, didn't obey immediately. Wong didn't have time for this. "If you don't want to hurt Stephen, you'll get off immediately and wait until you're given permission to touch him again," he snapped, his anxiety for his friend making him shorter than usual.

That did the trick. The Cloak lifted itself, albeit reluctantly, and set itself hovering on the other side of the bed instead. That was fine.

Everything would be fine. Stephen would be fine. Wong forced himself to take a deep breath once again.

As he performed the last of the preparations for the spell's removal, Wong could not help but remember the last time the spell had come into conversation. Unsurprisingly, the conversation had been with Stephen, perhaps two to three months after he had become Master of the New York Sanctum.

"Why does this spell even exist?" Stephen asked Wong as he gestured to the open book on his desk. Wong had made the mistake of entering the New York Sanctum library to find something while Stephen was reading through one of the Ancient One's old tomes, and thus the first fellow master available to hear his complaints.

"You're going to have to be more specific," was Wong's dry answer.

Stephen grimaced and clarified, "Excidit Sensus. It's utterly inhumane."

Wong went to the bookshelf where he suspected his quarry lay. "Compared to contemporary methods of interrogation when the spell was created, it was likely considered a more humane option."

"Incorrectly so!" Stephen shot back, fuming. "This spell removes everything: sight, hearing, touch, all sensations. If you keep a person like that for, say, forty-eight hours, there is a significant chance of hallucinations, anxiety, and depression. The ability to do the simplest tasks deteriorates upon freedom, and if this goes on longer than that, the results can be catastrophic!"

The librarian paused to look over at his colleague, who was slowly (perhaps inevitably) becoming a friend. "I am simply explaining the likely rationale behind its creation," Wong said. "That doesn't mean I endorse its use."

Stephen exhaled. "Sorry. Right. I just wasn't expecting to see something like that."

"For what it's worth," Wong said as he found the book he wanted, "that spell hasn't been used in over a century. Very few sorcerers would have the power and skill to successfully apply it, and there are none in Kamar-Taj who would consider using it now."

"Good," was Stephen's answer, and the conversation ended.

How could Mordo fall to such lows?

Wong finished the prep work and stalled no longer; Stephen had been suffering for more than long enough. He moved his spell work that he performed on the side to hover over the prone man, then in one gesture, settled it upon his body to release the spell. He steeled himself for the fallout.

It came all at once: at first Stephen was utterly still, and then he inhaled sharply and audibly as his eyes flew open. He immediately squeezed them shut and then cradled his hands near his chest, every breath shuddering. To Wong's alarm, the little light remaining in the room glinted on the wetness of his cheeks. He was crying very, very silently.

Still, he did not say anything; the sound of breathing may be too much for Stephen at that moment, never mind conversation. Instead he waited for some sort of cue from the other sorcerer. Opposite him, the Cloak fretted as it swung back and forth in silent worry through the air; it clearly wanted to envelop its Master and it was only Wong's strict word that kept it from doing otherwise.

When Stephen did speak, several minutes later, it was barely above the volume of breathing. "I forgot—how much they hurt."

Wong could not help but exhale in dismay. Stephen made it easy for others to forget that he experienced what would be categorized as chronic pain. One eventually learned to cope and live with such a thing until it became a background ache on normal days, or so he understood it, and his friend had perfected that act a long time ago. However, Wong had not considered how the reintroduction of feeling to his hands would affect Stephen. That was his folly—he was only glad that Tony had the sense of presence to get all others out of the room.

The sigh caused Stephen to freeze. "Who's there?" he whispered.

He tried to keep his voice just as low. "Wong." He paused to gauge his reaction to his voice; Stephen did not flinch, and so he added, "And the Cloak." That was the most relevant, for now. The Avengers were out of sight in the hall and could wait a little longer.

Stephen's breath shuddered. "Give—give me a minute. Just—give me a minute."

He kept his response limited. "Take your time."

The silence sat for longer, the only sound being of the soft breathing from the both of them. All other sound from the rest of the Sanctum was completely muted. Eventually Stephen carefully moved an arm down from his chest to his side on the bed, and the Cloak took that as permission to reach out and lightly touch him. Stephen stiffened before relaxing and breathed, "Cloak. Right." He swallowed. "How long?"

Wong exhaled. "Thirty to thirty-six hours, if you were under the whole time."

"I was." He kept his voice at a whisper. "You need a report."

"It can wait." He kept his voice at the same volume. "The Avengers helped in your recovery. Stark, Rogers, and Romanoff are outside."

A pained look crossed over Stephen's face. "They can't—they can't see me like this."

"There is no shame in your condition," said Wong, "but I will not press it."

Stephen clenched his eyes shut. He swallowed. "Please."

Wong inclined his head and concealed his alarm; Stephen never begged. "I'll be right back." He rose and cast a silencing spell around the room to filter out all noise from outside, then left the bedroom.

Three pairs of eyes met Wong as he closed the door behind him. "How is he?" Steve asked.

"He'll recover, with time," said Wong. "At the moment he does not wish to have any visitors. You may call in a few days." That should be enough time, hopefully.

"Understandable," Natasha said.

"Ring us if there's anything else you need," Tony added. "And let Merlin know that if I don't hear from him soon, I'll be making a house call."

Wong didn't doubt it. "Noted. You know the way out."

After they turned the corner of the hallway, Wong turned his attention to the apprentice hiding in the shadows; the runner Grem sent. "Bring up a bowl of chicken soup and a cup of herbal tea. Soup should be largely broth." He had no idea what a stomach living off a liquid diet for two days did to solid food, so he'd have Stephen start small. "Keep others away unless it's urgent." The apprentice bowed and took their leave.

Wong sighed, letting his emotions flow away from him now that he was alone in the hall. He only allowed himself a brief moment before he solidified his serene expression and entered Stephen's bedroom once again.

"It's me," he whispered. "Food's on its way."

Stephen hadn't moved in the short time he was gone and his eyes remained closed. He was conscious enough to make a face at Wong's words, however. "Not hungry."

"It'll be waiting for you when you are." The joy of everlasting heat spells on dinnerware. He then considered his next words carefully; Stephen had been unusually emotionally vulnerable the last few minutes, but it did not mean he wouldn't start to close up if he was too brazen. "Would you prefer solitude or company?" Straightforward, yet not coddling—a statement that could be said in any normal situation. Stephen was often allergic to sentimental emotions, especially if they were because of his condition. He'd rather tend to his own wounds than for anyone to see him less than capable. It was only if Wong acted unaffected and casual that he could slip past that shield in times like this.

Stephen was silent for a moment. "Company's not unwelcome," he muttered. "Quiet company, at least."

"That is expected," said Wong. And once Stephen's meal was here, he was ready to sit in silent meditation and companionship as his friend recovered his senses throughout the rest of the evening.

—————

I was stuck on this damn ending (after Stephen was brought back to New York) for over two years. The issue was I wanted to have something with Stephen and the Avengers, as well as a scene from Stephen's POV that Wong could access. I could never make either scene fit, so I just went with my gut and tossed them. The deleted scene from Stephen's POV will be posted on tumblr once I get this fic up on AO3.

The majority of this was written pre-MoM so I just kept the bedroom description as I had imagined Stephen's room back in 2020.

#wong #stephen strange #tony stark #natasha romanoff #steve rogers #doctor strange fanfiction #doctor strange #mcu fanfiction #whump #my writing #my fanfiction #prompt fill

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karimac · 1 year

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Turn of the Wheel: Ghosts of Christmas Past

Warnings: Pretty much none on this one. This is the Christmas just before Kari and Bucky decide to give it a go, otherwise known as the Christmas the Hawkeyes went to town at Rockefeller Center.

Although none of the stories so far have ventured into smut, I do consider these 18+ because of violence in other stories.

A/N: This is a submission for @arrthurpendragon's OC Ficmas 2022 event. Please check out her blog to see all the authors participating this year.

Not beta read. All mistake are my own.

Word count: Approx. 4.8K

Banner artwork credit: Image by Robert Jones from Pixabay

The photo is of the Christmas display at the McGraw Hill Building near Radio City Music Hall. It is one of my personal favorites!

If anyone wishes to be added to my taglist, please let me know.

Thanks for reading! Comments and reblogs are most welcome and appreciated!

Happy Holidays!

And here it was, another Christmas Eve, and you were so lacking in holiday spirit that most people would have stuck you with the Grinch or Scrooge nicknames used so often for those who, more likely than not, felt lost or alone this time of year.

You had done your very best to put on your “holiday face” at your bakery, and everyone except for your closest staff members probably bought your acting job this festive season.

You still didn’t feel connected to anyone, especially Bucky, Sam and his family. You felt like a fraud, but you also didn’t want to drop your massive amount of home truths on them until it was well into the New Year. Like maybe next July? Yeah, that could work, right?

Once the doors on Cutie-Pie-Tutti were locked for the night, you put in your AirPods and found the one holiday tune guaranteed to lift your spirits as you wandered around Manhattan.

“On the High Line I see the skyline Snow falls down on me As I hail the taxi, roll through the city To see the Rockefeller tree”

“The tree? Sounds like a good idea, Liz,” you said as you looked at your iPhone and saw the smiling face of Elizabeth Chan, singer and composer of “Christmas in the City,” staring back at you.

Once you got there by foot, you didn’t expect to find the tree suddenly falling down onto the ice skating rink below and several crazed Russian men in track suits descending on the fallen evergreen.

A group of cosplayers or LARPers seemed to have joined the fray, as did a man with a sword and a female archer dressed in black and purple. The trick arrows she was using were all too familiar.

“Clint’s arrow? What in the world is going on now?” you muttered as some maniac in a track suit came running toward you, hell bent on making your evening even worse with the baseball bat he was swinging wildly as he ran. “Not so fast, tovarisch,” you said as you threw up your hands and pushed him backward into the side of a car with a magic blast. “Not going to ruin my night, or anyone else’s either.”

“Yo! Avenger! We’ve got another Avenger in the house!” one of the LARPers yelled as you turned to see where the young archer had gone or, better yet, where Clint might be.

You looked down onto the rink, and you noticed a petite blonde, dressed in what looked like the uniform of a Black Widow, talking to Clint, but she ran off just as quickly as you saw her. Then you saw the purple-clad archer running toward Clint, and you decided you had better get down to the ice before any more idiots decided to join this party.

As you ran down the stairs, more of the track suit interlopers were making their way onto the ice in a delivery truck, but one Pym particle arrow took care of them. Or maybe it was the owl that hauled the tiny truck away that did the trick?

Oh, how you wished Steve, Tony and Nat were here to see this. Christmas still wasn't the same without them.

“So, Clint, care to introduce me to your protégé? And how in the name of Heaven did you knock over this tree of all trees? Who were the goon squad in the track suits?”

“You didn’t tell me you were calling in the rest of the team! I’m Kate Bishop. People say I’m one of the greatest archers in the world. And I’m lucky Clint is letting me partner with him.”

“Partner? And here I thought you were retiring, Clint. What does Laura have to say about all this?”

“Very funny. Why did you show up now anyway? Not that I’m not happy for the assist, Kari. Kate, this is Kari MacOrish.”

“Nice to meet you, Kate,” you said as you extended your hand. “Now, maybe I can fix your tree trouble. Can you guys step back a bit? And let me know if Damage Control rolls up. I do not like those jokers, and I do not want to spend my Christmas Eve in one of their detention centers.”

“How are you going to fix this tree? Do you need to call Strange or Wong? I know no one knows where Wanda is,” Clint said as your hands were bathed in green light. You winked at Barton and smiled as you unfurled your wings and took to the sky.

“Unraveling time would probably work best, but I really don’t want to deal with that much hassle. It would undo all the battles you just won and make those bozos come back, and once tonight is enough, even for me,” you replied as you sent a wave of light toward the tree and its broken trunk, slowly lifting it back into place. It hurt like hell, but you were not about to let all these locals and tourists lose the chance to have this tree as the center of their celebrations this night.

Many of the lights were shattered, and some branches seemed broken beyond repair, but the star miraculously survived the fall when it landed on a bale of hay near one of the entrances, a sign to you that this might work out after all.

This was not the first time you had rescued a fallen tree, but this was likely the largest one you ever hoped to put to rights with magic.

“Is it straight?” you asked Clint and Kate as you hovered in the air, the sound of sirens in the distance making your timely completion of your task a necessity.

“I think so, but Laura says I’m not very good with stuff like this,” Clint said as you landed and ran to the base, a final touch of the splintered trunk the deal maker to keep the Norway spruce in place until it would be removed in January. You dug in your pocket and found a ribbon you had taken off a present you got from Cristiano, your head baker, and as you placed it on the trunk, it grew in size and wrapped around the damaged base. It was red and gold and glittered as you magically tugged at the ends to make sure it was snug.

“Clint, ambulances are on the way, so here,” you said as you grabbed both Bishop’s and Barton’s shoulders and started a very rudimentary healing of them both. “Just gave you a head start so you aren’t in a hospital bed for the holiday. Kate, it’s been a pleasure,” you said as you gave the young woman a hug, “and Clint, Merry Christmas to you, Laura and the kids,” you added as you hugged him as well. “Tell Ms. Bishop about the café. Card’s in your pocket, Kate,” you yelled back to them as you ran off the ice and back toward Fifth Avenue, the choir of Saint Patrick’s filling the night with song as you went to the subway to head back to Brooklyn.

It was just too bad your holiday blahs returned as soon as you got back to your apartment. Sure, you had a tree there, and Hickory was still wearing his festive red and green holiday bow tie on his collar, but things just felt off.

Maybe it was because you and Bucky were seemingly on the outs for what must have been the fifth time this month.

Or it could have been the disappointment expressed by Sarah, Cass and AJ when you declined an invitation to Christmas dinner.

This year just did not seem like the best time to be mingling with anyone.

As you looked at the packages under your tree, you noticed the one for Bucky right away. It was metallic royal blue with big white snowflakes all over the paper, and the silver and white bow gleamed in the light of your tree. You’d gotten him a new leather jacket because his had been trashed during a fight with some Flag Smasher sympathizers, and he wouldn’t let you magic up a fix for it. So finding him one as a gift was the only way to go.

You’d also gotten Alpine a gift or two while you were at it. You were thrilled when Bucky had gone to the local no kill shelter’s cat café to see the felines up for adoption there, and the white Angora he brought home was too cute for words. So you got her a new bed and some treats you knew she liked. Hickory was a tuna fancier, but Alpine seemed to enjoy salmon more.

And a pile of gifts for the Wilsons sat directly behind Bucky’s box. You found some great, tenderly-loved old Motown records in a store in Detroit. You also found some wonderful souvenirs to give to Sam from one of the old recording studios used by the soulful songsters back in the 60s.

The boys wanted nothing more than video games, but you knew Sarah was not the biggest fan, so, along with some new headphones and controllers for each of them, you registered the boys with an “experiences” camp out of New Orleans. They’d have two weeks away this summer at a camp of their choosing, be it space academy, inventors’ workshop or outdoor adventure base.

And Sarah? A week or two away from the boat while the boys were gone was what you thought she could use, but you knew she would likely not accept the present. So you opted for some very thoughtful jewelry made by local craftsmen in Baton Rouge. The pieces were African inspired and screamed “strong, powerful, caring, friend” when you saw the necklace and earrings.

Now you just hoped you’d get to give them their gifts sometime in the near future. Just not tonight.

“Well, Hick, looks like it’s you and me tonight,” you said as you sat down on your floral sofa and invited your orange tabby to join you there. “Merry Christmas, fuzz meister. I just wish I knew what was wrong with me.”

As Christmas morning dawned, you went into your living room and noticed Hickory had been snooping in a bunch of boxes that were at the back of the tree. You had bought them ages ago and tucked them away. Frankly, you’d shoved them back there because they were too painful to look at.

One was addressed to someone named MJ, and another to a person named Ned. There was another to a woman named May, and the final one was ready to give to someone named Peter, but for the life of you, you could not remember who in the name of the Goddess any of them were.

“I guess I’ll donate these, Hick, because I have no idea why I bought them,” you said as you sat down on the stool in your kitchen, trying to recall any of these people as you made a cup of coffee. But every time you tried, you saw purple lights and felt like hell. You’d been feeling that way since the start of December, but you didn’t want to tell anyone about it. You should have talked to Wong or Strange, but the new Sorcerer Supreme was in Kamar-Taj, and the disgruntled former Sorcerer Supreme was likely holed up in the New York Sanctum and being a bit of an arse about it all.

Nope, those two were a no-go this holiday season.

And Wanda, the one person you likely would have chosen to talk to in the first place, was still off the radar. That didn’t make a damned bit of sense either.

You started to zone out a bit as you drank your coffee, wincing as more weird images popped into your mind. The splintered parts of you in other realms were likely pushing back at you for a reason, but you were not about to deal with them today.

Meanwhile, down in Delacroix, Sarah was probably ready to toss rolls at her brother and his new “bestie,” but that would have been a waste of perfectly good food. She could hear them getting into it in the living room as she put the finishing touches on Christmas breakfast.

“What do you mean Kari isn’t talking to you? Or are you just mad at her for some stupid reason? What did you do this time, Krampus Claus?”

Poor Sam didn’t know what he was getting into when he decided to find out what exactly was going on between you and Bucky at the moment.

“What does that even mean?” Bucky sat down in one of the overstuffed chairs in the Wilsons’ living room. “Krampus Claus isn’t a thing. Even I know that!”

“Cass and AJ wanted to watch that Christmas horror movie with that German monster guy last week, but Sarah yelled at me because she thought I was encouraging them to watch it. First damned thing that popped into my head, Buck.”

“Of course it was. And I have no idea why Kari isn’t talking to me. And before you ask, I talked to Sharon. She has no clue either. And Sarah doesn’t know, so who next?”

“What about Bruce?” Sarah yelled from the kitchen.

“He’s visiting his cousin in California,” Sam yelled back. “Jennifer. The lawyer. As far as I know, Bruce and Kari haven’t spoken in weeks.”

“Great,” Sarah said as she walked in and looked at Bucky. “You two get this close to each other, and then you repel like a couple of magnets. You are both making me and Sam crazy. Now, which one of you two wants to help pour the coffee while we try to figure out how to fix this mess? On top of the mess about Kari and her crazy past, I mean. Or do you think they’re related?”

“Sarah, if I knew, I’d tell you. Kind of makes me wish Loki were still around,” Bucky said as Sam almost dropped the coffee pot. “They actually got along, and he might have been able to help. I know. I sound crazier than usual.”

“What do you mean she won’t open the door? Just cast a spell to open the lock!”

Devnet Casey and Enya Sun had been alerted by Darcy Lewis that you had been less than peppy this holiday season, and because she could not be there herself to see what was up, she asked your two oldest friends to check in on you. So now they were more or less bickering at your Brooklyn apartment door.

“Enya, do I look like I haven’t tried that? Herself warded it pretty well. I even called Mina to get her fanged face over here, but she said to leave Kari alone. She said we all know why Kari gets weird at Christmas. Unless you think she finally got pissed about what we are all doing that is technically behind her back? I’ve tried to stall everyone until Kari gets the nerve to explain it all, and it is driving me mad. I thought telling her would help, but no…”

Devnet was referring to the group trying to figure out what was wrong with you and your magic, but she had made sure not to introduce herself to Sam or Bucky just yet. The same went for any mention of Enya, your first husband Galen’s sister.

“Mina said. Mina thought. Blah blah blah. I don’t care if Mina is Thom’s sister. She has no idea what is going on because she was not one of us way back in the morning dew of it all,” Enya said as she tugged on your door handle yet again. “Wait. Is this about that stupid tree?”

“I’d hardly call the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree a stupid tree. And no, it isn’t about the tree as far as I know. At least that’s what that pixie working at her bakery told me. Then again, Kari is probably not telling anyone anything of great value. There is something weird, though.”

“Weirder than the two of you?” a third female voice said as her footsteps came to a halt. “I thought I asked you to leave the lady alone?”

“And are you ignoring your own advice, Mina?” Enya growled as Kari’s other sister-in-law, Mina O’Malley Harkness, stood before them, red scarf tossed casually around the collar of her black coat, black hat and dark hair framing her face, and a tiny drop of blood near her bottom lip.

“You didn’t snack on a taxi driver, did you?” Devnet asked as she crossed her arms and looked up at Mina.

“No, of course not. Dorian and I made a stop at a local blood bank a few days ago. The one near the Village where all the vampires go. I am not going to ruin your holiday. I promise. Now, did you see the lights in the harbor earlier this month? The purple ones? When I called Kari, she told me about them. She…something about them bothered her.”

“And she told you and not us? And not the assassin? Seriously?” Enya asked just as a neighboring door opened, and the trio stepped back into a piece of shadow so they would not be noticed. “Do you have a key, Mina? We can’t stay out here all day.”

“Can’t you just spell it?” Mina asked as the ladies turned in unison at the sound of a click, and the door opened enough for Hickory to pop out. He pawed Devnet’s leg and asked to be picked up. As she scooped up the orange tabby, the trio stepped inside the apartment and saw you just sitting there in your red and green pajamas, coffee cup in hand.

“Sorry I didn’t open up sooner, but things are just…not right,” you said as you set your mug down. “And doing the ‘three spirits visiting you this night’ part is a bit old hat, isn’t it? Do you really not see the ghosts from Dickens’ story when you see the other three of us gathered round this night? Or the ghosts of those we have lost? I do. And to top it off, I know you’ve been hiding things from me, ladies. I’ve been hiding them from you, too. You’d think we’d all learn by now, but we never do, do we?”

“What do you mean you keep getting into more fugue states?” Mina asked as she sat down in your sage green chair and fiddled with one of the decorations on your side table. It was a small snowman with a cardinal perched on its arm, and it seemed to amuse the vampire a bit. “Your other parts start intruding more? Is that normal?”

“No, it isn’t,” you replied as you looked at Mina. “And it makes things complicated. A stray thought can trigger it, and so can a smell or some particular setting. It’s getting to the point that I don’t want to leave this apartment, and I really can’t live like that.”

“And you haven’t told anyone except us right now?” Dev asked as she finally set Hickory down. “I mean, not Sam or Bruce or Bucky?”

“Not a soul, but I have a funny feeling the Masters of the Mystic Arts might be watching me from a distance. They mean well, but at times, well, it gets annoying.”

“And so do your ‘out to lunch’ moments, Kar,” Enya noted as she walked around your tree. “No offense, but they do get scary.”

“None taken,” you replied to her comments. “I just wish I could stop them.”

“And why the hiding nonsense?” Mina asked as Hickory finally made his way over to her. He had never been too fond of vampires, and you chalked that up to the fact he had never met your brother Ewan. “Go. Have fun. Please, for all our sakes, go down to Louisiana and have a good time. Whatever the purple lights are can wait for a day or two.”

“Mina is right, and you know how infrequently I admit to agreeing with her,” Enya said with a smirk as Mina laughed. “You don’t hate Christmas. You never have. You are just being you again. Taking all this on your back.”

“But,” you started to say before Dev shot you one of her usual withering glares. “What, Dev?”

“Did you get spooked again? About Bucky and that damned dagger you hid in your vault? You said ages ago that Loki looked at the stupid thing and had no idea what it was. Please, for your sake even more than ours, even on your worst day, you would not kill Bucky Barnes. If you were meant to do it with that dagger, you would not have missed the first time. He was brainwashed when he stabbed you, so I am trying to be a bit less judgmental about the man. I truly am glad he got help.”

“Ladies, I am not just showing up on their doorstep. I told Sarah no, and I am not going to mess up her plans. She has enough to handle with her boys, and Sam and Bucky, bless them, are not always jumping in to help her in the ways she might need most. She told me Sam was encouraging the boys to watch Christmas horror films. I’m hoping it was just a misunderstanding. They do not need to see “Violent Night” or “Silent Claus, Deadly Claus” or any other film like that. At least not yet.”

“I am sure Sarah would be more than welcoming,” Dev continued as she grabbed your now empty coffee mug and took it into your kitchen. “Now, out of the chair and into the shower. And what are those things you are wearing anyway? Ugly Christmas pajamas? Seriously? With cats all over them?”

“A gift from my staff at the bakery here. Fine. I’ll shower and get dressed, but I’m still not…going…”

After you showered and changed, you still resisted Dev’s urging you all to go to Delacroix and forget about the drama for one day. Right now she was acting more like her dog Tyrone with a huge bone. She would not take no for an answer, so down you all went via portal, with Hickory in tow. Mina had bagged up the gifts you needed for the Wilsons and Bucky and handed them to you before Enya literally pushed you from Brooklyn to the Wilsons’ front porch, hitting the buzzer for the doorbell for good measure.

“Kari?” Sam said as he got to the front door, opening it a split second after your friends vanished. No trio from the past. Just you, Hickory and a ton of gifts.

“A few old friends kicked my arse for not being more social this year. They were right. Merry Christmas, Sam.”

Cass and AJ came running up behind their uncle and took the bag of gifts inside. Hickory sniffed around and was happy to see Alpine was there as well, and the two scampered off to make mischief as you turned to see Bucky standing there with a big grin on his face. “So, Cris finally get you to leave?”

“It was another group of old friends. You don’t know them. Not yet anyway. I’ll explain another time,” you said as Sarah came in for a holiday hug.

“I think I know why you’re off,” Sarah said as she looked at the gifts Cass and AJ were digging into. “Darcy told me about her friend Jane. She mentioned you couldn’t help with Jane’s cancer, and that got you pretty bummed. No wonder you weren’t in a party mood. You could have told us.”

With the purple light nonsense you had pushed the Jane Foster fiasco to the back of your mind. Her cancer was too advanced for you to be able to help kick start her own healing abilities. Jane was a wonderful woman and a truly talented astrophysicist, but most of all she was Darcy’s best friend. That was why the whole “Jane story” stirred up so many emotions for you.

“Even people like me have trouble when we hear we can’t do something to help others,” you said as Sarah handed you a cup of coffee. “Thank you.”

“Why didn’t you tell us about Jane?” Bucky asked as he nursed his own mug of coffee. “Is it a big secret? Maybe Doctor Cho could help?”

“I was just trying to respect Jane’s wishes about not making a big deal out of her illness. I’m not even sure Thor knows, and they were a couple. I did not want him hearing from anyone but her. And there is some other magical woo-woo stuff going on, but I don’t think I want to get into that until I've done some more recon. I’ll talk to Stephen and Wong after the holidays. I promise.”

“You better,” Sam said with a slight scowl. “Or your presents go back to the North Pole. I’ll call Santa personally.”

“Oh, Nick? He’d never do that. He’s a sweetie. And the reindeer love me. I make them snacks with carrots and other veggies baked in. Cranberries, too. ”

“Of course you know Santa Claus!” Sam replied as Cass and AJ laughed loudly. “What did I say this time?”

“I was kidding, Sam. Are my jokes falling flat already? That goes for any regional or national version that is not called Santa Claus. Like Pere Noel.”

You kept smiling as you thought back to your actual friend Kristopher Nicklaus Kringle, the sole proprietor of a now massive toy workshop in the northern reaches of the world just past the Canadian wilderness. His space was close to The Rift but not physically in it. It was in a pocket dimension all its own. He was indeed an immortal like you, and he and his family had made Christmas their business for centuries. But you were not about to tell that tale today. Nick needed his day off, too.

“So, can I be of any help?” you asked before you turned to see Cass and AJ checking out their new gaming gear. “There’s more to it than the tech, Sarah. That part comes later. Boys, maybe we should eat first since your mom went to all this trouble?”

As the boys begrudgingly left their pile of gifts and went to the table, Bucky pulled you aside for a minute. “You sure you’re OK? Need to talk?”

“This nonsense can wait. And before you ask, I’ll tell you the Santa story another time. Now, did you eat Sarah out of all her beignets today? Did you try that turducken recipe this year, Sarah?”

“Do not mention that word,” Sarah grumbled as she looked back toward the kitchen. “Regular old turkey for us. That other thing was a nightmare.”

“Marvelous, delicious turkey you mean,” you replied as Sarah just smiled and shook her head. As you looked at her, you started to see the damned purple lights again, and now they seemed to touch everyone in the room. You blinked and pinched the bridge of your nose for a minute to get the visuals and the sick feeling they caused you to pass. “Sorry. We had a few celebratory drinks last night before we closed the bakery. Whatever that was at the end had a kick to it. It was the fairy equivalent of a bar mat shot.”

As you took a deep breath and concentrated on the eggs, bacon and beignets before you, you hoped that the rest of the gifts would be as much of a hit as the gaming gear was for Cass and AJ.

You also couldn’t shake the feeling things were going to keep getting less settling as the purple lights became more and more frequent.

“How do you say Merry Christmas in Irish, Kari?” Sam asked as he grabbed more bacon from the platter. “Nollaig Shona agus Athbhliain faoi Mhaise Duit. That’s Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I pray that the next one is a good one for us all.”

Back in Brooklyn, Enya, Dev and Mina had long since left your apartment and locked things up behind them as they did. They had flicked off the lights on your tree, so the only lights visible were the ones in and around the apartment building across the way and in the street below. The streets were fairly empty for a Christmas night, so no one likely saw the lingering purple light dancing near your balcony window. A figure appeared there briefly and just as quickly vanished. A wisp of shadow form hovered in the air for the briefest of moments before the purple lights blinked out.

Taglist: @arrthurpendragon, @historygeekfics, @starryeyes2000

#ocficmas2022 #ocappreciation #series: turn of the wheel #fandom: mcu #oc: kari macorish #oc: devnet casey #oc: enya sun #oc: mina o'malley harkness #bucky barnes #sam wilson #sarah wilson #cass wilson #aj wilson #clint barton #kate bishop #captain america #the winter soldier #hawkeye #fyeahsuperverseocs

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night-gay · 10 months

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Into the Anthill pt 50 - 50 Years And Counting

I wasn’t sure I’d have enough material to cover to make it to a 50th post in this journey considering Hank’s reputation as a “Forgotten Avenger” these days, but we're 50 years into his legacy and not out of comics just yet (we’re about 3 years away from Rage of Ultron though, so the timer’s ticking).

Avengers vs X-Men popped off here as the Phoenix Force returned to Earth to possess Hope Summers. Hank’s really just a set piece in the fight scenes of all these comics, basically having no lines and no impact on the greater narrative despite appearing in more than a dozen issues of it. His biggest appearances outside of Avengers Academy in these comics were kicking Wolverine out of a plane and running diagnostics on Tony’s Phoenix-Killer gun. After that he was injured and sent to search and rescue work.

At least we got some cool group shots of Giant-Man out of this.

🐜🐜🐜

Secret Avengers vol 1 #22-23, 25

Captain America stepped down as the leader of the Secret Avengers, leaving Hawkeye to lead it just as Captain Britain joined the team. Brian was very impressed by The Lighthouse, their miniature satellite base in Earth’s orbit that used Hank’s Pymportal tech to both transport and shrink those who enter. Cap had put Hank and Beast on the project to keep them both out of trouble. Hawkeye’s first mission escalated quickly, pitting the team against an entire society of A.I. called The Descendants. Most of the team escaped safely thanks to Agent Venom’s late arrival, but Eric O’Grady was killed and Jim Hammond’s body was badly damaged. Hank promised to do what he could to restore Jim to full health after this.

Avengers Academy vol 1 #29, 32-33

Cap and Wolverine worked with Hank to bring the young Utopian mutants to Avengers Academy to keep them safe from the Avengers vs X-Men conflict. Hank left Hercules and Tigra in charge while he, Quicksilver, and Hawkeye were in the field. The young mutants didn’t stick around long before Sebastian Shaw, X-23, and Tigra came to an agreement and allowed them to leave rather than hold them against their will. They staged a mock battle so that the camera footage couldn't implicate the Avengers in their escape if Cap decided to investigate. Despite her status as a mutant, Laura chose to remain a student rather than leave with her peers even after Hank had the chance to discuss it with her.

As the Phoenix Five had begun their efforts to guarantee world peace by force Emma Frost arrived at Avengers Academy to destroy Juston Seyfert’s Sentinel, an older model he’d befriended and reprogrammed to prevent it from harming mutants. His fail-safes were not entirely effective, as it attacked Emma immediately upon detecting her. Hank tried to reason with her that it could be managed, but her only compromise was to scrub it of it’s current programming entirely, which would erase it’s personality and memories in the process. Their combined efforts meant nothing against Emma’s new power; she easily destroyed the Sentinel and would have inadvertently killed Juston as well had it not protected him. She melted it’s CPU before leaving to ensure it would never rise again, but Quicksilver swapped in a fake one without her noticing. With Emma gone, Hank, Pietro, and Juston were able to rebuild his friend. The issue ends with Hank and Tigra telling the students they’re not certain the school will survive this war against the X-Men and that they need to go back home if they can.

Minor/Cameo appearances from this period:

Venom vol 2 #17, 22

Avengers Assemble vol 1 #6, 8

Avengers vs. X-Men vol 1 #1-5, 7, 9, 11-12

New Avengers vol 2 #24

Wolverine and the X-Men vol 1 #10-12

Avengers vol 4 #29

#hank pym #ant-man #into the anthill #marvel comics

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leclerc-s · 4 months

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paint the town red - part six

THE AVENGERS AGAINST DATING

series masterlist

MIAMI 2024

the ferrari team stood in a circle outside of their motorhome. peter waved at someone who passed by, giving them a puzzled look. peter shrugged, even he wasn't sure what was happening. carlos and sebastian exchanged looks, before sebastian led them inside, a sense of dread filliing them. isaiah sighed, "please tell me one of you isn't planning on making a surprise announcement this weekend. do not go around pulling a nico rosberg."

carlos cleared his throat, "qué? no, um- charles has obviously been very dominant this season and i know we agreed to wait until after this race but- i'll be the second driver, starting today."

"what?" charles questioned, the confusion was evident on his face, "why?"

"you're going to win this year charles, that much is obvious. i'll get the one next year."

"this must be difficult for you to say," harley added, breaking the tense silence. none of them had been quite sure what to expect when sebastian had called an impromptu meeting, they were supposed to wait for tony but the older man was busy giving the avengers and co a tour of the paddock.

"of course, no driver wants to admit they are going to be second driver but we agreed that who ever won the season this year, would defend the next. it's not my time yet, but it is charles's year, one way or another we are getting that championship."

charles frowned, "we still get to fight on track don't we?" he asked sebastian. the german nodded, "of course, it would be quite boring if it was you winning all season wouldn't it?"

"then let's bring that championship home," bianca said. the team smiled at each other before they stepped away from each other to do their respective tasks. peter's shouts could be heard as he left arguing with isaiah, the older brunette simply sighing exasperatedly. harley left with carlos, the two talking about the changes they would need to make to their strategy now. sebastian ran off, late for a team principal press interview.

charles looked at bianca, "dinner?"

bianca looked taken aback, "tonight?"

"i was thinking next week actually," charles joked. bianca laughed, "don't make me regret this leclerc."

"you won't," charles confidently said as bianca walked away. she turned around and was met with sight of charles smiling brightly at her. she shook her head before leaving to find her dad and sister.

harleykeener, michellejones, america_chavez, samwilson, biancastark_potts posted new stories

america's sweethearts are reunited at last! (peter's girlfriend is very much real people)

anything to meet lewis hamilton, even watching cars go in odd shapes

i think i'm lost. dad (stephen) come pick me up i'm scared

netflix where are you? the stars of the season have arrived

he looks lost, someone help him out

bianca stark-potts posted new stories

🖤🖤

dinner...

sam wilson BIANCA STARK-POTTS WHO IS THAT MAN?

bucky barnes I WASN'T AWARE YOU HAD TIME TO DATE WHILE TRAVELING SO MUCH

natasha romanoff i feel betrayed for some reason? why was i not made aware of this?

clint barton what's going on?

sam wilson BABY STARK WENT ON A DATE WITH SOME MAN!

harley keener if i speak-

scott lang what do you know keener? harley keener all i know is a bet was made after china's quali...i will not say more...i wish to live

wanda maximoff you people have been screaming at her to get a date for ages and when she does you act overprotective? i don't understand any of you.

hope van dyne aren't you people a little too old to be this invested in her love-life. especially bucky?

bucky barnes I'LL HAVE YOU KNOW I AM ONLY 106! I'M QUITE YOUNG COMPARED TO THOR AND LOKI.

america chavez I KNOW SOMETHING YOU PEOPLE DON'T! I AM THE SUPERIOR ONE!

bianca stark-potts america, i swear to god if you open your mouth i'm taking your enzo woofstappen privileges away. america chavez i'll shut up. i love enzo.

sam wilson what's his name? nationality? d.o.b? give us everything on him.

bucky barnes we say this because we care, not because we're nosy. steve rogers they're nosy, i genuinely care. and why isn't tony freaking out over this yet?

joaquin torres oh i see, when i was having a genuine dilemma the other day, i was told this group chat was for emergencies only. i guess emergencies are ignored when you want to be nosy.

sam wilson jesus christ, who added all of you people? this was supposed to be a fun group chat. not one full of whining

peter parker it's called avengers (no trauma version) everyone deserves to be here for a good time sam wilson there's my answer. kate bishop i'm here for a good time not a long time clint barton kate we've talked about this...

tony stark THAT FUCKER HID MY PHONE FROM ME! BIANCA MARIA STARK-POTTS WHO THE FUCK IS THAT MAN? WHO DID YOU GO ON A DATE WITH?

bianca stark potts te-he

kate bishop cute shoes

bianca stark-potts thanks! cute date too.

harley keener i'm going to tell them

bianca stark-potts don't you fucking dare keener! i'll take your lab privileges harley keener i will no longer be speaking

sam wilson BIANCA! YOU HAVE TO TELL US WHO IT IS!

bianca stark-potts it's a first date samuel, i'm not marrying the guy. calm down.

bucky barnes WE DESERVE ANSWERS STARK!

bianca stark-potts *stark-potts, put some respect on my mother's name

tony stark BIANCA YOU WILL TELL US WHO IT IS NOW!

natasha romanoff i don't think his poor heart can handle this stress bianca, you have to tell us.

bianca stark-potts no, i like having something to myself. if it becomes something serious i'll tell you guys, but for now it's just dating, nothing serious.

wanda maxmioff second date soon?

bianca stark-potts maybe? we'll see, nights not over yet

steve rogers well, as long as your safe with him, i don't care who he is.

bianca stark-potts thanks steve, i promise you guys will be the first to know if it becomes something else, when i'm ready to tell any of you.

stephen strange you people are all nuisances

america chavez and yet you still won't leave the group chat stephen strange any time i try someone keeps adding me back peter parker i'm doing god's work out here

liked by samwilson, america_chavez, landonorris and others

scuderiaferrari AND THAT'S ANOTHER WHAT? THAT'S ANOTHER WIN FOR FERRARI HERE IN MIAMI! MATER AND LIGHTNING MCQUEEN WIN AGAIN!

tagged: carlossainz55, charles_leclerc

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📍 scuderiaferrari carlos ily but for the sake of the plot, you have to be mater. no one exudes lightning mcqueen energy quite like charles does

↳ carlossainz55 at least i'm not getting called sid like you do with max or crash and eddie like lando and oscar.

↳ maxverstappen1 why the hell am i getting dragged into this? i wanted nothing to do with this

↳ landonorris i still don't get the crash and eddie joke...

username this is a straight up violation on charles and carlos

pierregasly if anything i'm mater, i'm charles's best friend.

↳ scuderiaferrari not anymore pear

landonorris i knew i made the right choice sending you those lightning leclerc memes

↳ charles_leclerc THAT WAS YOU? NORIZZ WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON YOU!

↳ landonorris hey isaiah_atkins one of your driver's just threatened me, are you going to let him get away with this?

↳ isaiah_atkins charles, we've talked about this. you can't threaten other drivers in public.

↳ landonorris so he can do it in private?

↳ isaiah_atkins only if it's his brother. i have no say in that one.

america_chavez does this make sebastian doc hudson?

↳ samwilson tony is guido, the ferrari superfan

↳ tonystark man fuck you sam

↳ samwilson hey isaiah_atkins look at this guy!

↳ isaiah_atkins i am on his payroll, i cannot say anything against this but tony for the love of god, set an example for the rest of the team.

username seeing a bunch of grown men argue over a children's movie is hilarious to me

username peter parker is chaotic neutral

↳ username nah, that twink is chaotic chaotic. he's up there with fernando on the chaos scale.

↳ harleykeener lol peter had been twinkified by the internet, this is hilarious

↳ username you're a twink too keener. no one is safe from this.

↳ username bucky barnes gives himbo energy, steve rogers too.

↳ username don't forget scott lang and thor!

series taglist: @celesteblack08 @be-your-coffee-pot @evans-dejong @elliegrey2803 @bingewatche @arkhammaid @sunflower-golden-vol6 @lorarri @melanier7 @ironspdy @mypage-myfandoms @vellicora @you-bleed-just-toknowyouarealive @enchantedthoughts @stopeatread @hobiismyhopeu @lilsiz @alessioayla @niniluvsainz @au-ghosttype @fulla02 @cowboylikemets1989 @six-call @embrosegraves @justtprachisblog @bionic-donut @rmeddar123 @nichmeddar @landonorizzz @unluckyyoshi @raizelchrysanderoctavius @burningcupcakefire @spilled-coffee-cup @jamie-selwyn @cool-ultra-nerd @kami10471633 @int3rnetgf @fernandoswarcrimes @skynel09 @arieltwvdtohamflash @mimolovescookies @brekkers-whore @camdensreg @mycenterfold @dear-fifi @chiliwhore @tygecjjd @nothaqks @nataliambc @formulaa1d @prongsvault @kaa212

strikethrough means i couldn't tag you

¡leclerc-s speaks! did you really think i wasn't going to make at least one cars reference in this fic? feel free to correct me if my imola ferrari 1-2 knowledge is wrong, i looked it up and i couldn't find another ferrari 1-2 at imola. this isn't knowledge i know off the top of my head. MONACO GP YOU'RE UP NEXT BABY!

¡disclaimer! this is in no way making assumptions about the people involved in this story, this is all fake. it is a fanfiction please don't take any of what is said seriously. this is all for entertainment purposes and as a creative outlet for me. enjoy!

#leclerc-s #paint the town red series #f1 instagram au #f1 x oc #f1 oc #f1 smau #f1 social media au #f1 #formula one #f1 fic #formula 1 fic #f1 x female oc #charles leclerc x female oc #marvel social media au #f1 x marvel crossover

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multiverseofmiracleshq · 2 years

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For the whole history of CAROL DANVERS, please click here.

← ONCE THERE WAS AN IDEA TO BRING TOGETHER →

Although Carol chose to stay in space for decades following the return of her memories, she’s been on Earth far more ever since Thanos. It’s impossible to ignore her home planet no matter how conflicted it makes her feel, and the world does need its mightiest hero. Had there been the Avengers still she would be on them; instead, Carol works with some of the formerly affiliated heroes like Bruce Banner to try and recruit and monitors others who are popping up. Balancing her time on Earth and in space is still something she’s learning to balance, as is her bullheadedness that sometimes alienates her from people. The world needs heroes now more than ever, but they’re not always what they want or expect. Carol will continue to do what she always does. Now, she’s just taking her head out of the stars from time to time. She’ll need to be at the top of her game as she helps to rebuild the Avengers.

← A GROUP OF REMARKABLE PEOPLE TO SEE IF THEY →

✗ BRUCE BANNER (MCU) is the only original, official Avenger left on Earth. The two have worked together from time to time even if Carol hasn’t given him her number yet. While there are no Avengers officially, at times it feels like they’re almost building up a team again. Or, at least something similar. Carol’s not the type to corral people, though. She doesn’t have the patience for it. If Bruce wants to, that’s fine. It’s just not a responsibility Carol wants to undertake.

✗ MONICA RAMBEAU (MCU) looked up to Carol when she was a young girl and was like a niece to the hero. Carol’s decision to stay in space after she regained her memories put a gap between the two, and before she knew it Monica was not only grown but a pile of ash. A lot happened while she was gone -- including the death of Maria -- and Carol doesn’t know how to connect with her again. Now, things are different. Monica has powers. She’s going to be in Carol’s life and Carol has to remember how to have intrapersonal relationships again. She owes Monica that at the very least.

✗ NICK FURY (MCU) has become Carol’s oldest friend after the death of Maria. Ever since her return to Earth she’s kept in touch, and that meant on occasion she’d visit him on the Skrull ship while he was on holiday. Fury went through a lot while Carol was in space, but she’ll always trust him. He’s more than earned that from her, and she doesn’t take things like that likely. If Fury calls, Carol will be there.

← COULD BECOME SOMETHING MORE →

✗ THE AVENGERS → Although they no longer exist, Carol helps look after new heroes from time to time; this includes the likes of Shang-Chi and Ms. Marvel. She’s not interested in being a team leader, but she also wants to make sure that Earth is properly defended as she can’t be everywhere at once. Maybe one day the Avengers will reform. Carol will likely be a part of that.

✗ OTHER AFFILIATIONS -- n/a.

← & IF WE CAN’T SAVE THE WORLD, WE’LL AVENGE IT →

✗ AGE → 50′s ✗ MULTIVERSE ORIGIN → mcu ✗ SPECIES → enhanced human (via infinity stone) ✗ ETHNICITY → up to player ✗ SECRET IDENTITY → public ✗ RELATIONSHIP STATUS → open ✗ FACECLAIM → brie larson ✗ AVAILABILITY → taken

← FUN FACTS →

a fan of guns & roses

considered one of the most powerful heroes due to her infinity stone origin

spends most of her time in space

survived the blip

#carol danvers #avengers #earth199999 #taken #taken female

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cjsinkythoughts · 3 years

Text

Inner Conflict

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Avenger!Reader

Word Count: 3586

Warnings: !FATWS SPOILERS!, Cursing, Some Angst, Some Fluff, Sam and Bucky being idiots, Mentions of PTSD, Anxiety, and Depression

A/N: Here’s Part Three to my FATWS Series, which I’m making a masterlist for that you can find Here.

Uh…it’s a little long, and I apologize for that. It doesn’t even encompass the whole second episode, only the first half, so a Part 3.5 will be coming out later today probably (it’s my day off work so I have all day to relax and write!) I tried not doing a line for line rewrite of the episode, but there are quotes from the show in here. Mostly it’s Reader’s thoughts and feelings towards what’s happening while conversations are going on around. Reader’s backstory is a bit more unfurled. It’s more action packed and more scene-for-scene of the episode than the previous two. Less emotions shared and less hurt/comfort type of thing, but that’ll be back in the next part probably along with more scenes not in the show. The next part I’m planning won’t be as long, it’ll mainly just be the Couples Therapy scene and a bit more angst with her and Sam and her and Bucky.

Because there’s four more episodes and I don’t know what’s going to happen in them, I’m kinda hesitant on spilling out exactly what is going on with the Reader and what her role was on the original team, but we’ll get there. Also, I wasn’t expecting to be writing multiple pieces for one episode, but if the other episodes are as packed as this one, prepare yourself for more parts than anticipated. We’re already on Part 3 and I’ve got Part 3.5 coming. Just bare with me as I don’t know what’s going to happen in future episodes! Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy it!

(Not beta’d so excuse any mistakes.)

!SPOILERS UNDER CUT!

Walking out of the shower, ruffling a towel through your hair to dry it off, you froze at the sound of the TV. A sigh left your lips. It’s all he’d been doing the last few days - watching the news. Keeping up with the tour for the new Captain America.

You peeked out of the small bedroom to find Bucky sitting on the floor, brow creased as he watched John Walker talk to the Good Morning America hostess.

“You shouldn’t be watching that.” You spoke up, leaning on the doorway, still patting your hair dry. He glanced over to you, taking in the towel wrapped around you, before looking back at the TV. Seeing you like that wasn’t anything new. “Buck, I’m serious. Brooding over it won’t make anything better.”

“What do you want me to do?”

You let out a sigh, shifting your feet and biting your lip as you thought about how to respond. “I-I haven’t figured it out yet. But obsessing over the new guy-”

“Aren’t you mad?”

You frowned at his question, his eyes meeting yours once more. “I told you already that I am.”

He tilted his head, which he did when he was confused, his eyes narrowing. “Why don’t you show it? Why aren’t you screaming or cursing or crying or something? You, of all people-”

“Because it won’t help anything, Buck.” You shook your head, pushing off the wall. “I want to. But if I let myself go down that road…” Dropping your gaze to the floor, you take a breath, collecting your thoughts. “This is such a complicated situation, James. I’m being contacted left and right for a statement on the new Captain. People trying to see my reaction. Senators trying to get me to meet with him. I can’t let myself snap. I can’t.”

He scowled. “They’re still bothering you?”

A dry chuckle escaped your lips and you nodded. “Makes me miss the days when no one knew who I was; when I was the behind-the-scenes seventh Avenger. But I made that choice to come out, and I have to deal with the consequences now. Blowing up will only-”

“Even though I never met him…he feels like a brother.”

That one statement stopped you in your tracks. Bucky’s head whipped back to the TV, his jaw ticking, his nose scrunching up.

“Did he really just say that?”

Bucky merely nodded, his chest heaving as he tried getting his breathing under control. “Feel like snapping now?”

You purse your lips as you held in the tears stinging your eyes. After composing yourself, you moved over and grabbed the remote, letting out a tiny sniffle as you did so. You tentatively touched Bucky’s shoulder, silently asking him if he needed anything from you. His response was to open his arms, so you quickly got down besides him to hold him.

“He is my brother, doll.”

“I know, Buck.” You pressed a soft kiss to his head, which rested against your bare shoulder.

Your bare knees are pressed harshly against the wooden panels of the floor, and you’re twisted awkwardly, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care. As long as he was comfortable, you would take the uncomfortable position. As long as he was being held, you would take the soreness it would leave. As long as you could help him be some sort of okay, you would take not being okay in this position.

You two sat like that for a few more moments before your phone buzzed. You gave a sigh, pulling back and holding his cheeks in either hand. He wasn’t crying, although he was on the verge of doing so. You’d seen him cry before, so you knew he didn’t mind. For you it was a different story.

Bucky had maybe seen you cry twice since the whole Blip thing went down. And one of them was over the phone, so he didn’t see it so much as he heard it. You didn’t let yourself cry in front of him. Or anyone, for that matter. It was a part of you. The only person you ever felt comfortable enough around to cry in front of…wasn’t there. And you couldn’t change that.

“We’ll figure it out.” You told him, nodding gently and letting a small, sad smile quirk the corners of your lips up. “Okay? We’ll figure it out.”

The clench in his jaw loosened as your fingers worked circles into the hinge, making him relax and nod back. You pressed a tender kiss to his forehead before standing up, moving across the room to where your phone was on the counter. You assumed it’d be another government official or news reporter, so you were slightly shocked to see ‘Sammy’ flashing up at you.

Your eyebrows furrowed as you read his message, a slight pout forming on your face.

“Doll?” Toned arms wrapped around you, warm and cool, his chin setting on your shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Sam. He needs my help with something.”

“I’m coming with you.”

You turned in his arms, eyes narrowing in suspicion. “Why?”

He shrugged, licking his lips. “You might need help.”

“Bucky, you can’t go if you’re just going to yell at him.”

“I won’t.”

You studied his features. He was lying, you knew that. Of course he was going to snap at Sam for giving up the shield. He was mad and they got on each others’ nerves every chance they could find, so of course he was going to.

But you still found yourself saying yes and telling him to go pack a bag. You were never able to say no to Steve and it seemed that got passed on. What a nuisance it was.

****************

And you were so right. It was the first thing he said once Sam came into view coming down the stairs.

“You shouldn’t have given up the shield, Sam.”

“James.” You squeezed the hand he was holding, voice pleading for him not to do this right now. He huffed, stepping back to let you greet Sam properly, giving the man a hug. “Hi, Sammy.”

“It’s been a while.” Sam commented, pulling back and holding you by the shoulders. “You look good. Not that you’ve ever looked otherwise.”

You gave him a small smile. “You do too.”

“Thanks for coming. I know it’s short notice, but-”

“It’s fine, Sam. Really.” You insist.

Sam nodded, before eyeing Bucky. “Did you have to bring him?”

“Samuel-”

“This is wrong.” Bucky cut in, staring Sam down, falling into step besides him as the man started heading outside.

“James-”

“Hey, hey. Look. I’m working, all right?”

You rolled your eyes as the two started arguing, stopping your stride to take a breather. You used to joke about babysitting them, but it didn’t feel like a joke anymore and you were getting tired of it. All the bickering for no reason. The contempt they held for one another. Steve made you promise that you would look out for them, and you were trying, but they weren’t making it easy.

When you joined them again, you raised an eyebrow at the direction the conversation turned. How the hell did they get from arguing about the shield to what a wizard is?

“Ahh! Haha! A sorcerer is a wizard without a hat!”

You gave Sam a look as he babbled about how he was right. “Sorcerer Mickey has a hat. Isn’t that, like, how he gets his powers and everything?”

Bucky grinned at you. “Thank you!”

“Excuse you!” Sam scoffed, pointing an accusing finger at you. “We were having a conversation!”

“Yeah. A stupid conversation I just ended. Now I’m gonna be in the plane. Feel free to join me when you’re done being idiots.”

They both spluttered, but you were already walking away, leaving no room for arguments. As you loaded onto the plane, you spotted the Lieutenant whom Sam mentioned who had been helping him out with missions. Torres, you thought, remembering his name from a previous phone call with your friend.

“You Lieutenant Torres?” You asked, walking up to him.

He blinked, before his eyes widened, a grin appearing on his face. He seemed young, which you were perfectly okay with considering you’ve been working alongside old men for the past decade. It was always nice to work with a fresh face, which you found after you started working with Wanda and Peter.

The thought of the two youngest members made you falter, not having heard from either of them since Christmas almost six months prior, but you quickly recovered yourself, shaking away the worries you had for them.

“You’re Y/N Y/L/N! I’m a huge fan! I’ve read all your files!”

Chuckling a little, you held out your hand. “Most of those are heavily classified.”

He ducked his head with a little blush, rubbing the back of his neck after shaking your hand. “I, uh, I might’ve…used connections.”

“It’s okay.” You reassured him, throwing him a wink. “I won’t tell. Can you tell me what’s going on? Sam didn’t exactly explain the situation.”

He nodded, getting into ‘work mode’, something you’ve seen in most military men, informing you of their recent missions and the group known as the Flag-Smashers and giving you a file on them. He was in the middle of telling you about his solo mission in Germany when your two fellas came in, sending each other small glares, but remaining quiet.

Bucky caught your eye and sent an apologetic look your way, to which you just smiled at before turning back to Torres.

“Well I’m glad you’re okay.” You told him once he was done.

“Oh yeah. It wasn’t that bad.”

You laughed and nodded. “I’m sure. You seem like a tough kid.”

He smiled, before looking around and jabbing his thumb behind his shoulder. “I-I’ve gotta go, but-”

“We can talk later.” You promised with a grin.

“Really?!”

“Of course! I have a feeling we’ll be working together more, and I like getting to know who’s gonna have my back.”

He beamed and nodded, walking backwards. “That’d be awesome! Talk to you later then!”

You giggled as he turned around and jogged off, pumping his fist in the air. You turned to a grinning Sam and nodded towards where Torres left. “I like him. Seems like a nice kid.”

“He is. Very energetic. A little reckless, but he’s got a good heart.”

You hummed, the smile falling from your face as you flipped through the file Torres gave you. “So…Munich?”

“Yeah. Listen, I’m sorry again for taking you away from the search, but-”

“Search is off.” You informed him quickly, not looking up. “Until further notice.”

The plane went quiet, before Sam cleared his throat. “So…no sign of Wanda yet, then?”

You shut the file, looking up at the men whose features were laced with concern. “I’m gonna go talk to the pilot. Behave while I’m gone. No pushing each other off the plane.”

“Doll?”

You were stopped by the hand that grabbed your wrist as you passed Bucky. You shot him another smile, knowing it wasn’t convincing enough for him, but it being the best one you had. “I’m okay. I’ve just gotta ask him some questions.”

************

Opening your mouth to stop him, you groaned when Bucky jumped out of the plane before you could speak. First Sam jumps without sharing the plan, then Bucky jumps without having a plan. Or a parachute. Or wings. Or anything.

Torres looked at you, but all you could do was shrug. “I dunno what to tell you, kid.”

“You’re not gonna do that, are you?”

“No.” You reassured him, shaking your head. “I’m gonna wait ‘til we land like a normal person and take my bike. I just have to pray that they’ll wait to do anything stupid until I get there.”

They didn’t wait. You’re pretty sure they didn’t even think about waiting. By the time you got to them, they were fighting - and losing, might you add - to six really strong people on top of two semi trucks.

Because why wouldn’t they?

Oh, oh. And on top of that, the fake was there, throwing the shield. The shield that didn’t belong to him. The shield that meant so much more than he would ever know.

“Hi, doll! Sorry we started the party without you!” Bucky shouted from where he was hanging off the edge, that close to the street and getting his head torn off by the tire.

“I’m so tired of babysitting you two, you know that?!”

“Oh! Sorry we’re such an inconvenience for you! Blame him! He jumped the gun!” Sam shouted, coming to fly next to you as you rolled up your sleeves, standing on your bike, using one hand to steer.

“Can I get a little help already?!”

“Sam-!”

“On it!”

Knowing that no matter how much they pissed each other off, Sam would make sure Bucky was okay and vice versa, you focused on getting to the top, where Walker and a buddy of his were struggling a little bit.

You climbed up to the roof of the semi no one was on, wincing when you heard your bike skidding across the pavement. There goes half your salary.

You couldn’t dwell on it for very long, considering one of the guys appeared in front of you. You recognized the fighting - the strength - and faltered, a memory resurfacing at a very bad time.

“C’mon, honey. You can do better than that.” Steve grinned at you, holding out a hand to help you up.

“Excuse me for not having super strength, Rogers.” You huffed out, taking it and letting him pull you up.

“You don’t need to be stronger than me. You just need to be smarter.”

“That’ll be easy.” You teased, stretching your arms before getting into your stance again. “You’re a dumbass sometimes.”

“Yeah, well, who chose to be friends with this dumbass?”

“Everyone needs a dumbass for a friend.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “So I’m your dumbass?”

“If you want.”

The grin he shot you made your heart skip a beat. “If you’ll have me.”

You blinked, but Steve wasn’t in front of you anymore and you weren’t in the gym in DC.

The guy caught the punch you distractedly threw and twisted your arm, making you cry out, kicking him in the back of the knee and flipping him over your shoulder.

You went to kick him again, but he caught your leg and threw you against the side of the other semi. You were able to grab onto where Bucky had ripped through the side, but you winced as the metal cut through your palm. Sam had just flown under the trucks, taking Buck with him, and you knew when a fight wasn’t worth it, so you quickly moved around the truck, letting Walker and his pal distract the Flag-Smashers, before letting yourself fall onto the side where the grass was.

You wanted to lay there, to catch your breath and curse yourself for getting distracted. You hadn’t had a flashback like that in a while. But you didn’t let yourself. You had to make sure the guys were okay.

Standing up made you cringe; you could feel the throbbing in your shoulder from where it was no doubt dislocated and your leg was aching, the muscle probably pulled when the guy threw you.

“Doll!” You turned, seeing Bucky and Sam sprinting towards you a few yards down the road. “Hey, hey.” Bucky immediately had his hands hovering over you, scanning your body. “Are you okay?”

You nodded, shoving his hands away. “I’m fine.”

“What’s wrong with your shoulder?”

“I think I dislocated it.”

Sam frowned. “What the hell happened?”

You gave him a weird look, starting to limp across the field to where you noticed a side road earlier. “They were super soldiers, Sam. And we got our asses kicked.”

“Yeah, but you know how to fight a super soldier-”

“It’s been a while.”

“Bullshit.” Sam side stepped in front of you, making you stop. “What happened?”

“I-I just got distracted, okay?”

“Y/N. Look at me.” Bucky took your face between his palms, eyes worried. “Are you okay?”

You nodded. A tired sigh left your lips and you looked anywhere but his eyes. “Yeah. I’m fine. Just hurting. My leg, I think I pulled it or something-”

“C’mere.” Bucky turned and crouched down, making you blink.

“What?”

“You shouldn’t be walking. We don’t wanna make it worse.”

“But it’s just a strain, it won’t-”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Just get on the man’s back, Y/N.”

You bit your lip before sighing and carefully climbing on his back. He shifted you gently, making sure to hold your leg with caution, leaning his head into yours when you hooked your chin on his shoulder. “You-you don’t have to talk about what happened. Just-just know that when you do…I’ll be here, okay?”

You nodded, moving to press your nose against the column of his throat. “Okay.”

But you could never tell them. How could you? How could you tell the world’s longest POW that you were having nightmares? How could you complain to an Air Force vet who served two tours in Afghanistan and watched his best friend get blown out of the air that you were having flashbacks?

You weren’t sure if it was PTSD or anxiety or depression. Maybe all three. It didn’t matter, though, because you didn’t want to admit it. You wouldn’t admit it. No one thought the Blip messed you up that badly. No one thought Steve leaving did that much damage. And you were okay with that. You were okay with them thinking you were healing - that you were fine - because they needed to see that it could be done. That they could be fine, too. Especially the men walking, Sam teasing Bucky per usual.

It wasn’t until a horn honked that you allowed yourself to be pulled out of your thoughts. A scoff left you when you realized who it was, switching the side you were laying on so your cheek pressed up against the cool metal of his left shoulder, facing away from the jeep.

You tried ignoring the guy as he talked about working together and shit, taking a shuddering breath, making Bucky squeeze your uninjured thigh. There was no way you were working with him. You couldn’t. It’d be like betraying Steve and you didn’t need that on top of all the other things you were dealing with.

You couldn’t deny the need for a ride though. The airport was 20 miles away and you were hurting pretty bad. You suspected that was the reason the guys relented, Bucky tenderly setting you down in the jeep between him and Sam, careful of your injuries.

You stared at your lap as Walker and Sam talked shop. You understood where they were coming from, you were always able to see both sides of the coin, but it didn’t mean you were going to willingly work with him.

“I got mad respect for all of y’all, but you were kind of getting your asses kicked till we showed up.”

You scoffed at that, finally raising your eyes to meet Walker’s friend’s. “Like you were doing any better?”

Bucky reached over to grab her hand that was resting on her lap. “You know, I’ve been trying to get in contact with you.” Walker faced you, eyes raking down your form. Bucky shifted in his spot, but you ran your thumb over his knuckles before he could do or say anything stupid.

“Yeah. I know. My phone hasn’t stopped blowing up for a week. Thanks for that, by the way.”

Walker frowned. “If you just answered-”

“I don’t care who you are. I don’t care what you’ve done. I’ve been a little busy doing my job to blow smoke up your ass on national television. Sorry if my saving people’s lives has been an inconvenience for you, but some wannabe playing dress up isn’t my top priority.”

Walker’s brows furrowed and he was about to say something, when Bucky cut in, asking his friend who he was. You were already that close to jumping out of the jeep, when the guy, Hoskins, told you three that he went by ‘Battlestar’.

If the situation wasn’t so aggravating, you would’ve laughed when Bucky immediately told the driver to stop, opening the door before the car even stopped. “C’mere, doll.” He murmured, lifting you up into his arms bridal style, before walking off, tuning out Walker as he shouted after you two.

You pouted a little when you saw Sam still talking to the guy. “What’re they talking about, Buck?”

“Some nonsense about him not replacing Steve. Just trying to be the best Captain America he can.”

You laid your head against Bucky’s chest. “The best Captain America is Steve. He can never be Steve.”

“I know, doll.”

“Steve told me once that all he was trying to do was be a good man…it’ll always amaze me that he didn’t see he was the best.”

You missed the distraught look Bucky shot towards you, the look in his eyes almost heartbroken while you talked fondly about his best friend. The tortured scrunch to his features seemed to melt away at your next words, though, and he held you tighter as you curled into his hold.

“Just like it amazes me that you don’t know how important you are to me too, Buckaroo.”

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milliedazzledust · 3 years

Text

In Loving Memory (Bucky Barnes imagine)

Request: @missroro the reader is steve twin and she married to bucky after the blip, she had enough of the 'new captain america' thing shes really mad, so when walker and his friend start talking about joining forces she snap like she pull out a gun and pointing right at them, also sam ofc dont forget about sam. Sam trying to stop her while bucky "nah let her do her fun"

Words: 2021

Warning: !!TFATWS SPOILER!! without context - violence

A/N: wrote this today, it basically follows the events of ep3 of fatws but without context. I have a couple of exams this week so I won't be able to post until next saturday. Until then, enjoy

"You shouldn’t have gave him the shield"

Sam frowned, turning back to look at Bucky.

"I didn’t gave him the shield" He defended himself, making a point.

"Well, Steve definitely didn’t" Y/N ironically answered back.

He gave her a pointed stare. They had had this conversation countless times and Y/N never missed a chance to remind him of what she thought was a huge mistake.

"You are the reason this is happening, Sam. You chose to take on my brother’s legacy and threw it out the window"

The man didn’t reply and pursed his lips. He knew she didn’t mean any of her harsh words, she was angry and still mourning. If taking it out on him could make her feel better, he would let her.

"Y/N, stop" Bucky took a step toward his wife, clasping her hand in his metal one. He had hoped the physical contact would be enough to calm her down.

"He abandoned me, Sam" She continued, her voice filled with emotions. "He was gone and all I had left was memories. I chose this life for him, I fought with him, I believed in everything he represented. I looked up to him, to Captain America. And today, even those memories are gone, taken by the same government you and I were up against, mocked by clowns pretending to be heroes, all because you gave up"

The Falcon closed his eyes and dropped his head. She couldn’t see his point of view, or share his opinions when her judgment was clouded by so much pain. He wished she could understand the dilemma, the duality that represented the shield for him.

"Y/N, please, that’s enough" Bucky whispered next to her ear.

She turned her head toward him and as usual, his heart broke when he saw the torment in her eyes. She didn’t need to speak, she was an open book to him. They both had lost so much and yet were all each other had left. They were collateral damage, their own team against a world that wasn’t theirs anymore. She silently nodded, assuring him she was fine. Sam watched Bucky kissing her forehead and he furrowed his brow. He would never admit it but he was glad they had each other, because no one could carry that much pain alone without crumbling apart.

Before any of them could add anything, soldiers in blue and red erupted in the room, bursting through the door of the apartment where they were hiding in Latvia. Bucky instinctively grabbed Y/N and forced her body to move behind his. The two man stood in front of them, tall and proud, a smug smile on their lips.

"Alright, that’s it, your time is up" The man calling himself Captain America announced, the shield in one hand, the other pointing at the three avengers. "Tell me where Zemo is"

"We know you’re hiding him" His sidekick added.

"I’m ordering you to turn him over"

Sam eyed them up and down.

"Let’s be clear, the only thing you’re running here is your mouth" The Falcon firmly replied, crossing his arms.

"I gave you a chance to work with us" He mentioned.

" ‘For us’ is the correct way to put it, tough guy. And we said no." Y/N reminded him, her face showing how much she was annoyed.

"You’re obviously in over your head so I suggest you turn back and go" Sam argued.

"You really want this conversation to go there ?" The hero threatened.

Bucky straightened up when he felt Y/N tensing. He knew she was already on the verge of snapping. One wrong word from the man she hated and this could go down to hell.

"Should I put down the shield ?" He continued to challenge Sam. "Make it fair?"

The woman groaned and when John Walker dropped his weapon, without a second thought, she grabbed the nearest knife and threw it right at his face. The man had barely enough time to move back and his eyes rose in surprise when the blade stuck itself into the wall with force.

"Sorry, it slipped" She ironically explained, shrugging.

"You don’t want to play this game with me" He tried to intimidate her, tilting his head to the side.

She smiled, pleased he was giving her the opportunity to smack his face. Bucky clenched his fists when he saw her walking in front of Walker. Without tearing her eyes away from his, she seized her knife and pulled it out of the wall with a sharp movement.

"I think someone should teach you a lesson, Walker" She told him in a low tone.

"Are you offering ?" He challenged her.

"Don’t tempt me"

"You’re lucky you’re his sister" He grinned. "But don’t push it. This Captain America is not as lenient as the previous was"

Bucky swore under his breath. It was too late now. And just as Sam looked at him with concern, Y/N threw her fist in a curved punch at the soldier. He used his forearm to counter the blow, but she was faster and had far more experience. Using the momentum, her foot rose up and kicked him in the face. The man was thrown back, shaking his head in confusion.

"We should do something" Sam advised the former assassin.

"No. Let her have her fun" He crossed his arms, harboring a small smirk.

The soldier tried to hit her back, but even when he took the shield she blocked his attack. His sidekick soon joined the fight and distracted her for a second, just enough time for Walker to punch her. Immediately, she felt the taste of blood in her mouth, but no pain. She was passed that, far too pissed to feel anything.

Another blow on her chest send her to the ground and Hoskins hold her down while his friend was about to hit her with her brother’s shield. He raised it in the air, with every intention of beating her, but a strong metal hand stopped him in his movement. A very infuriated Bucky stood before him, his blue eyes darkening with anger. He firmly took the weapon, knocked Hoskins out with it and threw it across the room.

"If you wanted to make it fair, you shouldn’t have chosen to hit my wife" His tone was terrifying.

Walker didn’t seem as confident anymore. Bucky looked imposing, brute force ready to strike. His metal arm clenched in a fist and, without warning, it collided with the soldier’s jaw, sending him a few feet away. He strode to the man on the ground and grabbed him by the collar of his uniform

"This is all easy for you, isn’t it ?" Walker spoke with venom, staring at Bucky. "All that serum running through your veins"

With a swift movement, Y/N took the shield and launched it with power right on the soldier’s chest. The blow was so violent his body crashed into a door before landing on the floor. She was furious by his statement and he could see it with every step she made toward him. She grabbed the gun attached to her thigh and pointed it at his face.

"Lesson number one: learn when to shut up. Especially when you don't know what you're talking about" She was fuming but had not intention on killing the man, despite the sheer desire to do so.

She didn’t realize Sam was next to her until she saw his hand lowering her gun.

"This isn’t what Steve would want." He calmly expressed. "Remember, there’s always another way"

Her lips quivered and she closed her eyes, remembering how many times her brother had told her that. She let him take the weapon and looked up at him. The conviction and kindness in his stare were enough. He didn’t have to say anything. Every words she needed to hear, he spoke them in silence.

She turned back to Bucky and he cupped her face, inspecting the bruise on her skin. He seemed ready to go back and beat the man down. Y/N softly smiled and clasped her hands around his wrists. He stroke her cheek and pulled her toward him before carefully kissing her lips.

"Good ?" He asked in a soft voice he only used with her.

"Good"

It was something between them, a single word they spoke every time they fought. Wherever they were, whomever they were up against, if one of them asked, the other had to answer. It was their intimate way to always know they were alright.

Later that day, Sam and Bucky had decided to go talk to the leader of the Flag Smasher, Karli Morgenthau, while Y/N had been charged to follow Walker and Hoskins. As soon as she had seen they were going after the young super soldier, she had warned her friends about the danger. She knew enough about the new Captain to guess he had no intention on arresting Karli. He wanted to make justice himself. She pitied his sidekick. He seemed like a decent man with good ideas struggling to find virtue on the wrong side of the battle. He was Walker’s collateral damage.

She wondered what Steve would think of all that if he could see them fighting both super soldiers and Captain America. He never cared for the star and stripes, never used his shield to harm. His heart was with the people he defended. Even when it had been against Tony, he pursued what he believed was best. Was that what Walker was trying to do ? She couldn’t know. But she was sure of one thing, the man had nothing in common with Steve. Pride, ego and selfishness were never traits anyone would have used to describe her brother. She couldn’t bear for him to be replaced, especially to a man that didn’t share his morals or any of his opinions. The shield he was carrying wasn’t just a weapon, it was her brother’s symbol of hope, a symbol he had fought so hard to forge. The man made the uniform, not the other way around. That’s what Walker didn’t get. Up until that point, people had not been following Captain America, they had been following Steve Rogers.

Standing in that public square, she didn’t realize she was crying until she felt Bucky entwined his fingers with hers. She couldn’t avert her eyes from the horrific scenery. Powerlessly, she watched a man she didn’t know being executed. His opponent was merciless, striking with determination and rage, using the only piece of memory she had left of her brother to bring terror and death. Frozen on the spot in the middle of the crowd, she could see the fear in all those strangers eyes and it felt like grief coming in waves, a shard in her guts that would never leave. It felt like this particular moment was choking the breath out of her body, short circuiting her mind. What was whole once completely shattered and she couldn’t find the strength to be angry anymore. All her brother had built had fallen apart in the split of a second and all the world had left was a bloodied image of his symbol of hope. A symbol that was no more.

“Sam...” She called him, almost like a scared child.

“I know...”

Both men looked worried. Y/N felt Bucky’s hand trembling and she squeezed him harder. She could easily guess how he felt. Steve had saved both of them, he had gave them a purpose, had allowed the former assassin to be more than the weapon Hydra had made of him. Pieces by pieces, he had brought their family back together. And as they both stood there, witnessing the horrifying end of his legacy, Bucky realized everything his bestfriend had fought for was turning into dust.

"I’m sorry" Y/N whispered to Sam. "But there’s no other way now"

Her husband dropped his head, trying to regain a sense of control over his emotions. Wordlessly agreeing with her, he turned to their friend.

“He has to be stopped”

Tags: @taina-eny

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sugarybitterness · 2 years

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Kate x reader

maybe it's late at night and kate is in her home office working when she hears reader crying ? readers having a nightmare and kate comforts her? 🥺 pls just lots of fluff and cuddling

yayyy my first kate request! and also my first kate fic 😮‍💨😮‍💨 honestly i adore her sm she’s so funny and overall so so sweet djksndks i am a simp 🥺 hope u enjoy this !! feedback is alw appreciated <3 also this is set in an au whr everyone lives and no one dies so yay!

700 celebration 😮‍💨

the first time you meet kate bishop is at a sports meet. intel had come in about a promising young girl who was skilled in archery, who also happened to be the daughter of the CEO of a security company. with the older avengers beginning to step down, it was time for some new faces to come in. so, it was your job to recruit her.

“hey, i’m here on the behalf of the avengers. could i get your number so that we can contact you in regards to a potential tryout?”

“oh! uh, sure? i can write it down for you if you’d like?”

when you contacted kate about coming down to showcase her skills to the team, you were taken aback by her response.

“wait, you’re actually working for the avengers? it wasn’t just some pickup line?”

“no..? wait why would you give me your number if you didn’t think i was serious about the avengers tryouts thing?”

“i thought you were cute!”

“oh my god.. so will you be coming down for the tryouts kate bishop?”

naturally, when kate was officially added to what the team called “baby avengers” alongside yelena belova and peter parker (which you were slightly miffed about as you had joined the team shortly after wanda but due to your young age the team continuously babied you), two of you started to become closer.

“someone has to look out for her!” was your defence when your friends teased you about your budding relationship the young archer. the way kate had easily trusted you worried you, considering you had yet to be introduced to the public and could’ve easily been someone trying to scam or hurt her. safe to say none of them believed you and they even began betting on when the both of you would get together. (wanda won)

while you still worry about her still too trusting nature, it’s safe to say you’ve come to love that about her as well. with your rough upbringing as an hydra experiment, trust never really came easy to you. but you found yourself trusting kate effortlessly and with trust came comfort.

comfort was yet another thing that you were still getting used to. it started small- from the very first few weeks of being an avenger. natasha finding you in the common room when neither of you could sleep due to nightmares, a cup of tea in hand. wanda choosing your favourite show or movie to watch together, sometimes holding you if you needed. yelena offering you snacks whenever she noticed you were sadder than usual.

but nothing could ever prepare you for the comfort kate bishop brought you.

it was another late night for your girlfriend. kate might technically be an avenger, but she had decided to continue working under bishop security. a decision she regrets slightly when all kate wants to do was to hold you and sleep all day long, but the reports that were due in a couple days meant that she wouldn’t be sleeping anytime soon.

taking a sip from the still warm cup of tea that you had prepared for her before bed, kate closes her eyes and sighs tiredly, her mind running through a mental list of things she had to do. a sudden cry from the bedroom of the apartment makes kate sit up quickly, cup hurriedly set down on the table as she reaches for her bow and arrows.

the brunette is quick to move to your shared room, her mind quickly running through the security protocol she would have to activate if there was a hostile there. the door opens and kate braces herself for a fight, but is met with your shaking form in the middle of the bed.

“baby?” kate calls softly, brows furrowing when you don’t seem to acknowledge her. moving slowly so as to not startle you, kate places her weapons to the side before walking over.

“honey, can you hear me?” kate tries again, releasing a sigh of relief when you turn your head just a little, locking eyes with her.

“katie?” your voice comes out as a whimper, your hands balled into tight fists as you try to ground yourself from the nightmare that woke you.

“yes baby girl, it’s me. is it okay if i touch you?” kate asks, knowing that you tended to be a little sensitive to touch after particularly bad nightmares. you nod quickly, unfurling your hands so that you can reach out to her. the minute kate pulls you into her embrace, your arms are circling her neck while your legs wrap around her torso. kate gently moves the both of you until she was sitting against the headboard, one hand stroking through your hair while the other runs up and down your back soothingly.

“you’re okay honey, you’re safe.” kate spoke softly, her comforting words slowly easing your erratic breathing. you softened in her hold, reveling in the way kate made you feel so safe, her soft kisses to your head making your body fill with warmth.

“thank you.” you whisper into the darkness of the room, your lips pressing a soft kiss onto kate’s neck where you had been nuzzling into.

“no need to thank me love, i’m here for you, always.” kate promises, her hold on you tightening ever so slightly.

you were forever thankful that the universe brought you someone like kate and that you could always seek out the comfort of your girlfriend’s embrace whenever you wanted. with kate, you felt safe and, most importantly, you felt loved.

#kate bishop #kate bishop x reader #kate bishop x you #marvel #avengers

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sapphosvioletts · 3 years

Text

Notebook

Avengers Team x Mute reader

Request: could you possibly do an avengers x teen!reader where the reader has selective mutism (a social anxiety disorder that makes it impossible to talk in some situations)?

Word count: 1,187

Warnings: mentions of anxiety/social anxiety, being yelled at, and tony isn't very nice in this so if you like him i'm sorry 🥺

.oOo.

I laugh at Bucky and Sam's banter at the dinner table, while Steve scolds them for their "childish behavior". We're all at a dinner with a couple of new recruits, we're supposed to be getting to know them since we might end up working in he field together at some point, but as usual I decided to stick next to someone and try not to bring attention to myself, which this time just so happens to be Sam.

I'm selectively mute, so meeting new people, or even just regular social situations are nerve wracking for me. But the team gladly lets me stick by one of them whenever I need to, knowing that sometimes in public I just need someone else.

The recruits all seem really nice, but of course that's only from what I've observed, I haven't actually talked to them yet. When we went around to introduce ourselves I conveniently went to the bathroom once I saw Steve give me a nod. He always does this for me, he gives me a silent signal so I can leave if I need to beforehand.

Sam also ordered for me as well so I wouldn't have to speak to the waiter. And thankfully no one questioned it, since they were all back into their own conversation by then anyways.

I look up from my plate when I hear my name, and find that it was one of the new agents voice. "I feel like we haven't heard much from you, could you tell us a bit about yourself?" I froze in my spot. She was so kind and obviously only had good intentions behind it. Which just made me feel even worse, since I don't want her to think I'm being rude.

I give a panicked smile to Sam, who thankfully takes over. "She's not really feeling very well tonight, she has a sore throat. But she'd be happy to meet you more later when she's feeling better." I let out a breath of relief as the agent takes the answer, wishing me a get well with a kind smile.

I briefly hug Sams arm in thanks, feeling incredibly grateful for him.

.oOo.

Steve stopped outside of the door as he heard yelling from Tony. He, like everyone else was tired from their earlier mission. He just changed out of his suit and was on his way to the med bay despite not being injured, but they all have to get checked after missions just to be sure.

As he stopped to knock on the door, he heard sniffles coming from inside as well. When he finally listens to what was being said, he felt even more anger rise, immediately asking Friday to call everyone else up.

They arrive just in time to hear him yell, "No, enough with your pathetic notebook. Actually give me an answer. You're too young to even be on the team in the first place, and add not even being able to fucking speak to the team? How do you expect missions to even ever work with you there."

They all have angry looks on their faces at hearing his words, and collectively slam open the door and stomp into the room. When the door opens they are met with the sight of Tony tearing my notebook in a half, and me frantically trying to grab it from him before he does.

I love this notebook, Natasha had gotten it for me. The cover had flowers on it and the first couple pages were full of notes from everyone on the team, just giving me affirmations and kind words. I cherished it, and to see Tony destroy it like that really hurt.

"Stark!" Natasha's voice boomed loudly, which caused Tony's head to whip over to her. His eyes widened as he realized other people were now in the room with him. Tony wasn't able to get even one word out before he was being dragged out of the room by Natasha and Bucky.

Wanda bent down and picked up my torn up notebook and I looked at it sadly. I took it from her hands as she gave it to me, running my fingers over the ruined notes from the team. Wanda looked up to the rest of the team, who were watching me sympathetically.

"Hey, how about we go and try to fix it and leave the boys and Nat to deal with Tony, yeah?" I nodded with a sniffle and she wrapped an arm around my shoulder, leading me out of the room. The rest all raced to the room next door, barging in to join in on berating Tony.

Wanda sat us at the kitchen table and helped me organize all of the pages out. "I'm not sure exactly what Tony said, but just know that none of it is true. We all love you and you are excellent on missions. Who cares if you can't speak? We have other ways of communicating that work just as well. Please don't listen to Tony."

I bite my lip as I listen to her words, not looking up from where I'm arranging the papers. I slowly nod, trying to keep my tears back. She sighs and kisses the top of my head, rubbing my back.

We manage to save the cover of the book, but unfortunately a majority of the pages are useless now. Wanda then gets an idea, and runs over to the kitchen drawer where I have another notebook stashed incase I ever needed it. It has a flimsy cover that could easily be removed, so she takes out the pages and manages to attach them into the cover of the other book.

I smile as I figure out what she's doing, starting to become more happy now that I know it is somewhat fixable. When she is done, I jump onto her and hug her waist tightly in thanks. She laughs and wraps her own arms around me. When I let go she grabs a pen and begins writing on one of the pages, knowing how much I appreciated it on my last book.

.oOo.

later in the day, I open my notebook to scribble down something that I need to remember. Even though I primarily use it for communicating to others, it is helpful whenever I need to remember something as well. I go to flip to the next page after the one Wanda wrote on, but only come up on another page filled with writing.

I gasp excitedly and can't help the wide smile that comes onto my face. Tears come to my eyes as I read through all of the pages, their words meaning so unbelievably much to me. Each person filled up an entire page for me, having so much to say.

When I'm finally done reading all of the pages, all I can do is shut the book and hold it tightly to my chest as I cry, happy tears of course. I don't know what I did to deserve them, but not a day goes by where I take it for granted.

#avengers x reader #avengers x teen!reader #avengers x platonic!reader #mute!reader #avengers x mute!reader #avengers x mute reader #avengers x platonic reader #avengers imagine #avengers fanfic #marvel imagine #teen!reader #platonic!reader

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winter-soldier-vibes · 3 years

Note

Hey darling ❤️ love your writing 3000 :) can u do one with Bucky x reader (they’re together) where he overhears the reader on the phone with her parents that are emotionally & verbally abusive towards her (they always have been) and the reader has to explain it all to him afterwards even tho she’s having a panic attack (bc she’s afraid bucky will leave her since she has no one else to go to ??) and bucky comforts her and reassures her that he’s gonna be there for her and like comfort fluff? I live in an emotionally abusive and manipulative household rn and I tell you your fics are like an escape for me. Even if u don’t do this thank you from the bottom of my heart :)

Hey there, I love you 3000 ❤ I am so so sorry to hear about your situation, and while I'm glad to hear that my writing is an escape for you, I want you to know that I'm here for you. No one should have to go through what you described. I hope that this can bring you some comfort but please, I encourage you to reach out to someone who can help you. My DM's are open as well, you shouldn't face this alone. I'm here for you!!!

You owe them nothing

Bucky Barnes x reader

Word Count: 3200 (ish)

Warnings: emotional abuse/gaslighting, manipulation, parent issues, tears, angst, breakdown, fluff.

---------

You really tried to keep it hidden. It wasn’t something that everyone needed to know about.

Your parents loved you, at least that’s what they had said. But it was one of those things where you felt like it was for show - the kindness that they showed when you were around others faded away once you were alone with them.

You remember once they had said “of course I love you, I’m your parent!”

But that made you wonder how they would treat you if you weren’t theirs.

They were horrible to you for as long as you could remember. Gaslighting you and making you feel like you owed them something even though they were the ones who should have taken care of you.

They were around but never…there. They would be there for family dinners but they were always riddled with criticisms of grades and who you were talking to and how you dressed. All of your hobbies were seen as a waste of time, something you should only do when you had nothing else to do. School came first, naturally, but there was always something they told you you had to do before you could do anything for yourself.

Yet when you would complain about being depressed, they told you to get a hobby because you never do anything.

Tired meant lazy, energetic and passionate meant loud and annoying. When you were quiet they thought you had nothing to say, yet when you expressed your opinions you were told to shut up.

You couldn’t win.

You could never make them happy, there was always something you were doing wrong.

They thought it was their right to monitor who you talked to and saw, what you did outside of school, what sports you could join. When you would say no to the school dances or parties you would make up an excuse about not wanting to go or having work to do. Your friends would call you a buzz kill. Little did they know you would give anything to go.

Whenever you would do something wrong (or anything, period,), your parents would yell at you. They would curse you out, make you cry, only to yell at you for crying like a little bitch.

The older you got, the worse it was.

You thought when you moved out it would be better. But you had all these years of being told you were worthless and having them be your providers. When you got your own place you didn’t really have any friends, nor did you really know how to make friends. You had a job to help you get by, you could support yourself. That wasn’t the issue. You could support yourself, you always had to.

It was that you were so lonely.

You wanted friends but you were so afraid of the criticism you would get. You were afraid to make yourself known, because you were always taught that being told what to do and taught what to think was much more appealing than having your opinion.

But this was an opinionated world.

You were good at what you did, so good that you had gotten a job at S.H.I.E.L.D. You thought that would make you happy, more importantly that it would make your parents happy, but no such luck.

“I got a really great job, guys.”

“Fantastic. I guess you’re just doing so great without us,” they had snapped.

“What? I mean… this is what you wanted right? For me to get a good job?” you had said, confused.

You heard a loud sigh on the other end of the line. “Of course we do, what are you crazy about? Of course we wanted you to get a good job but you just deserted us like we were trash. Have we done nothing for you?”

You felt your heart sink in your stomach. ‘Of course you guys have, I love -”

“Don’t say what you don’t mean. If you really cared about us you’d be helping us out. You got a great job and probably have a huge paycheck that you hoard and you left us here to struggle to make ends meet.”

You took the phone away from your face temporarily to take a shaky breath. Of course they would go there with the salary, why wouldn’t they? All of your paychecks had gone to them, since it was their house and they were feeding you, leaving you with barely enough money for your car and gas and phone bills, only for them to suggest longer hours when you complained.

“I can help you guys out if you need,” you said, trying to keep your voice steady.

You heard an exasperated sigh on the other line again. “You really should be more grateful, you know? We raised you your entire life and then you leave us alone? You never even call us? You’re so fucking selfish.”

Then the line went dead.

You shook your head and felt tears in your eyes as you spoke to yourself. “Well maybe I would call you if it didn’t always yell at me.”

Of course, you would never say that.

See, it wasn’t so bad. You never said anything because they were only ever mean to you, which would make you uncomfortable. There were people out there that would get hit or who would have to raise themselves from a young age. Once you grew thick skin it wasn’t so bad, you were just being dramatic.

Right?

Your new job was fairly successful, you were fantastic at what you did. You did a lot of behind the scenes work, weapon repair and plans of action with missions. Not that they needed much help with that. Still, they took you in as their friends.

Well, as close as you would let them get to as friends.

It took a while before you warmed up to them. Everyone tended to keep to themselves, but not as much as you. You kept the parts of you hidden away - you were there for a job, you did it, and you did it well. You knew how to do your job but interacting with the team, making friends - you didn’t want to get emotionally attached.

Not like you knew how to make friends to begin with.

Naturally you were drawn to the quieter side of the team, once you were able to open up. They were all nice but sometimes the parties and the jokes were a bit much. You just didn’t want to say or do the wrong thing that would make you the punchline.

No one needed to know about you, or how you would spend your free time being yelled at through a phone with you trying to make it better. That wasn’t part of the job, so you shouldn’t bring it up.

It wasn’t like anyone would want to help. You were just a nuisance to everyone around you.

Right?

No one talked about their life before the team much. Not many people on the team had a great life before the Avengers first came together. Natasha or Wanda had once spoken about how this team was a family. And as much as you wanted to believe it, you helped the team. You weren’t a part of the team. So even if that were true, it didn’t include you.

At least, that was your point of view.

The team viewed you as a part of the team as much as any of them. You didn’t fight with them but you made sure everything would go as smoothly. You were kind and great at what you did, but they wished you would open up more. Of course, being a team of people who had trouble opening up, they understood.

Bucky was one of the ones who took a liking to you, mostly because he saw a lot of himself in you. He could tell there was something that you were trying to get past but weren’t quite able to yet. That there was something bothering but you wouldn’t dare say it for fear of bothering someone. You threw yourself into projects and distractions and from the way you carried yourself, he guessed you were avoiding something that you weren’t ready to work through. At least, not yet.

He knew that feeling too well.

The ex-assassin was one of the easiest for you to open up to because he didn’t expect much from interactions. Both of you were quiet and kept to yourselves that there wasn’t much pressure to share anything or say anything. You knew his past but would never bring it up unless he wanted to. Which eventually, he did. You could tell he felt pressure to be who he was before HYDRA took him, and while Steve was surprised he opened up to you first, you weren’t. Steve knew Bucky before everything, and you didn’t have that bias. He was whoever he was today regardless of who he was yesterday.

And Bucky found comfort in that.

You think you would’ve too, if you thought you deserved it enough to do the same.

See, you were worried that you were making everything worse than it really was. You worried that maybe you were being too sensitive or that what you had grown up with was normal. With everything that everyone on the team went through, a few insults from your parents was hardly anything. You were being dramatic.

There was nothing to be sad or angry about. You just had to get over yourself.

Right?

You were getting by until one night when your parents called, as they did on occasion. You were in the middle of working, so you ignored it. The phone went to voicemail before it started ringing again, and you ignored it, again. The third time you sighed and picked up your phone, turning away from your work.

You took a deep breath before you answered. “Hello?”

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

You closed your eyes and brought a hand to rub your head. “Well I’m doing fine, thank you, how are you?”

“Don’t give me that attitude. What the fuck are you doing? You’ve been ignoring our calls.”

You stood up to pace the floor slightly, dreading the conversation that was coming. Is it the ‘family is most important’ or the ‘where’s my money?’ speech today? “I’ve been working.”

“What, so work is more important than family now? Is that what this is? You don’t care about us?”

Family speech it is.

“Dad -”

“What if one of us was dying? Huh? Would that be important?”

“Stop it. No one is dying, and I was working. And I have more work to do, so I really have to go.”

“You don’t get to tell me what to do, I’m your father.”

Gaining confidence you gritted your teeth and snapped, “You know what? I’m an adult now so you can’t tell me what to do.”

There was silence on the other end of the line and you could practically hear the steam coming out of your father’s ears.

At some point Bucky had come down to your working space to check on you, seeing as it was nearly morning. He stopped in the doorway, and seeing you were busy on the phone he thought he would stop by later to give you some privacy. But he stopped when he heard you snap.

You never snap.

“Who do you think you’re talking to you ungrateful little bitch?”

“I’m talking to the people who treated me like shit my entire life and ask me for money when you wouldn’t give me the time of day for 18 fucking years.”

Even you couldn’t believe the words coming out of your mouth. But god did it feel good to say them.

“Are you fucking serious right now? We did nothing for you? What do you think we’ve been doing your whole life? We’ve done everything we did to help you be the best person you could be. You have that job now because of us and you have no right to speak to me that way.”

You chuckled darkly as you looked up at the ceiling, unaware of Bucky’s presence behind you. “My entire life all I’ve ever wanted to do was make you guys proud of me. But you know what? I’m fucking done. You hated me, gaslighted me, and made me hate myself almost as much if not more than you seemed to hate me.”

“I did no such thing you ungrateful -”

“You were supposed to love me and care for me, and all you did was take advantage of me. I’m not your child, I’m a paycheck. I don’t owe you anything because you gave me nothing. So you know what? FUCK. YOU.”

You hung up the phone and tossed it across the room, adrenaline taking over your body as you tried to stop shaking. Because a small part of you felt bad.

But fuck did that feel amazing.

You heard a throat clear behind you and you turned around to see Bucky, eyebrows furrowed in concern.

“You okay?”

You nodded nervously, rubbing the sides of your arms. “Yeah, I’m fine,” you said, unconvincingly. “How much, uh...how much did you -

“Enough,” he said, pushing himself off of the door frame as he crossed over to you. “Who was that?”

“Bucky, don’t, it’s really fine. I just got a little worked up.”

“Y/n,” he started, looking at you with concern. “Who were you talking to?”

“No one.”

“You don’t get upset like that at no one,” he took your hands in his. “Y/n, you're shaking.”

It was then that you realized your hands were still shaking, trying to keep the anxiety of what happened at bay.

It’s going to be so much worse now.

I can never talk to them again.

Is that a good thing? Didn’t I want that?

Bucky could sense you getting lost in your head. “Sweetheart, tell me what happened, please. I want to help you.”

You pulled your hands away from his and crossed your arms. “You can’t help me because there’s nothing wrong, okay? I handled it, it’s over. Done. nothing to worry about.”

“Y/n -”

“No really, there’s nothing you can do, okay?”

“Will you at least let me try?”

You looked at him, adrenaline starting to drain from your system. This was Bucky, your Bucky, who had never done anything but love and support you. He had never done anything to hurt you.

But what if he left you too?

You took in a sharp breath and curled in on yourself, a scared look on your face. Bucky crossed back over to you, seeing a scared look on your face.

“Hey, hey, y/n? Can you look at me?”

You brought your eyes up to meet his, feeling your chest constricting as you tried to keep your breathing even. It wasn’t working.

“I - I’m sorry, you shouldn’t… I’m fine really I’m sorry, I’m so sorry”

“Hey, it’s alright, it’s okay, you have nothing to apologize for,” he pulled you in for a hug and kissed the top of your head. “Let’s go sit down, okay?’

He led you over to your bed and you leaned forward, hands on your knees and head in your hands. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s happening, this - I’m sorry, it’s so stupid, I’m so stupid.”

Bucky rubbed a hand up and down your back, hushing you. “It’s not stupid. If it’s bothering you, it’s not stupid.” Bucky took a small breath. “Do you remember all of those times after nightmares and all those panic attacks you would walk me through? How I thought I was being stupid?”

“You weren’t being stupid”

“And neither are you.”

You took some more shaky breaths as tears kept falling down your face. “You’re okay. It’s alright, I’m right here.”

Bucky let you calm down, knowing you would talk about it if you wanted to. He wanted you to talk about it so he could help you (and hurt whoever upset you) but he wouldn’t force you into telling him anything you didn’t want to.

The two of you sat in the silence, Bucky looking at you with soft eyes as you kept your face hidden.

“I haven’t told you a goddamn thing about me. You ever wonder why?”

You looked over at Bucky, eyebrows creased with slight confusion.

“They said blood was supposed to be thicker than water. That family comes first, right? I spent my whole life listening to them and following them and being the perfect kid. I made myself into everything they wanted me to be. And it still wasn’t enough for them.”

Bucky tilted his head slightly. He hadn’t known his parents much before they died but he had always wanted to have more time. But he wasn’t oblivious to the fact that not everyone had good parents.

“You know, I remember thinking that once I made it they would be happy. That if I worked hard enough or went onto do great things that they would be proud of me. That’s all I ever wanted, you know?” you said, voice wavering as you let out a bitter laugh. “But it’s not, you know? Never is, never was, never will be. All they do is take and take and no matter how good I am they’re always gonna hate me because I can’t be perfect.”

“No one’s perfect, y/n.”

“Well that’s what they want me to be. I know I can’t be perfect so I know they’ll never be happy. That they’ll call me ungrateful and selfish for succeeding and for leaving them when they never wanted me to be there to begin with.” You felt tears spill over as you wiped them away. “And I’m ust so fucking done with being a disappointment to them and to everyone else.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“I don’t know,” you said softly, not really wanting to be more vulnerable.

Bucky, sensing this was a time he could push you, challenged you. “I think you do.”

You shook your head. “I didn’t want anyone to see me the way they did. I thought what they said wasn’t true but...I just thought that maybe I was overreacting. Other people have it worse you know - some people have no parents or some have it so much worse. Mine just yell at me you know? Tell me everything’s my fault and that they wish they’d never had me. That I’m ungrateful for not being with them and that I owe them. I just...I heard that for the first 18 years of my life. I didn’t need any more of it.”

“y/n, that’s…” he swallowed, trying to contain his anger. “That’s not normal. No one should have to go through that. You can’t possibly think you're a bad person.”

Your shrug was enough to tell him that you did.

“Y/n, I don’t know who your parents think they are but you don’t owe them a damn thing. You may be related to them but you have no obligation to love your parents if they treat you like that. You have every right to be angry or to hate them. It doesn’t make you a bad person to be angry with someone who hurt you.”

“But they’re my family.”

“Well they didn’t treat you like it. You have us now, you don’t need them anymore. We’re your family. And we’re not gonna leave you.”

“They didn’t leave me Bucky, I left them.”

“You can’t leave someone who was never there for you.”

----------

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ev-pierce-writes · 3 years

Text

Doll

Pairing: Bucky Barnes (Winter Soldier) x F!Reader

Words: 7.7K

Rating: Very much 18+

Warnings: P in V, oral (fem receiving), light (consensual) choking, praise, James Buchanan Barnes is a sad boy and only you can make him happy, mutual therapy over past trauma, a couple light spanks, and some sexy sparring

Note: Reader had a run-in with Hydra that gave you invisibility powers. Bucky is tasked with training you. Totally not canon, I just kept the parts I liked. Got the idea from a tiktok but I can't find it anymore oops. I'm thinking of turning it into a series of all the places you can fuck Bucky Barnes at Avengers HQ. Enjoyyyyyy....

---

"Alright, so I'm thinking absolutely the first thing you need is a suit. Because we can't have you sneaking around in clothes that give you away."

Tony Stark and Peter Parker stand before you at Avengers HQ, furiously tossing ideas back and forth, trying to come up with ways to build you the best possible suit. Last night had been...interesting, to say the least.

"Who's that?" Stark had said when you appeared all of a sudden from your room. "Come on Agent Hill, don't tell me you're taking in lost kids nowadays."

Your mother had only laughed, slightly inebriated and feeling loose because of all the drinking that was going on in your penthouse apartment. She was hosting one of those parties where too many superpowers drank too much alcohol and got a little too rowdy. "That's my daughter."

Usually, you stay away from such events, go out with friends, and avoid the house until it's all over. For the past four years, you hadn't even been in the house to need to avoid it. But now you're 22 and a recent college graduate and something about the party was drawing you in so you had emerged from your hideaway to join in the fun.

"Alright, Maria, how'd you manage to keep that one a secret?" Romanov spoke up.

Until this point, you'd remained silent, in shock at the sudden attention a group of superheroes had focused onto you. But you couldn't help yourself from responding now. You'd managed to hide away long enough. It was time to come into the open.

"I'm a ghost," you said jokingly, approaching the couch and stealing the drink your mother had been drinking to take a sip. It was strong and burned on the way down. The group laughed at your words, unaware of how true they really were.

It was then that you'd performed your little trick, the one that only a few of your closest friends had ever seen. You became invisible.

The laughter had immediately stopped. The girl who suddenly appeared out of thin air had disappeared right back into it. They could still tell where you were of course. The glass in your hand remained visible, floating in mid-air, giving away your position. And your clothes were still perceptible, not being able to change with you. But your features were otherwise undetectable, not even a shimmer revealing your face. You took another sip of the drink, liquid disappearing into an invisible mouth.

"I want her. On the team," Stark had said.

And that was it. The start of your superhero career.

"Explain again exactly how this works?" Parker asks.

You sigh and start from the beginning, again. "I can distort the absorption wavelengths of my cells so that the reflected light is in the invisible range, usually infrared."

"And how long can you hold it for?"

"About seven minutes now," you explain. "It's sort of like holding your breath. You can go underwater for a while, and you can practice holding your breath longer and longer, but eventually, you need to come up for air. Eventually, I have to 'recharge.' But I've been working on extending it."

Stark turns to one of the many holograms of his supercomputer, working with Friday to design a brand new suit to accommodate your skills. You're so engrossed in watching his process you don't even notice the shadowy figure appear in the doorway that leads to the training facilities.

"How'd you get these powers? Agent Hill isn't lacking in skill but it certainly isn't supernatural."

You knew Stark's question would come up eventually. It always did. Over time, it became easier to tell the story, but now you really don't feel like explaining fully, so you tell the short version.

"Hydra. When I was seventeen. They used me as a bargaining chip against my mom in a mission gone wrong and decided to experiment on me in the process. Left me with a lot of scars and a lot of therapy. Almost dropped out of school."

You don't remember much from the experience. But enough for it to leave lasting damage.

"Hydra?" a familiar voice asks behind you. Only now do you notice that Barnes is behind you. How long has he been watching?

You remain silent, just like you did the night before when he'd arrived late to the party, unable to speak under his gaze.

You had planned to leave not long after you joined the festivities. But when the elevator doors opened, a pair of blue eyes halted you in your path. James Buchanan Barnes, the Winter Soldier. You'd recognize those eyes anywhere. Crystal clear and icy, freezing you under their gaze. He wore a leather jacket and leather gloves, concealing his metal arm, but you knew it was there, hiding behind the layers.

Barnes had always been the one that caught your eye during your mother's briefings. His transition from the greatest warrior Hydra had to offer, and thus S.H.I.E.L.D.'s greatest enemy, to the trusted companion of Captain America and official Avengers member intrigued you. At first, he had been more of a schoolgirl crush, the little girl grappling with her new powers seeking guidance in someone who didn't even know she existed. But age had not reduced your admiration of him. Barnes' face was hard set in serious determination and his glance barely grazed over you before turning to the rest of the group. He paid you not a single ounce of attention, yet you felt dumbstruck in his presence.

But Bucky had noticed you that night. Noticed you in a way he wanted desperately to hide, so he disallowed his eyes from lingering on you. Who were you and why were you wearing pajamas at a party and how did you make them actually look good?

And not only did he notice you, but he recognized you. He wasn't sure how, but something at the back of his head buried beneath decades of blurred half-memories told him he knew you. It was a stupid thought, though. How could he know you?

From the doorway, his eyes narrow in concern, making you feel smaller than ever beneath him. How is that 5 o'clock shadow so enticing? You just want to run your fingers across--

Stark gestures at Barnes, completely ignoring his comment. "Good, you're here. Our young Agent Hill needs to get started with her training immediately. I want her in the field but she can't be going in inexperienced. Teach her the works."

It's rather bold of Stark to assume you have no combat skills. And to assume you even want to go into the field. But you follow behind Barnes in silence anyway toward the training facilities. It doesn't matter what you know and don't know. He's going to kick your ass anyway.

"Feet wider," he says, coaching you on your swing. His blue eyes have somehow darkened, and along with the faint beard, he looks positively dangerous. "Not too wide."

"I know how to punch, Barnes," you whisper under your breath. He's not meant to hear your words, but he does anyway.

"Oh yeah? Punch me then. Go for it." His voice is challenging in the way that reveals he knows he could block any swing that comes at him. But he wants to see what will happen. Your mention of Hydra loosened a memory in his brain somewhere, and though he can't quite place his finger on it, the memory told him you're anything but the kid he's treating you like. He wants to know what you really have inside you.

Your annoyance gets the best of you. You aim for his face, the way your mother taught you. And she taught you well, teaching you all the self-defense skills you might need moving through the world as a woman. But she did not teach you how to fight super soldiers. That's an entirely different world.

Unsurprisingly, Barnes predicts your move and his metal arm comes up to meet your human one, halting your punch mid-swing. His palm fully engulfs your fist, your knuckles slamming into the metal with a ringing sound.

"Fuck, that hurt," you seethe through your teeth, gripping your hand in pain. And yet, you still smile. You mean for your words to sound irritated, but they betray how much you enjoy getting a swing in. "Didn't have to do me like that, Barnes."

He ignores your pain, though secretly it pleases him to find how much force is truly behind your punch. Nothing, of course, his metal arm can't take, but strong enough. "Language, kid. Go again. And this time, try not to be so obvious."

Despite his advice, it's impossible. He predicts every one of your strikes and counters them with four times as much strength as you possess. You give him everything you have, and nothing lands.

"This would be a lot easier if you let me use my powers."

So far, Barnes has refused to let you fight invisible, not that it would have done you much good without a proper suit. But you're tired and sweaty, your hair falling from its ponytail and sticking to your face, your muscles aching and your heart beating fast. Barnes hasn't even broken a sweat.

"Unless you learn to fight without your powers, they'll do nothing more than level the playing field. You need to be at an advantage if you're going to survive."

Survive. You've done plenty of that already. You want better than survival. Barnes recognizes the look on your face, the one that expresses the desire plainly. He knows the feeling, drifting from one day to the next and wanting more than that.

His voice softens a bit. "We can call it quits for the day. Get some rest. We'll go again tomorrow."

He didn't intend to be so kind. It just sort of happened, drawn out of him by the not-so-innocent girl who still has a lot to learn but can hold her own better than most.

---

Tomorrow. Tomorrow's8 like the day before, 9 am at HQ, wait for Parker to get his ass up the elevator so Stark can begin, get sidetracked by coffee, and then finally return to the task at hand.

"Give this a shot," Stark says, handing you what looks like nothing more than a vaguely human-shaped paper suit. "Not exactly protective, but it's a new technology. Should conform to your abilities."

"You did this overnight?"

"Of course. Get changed."

The suit has little support and definitely no protection. You feel like a fingernail could rip a hole through it if you pull on it wrong, let alone a knife coming at you from an angry enemy. But it's a start. An impressive start. You stare at yourself in the mirror of the bathroom as you shift, the suit shifting along with you.

Back in the training facilities, where you know Stark and Parker will be waiting, you remain in your shifted form. They don't look up as you enter, somehow having not heard you, and instead are engaged in a heated discussion with Barnes about something you don't understand. So you creep up behind Parker, lean in, and whisper into his ear.

"I think it works."

You feel a little bad, but only for a moment. Parker jumps straight out of his skin, screaming a scream you didn't know was possible from the kid. Stark lets out a laugh as you rematerialize, and Barnes even cracks a smile at your prank.

"Yeah, yeah, I'd say so." Parker's voice quivers.

"Well, what do you think?" Stark asks.

"Very thin," you say, aware that much more is visible than you really want. "I feel like it's going to rip at any moment. And there's not a whole lot of support in this area."

You gesture vaguely at your chest, not knowing how best to explain to a group of men that a sports bra is a necessity for fighting, but knowing you have to make them aware all the same. You can feel Barnes' eyes on you, a little less polite than the others, and you find you like the way he eyes you up, a bit like a puzzle to be solved or a strategy to be devised.

"Right, right, I'll get on that. Only a prototype anyway," Stark responds nervously. "Back to work, Parker. Hill, Barnes, back to training."

Bucky tries his best not to picture what you might look like without that suit, but it leaves little to the imagination as you saunter away to change again.

And so the days move forward. You've never before been so busy or exhausted in your life. You just graduated college, which is a feat in itself, but all the training, all the work, keeps you on your toes so that by the end of the day, both your brain and your body are tired.

Still, you improve and get better at sparring Barnes, even taking him down a couple of times on your own, though you suspect he's going easy on you.

"Again." Barnes is already on his feet and helping you to yours. Today the sparring room is particularly warm, and you've long forgone your sweats for shorts and a sports bra. Barnes has lost the shirt as well, and his chest glistens with sweat beneath the fluorescent lights. Maybe it's the heat or maybe it's him, but the whole thing feels a bit dreamlike. Here you are, sparring with a man who could take you to the ground with one arm alone, and he's letting you kick his ass every once in a while.

But there's no way you can do it again. You feel destroyed by all the slamming onto the mat.

Barnes is doing his best not to be distracted as well, but those tight shorts and the top that reveals your midriff have to be on purpose. It's easy to admit to himself that he likes you, might even be attracted to you. You fight hard and relentlessly, rising to every one of his challenges and not backing down even when you're tired. You've already come a long way since that first encounter, and Barnes has come to look forward to the two hours a day you spend together in the gym. He had tried to tell himself it was the fun of having a new sparring partner, but in truth, he knows it's the determined glint in your eyes, the way you bounce on your feet in excited anticipation of the fight, the way you collapse on the mat after a hard session, chest heaving deep breaths in and out. But what he likes most is your heated gaze when he pins you to the ground, or even better, you pin him.

"Knock me down one more time and you can be done," he challenges. The familiar determination returns, though a flicker of doubt remains behind your eyes. He can tell you need encouragement. "Remember to use your size to your advantage. Don't let me get ahead of you. Keep me guessing."

You do your best. You really do. You hold your own for almost two minutes, but it's obvious you're only barely staying ahead of him. As soon as you falter, Barnes has you flat on your back on the mat without much resistance, immobilized by a knee on your thighs and his metal arm trapping your hands over your head. His free hand plants by your head and holds him up to prevent him from actually hurting you.

You gasp underneath him, trying to disguise the weird flicker of desire with breathlessness. He looks good from down here, all sweaty and dark and serious. But you're also a bit too tired to care. "I'm out, Barnes. Let me go."

Let me go. Please.

And that's when the memory returns. The full, real memory, the one that has been tickling the edges of his brain since he first saw you. You, a kid, his mission. Kidnap, don't kill. A small voice, your voice, begging. Please, let me go. What has he done?

"Fuck," he curses under his breath, standing up quickly.

"Language, Barnes," you say teasingly. But he doesn't laugh, simply exits the sparring room, abruptly leaving you, speechless and alone on the floor. What just happened?

After a moment of confused silence on the mat, you brush it off and stand, heading to your room for a shower. Stark offered you a place to stay at HQ, and you happily agreed. Though you loved being back with your mother after four years away at college, you cherish your independence. A room at HQ offered you just that.

A nice shower would certainly make you feel better after that confusing interaction. You pull on your robe and shower shoes, leaving your clothes behind so as to carry one less thing. But as you pass down the hall toward the showers, you can hear Barnes' voice drift through the slightly open door to his room.

"I remembered," he says. "It was her. I'm the reason she's--" He cuts off, appearing to be interrupted by whoever he's talking to on the phone. You pause by the open door.

"I know that's not me anymore but I'm still responsible," he continues. "I have to tell her."

Again a pause. By now it's apparent he's talking about you.

"No, Steve, we aren't a team. We aren't partners. I'm helping Tony out. I don't care if she doesn't want to work with me anymore, this is part of my redemption. I have to tell her."

The conversation seems over. You rush to the showers, not wanting Barnes to realize you were listening the whole time. Apologize, he said. Apologize for what? You've known him for a whole of four days and he's been nothing but polite to you. Cold, at first, but he warms upon acquaintance. And then he's downright sweet.

So sweet, you realize, for someone so damaged. He has every right to hate the world, and though he walks through it with a healthy dose of cynicism, he never lets that cynicism touch you. If anything, he's outright positive around you, an undeserving brat. A kid, really, though you don't like when he calls you that. You know you can be naive, positive on the verge of artificiality, and yet he never tries to burst your bubble. In fact, he seems to relish it.

The shower feels nice, but it does nothing to assuage your fears. Maybe it's you who has done something wrong? Now you're spiraling. You have to find out what's going on or it's going to drive you crazy.

You know what you have to do. You have just about seven minutes of invisibility before your shifting gives out. In those seven minutes, you can duck from the showers, sneak into Barnes' room, snoop around, and make it back to the showers unseen. Plenty of time. But you have to go nude. Now would be a great time for the suit, but no such luck. Naked it is.

Out in the hallway, all is quiet. Barnes' door is still ajar, but when you peek your head in, the room is empty.

Easy.

Where to start? His phone is a dead end, being one of those ancient flipping kinds rather than a new, high-tech smartphone. He has few personal belongings, the bed is made perfectly, and his closet contains only clothes.

The drawers of the nightstand are empty. Or nearly empty. At the back of the top drawer is unceremoniously shoved a small booklet with a pen stuck between the pages. It's worn and supple, as though held a thousand times and read a thousand more. You flip through, finding a list of names, some crossed out, others not. Your name does not appear, but something about the list tells you these are not ordinary names. These are the names of his victims, people Barnes hurt as the Winter Soldier. Your heart aches and your stomach clenches, the reminder of his past jarring against the kind demeanor you've come to know. But deep down, you know this isn't him, know he's a good man, despite it all.

You know better than most the first-hand horrors of Hydra's super-soldier experiments. Of anyone, you can relate best to the experience Barnes has been through. Your memories of that long week are blurry, but the pain remains, forever seared into your mind. You can only imagine a lifetime of that pain.

The sound of the door opening jolts you from your reverie and you close the drawer quickly. But you soon realize your mistake. Barnes would know he left the door open, would know exactly how he placed his book in the drawer, would recognize something was off. Unfortunately, you're right.

"Hello?" he calls into the darkening room. The evening is coming on fast and the sun dims to barely glimmer, casting the space in shadow despite the large windows on the south wall.

Bucky knows something is off the moment he finds your room unoccupied, having gone there with the express purpose of confronting you about his actions earlier in the afternoon. And though he has no way of truly knowing, he suspects you are now here, in this room with him, invisible to his gaze. Bucky shuts the door behind him and waits.

You're trapped. You don't have long before your powers give out; already the suffocating feeling that begs you to take a breath is coming on. And Barnes has closed the door, effectively sealing you in, as you can't open it without him knowing for sure that you're here. On top of that, you're clothingless. You've run out of options and Barnes seems to sense this. So, he waits, drawing out the moment of tension, building the suspense.

"I know you're here," he says finally, his voice soft and barely audible. "You can't hide that well. Next time, dry your feet off before you go leaving wet footprints all over the place."

Oops.

"I--" you begin, and immediately Barnes' eyes snap to where your voice originates from. "I'm sorry. I overheard your conversation with Rogers. I shouldn't have but I know it was about me."

Barnes sighs, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Yeah, you're right. I have some things to explain. Though I'd much prefer talking to you if I could see you."

You hesitate. "Only a slight problem there. I'm not wearing any clothes."

If it had been any lighter in the room you would have seen Barnes blush. Instead, you watch him pull his shirt over his head. He hands it to you blindly, the shirt off his own back, soft with wear and long enough to cover the tops of your thighs. It smells of him, salty with sweat and sweet with the scent you've come to recognize only as him. You shrug it on and shift back.

"I'm sorry," you say again, having trouble concentrating with Barnes' bare chest at your eye level. Is that an old bullet wound on his shoulder? The reminder of a knife across his stomach? You can't look away, even at the seam where man meets metal.

Barnes shakes his head. "No, I should be the one apologizing."

He pauses for a moment and tries to begin several times before finally forming a complete sentence.

"It's my fault you're like this, that Hydra tested on you. It was me who kidnapped you, it was me who followed orders, it was me who completed the mission and got you hurt. And I'm so sorry."

You're so frozen in shock that the absurdity of the situation doesn't even register. There's nothing under this shirt, no underwear, no pants, no bra. And here you are standing in the bedroom of your greatest inspiration, listening to him apologize for being the one that facilitated your kidnapping, for being responsible for all the injury, the pain, the nightmares, the isolation, the...

It all comes flooding back, the things you had forgotten, or simply chose to not remember, and one of those things is his face.

You thought you'd dealt with impact. So many hours with a therapist, and you realize all you did was suppress the feelings, not confront them. And then you break, all the anger and sadness and frustration flowing from you at once.

"You piece of shit." Your voice begins as a whisper but soon amplifies nearly to a shout. "You monster, you bastard, how could you? How could you?"

All this time you forgave him for the damage he'd done, excused it as brainwashing and manipulation from Hydra. But now that it's you he's involved, you have somewhere to direct your anger, and you take it out as a shove straight to his chest.

He didn't expect that one. The words he understood. He accepted those, accepted that you would hate him forever. But then you're pushing and hitting him with all your force. Barnes could fight back, could hold his ground. But you need this, so he lets you shove him into the wall with a newfound strength. Finally against the wall, with nowhere left to go, you turn to pummelling his chest with your fists, repeating the words over and over, how could you, how could you, how could you.

For a moment, he lets it happen. But eventually, Barnes reacts, grabbing your wrists and holding them to his chest in an attempt to calm the fury that rages inside you. Surprisingly, at his touch, you still, slumping against him once the anger is replaced with nothing but sadness. That anger, one you never truly realized you'd harbored since your capture, bled from you all at once, leaving you exhausted.

You don't notice you're crying until a soft thumb wipes a tear from your cheek. Barnes releases your hands and wraps his arms around your sobbing body, pulling you close. "I'm so sorry," he repeats in your ear, his words a whisper against the rage inside your head.

Is it hours, or only minutes, standing like that, wrapped up in him, his skin so soft against your cheek? Time has ceased to exist, melting into the nighttime that encompasses the room in near pitch-black darkness. Your breath calms, your heart rate slows, the tears dry. He's only a man, a broken, misplaced, lost man. But he's also impossibly kind to you, caring enough to train you day after day, to pick you up when you fall down, to ensure you're happy here at all times. That's the man you know and rest your cheek against and seek out for comfort in this moment, despite him being the reason for your anger. But he's not truly the reason for your anger, only an easy outlet standing right before you.

This is not how Bucky had expected this to go. Perhaps to never see you again, yes. But to hold you in his arms, certainly not. And not just hold you, but comfort you. It surprises him how much he finds he likes it. And he can't ignore the fact that you're here in his room, wearing his shirt and only his shirt. He doesn't try anything improprietous, just wraps his arms around your waist, but it's not lost on him that your supple chest is pressed against him and the delicious scent from your still wet hair is filling his brain with a flowery cloud. His stomach clenches at the thought of burying his face in that smell for the rest of the night but he pushes it aside. That's not why you're here. That's not what you want.

But your next words surprise him. You pull slightly away, tilting your splotchy face upward towards his to look him in the eye. You take a ragged breath and speak.

"I forgive you."

Bucky is taken aback. That's not why he made this confession, not to seek your forgiveness. "You don't have to do that."

"I know. But I do. And I know you think I'm just a kid--"

Barnes lets out a short laugh, cutting you off immediately. "Jesus Christ, that's not true. You're not a kid. You're smart and strong and capable. And you've seen the ugly world for its true self and choose to remain good and happy all the same. I'm not like that and that makes you wiser than I'll ever be."

He takes a deep breath, unsure if he should admit to the feelings he desperately wants to express to you. The way you're looking at him, with a mixture of hesitation and admiration, makes the words tumble from his mouth without a second thought.

"But somehow being around you makes me want to be good again. Not for my sake, but for yours."

"James, I--" You've never used his first name before, but it falls deliciously from your lips, the sound of it nearly distracting him from the finger you run across the stubble on the cleft of his chin. Nearly. He captures that hand in his own, holding it there against his face.

"You don't have to forgive me. I don't deserve it," he repeats, eyes falling shut to the feeling of your thumb pressed to the corner of his lips. He still holds you close, the other arm wrapping tight around you, and though verbally he rejected the comfort your warmth offered, his body says otherwise, desperate for the acceptance his brain refuses to give into.

"Stop punishing yourself," you whisper. For a moment, he almost feels that he could.

And when your lips find his, soft and delicate, he forgets why you're even here in the first place, forgets his guilt and your anger, forgets even to react.

His lack of response has you pulling away, worried you've done something wrong, but then he's chasing your lips with his own, leaning forward to meet you halfway, gathering you impossibly tighter to his chest. He pauses, mouth mere centimeters from yours, eyes still shut, a deep breath heaving from his chest. He wants more, wants to kiss you again in all the places that count, but he can't quite yet.

"What was that for?" The question's not an accusatory one but simply curious. Have you always looked at him in this light since day one? Has he just not noticed?

"Are you blind, Barnes?"

He laughs and shakes his head. "None of that last name shit, doll, we've moved on to a first-name basis."

But your words are enough to surge him forward, this time capturing your lips in a dominating kiss that leaves you gasping for air. He takes advantage of your open mouth and presses his tongue to yours, seeking to fill his soul with your all-consuming warmth, to wrap it around him like a cocoon of your scent. His fingers slide down your back and slip under the shirt you wear, his shirt, grasping at the bare skin of your ass, filling his hands with your supple flesh.

You moan softly under his touch, relishing in the feeling of being encompassed by someone so large and so strong. The vibranium arm, which you expected to be harshly indelicate against your relative fragility, caresses you with the same gentility of the other. The intense contact sends your heart racing like it did all the times you were pinned below him on the sparring mat. Will he pin you like that in bed? Hold you down while he fucks you within an inch of your life?

The thought rouses a heat between your legs and stirs butterflies in your tummy. You don't even know if that's where this is going, but it invades your brain anyways. You're sure Barnes can feel your racing pulse beneath his lips when he kisses your neck, sending your nerves haywire as he creeps toward the neckline of your shirt. He inhales your scent, the hot air of his breath fanning your cool skin.

Everything about this is sloppy, the wet kisses dragged across your skin, his tongue tangled with yours, your fingers tugging at the hair that brushes the nape of his neck. Even his hips against yours are messy and rough, the heat of him leaving your core feeling slick, the wetness of it rubbing between your naked thighs. And then Barnes is sliding his hands back up your body, this time under your shirt, and tugging it over your head, his lips leaving your skin just long enough to toss the item to the ground.

You expect him to keep surging forward, to lift you in his arms and take you to bed like you want him to. But he pauses instead, hands cradling the back of your head, his eyes staring intensely into yours. Or you think he's staring into your eyes.

"Are you okay? Is this okay?" His voice is full of concern but raspy with arousal all the same.

"Yes, James, yes, I need more."

"Well, I would, it's just that you've disappeared on me again." One look at your hands and you know he was looking right through you, not at you. The swirl of emotions--pleasure, arousal, timidity even--sent you shifting without your knowledge. You can't help but laugh.

"Let me see you, doll," he groans, sounding exasperated that he can't rake his gaze across your naked flesh or find all the places he wants to touch you because they're invisible.

"You first."

A heated understanding lights up his eyes, still vibrant in the darkness of the room. Slowly, he releases his grip on you, relenting to not knowing where you are in space. You take an invisible step back to get a better view of the specimen before you. With one hand, he unbuckles his belt, sliding the leather from his pants and dropping it to the floor with a thunk. And then his pants are gone and he's left in his boxers, tight against the bulging muscles of his thighs.

And other bulging things. He doesn't hide his attraction to you. But still, you do not reappear.

Bucky begins to worry you're never going to, that maybe he's taken things too for. But then, a soft finger trails across his neck and he jerks in surprise. You're tracing the plain of his chest with a feather-light touch, dipping into the indent between his collarbones, feeling along the puckered scar of a bullet wound and the long slice of a knife. He feels healed beneath your touch, but it's not enough to satisfy the insatiable hunger building in the tightness of his groin. This entire evening has been a long, drawn-out, build-up of tension, and if he doesn't release it soon, it will snap like an overstretched rubber band.

He makes his move.

Apparently, Bucky's senses are just as perceptive here as they are on the sparring mat. His metal hand shoots up and wraps around the wrist of the hand on his chest, despite being unable to see it. The other reaches out and grapples at your invisible body in the dark, somehow finding your waist. He doesn't need to see you to manage to flip you around and press your back against his chest. In your surprise, your invisibility falters, and you flicker out of your shifted form with a flustered squeak, one hand suddenly pinned between your back and Bucky's rock-hard chest.

He holds on with an iron grip and walks you toward the bed, holding you up to prevent you from tripping in your ruffled state.

"You're taking too long, doll," he mumbles into your ear, and you feel his chest rumble with the vibrations. Your free hand flies to the one around your waist, which is slowly creeping upward toward your breast to twist at the sensitive nipple. "I know you like it when I pin you on the sparring floor. I can see it in your eyes. I'll take you like that right now if you give me the word."

Fuck, you want nothing more but you can't breathe enough to get the words out, opting for nodding vigorously instead. But Bucky wants words, gently prodding you forward to get a verbal commitment out of you. He will never take you against your will again. So you manage a long, drawn-out please and suddenly you're face-first in the sheets, bent halfway at the waist, your ass grinding against the delicious bulge pressed against your aching cunt. It pleases you that he has been thinking the same wicked thoughts as you when he slams you to the mat over and over again in training.

Bucky pulls your arm out from underneath you, joining it with the other and holding them together with his metal fist at your lower back, forcing your chest further into the mattress and your ass higher in the air. There's no way for you to move, no matter how hard you try. But you don't try, won't try. Bucky has you right where you want to be.

"Tell me if it's too much," he murmurs in your ear and you breathe an affirmation. His teeth nibble suddenly at your ear lobe and you squirm, the sensation of his breath fanning your skin sending goosebumps along the trail of kisses he leaves down your spine. Somehow, you know this is only the calm before the storm, the gentle caresses of a man who's about to rearrange every organ in your body, all the way up to your heart if you aren't careful.

It doesn't matter to you that it's pitch black in the room; you wouldn't have been able to see anything with your face shoved into the comforter, even if the lights were on. But Bucky's starting to regret having left the lights off, wishing he could better see the curve of your hips, the swell of your thighs, or the bloom of his handprint on your ass when his hand comes down with a smack. He resigns to being satisfied by the mewling gasp that escapes your lips and your soft pleas to Do it again, harder.

So he does. Smack.

And then he's sinking to his knees and you can tell because he leaves a wet stripe of skin with his tongue over the globe of your ass and blows a shock of cool air across the rawness of your skin. He replaces the sting of his hand with the bite of his teeth and then a kiss to soothe you again. The rollercoaster of sensations has you moaning against the mattress and rocking your hips toward his face and Barnes chuckles at your movement, your actions giving away the desperation you feel to have his tongue move to more sensitive places.

He is happy to oblige. You hadn't even noticed you'd been squeezing your thighs together until he slid a hand up between them, forcing them apart. It's a blessing your legs aren't doing any work to keep you up anymore because they feel like jelly under his touch. The hand between your thighs moves higher still until you feel his thumb pressed to your sensitive clit, warm and twitching with anticipation, desire coursing through your veins and dripping from your wet cunt. Your ears barely register that he's speaking, the blood is pumping so hard in your ears, but his words are exalting.

"Look at you, so wet for me." The hand around your wrists tightens just slightly. You are surprised by the extreme control he has over the cool metal fingers, and you almost wish he'd use those on you instead. And then he says, "you like it, don't you, doll, being at my mercy," and you forget all about the arm and decide it doesn't matter what hand presses down with a gentle strength on your clit as long as he doesn't stop. And he doesn't. Doesn't move, doesn't flinch or twitch or falter, just holds steady until your gasping mewls die down just enough for you to say, "yes, all for you, all for you, all..."

With those words, his thumb slips, between your slick folds into your pussy, finding the soft spongy flesh and pressing down again and you cry out with a careening moan that tapers off into a silent sob. He's taking his time, picking you apart, pulling at the laces that bind you together, and undoing them to release the tension he knows you harbor. But what about him? Is it not torture for him?

You breathe in a rough gasp, enough to squeak out a few more words. "I thought we were going too slow for you."

He laughs, he actually laughs, at your words, but relents.

"I hear you, doll."

I hear you. Oh wow. His tongue replaces his finger and you lose all coherence, able only to blubber some iteration of his name as the smooth muscle traces circles around your clit, finally allowing your orgasm to build with a steady contraction in your pelvis. Barnes moans between your legs like he's never tasted chocolate or buttercream or any of those other wondrous flavors and there's only you. And that moan sends you overboard, the vibrations diffusing down your legs and you tremble into your first orgasm. Your first orgasm.

He keeps going, riding out the waves of your high until you're crying that it's too much, James, too much and he pulls his tongue away from your oversensitized clit only to move down your legs. He's working you up again, teasing the smooth skin of your inner thigh with gentle nips and kisses until your body is craving release again, your cunt clenching around nothing but the memory of his mouth. He is deliberate in his ministrations, methodical in the way he must be with his missions. The flood of your first orgasm has dripped steadily down your thigh and he cleans you with his tongue, dragging upward along the sticky trail of your musky release until his tongue makes contact again and he pulls an orgasm from your desperate body once more.

He still hasn't released your arms.

"You know how long I've wanted to do this?" he groans, as you shudder again into the pleasure of his touch. He kisses back up the length of your spine while you twitch under him, his free hand dragging shock wave after shock wave from your cunt. It strikes you that this man is truly 106, not 26 like his body suggests, and you absentmindedly wonder if that's why he's so good at it, that he's had years to practice. And then his cock is pressing against your folds and you forget the notion halfway through thinking it. "You're so good to me doll, so good for opening up for me. Wanna feel your tight pussy around me."

You push backward, or do your best to without the employment of your arms, wanting desperately to feel him inside you. He is warm and all-encompassing and part of you thinks his cock spilling his seed inside of you would complete you like nothing else. But you know that's a bad idea and you can hear him already unwrapping a condom (where did he get that from?) and your body trembles with the anticipation. You haven't even seen him yet but you know he must be big, the way he grunts when the tip of his erection teases your entrance.

When he enters you it isn't gentle like the stroke of his tongue. It splits you open with a rough thrust, the laces of your heart fully undone and releasing you from their confinement. You choke on your own air.

And then he's releasing your arms, and before you can react, Barnes has you lifted, your back to his chest, your knees shoved roughly into the mattress so he can stand and fuck you from behind. The metal arm finds your neck and forces your head back, his lips dragging hot against your soft skin and muttering filthy praise into your ear, his hand gently on your throat to hold you there. Your hands fly to his, not to pull him away, but to convince him to squeeze, just a little bit harder. The pressure is grounding, and then the hand around your waist is trailing toward the bud of your clit and rubbing in urgent circles and you let out a silent gasp as he thrusts into you at a pace astounding for the position you're in.

You come hard, over his hand, around his cock, and for the first time Barnes falters, stunned by the intensity with which you clamp around him and if he hadn't made you come two times already he might have held out a bit longer to pull another one of those stunning orgasms from your slick cunt. But you're sagging, using him to hold you up against the exhaustion of repeated abuse so he releases, riding the wave of pleasure you started. Bucky groans out your name, surprising you with the gentleness of it on his tongue despite the rough hand around your neck.

When he releases you softly back onto the bed, you sink heavily into the mattress, feeling high on pleasure and drunk on his hands. He pulls away and shuffles around the room, and if you had had any energy left you might have complained at the loss of him but as it sits nothing will rouse you from the intense desire to simply fall asleep.

He continues to move about and then... the lights go on? You groan at the harsh treatment of your eyes as they adjust. But Barnes returns and pulls you against him and apologizes for the rude awakening.

"Sorry, doll," he mutters. "Wanted to get a better look at you." His fingers glide along your back and his face nuzzles into the top of your head, breathing into your hair as you press your forehead into his chest. Despite being exhausted himself he trails his hands all over your body, exploring the side of you that has been shoved into the sheets for the better part of the evening. You let him, although your nerves feel fried and oversensitive to touch.

"Watch what you do with those hands," you giggle as his fingertips brush over a nipple, "unless you're ready to go again."

"Already looking forward to next time?"

"You wish," you tease, but already you know for certain that there will be a next time.

#bucky barns x reader #bucky barnes #winter solider fanfiction #bucky barnes smut #winter solider smut #definitely not canon #i refuse to believe steve went back in time for some 1940s kitty kat and left his best friend behind #tony and nat are alive bc they are the only truly valuable characters #sebastian stan #also youre the daughter of agent hill #bucky fanfic #bucky x reader #winter soldier #wEiNeR sOlDiEr

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