#it counts too but it's just less of a problem of the mcu

[tooearlyforthis]

The Romance Section | Steve Harrington

Emerging from my hibernation to post this fever dream lol. Still on that Stranger Things high but I'll be getting back to some MCU stuff soon <3

Pairing: Steve Harrington x reader

Word Count: 4.6k

Synopsis: An unexpected friendship arises while working at Family Video and Robin is convinced that it could turn into something more.

Warnings: fluff, angst, friends to lovers, mutual pining

Click here to see my masterlist

In the 4 months since working at Family Video. Y/n L/n had never once worked a shift with Steve Harrington. Sure, they had run into each other a couple times, sharing a co-worker and best friend, Robin Buckley, but the two had never been alone together. 

That was, until this Monday.

Monday’s were always slow which is why Y/n was looking forward to spending her whole shift gossiping and talking movies with Robin. But when she opened the door, the last person she expected to see was the former “king” of Hawkins High. 

“Hey,” Steve said, awkwardly shifting his weight between his two feet. 

“I-I thought Robin was working today,” was all she could muster to say. 

“She’s sick, I’m just filling in.”

Nodding, Y/n warily made her way over to the front desk, putting her stuff behind the counter. What was she going to do for eight hours with Steve Harrington? From the little she knew about him, they were total opposites. He like sports, shitty blockbusters and went through women like they were nothing. There was nothing she could possibly think of that would make for interesting conversation with him.

Instead of attempting to make small talk about the weather and whatever new burger Benny decided to put on his menu, she opted for complete separation from him. After placing her bag on the ground, pulling out her water to keep on the small shelf below the register, she turned to face him. 

“Keith hasn’t reorganized this place since we were sophomores so I’m gonna go do that,” she said, walking away from the counter, not waiting for a response. 

“What about customers?” she heard him say from behind.

“It’s a Monday. I say we’re gonna have 5 customers for the entire day tops.”Turning into an isle, she opted to start with the arthouse films. 

“Hmm I say seven.”

Peeking her head from around the corner, she looked at him confused. He leaned against the counter, a smirk on his face like he had just predicted the Y2K problem. 

“Are you trying to challenge me?” she asked, unsure of what game he was playing. 

Shrugging his shoulders, he emerged from behind the counter. “Maybe I am. What do you say? Five or less, you win. Seven or more, I do.”

“What about in between?”

“Let’s call it a draw.”

Rolling her eyes, she withdrew back into the arthouse section. “Whatever to get you to stop talking, Harrington.”

It was a good 30 minutes before they spoke again. Nobody came in, like expected, but she could hear him fidgeting with something on the other side of the room. She didn’t care, though, let him do what he wanted it wasn’t bothering her… until it was. 

“Alright, what do you think?” he said, turning into the isle. He held up a drawing, not a particularly good one as Y/n couldn’t tell what it was supposed to be. 

“Of the blob you drew?” she asked, putting another tape back on the shelf. 

“It’s not a blob! It’s Mrs. Talc! The math teacher. You had her too right? We were in the same class?”

Y/n couldn’t contain her laughter. She brought a hand up to her mouth trying to hold back but it wasn’t working. “Yeah, we were but she didn’t look like that.”

Steve smiled, looking at his drawing and back at her. “I think it looks exactly like her.”

She kept laughing, Steve joining along as he moved next to her, picking up a film from her pile to organize. As the chuckles died down, she looked at him, smiling as he carefully placed the films back on the shelf. It was a moment before he realized her stare.

“What?” he asked, placing another tape on the shelf. 

“N-nothing,” she said quickly, grabbing a tape herself. “I didn’t know you actually knew how to work here.”

“Hey, I can do my job!”’

“Yeah but you’re Steve. King Steve who if I remember correctly, was failing Mrs. Talc’s class.” That seemed to strike a chord with him. She watched as his small smile disappeared, leaving a solemn expression on his face. “S-sorry I didn’t mean-“

“-No it’s okay,” he interrupted her. “I was King Steve, or at least that’s what everyone labeled me as… You were right I was failing Talc, but I’m different now. Changed for the better -hopefully.”

He took the last film, placing it on the shelf before looking down at her. She didn’t know what to say after judging him so harshly. Before even getting the chance to apologize, the front bell rang, indicating a customer walking in. 

Steve backed up, his gaze dropping to the floor. “I’ll go help them out,” he said, walking away without waiting for a response. 

She felt like shit, bringing up high school drama that he clearly wanted to forget. He was right, about him changing. If this was still high school he wouldn’t even be speaking to her right now - she was surprised that he even remembered they shared a class. 

As she turned the corner she watched as Steve intently recommended a movie to the customer. He put a smile on his face as he handed over the tape, patiently waiting as they viewed it. He was quite good at this job actually, she was never able to get someone to rent a tape as fast as he just did. 

The customer left the store, some blockbuster movie shoved into a plastic bag and Y/n decided right then and there that she would make an effort to know the new Steve Harrington. 

Walking up to the counter, she rested her arms on top. “Alright Harrington,” she started. “How about we make this bet more interesting?”

He was caught by surprise, not expecting to get another sentence out of his co-worker for the rest of the shift. “S-sure,” he mustered out, recovering quickly with a raised eyebrow. “What do you have in mind?”

“Loser buys the other lunch.”

He debated only for a moment before holding out his hand for her to shake. “Alright, L/n, you’ve got yourself a bet.”

With a smile she shook his hand before turning around to go start organizing another shelf. She couldn’t see from behind as she turned into the action movie section but Steve had a grin that reached from ear to ear. 

——

After that initial shift, the one where Steve ended up buying her lunch for the day, the two workers grew closer and closer. Y/n suddenly found herself having more one on one shifts with him, each which were filled with laughter and soon-to-be inside jokes. 

Robin was especially grateful for their new friendship, finally having her two best friends get along was the best gift she could’ve asked for - and she made no effort to hide that fact.

“I just can’t believe that you and the dingus are getting along!” she said, watching Y/n stack another tape on the shelf. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

“Yeah, well you were right,” Y/n said. “He’s changed since high school. He’s actually a decent human being now.”

“I told you so!”

“Robin, I just said you were right,” she reminded her friend, making them both chuckle slightly. 

Almost on cue, the doorbell rang and Steve Harrington walked through. Robin watched as her friend stood up straight, walking over to join her from behind the counter.

“Hey Steve,” Robin greeted him. “We were just talking about you.”

“What?” Y/n said quickly, seeing the confused look on his face turning to face him. “No we weren’t. What’s up? I thought it was your day off?”

“It is, I just grabbed the wrong tape when I left yesterday and Henderson is throwing a hissy fit. I’ll just go grab the right one… do you wanna help me?”

“S-sure!” Y/n exclaimed, walking out from around the counter to head over with him.

Robin watched the scene unfold in front of her with suspicion. She watched as Steve fumbled with the tape he was holding, walking closely next to his new friend. Y/n made no move to back away, smiling as she tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. It was like a scene straight out of a movie. Robin watched as Steve picked up the new tape, brushing over Y/n's hand softly in the process. 

Backing away slightly, he raised a hand to her. “See you Buckley!”

“Bye Harrington!” she yelled as Y/n made her way back over to the counter with a smile she wasn’t trying to hide. “Alright,” Robin began to her. “When were you gonna tell me?”

Y/n looked at her confused. “Tell you what?”

“That you and Harrington are dating!”

“What!?” she exclaimed, taking a step back. “M-me and Steve? What- no- why- we’re not dating.”

“Well you coulda fooled me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Steve didn’t need help exchanging that tape. He works here he just wanted to be near you! And the way you too were smiling and blushing? I mean, you’re not dating, you guys have it bad for each other.”

“I do not like Steve like that, Robin!” Y/n persisted, crossing her arms. 

“Whatever you say… Hey, you’re still going to Nancy’s party tomorrow right?”

“Yeah I’ll be there… I’m gonna go take my break.”

Waving bye, she headed into the back room, Robin’s comment still on her mind. Steve and her dating? That was ridiculous! She liked talking to him, having his company during work made the shifts feel like they were going by faster. And sure, she liked the way he chuckled at her jokes, like everything she said was clever. 

But they were just friends. 

Even if she did like him, Steve definitely did not think of her the same way. She needed to stop thinking about this. There was no good in dwelling over things that weren’t true.

🎬🎬🎬 

The party at Nancy Wheeler’s was more packed than usual. Y/n didn’t know that she was friendly with this many people but nevertheless, the house was packed. She moved through the living room in an attempt to get to the kitchen when she heard her name being called out. 

“Y/n!” she turned to see Robin, her arm strung over her girlfriend Vickie. 

“Hey guys,” she returned. “Packed house huh?”

“Yeah I think the football team heard it was going on and crashed it,” Vickie commented, practically yelling over the voices around them.

Y/n nodded, searching for a clear path to the kitchen.

“Looking for someone?” Robin said with a smirk.

“No?” Y/n said, not knowing what she was talking about. “I’m trying to find the quickest way to get a beer.”

“Maybe he can help you.” Robin motioned behind her to someone. 

Turning, Y/n was caught by surprise. Steve Harrington was in the living room, look around like he didn’t know what to do. She turned back to Robin and Vickie to ask why he was here but they were gone before she could.

“Hey, L/n,” said Steve, causing her to look back at him.

“H-hey,” she said awkwardly. “I didn’t know you would be here.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I didn’t think you and Nancy were on good terms… I heard about how she dumped you in high school…”

“Yeah…” he said, remembering back to the day she was talking about. “It’s fine, we weren’t meant for each other but we’re still good friends.”

Y/n nodded, looking around not knowing what to do. “So… beer?” she asked. 

“Beer,” he agreed. 

The two finally made their way to the kitchen grabbing two bottles before suddenly there was an arm back on Y/n's shoulder. A friend from high school hastily pulled her away from Steve, giving her just enough time to give him an apologetic look.

As her friend went on, drowning her in every detail of her life since the moment they last saw each other, Y/n tried to think of every possible way to escape the conversation. She tried to go to the bathroom, scan the room for Robin, and even just make up an emergency altogether, but the girl wouldn’t stop speaking. She droned on and on about her boyfriend and how they were going to move in together, not even letting Y/n speak a word. To put it simply, she was exhausted. 

It wasn’t until the girl finally left with her friend that Y/n realized they had been talking for nearly the entire party. She looked around, watching as people crashed to the floor or leaving without saying any goodbyes - she had missed the entire thing. 

The house was a mess and since the party was basically dead now anyways, she thought it was as good as time as any to start cleaning up. Finding a trash bag in the kitchen, she opted to start with the empty cans left in the living room. Slowly putting one bottle after the other in to the bag, she heard someone call out for her. 

Groaning, she turned around, hoping for it not to be her old high school friend. When she saw who it was, a smile was brought to her face.

“Where have you been all night?” asked Steve Harrington, plopping down on the sofa.

“Getting my ear talked off by some girl we used to go to school with. It was so boring,” she told him, putting another can in the bag. 

“Hey, what are you doing?”

“Helping clean up, maybe you should too.”

“No,” he waved her off. “Stop that, I hired cleaners to come in the morning.”

Y/n dropped her bag to the side, trying to process what he just say. “I’m sorry you paid for someone to come? Damn Harrington, throwing around the big bucks.”

He gave a small chuckle as she sat down on the couch next to him, their shoulders bumping slightly at the sudden movement. 

“Yeah well what else am I gonna use it for. Might as well help some friends out right?” 

“I guess so…”

Silence took the air for only a moment before Steve continued. “…my parents are never home,” he started up again, a more serious tone taking over his voice. “When you’re constantly alone, it’s easy to get swept up in making yourself busy to uh, block out any of the feelings…so whether it be finding a minimum wage job, hanging out too much with Robin, or paying to have cleaners come to your exes house…it just helps to take your mind off things…”

He trailed off into silence again, scouring to himself for oversharing with someone he barely new. Y/n could tell he was getting tense, the way his shoulders caved in, trying to engulf himself. 

“I get what you mean,” she responded softly, trying to make him feel better.

He looked over at her, his eyebrows raised in surprise. “Yeah?”

Nodding, she continued. “My dad left when I was little… it’s really only been me and my mom for as along as I can remember. I’m so used to cleaning up and taking care of others sometimes it feels like my brain just goes on auto pilot. Like if I’m not helping others I won’t stop to realize I’m not taking care of myself.”

She could see his eyes soften, looking at her like he wasn’t expected to hear her unannounced childhood trauma. 

“S-sorry,” she backtracked, looking down at her lap. “That got a little deep there for a second.”

Quickly Steve replied, “Don’t apologize.” She looked back up at him; he was leaning closer to her, almost feeling his breath against her face. “I like learning new things about you. The good and the bad.”

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.”

She felt herself moving closer, her eyes darting from his eyes down to his lips.

“I like learning new things about you too.”

His hand reached up, cupping her cheek, pulling her in closer. They were practically connected, their lips barely hovering over each other. It was in that moment that Y/n decided, Fuck it.

She closed the gap between them, feeling the hand on her face apply a little but more pressure. It was slow, like they were savoring each last bit of the kiss, like it would be the first and last time this would be happening.

Y/n pushed into him, pulling him closer by the waist as she felt his other hand tangle in her hair. He moaned into her mouth, turning his head to get a new angle. It felt…nice; something she hadn’t expected from the playboy of her old high school. 

Slowly, they pulled away, wanting only a moment to catch their breaths before diving back in. But before their lips could connect again, someone called out for him.

“Steve!” He turned his head, his hair brushing against her face before she turned as well. In stumbled a very drunk Eddie Munson, a bottle of beer dropping from his hands. “H-have u seeen Chrisslsly?” he asked, slurring his words. 

“No, Munson I haven’t,” he replied, a tone of annoyance in his voice. 

Eddie tripped over the hem of the rug, falling on the floor before rolling over on his back aching. Y/n felt Steve leave her embrace, getting up to go help up his friend. Leaning down, he took one of Eddie’s arms and draped it over his shoulder.

“Come on, Munson, let’s get you home.”

Without another word, another acknowledgment of what had just occurred, he left, taking his drunk interrupter with him. 

“What the fuck just happened?” Y/n whispered to herself. 

She ran her hands over her face, like she would wake up from a dream any minute now. But as her eyes opened again she found she was still on Nancy Wheeler’s couch, in shock that she just made out with one of her best friends. 

🎬🎬🎬 

“You’re fucking kidding me!” Robin exclaimed, leaning over the counter of Family Video. 

Y/n was restocking the sci-fi movies, relaying the events of the previous night’s party. “Come on Robin,” she said, putting another movie on the shelf. “It was just a kiss.”

“A kiss?! Y/n, that wasn’t just a kiss. That was a declaration of love!”

She rolled her eyes. “Come on, be serious. It was barely anything.”

“Well what does Steve think about this?”

“I haven’t talked to him since it happened…” Y/n said trailing off. “…Eddie came in drunk and he had to leave pretty quickly.”

“And he hasn’t called?”

She shook her head. “Hence why it was only a kiss. He didn’t mean anything more than that.”

“Y/n, Steve doesn’t just kiss anyone.”

“Did we go to the same high school?” she asked sarcastically. 

“Come on, you know he’s changed since then. How else would you guys be friends?” Robin emerged from behind the counter, walking up and grabbing her with both shoulders. “Trust me. He likes you. Eddie just got in the way and he’s probably too nervous to call.”

Robin was being very persistent and it was not helping Y/n's case. She didn’t want to admit it, but, she liked kissing Steve Harrington. She liked that he opened up to her and wanted to know more about her. He was the first boy that felt to her like he actually cared. 

But he didn’t call her, didn’t even acknowledge their kiss as he left the party with Eddie. Sure, he changed his ways but she knew for a fact that Harrington charm was still there. Why wouldn’t he call if it wasn’t just a kiss? 

“I’m going back to restocking,” Y/n said, wanting to be done with the conversation. 

Robin groaned, walking back to her place at the counter. “All my friends are idiots,” she murmured under her breath.

🎬🎬🎬 

Another week went by without any call or talk from Steve. That was, until she walked in for another morning shift, one that she was expecting to see Robin at. 

As she opened the doors to Family Video, finding they were already unlocked, she stumbled back slightly. Steve was already behind the counter, playing with some Rubik’s cube as he waited for the shop to open. 

When he noticed her enter, Steve stood up, tossing the cube to the side, leaning his hands on the counter. “H-hi,” he said awkwardly.

Still in shock that he was here, she got straight to the point. “What are you doing here?”

“Robin, uh, called out sick again.”

Nodding, she put her bag down, not knowing what to do. They hadn’t spoken in over a week, a week since he kissed her and left without another word. She wanted a normal shift with her best friend, one where she didn’t have to worry about what she did or said, or if he was going to reject her to her face. 

“I’m just gonna go organize the romance section,” she said, walking away without another word. 

The shift turned from painful silent into one of the busiest days they had in a along time. Y/n got maybe two tapes on the shelf before a customer came up to ask her a question. Looking over to the counter, hoping Steve could help, she saw he too had another customer at the front. 

With a smile, she turned back to the women in front of her, directing her over to the silent movie section. The first half of their shift went on like that, always someone helping a customer and having no time to do anything else. 

When the half way mark hit and Y/n was able to come back from lunch, it was finally empty. She sighed, watching as Steve went to the back to begin his break, happy she would finally have time with her own thoughts. 

While she was helping the customers, Robin’s words still played in the back of her mind. Steve doesn’t just kiss anyone, he’s changed. It didn’t matter cause he would have talked to her by now - called at least. No, she wouldn’t bring it up because it would only lead to rejection and Y/n didn’t think she could handle that. 

The door in the back slammed close and Y/n peeped her head around the corner to see Steve emerge from the break room. They made eye contact for a moment before she stuff her head back into the romance section, set on organizing the shelf. 

Two hours had past and every now again she check around the corner to see if there were any new customers. There wasn’t but she could see her coworker getting antsy, like he needed to say something but she would hide every time he tried. She had finished organized the section pretty early on, but there was nothing left to do so there she sat, reorganizing the shelf once more. 

Y/n stuck her head out one more time, expecting to see him at the front desk but he was no where to be seen. Thinking he left to get something from the back, she tuned around to grab another tape. The last thing she was expecting to see Steve Harrington standing behind her. Yelping, she jumped back slightly, trying to catch her breath. 

“Jesus, Steve! Why are you standing there like that?!” she exclaimed. 

“You’re ignoring me,” he stated. 

She sighed, grabbing the film. “No, I’m not.”

“Yes you are,” he continued, watching as she continued her task. “You’ve been reorganizing the same section for over two hours.”

“It’s messy,” she shrugged.

“Bullshit.” 

As she went to put another tape on the shelf, he reached out a hand and blocked it. He stepped closer to her as she turned to him, not wanting to deal with his little fit. Staring up at him, she felt her gaze soften to match his. He looked distraught, like he was a bubble that could burst any second. 

In a soft voice he said, “We have to talk about it.”

Oh boy. She couldn’t do this. Not now, not here. “Talk about what?” she asked, knowing full well that was a lie.

Steve rolled his eyes. “Oh come on.”

She stepped back from him, needing to get away from how close they once were. Slowly she shook her head. “No, we don’t,” she finally gave in. 

“I think we do-“

“No!” she interrupted him, leaning against one of the stacks of tapes. She let her head hit the top shelf behind her as she closed her eyes in defeat. “I won’t let you reject me to my face so let’s just skip this conversation and go on with our shift.”

When she opened her eyes, she saw that Steve was once again in front of her. Making no move to walk away, she watched as he placed both his hands on either side of the shelf, trapping her in his gaze. 

“I lied,” he said plainly. 

“What?”

“I lied, Robin isn’t sick I asked her to trade shifts with me.”

Y/n felt her heart beating faster. What was he saying? What did this mean? 

“Why?” she asked him.

Steve rolled his eyes. “Why do you think?” He leaned in closer, his face inches from hers. “I don’t think that kiss was a mistake, and I really wanna kiss you again.”

Y/n felt her heart drop. Was this real? Was she dreaming right now? She looked up into his eyes, they made her feel like she was the only one in the world. Fuck it, dream or not, she really wanted to kiss him back.

“Then do it,” she said. 

Before the words could even finish forming on her tongue, Steve leaned in, capturing her lips on his. She felt her hands find their way to his waist, trying to pull him closer to her. He pressed her more against the shelf, the kiss quickening and becoming more intense by the second. 

There was almost no time to come up for air as he leaned down to kiss her again. It felt desperate, like thirst you couldn’t quite get rid of. She smiled into the kiss, feeling him do the same. 

They were both so stupid denying their feelings for each other. It was obvious how they felt, and now kissing him in the romance section, she couldn’t figure out why she waited. 

As he moaned into her mouth, the door of Family Video rang. Quickly, they pulled apart, turning their heads to the door. A very shocked Vickie stood, still on the front doormat. Y/n pushed Steve away, trying to clean up her appearance like it would erase what their friend had just seen. 

“Vickie-” Steve tried to start with her but he was cut off quickly.

“-Oh Robin is so going to freak when she hears about this!” she exclaimed, turning to walk back out the store. 

“Wait did you need something?” Y/n asked, wondering why she came in to begin with. 

“Not anymore!” she shouted, bolting to her car outside. 

Y/n heard Steve say, “Shit,” as he moved closer to her, wrapping his arms around her from behind and resting his head on her shoulder. “Robin is not going to live this down is she?”

“No, I don’t think she will.”

He leaned down, trying to kiss her again but Y/n put a finger up to his lips. She turned around to face him properly. 

“No,” she said.

“But I really wanna kiss you again,” he whined. 

“You can… after you help me organize the romance section.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a smirk, walking over and putting tapes of the shelf. 

Y/n laughed watching as he tried to rush through the task. Steve Harrington was a goofball and very bad at communicating his feelings but that didn’t matter anymore. She found her place next to him, helping put the tapes away smiling at the thought of their kiss in the romance section. 

#fanfic #fanfiction #flutt #angst #smut #ao3 #wattpad #strangerthings #strangerthings fluff #strangerthings4 #steve harrington #steve harrington fluff #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington smut #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x y/n #steve harrington x you #steve harrington x oc #steve harrington oc #joe keery #djo #80s #st 4 #st fic

[rubynationwins]

The Best Part of Waking Up (18+)

PA! Steve Rogers x Dom!Boss! Reader

Summary: His boss may not be a morning person, but it’s up to Steve to get you to work on time. Things don’t exactly go the way he expects, though.

My Masterlist

Word Count: 4,153

Warnings: smut, slight dub-con/coercion, light dom/sub, mild use of restraints, power imbalance, oral - m & f receiving, petnames, dirty talk, body-inclusive reader, fem reader

A/N: First time dabbling w/ dom reader so I hope that element presents itself well. Personally, I think mcu Steve (especially in the earlier movies) screams sub😋 so I will probably experiment more with that aspect of his character in future fics too😍 Tho not always bc dom Steve is just...🤌🏻  Like, comment, reblog, I always appreciate feedback so plz let me know what u think!

This story should not be posted anywhere else without my express permission.

Thanks for reading!

-Ruby

“Steve, I need you to wake me up at exactly 5:30 tomorrow morning.”

Those were the words that kept rattling around in Steve’s head as he rode the elevator to the top floor of the lavish apartment building you resided in. When the elevator’s bell dinged and its doors slid open, he swallowed heavily as he stepped into the modern-looking hallway.

This was not going to be enjoyable.

It wasn’t that the early rise bothered Steve, he usually woke up at 6 am to go on a run before work, so an hour or two earlier didn’t kill him. The problem laid in how you acted in the early waking hours. You were notorious for your hatred of mornings. You weren’t a fan of them in general, and waking up before 8 am was pure agony. For him.

Sure, you disliked mornings, but he was the one who had to deal with your cranky attitude and unyielding criticism of every single thing he did when you were tired. A 5:30 morning wake up call was definitely going to put you in a foul mood, and Steve would be the recipient of that sleep-deprived anger. Even worse than that was actually trying to wake you up.

It was a well-known fact that normal alarms were no match for you. He had replaced many broken alarm clocks and phones that you had thrown across the room in your slumbering rage. You claimed that you had no memory of your destructive actions since you were such a deep sleeper, but Steve suspected you just didn’t want to admit that you threw such dramatic fits. You always carried an air of  assertive power with you, and breaking alarm clocks did not fit that professional aura. 

So, because of said fits, when it was vital that you arise earlier than what your circadian rhythm deemed acceptable, someone had to physically wake you up. That didn’t mean you were any less violent, it just meant you couldn’t get rid of them by throwing them at a wall– not for lack of trying.

Steve hadn’t yet had the displeasure of being the one to wake you up, but you had point blank told him to do it, so he couldn’t shirk the responsibility onto one of the lesser assistants.

Which was why he was now unlocking your apartment door with his spare key. He flicked on the entryway light as he walked across the threshold. He knew the layout of your home as well as his own — significantly smaller — apartment. As your personal assistant, he was at your beck and call 24/7, which entailed a lot of house visits. He glanced over at the couch he slept on whenever you worked late into the night without dismissing him for the evening, even though you had a guest bedroom.

He set your steaming cup of coffee on the counter along with your usual breakfast. Hopefully, they would compel you to rise without making a scene. Glancing at his watch, he headed down the hallway and stopped at your closed bedroom door. It was 5:28. You had said exactly 5:30, so he waited with bated breath as he watched the tiny hands of his watch tick. As soon as the long hand hit ‘6’ he opened the door while saying in a voice that lacked conviction, “It’s 5:30, time to wake up, ma’am.”

There was no response. He looked toward the large bed and saw a lump covered in lush blankets. It rose and fell with your every deep breath. He stayed at the door, but increased his volume, “You have a very important meeting, so you need to wake up.” Your slumbering form didn’t move an inch.

Steve cleared his throat loudly but still, nothing. With a frustrated sigh, he walked closer to your bed and repeated himself. He was met with the same, unmoving response. So far, Steve had stayed out of arm's reach, keeping an eye out for any sudden movements. When it was clear that method wasn’t going to work, he gave in and moved to the side of your large bed.

He held his breath as he reached out and grasped what he hoped was your shoulder – it was hard to tell with all the blankets – and began shaking it. His coworkers who’d had the misfortune of waking you up before had said this was the best tactic. After a few seconds, he felt you shift and heard a low groan. He kept shaking, upping his speed just a bit and leaning into it.

Just get it over with, Steve.

Suddenly, the pile of blankets rolled away, and he fell forward into the mattress. He let out a loud “oof!” as he landed face first into the soft but firm cushion. He heard what sounded like the mutterings of a gargoyle as the bundle beside him squirmed. At least he’d done something. Hopefully, now you could hear what he was saying, “It’s a little past 5:30 now so you should really get out of bed and-”

He was cut off by a mountain of blankets tossed on top of him like a tsunami. Startled, he thrashed under the smothering heap of expensive fabrics until he was finally able to throw them onto the floor. When he got his bearings, he turned around and found you sleeping on the opposite side of the mattress. You were curled up on your side, a pillow clutched around your head.

With more caution, he approached you again. That time it was blankets, next it might be something that could actually leave a dent. He glanced at the large bedside lamp that sat next to you and felt sweat start to bead at his forehead.

At this point, he felt ridiculous. He, a grown man, was stealthily crawling across an unreasonably wide bed while his power-house of a boss snoozed on the other side. He had never imagined being the executive assistant for one of the most powerful women in the city would end up like this.

When he reached you, he stretched out a hand and squeezed your upper arm, cringing as he did so. You didn’t throw anything at him, which he took as a good sign. When he spoke, he tried to keep his voice calm and low so he didn’t startle you so much, “Hey, boss. It’s-uh, time to wake up and start the day,” he sounded like a cautious dad trying to wake up his unruly kid from a nap, “I know you don’t care for mornings, but I got something special waiting for you that’ll really help boost your energy. Get that blood pumping.” The only reply he got was the muffled sound of your even breathing. He dropped his hand and looked towards the ceiling in desperation, out of ideas other than to throw you out of bed.

He was gearing up the courage to shake you awake again when he heard the rustling of covers. He whipped his head down and saw you slowly rise so that you were leaning on your elbow. The pillow you had been hiding under was nowhere to be found. Your back still faced him, and he sucked in a breath when you shifted on your elbows to face him.

His words caught in his throat when your eyes finally met his. They weren’t sharp and demanding like he was used to. In fact, your whole face held a softness he had never seen before. You were always serious and commanding. Now, though, your eyes were glazed over with a sleepy haze, eyelids only half open. Your fluttering eyelashes cast shadows on your delicate cheeks. You blinked a few times before your eyes slowly scanned him.

Steve’s body was stiff as a board and he felt like his tie was too tight around his neck. He had no clue how to act in this situation. He fell back on the manners his mother had instilled in him at a young age. He glanced at his watch, “Ma’am, it’s now 5:42, so we need to get going soon.” He looked back over at you and saw that you hadn’t shifted, your eyes still partially glazed over. It looked like you were still half asleep.

Your lips opened and Steve once again froze in place, “You said you have something special for me?” The sound of your low, raspy morning voice made Steve shift in his spot. He pondered your words, and then it dawned on him.

“Yes, I’ll go get it right now, Ma’am.” Steve scooted towards the edge of the bed. His plan was to sprint to the kitchen and back with your breakfast in hand before you had the chance to lay back down.

His exit plan was thwarted, however, when he a warm body pressed up against his back. You slung your arms over his shoulders and held him against your chest. You brought a hand up to his cheek and turned his head to face you as you leaned forward. “What-”

You curled your fingers in his hair and brought his lips to yours, hot and wanting. He let out a strangled gasp in surprise and you took advantage of the opportunity and plunged your tongue past his open lips. He was too stunned to do anything but react to your sudden advance, leaning into the heated kiss. When you flicked his tongue with yours he mewled and joined you in a fight for dominance. Your soft lips pressed against his as you explored his mouth. The kiss was fierce and rough, a mash of greedy need. When you pulled away he felt light-headed, his lips raw and his dick twitching in his pants.

You threw a leg over to straddle his lap, sitting right on top the bulge blooming in his suit pants. You giggled. The unfamiliar sound you emitted snapped him out of his reverie. He grabbed your shoulders before you could lock lips with him again, keeping your intoxicating scent at bay.

“W-wait. Y/N-I mean, boss, ma’am-whatever. What are you doing?” He let out a muddled huff and shifted beneath you as your core rubbed against his clothed cock. Everything was happening so fast, he needed to stop before he lost his grip and did something he knew you’d both regret. “Y-You’re not awake yet. And-and even if you were we can’t do this.” He attempted to push you off, but you grabbed his wrists and ground your pussy down into his crotch. He let out a lewd moan and cursed under his breath. You giggled again, the sound ringing in his ears.

You pouted your lips but your eyes were calculating, the sleep slowly draining from them, “What do you mean? You promised me a special treat, and now you’re taking it away from me? I expect my top employee to follow through on his promises. He should know that kind of behavior will get him in trouble.” Your voice was coated in honey as you slowly humped him, and he felt a growing damp spot on his pants. He didn’t know if it was from you or him or both, but he didn’t care. All his mind do was focus on his throbbing cock and keen for more contact. His dick wasn’t even inside you and he was already pussy-drunk.

“I-I was talking about coffee,” his weak voice trailed off at the end and he sucked in a sharp breath when you shifted so that you were only straddling his right thigh. Your knee dug into his growing erection.

“I think-” You ground your pussy against his thigh, rubbing back and forth- “that a much more efficient way to give us both a boost of energy-” Your sleep shorts did nothing to prevent his pant leg from getting soaked in your dripping arousal- “Would be an orgasm.”

He had no comeback, too captivated by the feeling of your wet pussy sliding against his thick, muscular thigh. He couldn’t help himself from bucking into your touch to get more friction against your knee. You gasped and he moaned when you pressed it forward, grinding into his bulge.

He didn’t get to enjoy the feeling for too long, though, because you moved it away. Before he could protect, you pressed your palms against his chest and pushed him onto his back. He looked up at you as you leaned over him. You brought your hands to his collar and removed his red tie, undoing the half windsor knot in a heartbeat. Your fingers made light work of the buttons on his navy dress shirt and you pushed the material away as you explored the hard plains of his chest with your warm hands. His skin was flushed and sweaty. You flicked his nipple and he flinched, bringing his hands up to hold your waist. You stilled. “Hands off.” He immediately dropped them, your tone sounded like the commanding one he was used to, with an extra warning bite to it. “Above your head.”

“Wh-” he yelped when you pinched his nipple.

“I said, hands above your head, Mr. Rogers.”

Your tight grip only relaxed when he did what you demanded. With practiced motions, you quickly fastened them together, using his tie. “Now keep them there like a good boy and you’ll be rewarded.” His cock twitched at the nickname and you noticed. “Oh! Does it turn you on that I’m in charge? You’re such a big, strong man, so let me take control for once. We both know I already do outside of the bedroom, so this shouldn’t be too difficult.” You leaned down and whispered in his ear, “And you say ‘yes ma’am’ like the perfect little assistant you always are.”

Steve shivered at the feeling of your hot breath cresting the shell of his burning ear, “Y-yes, ma’am.” He had never felt so dirty in all his life. There was something about giving you control that made him weak in the knees.

“Good boy, Steve.” You pressed a quick kiss against his temple and pulled back up, once again looming over him. With his hands placed above his head, he felt more exposed than he’d ever been in his life. He wasn’t much of a player as it was, so this was wildly out of his comfort zone. But still, he’d never been so turned on in his entire life.

You ran your hands down his chest, raking your nails across his skin. He hissed at the sting but when you settled at his pants belt, a whine caught in his throat. You fiddled with the belt buckle. “I could help you out down here, as a thank you for all the loyal, dedicated service you’ve given me.” You straightened up and pulled your loose, silk top off. Steve could have melted. You weren’t wearing a bra, so your tits were on full display. He felt drool collect at the corner of his mouth at the look of your nipples. He wanted to suck them, worship them, worship all of your body. You shifted slightly and he looked down as you shimmied out of the matching silk shorts. “Or-” you said as you returned your hands to the top of his pants- “I could ride your face like it’s a fucking saddle.”

His cock strained. He’d be satisfied with either option, he just wanted to feel more of you, however you dished it out. You grinned like a wolf, he guessed you had made your decision, which was a good thing because he was about to bust. “Or, how about we do both?”

You unbuckled his belt, undid his pants, and pulled them down to his knees. His groan was low and instinctual when you grabbed his dick and stroked it up and down. While still stroking him, you pivoted your body so that your ass faced him. His hands itched to grasp your ass cheeks and squeeze. You must have noticed because you clucked your tongue. “Remember, no touching.”

He dropped his jaw, tongue at the ready as you backed up further and landed on his face. He lapped at your flowing juices like a man who had been lost in the desert for a year and had finally found water. The sound of your lecherous moans only egged him on further, and he dug into what was soon becoming the best meal of his life. He plunged his tongue further into your pussy, passing your entrance and diving right into your dripping hole. He repeated the motion over and over while nuzzling into your heat. His chin brushed against your clit and you mewled.

Until that point, you had been steadily stroking his straining cock from tip to base at a torturous pace. As you ground your pussy into his wanting face, you lowered your head and enveloped the tip of his cock in your mouth. You sucked up the precum beading from it and hummed at the musky taste. Steve’s hips bucked up and he groaned into your core. You dug your nails into his thigh as a warning. He panted against you but didn’t stop in his quest to make you come.

You continued to suck his cock, it was large and girthy, but you were plenty up for the challenge. Inch by inch, you lowered your head, pausing to adjust to his overwhelming size. His cock burned through your throat, but it was well worth it when you felt his absolutely feral reaction against your cunt.

He sucked against your clit and you groaned around him, starting to bob your head up and down. You worked together in tandem, sucking and licking. Steve’s cock was large and thick, it was heavy in your mouth as you worked your way down him, not quite reaching the base. You groan around him, the vibration and squeeze of your throat was sending tingles of heat through him.

When he flicked his tongue on your clit, you started pumping with a new vigor as you ground your hips down onto his face, riding him like a god damn horse.

 It was the sexiest thing he’d ever experienced.

He felt lightheaded, partially from his life being sucked from cock, and that his entire face was enveloped by your velvety flesh and heady essence. He only got little spouts of air in when you would hover off of him for a second. Each time you did, he whined, wanting your sweet cunt back on him. He didn’t need to breathe, he just needed to consume you, devour your pussy like you were devouring his dick.

He’d never felt this kind of pleasure in his life, and having you on top, you in control, it brought out something deep inside him he never knew existed. He felt a connection beyond simple fucking; beyond the lines now blurred between work and play.

It was an undeniable urge to please, to obey. The want for his own release paled in comparison to his want to give you everything he had. Because he needed to be the one that gave you pleasure, that ate you out with abandon until you became moaning mess. All the while, you still held the reigns, able to lift away were he to make even one unapproved movement. So, he blissfully did what you commanded. Let the stress of his life and job fall away, and just focus on the singular task of getting you to cum on his tongue.

He could have spat his load ages ago, probably without you even touching him, but he knew that was taboo. He had to have permission. He just couldn’t voice his pleas. His desperation for relief from the almost painful torment you were giving him was muffled by your weeping cunt. You must have noted his obvious need, because the next time you popped off his dick, you replaced your mouth with a warm hand and asked, “Do you need to cum, Stevie?”

He moaned, that simple nickname coming from you did something to his brain. He tried to nob but you pressed against his head harder, wiggling your hips. 

“I’ll tell you what. since you’ve been such a good boy for me and have been eating out my cunt like a starving man, I’ll let you cum.”

Tears were welling in Steves eyes as you teased his cock, rubbing your hand around his cockhead, swirling beads of his precum along the thick veins. 

“First, though, you have to make me cum, understand?”

Steve’s reply of, “Yes, Ma’am,” was muffled from underneath you.

You chuckled. “Go ahead, then.”

He ran his tongue between your slit, collecting your dripping juices and mixing them with his own saliva. He brought the salacious mixture up to your bundle of nerves and twirled it around your trembling little nub. The sound of your moans combined with the sloppy shlucking of his own ministrations was like music to his ears. 

When your moans morphed into blissed out praises, “Good boy, that’s it. So good - so good for me Stevie,” he lost all sense of control. Like a feral animal, he growled into your heat, nipping at his irresistible prey. He grazed your throbbing clit with his teeth and then fluttered his tongue on it. The sudden teasing took you to the edge, and when you pressed your ass down for more, he met you, smacking his lips around your sensitive clit and sucking. Not holding back, you mewled and cried out as your orgasm shot through your body, blazing with the most divine fire imaginable. You shuddered over him as he gobbled the arousal flowing from your quaking walls like a fountain.

Your pleasure still rolled through you as you bent back down and enveloped his cock in your mouth. Drool and precum slid down the sides as you pressed down, taking him all the way to the hilt. He didn’t know how you could possibly breathe, but before he could grumble his concerns, you swallowed around his pulsing length. The feel of his dick hitting the back of your throat as you gagged around his massive size was like heaven.

He almost couldn’t believe you were doing this with such vigor. The blowjobs he’d received in the past always seemed like a chore for his partners, something they had to do solely for his pleasure.

But not you. The both of you knew who was calling the shots. You could have gotten your fill, kicked him out of your apartment, and he wouldn’t have voiced a single complaint. The fact that you wanted him to cum in your mouth, that you craved his release as much as he craved yours, it set him on fire in a way he’d never experienced before. It was incredible. You were incredible.

God, your fucking mouth was incredible.

When you brought a hand to his balls and squeezed, he had no choice but to let go. His cum shot up into your wanting mouth as you sucked the leaking tip of his cock, pumping the base to milk out every last droplet so you could swallow it down.

Steve kept himself from bucking up into your throat, he knew better than that now. He roared into your pussy, the aftershocks of his orgasm shaking through his sweat-drenched body. He lapped at your sopping folds, drinking up every drop of your sweet nectar, still starving for your essence. You swallowed it down.

Steve let out a groan of protest when you pulled your delectable pussy away from him. His eyes were fixed on your ass like it had hung the moon. You shifted so that you were once again face-to-face. Reaching out, you untied his hands. He kept them in place until you gave the word to move. “That’s my good boy. Go ahead now, you can even have a little touch.”

With your permission, he placed his hands on your heavenly ass. Before he could partake in anymore of your generosity, a blaring thought shot into his mind. He wrenched his left hand off you to check his watch. “Shit! It’s 7:15! There’s no way we’re making it to the meeting on time.”

You set a hand on his chest, stilling his instinctive personal assistant panic. “Don’t worry about it, Stevie. They called last night to say it was pushed back to this afternoon. I guess I forgot about my-” A smirk played across your lips-“Wakeup call. My bad,” you chuckled, giving him a knowing wink.

Steve didn’t have the energy to even be a little bit annoyed at the (supposed) mix up. This was the best morning of his life.

#Steve Rogers #steve rogers smut #Steve Rogers x reader #steve rogers fanfiction #PA! steve rogers #chris evans character fanfiction #captain america #captain america x reader #light dom/sub #mcu fanifiction #dub con #coersion #sub steve rogers #dom reader #modern au #my writing #me #rubynationwins

[anika-ann]

Love on the Brain - part 8

Ch8: Worthy

Type: MCU x Criminal Minds crossover series

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader    Word Count: 6700

Summary: The team comes to the rescue; but confrontations are never simple. And neither is the truth. 

Series masterlist

Warnings: series includes criminal behaviour such as stalking or kidnapping; graphic violence, gun violence; (mentions of) death; allusions to dub-con; possible PTSD and flashbacks; sexual innuendos and foul language. Loads of fluff and teasing.

I’m covering my bases here to make sure - probably sounds worse than it is. If you’re interested in specific warnings for individual chapters, let me know.

A/N: divider by @firefly-graphics​; mind the WARNINGS in this one, they apply A LOT  ❗❗❗

"It gives me strength to have somebody to fight for; I can never fight for myself, but, for others, I can kill."

— Emilie Autumn

During your studies and your time as an agent for the Behaviour Analysis Unit, not unlike throughout your whole life, you had learned that genuine interest could come a long way. Hearing people out and actually listening to what they had to say, caring, was the key to finding solutions to many of problems of mankind; mankind just often sucked at looking past their own porch, or the threshold of their own room.

You were aware that simple talking and feigning interest was most definitely not going to get you out of here – no amount of conversation could miraculously convince Bonnie to simply let you go. But so far it seemed to be working as a means of buying yourself time until someone who was in a better condition to get you out of this mess would.

You had no idea how much time you had bought to your team and even less of a clue whether it was and would be enough. Time flew when one was having fun; and it could really drag when you were talking to a psychically disturbed individual, while one of you were in handcuffs. And it wasn’t Bonnie.

Your arms were cramping as they remained in the same position, your fingers feeling as if slowly dying due to the limited circulation. The remnants of the drug circulating your system and rendering the world hazy still were not exactly adding to your comfort.

You almost had the complaint – and request to ease your suffering – on your tongue, feeling like you were doing a relatively good work of establishing trust since Bonnie even fed you a granola bar earlier, but you never got the change to tell her.

One moment, she was sitting opposite to you on a chair, talking about how she knew you were beginning to feel the same about her when you helped her stand up in training, Bills having just wept her feet from under her, the next second there was a beep and she was reaching for the keys of your cuffs.

You’d be thrilled if she hadn’t grabbed her gun too, stepping behind you and releasing only the cuffs tying you to the bed – and not the ones tying your hands together.

Your heart leaped to your throat, head spinning as she yanked you up; and nearly had you trip over your own feet when she released you unexpectedly. Gun raised, she gestured towards your arms.

“Slip your legs through the circle of your arms so they’re cuffed at your front. I know you can,” she ordered.

You followed the instruction, confused, but not keen on making her mad.

The fact alone that her behaviour changed so swiftly screamed danger – more so since it was on the basis of a single beep, a beep which indicated something you couldn’t even hope to gu---

It took your drowsy brain too long – but then the realization slammed into you like a freight train.

The cavalry is here.

The team must have somehow figured out who the unsub was and they were coming to your rescue.

Adrenalin flooded your veins as Bonnie stalked to you, not close enough to be in reach, an angry frown on her face – you finished the task, barely keeping balance as the cuffs dug into your lower wrists when you pulled your hips and left leg through.

Fuck you hated whatever she injected you with – the room was still swimming, your limbs feeling little jello-like despite the cramping in your arms. Yet you nearly cried in relief when the position of your shoulders changed slightly, hands at your front at last.

You didn’t have a full second to enjoy the feeling.

“Don’t move, darling,” Bonnie whispered, circling you slowly, the gun retaining a steady line of fire – aiming straight at you. Her left arm curled around your chest, pressing you to her front.

Her sudden hiss of outrage raised goosebumps in its wake as it tickled your neck.

She nudged you forward, nearly causing you to stumble again, before she spun around, walking you back towards the wall. That was smart. By the wall, she was protected: you from the front, a human shield, and the concrete from the back.

Briefly, she pointed her gun toward the entrances, ready to fire – then it frantically moved to your side, then back to the possible points of entry.

“How did they find us?” she demanded angrily, a note of panic in her voice – one that diminished yours a fraction, even as your pulse pounded in your temples.

She was losing composure – which was both good and bad. Trapped in a metaphorical corner, she was more likely to make a mistake. But it also meant she was likely to go down with her gun literally blazing.

But the team was here. You’d be fine.

This would be over in a minute; all they had to do was to convince Bonnie to surrender. Convince her that unless she did that, you would get hurt. After all, she showed you repeatedly that she didn’t want that, that only the circumstance forced her to do so.

Your breath hitched when a cold barrel of the gun was pressed to the side of your neck with a final decision.

Apparently, now the circumstance was forcing Bonnie to aim at your throat.

That was fine. You were going to be okay, she wouldn’t fire the gun. It was just tactics, she was readying herself to manipulate the team to leave. It was only natural and she would not actually pull the trigger.

Then why was your heart hammering in your chest, your carotid pulsing wildly against the unforgiving metal, panic squeezing your ribcage and making the world blurry and sharp at once? Why did you feel droplets of cold sweat gather at your brow?

Why did you wince when a familiar bulletproof gear with the big yellow letters spelling FBI entered your field of vision? Hotch, Emily, Reid. All from one side.

The other point entrance showed Natasha, her face laser-focused as she aimed straight between Bonnie’s eyes no doubt. And if Nat was here, you had no doubt that Clint was nearby, even if you couldn’t see him.

You took a wavering breath, trying your best to let the knowledge wash over you and settle the ever-rising panic, the frantic thump-thump-thump in your temples.

You’d be okay. You’d be fine-

Another figure entered at Natasha’s side and you felt your heart clench so hard it felt like a knife through your chest, pure horror seizing you.

Whatever Bonnie had injected you with now had to just metabolize into a substance causing hallucinations; it had to. Your mind must have been playing tricks on you.

He was beautiful. In his navy suit of armour, large in frame, sombre expression contrasting with a halo of golden hair for he forgone his helmet. A shield on his arm, gun in his right hand ready; he looked like an angel of vengeance.

His cerulean eyes were fixed on Bonnie, hard and calculating, not once flickering to meet yours. You could think of several reasons for that, but none of them mattered because if he was actually here-- what the fuck was he doing here?

Had he completely lost his mind at last? It was one thing to walk through the lobby of the Avengers Tower, where you, too, had in fact agreed he should not be anyway, but it was a whole new level to walk straight into the line of fire of a gun containing the one thing more likely to kill him than any other.

Hadn’t you had the very gun pointed at your throat, you would yell at him to get the fuck out of here.

You felt Bonnie behind you wince at the sight of Captain America too. Yep, no hallucinations. Gulping, you suddenly prayed that the barrel of the gun stayed on you. Life was funny that way, you supposed.

From the corner of your eye, you noticed Reid stepping forward a bit, causing your captor to yank you closer, spinning you both to face him.

“Don’t come any closer!” Bonnie exclaimed, causing Reid to halt in his movement in an instant.

Your eyes met his, sharp and imploring at once. Unlike Steve, he reciprocated your gaze, the brown of his irises seemingly turning a warmer shade for a fleeting moment.

It almost, almost made you smile.

His hold on a gun never wavered as he looked at Bonnie again, voice levelled and rather kind. For a moment, you were brought back to all the times he talked an unsub down thanks to his capacity for compassion larger than life.

“Agent Stiles, my name is Spencer Reid-“

“I know who you are! Get out of here or I’m gonna shoot her!” she snapped back, tightening her grip on you, the gun now digging into your flesh.

Spence didn’t let it faze him; the only change visible was but a minute twitch of the corners of his lips, eyes large and almost innocent.

“I’m sorry, Bonnie, I can’t do that. You’re hurting my friend,” he said gently, making Bonnie sink her fingers into your shoulder. “You need to think about what you’re doing.”

“I am!”

“But are you really? You’re holding a gun to the woman you love and want to protect,” he opposed her patiently, drawing a small noise of despair from her.

“Isn’t that right? She’s so good, deserves so much love, loyalty…. You wanted to show her that Captain Rogers is easily distracted by other women, that she deserves better, didn’t you?” he continued, nodding towards the man in question.

Your frantic heart skipped a startled beat; you understood what Spencer was doing, showing he understood Bonnie, but--- did he really have to mention Steve? When he was right there, and the bullets were in the hands of an unsub in her damn endgame?!

Reid was damn lucky she was still focused on him; mesmerized even by his speech.

“She deserves better… someone like you, right?”

“Yes!” Bonnie cried out behind you, a small creak in her voice. “He’s just—he’s not good enough. Not worthy. He’d break her heart!”

“I would never-“ Steve defended himself, falling silent instantly when in a fraction of a second, you were being spun to face him.

Your stomach somersaulted in fear, panic squeezing you throat as you swallowed the cry clawing up to your mouth.

Oh God, GG, you fucking idiot, shut up, just shut up before you catch a damn bullet-

Hotch shot him a scolding look which Steve completely ignored in favour of finally meeting your eyes – a wordless apology for speaking up written all over his face, his set jaw tight.

He didn’t mean to ruin Reid’s efforts. But he was deeply offended at the mere notion of hurting you, because he couldn’t bear doing so; he never had, not in training, always quick to apologize and now… god, now. Now he unintentionally provoked the woman who had a gun at your neck.

You wanted to tell him you understood why he was outraged and that you believed him, that it was okay; but you were terrified that if you as much as whispered at a volume only his supersoldier ears would catch, Bonnie would notice and snapped.

Everyone was afraid of her snapping, of her violence; for a moment no one moved, no one spoke a word. Hotch’s glare moved onto you and even through the fog of your fear, it dawned to you he was the one to authorise Steve’s presence.

You were going to murder him. Later.

If you survived this.

Silence hung in the air, only interrupted by harsh breaths to your ear, laced by a low whine of frustration and helplessness. Your gaze flickered from Hotch to Steve and then to Reid, whose face remained unchanged, expertly hiding his mute horror that probably matched yours.

His gaze was imploring again; and for the shortest of moments, it seemed he was pleading you instead of Bonnie. And you understood. You knew that Bonnie’s rationality had flied out of the window a while ago, you knew that as well as Spence did, despite having tried to appeal to it earlier.

It was your turn.

“I understand now,” you whispered, catching Reid’s gaze for another fleeting moment, his barely noticeable nod. “I understand now, Bonnie. I told you I would listen. You showed me the truth. He’s not worthy. I mean look at him,” you scoffed, feeling her breath hitch.

You certainly didn’t look. You couldn’t; you knew your voice would break if you saw Steve wounded by the lies that were about to spill from your mouth.

“Look at him. He even let you snatch me right in front of his nose when I came to him, scared. But I understand now. I’m not scared of you anymore. I know you would never hurt me. You only injected me because it was necessary to bring me here and protect me from him.”

You had to close your eyes when your gaze strayed to Steve’s face, inevitably truly, because you had never succeeded in keeping your eyes off of him for long whenever he was in the room.  The moment was enough to take note of how deeply your words cut him.

You wanted to beg him to understand, it had to be obvious to him, for god’s sake, he knew you, unlike Bonnie. Why would he believe anything you said when you were at a goddamn gunpoint?

But you couldn’t afford establishing eye-contact with him, let alone speak to him; instead, you looked at Spencer again, wordlessly asking him to continue. He obeyed.

“Yes. She knows now, we all see she’s precious to you. We don’t want to hurt her either, but you’re giving us no choice but to aim at you two. You have to put the gun down, Bonnie,” Spencer told her, earning her full attention – and a scoff.

“You think I’m stupid? I’m not lowering the gun. I’m an agent! I know these tricks!”

The cold metal of the dug into your flesh still, compressing your carotid and making you feel lightheaded; this was getting nowhere. You were moving nowhere and she was getting more worked up by the second despite Spence trying his best.

“Of course. Look at what you were able to put together, outsmarting us all. No one is questioning you’re smart or capable,” he assured her.

You breathed in as the pressure eased just a fraction, your mind racing.

She was focused on them again; it was your chance. You hated this, but it had crossed your mind before. You needed to free your hands and fight. You needed dislocate your thumb.

You would have done it ages ago, even when you had been still alone with Bonnie, but besides having whatever nasty shit in your system, she had been watching you like a hawk. Now? You had a distraction at least. You had a chance.

Taking a calming breath as your ears rang, your dominant hand inched to hover over the other in your lap, a thumb barely pressing to the base.

To everyone’s credit, their eyes didn’t move to follow the movement as Bonnie spoke up, a silent outrage in her voice.

“They shouldn’t. Especially him. He didn’t even notice me taking pictures, too busy gawking at other women while he had the most precious woman on his arm. Fucking pathetic.”

Sensing an opportunity, you withheld dislocating your thumb. Maybe you could still do this.

“He is,” you agreed quickly, swallowing when you realized it was a little too fast. If you wanted to be convincing, you had to sound more hesitant. She knew you cared about Steve – or that you had before, at least. Easy, girl. “I could never be happy with him after you showed him in true light. I’m going to forget about him now.”

A beat of silence; an ease of her grip, even as the gun stayed in place. You felt Bonnie’s astonished eyes burning through your skull you as she shifted to see at your face better.

“Are you?” she asked lowly, the hope in her voice making for a crack in it. “Are you going to forget him?”

You could never; but you grabbed the chance firmly as it presented, heart in your throat, the single word coming out shakily.

“Yes.”

You heard the click of the gun’s safety before a screechy cry nearly tore your eardrum, loud and menacing enough to rattle your bones.

“DON’T LIE TO ME!”

A tremble ran through your body, heavy shuffle of Steve’s boots drawing your eyes, quickly followed by Hotch’s low warning – to him and to you as raw panic clawed at your throat.

No, no, no- Steven Grant Rogers, don’t you fucking move a single inch, don’t you hog her attention for yourself you selfish selfless jerk-!

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry!” you blurted out hastily, breathless because holy shit that was a loaded unlocked gun at your throat now and Steve was right there ready to play a moving target and you needed to get you shit together before this turned into a blood bath.  

“I’ll try, then! But I know it will be easy. I-- I’ll be with you and… you’ll show me what true love is about, you’ll make me understand!” Not good enough, not good enough, fuck- “With you, he… he’ll become nothing but a distant pathetic memory.”

You heard her breath hitch, all movement in the room stilling again.

Then, her thumb pressed against your shoulder. She caressed you lightly, causing your eyes to flutter briefly, nausea tickling your stomach at the sudden affectionate gesture.

Okay, okay, this was good, affection was good, even as she used the gun to move strands of hair from the side of your neck; a bizarre lover’s caress, soft lips pressing just above where the hard metal settled back against your throat.

A violent tremble took over your body, tears burning in your eyes when you felt Bonnie’s lips curl up into a smile before they retreated.

“Tell him then,” she prompted you almost kindly, a playful note in her voice. “Look him in the eye and tell him how worthless he really is. Tell him what you did with him was a mistake. Tell him you don’t care about him. Tell him you love me.”

Tell him what you did with him was a mistake. Tell him you don’t care about him.

The words made your head spin. Bonnie was confusing reality now. You made no mistake that had hurt her; you had nothing to apologize for and it wasn’t really your apology she craved. She wanted Lucille’s. But her cheating ex wasn’t here.

You breathed in deeply through your nose, licking your lips as you gathered courage to speak the words. You had walked into this; you needed to finish it.

Chances were that she was going to lower her gun for even a second; and the moment she would, you’d duck and someone – anyone really, but your money was on Clint, who you couldn’t even see and he’d be so smug about it, the image in making having you stifle a hysterical laugh – was going to shoot her.

You scanned the room, gulping when you caught the minute nod Reid gave you in support.

They got your back; the success of the plan lied on your shoulders, however.

You could do this. You could lie through your teeth and apologize to Steve later.

“I don’t-“

“And look him in the eye,” Bonnie hissed, yanking you to face Steve directly, forcing you to look straight into the sad pools of his eyes indeed.

“I--- I don’t… I don’t care about you. You’re worth-“ -everything, you wanted to scream, his dejected expression breaking a piece of your heart away, making for a lump in your throat. “-worthless. A mistake. You don’t deserve me. You’re not worthy. Bonnie is.”

You could feel your captor practically drilling a hole into your head with the intensity she watched you with – and then Steve. You could taste her victory in the air, the bittersweet accent of her triumph.

The second you were free of her scrutiny, your eyes bored into Steve’s, pleading him to understand. Of course, you hadn’t meant any of it; but he only averted your gaze. He must have thought you said it too easily. Too easily for the words not carrying a droplet of truth.

You wanted to yell at him not to be stupid – because he had to know you were forced to say this while in reality, he was your gentle giant and you had almost kissed him for god’s sake, because you had wanted to kiss him for the better part of the past two years – but he appeared utterly defeated.

The arm with the shield dropped to his hip; he lowered his gun.

He literally lowered his defences – and the very moment he did so, you were consumed by fury and horror at once.

A switch flicked in your body; fuck everything. You gritted your teeth and pushed hard, the pop of the joint of your thumb sending a jolt of pain up your arm, tears stinging in your eyes. You didn’t care; because the next second, Bonnie spoke up, icily calm – and you knew you had been right to act.

“That’s not good enough.”

The world turned into a blur of instincts and pain; the second the barrel of a gun left your skin, your hands were pushing it up and twisting down, body spinning around.

A flash of Bonnie’s raging face and a sneer; three gunshots cutting the air and muting the world around.

Pain exploding in your arm as you stumbled backwards. Shouts and cries enveloping you; shocked, you realised one of them was yours.

A motionless body of a woman lying on the ground, two pools of blood growing a few feet from where you fell on your ass, gripping at your left arm, waves of agony pouring out between your bloody fingers.

You winced at a new touch to your uninjured shoulder, a familiar face twisted in anguish entering your vision, filling it with his enormous presence. Mesmerizing blue eyes, with the tinniest specker of green, so warm despite the cold colours, brimming with worry.

Several voices reached your ears, serious, matter-of-fact, but sounding from such awful distance, your world zeroing on a single pale face; an angel speaking, a soothing gentle voice.

“Sparkles, sweetheart, look at me. You’re going to be okay, yeah? You’ll be fine,” he vowed, and maybe it was just the blinding pain that bit into your arms when his fingers pressed into your wound, but the angel had a halo around his head.

You had no reason not to believe him, but you didn’t expect the sting to the side of your neck, causing you to gasp and halt in the waterwall of words you only now realized was spiling from your lips.

Steve’s features seemed sharper now, even as you became aware of the fact that you were shaking in his grip; you recognized Tony in his Iron Man gear with only his hands and face uncovered, syringe in his right hand, Hotch and Emily talking too fast for you to decipher their words, Reid kneeling by Bonnie – oh god, Bonnie, you got a glimpse of one of the crimson pools being by her head – swiftly blocking your view of her.

It was over; oh thank god it was over and Steve was there, holding you, speaking firm and clear and kind, supporting your back and pushing against your arm with the fingers of the same hand, cradling your cheek--- and looking so so sad, the words, the ugly lies you had told no doubt weighting him down and you had to fix it.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, I didn’t—I was just saying what she wanted to hear, I swear---” you muttered frantically as you gasped for air, somehow only bringing a sorrowful twisted smile to Steve’s gorgeous lips as his thumb stroked your cheek gently.

“It’s okay, you’re okay-“

“None of it was truth, none— you’re not pathetic-“

“Sparkles, I know why you said that, it’s fine. You need to slow your breathing. Breathe with me. In… and out. Slowly, it’s fine,” he whispered, urgent but soothing, but you knew he was only saying that to make you feel better, that was what gentle giants did, too kind, dismissing their own hurt in order to take care of others, but he didn’t understand you meant what you were saying now, you had to make him understand.

“I love you, so much, and I should have said something a long time ago, I-“

“Hey, hey, shhh, it’s okay…” he assured you, eyes wide with surprise and that was good – now, he knew what you were saying, but there something else in his face too, something unreadable.

You hated when you couldn’t read him.

But Jesus, your arm hurt and your head was spinning—oh. Oh he was mad, wasn’t he? You couldn’t read him because he was rarely mad at you, but now he was angry, that was it, pissed that you had put them all in danger like this, that shots were fired, that he had to come here, that you hadn’t been honest with him before-

“I’m sorry. Are you—are you mad? Please don’t be mad-”

His enormous tense shoulders seemed to relax a fraction at your question, an honest, brief, breath-taking smile painting his lips as he gazed into your eyes.

“Why, I could never be mad at you, Sparkles… except maybe when you make all the fuss about my safety, completely missing it’s you who’s in danger. Never do that again, hm?”

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t think—I- you’re--- you’re more than my friend, than my best friend, I couldn’t-“

“It’s okay, it’s okay. You’re more than my best friend too,” he admitted sweetly, taking a deep breath as his eyes strayed elsewhere under the weight of the confession that made you lightheaded. You were what to him? “But let’s sort that out when you’re not shot and drugged and high on adrenalin, yeah?”

“I’m not high-“

“Kid, you’re high as a kite,” Tony snorted to your left, making you tear your gaze away from Steve’s face and frown in his direction. Oh wow, the world swayed with the movement. “You’ve been trying to keep your feelings to yourself for months if not years and now you just spitted it out like it was nothing.”

“He’s not wrong. Your body is flooded with adrenalin now and judging by the steady dilatation of your pupils without reaction to light the drug you’ve been injected with is still in effect,” Spencer added not-so-helpfully, sending you a tight-lipped smile. “And that antidote countermeasure probably isn’t helping that. Let’s get you some medical attention.”

You licked our lips, finding your tongue growing uncharacteristically heavy, a metallic taste in your mouth. Antidote? What antidote? To what? Wait. Did you just say to Steve that you loved him?

Oh. The bullets. The bullets meant for Steve; they had been laced with something. Right, right, right…

That was the sting to your neck had been. That was the syringe. Probably as a precaution if the… neuroagens or whatever worked on you too, not only Steve.

What did it feel like you should have connected those dots a few minutes ago? Minutes? Tens of minutes? How long has it been since you were taken, since Steve and others arrived? The lights were on, blinds down, you had noticed the blinds – when was that? Was it night yet?

“…I do feel a little out of it,” you admitted hesitantly, realizing you were getting cold despite being curled against the world’s nicest walking space heater – in a very, very pretty suit of armour.

You really liked this colour on Steve. It accented the colour of his eyes and he always had pretty eyes, but in this suit, they were just the perfect shade of blue. The colour was stealthier than the typical stars and stripes, but that was fine, the stripes were still there and so were the leather straps.  

Were the straps as practical as they seemed for other things than carrying a shield? Christ, your arm was in agony-

A snort sounded to your right and you were met with a sight of Emily, shaking her head with a brief smile. “Yeah, no kidding. Come on, let your knight carry you.”

“I could take her, the suit would-“ Tony objected, earning a glare from your knight with a shiny star in a middle of his chest. “Or not.”

“Go. You need each other now. We’ll take care of the rest,” Emily said, exchanging a nod with Steve.

“Thank you.”

And then the world swayed again, your head falling to rest against Steve’s shoulder, tiny swings nearly lulling you to sleep; but he told you to keep your eyes open.

You might enjoy teasing Steve and bickering with him a bit, but when the Captain gave an order, hearty and sweet but adamant, there was no denying him. He laid you down in no time, the roof of a jet entering your vision, but he didn’t let go entirely; he only lost his glove to hold your hand firmly, ignoring the syrupy residues of blood, his right hand tenderly pushing the hair sticking to your forehead away as if he heard the thought about how annoying it was before it even formed in your head.

“You’re gonna be okay,” he whispered, the corners of his lips rising pitifully, but his eyes spoke nothing but the truth of his conviction. “One last sting, I promise. You’ll feel better then.”

And why wouldn’t you believe him? It was Steve.

So you nodded, swallowing hard as the needle pierced the skin of your shoulder, and let your eyes flutter shut.

It wasn’t that Steve couldn’t multitask; he was in fact excellent at it, a source of many of your jokes, as you called him an alien amongst the male population. But he also liked to be laser focused on only one task at the time. He was mission-oriented like that and while right now, he felt several emotions in him boiling and expanding to the point where he thought he might burst, he was on a mission.

His mission was to comfort you, keep you company, and make sure you would never feel the same fear he read in your eyes when they found you in Stiles’ literal clutches, a gun to your neck.

The sight shook him to his core; he was certain it was a horror image now etched into his brain and his eidetic memory wasn’t to blame for that one.

Uneasiness settled in him when you closed your eyes for good, but knowing Bruce was already taking care of you, he tried to ease that worry; you were in the hands of one of the world’s most renowned scientists, in the quinjet which could reach the Tower where Dr. Cho was waiting in a matter of minutes.    

It was probably better if you slept through Bruce assessing the damage the bullet – one meant for him, what were you even thinking suddenly trying to fight Bonnie off in your state when there were six agents at your disposal and Steve had his shield and supersoldier’s reflexes which would deflect the bullet he knew would be coming, he was going to be fine – made.

He nearly lost his mind when Clint fired along with Hotch and yet there sounded another gunshot.

He’d crush your hand remembering the split second, but he heard Bruce muttering under his breath something about a graze and they had found the bullet so they knew that whatever you had was a mere flesh wound.

Not that it stopped him from being fucking terrified for you, especially with the bullets having been modified. He was going to murder Tony one day. Even if the apparent genius gave you also the antidote.

“Steve?” you breathed out, causing him to blink and refocus his gaze, finding you watching him again, a weak smile on your lips he couldn’t but mirror, squeezing your hand.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

An adorable confusion nearly laced your eyebrows together, lips pursing a bit; Steve realized that whichever painkillers Bruce had given you must have taken effect fast, judging by your next words.

“Where’s your sword if you’re a knight? You only have a shield.”

It was absurd; the circumstance was awful and Steve absolutely hated that you were lying there, high and shot and bleeding and asking this question with utter and unfeigned seriousness, but he chuckled anyway, because the word cute couldn’t hope to capture the image you made. And he wouldn’t deny you anything you asked at the moment.

Especially since you had blurted out ‘I love you’, just like that – and at the same time, spoke it so clearly as if your life depended on him knowing that. God, the things you were doing to him.

“See, Sparkles, the knight, it’s just-“

“Am I that much of a firecracker?” you interrupted him distractedly, a little wounded, frowning harder even as your voice grew drowsy.

Steve sighed, running his knuckles over your cheek, eliciting a sound dangerously close to a purr as you nuzzled into his touch like an affectionate kitten and lord almighty, he adored you and he was going to lay the world to your feet just to hear that sound again once you’d be fully conscious.

“Just the right amount. And I really like it.”

“But then… why do you keep calling me that? Sparkles?”

“Do you mind?” he queried gently, shamelessly taking advantage of your weakened inhibitions to find out the truth – it hadn’t even crossed his mind until you asked. Did you not like it, but kept your mouth shut as not to insult him? “I didn’t think-“

“No. I like it, it’s your special nickname for me. I love that, GG. I just… I guess I thought it was because of how I act.”

How you were able to string together a sentence like that in your condition was beyond Steve. Bruce was still poking around your arm, but you didn’t even seem to notice, fully focused on Steve instead, just as mission-oriented as he was.

And your mission now was to get at the bottom of your nickname.

Frankly, Steve didn’t want to say it. It would be embarrassing to admit it really, he was sure Tony would laugh his ass off, but… did he mention he couldn’t deny you anything?

“It could be, I guess. But it’s not that, it’s just… it’s gonna sound so corny.”

“I like corny. I like you cheesy. Corn and cheese good,” you babbled, your gaze misted over but somewhat still clear.

Steve licked his lips, all resolve broken when your fingers dug into his hand with the tinniest pressure; all strength you had poured into the single request.

“It’s… your eyes.”

“My eyes?” you questioned, utterly confused.

You rolled your eyes a bit, zeroing on your nose as if you could turn them enough to see them without a mirror – and then you closed them as the action tired you out. You were about to drift off any second, Steve could tell, so he just shook his head as you blinked them open heavily.

“What my eyes?” you demanded, voice thin but stubborn.

“Close them. Rest. I’ll stay if you want.”

Your head lulled to side, a slight curve to your lips. You gazed up at him pleadingly, your pout making a return; cute and painfully vulnerable.

“Want. Always. But tell me?”

Christ if that wasn’t the most effective interrogation method he was ever subjected to, how was he supposed to say no to you like that-

“Okay. But… close your eyes,” he requested and like a charm, you obeyed, taking a deep breath as you melted further into the stretcher.

For a brief moment, Steve contemplated keeping his secret for himself – after all, Bruce was still right there and you were practically unconscious – but you had asked and Bruce seemed like he hardly cared about what the conversation was about as he stitched your skin together.

“When… we didn’t know each other much back then and you gave me the cookies as a thank you for saving your life. At that time, I told you it wasn’t necessary, but you looked embarrassed then, so… I took them.”

“Cause you smelled ‘em,” you murmured and Steve nodded, smiling to himself.

“Yeah, that too. I took the box, thanked you and took a sniff, telling you that they smelled delicious. Which they did. And you smiled… you looked so pleased.”

He felt his mind wandering off, painting a vivid picture of the first time he saw you smiling like that, smile he had the luck to see many times since that day. Smile he had tried to capture on paper, multiple times, never quite succeeding. He’d try again; he’d ask you to pose for him when you felt better. Or maybe while you’d be recovering, to help you pass the time.

It would become his new mission once he finished this one. For now, he only drew circles into your palm which was growing slack with each passing second, just as his own voice sounded softer and softer with maybe a hint of a croak he would never admit to.

“And your whole face lit up. I know this really sounds cheesy, but you brightened up so much at that moment. All of you, but… your eyes. There was and is a spark in your eyes when you smile. When you’re genuinely happy. It’s— it’s beautiful. You’re just so… I think you’re beautiful, Sparkles.”

Moments ticked by after he finished his confession, feeling light and heavy at once, worrying about your reaction.

Pointlessly, however; one glance at you showed your chest was rising and falling smoothly, your whole body relaxed. A faint echo of a smile played on your lips still, but Steve could tell you had already entered the dreamland.

He watched you for a bit, face burning with his admission, but his heart felt warm. Only when he heard a soft shuffle of feet, he looked up, noticing Natasha in the corner. He didn’t have to ask for how long she had been standing there; her face was enough of an answer.

She was grinning at him, encouragement with a teasing edge.

“Typical. You tell her when she’s not really in capacity to listen. You’re such a man…” she snorted, but walked to his side, patting his shoulder like a proud big sister. “Come on, lover boy. Let the doc work and go help us put this shit behind us instead.”

Steve gulped, sparing one more glance your direction. His mission was now complete, at least the part he could do at the moment. He had other duties now.

Nodding, he rose to his feet, turning swiftly to the cockpit when he saw the others approach; Tony carried Stiles, no doubt beyond saving after Clint’s deadly precise shot. Steve didn’t linger with his gaze; seeing death, even of a person who hurt you, brought him no joy.

But what felt worse was the sheer disappointment in himself that hit him upon recalling the gunfight. He failed to meet his responsibility, he wasn’t the one who rid the world of your captor and he hated that. He didn’t care what kind of a person it made him, feeling that way. Not now. Not when he had to wipe his hands clear of your blood before being able to do anything else.

He headed to the pilot seat, knowing that unless he had his hands occupied, he was gonna break something just to release some of the frustration boiling inside him. Natasha followed, a ghost of support, wordlessly telling him she understood and thought nothing less of him. In the very back of his mind, he was aware of the fact he’d be grateful for that acceptance later; much like he’d thank Clint for taking the shot Steve would have loved to take himself and still would mean it. He just didn’t have the capacity to accept it yet.

Jaw tight enough for it to hurt, he took the seat and brought the quinjet to the air, focusing on the image of your smile – two years ago, just a minute ago and the many days in between.

→ Next part

Series masterlist // Steve Rogers masterlist // Misc masterlist

Alright, my dears, we have the most action behind us. I can promise loads of fluff from now on 💗 (maybe some small drama). Thank you for reading!

Also, I want to thank you again for your wonderful encouraging feedback, it gives me life and before I reply, I usually read your comments at least three times 🥺

#fanfiction #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x you #steve rogers imagine #mcu x criminal minds #criminal minds x mcu #criminal minds fanfiction #captain america x reader #captain america x you #captain america imagine #bau agent reader #former bau agent reader #steve rogers #love on the brain #anika ann

[blacksapphhicmaddonna]

I WOULDN’T DREAM OF IT

Chapter 1 - Make Breakfast

Black!Carol Danvers x Maria Rambeau

Ft. Monica Rambeau

Not at ALL canon compliant, I just want my wives to be happy this time around (yes, Carol is BLACK in this series and if you don’t like that then don’t read it baby. Hope that helps. 💋)

CW: Mentions of separation and emotional pain, angsty but soooo much fluff, parenthood, lost memories, slight mentions of homophobia but nun too serious, dreaming/day dreaming/remembering, LOTS OF GAY YEARNING, implied mommy/daddy issues, soooooo much exposition LMFAO so sorry for the long paragraphs but that's just how I write lol. Less is not more this time, more is more, so lets all just indulge in some lovesick lesbians. 🥹 in my head they have such a lifeee together, I want to explore it! I want them to be fully rounded people, at least more than we usually get to see in the MCU. also, lets enjoy a fucking happy ending for these two for once PLS (fuck marvel, she will never die). They're happy, Black and Queer and that's all that matters okay!!!!

Word Count: 8,004 🫣

LINK TO AO3!

A/N: I pretty much already laid everything out but thank you so much for taking time out of your day to read something I wrote. I hope it can help ease your mind or at least give you a break (who doesn't love some good ol' escapism lmao). Take care of yourself, drink some water pls and stay safe. I hope you enjoy. 💗

(Also pls ignore any formatting issues, I wrote this on my laptop so it looks different on the app😭 sorry y’all!!)

˚. ✦.˳·˖✶ ⋆.✧̣̇˚.☆ ★ ✮ ★ ☆.˚̣̇✧.⋆ ✶˖·˳.✦ .˚

The August heat had no challenge sneaking its way through the dimly lit room and in-between the two women, who also had no problem sticking to each other. The closer, the better, they both agreed without having too. It had been nearly silent sans the soft howl of the wind and the sound of breathing coming from the two, for at least 45 minutes now, maybe longer. The brown skinned woman pressed against the superhero's chest stirred softly as the wind kissed her sweet, relaxed face gently, not seeming to wake her. Nows the time, the hero thought to herself as she skillfully snuck from under the woman and placed her gently on her side, tugging her own pillow under her arm to replace her body and pulled the sheet over her nearly bare shoulders. She almost planted a kiss on her forehead but forced herself against it.

She tiptoed, almost comedically, around the edge of the bed and past the open window. She was mindful with every step, intentionally avoiding the floor boards she memorized, knowing they would creak and wake the sleeping woman. She made it nearly to the door before she was startled and exhaled sharply.

"Don't you even think about leaving yet, Danvers."

The still half sleep but always on point Maria shoots at the woman attempting to sneak out the bedroom door, still in the position her spouse lovingly placed her in without even opening her eyes or turning around to face the woman. A move she's pulled on both Carol and Monica many times, to their utter frustration and to her own satisfaction. Her voice is raspy and playful, but holds a level of something that neither are ready to fully acknowledge, yet.

"Wouldn't dream of it, Rambeau. Just have to pee."

Carol winked out as she continued her step forward as she hears Maria accept this answer and shift back to comfort, less careful to avoid the creaking floor boards this time. The hero in her scolds herself for being able to take down entire intergalactic warships without alerting anybody on board before its too late - but yet again, she can't get one over on the sleeping woman. She scoffs and relaxes her shoulders as she walks through the upstairs halls, lightening her steps as she passes Monica's room. She smiles inward, seeing "Lt. Trouble" still scribbled near the bottom on the door in blue crayon. No one had the heart to clean it off, nor felt the need to either.

God, she missed this. She missed her family. She missed her, and how warm and natural it felt to just be Carol Danvers. She also missed not leaving behind a trail of disappointment and anxiety for her family to pick up after her. They did their best but how was anybody supposed to balance life, the military, parenting and being a tween with... well, a literal supernova? Not to mention the things they were purposefully not mentioning.

Carol felt herself losing her grip on the stress she had been pushing down for what felt like years but especially the past few days as her return to earth approached, as she sat in the bathroom, long since having peed and washed up. She sat on the edge of the bear claw tub they had dreamed about having together when Monica was first born. They were both so excited when they had found a house that had one. The perfect home. They had always talked about living together when they were growing up, happy to be able to put their military salaries together and buy a house instead of living in barracks or renting apartments like they did in college. Maria, still just her "friend" at the time (although she wasn't sure what they were now, after everything, she thought), said she always wanted to be able to give her child a 'proper' bath like her mother had given her growing up. Rubber ducks and all. It was one of her only happy memories growing up. Carol herself, felt delighted that any child, but especially one who was lucky enough to be coming from this woman, would be treated so lovingly. She was earnest to make all of Maria and Monica's dreams come true, even before she could shoot fire or whatever from her hands. Carol and Maria shared an unspoken agreement with each other while she was pregnant with Monica, and probably long before that. It won't be like how it was for us. We won't let her grow up not knowing she's loved, not knowing someones there to protect her.

She ran her fingers along the curved porcelain edge, remembering how it felt to take baths as a family, even before they knew that's what they really were. Monica's hair curling tight, smelling like the soft baby shampoo Maria was gently rubbing through her hair. The soft kisses they left on her face. The soapy smiles they shared, scrunched up in their bathing suits trying to fit comfortably even though there really wasn't enough space. Not daring to let it ever be anything more than a smile or a laugh. Until they did. Until everything was covered in soap and love. Carol didn’t remember that part yet.

It had taken the pair a long time to realize exactly what they were doing, which frustrated most people who spent more than two seconds around them. They were both well respected for the most part for being women in the armed forces, and widely well liked for their similar and yet somehow opposite personalities. Both so bold and daring. Their differences balanced them out, making them the perfect team - perfect for each other, most people agreed. Despite the times, somehow they both seemed to evade the homophobia of both the armed forces and their peers. Even most of the neighborhood was waiting on them to just say it, do it, be what they already were. Yet, both of them being too stubborn for their own good and equally oblivious, persisted - mainly to themselves - that they were just good friends, copilots and roommates. After Monica was born, they were all of that and coparents but in a 'best friend' way, whatever that meant. They never humored the conversations, they didn't even stick around to hear them - which was quite the feat, being that the entire town was having the conversation for them. They couldn't, though, could they? If they listened too long, if they looked too closely at the thought, daring to touch the idea even slightly, even just to make a joke out of it - they both knew they would crumble. Because it wasn't a joke, it wasn't something they could continue to ignore then. It would end up being only one of two things, in their shared minds:

It could have been nothing. Maybe one felt these things and the other just, didn't. Maybe one of them really was a deplorable, hellbent sinner as they had both been taught but never agreed with, and maybe the other one was just a good, innocent woman, unaware to her friends inner workings. Maybe, maybe, maybe. But finding out, for a long time, felt too much of a risk. The rejection would burn them too much. Neither wanted to risk losing what they did have, the home in each other they both desperately needed. They had been best friends since they were 6, Carol being just a few weeks older but never letting the other forget it - though no one ever believed her. April and May. Just a few sunrises and sun sets separated the days they were born. They were instantly joined at the hip as much as they could be. Maria always carried herself in a more grounded way, but always loved Carols way of always being a million feet off the ground. They both were secretly jealous of the years other people had with them as girls, that they didn't get to have together. 6 years of being on earth and not knowing of the other felt like an injustice, especially now after everything that had happened - another 6 years that kept them apart. Their time together on this planet was so, so precious to both of them. They both always wanted more. Which was why neither was willing to risk what they had already made together. Truth is, they had loved each other since the moment they met. It changed, over time, in different ways. But it was always there, waiting to be what was always meant to be. That's what scared them. So they didn't look too closely, and they played pretend for years. Growing from girls who looked at each other too long, to teens who held hands when they walked, to women who fought for each other tooth and nail at every instance, to who they were before the accident and who they were now. They had a life and they wanted to keep it safe. It was their most precious thing, aside from Monica, who made it all the more important.

But, neither could really ever commit to that way of living either. Neither wanted to face the possible rejection but neither wanted to give up on the prospect of possibility number two, either; The 'maybe' that said "I can't imagine a life where loving you is the wrong thing. A life where you are not for me and I am not for you, wholly, in every conceivable way. I can't imagine a life without you, at all". The one where they kissed and breathed into eachother and finally touched - not for too long but not for long enough no matter how much time it was, and it worked and the heavens opened up and the stars all shined brighter and space and time and everything else stopped mattering - nearly stopped existing if not to give them a world to live in together, and it was just them. It was always just them. It was always just her, they would both think. They would both know.

Needless to say, once they finally caught on (or were forced into each other, perhaps), no one batted an eye or said a word to the contrary. Finally, they all agreed, things were as they should be. It was a good few years, everything was right. But then the accident happened and everything changed, all over again.

Carol laughed to herself, reminiscing back as far as her sleep deprived mind would take her. Thinking about all the times she had made herself stupid or awkward around Maria, despite how comfortable they both were with each other - forgetting that the woman already knew how she felt. Forgetting that she was the one who had forgot what they were to each other. How she fumbled around trying to be Monica's parent, without ever being asked to - without ever being asked not to, she affirmed to herself every chance she could. Monica was her daughter to the same degree that she was Maria's, the woman always reminded her.

"Just because you didn't pop her out doesn't mean she isn't yours. Look at her, she's just like you! I will not take responsibility for all of it!" Maria would say, laughing that sweet laugh whenever Monica would act up or do something so Carol-like. An earnest laugh, hoping Carol would not just hear her but know she was telling the truth.

Carol sighed, standing up and looking in the mirror. She was tired, in ways that sleep wouldn't fix, but she did feel sleepy. She ran cool water over the backs of her hands, trying to give herself reprieve from the heat in the air. She dried her hands on towels with all of their colorful names messily embroidered into them (one of Maria's hobbies while she was pregnant) and rubbed over them with her thumb. She was grateful to have so much to remember, she thought. It must have been a rich life, so full of love. She could tell, even before the memories had started coming back. The love was built into the home, every inch held a part of her that she just had to look at, pick up, feel. They had never let her go. She smiled and felt a pang of longing run through her as she let the towel go. She walked back down the hall and made her way to her bed. Made her way home.

"Took you long enough. C'mere."

Maria said, not asking but telling, sleepiness filling every word. She grabbed at Carol's collar and tugged, not entirely gently but not rough either. Carol laughed as she laid down, facing her best friend and scooting under the light sheet with her back to the breeze as it wrippled against the teeshirt she found in the things Maria had pulled out the closet for her. She used to keep Carol's things in the dresser with hers, like they used to be, but it felt too painful after a while. Now she just wasn't ever sure how long the woman would be staying and made the excuse to herself that she needed the space for her own things, when really she just didn't want to have another physical reminder of the woman's absence as the days passed and piled into months. They hadn't slept in the same bed in so long, but even through the obvious ignoring they were both doing about where their relationship stood, they both felt comfortable enough (or maybe desperate enough) to cuddle. They had always slept together, even as kids, whenever they could. It had helped them both get through a lot of tough things as girls, and they kept close to each other all throughout the years they spent growing up. Their sleep overs were sacred to them, they would build forts and pretend they were living in far away places - away from what life was like for them where they were, grateful to have each other. Their second semester in college they finally beat down the housing office to just let them share a room, figuring it made sense since they both slept in each others room nearly every night anyways. They had pushed their beds together the whole rest of their time in school, only moving them apart for the one big argument they had. How silly, they both thought at the same time, not knowing they were both reminiscing in the same direction.

"I thought you were asleep."

Carol prodded, kicking her socks off.

"You always think I'm asleep before you try to sneak out."

Maria teased, eyes still closed but her hand finding it's way to Carols forearm, trying not to squeeze.

"I mean, you were snoring. Were you not asleep?"

"Hey! I don't snore. And yes, but that's besides the point. You just suck at sneaking out, you always did."

Maria nudges Carol playfully, knowing she would get a response.

"Alright now, you try sneaking out of a preachers house in the middle of the night. That second story jump was no joke on my prepubescent knees! I didn't even have my powers! And you do in fact snore, hate to break it to ya'."

Carol returns the nudge, mindful to be 'human gentle' not 'super human gentle' as both Maria and her daughter would say. This created a small space between them that both were ready to fill. Maria did first, per usual, eyes opening to smirk.

"Whatever you say, Danvers. What's your excuse now? Aren't you supposed to be like... light on your feet?"

She laughed, pulling herself into the woman in front of her without a beat. She didn't need any extra breathing room. The multiple galaxies she was used to having between them had been much more than enough for her. She decided to let any awkwardness that was between them from earlier in the night when dinner was over and Monica went to bed sit on the sidelines for now, they could deal with it tomorrow. She knew she should've brought it up, but she settled for hearing about Carol's adventures and missions instead. She listened for as long as she could stay awake, trying to balance her awe with her jealousy quietly. Right now, she was sleepy and needed the comfort only Carol could provide.

"Very funny. How do you even do that? One second you're asleep, the next second you're catching me in the act. Are you hiding some super powers I should know about?"

Carol laughed, wanting to talk more, selfishly. They were both tired and Maria had work tomorrow that she couldn't get out of, but they were both tired of not being with each other even more.

"I don't need super powers. I'm a mother, sweetheart."

Maria said matter-of-factly, rubbing her hand over Carol's then turning over and scooting her back against the woman, making herself the little spoon. Once again leaving no space. It was almost too familiar for both of them. Carol had to fight the urge to touch her in places, in ways, that friends wouldn't. She settled her hand on the woman's side respectfully, not knowing Maria was yearning for more than that, even if it was just a little more.

"How come I didn't get those mama powers then? Is it biological?"

Carol jokes, pulling Maria impossibly closer without thinking, resting her chin on the woman's shoulder. She wasn't sure about it while being completely sure at the same time. Maria didn't bat an eye, thankful for the contact. "This is normal, I can be normal. She's just Carol. Just the same, just also not. Keep it light, Rambeau." She reminded herself with an exhale before she spoke.

"Dont’cha think you have enough powers? Plus, you're basically a child anyways. You and Mon' are more alike than anyone could've imagined."

The brown skinned woman answered, rubbing her thumb over Carol's hand in a circle mindlessly. Trying to fight the sleep weighing her eyes down just as much as she fought the urge to turn over, pull the woman in and kiss her so deeply. She felt Carol's breath on her skin and reveled in it. God, I missed this, she thought.

"Ha, I'll let that one slide for tonight. I guess I'll just have to work on my sneaking skills."

She resigned happily, knowing the woman was right (although she would be hearing about it tomorrow), but also knowing Maria was more of a superhero than anyone she had ever met, including literal superheroes. She let out a breath and shuffled to get comfortable, leaving a soft whisper of a kiss on Maria's shoulder, no more than the idea of it as her lips grazed her skin every so slightly and pulling her in close again, chest to impossibly soft back.

"Good luck, Captain Marvel. I can always feel you coming and I can always feel you leaving."

Maria said, half awake. They both knew she was only half joking, for the sake of the night. It stung them both in a deep, hidden away part of their hearts. They were both so much more than tired.

"I missed you, Rambeau."

Carol whispered, almost too low, not sure if she wanted the woman to hear her or not. She was almost sure she hadn't.

"More than you even know, Danvers."

Maria replied just as quietly, finally letting sleep take hold of her body. She hoped she would dream something sweet, sweet enough to hold her over until she could wake up and finally be next to the woman she loved. A morning she prayed for every day, even if it might not ever be the way it was. Even if they were never lovers or girlfriends or partners or whatever they were again, this could be enough for her, she thought. She missed her friend just as much as she missed the woman she wanted to marry, so it would have to be enough. She hoped, knowing she had to make herself believe it.

Carol fought her sleep, trying to take in every moment, counting every breath they took in unison, trying to memorize the faint constellations of freckles on Maria's skin. She missed the way she smelled, the way she felt, the way she looked at any angle. The weight of her body against her own. She wasn't sure what she was going to say or do tomorrow, feeling the same weight she had felt all those years of not knowing. She wasn't sure what she knew and what she didn't anymore, but she knew she didn't want to lose what she had just gotten back, even if it meant playing pretend again. She would do it every day for the rest of her life, if it meant she could be with Maria and Monica in any way. She sighed to herself, having to let it just be what it is in the moment. She didn't want to miss even a second more than she already had. But even super humans need to sleep, so she drifted off slowly, giving up the fight eventually knowing she would wake up and still be there. She was finally home. Finally.

˚　　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.　　　　 　 . ✦　　　 　˚　　　　 . 　　.   ˚　　 　　*　　 　　✦　　　.　　.　　　✦　˚ 　 　　 　 ˚　.˚　✦.

The sun beating through the window was unforgiving to both women's desire to sleep in and pretend the world wasn't waiting for them. Much like the two of them, greeting the day felt opposite for once. Maria would drag herself through her day of dealing with white men in suits and making more decisions than any one person should really be making (but she was the best one to do it, whether the men agreed or not - although, the smart ones did), longing as usual to make it home. At least today she would have the excitement of making it home on a Friday evening after a longer than ever week, to not only her daughter who was on summer break for a few more weeks, but to her person. Carol, on the other hand, would take on the somewhat daunting responsibility of taking care of a small human tween (which should be easier than a non human child, right?) who just happened to be her daughter, and any other domestic duties about the house and the land. She was grateful for this level of domesticity, eager to wash dishes, do laundry, mow some grass and make her best attempt at cooking for her and Monica. Although, a part of her did feel intimidated. Sure, she could do pretty much anything but she hadn't just been a stay at home mom in a long time. A lot of the time she did spend doing it, pre-powers, she was still fighting to remember. She was happy as the memories made their way back to her, triggered by smells and sounds, old pictures and falling back into routines like muscle memory. She had most of it back, it had been a few years since everything happened. But she was excited when something new (or really, just old) popped back into her mind. She always wrote them down, secretly, making sure she would never lose such precious moments again. As the light made its way across her face, she didn’t want to give into the brightness she felt disrupting her sleep. She wanted just a little more.

She dreamt of Monica running through a wide field, sun shining and bubbles blowing into the air. She was younger, in the dream, than she was now. Carol felt bittersweet at the time she had missed but grateful that her daughter was growing, existing in such an unapologetic way. As Monica ran through the field, Carol watched her, aviators blocking the bright sun as she sat on the steps of their home, arms behind her as she thought of all the ways life was perfect in this moment. Maria walked out the screen door with drinks in her hand. A way too sweet lemonade for Monica and Carol, a lemon iced tea for herself. She bent down and kissed Carol on the top of her head, sitting next to her and handing her a drink. Carol sipped it, tasting a familiar sweetness as she pulled her sunglasses over her head, resting them in her soon to be tangled hair. Maria could make even the simplest things taste so good, she thought to herself, never having to say a word. They laughed as Maria called Monica over, before sipping her own drink. They looked up at each other with such knowing eyes, longing for connection. In this dream, there was no confusion, there was no awkwardness or uncertainty of certain boundaries. They leaned in to each other, ready to kiss as they both had a million times before, just as Monica skipped over and said "ewwww" and giggled in the way only she could. She sat between them and they all looked up at the setting sun, normal and happy and sure of all of it. Monica leaned her head on Carol's knee and sang whatever song she had learned in school that day. The mother's both filled with joy, bubbling up over top of them and pouring out of them. They were happy. They leaned in and kissed, finally, and it was as if nothing could ever be wrong.

As the sun broke through the drafty curtains and the shadows moved across the room letting the light sprawl across the women, Maria began to stir. She always woke up before her alarm clock, always against her will. She had been like that forever. This morning though, she didn't roll over to turn it off before it went off. She was just becoming aware of how softly entangled she was with Carols body, gratefully taking in the way the woman's skin meshed with her own. Through sleepy eyes she almost couldn't tell where hers ended and Carol's began. It was nice. Nicer than nice. It was right again. As it should be, she thought. She smoothed her hand over Carol's shoulder, realizing they had found their way to facing each other through the night. They were both sort of sweaty from the heat but unrelenting in holding each other, making sure most parts of them were touching no matter what. She looked over the woman, eyes running over the contours of her face and down her body, landing on her hips and running back up again to her bed head. No matter how many times Maria bought her a scarf or bonnet, she wouldn't wear it. She always said she couldn't sleep if she felt restricted, even though she would complain about having to detangle her curls every day. But she knew there was no way she was doing all that in space before and after every mission, she thought with an internal laugh. She was sure she just wanted easier access for Maria's fingers to find their way in and rub her head every night when she was home, just like it was before she was a space cadet. Besides, they slept like they were tied in a knot together - neither ever felt restricted then. She made a mental note to braid her hair back later, so at least she could avoid the tangles - even though she knew she would have to do it over and over again as it grew frizzy in the southern humidity. She tried to remember what she had dreamed about as she continued looking at the woman. She always dreamt about the two of them, sometimes it was good and sweet like them sitting on the front steps together watching Monica play, sometimes it was scary and dark, like the day she lost her all over again. No matter what it was, she always dreamed vividly when Carol was away - like she was living the moments herself. It had both helped and hindered her grieving, so lucidly living two lives: one where Carol was hers always, and one where she was still hers but wasn't there. Wasn't anywhere, she was afraid of for so long. She would wake up sweating with tears down her face every time, sometimes happy tears and sometimes not, but they always puddled in her when she regained consciousness, breaking the dam she built every day to contain herself. But whenever Carol did return to their house, it was like nothing could be sweeter or more real - sometimes even more daunting - than having her home, so she never dreamed when she slept in the same house as the woman, even when she tried. She was slightly startled out of her thoughts when Carol spoke up in her slightly raspy but almost innocent sleepy voice that Maria loved so much.

"Take a picture, it'll last ya' longer, ma'am."

She smirked at Maria with only one eye half way open, vision still blurry. Maria smiled big, white teeth on full display before she rebutted.

"That's my line. You always tryna be like me."

She said, pretending to flip her hair over her shoulder even though it was wrapped in her signature lilac satin scarf. It was her favorite color, even though no one ever expected it to be. No one ever expected her to be as soft as she was, for a lot of reasons, but mainly because she would never let them. No one but Carol, and even sometimes her too. The color reminded her of her mother, and she held onto it with both hands.

Both women smiled while Carol rubbed her eyes with one hand, holding Maria's with the other to the woman's surprise.

"Who wouldn't wanna be just like thee one and only Maria Rambeau."

Carol replied sincerely, planting a kiss on her hand. Maria felt a warm blush run over her face, a feeling no one else could produce in her. They locked eyes for a moment before Maria broke it.

She remembered that she had to go to work and her alarm would go off any second. She remembered that Carol would have to leave again, probably soon although they hadn't talked about it yet. She had only gotten home last night, just in time for dinner, with flowers in her hand that she had probably picked from some unsuspecting person's garden and a big smile. She also remembered the elephant in the room. They hadn't talked about their relationship, neither wanting to waste a moment together or risk Monica hearing them. They hadn't kissed or been intimate either, in far too long for both of them although they would never let on, unsure of where they stood though they both longed for each other in ways they couldn't even find enough words to describe if they tried. They had been too occupied on whatever was going on in front of them every time they had the chance to see each other since Carol came back. They had both been nervous to approach the subject, and had thus settled for somewhat awkward but 100% needy hugs and cheek kisses so far. Maria had all but tackled the woman when she first came home, after she was sure it was okay for her to embrace her. Even the last few times Carol was home, it had only been for a day or maybe two here and there every few months and after a while it had been almost a year. Carol made it home this time just 6 days shy of 12 months away. She had sent Monica and Maria flowers on their birthdays (quite strange to call some obscure flower shop in Louisiana from a communication device that could call almost anybody in the universe). All three had been surprised she even remembered their birthdays, let alone her own. They had lit a candle and blown it out together for Carol on her birthday, both sadly eating a cupcake and watching sit coms together that night. Maria had let Monica stay up later than normal out of sympathy for the young girl and maybe more so out of not wanting to be alone on a day they usually spent together for the past few decades. The flowers had notes promising to celebrate their birthdays when she made it back across the universe, addressed to 'Lt. Trouble' and 'The only Taurus I'll ever like, Captain Rambeau' which got a somber but real laugh out of both of them. But before all that, it was 6 years in-between when Carol went missing (or "died" as the Air Force liked to refer to it). Carol took a few weeks to even question if they were ever 'more than friends', so Maria played her part as the woman's best friend as she had for many years before. Carol was only brave enough to ask once, after they had hugged and already said their 'see ya laters'. Something in the way they embraced made her look at the woman and remember. She remembered more then than she had ever been able to. She placed a nervous hand on Maria's face and touched their foreheads together, desperate to understand, letting a tear roll down her cheek. She had started to ask but it got stuck in her throat, so Maria had wiped her cheek and gave her that all knowing smile. "Shh. Don't. We'll figure it out later. Go save the world, or the Universe. I'll be here when you get back, baby." She had whispered it so Monica wouldn't register it but she probably had. As they parted, Carol turned away and lifted off, knowing she had to rip herself away that very instance or she may never take flight again. Only turning back once she was far in the air, but not too far to look down and see Monica and Maria still standing there, holding each other while Monica pointed up at the sky. All Carol could manage was a final wave before she left the atmosphere faster than she could think.

Baby sat in Carol's mind for months after the fact, replaying it every free second she had. It played in Maria's too. She wasn't sure if she should've said it but she needed to say something or she thought she might drown in the thick Louisiana air. She missed her partner more than she had been really been able to endure, but at least she had her friend back, she reminded herself, so she did. She pushed forward, every day, knowing at least her Carol was out there somewhere and she'd have another chance. At least Monica had two parents again, kind of. Now, even though they hadn't talked about it, they had eased back into a different type of relationship, it just still wasn't exactly the same. It was and wasn't enough for the both of them. But it was also hard to purposefully face more difficult things when there was years worth of catching up to do, a shared daughter to raise, and entire galaxies between them more often than not. Most times Carol was home, all their time went to just being a family for as long as they could from sun up to the inevitable sun down.

Remembering all of this sent a small shiver up her spine and she refocused. She playfully pushed the woman's shoulder trying to break the tension she was sure they both felt and sat up, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed right before her alarm went off. She felt flustered and borderline frustrated that Carol could be so goddamn charming even when she wasn't trying to be. Even with bed head and only partly aware of who she even was. She turned the alarm off after one beep and sighed, leaning her head back and yawning.

Carol missed her body being next to hers, aching at the abrupt disconnection between their skin. She watched as Maria pulled on an old oversized Air Force teeshirt over her bra and stood up, putting on her her pajama shorts with Santa on them that they had all pulled out last night with Monica, and started stretching. She knew why Maria pulled away, equally aware that there was much between them that needed tending too. She too, didn't want to keep living like they weren't even just a little bit more than friends, like they used to - only this time they both knew it wasn't true. Carol did remember somethings, she remembered - no, she knew what it felt like to be in love, to kiss, to be more than this. Only know, neither knew if that's what the other wanted back anymore, if the feelings remained. Carol was truthfully not even sure she was remembering correctly but she so badly hoped she was. So much time had passed, maybe things had changed in more ways than what was visible. It was almost worse, that way, wasn't it?

⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆✰⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆

While Maria was in the shower and getting ready, Carol made her way downstairs. Monica was still asleep but she would be up soon, always getting up just a bit after Maria did even when she was on break from school. She always said she didn't want to miss any 'explorin'' time, which could mean a plethora of things knowing Monica.

Carol walked down the stairs and looked out the front door, rubbing her eyes to adjust to the light. The sun was just fully making its way to the sky, creating moving shadows across the living room through the windows. It was beautiful. The house was so still, but so full of comfort. She walked over the the front door and looked out, opening the first door and then peaking her toes out the screen door. The days heat wasn't yet fully upon them, and she could smell the dewy grass all around them. Out of all the expansive space and all the planets she had seen, there was nothing like a deep southern morning to make you remember how beautiful things can be, she thought.

She questioned with herself whether she should check the mail, not sure if it was appropriate for her to do so. She knew there wouldn't be anything for her, as most of the people on the planet that even knew she existed either thought she was dead or forgot about her entirely. For a moment, she felt a wave of grief roll through her. She wanted normal again for the first time in a long time. She would even settle for the not really normal 'normal' that the Air Force provided. She would settle for a piece of mail, waiting for her to open, sitting in the mailbox she shared with her companion and child. Even if it was just jury duty or some scam trying to get her to get a credit card. She wanted it all back so bad, sometimes it made her forget why she ever left the planet in the first place. How much more justice did she have to bring to the universe before she could just be a human again? She reveled in what mundane life could be like, how exciting the not exciting routine of working a regular job, taking a kid to school and watching tv could be. She shook her head, trying to rid herself of the thoughts. It was too early in the day to have an existential crisis.

Thankfully, she turned around when she heard smaller feet pitter pattering against the hardwood floors upstairs and making their way down each stair not so gracefully. She smiled and nearly teleported over to the stairs to catch Monica before she jumped, as they always did. She lifted the girl, zooming her around the living room like she was flying. The once still room was now filled with matching giggles from both of them, just affirming Maria's comment about the two of them being almost too much alike to not actually be related.

"Good morning, Lt. Trouble! What's on the agenda today?"

Carol asked as she made her way into the kitchen and sat Monica on the edge of the counter top with a sound effect.

"Reporting for duty, Captain! Today's agenda includes catching more frogs and naming them, finishing my blueprints for my next invention, and climbing the big tree!"

Monica exclaimed, somehow still giggling. She kicked her feet back and forth as she sat, looking up at the woman before her with eyes bigger than they'd ever been. She was purely happy to have her mother home, and had no intention of leaving her side - which meant Carol would just have to catch the frogs and climb the tree, all while offering supportive feedback on the next Rambeau invention. Carol smiled at this, knowing all too well she had a busy day ahead of her. She always struggled to say no to both of the Rambeaus' in her life.

"Is breakfast on the agenda, too?"

Maria asked with a laugh, walking into the kitchen and leaning against the counter top next to Monica.

"Uhhh, sure but only if youuu cook it mama."

Monica says, trying not to hurt Carol's feelings but being authentic.

"Ouch! Is my cooking really that bad?"

Carol half laughs, half interrogates the pair in front of her. They both look at each other and somehow wince and smile at the same time. Maria points to the scorch marks above the stove left in wake of Carol's last attempt to cook dinner. It was Spaghetti, mind you. Carol laughs defeatedly.

"Hey! You can't prove it was me! Plus it came out good!"

"Yeah, after I remade it!"

Maria laughs out loud.

"Oh hush. It'll be good! I'll make my famous pancakes for you, and you'll both love them! Isn't that right Lt. Trouble?"

Monica looks at Maria, who just shrugs with a smile that says "good luck kid", before she answers.

"Give it your best shot, Captain."

She says with a smile. Carol accepts it, knowing they're right. As she laughs, she turns to the cupboards and looks around for pancake mix. Monica whispers to her other mother who is staring lovingly at Carol's back, watching her shirt lift up in the back as she reaches up to find what she's looking for.

"If I eat mama's breakfast, can I watch extra tv tonight?"

Maria fights back a laugh before nodding silently.

"I have super hearing too, remember?"

Carol says without turning around, still shuffling through the cabinet. Maria and Monica chuckle as Maria tussles Monica's hair and walks over to the other side of the kitchen.

"Wrong cabinet, Captain."

Maria teases as she turns on her coffee machine that she prepped the night before. Carol smiles and Monica grabs a new box of cereal from the cupboard above her and jumps down to sit at the table and starts solving the puzzles on the back.

Everything is good, its calm and lighthearted. Carol starts measuring ingredients (a few too many for boxed pancake mix) and starts whipping them together. Monica is sure that Carol added too many eggs, which she didn't really need to use but insists that it makes them fluffier, and continues with her puzzles. Maria looks through paperwork while she waits for her coffee. Once it's done brewing, she walks over to the cupboard that's right next to Carol and reaches up to grab her favorite mug. Carol's eyes meet the woman's chest as she reaches up and she almost doesn't look away. When she does, she hopes Maria hadn't caught her looking. She did, of course. She never misses a beat, but she chooses not to address it for how it might undo her whole morning routine. She daydreams about the woman pulling her in by her waist while she's reaching up, picking her up and kissing her. Rolling against the counter. She misses how they used to start their mornings, before Monica was awake. Passionate but slow, never rushing through movements even though they both risked being late. Maria shakes her head as she catches Carol's eyes on her way back down, daring to peak back at her again in an attempt to mask the first time. They both offer up soft and innocent smiles before carrying on. Carol whips the batter a little harder, almost too hard, feeling the whisk crack in her hand. At the same time, Maria spills a bit of coffee on her hand as she walks away, fighting to steady herself against her own thoughts. Monica watches them, laughing to herself as they both try to clean up their little messes.

"Allllrighty, first ones in."

Carol excites as she pours batter into a way too hot pan, hearing it sizzle. Everyone knows its going to burn, but Carol will make the excuse that its the first pancake and they all do that. Maria give a reassuring "mhm" over her mug as she chuckles, trying to support the woman. Monica will point out that Maria's never burn, and they'll all laugh while Carol ignores it, fidgeting away with the spatula.

When she pours the second one, she makes a cute M shape. It's messy but you can clearly make out what its meant to be, for the most part, and that's enough of a triumph for her. While it cooks, she pulls out a baby blue plate and the syrup from the cabinet she was in before and sets them on the table for Monica.

"Voila! Special delivery for Lt. Trouble!"

She slides the misshaped, almost burned but not quite pancake onto the plate with a big cheesy smile. A smile Maria takes in fully while she can, while Carol's focus is on Monica. Monica claps and digs in, opting to rip it up with her hands and dip it into the syrup rather than use a fork. Carol slides her a napkin.

"Wow! It actually tastes like food!"

Monica congratulates Carol, not meaning it to be a backhanded compliment like how it sounds, and lands a genuine a high-five on the woman's bigger hand.

"You know what? I'll take what I can get!"

Carol laughs.

"Can I whip you up a magical pancake, Captain Rambeau?"

Maria smiles, finishing her coffee and checking her watch. She was almost running late, which almost never happens. She was almost thankful to avoid another one of Carol's creations, but she would eat the pancake too if it meant she had more time with her girls.

"I'll have to take a raincheck. I gotta head out. Seems like the world always needs saving."

She smiled apologetically, walking over to place her empty cup in the sink. She leans down and plants a kiss on Monica's forehead, pulling her hair back from her face. She looks up to see Carol already looking at her, unsure of how they should part ways. Would a hug be too much? The kiss they both wanted danced between them, but they wouldn't dare. Monica watched them over her plate, interested to see how they would handle this too. She remembers more than Carol does, and more than Maria knows.

In an attempt to quell the impending awkwardness, Maria reaches out and pats Carols shoulder softly, before deciding that that's too friend zone-y. She slides her hand down the woman's arm to her hand and squeezes it twice, tighter the second time. She smiles and it means "It's good to have you home". Carol smiles back, and it means "I'm happy to be here, too". Maria walks towards the door and pulls on her jacket and puts her sunglasses on, aviators just like Carol's old ones in the box of belongings they kept. It makes Carol smile to herself, thinking about her dream.

"Not too much trouble today, okay Mon'?" Maria says, without fully turning around to acknowledge the two. She doesn't want to leave but someone's got to lead SWORD and she might actually need the time away to think.

"I can handle it, don't worry Captain."

Carol whistles out, smiling at Monica as she finishes her pancake rolling her eyes. The door closes behind Maria and she feels the sun on her face and lets out a happy sigh.

"I know."

She says, mostly to herself, but she remembers that super hearing too.

☄⋆｡°✩ *️ ⚛ *️ ✩°｡⋆☄

PART 2!

hi my loves. I wrote this whole thing, and realized it was incredibly long so I'm breaking it into two parts. you won't have to wait too long, I'll post it tomorrow! I sincerely hope you enjoyed this and I hope you read the next part when it's posted. please lmk what you think! I appreciate any and all feedback so pls pls pls lmk what you think!

I'll also be posting this to ao3 later today as well, and will add the second chapter on there as well. Also lmk if anybody wants to be tagged in part 2?? Idk lol. thank you for reading!!! 💕

#dan beau #carol x maria #carol danvers #carolmaria #marvel #captain marvel #marvel fandom #marvel fanfiction #they are my wives I love them #monica rambeau #the marvels #lashana lynch #Maria Rambeau x Carol Danvers #Maria Rambeau x Black!Carol Danvers #Carol Danvers x Maria Rambeau #carolmaria fic #danbeau fic #I am so achingly homosexual #not canon compliant #fuck marvel for killing my love #I will avenge her with many loving stories #black writer #black reader #black wlw #black sapphic #black queer character #black wlw stories #black wlw fanfiction #mcu

[myarmsaretoolong]

20 questions (for fanfic writers)

cheers for the tag @sarah-sandwich <3

1. how many works do you have on ao3?

57.

2. what's your total ao3 word count?

412,260

3. what fandoms do you write for?

mcu but mostly just irondad, though i stopped writing that for a bit when a small (large) marauders obsession hit so now i write both depending on the fic im working on. also taken a side step into parkner recently

4. top five fics by kudos:

A Different Future - peter snaps one-shot

Futures are Made to be Broken - more in depth follow up to peter snaps one shot

The Best Day of Harley's Life (and the worst of Peter's) - classic field trip fic only harley is like the tourguide and makes it his mission to ruin peter's day. not actually parkner but for sure the beginning of my growing love for harley

Not my First Time - part of webpril challenge one-shot, tony and peter are stuck under a building, conversation ensue

Where Do You Think You're Going - urrrmmmm good question. its a whumptober one-shot so peter must get beat up. pretty sure its by quentin beck and his drones, lets assume tony finds him and saves the day (its less than 2000 words i could read it and find out but im lazy)

5. do you respond to comments?

i do my best!

6. what is the fic your wrote with the angstiest ending?

ermmm *checks notes* Is This It? springs to mind first. you know the deleted scene of tony snapping and seeing morgan? well in this one he sees peter, only peter is a good few years older and has sorted his life out a bit. its sad obvi, but also kind of happy? the end lines are sad sad though :( so either that or 01/11/81 (if you're a marauders fan you already know that date) which basically very closely follows remus throughout the entire day after james and lily are killed etc. its very angsty all the way through, mary is a sweetheart, and at the end he's left all alone...

7. what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

most tbh. im going to say Past, Present, Yet to Come because that's my baby. (peter is the ghost of christmas present, tony is scrooge, only its like the ryan reynolds film spirited, very good)

8. do you get hate on fics?

nope! (and please dont :) )

9. do you write smut?

nah

10. craziest crossover:

well ive only ever written one and it was mcu/glee and there's a reason i never finished it (nor am linking it [insert skull emoji])

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that ive noticed

12. have you ever had a fic translated?

nope!

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

nope! im a solitary kinda guy

14. all time favourite ship?

what a question... wolfstar is a classic, ineffable husbands are precious to me, doctor/rose is nostalgic... i can't pick favourites

15. what's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

besides all of them? all of them.

no but really there are so many and i have this problem of thinking of idea -> getting excited -> writing beginning -> not knowing where to take it -> get excited by new idea -> repeat. im working on it though and do genuinely plan to finish them all

16. what are your writing strengths?

yknow i honestly think my general writing is at a pretty good level. defo room for improvement but there always it, int there? id say that's a general strength, but specifically i think im goooood at making things angsty. and i love doing it so win win

17. what are your writing weaknesses?

well... finishing anything. plotting out full stories is a big problem. (though ive recently started a notebook for random ideas for fics and its helping) um... tbh i can struggle with everything from time to time. i think getting characters voices right can be hard cos i often find people saying things they would never say and having to go back and and put them straight. er,,, action can be next to impossible if The Vision isn't there.

18. thoughts on dialogue in another language?

i dont have many. if its a language i cant read i just skim past and sometimes read an end note translation but if there's too much im just going to go with the flow

19. first fandom you wrote in?

mcu

20. favourite fic you've written?

again, Past, Present, Yet to Come is my babygirl. love him to pieces. can i say fics ive not finished yet? because parkner hunger games au and marauders doccy who are fire and one day will see the light of day (and get names)

tagging @winter-turtle @helloliriels erm ive forgotten everyone who has ever existed... @ anyone who i followed in the boopening who writes and @ anyone who just wants to (no pressure at all obvi)

#tag game #irondad #marauders

[hailperseusjackson]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

finally getting around to this, thank you @astromechs for the tag!!

::

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

29

2. What’s your total ao3 word count?

327,391

3. What fandoms do you write for?

mainly star wars and marvel! though i don't write marvel as much anymore (the mcu really burned me too many times lol and just took away a lot of my inspiration/motivation to write for it). so mostly star wars nowadays, but occasionally i will sprinkle in a fic for a different fandom!

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

a. we find ourselves when we lose everything else - 519 kudos

b. our time in the dark - 518 kudos

c. risk everything we have (and just let our walls cave in) - 426 kudos

d. if loves elastic (then were we born to test it’s reach) - 391 kudos

e. revelations (come to us in recovery) - 388 kudos

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

no 🙈. weirdly enough, i was a lot better about responding years ago on my ff. net account. but i don't really do it on ao3, honestly because i'm just a little lazy about it lol. but i promise i read every single one and know that if you've ever left a comment, i appreciate it so so much!!

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

probably broken things. it's a romanogers soulmate last words au which ended in a major character death. but you know. last words au, death. it made sense haha.

i've also written a couple canon-compliant character study type fics, including one for natasha romanoff, one for cassian andor/rogue one crew, some for leia organa (post-tfa), and well, none of those end very happily sooooo.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

uhhhhhhh why was this so hard asdffglkhglj. i write a lot of agnst and hurt/comfort lol. but my fic, the weight of your love, is just pure kanera fluff. and these two kanera fics that i've posted on tumblr (but not on ao3 yet), are just silly and fun and fluffy.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

not really, thankfully. i mean, i've gotten some not-so-nice comments in the past (again, mainly on ff.net) but i've never gotten anything super aggressive or confrontational, so i'm grateful to be in nice corners of fandom!

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

occasionally yes. typically i insert my smut scenes into longer fics though. (i do have a bunch of unpublished half-written smut fics that i haven't gotten the courage to finish and post yet, bc i'm not always the most confident in my smut writing but maybe one day!)

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

not really. i'm not even the best at coming up with AUs, much less crossovers lol. i think the closest i've gotten to a crossover is an agents of shield/mcu crossover, which shouldn't even BE a crossover, but considering that the mcu never acknowledged AoS, it kinda feels like it is. anyway, wrote a fic where daisy johnson and bucky barnes are bffs, and i'm quite fond of it!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

yeah :/ i had somebody take one of my fics and (related to next question) translate it and put it on wattpad. i couldn't message the author and my attempts to contact wattpad got me nowhere so i kinda just let it go.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

looking at last question, technically yes. but other than that, not yet! i would be very honored if someone wanted to translate one of my fics though, and would have absolutely no problem with it! (so long as they asked and didn't steal it asdkfsjd)

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

only bits and pieces of shared aus with friends for fun, but haven’t published anything.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

kanera and romanogers, hands down. kanan and hera are more recent, but i fell in love with both their characters and them as a couple so fast, and i absolutely love writing for them. they're going to stick with me forever. and steve and natasha.... my loves. fell in love with them when i saw catws the first time and haven't looked back. they've stuck with me the longest, i think. and even though i don't write marvel as much anymore, i still think about them a lot, and there's a lot of stevenat wips i have that i still hope to finish one day.

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

whew ummmmm. there's a couple of romanogers fics (specifically finishing our time in the dark and the follow-up to revelations which is an endgame fix-it) that i have told myself i will finish. and i want to! but it will really take a major push to get me back into the headspace to write for marvel again. genuinely, endgame drained so much of the love and inspiration i had so 😔 i hope i can prove myself wrong one day!

i also have ambitions to do a star wars sequels rewrite, but it feels so big lol, so idk if i'll ever actually get around to finishing it. but the bits i have written for it i have so much love for.

16. What are your writing strengths?

digging deep into character emotions and their headspaces. that's something i really like exploring. also i think i'm pretty good about including small details, particularly with using the different senses and using those to help set the scene, and whatnot. in short, description and emotion are my strong suits!

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

humor. i think i can be funny sometimes in my writing, but i definitely don't think i'm as good at humor as other people. and especially funny dialogue and banter, that's something i feel like i have to think about more. so still working on that!

i also don't know if this is a true weakness, but i literally don't know when to stop writing asdfljgldkj. i feel like lately it's so hard for me to write short fics (unless i do it in a mad burst in one sitting). but if i'm thinking a lot about a fic, chances are it's going to be 5k MINIMUM.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

i'm not real comfortable with it, especially if i don't speak the language. if it's a very short phrase or a singular word, i will try to use a translator and other online investigating (and then nicely ask people to correct me in the comments if i'm wrong lol). but if i want to have the character speaking full sentences i will usually type it out in english and then use "they said in [insert language here]" as the tagline.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

if we're going wayyy back, technically the first fic i wrote was a bones fic when i was in middleschool lmao. i wrote it in a notebook, never published it online. but i first posted fics online in high school (as a freshman i think), and i think the first fics i published were for percy jackson and supernatural lol.

20. Favorite fic you’ve ever written?

probably revelations. looking at it now, there are certainly things i would change about this one, but i wrote it on and off for 3 years, so i was just really proud when i finally finished it. and there are still a lot of character moments i wrote into this one that i still love.

also you are my solid ground. plot does not really exist in this fic, but i had the best time writing the steve/nat/sam dynamic. literally dream trio.

(real talk, some of my fave fics are ones that i haven't finished yet/haven't published yet. i think my newest favorite fic is the kanan character study one i'm working on now. i still have a little bit to go, but i'm really close to finishing it, and i'm just so proud of it. there's so much about it that i love and i can't wait to share it (hopefully by the end of the year!)).

::

no pressure tagging: @effie-trinket and anyone else who would like to participate!

#this took me way too long lol #tag games #fanfic #my writing #mik chats

[kitkatt0430]

SO I don't really keep up all that much with the DCEU so I was taken aback when watching a video essay about why the sequel films are bad when the essayist said that... the whole DCEU was ending with Aquaman 2. Like I know this 'verse has never done, like, amazingly well, and I know some of the sequels were pretty naff but...actually scrapping it? And I'm wondering why - is it really that it's flopped or is it that they wanted an MCU without being willing to put in any of the work and instead expecting Instant Billions or whatever (or is it tax reasons, like they did with Batgirl?)

Oooh, send me a link to the essay? I'll have to check that out.

So I admit I haven't paid all that much attention to the DCEU either. I gave up on following everything for that one a lot faster than I did the MCU, so I really only tune in to one of the DC movies if I hear enough about it being good after it's been out a while. It was definitely mismanaged compared to how the MCU was handled - which is funny because the Arrow-verse interconnected shows was well done and they could have leveraged the multi-verse aspect of the comics to their advantage, though it's probably for the best they didn't. The shows had their own problems with seasonal rot and using them to prop up the movies would likely have not been pulled off with any finesse or skill. (I mean, they did finally tie in the movies in the Crisis on Infinite Earths with the DCEU!Barry cameo, but that was too little too late and barely counts.)

I hadn't heard the DCEU was coming to a close, but I'm not surprised. Though the news articles I just kinda flipped through before responding here were mixed on whether the DCEU is actually ending or if there is gonna be one more Aquaman movie since the second movie apparently ends with a setup for one? (wouldn't be the first setup for another movie that never followed through though) And it may not so much be ending as it is soft rebooting. Which... since I doubt the WB execs learned anything about why the DCEU failed to achieve what the MCU managed, I can't say I have high hopes for DCEU 2.0.

Their tax games definitely contributed to the DCEU loosing fans and thus money in the long run. The Batgirl movie had a lot of interest in it from fans and, if I'm remembering correctly, it had finished filming and just had post-production left to do. So tanking it for tax reasons pissed off a lot of people and killed off a lot of goodwill towards WB's handling of the DC movies. The fact that WB/HBO are continuing to play tax games with the Road Runner cartoons continues to erode trust in the company and continuing to play those games are likely to continue destroying their fan base as more and more people lose trust in them. Until these kinds of tax shell games are made illegal, I don't really see the company admitting that these kind of short term tax benefits are hurting their long term profitability with every person who stops caring about new movies or shows announced because, well, it'll probably get canceled for tax BS anyway, right?

Their strict control of characters being allowed to appear in DCEU vs the various tv shows was ultimately harmful too. By refusing to allow a live action Batman show, we got a version of Arrow that was at times good but was still pretty clearly Bruce Wayne-lite with Oliver Queen slapped on top. And who basically became a cop in the final season; comics Ollie would be ranting in all fucks about that if he knew. (Dinah probably wondering if he'd forgotten other words exist...) Declaring Deadshot off limits too meant putting an end to the use of the suicide squad episodes, which I have no doubt backfired by making fans of the show interpretation less interested in seeing the movie version.

While I'm glad that bringing Barry Allen as the Flash into the movies didn't end up killing the show - it was already popular by the time the Justice League was announced so I suspect they at least realized killing that show would definitely be shooting themselves in the foot, a rare good decision for the DCEU - but the way interviews about the Ezra Miller version of the character are given tells me that they just... don't care about the success of the show compared to movies. And that alienated fans of the Flash show, especially down the road when a standalone Flash movie entered development and the movie related hype got louder. "Oh how wonderful Ezra is at playing Barry Allen, none could do it better." Except Grant for nine years. Ten if you count the intro episodes he had on the Arrow before the Flash started. Talking about the movies as if the show didn't exist, or matter, definitely shot them in the foot with show fans. And it didn't help that the movies were retreading stories with that version of Barry that the show had already done - Eobard murdering Nora, Flashpoint, an evil version of Barry too??? not totally clear on that one - and did so badly if the clips I've seen of the Flash movie are any indication. At the very least had the interviews regarding the movie had been respectful of the show's success, they could have drawn in a lot more viewers than the Flash movie ended up with.

Those are not the only places where the movies have caused characters to be barred from the various tv shows or where the movie PR has treated the shows (and not just arrow verse shows) like they don't exist. But they're the ones that come to mind for me first. And it generates bad feelings with fans every time it happens.

Then there's the fact that the DCEU movies were just literally difficult to watch. The MCU movies get dark, but wow. Do DCEU filmmakers know what lighting is? Do they know that lighting is important in order to see what is happening on the screen? Do they know that people watching movies like to be able to see what's happening on the screen?

The MCU has a lot of planned continuity between entries. The plots for the movies may be kinda shallow, but the fact that a lot of the movies can stand on their own despite being interconnected was a major strength for building up the fan base it has today. They don't account for every plot hole or contradiction, and it's kinda hilarious what continuity errors some of the later retcons have introduced, but ultimately there is a cohesiveness of story being told across the various movies and shows. And the shows have been very good at diving into the fallout of plot points that are left shallow in the movies. What happened to the agents burned during the Winter Solder - Agents of SHIELD handles that question really well, though being so tightly tied to the movies was as much a weakness for the show in it's early seasons as it was a strength. Daredevil and the other Defenders shows explored the fallout of the Battle of New York. And the Disney shows continue that trend of diving more in depth into various questions the movies have left us with.

The DCEU doesn't really have that. There's no real unified vision. There's a lot of big ideas but not a whole lot of follow through. The characters don't really seem to exist between movies - the Flash movie was supposed to be a few years post the Justice League movie, but Barry had done basically nothing as the Flash between the two. Diana is still mourning Steve as the love of her life in the second WW movie. Though Diana has grown more comfortable in the regular world, she hasn't really grown any as a person between the first and second movies despite the decades in between. And then sometimes the characters are more stereotypes than actual characters - Batman vs Superman was less Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent clashing over misunderstanding each other and more the concept of Batman vs Superman as argued by out of touch fanboys who don't actually like the source material. (You can tell where I stopped keeping up with the DCEU now right?) And even the extended version of Justice League has at best superficial readings of the characters because it's trying to do too much at once. While sometimes the characters do learn and grow and better themselves, if it survives to the next movie is hit or miss. Which, admittedly, is one movie sin the MCU does have in common with the DCEU.

(The things that could be said about how wildly unevenly Clint Barton was written to be... I swear he's basically a different character every time he shows up at this point, despite having the same name and actor every time.)

And the DCEU hasn't really handled it's scandals well. When actors or directors or whoever is called out on bad behavior, the company will cover for them. So while the people running the shows seemed to have learned from the #MeToo movement and ditched problematic people even when it meant changing direction with ongoing plots (Supergirl season 3) or writing out one of the main characters of a show (Hartley Sawyer being let go between seasons over uncovered past bad behavior and the subsequent decision to write out Ralph Dibny instead of recasting), but those in charge of the DCEU have routinely protected people called out for racist, misogynist, and other prejudiced behaviors. (the post Justice League racism debacle, pretty much everything to do with Ezra Miller pre-Flash movie release...)

Honestly, the TLDR here would be that the DCEU was just mismanaged every which way it turned. And while we still got gems like Aquaman, the first Wonder Woman, Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey... those were never going to be enough to save the DCEU from either getting shelved or rebooted eventually. And if we are getting a DC movie-verse reboot? Unless the problems that tanked this iteration are addressed, it's still going to fail in comparison to the MCU's ongoing successes. Because ultimately, yes, I think they wanted MCU level success without being willing to do the work to achieve it. And I don't think they'll be any more willing to do that work with a rebooted DCEU either.

#kitkatt0430 answers #kitkatt0430 rambles #dceu #dceu meta #fandom meta #arrow verse meta

[maggot-monger]

i was tagged by @leatafandom — thank you!! it was fun both to see your answers and to think about/look up mine <3

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

99. some day #100 will be posted but who knows when or what that will be lolol

2. What’s your total A03 word count?

395,538

3. What fandoms do you write for?

currently none; i'm doing original stuff only lately. however i have things on ao3 written for marvel (specifically the asgardian faction), downton abbey, what we do in the shadows, and of course most recently (and also least recently...i've come full circle) supernatural

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

seize the crown (wwdits, e)

friendly favors (wwdits, e)

judges of character (downton abbey, gen)

"mr barrow has the flu" (downton abbey, t)

thomas barrow and the power of friendship (downton abbey, t)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

yessss i love responding to comments!!! i appreciate them so much, and i love an opportunity to talk about my writing <3 i can understand why people might prefer not to, especially on a place like ao3 which is technically an archive, but i like the community feel of interacting with readers on there (and i love it when other authors reply to my comments so kind of a golden rule situation)

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

hm...technically the song remains the same (spn, t) has the least desirable endingbut imo passive (mcu, gen), which is entirely about grief and denial, is angstier despite "brother died" being a less dramatic problem than "stuck in eternal crushing hell isolation"

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

to me it's phantom fangs (wwdits, t), my little vampirism-as-trans-allegory project! it's a bit of a bummer at times but to me the ending is so happy <3

8. Do you get hate on your fic?

i haven't!

9. Do you write smut?

yee. although i'm never sure if i want to write smut lmao but it sure does happen a fair amount sometimes

10. Do you write crossovers?

it's not generally my thing, although i do enjoy heavy allusions. i do have at least one though!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i'm aware of (i have had art stolen though RIP)

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes! although i'm not sure the translation is up anymore; it was a number of years ago

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

no...i'm curious about this but i'm not sure how it would go? but anyway no, at least not yet

14. What‘s your all-time favourite ship?

formally it's samifer because i got my fandom phd in this lol but who even knows in actuality tbh

15. What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

i'm soooo haunted by the last chapter of crimsonpeaknatural aka hollow's gate (spn, e). it is my longest fic on ao3 by far and is literally one chapter from done, i just can't bring myself to write the last ~7k. it is fully outlined. i know what happens in it. i just can't write it! why

i also started a michean fic over the summer that i really like but i doubt it'll ever be finished. at least i never posted any of that though :p

16. What’s your writing strengths?

imo characterization/perspective, atmosphere, and prose versatility. maybe pacing? i've gotten comments on that a few times but it's less of a self-observed strength

17. What’s your writing weaknesses?

i don't know what plots are <3 also sometimes my prose wraps around to being a little too circular for its own good so that's both a strength and a weakness of mine lol.

tbh i'm also bad at killing my darlings, especially when it comes to scenes i'm obsessed with, unless i give myself a LONG time to edit. like, on the order of months

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

i'm not really a fan of this as a reader and i prefer not to do it as a writer, but also i'm not going to knock it on principle because i do understand the appeal, especially to people who are writing primarily for themselves and are comfortable in both/all the languages they're including. it can be fun sometimes to see the differences between the language the dialogue and the translation gives (if they provide one) if the language is one i'm also familiar with.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

harry potter. y'know...what can you do lol it is what it is. i wrote the kind of dramione angst you'd expect of a person like me who was 13yo at the time

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

ohhhh i don't know. i had SO much fun writing poker face (spn, e) and i think it succeeds at doing everything i wanted it to do. this isn't an objective answer but i am genuinely very happy with that one so it is my answer atm!

no-pressure tagging @artoodeeblue, @fandom-space-princess, @quietwingsinthesky, and anybody else who would like to do this!

#tag games

[polizwrites]

Down in the Hole (Some Emotions Are Hard to Hide)

This is a fill for today’s  @flashfictionfridayofficial prompt  [#FFF190 Trapped in the Dark] as well as my @samwilsonbingo  G1 - Rescue Mission square. 

Sam helps Bucky deal with both physical and mental/emotional injuries while they wait for rescue.

Fandom: MCU/Marvel Pairing:  Sam Wilson & Bucky Barnes Rating: General Tags:  The Falcon and the Winter Soldier canon adjacent,  Mission fic,  hurt/comfort, Sam POV.  Warnings/Triggers -- injury (non-graphic), implied panic attack Word Count: 525 words

“I told you not to follow me!”  Bucky growled. “Now we’re both down here in this goddamned pit.”

It was dark and damp and cold, with barely enough room for the two of them.   “Could be worse,” Sam replied, trying to keep his voice light.  “At least there weren’t pointy sticks at the bottom.”  

“You think you’re funny.”  Bucky shifted slightly, making a muffled grunt as he did.  Sam knew how insanely high his partner’s pain tolerance was; something was wrong.

“Let me check you over.”  Since he couldn’t see a thing, Sam started patting his hands around, checking for blood or broken bones.  

“I’m fine,” Bucky mumbled between gritted teeth.

“Bullshit.”  Sam had just discovered the problem; Bucky’s left leg was twisted underneath him in a direction legs aren’t generally designed to go.  Sam would bet fifty dollars it was a torn ACL.  “Okay - we need to get this leg of yours straightened out.”

“Where am I gonna put it, genius?” Bucky shot back, grunting in pain again as he attempted to follow Sam’s instructions. “Not like we got a ton of space here.”

“Try sitting across the widest part of this pit.”  The two of them shifted around in the pitch dark until they were sitting more or less perpendicular to one another, giving Bucky just enough room to fully extend his leg across Sam’s lap. “Better?”

“Still hurts like hell. Where’s that drone of yours, anyways?”

“Redwing was doing reconnaissance outside the compound and I lost signal,” Sam explained.  “Let me see if I can reconnect.”   Sam powered up his wrist screen and sent a ping.  In the dim red light, he could almost see Bucky’s face, pale and drawn.  His breathing had quickened as well.  

“We’re gonna be fine,” Sam said, trying to sound more confident and reassured than he actually felt.   “Even if I can’t get Redwing back up, Torres knows where we are and he’ll call for backup if we’re gone for too long.”

“I know,” Bucky replied, his voice going tight. “Just – keep talking.”

“All right. Hey, did I tell you A.J. is going out for the basketball team?”  

Sam rested a hand on Bucky’s knee to help ground him as he recounted the latest family stories Sarah had shared, along with gossip about the neighbors that Bucky couldn’t possibly care about.  

But Sam remembered  Steve’s description of the damp, cold Siberia base and the cylinders that housed the Soldiers during their cryo sleep.  Whatever he could do to chase away those kinds of memories, he was all too willing to do.  

It didn’t take long before Redwing led the extraction team to their location.  After dropping down a temporary splint, they rigged up an emergency bosun’s chair to lift Bucky out of the pit, and Sam followed.  

Using a crutch carry, Joaquin and Sam helped Bucky make it back outside;  he wouldn’t let anyone else in the team do it.  Sam griped good-naturedly the whole time, mostly as a distraction.  As they eased him into a seat on the chopper, Bucky grabbed Sam’s hand.

“Thanks, pal.  I owe you one.”

Sam shrugged.  “Who’s keeping count?”

#writing stuff #fanficlet #flash fiction friday #mcu/marvel #Sam wilson bingo #Sam & Bucky #mission fic #Shameless Self Promo

[minipisi-is-dumb]

Got any predictions for Sonic Prime before it comes out?

oh anon you have no idea what you just did

so i got a bit yeah wait

the trailer shows that nobody recognizes sonic in the other universes, sure, but it makes me think wether is because sonic never existed in that universe, or died and now this new sonic came and nobody knows what to do with it. even if personally i find the second one more interesting, the most likely to be is that sonic never existed in the first place-like that one chapter of sonic boom type of situation-

tbh i like the idea of sonic just dying in at least the dystopian au because i am starving for tails angst and seeing his design and animation that could've been a good opportunity

that counsel of eggmans looks a bit like it's all the eggmans from all dimensions and it makes me SO interested. if it is and it seems like it's the main threat it would make so much sense why the urgency of going between worlds to solve the problem of there being apparently no barrier between the universes. but also ! that would mean that a) original eggman traveled not only to an alternate dimension but time traveled too in order to create the counsel before sonic arrives b) the counsel of eggmans is an entity created way before the events of our main universe where every world where sonic isn't there has it's Eggman join

or maybe the many eggmans is just some cloning thing and im getting more excited than i should but MAN i can't help it

Oh oh can i can i talk about TAILS for a sec (shocked)

ive been thinking about how maybe his two biological tails are fine. but outside of his original form we don't see him flying. like call me crazy but what it tails cannot fly? at least in the dystopian au? sonc lore depending on the source has two main possible ways that tails learned to fly where in one when he gets excited he involuntarily moves his tails and that's how he know and the other one he learned because he wanted to be able to keep up with sonic's speed (sonic origins merges both of these ideas into one but it's still this two) so maybe he needs robotic tails bc of that idk

not a prediction more like a genuine curiosity on how multiverse works in prime. like look i adore the concept of multiverse as much as the next guy but ive never seen it done in a way that it really explores how much the existence of a multiverse can impact the characters, because the mcu and rick and morty showed me how easy it is to misuse it and make it feel boring and shows like final space where multiverse slowly wanted to be used with potential had no chance to shine enough for it to count as a multiverse story imo

so since the entire novelty of THIS piece of sonic media is that it has a multiverse concept it does make me very interested since it won't be an afterthought of a bigger story but the entire reason why the story exists. so yeah i cannot expect any deep psychological exploration on the cosmic horror of infinite versions of oneself or some deep shit bc that's not what SONIC is about

like if i would want super deep philosophy stuff i wouldn't be expecting it from this franchise and much less i would be a fan of it i just like funny mobians. but i JUST want a well written fun multiverse story where it feels like the multiverse as a concept is not there for decor and is actually made with sense and it's own rules n stuff. i just want my stories to make sense.

#sonic prime #i think i got a bit carried away

[rexxles]

Just like her Father

My first attempt at writing for Flash Fiction Friday. Playing it safe and going with stuff I'm used to, so fanfiction it is. Prompt by @flashfictionfridayofficial [#FFF176 Like Your Father]

Fandom: MCU/Marvel Rating: General Word Count: 422

She stepped into the meeting room, folders pressed to her chest and her head held high. When Tony looked up surprise was evident on his face, “What are you doing here?” “Working”, was her only answer before she turned to the others and introduced herself by her first name only. Then she looked back at the man in front of her. “Is there a problem, Tony?”, she challenged him. “I didn’t know you were working for SHIELD nowadays”, he replied dryly, his brow furrowed. It was clear, there was more he wanted to say. Before he could, however, she continued speaking: “If you have a problem with that, I prefer to discuss it in private. Yet, as it’s none of your business, I don’t see the point. Please just continue!” And that was exactly what he did. He continued his presentation as if the exchange didn’t happen.

“Ms Stark, Fury wants to see you in his office”, F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s voice called out after the meeting ended. Without looking back, the new agent hurried out, followed by Tony Stark. “Did you know Tony was married before Pepper?”, Clint asked. “Couple of years ago. It didn’t go well though”, Bruce replied not sounding interested in giving him more insight on the matter. Steve rose from his seat, shaking his head a little: “Do you really believe they were married? We would know, wouldn’t we? And she looks rather young. Even too young for Tony Stark.” Clint followed him to the door, “As hostile as they were to each other, I’d bet on it. Nasty divorce is my guess.” When he turned around seeing Nat smirking, he stopped in his tracks trying to decipher her facial expression. Unsuccessfully. “What do you know that we don’t?” “You’re an agent, Barton. Open your eyes. Simply look at them and tell me you don’t see the similarities”, Nat answered and pointed toward the glass door to Fury’s office.

There they stood, the new agent and Tony in a heated discussion. And that’s when Clint saw it, too. She held her body exactly like Tony, spine straight and chin pointing upwards, confidence was radiating off her. She had the same dark hair and brown eyes as him. One could even imagine her lips forming into that typical Stark smirk if the situation would have been any less tense. And when Tony stepped forward trying to make a point, she didn’t step down but held eye contact, stubborn as a Stark.

“She looks and acts just like her father”, Clint muttered.

#fff176 #like your father #fanfiction #first attempt on flash fiction #inspired by prompt #not much but all I could think of #rexxles writes #rexxles writes fanfiction

[katatonicimpression]

Salty comics ask: 2,3,5,7, 11, 21, 38. If you feel like it. Character(s) of your choice.

2. What character death for the sake of drama was the worst?

Everett's is pretty bad. They announce that he's dead, then proceed to do an entire 4 issue arc that has nothing to do with him before even explaining what happened. Then, after the explainer, they barely mention him. And I think actually the fact that (similar to the Hellions), his resurrection on Krakoa hasn't featured any of that angst or drama because it's not the direction they want to go with Emma..

But yeah. Transparently done for the drama, to raise the stakes. And, much like with Thunderbird or Darwin in the First Class film, it's a tired racist trope.

3. Who is your most hated comics writer?

Gezza D.

Although, there's definitely overall worse writers out there. There are some attrocious comics that I've struggled through. But in general, I'm not one for going out of my way to look up who the writers and artists are for everything I look at. If I remember their name, I remember their name.

And I genuinely think it's not good to get too fixated on these figures, especially when you don't like their work. I've been hyper aware of how fucked up even the valid criticism can get, when it's relentless, large scale and directed at a single person.

So, I guess I'm saying that I hope Gerry doesn't have tumblr.

5. Who mischaracterized [x] the worst?

Monet? Cullen Bunn wrote Uncanny X-Men (2016) so fuck that guy I guess.

Bobby? Whoever had the idea to pair him up with Mystique.

7. What “throwaway” character could they have done more with?

Ooh, there's a lot of good answers to this.

I'll put forward Mel from that first Cap storyline with Nightshade. No reason why they couldn't bring that back and make more out of it, even if he's dead.

Mindmeld. Interestingly, the new character of Escapade is also a trans woman with similar conciousness transfering powers. But they're hardly similar outside of that; there's plenty of room. Bring back Mindmeld.

11. What’s the worst art you’ve seen?

I saw your post with the Greg Land examples. Seconded.

A lot of Liefeld options, obviously.

Sometimes it feels pretty mean to harp on art for not being so good. I get the "they're professionals, they got paid for this" argument, but whatever. Hell, sometimes I like it when the art looks kind of shitty because it gives me hope for my own lol.

But I will say that, for me, when it's that more realistic and hyper-smooth style that was big in the 2005-2015 era, that's when I have the least sympathy. There's so much technical competence on display and yet so often, really poor compositions of the panels and just a sub zero taste level. So yeah, Greg Land.

21. Who’s the most overhyped villain excluding the Joker?

Thanos was more entertaining in his early days when he was goofier.

I think it makes sense that the MCU used him as their first Big Bad, but I personally do not care about him or take him seriously as an existential threat in the slightest lol.

And specifically, I think the effort to rebrand him as a serious, universe destroying, massive big serious scary, manly man scary villain, makes him less fun. And because of the movies, they're going to keep him as the biggest of big bads forever now. Boo.

38. What character that was reduced to a love interest deserves so much better?

Honestly the phrase "reduced to a love interest" is not one I associate with good faith arguments (see: MCU Sharon hate), but there's something to it sometimes.

Most of the examples I can think of are temporary (e.g. Monet is a love interest in Weapon X-Force, Rachel is basically just a love interest in Captain Britain - The former was awful and the latter is... fine). It's not always an issue when it's temporary and done well, but is a problem if it's a rut the character gets stuck in when they're only "so-and-so's partner", or if they're really ooc or the writing is insulting etc... It also doesn't count if they were only ever conceived of as a love interest.

Weirdly, the only character I can think of that this has definitely happened to is Layla Miller, who hasn't been a character outside of Jamie's wife and a mother to their kid for like a decade.

I'm sure there are better examples, I'm just drawing a blank.

#asks

[we-ll-say-hello-again]

The MCU and Continuity Lockout

Prefacing with a TL;DR: The MCU is no longer accessible to casual Marvel fans as of phase 4, between the Snap and the TV shows entering movie canon.

(This post is spoiler-free!)

Okay so I was talking to my mom about this on the way home from Multiverse of Madness (which I’m still too mad to talk about tbh... so much for Marvel being my one cringe indulgence in 2022 😅), I mentioned how much harder it is to be a casual Marvel fan these days.

Or... pretty much any time since Endgame. 

Not every fan of Marvel is someone who watches all the movies and TV shows. Some are just casual fans who watch the occasional movie. And pre-Endgame, that was still feasible.

For example, when Ant Man came out, my family ranged from no interest in superhero movies (dad) to casual Marvel fans who’ve seen the odd movie here and there (my sister and I), and you know what? Ant Man didn’t fall victim to the continuity lockdown! It didn’t really service the larger plot of the MCU, which is fine!! And my dad, who doesn’t give a damn about superhero movies, enjoyed it!

But post-Endgame, to understand where we are in the timeline, you usually at least need to know basic knowledge about the Snap, and/or the events leading up to it, and that’s just the start.

(More under the cut)

I counted and in order to fully understand the plot of Spiderman: No Way Home (which was in fact a great movie!), you’d need to have seen Captain America: Civil War, Doctor Strange, Spiderman: Homecoming, Infinity War, Endgame, and Spiderman: Far From Home.

That’s six movies just to understand the plot of one!

And that’s not even counting the 3 Tobey Maguire or 2 Andrew Garfield movies if you really want to fully know what’s going on.

Tying it back to Multiverse of Madness, now that the shows are officially canon to the MCU, it becomes even more complicated because the shows are Disney+ exclusive. In order to fully understand the plot of Multiverse of Madness, you need to see (at least) Doctor Strange, Infinity War, Endgame, AND WandaVision. Oh, and if you really want to get some of the fun cameos, you also need to have seen What if..?

Now, despite always being a casual fan, I got really into the MCU last January when I watched WandaVision (in case the URL didn’t give it away), and then my sister instigated a chronological watch of every single Marvel movie that’s come out to this point. And then once movie theatres opened back up, we went and saw nearly ever Marvel movie that came out last year (Black Widow, Shang-Chi... just not Eternals, blame Omicron!). It’s my most self-indulgent hobby, keeping up with the MCU.

But it’s not accessible to casual fans anymore.

And I think that’s a problem. 

Not everyone CAN or WANTS to sit down and consume 20-odd movies to be entirely caught up on the MCU, plus countless hours of TV shows.

Not everyone CAN AFFORD or WANTS to pay for Disney+.

I’m not saying there shouldn’t be any continuity between all the different projects - in fact, one of my only complaints about Phase 4 so far is that it feels really disjointed and back to being a bunch of “solo” projects essentially with no coherent timeline or underlying plot - but the previous phases managed to MOSTLY stay accessible even as they were building up to Infinity War/Endgame.

I know Marvel is mostly just a corporate entity courtesy of Disney nowadays, but I just think it should have less continuity lockout so casual fans can continue to enjoy the MCU as much as the diehards.

#mcu #marvel cinematic universe #marvel #continuity #marvel phase 4 #marvel phase four #wandavision #doctor strange and the multiverse of madness #spiderman no way home

[fuesch]

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness review, part 1

We're diving right into the action and get introduced to America Chavez with a camera move onto the star that's a bit too cheesy for my taste.

The return of Dr. West gives us a tired old joke about people with cats. Not surprising he'd list his cats before his brother. He does have character issues (and as if Strange doesn't), so he might have not gotten along that well with his brother, whereas the cats wouldn't have that problem with him. Personally I find it sweet that someone loved him - so what if they weren't members of his own species?! I wouldn't be surprised if West invented the brother just because he wanted some sympathy from Strange. Why should pets count so much less than humans?! They love us, we love them - those are real relationships!

Look, it's not that I dislike Strange, but when Wong joined the fight, that tickled me! He is the Sorcerer Supreme after all, so he better not be forgotten. Not to mention, he's fun.

So I guess Raimi likes action up on the side of a building. And I can't blame him, it is fun - when you're not part of it yourself.

Speaking of nauseating stuff: That eye thing with Shuma-Gorath really wasn't necessary!

Ha, America asking if Spidey shoots webs out of his butt. I mean, it's a valid question!

It's fun how Strange answers 3 questions in a row, but after having the movie seen twice, I still don't know what America asked. Someone please enlighten me.

I really want a clarification about dreams being a window to the multiverse. Some dreams really are just dreams, right? Are there only some people who can dream of alternate realities, and if so, what gives them the ability? I mean, does it take more than just having a counterpart in the multiverse? And does America really not dream at all?

So either America has been in the MCU for a while and Strange's dream was't broadcast live or Defender Strange is rotting fast. Maybe the effect of getting killed by that bandage creature?

Aha, so sorcery and witchcraft are different branches of magic. I still want to know more. So you have to be born for witchcraft, but for sorcery it's enough to be taught? As Ned's magic is inherent, does that mean he could do witchcraft instead? And why wasn't he at the Kamar Taj? He didn't forget everything that happened in NWH, did he?

Although we had already been told that dreams are visions of what's happening to a a variant of yourself, I wondered why the Minimoffs had switched beds from WandaVision. Because I still consider normal dreams to exist.

Ah, there's a traffic light by Tommy's bed! I knew there was something about a traffic light that I wanted to include into my Peter Maximoff truthering, but I'd forgotten where it appeared in WandaVision.

I was so confused by the new Hex at first, why one would be necessary. Now I guess that practicing all that Darkhold magic had killed the trees, so Wanda made the orchard pretty again in an attempt to fool Strange.

Wanda complains about the unfairness in the different judgement of her actions and Strange's. In a way she's right, but in another way: Girlfriend, while you didn't do these things on purpose, you did them for yourself - Strange did them for others. I know, I know, I can't expect her to make sense when she's under the influence of the Darkhold! sigh

So… what, Wanda isn't the same as the Scarlet Witch? Witch please, what are you talking about? Come on, we didn't even get to see our Wanda this movie (except at the very end), that was all the Scarlet Witch. Okay, but I hate this differentiation. And Strange uses it later too, talking about Wanda calling herself a witch as if it's bad. They're telling me they're really doing this? The Scarlet Witch is only the version of Wanda who's influenced by the Darkhold? Witches (you know, a group consisting only of women, as far as we're aware) in general are bad? But that wouldn't make sense with what WandaVision showed us. There was no indication that Agatha's coven was evil.

Liking Rintrah so far. Please tell me more! How did a green cow person come to study at the Kamar Taj? Is he from another dimension like Ta-Lo? Or an alien?

Ugh, Wanda's stilted words during the negotion with Strange and her stereotypical villain acting during most of the film. But I guess you can explain that away with the Darkhold, Agatha had that affliction too. Wanda only seemed like a real person when she was sad.

Ha, I was wondering if that gong was reflective enough, when America was covering that puddle. Why is this room full of puddles anyway? I swear it had a ceiling.

Aww, look at America having a nausea-inducing superpower! I want her and Peter to meet and high-five about it.

There's only one America in the whole multiverse? Okay, that's an American exceptionalism I can believe in.

Heh, she sent Strange and herself to the planet of the hats.

Not even in this utopic-looking New York the pizza balls are free, how disapointing.

If America was pulled through the same portal as her parents, how did they end up elsewhere? Was it like that trip with Strange, going through multiple universes and one of the parties travelled further? I had hoped by the end of the movie they would be reunited. America's story better be heading that way!

#doctor strange in the multiverse of madness #america chavez #wong #doctor strange #sorcery vs witchcraft #ned leeds #minimoffs #peter maximoff #peter maximoff truthering #agatha harkness #wandavision

[trinity-mia]

a story as endless as the ocean

the lightning thief

0.3 hurricane season

warnings : abusive home life, cussing

word count : 5.8k

0.3 Hurricane Season Comes a Couple Months too Early 

If I were religious, this confessional probably would've hit a little bit harder, but— y'know. It's never too late to repent or whatever the Christians say. 

I completely ditched Grover the second the bus made a complete stop. His bladder acted up every time he got anxious or nervous and this time was no different. He bolted for the bathroom the second he got off the bus.

He made me promise to stay right where I was and he'd be back in a second. But whatever happened, I had to stay there. 

I felt so guilty starting my bike back up. I'd even hoped it would be loud enough to grab his attention and make him come running back out to stop me. But it was New York, and the roar of my engine just blended in with the other loud noises. He didn't come out. So I left. 

He was out of sight and he was just freaking me out too much. And I had just finished a school year, which meant I was less than an hour from seeing my mother. The feeling of needing to see her just became too overbearing. 

A few words about her, just before you meet her.

Her name is Sally Jackson and she is actually the greatest, most genuinely perfect person I've ever met. Which, by the way, just proves my theory that the best people have to worst luck. It was kinda sad really. Her parents both died in a plane crash when she was five, so she had to move in with her uncle. He didn't really care for her all that much, so she spent more than enough of her life feeling neglected and unwanted. She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent highschool working to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma. 

The best break she seemed to have ever gotten was meeting my dad. 

I have no memories of him, just this kind of... warm glow, maybe the barest trace of a smile. My mom doesn't like talking about him and she doesn't have any pictures. She said he was rich and important, so for all I know, I could've met him at an A-list party or something without knowing of any relation between us. 

The only problem with that was: no one in Hollywood looked like me, which for the record is funny— because I've met almost too many who would pay every dollar they have in order to do so. I've had many plastic surgeons tell me my face was the most requested one for women who came to them. 

RDJ, who played my father in the MCU as our Tony/Celeste Stark father-daughter duo, had once offered to be my fill-in father, once. I'd only laughed him off, but secretly wouldn't have minded. With how much advice I always asked of him, it was like he filled the roll in, anyway. 

But aside from that, it also isn't an odd thing to say because I look nothing like my mother. Everything to do with my facial structure and features came from my father because my mom's features don't match mine and our hair and eye color are both different. And there is also the even bigger point of: my mother said that he'd needed to go overseas to do whatever he did. So he set sail over the Atlantic and never came back. 

She'd always said he was lost at sea. Never dead, just lost at sea. 

Either way, she worked odd jobs to provide for us, even though I could've done it myself. She always hated it when I spent my money on her, so she didn't let me buy an apartment, at least not one she'd live in, and she didn't let me buy my Harley. She paid for food and everything else because she is a stubborn woman and "doesn't want anyone's charity— not even her daughter's." 

She took night classes to get her high school diploma because she'd gotten pregnant right after what would've been the start of the second semester of her freshman year of college (at least, if everything had gone her way). She couldn't go back to actual high school, so she did it during the night and online. She never complained or got mad, which was kinda crazy, all things considered. I was not an easy child, not by a long shot. 

That, combined with paparazzi always following me around, combined with how awfully I got along with my asshole stepfather, her life was a trainwreck. She'd married Gabe when I was around 5 or 6. He'd been nice the first few seconds we knew him, but quite soon after revealed his true world-class asshole, misogynistic colors. As I grew up, I'd started calling him a range of nicknames, most including curse words that my mother always gave me a dirty look for saying. 

I didn't know if it was just me being superstitious or paranoid or something, but I always felt gross around him. He stared at me like I was a piece of meat or a stack of 100 dollar bills or something. It always made me feel like I needed to take five showers and scrub a layer of skin off of my body. 

Just to add salt to the wound, he smelled awful. Like so bad to the point where I'd have to apply perfume outside of my apartment because it would wear off the second I walked into the same room as him. 

The two of us made my mom's life a living hell, with how much we hated each other and how awfully he treated her. When I get home is a really good example of how our 'step-father, step-daughter' "relationship" worked. 

Our apartment was pretty small, mostly because it was coming from mom's money and not mine. When I needed a fix of seeing my mom, this is where I'd hunker down, but that didn't mean I lived there full-time. I had my own apartment in my name in the Upper East Side, almost too luxurious for a seventeen-year-old, but there were certain pretenses I had to set as "Hollywood's  Shining Star". Plus, I needed a few bones to throw paps whenever they got too close to figuring out my mother's address. The absurdly large amount of rent I paid, in addition to giving me an escape whenever Gabe pissed me off too much, was another way I attempted to save my mother. I'd been used to the business for my whole life, she still didn't understand many of the ways my world worked. 

But even as small as it was, Gabe mostly took over the living room so he could play poker with his buddies, so that always made it seem even smaller. I never knew why he enjoyed playing so often, since the times he won were few and far between. The T.V. blared ESPN, talking about an NFL player who'd hurt his hamstring during practice. I'd hoped my mom would be home, but I doubted it. Stale chips and beer cans were strewn all over the place. Oh, if only the cameras could see me now. 

He hardly looked up from his cigar, but I knew he knew it was me. "Well, there's my darling step-daughter, home from school. I was wondering when you'd make it home. Got any cash stuffed up that bra of yours?"

"No. Is my mom home yet?" I asked, praying he wouldn't actually check. 

He raised a greasy eyebrow. "She's still working. And don't lie to me, I know you love carrying cash around. I'd say you have a few twenty's in there. Maybe even a hundred or two. C'mon sweetheart. Just a little something for your step-daddy. Wouldn't want me to check now would you?"

Fuck. I sighed mentally. He could sniff money out like a goddamn bloodhound, which was funny considering his smell should've masked everything else. He was right though, not that I'd tell him; I did have a few twenties and two hundred dollar bills. And I definitely did not want him checking, considering the only time that happened was when I'd been close to getting sexually assaulted by another dude who came over to play poker with the asshole in front of me. 

I gritted my teeth and pulled out some of the cash that's been there. I slowly counted it in front of him, $280 in total, and used a little sleight of hand to give him only $60. It was a little trick my instructor had taught me a few months prior when I was filming Now You See Me. 

Gabe managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I never knew why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer. I may have enjoyed a drink or two here or there— a bit of wine at dinners, and a bit of tequila and others at certain parties— but I was never able to stomach beer. Even the smell made me sick. No doubt Games proclivities were to blame. Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "little secret." Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out. Again.

"Gabe, the girl just got home. And she makes the money herself. Shouldn't you give her a break?" Eddie, our on-the-older-side-and-mostly-better-than-the-rest-of-Gabe's-asshole-friends building manager said, doing his best to reel Gabe in, to no avail. 

Gabe twisted his face into a frown, making his quadruple chins ripple. "Now why would I do that? She's Hollywood's bitch. She's loaded and I'm her step-father. If anything, I deserve the money she gives me considering I agreed to raise her freakshow self." He threw the money I'd given him to the middle of the table. "Give me my chips. Let's start another round."

I left as soon as the money started getting counted and replaced with chips. I was not in the mood to get screamed at for not giving him the full amount. 

My suitcase had been thrown haphazardly into the hallway, kind of close to where my bedroom door was. I picked it up on my way and once I made it into my room, I tossed it onto my bed. Gabe wanted to use my room as his own personal 'man-cave' while I wasn't in school, but my mother always made sure my door was locked and he wasn't smart enough to break-in. 

Home sweet home, I grumbled in my mind, pulling out the nearest perfume and spraying it generously. Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds, or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears snipping the yarn.

But as soon as I thought about that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Grover's look of panic— how he'd made me promise I wouldn't go home without him. A sudden chill rolled through me. I felt like someone— something— was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons. Step by step, almost there—

Then, with one single word, my fears melted away. 

"Allie?" My mom's voice called. 

I felt my whole body immediately relax. My mother could make me feel good just by walking into the room. Her eyes sparkled and changed color in the light. Her smile, as warm as a quilt. She'd gotten a few gray streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but I never thought of her as old. When she looked at me, it was like she was seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad. I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe.

"Oh, Allie!" She cried, almost tackling me onto my bed with a hug. "You look so grown up! I can't believe my princess graduated today!"

Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central. She'd brought me a huge bag of "free samples," the way she always did when I came home. My dietician hated it, but what he didn't know wouldn't hurt him. 

We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hand over my double dutch braids and demanded to know everything I hadn't called or texted her about. She asked about all the new movies I'd starred in since the beginning of the year and talked a lot about college. She mentioned a few interviews I'd done, and my cover of Vogue that I'd told her about, but hadn't come out yet. All she wanted to talk about was me. Was her baby okay? Was she doing all right?

She'd been in the middle of saying something about Columbia when Gabe interrupted from the other room. "Hey, Sally! How 'bout you make us some bean dip?"

I saw her shoulders sag, just slightly, and I knew she saw my whole body tense. She knew I hated him and she knew how much I wanted to stab him in the eye with a spoon, but she always wanted us to get along. My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to one of the hot actors who'd played as my dad in some of my movies, not this ass.

For her sake, I'd tried to sound super happy about my last year of high school, but in all honesty, it sucked. I suffered from a bad case of senioritis (even though I wasn't really a senior) and I got sexualized and catcalled almost daily. I didn't tell my mom about that, though. I also didn't tell her about Mrs. Dodds or the old ladies. With the usual horrible stuff she read about me on the internet, she didn't need anything to add to her worry. 

"I have a surprise for you!" She said, and she snapped her fingers like she always did once she remembered something she'd forgotten. "We're going to the beach. I want to use the beach house you bought a lot now since, for this moment, you don't have shows or movies to worry about and you won't have to model again for a few more weeks."

I perked up immediately. Our summer beach house was virtually the only thing my mother let me buy with my own money. At least, the only thing that she'd use, too. Her parents used to rent it out until they died, which is where she'd hunkered down when her uncle died. She stayed there for a week to wallow in her misery before she had to rejoin society, lest she blow all her money to stay there. She'd met my dad there, on her last night. She never had the nerve to go back until I was around six, also around the time of her and Gabe's first year of being married. She tried to make it back every year, but it was a large and expensive beach house in the Hamptons, and cost a lot of money to rent out, even for a night. 

By the time I was 12, I had a pretty good understanding of life and why the number in my bank account could actually be a great thing, even if it was accompanied by a countdown for how long it would be until I turned 18. I'd asked Danny to look into buying it out, and low and behold, the woman who owned the property was looking to sell, as she was close to having blown all of the money she'd inherited from her dead Oil-Tycoon husband and didn't feel the need to care for it anymore. She was all too happy to sell it to me. 

But I'd done all of that behind my mother's back and she almost boycotted going that year entirely, before deciding this would be the only thing she'd relent on. She strong armed me into an agreement that I'd never spend so much money on something that had to do with her again, however, and not wanting to see the disappointed look on her face due to not being able to provide me the same luxuries I could provide myself, I relented. She knew how much it meant to me, being able to go to the house every year with her, and since I'd already bought it, there wasn't much else she could do. 

"Uh, when?!" I asked, almost jumping up and down. 

"Once I get packed, we will be ready to go. You already have your suitcase of clothes and things here, so all I need to do is get my stuff ready. I'll take your step-father's car and you can take your Harley."

Quick bit of information: I kinda have a car obsession. So I own many cars, however, they are all stationed at our beach house in East Hampton. I wasn't about to temp Asshole Gabe into wanting to drive my luxury cars. The only vehicle of my own that was always near, was my Harley, which I knew made my mom happy. I tended not to use any of the cars I bought around her, for the same disappointed look reasons. 

Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?" 

I wanted to punch him, but I met my mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for East Hampton. Then we would get out of here. 

"I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip." 

Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?" 

"Pig," I muttered. "He won't let us go, will he?" 

"Of course he will. He doesn't have control over you anyways," my mother said evenly. I tried to ignore her emphasis on 'you.' "Your step-father is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."

"Money," I scoffed under my breath. "I bought the damn house. The only money we spend going is the gas money we use getting there and back." 

Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip... it comes out of your clothes budget, right?" 

"Yes, honey," my mother said placatingly, settling her hand on my arm to keep me from pouncing. 

"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back?" 

"We'll be very careful." 

Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip... And maybe if the girl apologizes for interrupting my poker game." 

Maybe if I cut off your dick with a butter knife, I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week. 

But my mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad. 

Why she put up with this guy was beyond me. I cleared my throat quietly, preparing for the intense acting energy I was about to exert. Red leather, yellow leather. Red leather, yellow leather.

"I'm so terribly sorry," I lied, "for interrupting your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now."

Gabe's eyes narrowed and for a moment I doubted my acting and lying skills, but then he rolled his eyes. I guess his tiny brain couldn't detect the intense sarcasm in my voice. 

"Yeah, okay. Whatever," he settled on. He went back to his game. 

"Thank you, Allie. Let me go get ready. Get your helmet and keys and I'll be right back."

She left to go pack and make Gabe his seven-layer dip. 

We were ready to leave an hour later. Gabe watched me roll mine and my mom's suitcases down to his car and kept watching as I got my bike ready. 

He yelled down to me once I finished putting my mom's suitcase in the trunk. "There better not be a single scratch on that car once you bring it back or there'll be hell to pay. I'll have a beer bottle with your name on it waiting. I'm sure it'll love getting broken over your head and I'm sure you remember how that felt last time."

I wasn't going to be driving, but I doubt he cared. It'd be my fault because I was easy to push around and had a lot more money than my mother. He'd find something to blame on me and that beer bottle would connect with my skull at some point. As long as he could hold my mother over my head, he had the upper hand. 

Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain. As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on a few different occasions while we were in school. I thought it was a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe. 

The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the ass and sent him flying up the stair-case as if he'd been shot from a cannon. Maybe it was just the wind or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out.

Once I saw my mom walking towards me I got on my bike, put my helmet on, and was ready to drive as soon as she'd opened her door. 

Our beach house was very large and sat right on the beach. It was perched right at the end of the neighborhood and was easily the largest house in a couple-mile radius. There was a shitton of rooms, most of which weren't used often, so there would be a few cobwebs if it wasn't taken care of. The beach had white sand, the same shade as my hair and the seas were normally pretty cold. 

So, of course, I loved the place. 

It calmed me down in a way nothing else could. The water hitting my feet made me feel like I could do anything. Like the feeling you get when you walk out of a movie theater and you feel like you could conquer the world, except I don't feel like I'm in a daze. It's quite the opposite, actually. I feel wide awake. 

As we got closer, my mom always seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea. I didn't even have to be in the same car as her to know that. 

We got there at sunset, opened all the windows (well, not all the windows. Mostly the ones in the living room and on the main floor), and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work.

Should I explain the blue food?

Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This— along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano— was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, which wasn't shown often, but did remind me that I did get a few things from her. My polite streak was proof of that. 

When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told me about the books she wanted to write someday when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.

I told her I'd get her a laptop and an editor and a publisher right then and there, but she would hear nothing of it. If she wanted to be an author, it wouldn't be because of her famous daughter. She'd probably use a fake last name so it wouldn't seem like she was leeching off of me. I asked her why she wanted to go the hard route and she smiled and shook her head at me; the 'you'll understand when you're older' went without saying. 

Eventually, I finally got enough nerve to ask about my father, one of the few things that was always on my mind when we were here. My mom's eyes went misty and I almost took the comment back, but I stood my ground. She took two blue jelly beans from the bag. I figured she'd tell me the things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them. 

"He was kind, Allie," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But he was also gentle. You look exactly like him, it's almost uncanny. If you were to style your hair the same way he did his and had the same physique, you two would be impossible to tell apart. You have his white hair and those pretty green-blue eyes. And you definitely didn't get your height from me." 

That was true. I'd passed my mother in height a while ago. She was very short and petite, and while I did get the petite from her, I was also tall and curvy. 

"I... I wish he could see you now, Allie. He'd be so damn proud."

I was shocked. For one, I'd never heard my mother curse. Ever. And secondly, I couldn't quite decide what was so special about a 16-year-old girl who got sexualized on the internet, in public, and pretty much everywhere else. Sure I'd quickly become one of the highest paid actors and models in the world and just that previous September I released the most streamed album of the year, but what would that really mean in the long run? Hollywood is wishy-washy on the best of days, and fame is fickle. The countdown was nearing on a year and two months. It would only get worse the more I did. The more people who knew my name meant a lot more trouble for me. On dark days, I wondered if the trouble was worth it. 

"Did he... stick around? After I was born, I mean," I asked, trying very hard to keep my voice from cracking. It was close, but I think I did it. 

"He... he came to see you a few times. His work was very serious and he didn't have a lot of time. But he saw you." 

I nodded slowly, taking it in. I guessed that was why I'd remembered something about him. I wasn't about to tell my mother that, though. She was already on the verge of crying as it was. I felt like that would set her over the edge. 

"I was going to ask you... I got offered by Warner Brothers to do another movie. They wouldn't start filming for a while, but they wanted to go ahead and get the cast done. It's filming in Georgia, though. They said they might be able to pull a few strings and move it to New York, but Georgia would be ideal. Would you be okay with that?" 

"I don't know, Allie. There's a lot I need to think about right now. I'd feel better if you didn't leave. You know how worried I get every time you board a plane."

"I know. It's just, this one's... different. I think it would... I really want—"

"You know," my mom said, standing up slowly, "I'm getting a little tired. I think I'm going to turn in for the night. Please don't stay up too late. We can talk in the morning."

I just nodded and my mother left me to my thoughts. The wind picked up a little, and my hair flew from my shoulder to my back. My head fell to my right hand as I tried to rub away the headache that was starting to form. 

I only looked up when I felt someone watching me. I could've sworn it was coming from the ocean, but I didn't stay long enough to figure out if anything was there. I was not trying to be the stupid one in the horror movie. No thanks. I brushed my hair with my fingers as I walked into the house.

That night I had an awful dream, shocker shocker. 

It started with a whole bunch of memories I'd tried to suppress of all the bad things that had happened to me throughout my life. 

During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head. 

Before that— a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.

And there was one time when I was thirteen and I'd seen a huge lion prowling the edge of a forest we were filming near. I noticed every time the camera would move in its direction, it'd retreat back to the forest and then come back out once the camera moved. Finally, it just leaped away after hours of us filming and no one getting near it. 

Then, the dream changed. 

It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf. The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagle's wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.

I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. Both animals lunged at each other and before I could see what happened I woke with a start. 

Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery. 

With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She ran into my room, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane." 

I knew that was crazy. Hurricanes were never seen around here this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten. Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end. 

Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice— someone yelling, pounding on our front door.

My mother grabbed both of our suitcases and ran to the front door, a floor down from us. I followed her down to the foyer. 

She threw my suitcase to me and slung open the door. 

Grover stood there, out of breath and looking like he needed a seat. However, he looked different. What the fuck...?

"Searching all night," Grover gasped. "What were you thinking?" 

My mother looked at me in terror— not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come

"Allie!" she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"

I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn't understand what I was seeing. 

"O Zeu kai alloi theoi!" he yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you tell her?" 

I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I'd understood him perfectly. I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here, by himself, in the middle of the night. 

My mom looked at me sternly and spoke in a tone she'd never used before: "Allie. Tell me now!" 

I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.

She grabbed me by the hair and dragged me to Gabe's car, pushing past Grover on her way. She took my suitcase and threw me into the driver's seat. Grover got in the back, while my mom ran to the passenger's side and sat down with my suitcase in her lap. 

She didn't even let me ask a question. She just put the keys in the ignition and said, "drive. Now. I'll tell you where to go. Take a left up here."

Now that we were in the car and I had more things to worry about, I finally processed many things. Grover's muscular disease finally made sense to me. Because he didn't have legs. Well, he did, but they weren't human legs. They were more like farm animal legs, all thrown together with fucking hooves.

*    *    *

previous | next

SERIES M.LIST | MAIN M.LIST | TIPS

#asaeato #a story as endless as the ocean #alliejackson #female percy jackson #lukecastellan #lullie #trinitymia

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #594

Top Ten Individual Film Series Within the MCU

One of the more-or-less unique things about the Marvel Cinematic Universe back when it all kicked off is that you had these individual movies about separate heroes, which had their own sequels and continuity and suchlike, but they were all also interconnected in a shared universe. When Avengers came out in 2012, there’d never quite been something like it before cinematically; a team-up movie starring solo heroes from their own franchises.

(I say “more-or-less” because there have, of course, been other film series where different individual films followed different characters but had the possibility to interact with other characters; the X-Men films began in 2000, and the first solo Wolverine movie came out in 2009, just a year after Iron Man. There, though, I think it’s fair to say that it was a spin-off from an existing franchise. Star Trek, too, had separate stories that had the potential to cross over, but really it only amounted to, say, Bashir showing up on the Enterprise, or Admiral Janeway popping up on a viewscreen in Nemesis. Really, what the MCU was doing had never been done before on any kind of scale or across so many different movies)

Anyway, nowadays, with multiple films and TV shows, we’re more than used to characters who debuted in one corner of the MCU becoming supporting characters in another corner. James “War Machine” Rhodes was an Iron Man character who ended up as an Avenger and has since popped up in Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Secret Invasion. The entire MCU Spider-Man saga has hung upon the gimmick of each movie featuring an established character guest-starring alongside Peter Parker; first Iron Man, then Nick Fury, then Doctor Strange. And let’s not forget Wong, who’s been in about 97 different films since Endgame. But at its core the MCU was always about individual “franchises”; separate series of films following one hero (or a team, I suppose). These franchises or series would then interact and intersect in a major crossover event – basically an Avengers movie. After the first Avengers, which established the template, the MCU upped the ante by bringing in the Guardians of the Galaxy in Infinity War before basically having every single MCU character on-screen in Endgame. These, though, are supposed to be big events; Crisis-Level Events as the DCU used to call them. It’s meant to be a big deal, but at the same time, we’re meant to just enjoy the separate film series, following our favourite heroes from one film to another.

So within the overall arching continuity of the MCU, you’ve got these discrete stories, following one hero or one group from one film to another. Yes, increasingly, there is overlap – Tony Stark’s story is every bit as informed by the evens of a Captain America movie as his own – but you’ve still got a bunch of trilogies kicking about. And which is top? That’s what I’m deciding here. Which hero’s own little saga, within the MCU, is the best? This is harder than you’d think, for a couple of reasons. One is that a few characters – like Tony – have an awful lot of development outside their own sagas. Another is that often the quality is quite variable, as we’ll see; a hero might have one or two genuinely barnstorming films, but the average quality of the others pulls their saga down a bit. And also we have the problem that, well, there aren’t really ten sets of films here.

How’ve I worked it out then? Basically, if there’s a set of films named after a hero, then that counts. Guardians are pretty easy in this regard, because you’ve got three films and a Christmas special. Even if a character stars in another film, though, it only counts as their franchise if the film’s named after them. So, for instance, Nick Fury has been in a dozen or so films at this point, but I’d argue the only one about him is Secret Invasion (which, yes, is a show not a film but I’m using terms interchangeably at this point). And I think you have to have at least two films (or a film and a show), which sadly discounts the likes of Captain Marvel or Shang-Chi. I was going to say that a character having two seasons of a show would count as two separate entries, but no MCU show has had a second season yet; and, yes, that means I’m not counting the old Netflix shows, or Agents of SHIELD, or anything like that. Only the Disney+ stuff is definitively MCU I’d argue. So, yeah, even though Loki season 2 is imminent, as is The Marvels (which is a “second part” to both Captain Marvel and Ms. Marvel, I guess), as things stand all three of those characters have to be discounted right now.

I think in the future I will do another list that ranks the individual characters’ arcs across all MCU films; so, like, how does Star-Lord progress along the entire overall franchise, including his four Guardians appearances and two Avengers movies. That sort of thing. But right now this is about films; which films are the best, and therefore which hero’s own films make for the best mini-franchise within the overall sprawling maxi-franchise.

Make sense? No? Good.

Captain America, 2011-2016 (The First Avenger, The Winter Soldier, Civil War): this is the only series of films within the MCU where I’d give each of them five stars, and all of them sit very high in my personal top ten. Why? Well, it’s partly the execution – these are just very well-made films; the first an old-fashioned men-on-a-mission adventure, the second an on-the-run paranoid thriller, and the third a huge-scale superhero epic. But the heart of these is Steve Rogers, and what he represents, his philosophy underpinning everything, the DNA of the series. The tone and script and cinematography and arc of it all reinforces Steve’s beliefs of honesty and fairness and strength, seen in the friendships forged (Bucky, Sam, Natasha), the sense of sacrifice, and in the bittersweet dramatic ironies at play (Peter unknowingly giving Steve’s argument back to Tony in Civil War). Captain America may be the ideal hero of Marvel, both in print and on screen, and his series of film is the ideal of the whole MCU.

Guardians of the Galaxy, 2014-2023 (Vols 1-3, Holiday Special): the Guardians are great because they’re these big, dumb space adventures that have a kind of filthy streak of irreverence running through them. They’re totally enjoyable as daft action comedies, with their tree aliens and Jackson Pollock jokes and discussions about planets having penises. Except underpinning it all is a really strong emotional heart; James Gunn understands that if you make characters that are just enjoyable to be around, then when bad stuff happens to them it hits harder. The discussion of trauma and grief may be subtly played and pitched at a particular register, but it’s still very real and a massive theme of the trilogy-and-a-bit. And the fact that two supporting characters – Rocket and Nebula – turned out to be the leads of the whole shebang is a great piece of slow-burn development.

The Avengers, 2012-2019 (The Avengers, Age of Ultron, Infinity War, Endgame): the first Avengers was totally unexpected, a terrific ensemble action comedy that took the tone established by Iron Man and filtered it through disparate characters to really define the voice of the MCU. We all hoped it would be good, but with so many plates to spin, I think quite how good was a surprise. Age of Ultron is still pretty good too, but a lot messier; however, it’s the two-part Infinity War/Endgame finale that astounds. Talk about Avengers having plates, these two films had to wrap up ten years and twenty movies’ worth of story, giving satisfying, era-closing arcs to major characters, paying off dozens of hours of development. It’s frankly bonkers that it succeeded, the kind of once-in-a-generation achievement that is just phenomenal to behold. Yes, the epic nature of these films means that sometimes they lack the nuance and focus of a single character piece; but like the best crossover comic book sagas, this hits in a particular register and stands as a spectacle from modern mainstream blockbuster cinema.

Spider-Man, 2017-2021 (Homecoming, Far From Home, No Way Home): the MCU Spidey largely differentiates itself from both the Spider-Man films that came before and most of the rest of the universe by focusing on being a “Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man”; it’s a terrifically-played high school comedy with superhero adventures thrown in. The winning chemistry between Peter, Ned, and MJ all contributes to making these films feel smaller-scale but still important, with a funny, friendly, dynamic. The first one is terrific, the second one a bit looser, but the trilogy overall is elevated by the operatic, epic finale. Far more than just a meta bit of fan service, No Way Home’s references to universes that came before has been the MCU’s best use of the multiverse to date, and the way its central tragedies and notions of sacrifice tie into Peter’s philosophy – going all the way back to that bedside chat with Tony in Civil War – is excellent.

Iron Man, 2008-2013 (Iron Man 1-3): where it all began, a tonally pitch-perfect introduction to the universe. RDJ’s Tony is a masterpiece of a performance, bottling lightning with his rambling, hilarious delivery, louche demeanour, and toughness in he face of danger. He immediately anchors the universe in a sense of heightened realism, and whilst the first film is fairly traditional in its origin story structure, it still serves as a great launchpad for the franchise. Yes, the second film is ropey, but still enjoyable; there’s little further character development and it once again ends with robot suits fighting robot suits, but we get Don Cheadle and Scarlett Johansen and Sam Rockwell, and that ain’t bad. However, the real heavy lifter here is the night-on perfect Iron Man 3, which unpicks the character, offers greater depths, shows his resourcefulness in unique ways, gives us a bigger but also more interesting robot suit finale, and has the entire MCU’s best twist of all time. You can judge a person’s entire character by whether or not they like Iron Man 3. It’s true.

Thor, 2011-2022 (Thor, The Dark World, Ragnarok, Love and Thunder): Thor is one of my favourite MCU characters – well, Marvel characters full stop – but his films are a little bit variable. The first one is definitely enjoyable, a very arch and stylised high fantasy epic mees dork fish-out-of-water comedy; the second attempts to add a layer of darkness but is incredibly muddled and creaky. It was Taika Waititi who realised both the comedic potential of the concept and its star, giving us the hilarious Ragnarok – which, for all its comedy, still gives us multiple character deaths and the destruction of Asgard. Waititi also leaned into the wild Jack Kirby comic book iconography, with some brilliantly realised sci-fi design that’s evocative of Heavy Metal magazine. Love and Thunder is divisive, but personally I adored it; yes, the comedy is broader and the story itself a bit woollier, but it’s also a film where its themes are carried over perfectly into its subject matter, and the realisation of why it’s called “Love and Thunder” hit me like a ton of bricks.

Ant-Man, 2015-2023 (Ant-Man, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Quantumania): a bit like Spider-Man, the Ant-Man films revel in their low stakes. I don’t think they’re quite as charming or successful, but they’re still great; street-level caper comedies of escalating craziness, with their goofy, affable charm heightened by the way Peyton Reed handles the whole size-changing concept. This gives us some great special effects and action scenes, true; but it also offers the potential for great gags (Hank’s building turning into a carry case; the giant Thomas the Tank Engine). Quantumania is a different beast, retaining the films’ cheery, dopey humour, but injecting a little bit more pathos and a lot more action, a technicolour sci-fi marvel that definitely isn’t for everyone – and I think has the real risk of putting off people who really enjoyed the low-key charm of the first two – but still gives us a really exciting Avengers-style romp.

Black Panther, 2018-2022 (Black Panther, Wakanda Forever): now we’re getting onto film series with fewer entries, and here I think we begin to see individual films having more of an impact. Because I would have thought Black Panther would have ranked higher on the strength of its first film; a brilliantly realised bit of Afro-Futurism from Ryan Coogler, with a commanding central performance and fantastically constructed world. Wakanda was unlike anything we’d seen before, and even if the story descended into usual mo-cap superhero tropes, it still gave us moments like Killmonger’s “bury me at sea” speech. The sequel, perhaps, could never live up to it; especially once the tragedy of Chadwick Boseman’s death unfolded. You can, sadly, see the joins where the existing narrative had to be retrofitted to harsh realities, but regardless, it’s still a very uneven film, with moments of great power nestled amongst wasted characters, back-and-forth plotting, and a rather wet finale.

Doctor Strange, 2014-2022 (Doctor Strange, Multiverse of Madness): two films here that, perhaps individually, pale before Black Panther, but hold their own against its sequel. The first Strange is a somewhat by-the-numbers MCU origin – mardy protagonist gets some powers or something, learns not to be quite so much of a dick – but the wacky visuals give it strength and originality. Leaning into that, the sequel has even bolder, weirder moments, but brilliantly they’re filtered through the prism of Sam Raimi’s gonzo horror lens. A zombie Strange with a cloak of demons; Wanda emerging from a cracked mirror; Black Bolt’s head. True, it doesn’t make quite as much out of the multiverse concept as it could have; and the sudden development of some of its characters isn’t really handled in a as nuanced a way as perhaps we’d like. But overall these are two very good films, with great visuals and a nice sense of freakiness.

The Incredible Hulk, 2010-2022 (The Incredible Hulk, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law): okay, here’s where we get really tenuous. The fact is, there have only been nine proper series within the MCU; that is, a film that’s had a sequel. I was briefly tempted to include Captain Marvel and Ms. Marvel, but those are really two separate things that are crossing over this winter in The Marvels, even though there’s obviously a lot of connective tissue. So, to get it to ten, I cheated a bit, and decided that She-Hulk was sort of a continuation of the overall Hulk franchise within the MCU. Bruce Banner is a major supporting character, after all, with the extended first episode dealing with him and situation quite a bit; and there’s a major revelation towards the end too. Tim Roth reappears. And She-Hulk herself kinda carries on his whole legacy… so it fits? I guess? It’s moot, really, because despite She-Hulk (the show) being a really funny, fourth-wall-breaking meta-commentary on the MCU, sitcoms, TV, and all sorts of stuff too, it’s not really enough to lift The Incredible Hulk out of the doldrums. It’s fine, I guess, the movie; there’s some interesting stuff about Bruce trying to control his anger. But it’s never as exciting or interesting or amusing as, say, Iron Man or Captain America, and the big effects-driven monster-mash finale is a big damp gloomy squib. Overall, things are good – She-Hulk really is terrific – but sadly Incredible Hulk remains my least-favourite MCU movie. Never mind; he had a lot of development in other people’s movies, so it’s all good.

#top ten #marvel #mcu #captain america #hulk #avengers #strange #spidey #guardians #captain marvel #panther #ant-man #thor #iron man