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caramel-maveeato · 7 months

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ᴅᴏᴋɪ ᴅᴏᴋɪ ♡˚₊。。。

❧❤ SYNOPSIS: Eonni’s Gang’s unofficial couturier getting spellbound by the legendarily toe-curling rizzler So Mun (ft. real footage of Ga Motak being a professional matchmaker for 1k words straight)… ♡ Pairings/Love interest: So Mun x Fem!reader ♡ Genre: fluff, assumed relationship, reader is a simp in denial. ♡ TW: slightly suggestive, slight cursing, slight implication of bi-panic (it doesn’t indicate the reader is bi tho it’s just common sense to get skfjlsiglg when both Hana and Motak are in the room), might have been inserted a few TUC inside jokes and genZ slangs cus i was going insane over midterms i apologize ♡ word count: 3.7k

(request is here) Note: All characters originated from “The Uncanny Counter/Amazing Rumor” except for Y/n.

English is not my first language!!! Sorry in advance if I make any grammar and vocabulary mistakes.

Who would’ve guessed there was legitimately a place for the dead to arrive after life? Not exclusively for the completely-dead, though, it was created for close-to-dead people as well, like in your case right now.

You remembered girl-bossing a little too close to the sun and falling into a coma over… whatever. But instead of sinking into everlasting gloom where you could no longer feel or think like how those Hollywood movies portrayed, you were embraced by a bleached-clothed person who flung you back and forth between a fonded place of your memory and a blank white setting just as bleached, informing you about the world full of “evil spirits” and lecturing you into becoming a “counter” if you wished to continue living.

Since you were too young and beautiful, you refused to gaf about the possible risks of getting unalived for the second time, closed-eyedly concluding the verbal contract for a (hopefully) glorious future.

“Um…”

Six pairs of eyes leaped over at you. Ms. Chu swallowed her noodles before responding: “What’s the matter?”

“Well, I…”

You scratched the back of your neck out of instinct, briefly making eye contact with the rest of the table: “I’ve told you that I used to work in the fashion field, right?”

The chairman nodded his head: “Yeah, you did mention that the first day you came here."

There is no way you could back out now, not after you have entirely mustered the attention. Rotating unsaid words in your mouth while you observed their expressions one last time, hoping no one would find your sudden proposal weird: “If you don’t mind, is it alright if I… take your measurements and make some outfits? I just think it would be nice to at least do something in return for all the help I’ve been getting from you. I know it’s not a lot but…”

And that was how you ended up here, pacing around with a tailor’s ruler and a notepad.

Your suggestion wasn’t really approved at first as the team reassured you that it wasn’t just their responsibility to be your advisor but, at the same time, they were happy to be there for you, and that you shouldn’t be bothered to “return” the favor. But who are you to stop? All the remaining brain cells of yours congregated to list down every possible reason why this was what you deeply desired to do, including your “burning passion for fashion” and “essentiality for experience and modeling purposes.”

Thankfully, they all accepted your offer after ten minutes of hesitation.

Scribbling Jeokbong’s results down on the piece of paper, you scanned around, looking for the last person your notepad was still missing: “Where’s So Mun?”

Hana zipped up her hoodie that had been removed earlier for you to record her sizes, nonchalantly answering: “In his room, I suppose. His phone died so he said he’s going to charge it real quick.”

You thanked her before grabbing the equipment and making your way to the place mentioned. The hallway submerged itself in peaceful tranquility, conversations feebly reverberated back from the dinner table where your teammates gathered.

You knocked on So Mun's door to announce your presence, which was unnecessary since he was quick to notice you through the circular window: “Hey, do you mind if I…?”

“My turn already?” So Mun watched you nod with his signature amiable smile: “Sure. Do you need me to step outside?”

Sneaking a peek through the furniture and simple decorations, you stopped at his figure and moved closer. For some reason, the floor felt strangely unfamiliar as if you were a fawn testing its first step: “Nah, right here should also be fine, this won’t take long.”

The soothing atmosphere was filled with the subtle rustling of the measuring tape. Each touch of the tape was deliberate, like a delicate caress, ensuring precision in every little detail. You made a mental note of the circumference of his wrist and the length of his arm. So Mun was also very cooperative, staying still with a straight posture while you interchanged small talk: “So, what kind of outfits do you plan on making?”

You hummed, letting out a chuckle when he cracked up from the ticklishness of the stroke: “I’m not sure yet, maybe I can hear what your preference is after this? That way I can get a plus point for customer service too, a win-win for us.”

He lightheartedly went along with your playfulness: “Oh, I can’t wait!”

“Um-hm, now don’t squirm around or I’m gonna put you in a Chucky fit.”

“So we also do cosplay? Interesting,”

Soft laughter resonated. You were so diverted by the bubbly ambiance flowing from So Mun that you didn’t notice you had leaned over to slide the tape behind his neck, encircling it attentively to avoid any signs of discomfort. It was a calming afternoon, causing the source of light to be perceptibly minimized. As much as you tried to pin your focus on the assessment, your unamenable mind kept on targeting his lower-half face that popped into your view.

So Mun was adorned with a kiss from the dim sunlight glow, and for this one time you were given a chance to admire him this close, you were dazed to see how ideally shaped his jawline was, sharp enough to cut grass while the plumpness of his lips tamed the roughness down, two aspects blending perfectly like yin and yang.

Now you knew why the ground felt strange and your stomach flipped.

In front of you stood a young man who seemed to have stepped out of a webtoon where its protagonist was an underrated visual until the later season. Charismatic and fascinating, his gentle yet chiseled features must’ve been carved out under the skilled hands of the most proficient sculptor, embellished by an air of youthfulness.

From the very first glance, you were absolutely convinced that So Mun was, indeed, a local heartthrob.

His effortless charm easily attracted gazes and turned heads among those who crossed his path. Dark, tousled curls framed a face that was abundantly favored by the eyes, easy to remember but not easy to forget. His thick brows added the final touch to the astounding side profile and praised a pair of expressive gemstones that accommodated secrets untold. His pupils illustriously mirrored a pellucid surface of the water, holding both innocence and wisdom within those splendid irises that had been dyed in a ravishing deep brown color.

And the scariest part was that every time you laid your eyes on him, he seemed to become prettier.

Now that you have stumbled across his vicinity, you secretly prayed to every known religion (or just your own sanity in general) that you would commit nothing out-of-character to give away how bad you’ve already grown to fancy this man. Or else… there will be no “or else.”

Still, something had been peculiarly off.

It must’ve occurred to be some kind of hormonal chemical imbalance going wild right now. Because hell, the last time you found yourself feeling so jumpy around another person was when Hana nearly knocked you out after twenty minutes of physical abuse training (trust me, she did go 10x easier on you compared to how she went on So Mun and Jeokbong). But this specific man right here was not your mentor, nor was he about to beat you to a pulp. All he did was exist and let you take his measurements, periodt.

Maybe he was just remarkably snatched? It couldn’t be since your adrenaline level didn’t act (this) weird around Hana and Motak. Sure, your heart rate did climb notably when situated in close proximity with them, but with So Mun in particular?

It skyrocketed.

A long, deep breath silently expanded your lungs, working extra hard to untie the obstructive tensity. You stared at the tiny numbers on the tape measure and mentally repeated it two hundred times in an effort to inscribe the result in memory. However, it was suddenly an impossible task because of how disconnected your mind was at the moment.

So Mun was too close to you right now. Not dangerously close, yet the distance was limited enough for your head to spin and your heart to pound.

You have no clue if you should embrace this internal madness or not, but you certainly acknowledged that your lucidity and dignity were shrinking after each passing second. It’s going to be bad if you don’t get out of here soon.

“Y/n, why’s your face so red?”

Shit.

“What? No.” You denied without missing a beat, which laid bare your disobliging trepidation almost right away from how fast you responded.

So Mun marginally narrowed his eyes with plain disagreement: “Yes, it is. You’re not feeling unwell anywhere, are you?”

An invisible sigh of relief dropped when you realized he wasn’t aware of the tangible distraction you felt around him but rather centered the strange enhancement of color on your cheeks. You assured yourself that it was only you manifesting the accusation against yourself, so you tried gaslighting him into thinking he was the drama instead: “I’m fine, really. Are you sure it’s not you who is seeing things?”

“Huh? But your face wasn’t red like this earlier, I swear I’m not mistaken.”

Unfortunately for you, So Mun’s intelligence ran in his family. So you must’ve been in your sweet dream to expect a detectives’ son would be fooled by such a half-assed reason.

Each motion of yours was helplessly cornered like a prey waiting to be demolished under his unceasing focus, especially when two of you were the only ones in the room right now, all alone and suspicious: “Hold up, if you’re not sick… why are you blushing?”

Your mouth was clenched shut. Even the tiniest sound pealed loudly in the current confined space, reflecting your nervous gulp as clear as day.

So Mun called your name again after the short pause, sounding even gentler than how he usually spoke in that… ludicrously charming voice of his: “Y/n.”

“What?”

“Don’t tell me…” The way he drew the last syllable out slightly longer hurled a thud into your chest, sparking your diffidence. You heaved your eyes to meet his own only to regret your decision immediately as you were welcomed by a cunning smile he tried hard to suppress: “...you’re getting shy?”

You squinted and looked down, knowing damn well you, in fact, were shy as fuck: “No. Why would I be?”

“Yes, you are, you can’t see yourself right now but I can, you’re blushing all over the place. You were fine just now, were you not? Why suddenly get shy?” He closely beheld your reaction, allowing a grin to plaster as the traitorous shade of pink on your cheeks evidently declared how you truly felt: “Is it because of me?”

“Because of you?” Knowing he had successfully caught you red-handed, you tried the hardest to play it off cool with a sassy eye roll while hanging the tape just a couple of millimeters away from the width of his shoulders: “Where did you even get that from?

“From the way you act?”

“Dear customer, you’re delusional.”

“Am I?”

“Yes, you are.”

Instinctively holding your breath, you enclosed the measuring tape around So Mun’s chest with great caution, arduously ignoring how you could already tell his physique was too attractively in shape under that black compression shirt. Every time he inhaled and exhaled, the tape stretched ever so slightly then loosened after the relief— Fuck, okay, stop.

“Am I really delusional or are your hands shaking right there?”

This little shi– did not just call you out like that.

His voice vibrated down from the top of your head, bordering between intentional cockiness and unintentional flirtatiousness. You never discerned that your fingers had grown to tremor abstractedly due to how faint the movement was, yet he could easily detect your restlessness just from a few playful glimpses. Never in your life you felt this terribly exposed in front of someone. It was like he could see right through you like a piece of glass.

“You…” Shamefulness followed you like your own shadow. The immense heat on your cheeks was no longer pleasant to say the least: “Stop talking. Just let me get this done.”

On the other hand, So Mun, whether or not had progressed to be fond of your painfully flustered self, mindlessly dropped the ultimate bomb on you: “Do you like me?”

You swore you saw your heart fly out and wheel around the ceiling in horror.

If the tape measure wasn’t made of plastic, it would’ve been torn in half between your violent grip. You bit the inside of your cheek timidly and landed a weak punch on his shoulder. Agitation and embarrassment blanketed your half-whisper: “Just… be quiet, Mun.”

“Fine, fine, I was just joking. I’ve never seen you get this red before and…” So Mun laughed softly, though the laughter quickly dissolved into quietude as he caught a menacing glare from you: “Guess I got carried away, my bad.”

Speaking of the truth, he didn’t mean any harm rather than just breezy teasing. It was you and your hormonal, backstabbing blush that created the whole awkward situation. You shifted your ruler down and laced it around his waistline, half of the frustration in your tone replaced with sheepishness: “You sure did have a lot of fun, didn’t you?”

“But you’re so cute like this… ” His chuckle brightened the air. Even though you weren't in the mood to appreciate the random compliment, just the word “cute” itself was enough to awaken those dormant flowers in your stomach and rush them into vigorously blossoming like it was a sunny spring day.

You fought back a pout from arising, not sure if you should continue putting up an annoyed act. But before you could respond, your entire body froze as his voice suddenly appeared to be alarmingly close to your ear, tender like a passing cloud except it could facilely have you where he wanted if he ever wanted to.

“C’mon, don’t lower your head, I’ll stop pointing your blush out.”

Despite your concentration still being attached to his waist as you read the measured number, his toned abdominal muscles that somewhat divulged themselves under the thin compression shirt were nowhere near your zone of attention. Your nail dug into the tape, feeling your composure slowly fracture like a dainty little eggshell ready to be crushed. Timidity dispersed as uncontrollably as a broken dam when So Mun’s warm breath fanned your skin.

It didn’t seem like he had a single clue as to how his gesture—purely coming from curiosity—tremendously affected you. The more he dipped his head and leaned closer to yours, the louder you heard your own heartbeat roaring.

You turned away to hide how vulnerability had completely enveloped your face. A tiny crack echoed in your voice as you stuttered, trying to break free from his oblivious stare: “So– So Mun…”

“Hm?” The fire under your skin rapidly magnified within just a blink of an eye, to the point you were afraid it would explode, yet he still didn’t catch on to the silent plea in the way you called his name, instead taking it as a warning that you were getting exasperated: “Don’t be mad at me, I promise I’ll be quiet.”

Even the sketches and doodles hung on the wall avowedly held their breath as if acknowledging the hide-and-seek negotiation unfolding before them. You clutched your eyelids closed and your body stiffened, dodging his gaze like dodging bullets.

One sense had shut down, offering a chance for other senses to intensify. As So Mun leaned down searching for your face, the minty and earthy note of his shampoo washed over your nostrils, delightfully freshened from the vague men's cologne you smelled first stepping into the room.

His breath ignited on your awfully reddened ear, goosebumps traveling up your spine while his scent created an intoxicating merge into your source of oxygen: “Let me see your face, will you?”

Suddenly, pressing under your chin were warm fingers that had calloused up from life journeys, determined yet tender and careful enough not to startle you as he tried to lift your chin up:

“Come on, I don’t bite.”

“What takes you kiddos so lon— Oh my, are you two kissing?”

From the inside of So Mun’s room, you could already hear noises of flabbergastation ringing like afterschool bells due to the exclamation.

You and So Mun jumped away from each other like getting struck by electricity as soon as you saw Motak’s face appear behind the door’s window, amusement wafting in the way he looked at you two. You almost choked to death in your own panic, words collapsing when they reached your mouth: “It’s not what it looks like!! We’re just— We— I’m just taking his measurements!”

“Then why are your faces so close together?” Motak moved aside for you to storm out of the tension-filling room, raising his brows with great gaiety when So Mun followed your way out like a puppy. The tape measure was grasped brutally in your palm, hoping to be counted as evidence. But catching the wide grin that had seemingly been engraved on the older man’s lips, you doubted he’d buy your excuses.

“Wait, so you were about to kiss and I interrupted? Damn, sorry lovebirds.”

“No! It’s— we really did not…” Footsteps clouded the hallway, the whole team was quick to be summoned for the delicious tea. Out of the blue you lost all nerves to face them, your explanation slowly dissipated into a nonverbal ‘yes’ to the accusation with how much speechlessness you assembled.

Hana tilted her focus at your skin’s crimson tint, her hidden protectiveness loomed out of armor and she threateningly gave the origin of your blush a good nudge: “Yah So Mun-ah, why is Y/n’s face so red? What did you do to her?!”

Gazes launched over the man of the moment with suspicion, making him hold his hands up in defense: “What do you mean, noona? I swear I didn’t do anything!”

He turned to you for confirmation, but your exchange of looks was impeded when Ms. Chu walked over to wrap her motherly hands around you, cooing with adoration and happiness as if she'd just listened to your wedding vows: “Oh dear, I knew it from the start you two would make such a cute couple. I’m so happy for you my babies.”

You swallowed heavily: “But we’re not—”

“I can’t believe these two have made it this far, even faster than us…” The chairman ignored So Mun’s refuting head shake (as well as Ms. Chu’s side eye), giving both of you a thumbs up: “Right, Chu-yeosa?”

“Don’t bring me into this.”

From the other side, Jeokbong engulfed So Mun in a side hug and patted his back pridefully: “I’m proud of you, very proud, So Mun-ah. We raised you so well, even getting a girlfriend before your hyung.”

“Hyung, listen to me—”

“Our So Munie, I never knew you had that in you, hm? Now you punk got the team’s stylist all to yourself.” Your beloved found-fam didn’t give you any opportunities to prove yourself innocent. Motak elbowed So Mun playfully with a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. The more he talked, the more gasoline was poured into the flame of your embarrassment: “Anyone surely gets bolder near a pretty girl, right?”

Hana took a sip of her Milkis: “Isn’t it supposed to be the opposite?”

“Everyone, hold on a second.” You spoke up, almost sounding desperate: “ So Mun and I have nothing to do with each other, this is just a misunderstanding.”

Pausing shortly after your clarification, you looked over at him in search of a helping hand: “Right?”

“Huh– yeah, right. We… Y/n is right. Plus, we’ve only met not long ago, how can anything develop between us this quickly?” So Mun hastily nodded his head. Both of you took turns clearing up the affair:

“Exactly, he’s right.”

The hallway seemed to hold time in place, slowly absorbing your explanation as amused stares remained affixed to you and him.

The chairman quirked his eyebrows up: “So nothing, huh? More like nothing yet.”

“Let’s see how long you can keep denying.” You inwardly facepalmed yourself, your ears burning ferociously pink as Motak shot you a knowing smile. Levity once again suffused the air when you caught him leaning into Ms. Chu’s ear and whispering; both of them then snickered loud enough for you to hear: “I bet a month.”

“I’m serious, we’re not gonna—”

“Oh, did I say something?”

Hana casually waved her hand in dissent, not even attempting to stop a half-smile from permeating her gorgeous face: “I bet longer. Look at how much they already lost their cognition just from being in the same room, they’re hopeless.”

Jeokbong briskly chimed in: “Like how Ms. Chu and the chairman are?”

“What did you say?!”

Rambunctious laughter followed the sight of Ms. Chu smacking Jeokbong on the back. It was pure chaos, but not in a bad way.

A chuckle managed to slip through your lips. The awkwardness was no longer bothersome but rather narrowed down into a silly feeling in your chest. You cast a glance at your assumed partner, coincidentally locking eyes with one another as his attention had also rested on you since forever.

You spotted a trace of rosiness sprinted across So Mun’s cheeks, perhaps it had unwittingly blossomed when you were still committed to clearing up the dating scandal. And he smiled—one that was sheepish but sweet nonetheless, one that sent you into a hall of chaotically winging butterflies. Unspoken words lingered in the air, but you didn't mind them.

If luck would have it, this could be the start of something incredible. But that’s only the matter of the upcoming future, right now?

You just figured out you’ve deadass forgotten all of the measurements you took of So Mun…

[Tag List]✿⌦ @slytherinshua (feel free to notify me if you want to be on the tag list)

Lol i tried making it as spicy as “kiss and makeup” since the request asked for suggestive but us and Mun've only met for a short period of time i didnt know if we should kiss (yet). Hope this is okay @acupnoodle thank you for the cute idea ily ♡

#the uncanny counter x reader #the uncanny counter #uncanny counter #so mun #so mun x reader #do hana #ga mo tak #chu mae ok #choi jang mul #na jeok bong #kdrama #kdrama x reader #pookie please come home 🏠

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ddejavvu · 1 year

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HIII maybe i could request for a blurb for dbf!hotch …. maybe him having baby fever when he sees you babysit your neighbor’s toddler & living the domestic life while ur parents are away :’) HEHEHE

today is multiverse monday! send me any au you can think of :)

(sfw blurb, but reader is over 18)

Aaron assumes you're on a phone call when he hears your sweet voice from around the corner, but when you turn and step onto the street you live across from him on, he sees you pushing a stroller.

"Was that fun? Going down the slides, and swinging on the swings, and playing with the soccer ball."

The baby you're pushing coos and babbles, fingers fiddling with the buckle in his lap then migrating to the sippy cup that's resting on the stroller's tray. You reach down to ruffle the boy's hair, smiling fondly at the child.

Aaron pokes his head out the front door as you pass his house, calling out for you, "You have a secret family I don't know about?"

You turn at his voice and he thinks his heart stops when your shiny eyes meet his own, the smile that had budded on your face at the baby's babbles blossoming in full as you speak to him.

"I'm babysitting for the Kims," You inform him, gesturing to a house a few cul-de-sacs away, "They're at a wedding today."

At the sight of Aaron, standing tall and broad in his doorway, the baby tears up. Soft, scared whines escape the poor boy's lips, and you laugh sympathetically, "Oh, baby, it's okay! That's Aaron, he's not as mean and scary as he looks."'

Aaron wants to tease you back, but he's only able to release a single chuckle before it dies in his throat. You swoop the baby out of the stroller, undoing the buckle with ease and cradling him to your chest. You bounce him slightly, rocking him back and forth while you croon at him.

"It's alright," You hum, kissing his forehead, "Aaron's my friend. He has a son, too! His name is Jack, and he likes spiderman."

The boy's eyes light up, and Aaron has a feeling there's a spiderman coloring book somewhere in your house. He steps over the threshold, approaching you slowly so that the baby doesn't startle. He does hide his face in your chest, but he doesn't fuss as Aaron stands beside you.

"Hi, buddy." Aaron reaches out to run his finger up the baby's arm. The little boy shivers at the ticklish sensation, and peeks at Aaron with a shy grin. You laugh in tandem, and Aaron thinks he'd pay to hear that sound for the rest of his life.

"Um, actually, Aaron," You glance up at him, and you can't deny the way your heart pounds at your close proximity, "I was wondering if you could come over later? My parents aren't home, so they can't watch him, but I need to shower. Or- or I can bring him to you, if that's better? I just don't want to leave him alone."

The thought of you showering, Aaron hates to admit, makes his head spin. But by design, he supposes what he's fantasizing about won't happen because he'll be watching the baby. Still, he's honored that you thought of him to help you, that you trusted him to help you, and he's nodding before he can think of what to say.

"Oh, um- of course! Yeah, I can come over. After dinner?"

Your eyes go wide, and you check your watch, "Oh god, uh, yeah. After dinner. I didn't realize how late it was, uh- I should order in now. I'll call you later, thanks Aaron!"

You grab the stroller in one hand, keeping the baby balanced on your hip with the other. You dart for your front door, but Aaron calls you back, striding slowly over to your front steps.

"Y/N!" He stops you with a single call of your name, "Wait. Why don't you come over to my house for dinner? You can just use my shower. I'm sure you've had a busy day, it might be nice not to stress about a meal."

"Oh," You gush, smiling sweetly at his offer, "It's okay. You weren't planning on me, then I'd just be stressing you out. I'll be fine, I'll order Chinese food or something."

"Chinese sounds great," Aaron grins, pulling his cell out of his pocket, eternally grateful that your father had a particular fondness for a Chinese restaurant in the city that you'd dined together at several times, "Your usual?"

You look like you want to push back again, insist that you can handle your own meal. But fatigue wins over, and your shoulders slump in relaxation.

"Yeah, thanks, Aaron. I just gotta get Sam's food," You gesture to your front door, "Do you want me over now, or whenever the food gets here?"

"You can shower first if that works," Aaron suggests, "Delivery usually takes a half-hour. Lemme take the baby, and you can relax."

He knows the childcare exhaustion from experience, and smiles fondly at the quick kiss you pop to Sam's cheek as Aaron takes him from you.

"Seriously, thank you, Aaron." You gush, laying a hand on his bicep and squeezing slightly, "I don't know what I'd do without you."

Your words nearly make Aaron's heart beat out of his chest, and all he can offer you is a dazed smile in response. You're off rocketing towards your house in search of baby food and body wash, and Aaron turns to Sam who's propped up against his chest when the door shuts behind you.

"Thanks for being here," Aaron coos, smiling fondly at the grinning baby, "You're a big help, little man."

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wolfjackle-creates · 1 year

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WIP Wednesday

So, here's a short excerpt for WIP Wednesday (963 words)! Thank you for everyone who followed my new writing blog, the response has been so unbelievable.

Trigger Warning: Discussion of parental death

Original Prompt Fill

1st Shared Segment

-----

IKnowYourSecrets: hey

IKnowYourSecrets: I know this isnt something weve done before

IKnowYourSecrets: you said you got a cell for your last bday

IKnowYourSecrets: can I call you?

IKnowYourSecrets: heres my number XXX-XXX-XXXX

-xXPolarisXx-: is everything ok?

-xXPolarisXx-: dont answer that

-xXPolarisXx-: obv not

-xXPolarisXx-: my phones in my room brb

Danny ran up stairs to grab his phone and return to the computer before anyone could close out of his chat. He checked the number and dialed it, closing out of everything and logging out as the call connected.

“Tim?” he asked as soon as the ringing stopped. “What’s happened?”

“Danny? I… this is weird talking like this.” Tim’s voice was rough and Danny couldn’t tell if that was from emotion or just how he normally sounded.

Danny laughed a little. “Yeah. It is. Give me a sec, let me get to my room and I’ll shut the door. Give us some privacy.”

“I… yeah. I might need a few minutes.”

“Are you okay?”

Tim made a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob and Danny all but ran up the stairs. “No, not really. Um. My mom’s dead.”

“What?!" What was the appropriate response to something like this? Sometimes he wished he had Jazz's way with words. "What happened?”

“She and dad were in the Caribbean." Tim let out a huff. "I didn’t even know they were in the Caribbean.”

Danny made a noise to indicate he was listening, but waited for Tim to continue.

“There was a local villain named Obeah man. He captured them and held them ransom. Gave them some water to drink at some point, but… it was poisoned. By the time Batman got there, it was too late. Mom died.” Tim gave another half-hysterical laugh. “And my dad is in a coma. He may never wake up.” His voice trailed off.

Danny swallowed. How does anyone respond to news like that? “I’m so sorry, Tim. How are you holding up? What’s going to happen now?”

“The funeral is in two days. Bruce is organizing it. And I’m going to stay with him, I guess. He said he’d be happy to foster me until my dad gets better.”

“Shit, Tim. Text me during the funeral if you need to.”

“I might take you up on that. You won’t mind?”

“Of course not. Every 5 seconds if you need to.”

“Distract me. What’s going on in your life? I don’t want to think about any of this anymore.”

“Oh, uh, all right. Are you sure?”

“Please, Danny.”

“If you change your mind, interrupt me anytime.” Danny chewed his lip. What on earth could he talk about in response to news like that? The test he had in English last week? That sounded so trite. “I did start karate training with…” he trailed off before he could say his mom. “Anyway, it’s going all right. I’ve basically only been taught basic moves. I only get lessons two or three times a month so it’s slow going.”

Tim’s voice was still shaky, but he seemed to latch onto the topic to Danny’s relief. “You really have to give it your all if you want to succeed. Have you learned the basic stances and things?”

“Some, I think.”

“Hold those positions. Stand in your room and just hold them for ten minutes at a time. And practice the same punch over and over. Even if your m—” Tim’s voice caught and he changed course “—instructor can’t make it. Would you be allowed to sign up for classes? Get something more consistent?”

“We don’t have the money.” Danny bit back the embarrassment he felt at admitting that. Tim was rich-rich and never had to worry about things like bills. “Ghost hunting doesn’t really pay. My parents are at least good engineers so they can fix our own appliances and vehicles. Sometimes dad or mom will fix stuff for the neighbors for some extra money.”

Tim hummed in understanding and didn’t push the issue. “How did they even get into ghosts to begin with?”

“If we ever end up in the same place, you are not allowed to ask that directly to my parents. Don’t mention ghosts at all. They won’t stop talking for hours. As for how they got into it… Dad’s always believed in the supernatural. He could’ve just as easily started tracking big foot or the Loch Ness Monster. But he met mom in university and she was stuck on ghosts. Dragged him in, too. And he’s obsessive. Once he decides on something, that’s it.

“They were both studying the supernatural and had to decide what to focus on for their doctoral research. Mom’s hated ghosts since she was a teenager. Apparently she and a friend were dared to go into a haunted house one Halloween. She doesn’t talk about it much, but her friend died that night. She blames the ghosts and has dedicated her life to hunting them ever since.”

Tim clicked his tongue. “Wow. It almost makes sense with that back story.”

Danny snorted. “Ghosts aren’t real. I dunno what killed her friend, but it wasn’t a ghost. Wish they’d decided to hunt Bigfoot instead.”

“Really? Why do you say that?”

Danny looked out his window and stared at the setting sun. “If they were hunting bigfoot, we’d probably go camping more often. And I like camping. You get the best views of the stars that way.”

“What’s your favorite constellation?”

“That’s like asking who my favorite Star Trek character is! There’s too many to choose. But do you know the folk history of Polaris? It’s why I chose my username.” Danny talked to Tim about the stars and space until Alfred called him away for dinner. They made plans to talk online again later.

-----

Now, I have a question for y'all. I was planning on finishing the entire work then publishing on a once a week basis until finished (or twice a week if I had more chapters than I expect). I've got the first chapter mostly done, just need to rewrite one section and change a few lines elsewhere. I also have the next 1.5 chapters mostly done on a first draft. I could start posting now, but I can't guarantee a posting schedule and I'll probably have to take a hiatus or two as I plan to get a new job and move sometime in the next few months.

So my question, do you want me to post now or wait? It'll probably be several months if not a year before I finish depending on how long I take and how many other projects catch my eye.

-----

In other news, the creator of the original prompt started their own fill, too! If you read mine, I am requiring you to check theirs as well because it is amazing 💕. Tumblr Link and AO3 Link

Tag List

@gremlin-bot, @bonebrokebuddy, @britcision, @lady-time-lord-, @welcometosasakiworld, @akikkobara, @phoenixdemonqueen, @dolfay, @skulld3mort-1fan, @we-ezer, @markus209, @sjrose1216, @onyxlightdragon, @dragonsrequiem, @jesus-camp-the-sequel, @spidey29phangirl, @kyrianclawraith, @evilminji, @introvert-even-on-the-internet, @emergentpanda-blog, @lexdamo, @v-inari, @idontgetpaidenoughforthisshit, @longlivethefallen

I removed the names of some people who requested a tag back in November but didn’t interact with the last snippet I shared. Since it’s been so long, I wasn’t sure if you were still interested. I’ll be more than happy to add anyone else, re-add anyone I took off, or take off anyone who doesn’t want future tags! Or start a separate list just for after there’s an AO3 link. Just let me know!

#dp x dc #my writing #bring me home fic #danny fenton #tim drake #first phone call #not a happy day #but theyll get through it

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rotworld · 5 months

Text

The Oldest Dance

you knew a werewolf when you were younger. your lives went in different directions, but you find yourself suddenly reunited under the worst possible circumstances.

->explicit. contains kidnapping, drugging, power imbalance, mentions of noncon and conditioning, biting, feral behavior, mild gore.

You’ve never seen so many stars before.

The thought strikes you only after the sharp burn of adrenaline dies to a simmer. Fear curdles into exhaustion. Time gets fuzzy. Between the hairpin turns of the road and the lush sea of furs and bedding all around you, there’s no way to get your footing or your bearings. You test the rope around your wrists again and there’s no give, no weakness, just an unpleasant, stinging friction where they’ve been chafing your skin. You hear the rumble of the engine, the scrape of tires over dirt, branches dragging like nails across the windows. You can barely see a thing, and it’s not just your blurry, swimming vision, the exhaustion clinging stubbornly to your eyes. It’s dark here and dark outside, the whole world just a mass of merging shadows.

And the stars…you must not be in town anymore. Not even close to it.

There’s nowhere to go but you still fight to sit up, to get to your knees at least. It’s not a dip in the road or a sudden turn that throws you off balance this time. Someone grabs the back of your neck and shoves you down again. That large, callused hand could almost wrap all the way around your throat if it wanted, but it settles on your nape, squeezing with the gentle but firm chiding of an animal scruffing its young.

“First one’s awake,” you hear.

There’s a sharp, amused exhale from the front seats, driver’s side. “The one who barely touched their drink, I’m guessing. You got a grip on them?”

“Yeah. It’s fine, they’re still groggy.”

You run your hands through the blankets, hoping you look confused instead of searching, trying to make sense of your surroundings. Wool. Flannel. A zipper? Someone curled up on their side, breathing softly. Your elbow bumps into a warm body beside you, a bony shoulder exposed by a sagging, oversized sweater. They mutter in their sleep. The hand on the back of your neck eases when you settle and don’t try to get up again, but it stays, thumb gently stroking. It takes everything you have to keep your breathing calm and even.

Three of you back here, you count. Captives. The other two still out cold. And four of them. Two in the front and two in the back, keeping watch.

“Should only be a half hour or so for the rest, as long as you didn’t give them too much.” You recognize the voice from the passenger seat. He was at the club. Smaller guy, not huge like the one kneeling next to you. Dark hair. Dazzling smile. And touchy, always trying to get in your space, talking a little too close for comfort. It all starts coming back in a slow trickle. Right. The club. And that guy, Corbin, you’ve seen him a few times before, thought he was a little weird but he always seemed to know when to back off. So how…why…?

“Wish we could’ve taken the fourth one, too,” the guy holding you down says wistfully. His hand rubs up and down your back in a soothing, absentminded motion. “Such pretty eyes, and a sweet scent.”

There’s a grunt of agreement from the other guy in the back, a hulking figure sitting against the wall further from you. “Bigger hunts are always more fun,” he murmurs.

“Aww, I know,” Corbin coos. “But trust me, they weren’t a good match. These three, on the other hand? They’re perfect.” There’s a glimmer of light in the front seat—the glare of a cell phone illuminating part of Corbin’s jaw. It’s nearly blinding after your eyes have adjusted to the dark, and it suddenly occurs to you why you can’t see anything. Not the men, not much more than lumpy silhouettes, not any trees distinct from the moving shadows beyond the windows; nothing but stars.

They’re not using headlights. These are wolves.

You surge up in a panic, scrabbling blindly for the doors. It’s probably not a good idea—even if they’re miraculously unlocked, you won’t accomplish much more than tumbling out in the middle of fucking nowhere, maybe skin yourself on the road in the process—but your terror is louder than your rational thinking. You fight the hands that grab you, screaming, clawing, biting like an animal, thrashing with all your strength. It takes both of them to pin you back down and you savor that even through the humiliating briefness of your rebellion, wrestled onto your stomach with a hand shoving your head down into the blankets.

You don’t expect him to bite you and that drags a shrill but short noise out of you. You’re not ready for what it feels like, the weight of him across your back and the crunch of his teeth sinking in, a hot gush of blood dribbling past his snarling lips. It hurts like hell and it doesn’t stop. Every time you squirm, every panicked jerk and attempted wriggling movement, makes him growl against your skin. He holds your hands down with his much larger, much stronger ones, fingers pinning yours on either side of your head, and that’s when you finally give in. You aren’t punished for the last nervous shiver that travels down your spine, or the whimper that slips out when he loosens his jaw and pulls away, strings of saliva and sticky blood slicking your neck.

“Good,” he murmurs. “Good human. Stay down.” The gentleness of his fingers stroking your scalp makes a sob build in your throat.

“You got it?” the driver asks.

“Yeah, sorry, I got it. Tried to keep the bite light, but they wouldn’t submit. Might leave a mark.” He traces his thumb over the throbbing wound he left behind, ragged and still bleeding.

Corbin chuckles. “It’s fine, I’ll vouch for you if anyone asks.” You can’t see him clearly but you can tell he’s turned around, leaning slightly around his seat to peer into the back. You can feel his gaze burning into you. “I won’t tell you not to fight. I hope you do,” he says, lowering his voice slightly. Talking to you rather than about you, you realize. “I chose you because I knew you would. It’s a good thing. Good for the pack. Eventually, you’ll learn how to pick your battles.”

“Fuck you,” you say, embarrassed by how shaky and hoarse you sound.

You can’t see what kind of expression he has, but you can hear the smile in his voice. “You’ll thank me someday.”

It doesn’t take long for the other two to wake after all the commotion. One just stares in silent shock and disbelief. The other starts to cry. The other wolf in the back pulls them into his lap and nuzzles his face against their cheek and neck, as though they want anything to do with him. He grunts unhappily when they cry harder and shove him away. You can just make out a chorus of howls over the sound of the engine. The wolf who bit you starts stroking your back again, a melodic hum rumbling in his chest.

“The heartland joining us tonight?” the driver asks.

Corbin hums softly. “They’re abstaining. A few might come to watch.”

“Ah, that’s a shame. I hoped one of these might be a good fit.”

“Linden needs an absolutely perfect match. It’s my next project.”

You don’t catch what else they say because those quiet, miserable sobs turn to heartwrenching wailing. The other person in the back starts to plead for their life. The wolf closest to them strokes their cheek. “You’re not going to die,” he murmurs. “Hush. It’ll all make sense soon.”

The van slows, relief and terror warring in your heart. You can run—and go where? You don’t know where you are, don’t know the way back to town. Outrunning a werewolf is a tall order under the best circumstances. You’re on their turf, in the dark; you don’t stand a chance. Doesn’t matter. You have to try. The road gets rougher, the foliage thicker like grasping hands. The van rolls to a slow, grinding stop and the engine dies. You’re surprised nobody tries to restrain you before the locks disengage and the back doors are thrown open, but it doesn’t take long to see why.

You’re deep in the woods. The full moon drapes a thin, silver gleam over the silhouettes of shifting figures, animal eyes shining in the dark. There must be dozens of them—thirty, maybe forty wolves, all sniffing the air, growling and pacing impatiently. More are still coming, slipping through the trees in the shape of both humans and beasts. You’re completely surrounded. They form a wide circle around the van, all eyes trained on you and the other two petrified people huddled at your back. You can hear them talking to each other, their voices half-feral with barks and growls.

“Three? Just three?”

“Three’s a lot for the off-season.”

“All awake, too. Afraid and alert. Gonna be a good hunt.”

“And look at that one in front, bristling like that. Think they’ll bite back?”

Laughter. Your stomach churns. One of the wolves gets out of the van while the other leans in close at your side, the two of them gradually easing you out and onto your feet. A door slams. The wolf who was driving gets out, stretches his legs. You see him kick off his shoes and shed his shirt, tossing his clothes into the driver’s seat before he suddenly falls down on all fours and shifts into a wolf. The change is nearly instant, a chorus of unpleasant, bone-cracking sounds, his skin engulfed in dark fur. Corbin wanders into view, glancing at the three of you with an expression of infuriating tranquility.

Golden light flickers in the corner of your vision. The crowd parts and the man who steps forward makes the wolves you’ve seen so far seem small and delicate in comparison. Massive and towering over all the rest, his chest bare and broad, muscled shoulders adorned with tattoos, he comes forward with a lantern in his hand and a sharp grin on his face. The others all have that intimidating air about them but this one truly looks like a werewolf, overwhelming and wild. His sharp gaze flicks to each of you. Your heart leaps into your throat as, one by one, he looks you in the eyes and speaks your names.

“Welcome, chosen,” he says. “My name is Vanagandr, and this is Hoarfrost Falls. The pack is eager to meet you. Are you well?”

It takes you a moment to understand this is a serious, genuine question. He waits patiently for an answer, studying each of you in turn. “Are we well?” you repeat in disbelief. “Are you for real?”

To your dismay, he finds your anger harmless and amusing, a soft chuff of laughter escaping his lips. “Let me rephrase. Do you feel sick or hungover? Any injuries, particularly to the legs or feet? Be honest. We have a medic.”

The two cowering behind you don’t say a word, too afraid to even lift their gazes. One of them is shaking, clinging to your shoulder. Still, Vanagandr waits, and the uncomfortable silence stretches on. Eventually, one of them shakes their head. The other mutters a quiet, “I’m fine.” The wolves around you stare and point openly, muttering to one another about which one of you smells the best, which one looks the softest, the most defiant, the most fun to train.

“I was bitten,” you mutter.

He doesn’t wait for you to show him, grabbing you by the shoulder and turning you in place. His hand is large, his nails sharp like claws. He traces the teeth marks in your neck and growls softly. The wolf who bit you stiffens and turns his head. Baring his throat, you realize.

It’s then that you see Corbin slink closer, pressing himself against the enormous wolf’s side. “It wasn’t his fault,” he says in a soft, demure tone, his head bowed so he looks up at Vanagandr through his thick lashes. “He couldn’t let up because they wouldn’t submit. It took a little while.”

“I figured as much,” Vaganadr chuckles. He rubs his face against Corbin’s neck and jaw, a gesture that strikes you as odd, affectionate, and a touch possessive. “Go on. Your alpha’s looking for you.” At that, Corbin’s eyes light up and he slips away with one last lingering touch to Vanagandr’s shoulder, but he doesn’t rush to leave. He meanders through the crowd of wolves and the others greet him with the same eager affection, grabbing him, passing him amongst themselves like a toy to sniff and touch and grope shamelessly. The display unsettles you and in your haste to find somewhere else to look, you see something that makes your heart skip a beat.

A small group has just arrived. These wolves are younger, noticeably nervous and fidgeting. They’re led by a wolf who looks like he got stuck in the middle of shifting, limbs long and furred, hands and feet tipped with claws, a bushy tail swishing behind him. He’s talking to them in a low, gravelly voice, something about herding and not rushing, but that doesn’t matter. None of it matters except for one wolf who stands out from the rest. Not because he does anything unusual. Not because he’s particularly big or intimidating looking—he always was bigger than you but here, he’s average. Right at home.

You know that wolf. You recognize the scars slashed from his hairline to his jaw, long, jagged lines clawed across the left side of his face. You remember that nervous little twitch of the nose whenever he ran into something new, some situation that made him nervous. He’s grown his hair out longer, let it spill over his shoulders and down his back in thick, black waves, but you know it’s him. The fearful expression on his face transforms into full-blown panic when your eyes meet.

“Flint?” All you can manage is a strangled whisper but you know he hears you. An unhappy, dog-like whine rises in his throat. “Flint? What—why are you here?” You aren’t thinking when you push your way towards him. No one is stopping you but you barely notice, don’t even hesitate to wonder why. You shoulder through the crowd, ignoring the whispers, the uneasy glances, Vanagandr gone completely still and silent behind you.

Flint lowers his gaze, staring at the grass by your feet. You’re further from the lantern and the shadows are thick, his face half-hidden in flickering, lurching darkness, but you can hear him panting the way he always would when he felt overwhelmed. Your name comes out in a needy whine, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. “No…no, no, no, not yet…” He has trouble getting the words out, and even more trouble trying to look you in the eye. His voice is exactly the way you remember, low and rough and painfully quiet, like he’s afraid to speak any louder than a rumbling whisper. “I’m not—I’m not ready, I can’t…”

“Are you okay? Are you hurt? Did they kidnap you, too?” you ask, your voice raising with anger the more you speak. You know next to nothing about wild wolves, but you know Flint is meek and easy to boss around, the kind of person who got picked on by other wolves when you were younger. The tall werewolf, the one who looks caught between human and animal, steps closer as though he means to separate you. “Don’t touch him!” you snap. He looks down at you, an expression of muted surprise smoothing into understanding.

“Corbin,” he says quietly. The smaller man rushes over, now carrying the lantern Vanagandr held earlier. “You two. Follow.” He doesn’t tell you where he’s taking you. He just starts walking. You’re startled that Flint obeys without question, keeping his head down. Corbin grabs your forearm and drags you along, frowning at your attempts to squirm free and pry his fingers off.

He leans in, lowering his voice. “Remember what I said before about picking your battles?” he asks. You’re suddenly aware of just how quiet the clearing has become, all eyes on you. Vanagandr watches you very carefully, his gaze hardened and threatening. You glance ahead where the tall werewolf has stopped moving, looking back over his shoulder.

Flint is hunched next to him, head down, whimpering. The wolf has a hand on his forearm, gripping hard enough to leave marks. You take a deep breath. Fine. You can play along for now. You’ll do anything for Flint’s sake.

Wolves have their own gods.

Flint knew that when he was little, of course, but it was a vague sort of awareness. Hearsay, rather than knowledge. Wolves, he was surely told at some point, have many faiths and traditions depending on where they live or where they come from. But these things are distant for city wolves, even shameful at times. Why stick out any more than you already, unavoidably do? His family had distanced themselves from any sort of archaic, wild customs long before even his parents were born. When he followed the family tree as far back as it went, tracing those ancient scribbles on the old, yellowed parchment kept hidden in his father’s lockbox, he found strange symbols and names he wasn’t sure how to pronounce. The word ulfhednar was written in thick, black ink.

When he repeated the word to his parents, they looked at him like he’d dragged a human corpse through the front door and dropped it at their feet. “It’s an old, awful thing that you shouldn’t tell anyone,” his mother warned. And that was that. For years, he went on thinking there was something wrong with him, some secret shame he’d unknowingly inherited. It isn’t until much later—until Hoarfrost Falls—that he finds out the truth. Ulfhednar is not a dirty word, but it is something city wolves don’t talk about.

That, and gods. They don’t talk about those either. Not the old ones like the Poised Fang, god of the perfect strike. Some have forgotten and some no longer understand. Sawyer taught him all about that. Sawyer, who leads the three of them now—him and the hrefn and you, he can hardly believe it, you where he least expects to see you, exactly the wrong place and exactly the wrong time. He hadn’t even planned on being there. He was still too new to take part in the claiming chase, still too uncomfortable with the realities of acquiring pack humans to even watch.

Sawyer had insisted. He was kind about it. He had waited until the evening lessons were over to pull Flint aside, dusk simmering like dying embers along the horizon. Flint’s peers had all come from loose, disorganized city packs. Like him, they had dulled senses and smothered instincts. Their shifts were slow and uncomfortable because they’d all learned to do it quietly, stifling the popping of their joints and the rearranging of their bones in a way that left them winded when it was over.

There was comfort and camaraderie in being new and terrible at everything together, but Flint knew he was falling behind. The others were just as clueless but twice as eager, embracing each new facet of wild pack life while Flint was still reeling. He didn’t think they were judging him for it—he desperately hoped not—but he wasn’t sure. He was used to being an outcast. His whole life, he’d been the obvious werewolf in a room full of humans. He was tall, strongly built, his limbs thick with muscle, his nails constantly needing to be filed down as they grew quicker and sharper than he could keep up with. He’d tried joining packs before. Things always started well and soured quickly. City wolves would look at him and assume he was something wild, and as soon as they realized he wasn’t, he’d start getting pushed around and singled out. He didn’t like making a fuss so he just did what he was told and kept his head down.

But you—you would fight for him. You always did. You’d find out, no matter how hard he tried to keep these things quiet, and you’d tell him you were going to his next pack meeting. You’d be the smallest one in the room between all those werewolves, and you’d still march right up to whatever loudmouth was calling themselves alpha and tear them a new one. You’d demand all of his stuff back if anything had been taken and placed in communal storage—family heirlooms, usually, fur-lined coats and old quilts. Sometimes you’d manage to get a few of his membership fees reimbursed by citing breaches of contract, listing all the ways his pack had failed to behave like his pack.

You’d gotten hurt doing that, just once. It was the last pack he’d tried joining, the last desperate attempt to find belonging. The alpha had claimed his car as a pack asset and taken his keys, and you’d marched in there and refused to leave until they were put in your hand. Yelling had turned to shoving and someone had bitten you. Flint is ashamed to admit that he can’t fully remember everything that happened, only that he woke up in wolfskin, lying on the tile floor of his shower. You were kneeling next to him beneath the spray of warm water and running your fingers through his fur, wet, partially shredded clothes hanging off your body. Blood swirled down the drain.

“Not mine,” you assured him. “Not all yours, either, but don’t move around too much.”

He thinks about that all the time. He dreams about it. Curled up with his head in your lap and your hands running up and down his body, your touch soothing and affectionate. That’s what he was thinking of earlier tonight when Sawyer stopped him as the others ran off to gossip excitedly with their elders about the new pack humans coming up the mountain. Sawyer led him down a trail that wandered away from the commune’s structures, deeper into the woods.

Flint smelled it before he saw it; perspiration. Excitement. Arousal. A human and a werewolf. The end of a chase. They were up ahead, tucked away in a grove of crooked, towering oak trees. The human was making soft, scared sounds as she was forced down to her knees and made to present herself in proper submission, but she smelled eager and Flint saw a smile before her head was shoved down into the leaves. The wolf growled playfully when he mounted her, nuzzling against the nape of her neck. He whispered something in Old Wolven Norse; a term of endearment, Flint guessed, from the tone.

It felt wrong to stand there and watch. They’d come here to be alone, hadn’t they? But Sawyer looked at him sharply when Flint glanced back the way they’d come. They were going to talk here? In earshot of another wolf and his human as they joined in bliss, rutting on the forest floor? Sawyer did nothing without a reason. There was something Flint was meant to see here, something he was supposed to learn.

“You don’t want to watch tonight’s claiming,” Sawyer said quietly. “I think you should.”

Flint said nothing. He couldn’t gather his thoughts. He was too focused on the human’s alluring scent, their needy whimpers and squirming as the wolf took them. Would…would you look like that, under him? Would you be so open, so sweet? So much had gone unsaid between the two of you before. You weren’t together. You’d never broached the subject, even though he could smell your interest in him. He hadn’t wanted to push, terrified of scaring you away.

“Flint.” Sawyer was studying his face in the subtle way wolves did, a sidelong glance whenever he let his guard down. “Something’s on your mind.”

Flint swallowed. He could feel himself reacting to the couple in front of him, the tender flesh at the base of his cock where his knot swells up pulsing gently, and he was ashamed. “I’m thinking about studying a different trade,” he admitted.

Sawyer said nothing. Flint found himself looking desperately at his face, searching for signs of anger or disappointment, and found him completely unreadable. Sawyer was stone-faced and taciturn most of the time. Flint had to take a deep breath, relax himself, and remember to look elsewhere for answers. Sawyer’s scent was…calm. His tail was still, slightly raised in curiosity but there was no evidence of aggression or displeasure in his posture. He tilted his head slightly and avoided direct eye contact, looking in Flint’s general direction rather than right at him, trying not to make him feel threatened.

Emboldened, Flint continued. “It’s not your fault, it’s all me. You’ve done so much for me since I got here. You’re always patient with me no matter what I screw up. I know I can tell you things and you’ll listen. It’s just…I don’t think I can do this. I wouldn’t be a good shepherd.”

Sawyer grunted. It was more of a wolf sound than a human one, a chiding growl and a resigned huff all in one. “You’re the only one who decides your path. But if you want my opinion, I disagree. You’d make an exceptional shepherd.”

Flint shook his head. “I could never hurt them. I can’t wrap my head around it. The whole claiming thing, the biting, the…”

“Fucking?” Sawyer said it so easily.

“We’re forcing them, aren’t we? They don’t want it.”

“They do. They just don’t know it yet.” Sawyer had barely taken his eyes off the wolf and the human since they’d arrived, something nostalgic and bittersweet in his gaze. He nodded to the two of them, the human writhing in mindless pleasure and the wolf pounding her breathless, groaning into the flesh of her shoulder. “They’re no different from us. Strip the wild out of them and they become caged, miserable animals. Here, they learn to heed their instincts again.”

Flint knew that. He’d been taught all of this before. Alpha Druian told him that most humans lived in societies of suffering, and Flint knew he was right because he’d seen it himself, had lived in it for most of his life. Taking pack humans, teaching them everything they’d forgotten after centuries of isolating themselves from wolves—it was all natural and beautiful. It was the steps in between that he had trouble rationalizing; the claiming and the training. The fear and the pain, how new humans shivered at the sight of him and whimpered when he came too close. He was told that this, too, was perfectly normal, a necessary and expected part of the process.

He heard a quiet chuckle. A smile tugged at the corner of Sawyer’s lips. “This is why you’d be so good at it,” he said. “I stopped shepherding a long time ago, but those instincts never go away. I know what to look for. All that thinking and worrying, that’s what we’re best at. The pack’s most tenderhearted are the ones who should be closest to our humans. Confidence is important. Being able to make difficult choices and administer discipline, that’s also important. But you have to care, more than anything. You have to want what’s best for them.”

He didn’t know what to say, so he hadn’t said anything. Sawyer had simply stood beside him as the shadows grew and the sky darkened, night draping across the mountain. They watched the wolf bring the human to climax once, twice, a third time shuddering and wailing as her toes curled, the wolf’s hands roaming her sensitive body. When he finally spilled inside her, he sank his teeth into her neck. The spot was already marked and the precise way he angled his head, tonguing at the indentations before biting down, told Flint that was his mark. His human. A bond, renewed and made even stronger. He thought of you again and realized he was fully hard.

And now—here you are. He’s not ready. He can’t meet your worried gaze. Sawyer leads the way to the guest house, a large cabin where friends and allies stay while visiting the territory. Neutral, scentless ground. You’re wary, probably because you can’t see very well. Corbin sets the lantern down on a table but the light is dim, unable to crawl into all the cozy nooks and crannies in the spacious common area. Flint is happy that you go to him, sticking close to his side, but he doesn’t like how stiff and standoffish you are. He risks inching closer, pressing himself against you—and he smells another wolf on you. Saliva. Blood. A bite? Without thinking, he tugs at the neckline of your shirt, nostrils flaring at the sight of the wound.

“I’m sorry, Flint. I had no idea,” Corbin says softly. “The bite happened on the way here. It was intended to force submission.” He reaches out, trying to offer comfort. You slap his hand away. Flint’s hand twitches at his side, instincts warring within him. He wants to soothe you. Wants to scold you. Wants to protect you. Wants to protect Corbin. Paralyzed by indecision, he does nothing. Corbin’s attention shifts from Flint to you, his expression thoughtful. Part of Flint lurches in fear at the thought of Corbin getting his hands on you. Training you, the way he helps Druian train all the new arrivals. He sees that eager look in Corbin’s eyes, the way his gaze roams. He’s sizing you up. Finding weaknesses. Memorizing all of your movements, conscious and unconscious, how you carry yourself, how long you can look him in the eye.

Another part of him, deeply buried, considers it with alarming calmness. Before Hoarfrost Falls, he’d blame those thoughts on his “inner wolf,” but Sawyer has cautioned him against that kind of mental partitioning. “Don’t cut yourself into pieces,” he’d say. He is a wolf and a man and the melding of those things, all together, all at once. He is the clear-headed human understanding that you have every right and reason to be terrified right now, and he is also the feverish need to wrap around you in wolfskin as though his closeness can take all of your worries away.

“I think we got off on the wrong foot,” Corbin says. An absurd statement, intended to be disarming. You make a sound that’s not quite a laugh, sharp and guarded, not taking the bait. Flint is proud—excited—for reasons he is afraid to identify. “I’m serious. There’s been a big misunderstanding. I know how it looks from your perspective, but—”

“You slipped something in my drink,” you say, accusing. “You kidnapped me, and two other people.”

“‘Kidnapped’ is a really loaded word.”

“Sit.” Sawyer’s voice comes from the far end of the room, by the windows. He’s got the long, draping curtains pulled shut to hide your view of the woods, just in case the chase comes this way. Corbin drops where he’s standing, immediately settling onto the soft rug. Flint seats himself on the couch, dismayed when you don’t follow his lead. You’re still standing, looking Sawyer in the eye and glaring hatefully. Flint understands suddenly what’s happening here, why you’re not just uneasy but furious.

“It’s not like that,” he tries to tell you, tugging at your hand. “This pack, they’re not like the others.”

“That’s what you always say. And then they boss you around and take advantage of you,” you mutter. And that’s true. He would always say that everything’s fine. He didn’t want to make a big deal out of his problems, and he didn’t want you getting hurt trying to defend him. It was all backwards. He was supposed to protect you. The ulfhednar didn’t just have pack humans, they had human allies, human trade partners, human settlements within their territory they defended from harm.

And yet, here you are with another wolf’s bite on your neck. Here he is, failing you again.

“Sit down, human,” Sawyer repeats. “You want an explanation. I’ll give it to you.”

“Are you the alpha?” you ask.

“Beta. Sit, please.”

Flint lets out a shaky, relieved breath when you finally obey, sinking onto the cushion beside him. Sawyer makes his approach slow and indirect, pacing, pretending to fuss over the decor. He straightens out a blanket draped over the back of an armchair and returns a book left on the table to its proper shelf. It works. You don’t relax completely but you follow his movements with your eyes, curiosity rounding the edges of your annoyance. You try to hide it when Sawyer finishes his minor adjustments and comes to stand in front of you, towering over Corbin beside him, but your sweetening scent gives you away.

Flint knows he should let the pack beta speak, but the guilt is eating him alive. “This is my fault,” he blurts out. You look at him the same, soft way you always have.

“That’s not true,” Corbin insists. “It’s mine. I should’ve been more thorough—”

Sawyer growls quietly. “It’s nobody’s fault.” He mutters in Old Wolven Norse, “It’s fate. Keep your fangs poised.”

Flint’s heart skips a beat. He can’t. He can’t do this. He’s not ready. He feels a whine building in his throat and bites it back, embarrassed by how readily his feelings show. He’s always been bad at keeping growls and barks out of his speech, especially when he’s particularly nervous or excited, overwhelmed by emotion. Sawyer glances at him, holds eye contact for a meaningful moment, before he returns his attention to you.

“This is Hoarfrost Falls. We’re what you would call a ‘wild pack,’ although we welcome wolves of other backgrounds if they’re willing to make the lifestyle adjustment. My name is Sawyer. You’ve met Corbin, our hrefn—”

“Your what?” you say.

Sawyer visibly bristles at the interruption but doesn’t comment on it. He runs his hand through Corbin’s hair and Corbin melts under the attention, nuzzling his face into the dark, thick fur on Sawyer’s thigh. “It’s his rank,” Sawyer says, pausing to consider his word choice. “He’s a pack human with authority over our other pack humans.”

“Pack humans? That’s a real thing?” You sound horrified. You’re looking at Corbin like he’s something wounded on the side of the road.

“It’s real. It’s why you were brought here. Normally, you’d be enjoying your initiation right now, but I pulled you out for the pack’s safety.”

“The pack’s safety?” you echo, disbelieving. “How are you the ones in danger?”

Sawyer says nothing. He doesn’t have to. He just looks at Flint, and Flint looks anywhere else, and you know. You remember. He’s territorial. Obsessed, people used to say, as if they’d never yearned for a human before. City wolves like to pretend they don’t have instincts. He tried to pretend, too. But any little thing could happen—you could scrape your knee on the pavement, or someone could raise their voice a little too loud while talking to you—and he’d feel himself growling, bristling, ready to fight and die for you.

When he saw you earlier tonight, knowing what would happen, imagining you stumbling afraid through the woods with some other wolf lunging and pinning you and leaving marks, he felt that reckless urge rise up like an inferno beneath his skin. He’d nearly thrown himself at Alpha Vanagandr—would’ve, if Sawyer and the others hadn’t talked him down.

“It’s clear to me that you’re Flint’s. His…friend,” Sawyer amends, seeing your expression pinch in confusion. “I don’t know much about you. He doesn’t like talking about his old life and I don’t like to dredge it up more than necessary.”

Flint bows his head, feeling guilty again. “I left someone behind.” That’s all he could bring himself to say when the subject came up. It wasn’t entirely true; you’d both gone your separate ways. But he’d left first—decided to try his luck with distant family in another city, relatives his parents rarely spoke to. You’d tried to keep in touch but things had fizzled out. You were both busy with your own lives and your talks became less frequent. You left messages for each other on occasion; pictures from you, embarrassingly long and heartfelt texts that felt more like letters from him. He wanted you to know he was okay. He was strong and capable, and you didn’t have to worry.

“So can we go?” you ask.

The corner of Sawyer’s mouth twitches, the movement very quick and very slight but unmistakably a suppressed snarl. “We?” he repeats stiffly.

“I’m not leaving without Flint.”

Flint feels like he’s going to burst out of his own skin, terrified by your open defiance and how you won’t drop your gaze, even more afraid that he’ll lose control himself at any moment. He trusts his mentor but Sawyer has a reputation. He forgets to go easy on pack humans sometimes. He can be harsh, less forgiving of trespasses, dangerously aggressive in the heat of the moment. He’s not sure what he’ll do if Sawyer comes any closer. Flint knows there’s an old, awful story behind all his scars carving through the thick wolf fur he can’t fully retract. It’s not always easy to tell what’ll set him off.

It’s just as hard to predict what he’ll laugh off and deem unthreatening. Flint sags in relief when Sawyer lets out an amused huff, his posture loosening somewhat. Whatever he was looking for, whatever it is that reminds him of his scars, he doesn’t find it in you. If anything, he looks a little fond of you. “You’d better stay put,” Sawyer says. “The claiming hunt isn’t over. Won’t be for a little while. No one would purposefully antagonize Flint, but nobody is thinking clearly during a chase, either. Do you want something to eat or drink?” You glare at him. “Suit yourself. I have to speak with the alpha about this. Corbin, you’re dismissed. Let’s give them some space.”

Corbin never takes his eyes off you as he gets to his feet, returning your scowl with a sweet smile. “It was so nice to meet you,” he purrs.

Your frown deepens. “Feeling’s not mutual.”

“Mm. Give it time.” He winks before Sawyer herds him out the door with a playful growl.

Sawyer pauses on the porch, looking back at you with a sharp gaze. “Stay,” he rumbles. He smirks. You think he’s making fun of you, but his gaze shifts to Flint just briefly. Flint’s heart skips a beat.

Because Sawyer does nothing without a reason. All of that, every little thing, had a purpose. Getting you accustomed to hearing commands. Keeping his distance to put you at ease. Bringing Corbin along showed you that the pack keeps humans, that they’re fed, cared for, permitted some mischief from time to time. Giving you an order he knows you won’t follow wasn’t for you, though. That was for Flint. Because Flint is a shepherd, and when you disobey, it’s his responsibility to do something about it.

Your shoulders sag, a long sigh slipping out when the guest house door slams shut. The silence that follows is deafening. It’s just the two of you now. You and Flint. His hands shake. He tries to take deep breaths to calm himself but every inhale is full of your scent, the sharpness of your sweat and worry. He’s not ready. He’s petrified. What is he supposed to do now? What is he supposed to say? He wants to tell you so many things but the words won’t come. They never do. You’ve always understood what he tries to say, even when he can’t say it, but you don’t understand the situation you’re in now.

“Come on,” you say. “He’s probably bringing the alpha back with him. We have to hurry.” You rub your face on a few blankets and pillows—decoys. He recognizes this trick. You’ll take those with you when you run, toss them around to hide your trail. Then you rush to the kitchen and he follows nervously, reminded of a dozen other messes you’ve gotten him out of before. You turn on the sink and lather up the strongest-smelling soap you can find in the cupboards, scrubbing your face, your neck, your wrists, any exposed skin. Your natural scent isn’t gone but it’s smothered in earthy musk because all of the pack’s homemade soaps smell like the woods. Clever. Worryingly so.

“They didn’t…kidnap me,” he admits. “I chose to come here.”

You pause to look at him, your stony focus softening with sympathy. “Yeah? I bet it wasn’t what you thought it’d be,” you say.

You’re right. Just not the way you think you are. “This isn’t like before. They’re different. The alpha is good. I know it seems strange. They’re not like the packs we’re used to. But—”

“Flint.” You look up at him and his voice catches in his throat. “Come here. Your turn.”

He shouldn’t. Shouldn’t encourage this any further. He has to be honest with you, has to make you understand. “It’s not safe out there,” he says weakly. “Sawyer wasn’t lying about the chase. It gets…intense. If anybody catches your scent—”

“They won’t,” you insist. You take one of his hands in his and his resolve crumbles bit by bit, eroded by the tender smoothing motions of your fingers over his palm and knuckles and joints. He’s thinking about that shower you took together years ago. The warmth. The safety. The certainty that he was home at last, pack or no pack, that he had everything he wanted. Hoarfrost Falls is where he belongs, but something has been missing all this time, something important. He can’t help it. When you tug on his arm, he kneels, letting you smooth your hands over his face and neck, shutting his eyes and savoring your touch.

He’s not ready. But Sawyer told him he doesn’t have to be. Now and then, when the other lessons are done, they sit under the moon and talk about gods. “The Poised Fang is old. Very, very old,” Sawyer told him. “In his time, wolves had no names. Humans were prey. Smart, vicious prey, worthy of respect. The hunt is the oldest dance, and he is the best dancer. There are others who came after—gods of hearth-keeping and shepherding. But when you see a human—your human—you call on the Poised Fang first. That’s why we have that saying in Old Wolven. ‘Keep your fangs poised.’ It’s an invocation. Do you know the key to hunting humans?”

Flint hadn’t known. The topic made him squeamish. But Sawyer reassured him they meant it differently now. That the Poised Fang, timeless and eternal, was pleased that the hunt continued, even if its end had changed.

“The key is patience. It’s not strength. Not readiness. Patience. You’ll see this firsthand someday. You don’t have to be ready. You just have to wait. The moment will come.”

Flint opens his eyes and you’re staring at him, your palms framing his face. He nuzzles against your touch and you blink, startled, pulling away. It makes him want to growl but he holds it in. “We should get going,” you tell him. You’re embarrassed. He can smell it. You shouldn’t be. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. He wishes the two of you had talked about it before—all of it. Your feelings. His instincts. The desire to hold you close and leave you drenched in his scent. The throbbing need to sink his teeth into your neck.

“It’s a long way to the nearest town,” he tells you, his voice low but steady. “Hours. Too far on foot, for you.”

“Shit. They didn’t take your keys, did they? Guess we could steal theirs.” You laugh. Flint smiles. He’s not ready. He’s a storm inside, hope and fear and revulsion all crashing against one another. Some part of him has always known he would come back for you, but he wanted more time. More certainty. Then again, hasn’t he already had all the time he needs? Nobody knows you better. You peer through the front windows, then the back.

“Is there a river nearby?” you wonder aloud. “It rained the other day. Should be able to cover our scent with mud, if we have to.”

Flint inches closer. Afraid. Excited. He’s panting. He can’t help it. The truth is that he’s going to have to hurt you. Just a little. Just enough. You’re going to scream and cry and it’s going to feel like a knife in the heart, but he knows you’ll feel even worse. And that’s okay, he tells himself. That’s normal. Natural. Part of the process. Like when you were children, and he got a splinter stuck in his paw, and you sat him down with a pair of tweezers and scratched under his chin while he whined. He didn’t want you to touch it but you insisted. It had to come out. It would hurt just a tiny bit one last time, and then it wouldn’t hurt anymore. It’s just like that.

“Look!” you’d said, pointing up at a tree. “Squirrel!”

He knew, logically, that you were just trying to distract him. But he’d perked up anyway, took his eyes off of you, and then it was done. Over in a blink. It’s just like that, he tells himself. He whispers a prayer in Old Wolven Norse to the Poised Fang, begging to know if prey can ever forgive the predator for the sharpness of his teeth.

“I love you,” he says.

You freeze. Your palm hovers over the door handle. Looking up at him with wide eyes and mouth parted in shock, a question starts forming on your lips. And like the oldest of his gods stalking a primeval forest, Flint does not waste the moment.

#rotpeach writes #meanwolves #inspired by an ask i got a while ago about what happens if a new pack human recognizes a wolf as someone they knew before #im extra behind on asks gonna try and get to some of those tonight or tomorrow #this time of year is always pretty busy for me and this year is no exception #corbin #sawyer #flint

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dontcare77ghj · 11 months

Text

Children

Wanda x reader x Peter

When you were a child, you pictured your life going the way many orphans dreamed of.

Idealistically.

You dreamed of a family picking you, wanting you, and bringing you to a home filled with love and maybe a dog. The white picket fence lifestyle.

When HYDRA picked you, you had been unaware at the time, as had the seventy-four other children, how quickly that dream would shatter.

And, suddenly, the dream became making it to the end of the week.

Surviving the experiments, the torture, and living just a little while longer. Though some days you prayed for death more so than life.

When the Avengers raided the facility just after your fourteenth birthday, and the seventy-fourth child died, you thought you were dreaming.

Even now, two years later, there were days you were sure this was all some sick dream. That you would wake up back in your cell with no chance of a future.

But you didn't.

Instead, you woke up in your room in the Tower with your big windows, open doors, and a family waiting for you a couple of floors down.

Right now, you had no big dreams for the rest of your life. You did not plan out as you had when you didn't know better.

For now, you were living and enjoying the days as they came.

And you weren't going to let anyone take that from you.

"Nat, give me back the foundation!" You huffed, putting your hands on your hips.

"No. You don't need it. So you can't have it." Natasha told you firmly.

"You know I can just take it from you, right?" You asked, staring at the woman who'd resorted to standing on your bed.

"And I'll kick your ass. Point?" Natasha raised a brow.

"Nat, I don't have a scarf, and my hair won't cover this." You gestured to your neck. "It's ugly."

"It's a battle scar, and they're never ugly." Natasha corrected you, jumping to the floor. "You got this saving Steve's ass. You don't have anything to hide." She said, brushing the hair from your neck.

"But,"

"But?"

"What if Wanda and Pete don't like it?" You asked, touching the still tender cut.

"Okay, first of all, those two are usually covered in worse than this, okay? And second of all, they won't care." Natasha said, cupping your face in her hands.

"Yeah?"

"They asked you on this date after you'd been sparing with Steve." Natasha reminded you. "You were sweaty and out of breath,"

"I didn't smell great."

"Probably not. But they still asked you." Natasha said. "You look beautiful, and they're not going to know what to do with themselves."

"Are you sure?" You asked, anxiety making a mess of your stomach.

"Yes," Natasha promised, kissing your temple. "Now, are you ready to watch their jaws drop?"

Non-reader POV

"You two look nice." Steve smiled as Wanda and Peter entered the living room. "Big night on the town?"

"Can you sound any more like a dad, Steve?" Bucky groaned.

"You bring Wanda back by eleven, Parker." Clint reminded the vigilante. "I know where you live, and I know how to get in."

"I stand corrected," Bucky muttered.

"You know we're sixteen, right?" Wanda raised a brow at the archer.

"Oh, it's so cute when they think sixteen is grown up," Tony said, sitting beside Clint.

"Yeah, well, they go from sixteen to seventeen to eighteen, to out of your life pretty quickly." Clint sighed.

"Isn't your oldest thirteen?" Peter cocked his head.

"The oldest that I know of," Clint said, a shiver running down his spine.

"Anyway," Tony shook his head. "Where are you two off tonight? Do you want to borrow a car? Or Happy?"

"We're okay, Mr Stark. We don't need a car or Happy." Peter was quick to tell the man who was already getting his phone out. "We're going to the restaurant just down the street."

"Ooh, the good one with the good gelato?" Bucky groaned. "Stevie, get me some gelato." He said, hitting the blonde's arm.

"Get your own gelato, punk."

"The place down the street needs a reservation on Friday nights. Aren't you two cutting it close?" Tony asked.

"We have twenty minutes before we need to be there." Peter shook his head.

"We're just waiting on Y/N," Wanda added.

"I thought you were going on a date?" Bucky cocked his head.

"We are. With Y/N." Peter said, grabbing Wanda's hand as he stared nervously at the Avengers before them.

"Well, shit. I lost that bet."

"Yeah, I had June on the books."

"You bet on us?" Wanda scoffed.

"Ignore them. Congratulations."

"Just remember, kid. If you hurt either of them, we know where you live." Clint threatened, despite the smile on his face.

"Oh, please. My kid is a gentleman." Tony scoffed. "And, in a move very similar to me but doubled, he's picked two women who'll kick his ass for us if he does anything stupid."

"Ahem." Natasha's voice startled the men on the couch, causing them to turn. "If you lot are done, Peter, Wanda, ta-da," Natasha said, stepping aside.

Y/N stood a couple of paces behind where Natasha had been, and Wanda and Peter's jaws dropped.

"Y/N, you look stunning." Wanda smiled, moving towards the girl.

"Thank you." Y/N blushed. "Sorry, I'm late. Nat had to help me with my hair."

"You're not late." Peter was quick to assure. "We're early. Like so early. We probably rushed a little bit, but we were also nervous. But you could probably tell that because now I'm rambling,"

"Pete," Wanda said, taking the spider's hand with hers. "Breathe."

"Sorry," Peter said after a second to a giggling Y/N.

"It's okay. I'm used to it." She smiled. "You both look really nice. You even match." She pointed to Wanda's dress and Peter's matching bowtie. "I should've asked about the dress code."

"Well, we actually thought about that," Wanda said, using her magic to float a plastic container over to the three of them. "Peter found this, and we thought it might be cute."

"But if you don't want it you totally don't have to wear it," Peter said as Y/N opened the container and gently picked up the red corsage.

"No, I love it." She assured the two. "Help me put it on?" She held out her hand.

"Please, tell me you're filming this." Steve broke the moment. "This is adorable."

"No filming." Wanda groaned.

"Alright, you three better get out of here before one of this lot gets out a camera," Natasha said, ushering the teens to the elevator.

"Be good!"

"Have fun!"

"Be home by eleven!"

"Make good choices!"

Reader POV

"Phil, I appreciate being considered for this, but,"

"It's suicidal." Bucky cut in, scowling at the file in his hand. "She's not going."

"Barnes, you can't make that decision for her." Phil sighed.

"I don't want to do this, Phil." You told the agent. "I'm not an agent. I'm not trained for this. It's nice of Fury to consider me,"

"Nice? He wants you to do this on your own, knowing you have no formal training and that you're a child." The soldier scoffed, throwing the file onto the table and wrapping an arm around your shoulder. "If you try and take her, I will take you out." He said, dead-staring the agent in the eyes.

"No one is going to take anyone," Phil promised, raising his hands. "I'm passing on Fury's offer, that's all."

"That's all?" Bucky raised a brow.

"That's all." Phil nodded. "And since you've made it clear how you feel, I'll be on my way." He added, rising to his feet.

"I'm really sorry, Phil." You told the agent.

"You have nothing to be sorry for, kid." Phil shook his head. "I'll let Fury know your decision." He said before making his way out.

"Thanks for standing up for me, Buck." You said, turning to the man who gave you a smile.

"Anytime, small fry." He knocked your shoulder. "C'mon, let's get you a cupcake."

"You're such a cheater!"

"Just because you don't know the rules."

"We know the rules. You're the one not playing by them."

"The rules of MASH are clear. You have to put a different people for your future spouse." Peter told Wanda.

"And you have to put them individually." You added.

"But this way, I get to have you both. I win, you win, it's fine." Wanda waved a hand. "Besides, you want to talk about cheating and not following the rules? Then who's the one who put a draw two on a draw four?"

"You can!" You exclaimed, throwing your hands in the air. "It's somewhere in the rules. I read it once."

"In a dream, maybe." Peter scoffed. "That is nowhere in the rules, and we are not having this argument again."

"Why, because you know I'm right?" You challenged the spider.

"How did we get to this? We were talking about Wanda cheating." Peter reminded you.

"I am not cheating. I am just making sure I get the future I want." Wanda shrugged.

"Alright, maybe this is not the best game for us to be playing." You sighed, running a hand through your hair. "What's next on your list of things Wanda missed out on?" You turned to Peter.

"I have a list of movies, snack concoctions, a rebellious phase was added,"

"And achieved, I'd say." Wanda cut Peter off. "Why do we have a list again?"

"You wrote the list. You even added 'have a happy childhood' to the top. Which, just proves you've been spending too much time with MJ." You reminded her.

"You know what's not on that list?" Wanda asked as she took the notepad from Peter's hand. "Spend a day with you both."

"I think we've accomplished that many times over," Peter commented.

"Well, don't they say you should always repeat that which you love?"

"Oh, is that why we always end up doing that one position?" You snarked, causing Wanda to snort and Peter to burn red.

"Y/N, you can't say that! Someone might hear you!" Peter hissed, his head snapping to the door as if someone were going to bust through it.

"The only other two apartments on this floor are Nat's and Steve's, and they're out being adults." Wanda reminded Peter.

"What's the matter, Peter? You can do the act, but you can't say it?" You teased.

"I can say it."

"Then say it. Sex."

"Y/N."

"Sex, sex, sex, sex, sex-" You chanted before letting out a squeal as Peter launched across Wanda and tackled you to the bed.

"Peter, don't break the bed again!" Wanda squealed as she ended up smooshed between you and Peter.

"That was an accident!"

"And Steve still won't let us hear the end of it."

"And do you really want to go to Tony and tell him you broke another bed?"

"No." Peter burned redder than before. "I do not want to have that conversation again." He said, laying down atop the two of you.

"So, what? You're just going to use us as pillows for the day?" You asked, running your fingers through his curls.

"Yep."

"Well, that crosses that off the bucket list." Wanda smiled at you.

"Nice work." Maria complimented, pushing off the doorframe and moving towards where you sat on the ground.

"Not good enough to win." You huffed, glaring at Clint, who sat opposite, not out of breath in the slightest.

"I've had decades of training, kid. If you'd won, it's because I let you." Clint said, nudging your foot with his.

"And if not for that reason, there'd be a problem," Maria added, sitting beside you. "So, Fury sent me to talk to you."

"Oh my God, seriously?" You groaned, flinging yourself back on the mat. "He knows I'm ignoring him and his emails for a reason, right?"

"That's why he sent me," Maria told you.

"Yeah, well, respectfully, Hill, you can go back to Fury and tell him she's not going on his mission," Clint said, narrowing his eyes at his friend as he shifted to sit at your side.

"Don't worry, Barton. I already told him." Maria assured the archer. "Every time he's asked me to come and talk to Y/N, I've reminded him she's already given her answer."

"Persisitent fucker." Clint muttered, glaring at the ground. "So, you came here to get him off your back?"

"That and warn you." Maria nodded, looking at you. "He wants you on this mission, kid. I don't know why, but he's not going to stop trying to get you to say yes."

"He can't make me go on this mission, can he?" You asked, looking between the adults.

"He'll get an arrow in his ass if he tries," Clint promised you, wrapping an arm around your shoulder.

"You're not a SHIELD agent, Y/N. Not even a trainee. Fury can't make you do anything." Maria added. "Even actual agents have the option to say no."

"Right." You nodded, but you weren't convinced.

"Hey, kid, why don't you hit the showers?" Clint suggested. "You've done enough for the day."

"No, I can keep training." You insisted, jumping to a stand. "I'm good."

"Yeah, well, I'm beat," Clint said. "How about you hit the showers, and after, we'll go for a walk and pick up a pie?"

"Can we take Lucky with us?

"What kind of question is that? Of course, we're taking the dog." Clint chuckled. "Hell, we'll even take Hill with us."

"I am not paying for your pizza, Barton."

"You crossed the line!"

"Did not!"

"What do you call that? That's the goddam line, Stark!"

"Watch your language! There are children here!"

"Yeah, watch your fucking language, Grandpa!" You snickered as the adults bickered.

"Kids, what's the verdict?" Bruce sighed, looking over to the couch where you, Wanda and Peter sat.

"According to the rules of Wii Bowling," Peter started, reading off his phone.

"And the rules of real bowling," Wanda added.

"Mr Stark's roll is technically disqualified," Peter said, looking up at his mentor with a frown. "Sorry, Mr. Stark."

"This is bullshit." Tony huffed, collapsing onto a couch with Natasha. "What's the number for Nintendo? I'm calling them and getting them to change the rules."

"What are you going to do? Buy the company and rewrite the rules yourself?" Clint scoffed.

"I'm gonna buy the company and rewrite the rules myself." Tony nodded.

"Nat, please take your turn now before he tries to rewrite history." You groaned.

"Step aside, boys," Natasha said, rising to a stand. "I'm gonna kick Barton to the bottom of the scoreboard."

"We're on the same team!"

"In real life too." A voice from the doorway spoke, causing everyone's heads to snap up.

Nick Fury stood in the doorway, looking unimpressed at the scene before him.

"This is what you do when you're not on missions?" The man raised a brow. "You know, you could be training."

"And this is why you're never invited to game night, sourpuss." Tony huffed, watching the director stalk forward.

"You've been ignoring my emails, Miss L/N," Fury said, dropping the file in his hands on the table before you.

"I thought I'd made my point loud and clear," You said, sitting upright. "Perhaps you'd like to borrow one of Clint's hearing aids, and I can say it again." You added, causing several of the adults in the room to chuckle.

"I need you to take this mission. I need you to be ready to leave tomorrow morning." Fury ignored your comment.

"No." You said, crossing your arms.

"I have asked nicely, L/N. Don't make me ask again."

"You better not be threatening one of those kids in my tower, Fury." Tony narrowed his eyes at the man.

"L/N here has a duty to the rest of the world. She could do a lot of good with her powers and yet she refuses to."

"I don't have a duty to anyone." You said, rising to a stand. "I am a child, and my only 'duty' at this point is to finish high school and be a kid."

"Your childhood ended the day HYDRA started to experiment on you."

"That's a fair point. However, I'm still sixteen. I'm healing from a traumatic experience, and I'm making up for lost time." You said, crossing your arms. "I'm not an Avenger, Nick. And I'm not one of your agents. I'm a child."

"I started the Avengers. I assembled the team that saved your life. The team that gave you a home, a team of therapists, and a new life." Fury told you. "Most in your position would be more grateful."

"Grateful." You laughed. "You think me working my ass off to heal, to learn how to be a person for this team, isn't good enough?

Do you think the hours I put into training, both in hand-to-hand and with my own powers, isn't proof of how thankful I am? You think the fact I didn't jump off the roof that first night here and join the rest of those who were experimented on isn't me being fucking grateful?" You snapped, narrowing your eyes at the older man.

"L/N,"

"I am grateful to be alive, to have found a family, friends, and even people I love." You said, letting your hands drop to your side. You let out a smile when you felt Wanda and Peter take your hands. "I don't work for you or SHIELD. I'm not even a real Avenger. I'm a child whose fight or flight instincts don't work." You continued.

"L/N,"

"I am a child. Not your weapon." You continued to ignore Fury. "I'm not one of your agents who cower at the sight of you. I'm not a robot who does what you tell it. I'm a fucking child!" You snapped.

"Well, maybe Maximoff or Parker would be willing to take your place," Fury said, and you felt your blood boil.

"You don't get it do you?" You scoffed. "We're all fucking children! Cleaning up the mess you made of the world so we have a chance at a future.

None of us asked for this. None of us asked to go through the amount of pain we have in our short lives. The only thing we were supposed to worry about was graduating, getting a job, and having enough money to survive one more day.

But no. You ruined the world, you create problem upon problem and hide them away thinking someone else will fix it. Tell me, do the agents who you sent to their deaths, weigh on your mind? Do you think about the lives you've ruined at all?

I am not going to be one of those lives, Fury. I will finish school, I will go to college and graduate with a degree that means I get to help people. And then I will decide if I become an Avenger. And I will do this with my family behind me and the people I love at my side.

Because at the end of the day, you have made the world a mess. No matter what path any of us take, we will end up trying to fix your mess. Because, even when you are gone, and no one remembers your name or gives a shit about who you were, we will be here. And we will leave the world in a better way than you ever would have." You finished your rant, breathing deeply, as you stared at the now silent director.

"Well, shit, kid." Clint whistled. "You tell him."

"Very articulate, malen'kiy pauk." Natasha smiled.

"None of us could have put it better," Steve added, with Bruce nodding along.

"Now that Y/N's thoroughly destroyed you, pirate. Let me add my piece." Tony said, moving to stand at your side. "You will not be taking any of these kids on any mission. I guarantee if you try to do anything to any of our kids, the Avengers will make you regret ever breathing in their presence. We will destroy you and everything you hold dear. Now, get out of my Tower."

"Fine." Fury huffed after a minute. Without another word the director spun on his heel and stromed from the room.

"FRIDAY, be a doll and make sure he leaves." Tony asked as you collapsed back between Wanda and Peter.

"That was amazing, dorogoy." Wanda whispered, pressing a kiss to your temple. "We're so proud of you."

"I wish I had that on camera to show everyone how badass you are." Peter grinned, wrapping his arms around you. "I loved every minute of that."

"Thanks." You whispered, smiling at the two. "When he said he would get the two of you to go on that mission, I just got so angry. I love you two, and I don't want to ever see you hurt."

"And we love you." Peter promised, kissing your cheek.

"And nothing's going to happen to any of us. We're stronger together." Wanda agreed, pressing her lips to your temple.

"I wish I had a camera for this." Steve once again ruined the moment.

"Steve!"

"Alright, enough with the emotional stuff. Kids, very cute. Y/N, brilliant take down, now back to bowling."

Remember, all Taglists are open, as are requests. Taglists include the main taglist, individual characters, all male/female, and venom stories.

Taglist

@rvgrsbrnsbrns @smilexcaptainxinx @hopingforbarnes @starlingelliot @piper-koko-barnes-rogers @jelly-fishy-babiee @skeletoresinthebasementt @agent-barnes400 @reann-shitpostingg @skadikh @summergeezburrr @buckybarton03 @sunshinepower177 @bindythedemonn @natasharomanoffismywifee @keenmarvelloverer @bbybarnesss @storiesbystarlightworld-blogt @buckybarnesplumwhore @bromieeomieee @marvelmenarebeautifull @niki-is-a-thing @pauloonig @abyssiniapleasant @beautybyfire @officalmarvelbaby @acertainredhead @reapersans-blog @adoreyou976 @casperlikejj @songbirdcannabe @montygator17 @cecedrake221717 @nyx20211 @black-dhalias @idontwannagomrstarkkk @chiyongberry @bunnyweasley233 @ratzy

All women Taglist

@imnotasuperheroo @confusinggemini612

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cloudofbutterflies92 · 3 months

Text

Put your head on my shoulder

And here is the famous Valentine's Day One shot that I promised, taking inspiration from a post by @creativepromptsforwriting (link here). I hope you like it!!(and happy Valentine's day everyone 💕💕)

Chloe Valentine belongs to @chloekistune

Alyssa Price belongs to @alypink

Valerie "Gorgon" Watson belongs to @onehornedbeast

Fei Xing belongs to @kikiharinezumi

Maya "Pip" van Rijn belongs to @justasmolbard

"You better hope I don't burn your kitchen," was Chloe's sentence as she and Johnny were driving Eden home again. She had wanted to stay for a few hours at Chloe's house, more to help the latter paint the Italian's studio.

Johnny had been with Gaz and Gorgon to train some recruits before offering to accompany her with Chloe, leaving the 'opportunity for Gaz to provide a surprise dinner for the Australian; Price, on the other hand, had the weekend off, determined to spend it together with Aly and their little girl in the country.

And Simon? Simon was waiting for her at their home in Manchester recommending that she not come because he had a surprise in store. Eden did not know what but if Chloe had mentioned cooking then surely something had to do with it. Already she was praying to those in charge.

"It makes one smile that in a short time Simon has become so devoted, even if it doesn't beat my record does it Piplup?" Johnny with a cluck of his own tongue and a 'wink embarrassed Chloe.

"What are you saying come on Johnny" the purple-haired girl hid her face between her knees, receiving a kiss on the head from him.

"Chloe made you smarter"

"Yeah sure munchkin" joked the Scotsman with Eden, their insulting each other was a form of brotherly love.

"Home sweet home, be sure to remember to lock the room. I wouldn't want the wind to ruin everything" after the last recommendation Eden got out of the car waving goodbye to the couple.

As she walked down the small avenue, the wind began to brush her hair, a nice thunderstorm would come but it was pleasant that feeling. It reminded her so much of Simon's caresses.

From her cell phone came a notification, it was from Rodolfo. It was lovely that she had found in Maya a person for whom she was beginning to trust after the failed relationships he had had.

"I wanted to give Maya this bouquet of flowers, they remind me a lot of 'Holland."

"Go on this one" Eden reassured him by smiling at the 'image of the bouquet of tulips of different colors, she should have planted some more in their garden too.

"Babe I'm home" Eden walked in and smelled a scent of home, a scent that reminded her of her time in Rome for her studies.From the kitchen was Simon, focused more than ever on preparing a dinner of Italian dishes.

Small appetizers, Coratella coi Carciofi and especially bucatini alla amatriciana accompanied by a glass of Argiano Brunello di Montalcino.

"Don't look at me like that, I asked Chloe for the recipe since it's Italian," he snorted amused, before taking Mr. Orange in his arms

"You have your food, those kibble cost me a kidney because of your mommy who wants you healthy," gave the cat to his girlfriend, who began cuddling him

"Daddy is a bad boy isn't he?" The female had her face licked by the feline, being joined by the blond, remote control in hand that set off some 50s music

"Put your head on my shoulder," the lieutenant began to hum as he grabbed Eden by the hips, the cat as a spectator of that scene between his owners. The brunette closed her eyes, head resting on his shoulder, and hummed the tune.

"...Hold me in your arms, baby" she looked up, her green eyes in that 'cheerful and comforting expression thinking how lucky she was.

"I have to be careful, I wouldn't want Fei to get pissed off later since she sewed this dress," he whispered eagerly, nibbling on the helix.

"That is, if I don't make this shirt first? What do you say?" She nibbled lightly on his lower lip, chapped from the cold.

With a turn he brought her shoulders against his chest, giving her a string of kisses on her collarbone.

"Except we have to eat" he reluctantly broke away, taking both her hands "I'm really holding back" he murmured over the knuckles of her hands making them. How could she resist such gallantry?

"You're such a submissive" with that little resolve Eden hand in hand with him reached the table.

"Always and always my darlin'"

Tag: @chloekistune @graveyard-party666 @alypink @kaitaiga @corvosattano @onehornedbeast @themotherofhorses @alexxmason @carlosoliveiraa @cassietrn @socially-awkward-skeleton @thewanderer-000 @thedeadthree @pvnkesttt @sinclxirx @simonxriley @marivenah @alicedarkmair @strangefable @captastra @aceghosts @kikiharinezumi @katsigian @dickytwister @justasmolbard @captmactavish

Divider by @archonfurina

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lively-potter · 3 months

Text

— moon struck ; part 5

— genre ; strangers to friends to lovers, kinda grumpy x sunshine, fluff, angst, smut, angst with a happy ending 🥹

— warnings ; body insecurities ( mentioned ), eating disorder ( mentioned ), oc deals with a severe amount of anxiety and panic attacks, violence, smut ( later ), FLUFF, love struck jungkookie 🥹

— find me on Wattpad ; LivelyPotter

— word count ; 1.5k

— intro , part one, part two, part three, part four

— taglist ; @ahgasegotarmy116 @jk97bam

river's pov ; two days later ; six am

Sullenly staring at Jungkook's unread text messages on my phone, guilt bubbled within my veins.

Two days ago, when we exchanged numbers, I had only replied once.

And that was all.

I was too nervous to even text him.

And I felt bad for ignoring him when he didn't do anything wrong – and I was sure to get yet another lecture for my behavior once Corey found out.

It was only a matter of time before Jungkook would come and drop off Moon before he went to work...and I didn't know what to do.

Sighing lowly, I hesitantly opened his message – one he had sent yesterday and gulped.

jungkook: how r u?

Something inside me fluttered at his words, but I pushed those feelings to the back of my mind, to a place I would more than likely never visit unless I was in the middle of a midnight mental breakdown.

I didn't like to allow myself to feel much.

Not even back when I was a young teenager.

I had never experienced love...or romantic feelings towards anyone.

Sure, I loved my family and my friends but romantic feelings...yeah no.

I was better off alone, or so I told myself.

My thumbs tapped lightly on the screen of my cell phone as I sat, cross legged, on the floor beside Sang and a couple of seven-year-olds. I sent a smile to the happy kids and handed them the baby dolls they asked for.

me: I'm great. How are you?

I bit down on my lip, debating whether or not my text was too unfeeling. I rolled my eyes at my conscience and typed out another message.

me: also, I'm sorry for the late reply. I was up late last night finishing up another order for later today and my phone died. I hope you and Moon have been well.

There.

Now my stupid guilty conscience can take a rest.

"You okay, Rivvy?"

I snapped out of my of daze and stashed my phone in my pocket.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the familiar matte black Audi R8 park in front of the daycare center and paled.

"Uh, yeah..." I muttered under my breath, feeling the air expelled from my lungs at the sight of Jungkook, dressed in a pair of black pants with red lining down the legs with a matching top.

As always, his hair was effortlessly styled and another pair of black chunky combat boots accentuated his figure and fashion.

I distantly wondered how many pairs of combat boots the man owned and wondered if I could ever pick up the nerve to ask him where he got them so I could get a pair for myself.

I was embarrassed to say that Jungkook and Moon had better style than me.

I preferred to wear clothing that hid my figure...so I wouldn't feel people staring at me all the time.

Before I knew it, I was on my feet and hurrying away when Jungkook opened the back door and disappeared inside the car.

"I'm just... going to...check on the cupcakes! Yeah, that's it!" I snapped my fingers, ignoring Sang's blank stare on my back.

In the background, across the room, Brett's roaring laughter was heard.

"You can only hide for so long, Rivvy!" Brett called after my scampering figure. I waved her off and skidded inside the kitchen. My phone buzzed in my pocket, but I quickly shook off the trepidation of opening the text message that came through.

I know, Brett—no need to remind me.

I groaned and tugged the sleeves of my oversized sweatshirt over my hands and ducked down. You freaking coward.

I gnawed nervously on my lip when the door opened and Moon's excited squeals entered the room. The nervous lip-biting washed away at her happy squeals and my heart quickened in happiness.

Awww.

"Hey, sweet little Moon!" I heard Sang coo in the other room, "I've missed seeing your adorable little face."

Moon gurgled happily, another happy screech leaving her little body. "Riv! Riv! Riv!" her cute little voice chirped over and over. I could barely contain the awed noise that left my lips after she called out to me.

All I wanted to do was leave my hiding spot and cuddle the little cute baby.

My lips thinned nervously at Jungkook's rumbling chuckle. "You'll see her soon, baby. Okay?"

"Awwww! Lemme hold you, little Moon!" Brett exclaimed happily, more than likely already trying to hold Moon.

A cute angry cry left Moon.

"No!" Moon's favorite word other than 'Da' left her, "Wan' Riv! Da! Wan' Riv!"

A victorious snicker left my lips at Moon's blatant refusal of Brett holding her echoed throughout the room. I slowly left my hiding spot to quietly sneak my way to the oven, where the cupcakes were inside baking.

The smell of chocolate was in the air, and within a couple more minutes, they would be done.

The conversation happening in the other room left my mind as I put my focus in getting the cupcakes out of the oven, and onto the rack to cool. I'd have to decorate them later since the order was due tomorrow.

Mrs. Goode's daughter Sarah, the girl we had watched over a couple of times, had a birthday party tomorrow at five, and I'd promised Mrs. Goode that I would have them all ready.

I still had a couple more rounds to make, but I'd get it done even if I had to be up the entire night.

Sarah was such a sweet kid, and I put all my time and effort into making sure she had the perfect little cupcakes for her party.

While my back was turned, the kitchen door opened behind me. Obliviously, I slid on one oven mitt and maneuvered the cupcake pan out of the oven.

"Those cupcakes smell good." a husky voice spoke up suddenly from behind me. Being caught off guard, my heart shot out of my butt.

A shriek of pain left my lips the moment I jumped, the cupcake pan falling to the floor, and in my haste to save them, the mitt fell off my tiny hand and I grabbed the searing hot pan with my bare hands.

My hands burned like I was touching an open flame. Quickly I threw the pan on top of the oven and looked at my burning hands.

"Ow!"

"Holy fuck –" I heard Jungkook mutter from behind me. Instantly, his tattooed hands were on either side of my biceps, and twirling me around to face him. My head was turned downward, so I didn't see his face as he took both of my injured hands in his and observed them closely. "I'm so sorry — I–I didn't mean to scare you." his sad apologetic voice tugged at my heartstrings. I bit my lip as he led me over to the sink and held my hands underneath the icy cold water.

His front was firmly, closely pressed against my back, huddled towards me as his thumbs gently ran over my red palms.

I flushed a deep red at being so close to him and allowed him to continue to hold my hands under the steady stream of water. My head fell back, against my wishes, mind you, and rested on his rest.

The top of my head only met his pec.

Unknowingly, I allowed myself to bask in his touch, enjoying the way he was so close to me.

No man had ever been this close to me.

Ever.

And I liked it.

But I didn't want to like it as much as I did.

"I'm sorry, River." his guilty voice snapped me from my thoughts when the burning sensations dulled. "I swear I didn't mean to."

I licked at my dry lips, glad I wasn't facing him so he could see my blushed cheeks. "I-it's okay." I trailed off, "I should have been paying more attention." I added, not understanding why I wanted to reassure him.

"Still," he murmured, thumbs lazily rubbing circles along with my wrist. And I let him. The heat radiating off of him warmed my chilled body and I unconsciously snuggled against him.

Seeing this, Jungkook smiled above me and pressed closer, warming my body with his. "Do you need me to take you to the hospital? I-I don't mind," he suggested kindly.

Words left us. Jungkook and I only stood in front of the sink, water still running over my hands, both unwilling to part from one another.

While my head continued to rest against his pec, I couldn't help but wonder just why I was feeling...whatever this feeling was when I was near him – or even when I thought about him.

I didn't want to feel this...right?

This was something I had been agonizing over for months, and I was no closer to figuring it out than when I first tried to work through it.

Anxiety stole my breath away and I struggled to catch it back.

I wasn't ready for this.

And I wasn't sure I ever would be.

author's note ; ✨

hiiiii ~ ❤️✨

Thanks so much for reading!

#jeon jungkook #bts fanfic #jungkook x oc #wattpad #bts jungkook #jungkook fluff #jungkook smut #jeon jungguk #jungkook x original character #jungkook angst #dilf jungkook #moonstruck #jeongguk

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randomshyperson · 2 years

Text

Summary: Returning to your hometown five years after leaving everything behind, including your best friend, is no easy feat. Getting involved in a secret club wasn't in the plans either. Or the one based on Life is Strange.

Warnings: (+18) high school au, best friends to lovers, mild/heavy angst mentions with happy happing, use of legal substances (alcohol, marijuana), violence, verbal aggression, explicit language, smut, triggers regarding sexual assault, mentions of death, grieving, hints of depression and anxiety, panic attacks, a lot of domesticity.

General Masterlist | AO3 | Wattpad || Series Masterlist

--//--

Chapter One - A New School in an Old Town

"Are you sure you have everything you need?"

With the phone pressed between your ear and shoulder, you let out a chuckle in reaction to your father's speech.

"Yes, Captain Rogers, I'm sure." You retort good-naturedly, adjusting the box in your hands and opening the bedroom door with your foot. "I already got the last box, and I have the tour with the monitor girl now, so I gotta go. I'll call you later, Dad."

Steve sighed. "Okay, kiddo, take care. I love you!"

You hummed back as you put the box down on the bed to turn off your cell phone and put it away in your pocket.

Your gaze circled the messy room for a moment. All the boxes filled with your belongings scattered around, and you wondered for a moment how they would look organized there, the posters, the decorations. Sighing softly, you made your way out behind the room of the monitor responsible for introducing the Xavier Institute to you.

Fortunately, you didn't have to look far. Natasha Romanoff was chatting with two other girls at the end of the female dormitory hallway and offered you a kind smile just before dismissing the girls when you reached them.

"Everything okay with your room, Rogers? "She asked, calling you by your last name, and you cleared your throat to say thank you.

"Yeah. And I actually prefer Stark." You blurted out, to which the girl raised an eyebrow. You didn't clarify why, and she didn't insist.

"All right, Stark. Let's begin with the dorm anyway, since most of us spend most of our time, especially the seniors, locked in here while we try to keep up with the classes the stricter professors give us." She leads off casually, walking further ahead. "Your room is 121, and mine is the last on the right. The blackboard on the side of each door is for identification and for cool messages, like Jean and her good morning messages. Or, Anna and her moody messages in response to that."

You chuckled short, looking back to see if you could identify the pictures of the said girls, and smiled when you saw Jean's one outlined 'Someday you'll go far" and the other door, who you assumed was Anna’s were written 'and I really hope you stay there’.

"They seem fun." You mutter to Nat who nods in agreement.

"You have no idea." She says mysteriously before gesturing to another wall. "Over there is our bulletin board. Everything relevant at the Institute gets notified here. Scheduling exams, club applications, official events, and so on. If you miss something and are selling something, you can put an ad here too. Oh, look at this, Peter is offering tutoring..."

"Can boys come in here?" You asked curiously, and Nat giggled.

"Officially, no." She retorted. "But no one's a snitch if you want to bring a boyfriend. The Parker boy sure didn't come in, he's not allowed anymore. He probably asked some girl to paste the poster here." Nat explained, pulling out one of the contact wires, and tucking it away in her pocket. "Come on, I'll take you to see the rest of the place."

The institute was huge as the application website said. Natasha took you to see everything from the main study building, labs and classrooms, to the gym and volleyball courts outside.

"We also have a hiking club, which does its trips through there all the way down to the bay." She informs you as you both reach the east side of the outside hall of the main building, pointing to the tall trees a short distance away. You see that there are markings at the entrance with symbols of that club. "They, like most clubs, are still open for applications if you have any interest."

You chuckle awkwardly. "Sounds fun, but I think I'll just focus on classes this year." You mutter and Nat shrugs her shoulders.

"it's up to you." She says. "If you change your mind, they'll reopen enrollment in the middle of the year, or of course, if you befriend the leader or offer to buy lunch for all the members. I've seen the last one happen firsthand." She comments with a wink.

Natasha introduces you lastly to the pools and then leads you to the entrance of the Institute.

"Do you have your schedule yet?" She asks, and you nod. "Well, it's the only fixed time besides curfew at 10 p.m. Don't let the Drax Guard catch you walking around outside of curfew, okay? He's not very sympathetic, and he always seems to be invisible, so it's impossible to tell where he's hiding waiting for us..." She counters, and you laugh softly at the indignant tone of voice. Nat looks around and nods to a few students who greet her before gesturing further ahead. "The bus stop is over there, those who decided not to stay in the dorm usually use the circular vans and show up here at class time. If you have the day off, you can take one of them to go into town, they are always around and a lot of people like to eat lunch outside of here. Are you 18 yet?"

"Yeah."

"Great, then you can sleep out without permission." She explains with a smile. "The underage students do it on the sly, and usually have to come back before their first class so they don't get spotted by Drax. Anyway, I think that's about it, do you have any questions?"

You lift your chin toward the corner. " The train station doesn't work anymore?"

Nat raises an eyebrow. " You know it there?"

You smile awkwardly, nodding. "Yeah, I used to live here when I was younger. I went to live in New York about five years ago when my dads got divorced."

Nat stares at you and then lets out a small exclamation. "Wait, you're part of the Stark family, from the south side? The former owners of the Power Plant?"

You shift the weight of your feet. "Yep, that' them." You agree clumsily. Nat chuckles.

"Wow, aren’t you guys like super rich?"

You laugh through your nose, scratching the back of your head. "Not anymore..."

Nat slaps her hand on her forehead softly. "Oh, shit, sorry. Of course! All that commotion after all. Your whole family left Westview for that, huh? Why did you come back?"

You clear your throat, looking away. "Look, maybe I should finish organizing my room, I still have to visit the counselor. But the tour was lovely, Natasha, thank you very much for that."

Nat hesitates, but seeing that you were uncomfortable with the questioning, she quickly nods and lets you go.

On the way to the dorms, you try not to think about your old life in Westview, but it is impossible not to.

–//–

Natasha didn't lie about the difficulty of the lessons at the Institute.

You would have thought it was because you were in your last year, but you saw younger students locked in the library with piles of books and articles on their desks when you went to get some, so you knew it must be standard teaching. It made sense, the Institute was a renowned institution throughout the United States.

Your curriculum, fortunately, was not so busy. Apart from the compulsory subjects of regular school and the chosen course, you had a lot of free time, especially in the afternoons. Too bad you spent most of this time studying and doing homework.

It had been almost a month since you had started your classes, and all you had done so far was stay in your room studying, not even visiting the old train station - which by now you knew had been decommissioned shortly after the power plant - or the rest of the city.

At least you were making friends. Peter Parker, Kate Bishop and Yelena Belova were your closest colleagues. Yelena was your next-door neighbor, and on your first day she helped you with the locker room shower trick.

It was a funny situation actually. She was quite inquisitive, and definitely very comfortable with her own body. You left the shower stall in a towel and almost stumbled away when you found the girl leaning on the sink - completely naked - brushing her teeth.

And she stood there, saying nothing, watching you change.

"I like your tattoo." She declared suddenly, and it took you a few seconds to understand that it was with you.

"O-oh, thanks." You say clumsily, sticking your head through the hole in your shirt. "My dad would kill me if he found out though."

She laughs, spitting toothpaste into the sink and washing her mouth out before turning to you again. "You sneaked it out to make it?"

You hesitate, but then clear your throat, denying it. "Actually, no." You mutter. "My other dad took me to make it, for my sixteenth birthday. He wanted... something for me to remember him."

Yelena blinked in surprise, absorbing your confession. And then she grabbed the towel and covered her body. "It's a nice tattoo, he had good taste." She said gently before leaving the garment.

The next day, she sat at your table during breakfast. And during lunch. And the next day too, and the others as well.

You found out that Yelena was Natasha's adopted sister - and she was pleased to hear that you were adopted too - and despite her being a few months younger than Nat, they were both in their last year like you.

In the second week, Yelena was mumbling her way through her calculus homework and was approached by a boy from the next table over.

"I can help if you want." He offered gently, but her grimace widened.

"I don't need your help, Parker." She retorted annoyed, but he sighed.

"Come on Yelena, there's nothing wrong with needing help..."

But Yelena collected her things and left the table, and you were completely confused by the whole thing. The boy sighed again before leaning a little toward you.

"Sorry about that. I'm trying to convince her that there's no shame in needing tutoring." Informed the boy. With that, you exclaim softly.

"Oh, you must be Peter Parker! I saw no ad on the bulletin board."

He smiles. "Yeah, that's me. And you are?"

"Y/N Stark." You say. "If you're good at calculus, do you think you could help me with some of Mrs. Van Dyne's questions? I'm kind of stuck on her paper. I can buy you a snack in repay."

He chuckles. "Don't worry about it."

Peter quickly gathered his belongings and moved to your table, sitting down next to you.

Parker was great company, and he was brilliant. It was up to you to convince Yelena that there was nothing wrong with asking for help though. And with a hamburger and a casual, understanding attitude on the subject, you succeeded.

After that comes the adorable and disastrous Kate Bishop and her latent crush on Yelena - who is probably the only person who hasn't noticed yet.

Kate was one of the richest girls in school - you heard that her family had a security company and several deals with the city council - and she was quite popular. She was in the journalism club with Peter, and practiced archery as a hobby. She had a talent for getting into trouble but never faced any real consequences because her mother, the elegant Eleanor Bishop, was on the parents' council and made generous donations to the institute's funds.

You didn't have an opinion about Kate and didn't want to be swayed by school gossip, so when the girl - who occupied the locker next to yours - came over to greet you as you put your books away, you were nice.

"You're friends with Yelena Belova, right?" Kate tried to sound casual, but you could see the blatant curiosity in her eyes, which made you let out a short laugh.

"Yeah, kind of." You mumbled. Your vague answer made Kate hesitate.

"You're not dating her, are you?" she inquired and to that you chuckled, returning a physics book to your locker before turning your body to Kate.

"No?"

"Oh, great. Cool." She retorted relieved. "Do you know if she's seeing anyone?"

You crossed your arms. "No, but I can tell her that you asked..."

"No!" Kate exclaims quickly, and you have trouble hiding your smile. She takes a deep breath, trying to disguise it. "It was just silly curiosity. I'm Kate Bishop, by the way. Yelena was my colleague in the archer club before she quit it and I'm just wondering why and.... damn it! I'm babbling again. You don't want to know this-"

You cut her off with a small laugh, "Don't worry, Kate. I'm Y/N, it's a pleasure." You said with a nod. "I can find out if Yelena is single, without mentioning any names."

Kate's eyes light up. "Really, you would do that?" She asks hopefully, and you smile gently.

"Sure, I'll catch up with you later." You inform her, closing your locker before leaving her.

You found out that Yelena didn't have a partner in a rather abrupt way. You looked for her around the school for a while after the last period and found her going over some exercises with Peter in the biology lab.

Professor Banner gave you a nod of greeting, turning his attention back to the papers he was reviewing, and you walked over to the workbench where your friends were.

"Hey, Belova!" You called out, taking the free stool on the other side of the table. The two of them looked at you. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure, Y/N."

"Are you single?"

She raised an eyebrow, and Peter couldn't hold back his laughter - getting elbowed for it. You looked at her curiously.

"Are you interested by any chance? I should warn you that I see you only as a friend..."

You laugh, shaking your head. "No, not me."

She narrows her eyes at you, resting her arms on the countertop. "Then who?"

You shrug. "It was just a curiosity."

Yelena doesn't seem to believe much, looking at you suspiciously. Peter laughs at her reaction.

"She's single, Y/N, partly because everyone in this school is only looking for sex-OUCH!" Peter's speech is interrupted by another hard elbow from the blonde. You stare at them in confusion, and Yelena huffs in irritation.

"You're a big mouth, aren't you, Parker?" She complains as the boy massages his rib.

"Sorry, I'm a little confused..." You mumble, and the two of them exchange glances. Yelena sighs loudly.

"Great, here goes." The blonde says, staring at you. "I haven't told this to anyone apart from my sister and this gossip monger here, and if you have a problem with this and say something stupid I will break your arm." She comments and you raise your eyebrows in shock. But Yelena softens her gaze, looking almost unsure. "It's been a few months since I found out I'm asexual."

You stare at her without knowing what to say, surprised by the sudden confession more than anything else. Yelena grimaces.

"Do you have a problem with that, Stark?" She questions determinedly, clenching one of her fists, and you laugh sheepishly.

"N-no, Yelena, of course not." You mutter quickly. "You know I'm queer too, right?"

"And that doesn't prevent anything." Yelena retorts. "A lot of people in the community discriminate against others."

You swallow dryly, sighing. "Yeah, I know. I'm sorry if you've been through something like that." You say sincerely. "But know that I have no problem with your sexuality. And I'm honored that you trusted me to tell me."

Yelena smiles in appreciation, extending her closed fist for you to hit.

"I told you she was cool." Peter muttered but Yelena didn't seem too happy with him for sharing her secret. When they seemed about to get into a fight, you intervened.

"Anyway, are you aromantic too? Or are you up to date someone..."

Yelena laughed suspiciously. "I'm beginning to think you're hitting on me, Stark."

You rolled your eyes humorously. "I'm not going to say who asked, Yelena, there's no point. But just for the record, I'm sure a lot of people would be interested, besides being super pretty you're really cool."

Yelena rolls her eyes in embarrassment, and Peter makes a provocative mouth sound that almost gets him punched again. You chuckle.

"If the person doesn't care about sex, I'm in. If it's a girl of course." Yelena finally clarifies, and you hum in understanding.

"Fine, I'll let her know." You murmur mysteriously, and Yelena huffs impatiently wanting to know who it is, but you pull away from her hands with a laugh. "I'm going back to the dorm, want to watch a movie with me later?"

"Only if I get to choose." Yelena retorts and you shrug, but Peter complains.

"I don't want to watch anything scary!" He defends himself, but Yelena laughs, pushing her shoulders against him.

"And who says you're invited? It's the girls' dorm, big boy." Yelena reminded with a friendly teasing tone that you don't understand. Peter, surprisingly not bothering to miss the invitation, smiled almost proudly as he rolled his eyes, before turning his attention back to the question book. You put your hands in your pockets.

"All right, it'll just be the two of us then, Belova. See you later?" With Yelena's nod, you wave goodbye to them.

Your friends go back to studying, but before you leave the classroom, Professor Banner calls you over to her desk.

"I couldn't help overhearing the conversation, I do apologize..." He began by leaning over to get something from his drawer. You cleared your throat.

"That's not very polite, sir." You reminded, half worried about Yelena's exposure. But the man offered you a gentle smile, and from the drawer, he pulled out a flyer.

"Don't worry, Mrs.Stark, I haven't heard anything I didn't already imagine. After all, who would Yelena Belova have taken her doubts with if not an adult?"

You almost said 'google' but Bruce was looking at you so kindly that you didn't have the heart to do so. You smiled in return, accepting the paper he held out.

'Queer Alliance Group' was written in bright, colorful letters, with meeting times and the information that the club always had open membership. You chuckled half-heartedly.

"Wow, that's... wow." You didn't quite know how to define it. It sounds cool, but you still had a vision of the old, traditional Westview, and imagining an LGBT youth club in a small town like that was a bit difficult.

"We are no sports group, but we do some recreational activities. We mainly offer therapeutic support, in case you need someone to talk to. You and your friends would be welcome."

You tuck the folded paper away in your jacket pocket. " Thanks, Professor Banner. I'll think about it."

He smiled contentedly and nodded. Before you left, Bruce adjusted his jacket, and you could see the asexual flag brooch on his sweater. He gave you a wink when he noticed you looking, and you smiled before leaving the room.

–//–

You told Kate Bishop that Yelena was single on Thursday after PE. You had just finished using the showers, and Kate, who had the next period - arrived early in the locker room.

You were drying your hair with a towel and almost screamed in fright when the girl appeared in front of you without a blouse.

"Hey!" She greeted you excitedly. "Did you find out that information for me?" She asked like a secret agent, and you laughed nervously because you could see her breasts.

"I'd like to have that conversation with clothes on, please" You try but she grimaces.

"I just got out of archery practice, I need a shower..."

"God, I don't deserve this." You complain, sitting down on the stool to put on your shoes. Kate huffs anxiously, bypassing the row of lockers to approach you.

"Come on, Stark, just tell me. I've been waiting all week for this answer." She dramatizes making you laugh.

"She's single, but if you want something, you'll need to have a heart-to-heart with her." That's what you say to Kate, who stands thoughtfully for a few seconds.

"Okay, I didn't expect that step." She says in a panic and you laugh, shaking your head in disbelief.

"You thought she'd be single and what, magically become your girlfriend?" You tease gently, and Kate blushes, crossing her arms.

"Maybe..." She mutters, getting another laugh out of you.

"Come on, Kate Bishop, I'm sure you've asked someone out before."

She grunts embarrassed. "Okay, first of all, guys do that. And I don't date them, so I have absolutely no idea how to ask anyone out. And girls? They are frightening. Too pretty or too sarky. And Yelena? God, she's both. She'll eat me alive if I even think of going near her..."

"I bet you'd like it if she ate you..." You joke but Kate lets out an indignant exclamation, slapping you on the shoulder that makes you laugh.

"You have to help me!"

"Put on a blouse first." You retort and despite rolling her eyes, she covers her breasts with one of her arms. You laugh. "Thanks, that's better."

Ignoring you, Kate asks, "Will you help me?"

To torment her, you make a thoughtful face the entire time you finish putting on your sneakers. "What's in it for me?"

"My eternal gratitude." She retorts.

You laugh. "Aren't you the sweetest, Miss Bishop?" You retort good-naturedly, getting up now that you were dressed. "I can't sell your eternal gratitude on eBay though."

She rolls her eyes. "I have money if you need it-"

"Jesus, what an idea Kate! Imagine how it would sound if you paid me to date, my friend!"

She shrugs her shoulders. "I would totally pay for Yelena to give me a chance-"

You laugh incredulously. "My god, you're a disaster. Tell you what, I'll think of a favor, and in the meantime, you sit down with me at breakfast and I'll officially introduce you to Yelena, what do you think?"

Kate hesitates, and you know it's because she sits at a table of nearly twenty people - the entire popular gang of this place - who would surely miss her. But her crush on Yelena speaks louder. She agrees almost immediately, and you wrinkle your nose at her expression.

"You're a cutie, Kate Bishop. I'm sure Yelena already noticed you." You say to her, pinching her nose in playfulness, and causing her to blush at the phrase. "See you around."

Easy as that, Kate has become your friend. The first day was a little strange because she didn't quite know how to act when sitting down, but once the social awkwardness was overcome, the three of you got into a very comfortable rhythm.

Yelena however seemed completely clueless that Kate wanted to date her, even though it was obvious to anyone.

On Friday of the last of August, you were putting your books away and Kate practically teleported into the locker next to yours.

"Tell me what I'm doing wrong!" She declared dramatically, and you chuckled without taking your eyes from checking your books.

"I'm going to need more context to answer this, sweetie."

She sighs loudly, her back pressed to the locker. "It's about Yelena, of course! I've done everything, she just doesn't notice me!"

"Everything? You told her you're interested and asked if she felt the same way?"

Kate crosses her arms. "Don't be ridiculous."

You laugh, shaking your head in disbelief. "Seriously, Bishop, you amuse me. Keep thinking Yelena will read your mind, Peter and I have a great time watching you and your puppy dog eyes."

Kate grunted in embarrassment, moving away from the locker only to open the door with the intention of putting away her books.

But a flyer falls at her feet, and she bends down to pick it up.

With a dry laugh, she comments, "Great, my life is already a mess and they want to play tricks on me..."

You put your history book away, turning your face to your friend with curiosity at the complaint. "What's this?" You ask about the pamphlet.

She turns the paper over to you. "It's a silly first-year club, I didn't even know it still existed. I'm sure it's a prank. What a jerk thing to do..." Kate grumbled annoyed, crumpling the paper and storing it in the pocket of the flimsy jacket on her arms before starting to put the books away in her own closet. She went back to talking about Yelena, but you weren't paying attention.

You looked around and noticed two clearly first-year girls standing at the corner of the hallway looking at you. As soon as Kate crumpled the paper, they made faces of disappointment, and once they noticed you were looking, they widened their eyes and tried to cover it up, before practically running out of the hallway.

"Hey, Kate, let me take a look at that flyer again?" You interrupt her - she doesn't mind.

Once you have the crumpled poster back in hand, she comments:

"I think it used to be a mix of science group and biker gang, but nobody ever really talked about it."

You force a smile, looking away from your friend. "And what else do you know about them?"

She shrugs. "Not much, as I said, I didn't even think it existed anymore. It was one of the banned clubs when that accident at the dam happened."

You gasp slightly. "What accident at the dam?"

Kate smiles sadly. "I don't know much about it, it was my freshman year so I didn't know the kid. But he was pretty popular here, he was on the running team. You've never seen the memorial?"

You deny it with your head. Kate sighs, putting away the last book before beckoning you to follow her.

She leads you outside through the emergency exit, into the outer gardens. And stops in front of a small sign at the entrance to the gym. It was completely vandalized, so you never noticed what was written beyond the graffiti before.

"Here, it was a very sad thing when it happened. The dean even made a speech because the kid was his stepson." Narrated Kate, pointing to the stone. "He was one of the founders of that club, I guess, so I didn't imagine they would go on without him."

You clear your throat so as not to show any kind of emotion in your voice. "Yeah, that's not very common."

Kate doesn't notice, putting her hand in her pockets. "Anyway, I'm sure it was just some prank. I never signed up for the Mystery Club, and honestly, I have enough trouble already."

You force a smile at her, and Kate exclaims when your cell phone alarm rings.

"Shit! I totally forgot I have a dinner date with my mom and my new idiot stepdad. Wish me luck!" She quickly says goodbye, kissing your cheek before running towards the dorms.

You bend down, to get some of the dust collecting on the iron plate stuck in the grass. Your fingers trace the graffiti on the small photo next to the tribute message.

"Mustache would have suited you, Pietro." You whisper sadly before standing up.

–//–

Your determination to find out more about the mystery club dragged on for the rest of the week.

Since you didn't know many people at school, you couldn't just ask anyone about it. Imagining the approach made you laugh.

Hey, do you know anything about the secret club founded by the boy who died in the dam about three years ago?

Scary, honestly.

Peter and Kate, having been first-years at the time the club closed, knew no more than what you could find out on the Internet about the tragic accident in Westview. ‘A 15-year-old boy drowns in a local dam during a school outing. Grieving neighborhood, all feelings with Dean Charles Xavier over the loss of his stepson.’

Flipping through the news made your stomach turn, so you risked asking Yelena, who didn't want to talk about it.

In fact, she was angry with you. "Why are you asking about this?"

You swallowed dryly, clumsily. "I just wanted to know a little more about how it was..."

"It was fucking horrible, Y/N, that's how it was!" She retorted angrily, closing the locker tightly.

She came to apologize the next day, regretting that she had yelled. She sat down next to you and pulled out of her pocket an old, crumpled photo.

"I found this in some locked boxes yesterday after I lost my temper with you. Sorry again." She mutters, pointing to the photo. "His name was Pietro Maximoff, he joined on a running scholarship here, and he was my best friend."

You swallowed dryly, picking up the photograph. Yelena looked away, at the green field in front of her where besides the team's people training, some people were practicing running.

The photo is full of people you know and doesn't know - some colleagues you've seen in the hall, Natasha with a longer hairstyle, and Pietro with his arms around Yelena as if he were climbing on top of her. Everyone looks so happy.

"The Dean told everyone we were on an official science club activity, an exploration tour. But that's bullshit." Yelena counters with a sad laugh, "It was a stupid party, with stupid people, and everything was so stupidly fun that nobody cared how much alcohol was hidden in the drinks."

You swallowed dryly, staring at Yelena. "Weren't you all 15 years old?"

She gave another wry laugh, spreading her own legs wide. "As if that ever stops anyone." She retorted upset. " Either way, there were older people, from the later years. That's why Pietro wanted to go so badly. He wanted to get in with the seniors, to make the captain of the team. I just wanted Natasha not to think I was a loser."

"Nat doesn't think that." You assure her, and Yelena smiles sadly, nodding in appreciation.

She sighs lightly. "One minute, we're all dancing and laughing. And Pietro is gone for two seconds, and the next thing I know, the police are on the spot, organizing a search inside the dam for my friend's body." Yelena fell silent, sobbing, and you put an arm around her.

"I'm really sorry, Yelena." You say to her, hiding your own tears. "I'm so sorry for asking."

She gives a tearful laugh, shaking her head. "Don't worry, I know you didn't mean any harm."

Once she has calmed down, you pull your arm away to return the photo, but she refuses.

"You can keep it."

You frown. "But he was important to you."

She smiles, looking away. "Pietro used to tell me about a friend who left Westview before he joined the Institute. Someone he loved, and missed dearly, and who was smart enough to have joined that school along with him. Someone who started the Mystery club at Westview elementary school."

You swallowed dryly, looking away from the photo, Pietro Maximoff's smiling face stared back at you.

"What else did he say?" You asked with emotion. Yelena sighed.

"That he was very sad to lose you and his mother in the same period." At Yelena's speech, you sniffled, nodding in agreement. "But he also said he never blamed you for leaving, you know?"

You laugh in disbelief, wiping your face on the sleeve of your blouse. "Hard to believe that one, Lena. And honestly, I would have understood if he hated me. My parents dragged me out of this town in a hurry, and I couldn't even stay for the memorial."

Yelena shakes her head. "Y/N, you were a child. You couldn't stay if your parents decided you wouldn't." She reasons, and you smile sadly.

"It doesn't matter, Yelena." You retort. "He needed me here. They both did."

Yelena swallows dryly but sighs in defeat afterward. She waits a moment to speak again.

"I know you probably think he hated you for leaving, but Pietro told me he understood." She continues. "He really understood, Y/N. He said that if there was a chance to heal your father, and if the chance was outside the pollution of the power plant, that he understood the rush. He would have chosen to do the same for his mom if there was time."

You sigh in emotion, trying to control your tears.

"Thank you Yelena." You say sincerely, being able to feel at least some of the guilt you have carried for so long leave your back. Pietro had no way to say he forgave you for leaving, so Yelena's words would have to serve as some consolation.

"Don't mention it." Yelena retorts with a smile.

You watch the sunset begin to happen, and it is beautiful from the bleachers. The runners are wrapping up their training, and Yelena takes her gaze from the scenery to you.

"After Pietro left, the club was banned, and the gang drifted apart." She recounts. "If someone reactivated it, none of the old members are part of it."

You blink at the information and nod in appreciation afterward. You put the photograph away in your pocket, and stand up.

"You should talk to her, Y/N." Yelena says before you leave, and you swallow dryly because you know exactly who she is talking about just by her expression.

You put your hands in your pockets and give an awkward laugh.

"I was kind of hoping to find her here." You say, and Yelena smiles sadly.

"Sorry, you were late." Yelena retorts. "Wanda was expelled last year."

You widen your eyes slightly, more impressed than anything. "Shit, what did she do?"

Yelena shrugs her shoulders getting up. "The question is what she didn't do..."

You chuckle. "My god?"

Yelena grins as she shakes the dust off her pants and approaches you, patting you on the shoulder to get you to follow her.

"Where do I start? Property damage, or maybe that time she told counselor Harkness to stop being a two-faced bitch in the middle of the hallway..."

–//–

So far, you had little information about the Mystery Club.

It was reactivated in secret by someone - Yelena didn't think it was any of its former veteran members, but that didn't make much sense to you. Why would someone who had no contact at all - like this year's first-years - be interested in a club banned from the school after a horrible accident?

But when you looked for Yelena's old friends - the original gang as she wrote behind the photograph - none of them seemed to have the profile to establish a secret club.

Pietro, obviously, wasn't. Yelena was beyond the options as well, the whole thing was too sad for her. Natasha had too many activities occupying her schedule. Carol Danvers had the necessary popularity, but she had just been promoted to team captain, so she wouldn't have time, and it wouldn't make sense to risk her position for a banned club. Her girlfriend Maria Rambeau was known for following the moral code of ethics of the school to the letter, as well as being class president and having the perfect resume. She would not risk tarnishing her record for this. Clint Barton and Maria Hill had the profile of troublemakers, but they were too antisocial to start something like this.

Wanda was no longer part of the school. Still, part of you knows that only she would have the audacity.

It had been exactly one month since you had been at the institute, and your search had come to a dead end. You needed more information to continue, and your remaining option was to approach the girls you believed had left the flyer in Kate Bishop's locker.

They were definitely avoiding you because, for days, you didn't see them around. But finally, after sneaking into the theater during rehearsal, you found them.

"Don't say anything and she'll go away."

You laughed at the smaller girl's whisper. "I can hear you, you know." You told them.

"Pretend you are not seeing her." The other whispered back, but you grimaced, putting your hands in your pockets as you approached them.

"Well, Romeo and Juliet, I wonder if we could have a chat?" You asked, teasing about the rehearsal robes and both of them sighed before the smaller one retorted you:

"I don't know what you think you saw, but it's not what you think!" She declares. You raise an eyebrow.

"I saw two brats trying to play a trick on my friend."

The taller one lets out an exclamation. "It wasn't a prank! Shit, Kamala, she thought it was a prank! That's why she crumpled up the invitation and-"

"America, stop talking!" Kamala elbowed her friend, but you were smiling.

You looked around at the rest of the drama group that was leaving the place at the end of class and lowered your tone.

"If you don't want me to turn this flyer and your name into the principal, you will answer my questions, okay?" You say, and they sigh in defeat, nodding. You laugh lightly. "Don't look so sad, I promise I'm great at keeping secrets. Definitely better than you guys. Come on, let's go for a walk."

America and Kamala follow you to the parking area, the emptiest space in the Institute. They look equally dissatisfied.

"All right, I want to know who reactivated the club."

The girls widen their gazes in surprise at the straight question, and it is Kamala who babbles:

"W-we don't know that!" She says. "We don't know members of different levels. Everyone gets an invitation in the locker, and then the missions-"

"Missions?" You interrupt curiously, and America sighs.

"It's like a scouting club. We get missions and rewards."

You cross your arms. "Then why all the secrecy?"

Kamala and America laugh, shrugging. "Because it's fun." They answer together, you laugh impressed. They are children. Still, the story is weird.

America sighs. "Look, everything in this place is over-supervised. It's nice to have something that doesn't have to go through dozens of student council approvals or reviews."

"Yeah, the missions are fun." Kamala adds. "The Dean would never let us go camping to see a solstice or make records of the wild animals in the local Forest. He would keep everyone locked up in that building if he could."

"We just do cool stuff in nature and take pictures of the local town legends. It's harmless. Can you please not rat us out?" America asked making you smile.

"I still have another question." You retort, raising a finger. "There's nothing wrong with the activities you talked about, but I would be surprised if a 17-year-old had any interest in them. Why recruit Kate?"

They shrug. "We just follow our mission."

You huff softly. "You said they get a mission invitation, can I see it?"

Kamala and America exchange hesitant glances, but the taller one nods to the other. Soon, Kamala pulls her backpack forward and rummages through her materials for a moment. Then she takes out a folded card and hands it to you.

The typed handwriting makes you smile. "Lovely, really. Quite rustic." You scoff managing to get a roll of the eyes from both of them. On the paper, it reads simply recruitment: Katherine Bishop, Third Year.

"Can we go now?" Kamala asks, but you deny it with your head.

"What is the reward for recruitment?" You question. America bites the inside of her cheek thoughtfully.

"I think it's a rated paper of the chosen subject." She confesses and you let out a surprised exclamation.

"Harmless you said, huh?" you comment, ignoring Kamala elbowing America. You tuck the invitation away in your pocket. "I'll keep this, girls, thank you very much."

"But-"

"And it's a pleasure to officially meet you two. I am Y/N Stark, original founder of the Mystery Club." You declare, patting each shoulder of the girls in shock before walking past them.

You make your way over to the pair smoking in a secluded area of the parking lot. Colleagues you haven't had a chance to talk to yet.

"Are you lost, Stark? The library is the other way." The rude teasing almost intimidated you to turn on your heels and head back inside, but Clint Barton might be tall but he wasn't two. Although, Maria Hill giggled and had muscles exposed by her tank top that made you swallow dryly.

"I was just chatting with those first years." You start clumsily, shifting the weight of your feet. "Funny story actually, they put up a flyer-"

"Touching, really." Clint cuts in impatiently, wafting a little smoke forward. "Why don't you share that with someone who actually wants to hear you? Like your angry friend or that tranny?" He mocks with a chuckle, but you frown in confusion and Maria clears her throat.

"Come on Clint, no need to get personal." Murmurs the girl, but the boy just rolls his eyes, taking a long drag.

You step forward. "What are you talking about?"

Your question makes Clint laugh, tilting his head as he tosses the smoke upward. Away from Maria, not you.

"Shit, I forgot you're new. She didn't even watch last year's nonsense, Hill." Commented the boy. Maria was no longer smiling, clearly uncomfortable with her friend's posture. Clint puffed again. "I'm talking about that little faggot Parker, of course. Although he can't be gay, right? He's a girl. I don't know how that shit works."

You were in shock at the complete offensiveness. You didn't know about Peter's transition of course, he had known you for less than a month and probably had no reason to tell you.

Clint laughed, shrugging at Mary's grumpy expression and you swallowed dryly.

"Don't make fun of my friend, Barton." You warned, he laughed, putting out his cigarette on the wall.

"Sure, I won't bother that She-male if she stays away from me!"

If there's one thing Steve Rogers has taught you, it's that violence is never the way. He also taught you how to throw a good right jab.

And you only stopped when your hand was bleeding, and someone pulled you around the waist.

Maria was dragging Clint away from you, so who was-

"What a way to see you again, kotenok." Wanda panted softly in your ear.

You shuddered, the anger completely dissipating. She helped you stand up straight, and she was standing right there in front of you. You almost couldn't believe it.

"Wanda, what are you...?"

But she was looking behind you, and she grimaces at Barton's bloodied face. And then she looks back to where the Drax security guard and some students who saw the fight from the race track start pointing.

"Come on Wanda, she'll be expelled if they catch her here." Maria warns and the brunette in front of you doesn't wait, grabbing your uninjured hand and pulling you away.

Ignoring your shock or the adrenaline coursing through your veins, Wanda opens the door of a pickup truck and pushes you inside. She climbs into the driver's seat, wasting no time in starting up.

You see in the rearview mirror the pool of blood on the ground where Clint's head was and gasp slightly, trying to stop shaking and keep the tears of anger and confusion in your eyes.

Wanda starts the car, and the parking lot and the Institute are left behind.

#wanda maximoff x reader #wanda x reader #elizabeth olsen x reader #Mystery Club

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havecourage-darling · 2 years

Text

You’re slipping through my fingertips

The one where Eddie breaks his arm crowd surfing at his concert and the doctor at the ER is his ex-girlfriend he left behind when he got the hell out of Hawkins.

pairing: Rockstar AU! Eddie Munson x ER Doctor Adopted! Hopper Female Reader

wc: 9.5K

warnings/tags: cursing, lovers to exes to strangers to lovers?, post-break up, make up, everything pre/in s4 happened but eddie munson lives because I said so.

A/N: I don’t know why I’ve clung to adopted hopper reader but here we are. I have very little knowledge of how medical field works (my ten thousand nurse/doctor friends would be endlessly disappointed in me!) and bent it a little to fit the plot. Sorry!

Masterlist || AO3

When you were fourteen, you met Eddie Munson.

You were the new kid, first day of high school, and the cherry on top? The new deputy’s kid. Your dad had gotten a job offer in his hometown, Hawkins, and your mom hadn’t wanted to leave New York. After Sara…they fought all the time and when you’d chosen to go with your dad in the divorce, your mom had taken it as a betrayal. You’d begged him to choose anywhere else but he was adamant you’d love it. So here you were, a small, nosey, town in the middle of nowhere.

To your utter mortification, despite your student tour guide’s – Nancy Wheeler – multiple instructions, you couldn’t open your locker.

Anxious, pressure building behind your eyes, you tried for the tenth time. Suddenly, the locker next to yours slammed open and you jumped. A boy with bright wide eyes, a shaved head, and a nice smile blinded you. He’d taken the lock gently from your hands and with a kick to the door, it opened.

“The hinges stick. Jack, the guy who had it before you, always kicked it open.”

“Thanks,” you stammered.

“Yeah, anytime.” He shot you his own shy smile before disappearing around the corner.

And that had been all it took really. You had almost all your classes together that year and he got a kick out of your stories of New York. Eddie was constantly in motion -- hands flying, feet shuffling, head nodding – it was enticing.

After being assigned partners for some English project you couldn’t remember anymore, a few days before thanksgiving, he’d asked you out on a date.

You’d said yes.

And that was the beginning of everything.

Then – a few years later – Will Byers went missing. You got a little sister. Your father died. Eddie was accused of murder. You beat Vecna. Eddie almost died. Your father was alive. The town was too. You’d helped save the world.

And that was the end of everything.

When you were twenty, Eddie Munson left Hawkins - and you - behind.

“How many fucking times have I told you not to do that?” Claire hissed, her cellphone cradled between her shoulder and her ear. She’d been on hold for a few minutes, making sure everything – as always – was being fixed.

“A thousand times,” Eddie sighed, grunting when the EMTs tightened the sling around his neck. To be fair, Eddie hadn’t crowd surfed in a long time. It was something about being back in Indiana – to where it had all started – that made his skin itch. Hey, he never said he wasn’t reckless.

“This should hold it. We don’t know how bad the break is until you’ve gotten some x-rays so please refrain from moving it as much as you can. How’s the pain level?”

Eddie had experienced worse. A flash of demonic bats clawing at him and your shaking hands covered in his blood danced across his memory before he shoved it to the back of his mind. “It’s not too bad.”

“Is there a chance we can unload in the med bay?” Claire asked, finally putting down her cell phone. “We left the guards back at the arena and they won’t be here for a few minutes due to traffic.”

The EMTs assured his nervous manager that they’d be able to get him into the ER with discretion. “Thanks guys,” Eddie said, remembering the covert look of awe in the driver’s eyes. Corroded Coffin had only recently started selling out arenas and stadiums but Eddie knew what a fan looked like. “If you want me to sign anything, I can do it. My writing hand is still good.” He wiggled his right hand.

“For fuck’s sake Munson,” Claire muttered, her brick of a phone creaking in her grip. She watched as the technician sheepishly handed him three random scraps of paper to sign.

Eddie waited as the doors to the ambulance opened and he was wheeled into a chaotic emergency room. An older nurse walked up to him with a smile and a clip board. “Hello, I’m Nurse Johnson and I’ll be taking you over to one of our private rooms down the hall.”

Claire scrambled to introduce herself and Eddie, mentioning his bandmates who were likely to be by soon.

“Unfortunately, we’ve had a pretty big accident a few hours ago so we’re a little slow tonight. Our senior resident will be by to assess the situation shortly. Here’s the paperwork we’ll need and please rest assured Mr. Munson, we know how to be discreet. The journalists outside are not allowed anywhere inside,” she said, tone firm like she’d beat them herself if she had to.

“Thank you,” Eddie said, shooting the nurse a smile. She patted his good hand and finished setting him up in his bed.

“I can’t believe you’re this much of an idiot,” Claire said, settling in the comfy looking chair next to his bed. Her brows furrowed as she started filling out his paperwork. Eddie tried not to smile; Claire had been there with him since the beginning – the only manager willing to represent Corroded Coffin. “I had a date after the concert you know, life isn’t only centered around you.”

He clutched his chest, groaning when it pulled on his bad arm. “You’re telling me, that this tiny chunk of rock in this universe, does not revolve around the lead singer?”

“I hate you,” she said dryly. “She was really cute too.”

“Yeah?” Eddie quirked a brow. Claire always had dates – he wasn’t worried for her. “What’s her name?”

“Rain.”

He snorted, seriously? “Sounds like a dud.”

“You always say that!”

“And am I usually wrong?” He asked.

“Yes!”

“What about Brittany? Or Jacob?”

Claire glared at him and Eddie grinned, knowing he had her. “We promised never to say their names out loud again!” Her chair screeched painfully as she stood, clip board clutched to her chest and eyes narrowed in his direction. “I’m taking this to the nurse, you shithead, don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone.”

Eddie laughed as she walked out and shook his head. His arm really didn’t hurt much but he knew it was broken. Sighing, he knew he wouldn’t be able to play with it but he’d probably be fine to sing. What was their next city? Dallas? Chicago? They still had a few more national dates before their break. After those two weeks they were on to London.

Who did they have on standby for guitar? Jimmy? Fiona? Maybe Helene if she wasn’t busy…

“Claire?” Eddie called out. If they wanted to get Helene before she was booked for the year, they’d have to call soon.

The door opened and Eddie suddenly wasn’t sure he hadn’t actually hit head. His chest tightened, his lungs seemed like they didn’t want to work, and he was almost positive the ground shook beneath him.

“Hello sir, I apologize we’re a little short staffed at the moment. I’m Dr. Hopper, I’ll be taking care of you this evening. Let me just grab your chart Mr…” your voice trailed off, and Eddie watched as your hands tightened on the clip board in your hands. Then finally, finally, after almost ten years – your eyes darted back up to his.

“Eddie?”

Jesus Christ did he forget how he loved the way you said his name. “Hey Cap’,” he said, flashes of you in your soccer uniform bubbling to the surface. He’d once lost his voice during the championship junior year – it’d been your first year as captain and he knew how much you’d wanted to win. The image of you hoisting up the trophy in your arms, smile beaming and blowing him a kiss, was not one he’d be likely to forget.

You’d clearly grown up in the last decade. Your uniform in school had been something similar to his, jeans, band t-shirt, and chucks. Seeing you with your hair pinned back, a white coat, and scrubs underneath was…different. A pair of glasses were balanced on the top of your head and he itched to see what you looked like with them on. While the surface of you had changed, the shocked expression on your face sent a pang through his chest – you’d always been easy to read. At least to him. Clearly, not anymore.

“What the fuck?” You said, breaking the spell he’d been under. With a wince he tried to straighten up on the bed but hissed when pain shot through his arm.

He glanced back up at you and he watched a wall fall into place. Your face smoothed, your eyes blank, and you shook your head. “I – uh, I’m so sorry Mr. Munson. That was entirely inappropriate. I was…surprised.”

Mr. Munson? That was Wayne – or shit, his dad – he’d never been called Mr. Munson in his life. Not unless you counted teachers screaming after him.

“Please don’t ever call me that again, I think that hurt more than the arm,” Eddie said, fighting everything within him not to beam when your brow twitched. A little bit of amusement bled into your eyes before they darted down to his chart.

“Do you want me to see if another doctor can treat you?”

“What?” Eddie sputtered. He knew you hadn’t stayed friends but did you hate him that much? “No,” he said, stubbornly.

“Eddie, we dated for six years.”

And goddamn if those hadn’t been the best six years of his life.

“So? Doesn’t the code of ethics or whatever only extend to immediate family members?” He frowned. “If you’re here, I know you’re the best one of the bunch. So, I want you.”

Eddie ignored how the words sounded, the small hollow spot in his chest expanding in your sudden presence.

He watched you swallow visibly, your fingers clenching. “I see it says here you’re in for a fracture? We won’t know the extent of the damage or injury until we’ve gotten x-rays.” At his blank look you sighed. “If it needs surgery, I won’t be the one to do it anyway. You’ll be referred to a specialist I assume, considering the importance of the use of a musician’s arm.”

Wait, surgery? Holy shit, he hadn’t even thought of that.

“Hey, hey, we don’t know how bad it is. It could be a small fracture, a clean break, nothing indicates surgery yet,” you said, hand reaching for him like you were going to touch his good arm but remembered and avoided it at the last minute.

“That’s okay,” he said, eyes on yours. He didn’t know what he was saying at this point. You could suggest that he take of his clothes and run naked in front of the paparazzi outside and he’d do it.

In fact, it took every ounce of energy he had not to reach out and grab your hand. He’d thought about seeing you so many times over the years, he never thought it’d be in an emergency room. Eddie had been back to Hawkins – of course he had – but you’d never been around. Dustin and Eleven told him you were at school most of the time. Eddie wondered if your smile was the same. Suddenly, a thought bubbled up to the surface, shit – he’d do anything to hear your laugh again.

Instead, you were staring at him like he was something you’d found in the forest. Something interesting to look at but not worthy of too much attention.

“Alright, uh – I’ll put in an order for the necessary scans and I’ll be by to go over the results. If you need any pain management or anything, please let Nurse Johnson know.”

This was wild. You were in his room talking about scans and x-rays when you’d saved the world together. He’d lost his virginity to you. You’d been this entire world and…he was supposed to be able to concentrate on anything else?

“Yeah, alright, thanks,” Eddie breathed, eyes still taking you in. He was working up the courage to ask you to stay, it felt like if you left his eyesight, he’d never see you again. A loud bang startled you both, popping the bubble, and he watched Gareth storm into the room.

“Dude, you’re fucking insane! Claire and Warren are going to hang you by the ba-” his voice got struck in his throat, choking, as he did a double take. “Hopper?”

The tightness in your face smoothed out and your eyes lit up when they turned to Gareth. “Oh my God you haven’t changed a bit!” You accepted his hug. Why the fuck did Gareth get a hug and a smile and he got tense silence?

Because he’d broken your heart. And you’d broken his. His mind reminded him painfully.

“We need to catch up, dude, I can’t believe you’re here. It’s like, kismet!” Gareth said, giving you another hug. You beamed up at him and Eddie bit down on his cheek so hard, he tasted blood. What the fuck? Since when did he ever get jealous of Gareth? “Is this where you ended up doing your residency?”

Wait, what? Gareth knew you’d gone into medicine? Your eyes darted to Eddie’s before skirting away. “Uh, no I did most of my residency in New York. I’m a traveling doctor for now, as a senior resident, I’m only in Indianapolis for a month before I’m going back to Hawkins’ Hospital for a bit. I still haven’t made a decision what offer to take.”

“That’s so cool, I’m happy for you,” Gareth said, giving you another hug. You smiled at him – again! – and tapped your clipboard.

“I’m going to get these orders processed and someone will be by soon to come get you, okay?”

Eddie nodded dumbly, watching you as you all but ran from the room. Gareth turned his head towards Eddie, shit-eating smile widening, and crossed his arms.

Claire walked in, midway through hanging up her phone, and sighed when she saw Gareth. “I don’t even want to know how you got passed security.” She turned to Eddie. “Everything is under control. John is doing damage control at the venue and we’ve got additional security set up to keep the reporters under control. Warren’s outside in the waiting room waiting to slap you for doing something so stupid. I’ve apologized to most of the staff for the disturbance and ordered a bunch of food so they don’t hold it against us.”

“Thanks, C,” Eddie mumbled.

Shooting him a weird look, she turned to Gareth who sighed. “What the hell is wrong with him?”

“Did you, uh, see his doctor?”

Claire nodded. “I introduced myself to her on her way out.”

Eddie glowered. “That’s my ex.”

“So? We run into your exes all the time,” Claire joked, not entirely a lie.

“That’s Hopper,” Gareth said quietly, knowing you were different.

Claire’s eyebrows disappeared into her bangs. “That’s Hopper? The Hopper? Shit, Munson, you let that go?” Claire shook her head, eyes darting to the door like she could see you through it. “Even I was checking her out. Did you see her hips?”

“You check anything out with a pulse,” Eddie snapped, pathetically glancing at the door for a glimpse of you.

She pointed one long nail at him. “Hypocrite.”

“Alright, so I’ve got your scans back Eddie…” you walked into the room and your voice immediately trailed off at the sight of three sets of eyes on you. “Oh, I’m sorry Mr. Munson,” you stammered, “I didn’t know you were with visitors.”

Something in Eddie’s chest wanted to crack in two at the sound of your voice calling him Mr. Munson again. Like you hadn’t spent a whole life together. Like at one point you hadn’t been the woman he thought he’d spend the rest of his life with.

“Did she just call you Mr. Munson?” Warren asked, eyebrows quirking in a way that Eddie knew meant he wanted to laugh.

Your face immediately looked flustered and uncomfortable. Eddie jumped to defend you, not wanting to alienate you. “Ignore him, he’s a jackass. He’s the eldest of seven, it’s in his DNA to take the piss out of people.”

Warren chuckled, nodding and extending a hand out to you. “I’m Warren Hudson. Mr. Munson’s head of security.”

“Ah,” you nodded, clutching the folder in your hands tightly to your body. Eddie’s stomach flipped uncomfortably and he turned to glare at Warren when he realized Warren was checking you out.

Discretely, Eddie reached out to pinch his inner forearm and Warren jumped. “Alright, alright, message received.”

Claire, never one to not seize an opportunity to introduce herself, walked straight up to you. “Hi, I’m Claire – Corroded Coffin’s manager. I’ve heard a lot about you, it’s nice to finally meet the Hopper.”

Jesus Christ. Did no one on his team have any sense of decorum? Warren had just spent the last hour in his room refusing to leave because he wanted to meet the girl that ‘had Munson on his knees.’ Claire just flat out told him she wasn’t leaving until they’d finally met.

“For fuck’s sake Claire,” Eddie grumbled.

You, however, seemed to realize his team was fucking with him and smiled widely. “All good things, I hope? I’m Dr. Hopper. Nice to meet you both.”

“Of course! You can’t know Eddie for as long as I do without knowing about you!”

“Really?” Your eyes slid to his and he wanted to sink into the floor.

Before Eddie could get a word in, Claire lit up like a Christmas tree and Eddie groaned. Warren laughed, like the asshole he was, and shook his head. “You’re going to have enough with Claire on your case. I’ll be in the waiting room down the hall if you need me,” Warren said, leaning in to – mercifully – lower his voice. “I see why you’re so hung up on her now.”

“Get out,” Eddie hissed, narrowing his eyes at him.

Warren just laughed, head thrown back and fist bumping you on the way out.

After what felt like an eternity, Claire finished her verbal assault and turned back to him. “I like her Munson, why’d you keep her away for so long?”

You choked, coughing not covering up your amused laughter.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m being unprofessional on all accounts tonight,” you said, shaking your head and holding up an x-ray to the light. “The break is clean - it doesn’t even need to be set. I believe the EMTs in the ambulance said you’d managed to knock back into place? How you managed that I don’t even know…”

Claire turned to glare at him. “Because he thought crowd surfing despite the hundreds of times that I have told all of them not to do it would be good. I hope this teaches you a goddamn lesson Munson.”

“Probably not,” you muttered, gathering up the necessary supplies towards Eddie’s bed.

At Claire’s snort and Eddie’s indignant huff, he watched your head snap up. “Oh my God, I said that out loud.”

“Please, tell me how you really feel,” Eddie said, not able to help from goading you.

Your eye widened and hands came up in defense. “I swear, it was like a knee jerk reflex. Like that time you thought diving off your roof was a good idea – I’m pretty sure the only reason you and Jeff didn’t break your ankles was because-”

“- we fell on the garbage Paula had left out the night before,” Eddie finished, remembering. He grinned at the memory. The band had finally had a bigger than normal crowd and they’d gotten stupidly drunk. You’d been the designated driver for that weekend and had complained endlessly how you’d never do it again if they didn’t stop doing stupid shit. Somehow that had ended up with a discussion about the dumbest things they could all do – which is how they’d ended up on the roof.

You’d yelled at them for hours after, freaking out the entire night. To be fair, you’d been right – you usually were. But after you’d tired yourself out – and he’d spent hours apologizing – he’d managed to get you to admit it had been pretty cool.

It was stupid, but the way you’d grinned that morning, admitting that their impromptu concert on the roof of his trailer was amazing – was seared into his memory. Especially considering you’d kept him in bed the entire weekend.

Eddie resurfaced from his memory of you in his old room, bra strap falling from your shoulder and your head thrown back in laughter, as your gloved hand came to undo his sling.

“Sorry, what?”

Claire rolled her eyes so hard he shot her a look. You, on the other hand, just smiled patiently. God, he’d forgotten how easy it was with you.

“I’m going to feel a little just to make sure everything is okay, then I’ll start wrapping. Once we get through that, considering the nature of your job, I’ll have the nurse explain your physical therapy schedule for post-removal. This is your non-dominant hand, right? That’s good.”

“Yeah,” he said, shifting and wincing when the pain shot up his arm. You leaned in close, trying not to move his arm much and your fingers examined the swelling. Claire, hovering behind your shoulder, shot him a look he didn’t understand before pointing to the door.

“I’ll go…talk to the nurse from earlier about the therapy schedule,” she said, completely unconvincingly. Without preamble, she disappeared out the door.

You hadn’t moved, your eyes clinical and mouth set in concentration. “She’s subtle.”

Eddie wanted the ground to swallow him. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” you said, sitting back onto a small stool and finally smiling. “I like your manager, I’m glad you have someone to keep you grounded.”

The pain was starting to ricochet up and he felt himself start to sweat. He knew it wasn’t incredibly cool but he had a notoriously low pain threshold. He was pretty sure that’s the only reason why they’d given him some pain meds. Even Claire had mentioned how she’d torn her ACL in college and hadn’t been that big of a whiner.

“Hey,” you said, touching his good hand. “Tell me about the concert tonight. Are you guys on tour? What’s your set list?”

Eddie knew what you were doing, eyes darting towards the tools on the platter to your right. Still, he took the bone you’d thrown him. “Do you…listen to any of our music?”

You shot him a deadpan look and he smiled. “Of course, I do Eddie, you’ve always been an amazing musician.” He didn’t know why but the resolution in your voice and the confirmation that you hadn’t avoided anything to do with him like the plague after he’d left – it…made him happy.

So, he told you about the tour they were on – the stops they had next and how they were going over to the UK, Spain, and a few other countries before ending it in New York City.

“I heard,” you said, shaking your head in awe, “Madison Square Garden, Munson.”

“I know,” he said. It’d be their first time – and the sales were so close to being sold out it felt like the entire band were holding their breaths for the news. Claire kept assuring them they’d be sold out by the end of the week. “If only the people of Hawkins could see me now, huh?”

Your eyes came up to his and he was surprised by the emotion in them. “They never saw you, Eddie. They didn’t deserve to anyway. I knew you’d make it here eventually and I honestly can’t say I know anyone more deserving.”

To Eddie’s horror, he felt undeniable pressure behind his eyes. Shit. Why had that hit him so hard? You know why, his mind supplied. Your support had been present, unwavering, and constant for so long that when you’d broken up, its absence had left a hole in his chest that nothing could fix.

“Thanks,” he said, voice thick.

“I know this may not mean much but,” you grabbed his other hand and squeezed tightly. “I am so proud of you, Eddie.”

If only you knew.

“It means a lot, it always does with you,” he admitted, eyes anywhere but on you.

“Yeah?” Your eyes were on packing up your supplies. His gaze fluttered over to his arm, realizing you were done. Damn. You were good. Wait, wait, were you leaving?

Say something, his mind shouted. “Will you sit with me for a bit? Just until I get used to the feeling?” He lifted his now heavy arm.

Your brow raised and you glanced down at a small black thing on your coat. “I don’t know…”

“Come on, we can play a game.”

“A game?”

Eddie’s mind scrambled for something, anything. “Yeah, twenty questions – to help break the ice.”

You sat down in the chair closest to his bed and smiled. “Ten questions, I do have a job Eddie, and we don’t have ice to break.”

“Deal. I go first!”

Nose wrinkling endearingly, you crossed your arms. “Why do you get to go first?”

“Because it was my idea!”

“Fine,” you sighed, rolling your eyes. The lightness in your expression letting him know you were teasing.

Not wanting to ask something he already knew the answer to – Eddie decided to jump for the second time that night. “So, who was the poor sucker that came after me?” He asked.

Your eyes darted up to his, surprised, and a small, familiar, ember of mischief in them. His heart flipped, the poor bastard. “Of all the questions you could’ve asked, that’s what you’re using to break the ice?”

“So there is ice to break?” He said, grinning.

Not one to back down, you shook your head at him with a determined expression so familiar it sent a pang through his chest. Eddie stomped on the urge to reach out and kiss you senseless.

Your teasing expression morphed into something he couldn’t name. Something that looked a little like regret. “The first serious one? His name was Brad.”

“Brad?” Eddie forced a smile, not prepared for the surge of jealousy that shot through him. “He sounds like a tool.”

Smacking his leg, Eddie pretended like your touch didn’t brand him. “He wasn’t. Brad was…Brad is a good guy. I met him my first day of med school.”

“A doctor? Fancy.” Definitely a tool.

You grinned, like you could tell what he was thinking, and picked at the skin around your nails. “Yeah, he went into pediatric oncology.”

Well shit, he was saving sick kids. “He sounds like a ray of sunshine.”

Laughing, you shook your head at him, eyes fond. “He was, he wants to change the world. Helping kids and underprivileged people. It’s been his dream since he was a little kid.”

“Sounds boring,” he joked, squeezing your hand to assure you he was kidding. “Where is this amazing Brad? Was he an idiot like me and let you go?”

“No,” you said, almost ruefully. He watched your mouth twist to the side before sighing. “We were engaged. For a few years.”

Eddie’s heart dropped to his feet. You were engaged? His eyes darted to your hand and he realized your ring finger was bare.

“I’m not married,” you snorted when he, likely, turned bright red at his lack of subtlety. Not married doesn’t mean single, his brain supplied helpfully. Not that that mattered. Doesn’t it? Jesus, didn’t his mind ever shut the hell up? No.

“Is it too rude to ask what happened?”

You shrugged, fingers going to your ring finger. “I was tired of trying to keep up with all his ambition. We had different dreams and I didn’t want to hold him back.” A flash of determination darted across your face. “He said he was tired of always feeling second best. I believe his words were, I can’t compete with a ghost.”

“Second best?” Eddie frowned.

Wide, pointed, eyes shot to his and he realized. Another pang hit his chest and Eddie was sure that if he hadn’t been lying down, he would’ve dropped to the floor.

“What about you?” You asked, like you hadn’t just knocked the air out of him with your admission. You cleared your throat and wrung your hands together. You were uncomfortable, he noted, realizing he still knew pieces of the new you.

“What about me?” He parroted, brain still coming back online.

Eddie caught your eye roll and fought his smile. Shit, how could it have been so many years and after a few minutes it felt like no time had passed? What fucking magic did you possess?

“Hey,” you said, nudging your foot with his, “I told you about me.”

Embarrassment flashed through him. “As sad as it sounds, uh, there hasn’t really been anyone after you,” he said, eyes darting away from your face.

Surprising him, he heard you snort. “Yeah, okay, the lead singer and guitarist of Corroded Coffin never had a girlfriend after his high school sweetheart.”

“Well, no, I’ve had shorter relationships and uh…well, um,” he stammered, remembering flashes of drunken stumbling into hotel rooms across the country.

“Bed warmers?” You suggested with a sparkle in your eye.

This time, he rolled his eyes and nodded. “Yeah,” he huffed, “but no one really serious. Not really.”

“Why not?”

Because he couldn’t give his heart over to someone when the memory of you felt like something he was continuously chasing. Because it wasn’t fair to anyone else. Because no one ever measured up to you. Because…that’s just the way he worked.

Your eyes caught his and the air became charged around you both. Eddie tried to think of an answer to your question but only one crossed his mind.

“Why didn’t you come with me?” He blurted.

“What?” You blinked, surprised. Eddie swallowed around the lump in his throat.

“The week before we’d decided to leave…and I told you – I asked you if you’d come with me. You looked at me in a way I’ll never forget, ever.”

The silence in the room felt like it was suffocating. The clock on the wall was loud and echoed in his head, bouncing around as he waited for you to say something. Anything.

“In my head it’d always kinda felt like you left me behind,” you said with a small, devastatingly sad smile. “It felt like you needed to grow and I wasn’t ready yet.”

Left you behind? “I asked you to come with me – I didn’t…I never wanted you to feel like I was leaving you behind,” he said, realizing.

“I know. It still stung though,” you admitted with a small shrug. He could tell you were trying to find the right words, taking your time to put them together before speaking.

“You didn’t ask me to stay,” he said, remembering how it felt. Standing in front of his half-destroyed trailer and your hiccupping tears echoing in the air. He’d been waiting for you to ask – because he would’ve stayed. He would’ve done anything for you.

You blinked, eyes coming up to his again. “How could I have? In Hawkins? After everything that town had done to you? I knew you’d stay if I asked and you were always too good for that town.”

That was fair. “Why’d you stay?”

“You know why,” you said without hesitation. Your eyes went to the closed door and sighed. “The same reason why I didn’t go when you asked. Eleven had gotten her powers back – we didn’t know if Max was going to live. My sister needed me. My dad was alive – Eddie, it was a lot. We’d been through a lot. I never blamed you for leaving, it was the right choice. Clearly.”

He had figured that was why but he’d always still wanted to ask one day. “We had something good though, right?”

“Eddie,” your face softened into a version of you that he recognized. “What we had, that shit was once in a lifetime. It didn’t matter that we were kids for half of it. Six years is a long time. We…we were good together.”

“Yeah?”

You smiled at him, reaching into his chest and pulling his heart right out of it. “Yeah. Somehow, that seemed to hurt more.” It was like Eddie had poked at a wound he thought had healed and was surprised to find it bleeding.

Eddie let himself fall down the rabbit hole for a second and he really thought about the years that had passed. He’d had something special and he threw it away, for what? To run away? Again? He wanted to chase his dreams, yeah. But a big part of it was running from Hawkins.

“I can hear you thinking from here,” you teased, bringing his spiral to a pause. “Don’t…don’t overthink it. I spent the first two years after you left overthinking ever tiny piece of what we’d said. Should I have gone with you? Would we be married by now if I had? Kids? Would we have even made it? Would I have become a doctor? The what if, that’ll kill you. Or, it almost killed me.”

You’d opened up a drawer in his mind and dusted off the cobwebs off the questions he’d tortured himself with for almost half a decade. Gareth and Jeff had suffered through a long, long time of finding him drunk in a hotel room wondering what it would’ve been like if you’d come. The fact that you’d also thought about it, hurt twice as deep. It also pulled a painful truth from underneath multiple layers of delusion. He’d really never fallen out of love with you. Eddie had always been a stubborn idiot. It seemed his heart, back in your palms, had never really had any intention on giving you up.

He blinked, dumbstruck, and was only pulled out of his tornado of misery when he felt your warm hand on his hand. “Hey, you okay?”

“Yeah,” he croaked, unbelievable even to himself.

You smiled softly, like you knew the truth. “We were the right people but wrong time. Timing is everything.” And you were right. You’d had the timing before demons and other dimensions stole it from him.

Eddie nodded like that simple fact didn’t crack his heart further.

Clearly trying to change the subject, you cleared your throat. “I told myself if I ever saw you again, I’d never be stupid enough to ask - but…”

Grasping at the second bone you threw that night, he nodded. “You can ask me anything,” Eddie said, his tone a breath too honest even to his own ears.

The smile that bloomed on your face made his stomach flip. Mouth twisting, eyes mischievous, you ducked your head. “Is the song about me?”

Wanting to keep the smile on your face, Eddie pretended like he didn’t know what you were talking about. “What song?”

The look in your eyes told him you knew what he was doing. “You’re going to make me sing it?”

“If you want an answer,” he said, shrugging innocently.

You narrowed your eyes at him and glanced around before nodding. “You never know how good you have it, until you're staring at a picture of the only girl that matters. I know what we're supposed to do. It's hard for me to let go of you, so I'm just trying to hold on.”

Eddie’s soul felt like it’d left his body and was hovering above you both. It’d been years since he last heard you sing along to his music and Jesus fuckin’ Christ had his memory not done you justice. “I still think you could’ve joined us and been lead singer.”

You laughed, smiling a little self-consciously. “What? And steal the spotlight from you?”

“Oh, sweetheart, that light always belonged to you.”

Eyes flashing, you ducked your head but Eddie still caught sight of your pleased smile. “You didn’t answer the question.”

“You really need to ask?” You had to know, especially for one of their more popular songs, everyone knew. It was still one of the questions he got most in interviews – who the song was about. Not that he ever said it, even to his friends. But to the people who’d known, they didn’t have to ask.

“Validation is nice,” you teased.

Eddie took a moment to really take you in. Hands intertwined on your lap, ID badge around your neck, and despite looking utterly exhausted, you were still the most beautiful person he’d ever had the sheer dumb luck of knowing.

“Yeah, Hopper,” he heard himself say, your eyes darting up to meet his, “none of my songs could be about anyone else.”

Well shit -- he’d never admitted anything that vulnerable in years.

“Even now?” You joked, trying to alleviate the sudden tension around you both. But Eddie hadn’t ever lied to you and he wasn’t going to start now.

“Yeah, even now.”

At that, your head whirled towards him and he saw something flicker behind your ten-foot castle walls. Something familiar.

The device on your hip beeped loudly and you jumped to your feet. “Sorry,” you scrambled for the tiny thing. “It’s my beeper, I’m being paged for a new patient. I’ll try to see how your paperwork is going and if we can speed things along. I…um, I – this was nice.”

Nice? He could work with nice! You smiled at him, hesitating with your hand on the door knob.

But, like the idiot he still was, Eddie nodded dumbly and said nothing while he watched you walk out his door.

“Nice? That was nice? What the hell?” You said out loud to yourself, taking another inhale of the cigarette between your fingers. Like the wimp you were, you’d taken your break on the last floor, crawling out to the shitty makeshift terrace the west wing had. The night shift rarely came out here, but you loved the view – downtown Indianapolis was beautiful. High-rise buildings with their scattered lights and the sharp wind from the corner usually helped you decompress. Clearly, tonight, you needed nicotine reinforcements.

If your roommate could see you now, she’d smack you. In your very well mounted defense, you hadn’t expected to see Eddie Munson of all people in your emergency room tonight. You hated that your first instinct, after your shock, had been to check your reflection in a mirror.

It’d been more years than you could count – being around Eddie should not affect you as much as it clearly still did. He was in your past, you reminded yourself, taking another drag. Max and Robin had always had an ongoing agenda to remind you that Eddie was always an option now that you’d both grown into yourselves.

At the reminder of Max, you needed to remind yourself to strangle her. Just this morning she’d said she had no idea where they were playing next – clearly, that had been a lie.

You felt off balance and you hated it. The past few years you’d spent making sure you had all your ducks in a row. You had studied hard, travelled around the country, and learned from the best of the best. Despite feeling intimidated by Brad’s confidence in his career, almost two years later you knew what he’d meant now. You were meant to be a doctor – and you were a damn good one. While you didn’t want to stay in the ER, you knew you had a reputation for being unshakeable.

And your ex-boyfriend walks in and it throws you for a loop? What the fuck. You needed this shift to be over, for him to leave, and a bath with some wine as soon as possible. Checking your watch, you groaned when you realized you had more than half of it to go.

Replaying your last interaction on a loop, you groaned again. Why had you let him convince you to stay in his room?

You knew the answer.

His dumb big, wide, brown eyes had always been your weak spot. And look at where that had gotten you – rehashing things that didn’t need remembering. Not with him. Or maybe? You took another long drag and pinched the bridge of your nose. Why was this so complicated? And why the hell did it feel like you had a swarm of pterodactyls in your stomach every time he looked at you…with those stupid eyes. Like you meant something to him.

“Aren’t doctors always telling people not to smoke?” A voice asked, startling the shit out of you.

Almost dropping your mostly finished cigarette, you whirled around and gaped when you saw Eddie standing there. “How the fuck did you get here?”

He grinned, the sight immediately warming you. “I asked a nurse for you; she said you always took your breaks out here.”

“You need an ID to get into the room that leads here,” you said, dumbly.

“Turns out, she’s a Corroded Coffins fan,” he said, grinning shamelessly. “After a photo and an autograph, she let me through.”

Scowling at the unprofessionalism, you guessed. “Emma?”

He nodded and waved a hand. “It happens all the time, don’t worry. Besides, you never came back.”

“I – I had a gunshot wound to the leg and it took a while to change,” you said, motioning to your new black scrubs.

Eddie took a few more hesitant steps towards you. “I didn’t know you smoked, last I remembered you hated that about me,” he said, nodding towards the cigarette in your hand.

“It’s a horrible habit,” you admitted immediately, deciding to be honest, “I only do it when I’m stressed.”

The city around you buzzed with life. “ER doctor feels like the wrong profession then…”

You hated the fact that you laughed. Not even able to stop it, you brought a hand up to your mouth, surprised. Not knowing what to say, you offer him one from the carton in your hand.

To your utter surprise, he shook his head. “Haven’t smoked in years,” he said and you noted that he made sure to stay upwind of the cigarette. “The love of my life once told me she hated it and well, I stopped.”

You quirked your brow, deeply ignoring how your heart skipped. “Stop moving that arm around so much, once the meds wear off it’ll hurt,” you said, changing the subject because what the hell did you say to that? Taking another drag, you exhaled the smoke.

He smiled at you like he knew what you were doing. Shit, he probably did. “I can’t help it, you know that.”

“I didn’t ask before but…doctor huh? Last I heard you wanted to be a teacher,” Eddie said, scuffing his shoe against the gravel.

You couldn’t help the way your brows raised. How had he known you’d considered being a teacher? “Keeping tabs on me?” He smiled and when he didn’t answer you shrugged. “After what happened, seeing you…”

The memory of Eddie on the floor, scratches and gouges all over his body while he laid unnaturally still in your lap haunted you. Sometimes, after bad shifts, you’d still have the same nightmare where you weren’t able to get him out in time. You could hear the sound of him choking on his own blood, your own voice screaming at him to stay awake. Steve’s frantic hands as he hauled Eddie through the gate.

“Almost bleed out?” He prompted, tone light.

“Yeah,” you cleared your throat and stubbed the cigarette out. “I never wanted to feel that helpless ever again.”

At your confession, he quieted. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable, not like you’d expected. It wasn’t charged like earlier…it was nice. “Yeah,” he said, “I knew you were a doctor. Dustin told me, sent me a Polaroid of your graduation.”

“That little shit.”

Eddie laughed. “I asked for it, don’t blame him.”

“Why?” You asked, shocked. Everyone had assured you that he’d reach out eventually – he had to. But he never did. In all fairness, neither had you.

His eyes came to yours, stare serious and the air shifting from light to something heavier. “You know why.”

Electricity crackled between you. Eyes drawn to his you had to curl your hand around the railing to avoid the urge you had to reach for him. “I started smoking in college. It helped take the edge of every once in a while,” you shrugged. “The scent reminded me of you. Helped me, I don’t know, calm down? It’s soothing, I guess. I had a tangible part of you that I could keep with me.”

Surprised at your own candor, you bit your cheek. You had never admitted that to anyone. Everyone assumed you’d picked it up after having snuck one off your dad or Joyce. You risked a glance up at him and your heart jumped to your throat. If the electricity was on high before, the look in his eyes made it palpable.

Like magnets, you both took a few steps towards each other. His hand reached for yours and your heart slammed against your rib cage, revving like an engine. “Hopper…I-”

The door behind him slammed open, surprising you again. Gareth stumbled in and you bit a smile back at the death glare Eddie shot him. “I think I just promised one of the nurses my first born to get here.”

You laughed, feeling Eddie’s eyes on you.

“Claire sent me to find you, she’s on a rampage. You can’t just run off dude,” Gareth said good naturedly.

Eddie sighed. “Sorry.”

“S’all good, she’s getting the paperwork for you discharge. She found a nurse on the second floor and I’m pretty sure he’s already asked her on a date.”

You snorted and Gareth grinned at you. “So, Doc, is he cleared to go? We’ve got a plane to catch in the morning. Helene said she’d cover for you for the rest of the tour if we needed to. Claire and Warren think you can sit and sing if you’re feeling up to it.”

Reality crashed into you. Of course. They were on tour. You and Eddie were in the past - a fond memory that stung a little still but was fond nonetheless.

“Uh yeah, he should be fine. Make sure he keeps the sling on for at least two weeks. No guitar playing but singing is fine. The nurse should explain in detail to Claire.”

“Great!” Gareth clapped his hands, glancing between you both. Your fingers itched to grab another cigarette as your stress climbed. “Helene’s on her way to Chicago.” Gareth added when no one spoke.

Eddie grunted and it spurred you into action. You reached out and rested your hand on Eddie’s arm. “It was nice to see you both,” you said, smiling at Gareth. Gathering up all the courage you had available, you reached up and kissed Eddie’s cheek. His breath hitched and you scrambled back towards safety. “Be careful, okay? Take care of the arm.”

Eddie’s stare felt like physical touch but you tugged Gareth into a hug and ignored him. The beeper in your scrubs screeched and you almost sighed in relief. “That’s my cue,” you said, waving the flashing screen in the air, “have a safe flight.”

Whirling around, you’d made it three steps before Eddie’s voice stopped you. “Hopper!”

“Yeah?”

He blinked at you, as if surprised you’d stopped. “When’s your shift end?”

You smiled at your first love and decided to indulge yourself for the moment. Eyes trailing down him, taking in his features and how little he’d changed. His hair was still wild and curly, his hands still waved in the air as he spoke, and he still chewed on his bottom lip when he was nervous. You still knew him well enough to know what he wasn’t saying. “You were my first patient of the night. I’m on until morning, probably a bit past that since we’re short-staffed.” The beeper screeched again and you winced. If it was an attending, they were going to be on your ass for the rest of the night. “I gotta go, I’m sorry.” Sorry that’s all you had, sorry this didn’t magically fix everything, sorry for not going with you. Sorry for…still loving you? “Bye.”

Before the door closed behind you, you heard Gareth’s unmistakable laughter and voice boom. “When does your shift end? That’s the best you got? Dude.”

A muffled groan made you smile and you shook your head. This night was going to be a wild, crazy, memory. That’s all. You had patients to see.

You were dead on your feet, squinting at the offending sun as you walked towards your car in the parking lot. “See you Monday, Hopper!” A coworker called out. You waved a hand towards them. The next break in your schedule had managed to line up with the weekend. Despite the miracle, you were already planning on spending most of it sleeping and catching up on your notes. Stifling a yawn, you dug through your bag to try and find your keys.

Where the fuck were they? You groaned, blindly feeling around for the key ring. As you rounded the corner you froze. What the hell? Eddie was sitting on the hood of your car. His hair was tucked into a beanie, sunglasses perched on the bridge of his nose, and his green cast in a sling.

Your feet carried you towards his smiling figure. “Hey? I thought – you…a plane?” Exhaustion scrambled your brain but Eddie seemed to understand what you meant - he always had.

“I can take a later one,” he said, squatting to pick up a coffee cup off the ground. “I don’t know if your order has changed but I got you this from the shop down the street.”

“Oh my god, I love you,” you said. Exhaustion and desperation drove you to practically dive for the cup. Taking a long gulp, you curled your fingers against the warmth.

Eddie froze as you continued to gulp it down. “Never thought I’d hear those words again.”

What? You thought, realizing a beat too late. Flustered, you didn’t know what to say to his teasing.

“I’m going to say something and if I’m reading too much into this or way out of line – feel free to slap me.”

“What?”

“Just…I need to say it. I have to – I can’t keep going on through life wondering what if.”

“Don’t overthink it…The what if, that’ll kill you. Or, it almost killed me.”

You swallowed around the sudden lump in your throat and nodded.

“I want to give this a shot,” Eddie said, inhaling deeply, “I still love you, sweetheart. I think I always have. I know that it’s different and it’s been far longer than it should have been but I want to try. Seeing you again tonight, I…I don’t think there will ever be anyone else but you for me.”

Emotions overwhelmed you, eyes tearing up. “Eddie,” you breathed, hands coming up to his as if by instinct.

His eyes didn’t stray from you and he continued. “I let this go because I thought - I thought it was what was best at the time. I’m not making the same mistake twice.” Eddie leaned forward, eyes darting between yours and you knew he was giving you the chance to back away – to say no.

Did you want to say no? Wasn’t this chasing the past? What if you both ended up hurting each other all over again? It was clear you’d both never moved on from your break up.

And yet…the soft look in his eyes reminded you of leaning against his locker, his body caging you in. His hair would hide the halls, the entire world, and you’d be pinned in place by his stare. Eddie would kiss his way up from your neck and one of your friends would always manage to find you two. They’d give you shit for it but, Eddie would flip them off before pressing his lips back down to yours. Their jeering fading into the background while his hands trailed down your body.

Just because it’d been years ago didn’t make it any less important. Any less crucial. And most importantly, the years hadn’t wiped the longing.

Without overthinking it, for once in your life, you surged up and pressed your lips to his. Eddie’s right hand trailed around your hip and pulled you into him. Mindful of his sling, you cradled his face and kept him close.

His teeth nipped at your bottom lip, making familiar heat pool in your stomach, and you were almost embarrassed by the harsh exhale you let out. You felt his smile against your lips and not one to be left behind, you let your lips find that spot you knew like the back of your hand. His scruff tickled your skin as you worried at the skin on the underside of his jaw and you grinned when he let out a quiet moan.

Your bodies slotted into each other like two puzzle pieces and they rekindled the flame that had somehow seemed to never have gone out. After a while, you needed to calm your breathing before you both managed to get arrested for public indecency. Taking a huge step back, you brought your hand up to your lips – afraid this had been a fever dream.

“Where are you going?” Eddie whined, chasing after you.

Grinning, you held his good hand between yours and brought it up to your lips. Brushing a kiss against his knuckles, you watched his eyes darken and smiled. His hair looked wilder than normal, his lips swollen and red. He looked happy. You were sure you looked a similar.

“How do you know I’m not dating anyone? I could be,” you teased, arms trailing down to rest comfortably on his waist.

“First, if you’re going to kiss me like that – if you were dating someone, I’d be appalled,” he joked, shooting you a knowing look. “Dustin told me. I called him an hour ago to ask for his advice. He likes to remind me periodically that you won’t be single for long. He really didn’t like the last guy uh-”

You reared back. “Jared? He was nice!”

“If it makes you feel any better my last quasi-relationship was like a year ago and Dustin wouldn’t even look at her when she tried speaking to him,” Eddie said. You bit back your laughter because that was definitely something you could see Dustin doing.

“The little asshole.”

“Right?”

“We can’t tell him about this. Not yet,” you said quickly. God, especially not Dustin – he’d be unbearable. He spent almost all of your trips home screaming Eddie’s praises.

Eddie’s entire face lit up. “So there is a this to tell?”

How could you have ever thought you could’ve fooled yourself into thinking this night wouldn’t have mattered? That Eddie was someone you could move on from? “I mean, I let you kiss me, didn’t I?” You teased.

“That’s true, you would’ve decked me if you wanted me off,” he said, nose coming down to your neck, teeth nipping at the skin there.

“I do have mean right hook,” you said, breathless.

“Oh, I remember,” he laughed and you knew he was picturing you decking Tommy at a party senior year for harassing Steve and Nancy.

After beat, your insecurities started to creep into the bubble. “What are we doing? I still…I still love you. I don’t think I ever really stopped but we’re different people now. We don’t really know this version of us anymore. Not the way we used to.”

Eddie’s hand came up to cradle your face softly. “Trust me, I haven’t changed much,” he said and you snorted. “It doesn’t matter. We can love each other and take it slow. We can learn the new stuff and enjoy the things that stayed the same. I’ll do whatever you want because, honestly, I don’t know what we’re doing either. But I do know that I’m not letting you go. Not a second time. I know my schedule is hectic – my career is chaotic - and all over the place for months on end but…”

You smiled, tightening your arms around him and finally feeling like the earth had snapped back onto its axis. “But we can try?” Because wasn’t it worth it? For him? Without question.

Eddie’s eyes closed and he leaned his forehead against yours. “We can definitely try.”

As the sun warmed you both, you glanced up at Eddie’s beaming smile and you nodded. It wouldn’t be easy, you’d both stumble and have to adjust to the new things, your careers, and living in different cities but…the timing was right. Again. Didn’t people always say lightning never struck twice? And yet, timing was everything.

A/N2: There's also no way in hell a metal band would be singing something as slow as When You're Gone but yolo, I'm the captain now.

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson y/n #eddie munson fic

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panlight · 9 months

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Re: New Moon and the race to stop Edward’s suicide. I get that it’s Bella’s story and she needs to be in the action, but logically there were other options than flying her to Italy. Castle Volterra has a secretary; surely Carlisle could have called the castle and name dropped himself in a message for Aro. “Detain Ed until I can get there” and fly himself to Italy. Edward only does the sunlight thing to provoke them after they refuse to kill him. If they just arrested him, he wouldn’t be able to fight his way past every guard member.

Alice says “You can lie with your thoughts and Bella in-person is the only proof that will work on Edward” but surely Alice could have taken a digital/early model camera phone pic with Bella in her kitchen holding a newspaper for the date and Carlisle could use it as proof (or cause enough doubt) to get Edward to come home. For the law, Carlisle has success in changing other humans to vampires and can make the promise to change Bella. It makes more sense for Aro to let the Cullens off bc Carlisle is his friend, and Alice isn’t there as the prize he wants. If he wants Alice later, he has to let everyone go home now.

But then we don’t get to meet the villains until the next book and even then the ones in charge don’t roll in until the last book. Bella doesn’t get another “special me” moment by shaking hands with Aro for him to be impressed. It is better storytelling and drama for Bella to be in Italy and get the dire reunion with Edward, but the plot definitely could have been tightened up. As you’ve pointed out before, why was Rose never informed that Bella wasn’t dead after all when Alice stayed at the Swan house for two days? Maybe Rose still calls Edward but to say, “It’s pointless to stay away now bc Alice is there. She saw Bella jump off a cliff-“ and then Edward stops listening, spiraling in misunderstanding. That seems more in-character than Alice not keeping her family in the loop.

The whole climax of New Moon feels, to me, like she wanted to do an homage to Romeo and Juliet with the whole “he thinks she’s dead” miscommunication thing. I think she also had this very clear vision of Bella running through the plaza to get to Edward. As someone who dabbles in fiction writing, I get that.

But it’s just a lot harder to pull off a miscommunication of this scale in 2006 with CELL PHONES than it was back in Ye Olde Verona. So it ends up feeling SO contrived.

Harry dies so there can be a misunderstanding about a funeral and Jacob picks up the phone at Bella’s house?!? Who does that?!?

Alice doesn’t bother telling anyone for several days that Bella is in fact, alive, so that Rosalie finally gets through to Edward to tells him Bella’s dead?

Carlisle and Esme are away hunting, apparently, and also don’t have cell phones or at least no service?

I mean I get that in 2006 cell phones weren’t AS common as they are today, but the Cullens are stupid rich and like, import the latest models of TVs and expensive cars, I’m supposed to believe they don’t also have the coolest new phones?

All of this involves characters acting in ways real people just . . . don’t. And like I get they are vampires but Jacob picking up the phone at Bella’s house is always going to be weird. Alice being in Forks for like two days before Rosalie finally gets ahold of Edward makes literally zero sense. And if all that STILL happens, then yeah, Carlisle calling Volterra as soon as he’s made aware of what’s going on and then flying there himself is the most logical thing to do and the easiest solution. No one has to convince him Bella’s alive if Aro just ‘arrests’ him and has Alec sedate him until Carlisle gets there or whatever.

But Bella doesn’t get to run through the plaza and Alice doesn’t get to steal a Porsche so we’re not doing THAT.

#submission #asks

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five-rivers · 2 years

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Ancestral

Danny had been having a rare peaceful, lazy Sunday afternoon when the call came in, relaxing on the couch with the astrophotography book Jazz had gotten him for Christmas. It was early January, and the ghosts hadn’t come back yet, and the teachers hadn’t assigned too much stuff right after the break, so he was caught up.

It was unusual. It was nice.

He should have been waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The phone rang. He ignored it. Anyone calling him would call his cell phone, and his parents were right there, in the kitchen.

He listened with half an ear as someone - his mother, by the sound of it, although it might have been Jazz - pushed back a chair and walked over to the wall the phone hung on.

“Hello, this is Maddie Fenton speaking.”

He’d been right. He smiled a little and turned the page. Those were some nice nebulas.

“Matthew? I wasn’t expecting– What? No. No, that can’t–” She fell silent for a long minute, quiet except for exclamations of shock. “Do you know how–? I understand. I understand. Of course we’ll be coming. I might not agree with- with– Oh, god.”

There was a sort of heavy sound, and Danny got up, leaving his book on the couch. His mother was sitting against the wall, under the phone receiver. Jack and Jazz had both gotten out of their seats, their projects abandoned on the table.

“Okay,” said Maddie. “Okay. I understand. We’ll be ready to go when they get here. Okay. Call me if anything… Alright. Matthew– I’m sorry. I wish–” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. We’ll be there.” She dropped the phone and let it hang from its cord, the ‘no signal’ noise coming on a minute later.

“Mom?” asked Danny. “What happened?”

She looked up. “Your, um.” She rubbed at her eyes. “That was my cousin, Matthew. Grandpa Alfred and Grandma Rose…”

Those were her grandparents, Danny’s great-grandparents. Maddie’s parents had died before Danny was born.

“What happened?” prodded Danny, well aware it couldn’t be anything good.

“They died,” said Maddie, softly. “A earlier– Last night– Hours ago. And so did– So did your Great Uncle Theodore and your Great Aunt Isabella. And, um, my cousins William and Martin.”

“Oh my god,” said Jazz. “What happened? Were they all on a plane together, or…?”

“No,” said Maddie. “They don’t know what happened. Aunt Cathrine and Uncle John aren’t doing well, and apparently Vivian is missing.”

Of course Aunt Cathrine and Uncle John weren’t doing well. Their spouses had just died. Danny wasn’t doing all too well himself, and he couldn’t say he’d been close to any of them. They were still family.

“What about the others? Lewis and Leo? Or Iris and George? Or Joanna and Eugene?”

“I don’t know,” said Maddie, pushing her hair back from her face. “Matthew didn’t mention them. I’m sure if something happened to his kids he would have said something.”

“We’re going, aren’t we, Mads?”

“Yeah,” said Maddie. “Um.” She scrubbed her sleeve across her face. “Kids, go get packed. Jack, we need Spector Deflectors for all of us.”

“You think it was ghosts?” asked Jack.

“Six of my family members just dropped dead with no cause of death,” said Maddie, voice breaking in the middle of the sentence. “Grandma and Grandpa were ninety-eight, but Martin was our age. And all at once? It’s just like with my parents…” She shuddered, then started the process of pulling herself up off the floor. Jack gave her a hand up. “There’s a ghost involved.” She shook her head. “I warned them.”

She and Jack went to the lab door. When they got there, she turned back. “You need to go, showers and pack now. I don’t know how long it will be before they’ll pick us up.”

“A flight to Chicago from London usually takes eight or so hours,” said Jazz. “So at least that, unless they sent someone to pick us up before calling.”

“I don’t know,” said Maddie. “It sounded like– I don’t know.”

“Alright,” said Jack. “I’ll take care of things in the lab, you get our things together for the trip.”

“Jack, you can’t do it all by yourself.”

“I’m just getting the deflectors and making sure everything is off. You’re doing the packing.”

Danny knelt on the floor, debating. The last time they’d visited that part of the family had been before his accident. There were a lot of things he wanted to bring, but what he could bring was a different story. The fact was, he had no idea what the plane would allow, much less security and customs, and some of his stuff was incredibly suspicious.

Vials of green, glowing, liquid, anyone?

Meditatively, he rubbed his hands over the spot in the floor he’d phased his special first-aid kit into. There was definitely going to be trouble. It would absolutely be useful to have a way to patch himself up. If anyone saw some of the more… unusual items, there would be questions he couldn’t answer.

Maybe he could just take the less suspicious parts? Nothing with visible ectoplasm in it.

He phased the kit out from the floor and continued packing. The funeral would undoubtedly be a formal event, but he knew he’d be doing some snooping, so he wanted to bring something he could move in…

The enormity of what had happened hit him again, and he swayed. So much of his family… It didn’t matter that they weren’t close. Both his heart and his core cried in grief and out for justice. Maybe it would turn out that it had been some kind of freak accident in the end.

But if it wasn’t, whoever was responsible would be very sorry indeed.

As Danny forced the last of his gear into his suitcase - using only a little phasing to get it done - he heard a car pull up in front of Fentonworks. Then another. Then another.

He looked out the window. Down below were three huge dark gray cars, each one built squat and stout. If he didn’t miss his guess, the tinted windows were probably bulletproof and the interiors armored.

They were exactly the kind of vehicle Sam would hate and Tucker would love.

Oh, crud. Sam and Tucker.

He grabbed his phone, belatedly remembering to throw the charger into his bag, and dialed Sam.

“This is a bit early for you, isn’t it?” said Sam, by way of greeting. “Did the ghosts finally come back?”

“Um,” said Danny, “no.” He wasn’t sure how to say this. “My great-grandparents just died, and, um, my great-aunt and uncle. And some of my cousins.”

“Oh my gosh, Danny, are you alright?”

“Not really,” said Danny. “I’m still… processing.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know, Mom didn’t say. We’re leaving right now, and I don’t know how long we’ll be out of town–”

“Danny! Jazz! They’re here!” called Maddie from downstairs.

“I’ve got to go,” said Danny. “Just keep an eye on things? Please?”

“Of course,” said Sam. “Call me when you can?”

“Yeah. Could you call Tucker, I called you because I knew you’d be awake, but–”

“Danny!”

“I really have to go, thanks, bye!”

He snapped the phone closed and hefted his suitcase over his shoulder. No more time. He had to hope things wouldn’t collapse too badly while he was gone. He had been out of town before.

But he didn’t know how long this would be.

He reached the ground floor at the same time his dad came up from the basement, a small amount of ectoplasm splattered on his jumpsuit.

“Are you okay?” asked Danny.

Jack made a face, but then forced a smile. “Sure thing, Danny-boy! Just shutting down the portal while we’re away.” His smile twitched. “It’ll… probably be fine while we’re gone. Shouldn’t be too many more natural portals in town, as long as we don’t leave it off for too long.”

“Right,” said Danny, offering up a very similar smile.

“Maybe I can ask Vladdie to look after the portal while we’re gone?”

“You’ll have to call him later,” said Danny, hoping Jack would forget.

They emerged into the entryway, where there were several large men wearing suits. Danny could see, very faintly, the outline of real guns under their jackets. One of them was more familiar than expected.

“Mr. Kynbaz,” said Danny. Even knowing Matthew was sending someone, he didn’t think it would be Mr. Kynbaz.

“Hello there, Master Daniel, Dr. Fenton,” said Mr. Kynbaz, with a soft but rather strained smile.

“I didn’t think you ever left the country,” said Danny, before he could think better of it.

Mr. Kynbaz’s expression twisted in pain. “We were a only a couple hours north, in Canada.”

“Oh, for Johanna and Eugene?” asked Maddie. “I’d forgotten they were visiting his father there this year…”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Mr. Kynbaz. “They left for home on their own plane; we have a charter for you at the airport.”

“Alright,” said Maddie. “I don’t suppose you have any other news?”

“I’m afraid not, ma’am.”

“Alright,” said Maddie. “Alright. So, we just… go.”

Mr. Kynbaz nodded. “If you would let Mr. Rigyn and Miss Blys take your bags, we’ll get you into the cars.”

Maddie nodded and stepped forward.

“One at a time,” said Mr. Kynbaz. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but with as little as we know, I don’t want your whole family to be out in the open at once.”

Danny felt himself go pale. That wasn’t something he’d even considered.

There was a brief discussion about bringing the GAV instead - it was armored - but in the end they left the house and got into the car one by one.

Mr. Kynbaz entered last, settling into his seat with a sigh. He pushed a button on his earpiece and said, “Princess Madeline and family are secured. Move out.”

#danny phantom #royalty au #ectoberhaunt22 #ectoberhaunt day 12: cause of death #day 12 #ectoberhaunt 2022 #there will be more #ancestral fic

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angelmichelangelo · 7 months

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If we did get foot solider Mikey like we deserve what would be the whole plot exactly of it? because the premise is how Mikey feels like a failure and that his brothers don't understand him and that he feels alone how would that be excuted exactly because 1. this adds more layers to Mikey that aren't ever really utilized and 2 Raph and Leo are a big problem in this scenario because they would just blame each other throughout the whole process along with trying to get Mikey back while arguing which would upset him even more since neither can own up to their mistakes and than Donnie has to figure out how to stop everything the fighting the convincing Mikey.

ooh okay! this is just me coming up with an idea on the fly so bare with me.

so imagine the movie opens up not long since the events of the last movie. they’re moving past the whole winters situation and starting to work more as a team, notably leo and raph who are getting along again and donnie is less stressed and it takes off SUCH a huge weight off mikey’s mind because of course he was constantly worrying about whether his family would heal itself again and here they are! happy together. and then comes along that good ol’ turtle luck.

idk how shredder comes back. it’s not really ever established in the first movie, or maybe i cant remember if he died? or disappeared. but imagine he comes back. some freaky magic (either on purpose or on accident by karai depending on whether you want her to be REALLY bad after her truce in the first movie lol) and suddenly they have shredder back on their tails.

the attack comes so out of left field - imagine they’re just goofing off on a roof with a hosepipe (iykyk) and then BAM leo goes down and raph is yelling his name and there’s panic.

they’ve trained for this, but the attack catches them off guard. they’re not prepared and since they’re still finding their footing as a team again, the foot are able to get the underhand.

mikey is calling out attack ideas but leo, in a panic, isn’t taking on board of what he’s saying. neither is raph and nor is donnie, too focused on the foot, each of the brothers don’t pay much attention to what mikey is suggesting. mikey, growing fustrated as he believes his idea would work, doesn’t get a chance to play any of his plans out after he’s knocked off the roof.

the brothers try and catch him but fail, letting their brother plummet to the street below. before they can go down and get him, the shredder appears (maybe in a crack of lightning lol very dramatic) and leo is like “you????”

they fight with the shredder for a bit, leo barking out orders for one of them to slip away and go grab mike but whenever one of them tries to leave the rooftop, it’s futile, they’re stopped by the foot; made to fight and unable to reach their brother to see if he’s alright.

then, just as fast as they appeared, the foot and shredder disappear. leo thinks it’s odd, but now that the foot are out of the way, they’re rushing down to make sure mikey is alright only to realise… he’s gone.

mask, nunchucks and cell phone (for the purpose of donnie not being able to track him) all left behind, it slowly dawns on them what’s happened.

it then switches perspectives of mikey who’s slowly waking up in some cage. unsure of where he is, we see Karai stroll in, looking torn.

she tells mikey something along the lines of “i didn’t want it to have to be this way but you must understand my loyalty to the foot comes before whatever promise i made to you.”

mikey is confused like “who even are you lady? where am I?”

and karai, realising what’s happened reports back to shredder like “uh yeah he’s lost his memory i think” and shredder is like “okay. change of plans”

(he originally kidnapped one of the turtles to draw the rest of them + splinter to him but now he’s having Evil Thoughts)

so he goes to mikey like “um yes you’re a sad lonely mutant. your family didn’t want you, i saved you”

mikey tries to remember but can only recollect the last hazy memories where his brothers weren’t listening to him so he’s like “it must be true?”

ANYWAY the boys are panicking because they need to get to mikey and they’re sure it’s a trap but they don’t care cos they beat shredder before, they’ll do it again but they’re pretty taken aback when they realise getting into foot hq isn’t as easy as they though if shredder was just trying to lure them in. so like. what is his plan with mikey?

meanwhile shredder is training mike with a new pair of chucks, a black mask, he’s feeding him lies about how his family had no faith in him or wanted him in their team. mikey distresses that even if it’s true, he doesn’t want to harm anyone.

and shredder is like “oh yeah no we’re not about that here. we have honour”

meanwhile karai is unsure whether it’s a good idea what he’s doing or not. of course she’s part of the foot but in the shredders absence she was shaping it into something else and so she confronts shredder and this pisses him off and so he starts Plotting.

meanwhile the boys and splinter are making plans to get mikey back and so they sneak in to the foot hq one night, and shredder can see right through their plan but he lets them in (to which again leo is like. this is too easy something is wrong)

it’s then that shredder kills Karai (sorry karai) and shredder alerts mikey like “look what they did!! these monsters have no honor killing my Karai in her sleep like this! we have to avenge her!!”

and mikey doesn’t want to have to kill but he believes in putting his family first so he vows to avenger his “sister”.

so he goes up against leo raph and don who all are trying to get him to snap out of it once they realise what’s happening but mikey has already been warned by shredder that they might pull those kinds of tricks to get him to go with them.

basically they fight and whatever and it goes back and forth between them all, and eventually we have another rainy rooftop scene because they’re my favourite and it’s down to leo and mikey now and mikey is like “you don’t want me! shredder appreciates me!” and leo is like “he doesn’t he’s just USING you!!” mikey is torn and confused because he’s pretty sure his memories are slowly coming back.

leo apologies to mikey for not listening to him before. he apologises for putting him in danger and for the whole situation so far and then so do raph and donnie from where they’re sprawled out from where mike kicked their asses lol

and then just as mikey is about to switch sides, shredder comes out of nowhere and smacks him across the roof and leo is PISSED

all three brothers go back against shredder and they’re failing when suddenly mikey gets back up, the knock on his head giving him his memories back (because movie logic) and this time when he gives his directions and plans, they listen and execute it and they’re able to beat shredder :3

UH yeah that’s it. they go home and eat pizza and give their brother a big fat hug and it’s very happy and nothing bad ever happens to them again.

i literally made this up as a i went along so it’s missing characters and not that good but that’s just personally the kind of thing i’d like to see. idk lemme know your thoughts :)

#ask #anon #tmnt 2007

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sweetarethediscords · 10 months

Text

“Fool Me Once” - Part 5

Pairing: Kacchako, Bakugou Katsuki/Uraraka Ochako

CW: Cheating, Underage Drinking

<- Previous Part | From the Beginning

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Katsuki was able to spend the rest of the weekend in seclusion.

The small stash of food he kept in his dorm room mini fridge and the convection cooktop he stored under his bed for the nights the more inept members of his class had cooking duty served him well, allowing him to stay in his little bubble. A bubble where everything was quiet, where he could get lost in books, build that Gundam model his mom bought for him last Christmas. No manga or music though. The manga he read was much too… optimistic, and the music would mean his phone would have to be on.

Maybe for this Christmas he’d ask for a record player. Anything to make cell phones less of a necessary evil than they already were, filled with stupid text messages, and pictures, and status updates, and shame, and guilt.

He couldn’t do anything about the necessary evil known as time, however, but if he ever met someone with a Time Manipulation quirk he’d sure as shit make good friends with them if it meant avoid shit like the long, agonizing walk to Homeroom after shattering one of your best friends’ heart and lying to her about it.

Well not lying, omitting the truth about it.

Going behind her back and manipulating her.

Betraying her and having the gaul to think he did it for her honor.

And then ignore her after the fact because he was too much of a self-loathing selfish prick to take his fucking guilt on the chin.

Maybe he should call out sick. His stomach was starting to cramp.

“Bakubro!” Eijirou called, giving Katsuki a moment of warning before he clapped his hand onto his shoulder. “I thought you died or something! Were you that hung over? The guys and I’ve been texting you like crazy.”

Katsuki glanced over to find the redhead smiling much too tightly, his jaw tense, a vein bulging in the corner of his temple. Ei’s eyes shifted, gesturing over and over again to something just behind them.

Katsuki, against his best interest, looked over his shoulder and found a mound of pink curls and two, watery, black eyes.

“Oh Kitty Kat!” Mina lamented, taking his attention as permission to hug him. “I’m so sorry! You must be so heartbroken!”

Her arms, meant to be comforting, felt like a vice around his waist.

“I’m proud of you for coming out today. And I’m so so so sorry for not checking in on you! I was just so worried about Chako Chip that—

“Don’t worry about it, Pinky,” he patted her hand before peeling her arms off of him. He cleared his throat and asked the question he’d been avoiding. “How’s she holding up?”

Mina pursed her lips into a sour pout. “I was hoping you’d know.”

Katsuki’s chest hurt. “Why the hell would I know?”

“Because both of you have been holed up in your rooms since that night. I figured if y’all weren’t talking to us you’d at least be talking with each other.” She turned to Eijirou and grabbed his arm. “Now I’m really worried, Ei. Chako wasn’t at breakfast this morning. Tsu hasn’t—”

Eijirou took her hand in his and brought it up to his lips to kiss her knuckles. “I’m sure she just needs time, babe.” His eyes left her face to look at Katsuki. “You sure you’ve heard nothing?”

“My phone’s been off.” He fished the glorified glass brick out of his pocket. “I could check.”

“Yeah, check it once we get to class, bro.” He grabbed Katsuki’s shoulder again, a slight bit of tension in the hold that only made Katsuki’s stomach cramp more. “Don’t be surprised if you get a bunch of notifs though, we all were trying to get a hold of you.”

Katsuki rolled his shoulder to knock Ei’s hand off. “You could have knocked, ya know? I fucking live next door to you.”

“’Unless you’re dying, I’m dying, or the whole class is fucking dying, don’t fucking knock on my door,’” Ei replied in his best, curmudgeonly impression of the blond. “I didn’t hear you die, and you weren’t responding to texts so—” He shrugged. “I figured you just needed space.”

What I need is for whatever you want me to look at on my phone to not be there, Katsuki thought. Instead he just tsked, and rolled his eyes. “Fine. Right call. I would have blasted your face in.”

The walk down the hall to their homeroom was haunting. Was the hall always this quiet? Did it always echo their footsteps like that? Katsuki’s palms were sweating, his cramping stomach knotting tighter and tighter with each step. The only thing keeping him moving was his own stubbornness and the pair of footsteps trailing right behind him.

He grabbed the door handle, grip a little more crushing than intended, and held his breath as he opened it – not knowing what to find.

They were greeted with laughter. Happy, bubbly laughter.

Much too happy, bubbly laughter from someone who’s heart had been ripped out of her chest just short of 48 hours ago.

Ochako was laughing up a storm with Denki and Hanta, Tsu standing by her side the only ill-fitting piece to the scene with her uneasy smile compared to the wide grins of the others. The uneasy smile drifted towards Mina, froggy eyes pleading in confusion, searching for an answer Katsuki knew Mina couldn’t give.

He couldn’t give it either, unable to help his direct befuddled glare at her as he stepped beside her.

“Hey, Bakugou!” Her chipper disposition hit his chest before rising up to meet his face. “I was hoping you’d show up. You feeling better?”

“Yeah. Cheeks. Doing just peachy.” He scanned her expression, watching carefully for the truth behind that megawatt smile. There was no way she’d recovered that quickly. When her favorite manga ended she was red-eyed and mopey for a full week after. And that series had a happy ending. “And you?”

She shrugged and giggled. A forced giggle. More even and clipped on the edges, that her usual melodic laugh. “Finally got over my headache, thank goodness.” She looked to Denki and Hanta and rolled her eyes. “Remind me never to mix schnapps and vodka again.”

They laughed.

“I’m telling ya ‘Chako you gotta go green with me one day,” Hanta said. “No more hangovers, still having a good time, and it’ll save your liver.”

Ochako giggled again. “Maybe next time.” She turned back to Katsuki. “I wanted to ask if you were feeling up to a spar session tonight.”

“Tonight?” He looked past the bright facade in her eyes and found the pleading. Guilt made his chest ache. “What time?”

“Anytime works for me. Just gotta finish up whatever homework we get assigned today then I’m free as a bird.”

“We got that thing after dinner, Bakubro, remember?” Hanta interjected, pointedly staring at him. This had to be part of whatever bullshit Eijirou was hinting at.

Katsuki groaned. “It ain’t gonna take the whole fucking night, will it?”

“I don’t think so, but ya never know. When us guys get together—”

“How’s seven sound?” He cut him off. He didn’t want to spend anymore time necessary with the fuckers right now. Not when they were the dumbasses that got him into this fucking mess.

Ochako’s smile inched even wider. “Seven sounds, perfect. Meet you at our usual room?”

“Yup.”

The warning bell rang, prompting them to take their seats.The desk behind Katsuki’s remained empty.

Course the nerd wouldn’t show the fuck up. The future number one is probably clutching All Might’s pant leg crying about—

Aizawa entered the room just before the late bell rang, Izuku following behind with his head down before he broke off to take his seat.

Katsuki fought against the urge to trip him, and instead pulled out his phone to keep from giving the nerd the satisfaction of a death glare and turned it on. It shook in his hand violently as he held it hidden under his desk, each pulse of a new notification slicking his palms in more sweat. He wiped his hand on his pants, passing the phone from hand to hand so it wouldn’t slip out and clatter on the floor until the buzzing stopped.

42 notifications. The top message read: “Operation Milo Emergency Meeting. 2nd floor study hall, library north wing. 6pm.”

Fuck.

🔍🔍🔍🔍🔍

“So,” Hanta said with a heavy sigh. “That didn’t go as planned.”

“Of course it fucking didn’t, numbnuts!” Katsuki roared, voice shaking off the sound proof glass. “Where’s you fucking ‘class unity’ now, huh?!”

“I’m sure it ain’t that bad guys,” Tetsu naively reassured. “I saw Uraraka on my way back from math class. She was smiling!”

“She was smiling, but everyone else isn’t,” Shoto said, pretty boy face drawn into a pretty boy pout. “In all my three years here I’ve never had a quiet meal unless it was after a huge battle. You could hear a pin drop during lunch and dinner.”

“Thanks for stepping up to fight against Midoriya in one v. ones today, Sho,” Ei said. “Last thing we need is Aizawa catching on to what happened.

“Tch. Fucking please. Teach already knows.” Katsuki crossed his arms over his chest squeezing himself to stave off the growing urge to knock every last one of them’s teeth in. “Wasn’t a coincidence that he and Aizawa came in to home room together, and it wasn’t a fucking coincidence that the nerd wasn’t asked a fucking question during any of our classes.”

“Shit.” Tetsu’s teeth worried at his bottom lip. “You think we’re gonna get detention or something?”

“I think Aizawa couldn’t give a rat’s ass so long as this bullshit doesn’t fuck with our studies.”

“And besides,” Shoji added, voice calm and measured. “Outside of the party stuff, if anyone were to be punished it’d be Bakugou.”

Katsuki straightened up, glaring daggers into Shoji’s eyes. “You wanna run that back?”

Shoji was unperturbed by his ire. “Operation Milo was your idea, wasn’t it? You wanted to do something to press the issue.” The unjudging, matter-of-fact way of speaking sent a chill down Katsuki’s spine. “Too much pressure too quickly causes things to break.”

Katsuki ground his teeth. “Then why didn’t you stop me?”

“Enough burns to the face have taught us all to leave well enough alone when you’ve set your mind to something.”

“Shoji, dude,” Ei admonished lightly, and placed a hand on Katsuki’s shoulder. “We all wanted to do something and your idea—”

Katsuki swatted his hand away. “Don’t try it, Shitty Hair. He’s gotta point.”

A heavy silence lingered as each beat of Katsuki’s heart threatened to cave his chest in.

“So what do we do now?” Shoto asked.

“Fucking nothing,” Katsuki scoffed. “We’ve already shit the bed. No use rolling around in it.”

“Or we could clean the sheets,” Hanta offered. “If Midoriya and Uraraka show everyone that there’s no bad blood between them—”

“But Chako is all smiles.” Tetsu interrupted. “Why would anyone—”

“Because she’s faking it,” Katsuki answered. “If things were good between her and the nerd they’d be talking to each other, eating lunch like usual, goofing around with Glasses… the girls only lunch they had today is proof enough that everything isn’t okay.”

“Well, you’re sparring with her after this, right?” Hanta asked, already knowing the answer. “Talk to her about Midoriya, see if you can—”

“I ain’t seeing shit. I already fucked her up enough.” Katsuki grabbed his gym bag and stood. “I ain’t playing mind games with her.”

“Where are you going?” Shoto asked.

“This conversation is going nowhere. We made this mess, meddling will only spread the shit. Let’s just fucking lie in it and let time work it out.”

He slammed the door behind him as he left, cutting off whatever bullshit excuse they were about to spew next.

Katsuki’s knees gave out just outside the gym, the guilt, the nerves, the self loathing finally getting the better of him. He managed to make it to a nearby tree and leaned his head back up against the trunk as he sat and tried to catch the breath that kept escaping him. Fuck sparring with Cheeks, his heart was racing enough to make up for all the cardio routines he skipped this weekend.

Would telling her make it better? Worse? How fragile was she? She hadn’t texted him this weekend while he was AWOL, so maybe she was holding up better than he realized. Or maybe someone let it slip that he masterminded this whole fiasco, that he Izuku was shopping around with Melissa and the sparring session was a ruse for her to kick his ass.

Honestly he deserved to have his ass kicked, deserved to let the earth swallow him whole and send him down to—

Two small, soft, finger-padded hands clasped the sides of his face, clearing the tears blurring his vision.

When had he started crying?

“Bakugou? Are you alright?” Ochako asked.

He sniffled, blinking his eyes to clear the tears. “Yeah.”

“Yeah?” She wiped a tear from his cheek with her thumb. “It’s okay if you aren’t.” A sad smile, a true smile curled her lips. “I know I’ve cried so much these past few days my pillow is waterlogged.”

A fresh spring of tears welled up in his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

She shook her head and tutted. “You don’t have to apologize for crying to me. We’ve been through a lot.” She stood and offered out her hand. “Let’s throw it all out on the mat, huh? I’m warning you now though. My hits are really gonna pack a punch.”

~~~~~~~

Next Part ->

#kacchako #kacchako fanfic #angst #cheating #romance #friends to lovers #bakugou katsuki #bakugou #uraraka ochako #uraraka #bnha #third years #aged up characters #fool me once

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