#life series smo

[aviomons]

a ready army in my throat. i taste blood, i’m sick of swallowing stones

thought i’d draw the newest crane wives song + the newest life series member! the crane lives/idea from @cherrifire

#geminitay #geminitay fanart #secret life #secret life smp #secret life fanart #secret life spoilers #the crane lives #the life series x the crane wives #life series #life series smo #life series fanart #the well - the crane wives

[calechipconecrimes]

WAKE UP BABES NEW LUFE SERIES AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH

#LIMITED LIFE SMP #life serie #life series smo

[eacart]

SCAR’S WEARING A HELMER

#my art #mcyt #goodtimeswithscar #smallishbeans #inthelittlewood #secret life #life series #do any of u other creative types look at ur art and are like #so proud of it #like looking at it and realizing ur actually good at art #and then put ur head in ur hands bc u have talent and what do u do with it? #u redraw wojak memes to be minecraft youtubers :/ #secret life smo

[penginlord]

shout out to that one time i had to explain the concept of the life series to my dad (I had the 3 hearts on my jacket), but I knew I couldn't really say "a Minecraft series" so I ended up explaining the general concept as if it were a 1980s sci-fi novel. And he actually seemed interested in the idea.

It was wild

#life series #life smo #life smp #yes the tag before this is a typo i dont care i can't edit tags on mobile for some godforsaken reason #no im not deleting it its funy

[kayakischaotic]

if martho gets big.. IT WAS MY IDEA!!!

#martyn inthelittlwood #ethoslab #martho #trafficshippping #life series #traffic smo

[malice-ov-mercy]

Star Crossed - Part 2

Part 1 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Playlist

Pairing: Nicholas Ruffilo x Reader

Content Warnings: star crossed lovers, angst, implied traumatic event (nothing detailed, real vague)

A/N: Decided to turn this into a lil series. Dunno how often I’ll update it, but it’s gonna hurt, sooooo this is your warning. For optimal experience, check out Star Crossed by Scary Kids Scaring Kids :)

Word Count: 740

Tag List: @circle-with-me @xxrainstorm @foliosriot @nyxthedestroyerofworlds @reader13000 @sammyjoeee @cookiesupplier

If you would like to be added, please let me know for who! If you tell me everyone/everything, just know that includes anything I may write for Bad Omens AND/OR Will Ramos. If you would like to be added, please let me know for who!

————————————

Ruffilo Masterlist

————————————

Nicholas stared at the reflection of the sleeping body in his bed. You looked so peaceful and serene, a stark contrast to the state you arrived at his house in. Disheveled, sobbing, broken hearted and so cold and weak. Blue lips from the cold, snow littered air told him you’d walked or ran all the way to him. You brought nothing with you, not even your phone. He had no idea what happened, but welcomed you with warm, inviting, and safe arms like always.

The conversation with Noah while you soaked in a steaming hot bath replayed in his mind over and over again. It went in circles. Noah scolded Nicholas for “taking so long to make a move.” He thought it ludicrous that Nicholas blamed the stars time and time again. What he hoped would be a helpful conversation only ended up making him more irritated and angry.

“Both of you need to stop being a bitch, and fucking kiss.” Nicholas repeated Noah’s words, condescendingly mocking him. “As if we haven’t fucking tried.”

He huffed a frustrated breath and closed his eyes, trying to center his racing mind and soothe the ache in his bones. Images of your shattered figure danced on the back of lids, offering him more pain instead of solace. His lips hurt from the force of his teeth digging in the flesh. Soft shuffling of sheets prompted him to look back in the mirror. Nicholas’ vision was blurry through tears.

You sat up in bed, gazing back at him through the mirror. Exhaustion and anguish settled deep in your eyes, the life and joy sucked out of them from whatever led you to him in the middle of the frostbitten night. The blanket fell softly from your grasp, exposing your base chest. What he wouldn’t give to run his hands over your soft skin…

“Nick,” The sound of your broken voice stabbed at his heart. “What are you doing up?”

He tore his eyes from your chest, offering a small smile. “Couldn’t sleep. Worried about you.”

Lying didn’t come easily to him, but it wasn’t a total fabrication. The truth is, Nicholas woke from a tortuous dream. His dreams were the only place he could have you entirely, and even then, every one always ended in horrific, scarring tragedy.

Dejection stared back at him, pushing the dagger in his chest deeper.

“Sorry.” You fiddled with the blanket’s edge and tore your gaze from the concerned silver eyes staring back at you.

Nicholas turned around, his breath hitching as he drank in the fragmented pieces of his forbidden fruit. Desire stirred in his loins. So badly did he wish he could devour you whole. He wanted to drown himself in you, lose himself entirely in your taste.

Tentatively, like the floor would cave in beneath his feet, he treaded towards his bed and sat on the edge. Your hand was warm, a much more pleasant feeling than the ice they were previously. He interlocked your fingers and kissed your hands.

“Don’t apologize.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “There’s no reason for it.”

Tears brimmed your sorrowful eyes. “Nick…”

He went willingly when you tugged him close to you, wrapping your arms tightly around him. Nicholas inhaled your scent. You smelled of his body wash and shampoo. It smelled better on you than him. He cradled your head, smoothing down your soft, sleep tousled hair and gently rocked you.

“It’s fine, love. You don’t have to tell me now.”

“Don’t call me that, Nicholas.”

The use of his first name made him grimaced. You never called him by his first name. Ever. Not even when he pissed you off.

“I’m not yours and I never will be.”

Your words knocked all the air out of his lungs. They were bitter and fucking harsh. It’s not like he didn’t know or wasn’t well aware, but he thought the reminder was unwarranted, especially right now. A brief flash of anger sparked in his blood, but he swallowed his equally bitter retort. Neither of you needed the argument that would ensue.

Instead, Nicholas held you closer, his embracing suffocating yet comforting. Sobs erupted from your trembling body. The wailing escaping your lungs pierced Nicholas’ ears and already crumpled heart. He could do nothing but watch this agony rip you apart at the seams, helpless and useless.

Fate.

What a cruel, sadistic bitch of a mistress she was.

#nicholas ruffilo x reader #nicholas ruffilo fanfiction #nicholas ruffilo fanfic #nicholas ruffilo fic #bad omens fanfiction #bad omens fanfic #bad omens fic

[theconstellationprincess]

Age Regression Writing Requests Open!

Hello! I'm Star! I'm using this side blog to post about age regression h/c's and stories and stuff for my fav charcters. Multi fandom :)

My fandoms are: Hermitcraft, life series, Hazbin Hotel, BG3, House MD, Empires SMO

Tag system!

#Diap stuff -> diapers/accidents

#Star writes -> original fandom writing

#Star speaks -> asks, posts about me

#Star reblogs -> reblogs!

#House and home -> chapters for my agere empires long fic

Main blog: @bestie-enthusiast

#introduction #me! #star speaks #age regression #sfw agere #sfw littlespace #little space

[blackwinged-soul]

Oh, god.

I swear to fuck.

I better not.

I’ve been kinsidering Something from the Daug|hter of Smo|ke and Bone series for a couple weeks now. (Not anyone specific, just... the story feels vaguely familiar to me.) I FINALLY found a way to get ahold of the second+third books in good condition AND support a small boo|kshop!

Except now I’m having what I suspect are just Cameos/Flickers because nobody I’ve seen yet feels Right.......... but then again, I didn’t even start questioning anything from T/L/T until That Ending slammed my mind with “THAT’S FAMILIAR WHY THE FUCK DO I REMEMBER THAT HAPPENING”...... so maybe it’s just not The Right Moment that will tip the scales yet.

But the one I feel most connected to right now is Aki\/a and I don’t like that.

I think I flickered a little today but it was very faint and indistinguishable and I just felt like a Sentient Thing With Four Legs as I was skip-hop-running a little.

(It’s Hard because my soul has a strong memory and I’ve had flashes of Being So Many People/Creatures from past lives. Not all of them are strong enough to impact my identity, but there are a Lot of memories/forms I’ve gotten. Not to mention, the vast capacity for em|pathy always complicates matters... and my soul likes to astral-shapeshift a little to mimic things I’m detecting empathically that Feel Nice.)

Is Aki\/a a synpath? Am I a c|himaera? Is my astral body just playing pretend because This Book’s Giving Me Feelings? Hell if I know.

But I’m keeping an eye on it and hoping I don’t yet another tragic backstory. Come on, Mu|tiverse, please, can I have fun times in just ONE life?

#*whispers so quietly i can barely even hear myself thinking it* #it might also be because the tragedy in Aki\/a and Madrigal's story (and body-soul-sharing weirdness) reminds me so much #of the shenanigans that happened in the T/L/T universe... The H|arrow|hark in me might simply be Recognizing some Common Threads. #But I can't place why THAT would be either aside from the most nebulous ''magic and war and soul-body weirdness'' concepts.... #rwt personal posts #rwt f

[dayoldmtndew]

OH MY FOD I JUS FOUND YOUR BKOG AND IM QUITE LITRESLLY SCREAMING LIKE THIS IS THE FIRDT TIME IM HESRING SMO TALK ABT THE SERIES GOD IVE BEEN WAITING MY ENTIRE LIFE FOR THUS KOMENT OG MY FOD

PRAYING YOU MEAN ROT AND RUIN CAUSE SO HAVE I

[itswavelengths]

The Steam Deck

After preordering Valve's Steam Deck in February I'm happy to finally have one in my hands. A week+ of use has me feeling confident in saying the dream of the device — to create an entry point into PC gaming that rivals the ease of console gaming — has been mostly achieved through a combination of great hardware and software tricks that boggle the mind. There's great writing out there about where the Deck succeeds in this quest, where it fails, and where it manages to exceed expectations, and despite being pretty high on this thing overall I can't help but nod along with some of the more critical takes. If you want to hear a few first-blush thoughts, Stephen and I have a new (maybe unsurprisingly huge) episode of Into the Aether focused on our feelings about the Steam Deck — from how it handles the basics like playing smaller and older indie or AAA titles to some of the newer and beefier titles like Elden Ring. You can listen to it here:

PC Gaming for the Console Crowd

Before recording the episode I set some ground rules for myself, specifically that I could only play things I downloaded from the onboard Steam store in an effort to get a feel for the device as someone who is buying a Deck to experience a taste of what PC gaming has to offer. In that regard, results are mixed but mostly positive. Some handy UI elements indicate what games play seamlessly out of the box, but older or more obscure titles may lack identification entirely. The games you'd expect to work well — those that feel like they were built with consoles in mind and have full native controller support — work well. Games built with PC in mind and require a mouse and keyboard... well that's where things can go off the rails. Titles like the Civilization series use a combination of the touchpads and trigger buttons to simulate pointing and clicking in ways that feel immediately natural and allows for a perfectly playable experience. Others come burdened with small text made for larger hi-res displays and keyboard commands that quickly become tiresome when trying to use the provided on-screen keyboard in the absence of actual hardware.

This valley between what is considered by Valve to be "Verified" and "Playable" is wide, but made manageable by the more genius aspects of Steam's community-focused features. Any game in the library has a handy button with a gamepad icon that will allow users to peruse community-submitted control layouts and sort them by either the amount of upvotes they've received from the rest of the Steam userbase or by the total cumulative hours users have played with each enabled. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (my muse) was released for PC in 2007 without gamepad support despite simultaneously launching on the Xbox 360, and yet because of the breadth of control inputs available on the Deck and the Community Layouts function, the game can be played without the need to download mods or alter the game files in any way. It's rad.

But even this process raises the biggest question regarding the Steam Deck as a product: Who is this thing for? For those seeking a console-like experience with the benefits of a PC library, the simple act of tinkering with settings to find the right gamepad layout might already be a step too far. And that's before the game has even booted up — there's the entire realm of tweaking graphics settings in-game and enabling the Steam Deck's frame and refresh rate limiters to find the right balance between performance, visuals, and battery life. Even for games like Elden Ring which have been marked as "Verified" by Valve, there's an aspect of getting your hands dirty in menus that might make less technically-minded players uncomfortable and hitting Google more often than they'd like.

The truth is that although I love the Steam Deck so far, I can't recommend it to everybody. I can't yet place it alongside the Nintendo Switch and the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series as though the biggest and best games will run smoothly out-of-the-box on release. I am hopeful that we'll see a "Community Settings" option appear alongside the "Community Gamepad Layouts" one day, or a way for "Verified" games to come downloaded with the best possible Deck-compatible graphics settings and gamepad layouts pre-installed. I'm thankful to sites like ProtonDB and the many many YouTubers endlessly cataloguing which games run well, and how to fix titles should they fall short — but for some consumers, the need to find and peruse those resources at all will be friction enough to bail. As it stands, I can't blanket-recommend a device that comes with a "you're going to need to do a lot of Googling" asterisk.

The Everything Machine

Once we finished recording, my self-imposed rule fell to the wayside. Although I still have a hard time nailing down who the Steam Deck is for, I know without a doubt that it's for me. Here's what I mean:

Although I'm excited about the prospect of playing games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Death Stranding on the go, current AAA releases were never the reason I wanted to get one of these bad boys for myself. Hypothetically if God of War Ragnarök launched on PlayStation and Steam simultaneously, I would not choose to play it on the Deck. Some games deserve the pomp and circumstance of the big screen, of good speakers, and of fidelity without caveats. I'm not about to close my heart to the possibility that some games bridge the gap and become even better when made portable (the Yakuza games come to mind here), but I consider Elden Ring and its ilk to be a nice bonus instead of The Number One Reason to purchase a Deck.

There's a whole world of independent or PC-focused games that exist on storefronts like Steam, Itch.io, GOG and nowhere else that I have dearly missed over the past few years, specifically since switching to MacOS full-time. Sometimes these games come to console, sometimes they don't, but in both cases I consistently feel like I'm missing out on some of the most interesting work being created in the space. For every odd Mac-supported game (which to be fair seems to happen more frequently these days), there are ten others I miss out on until they appear on another platform. Rogue Legacy 2, which entered Early Access in 2020, is the sequel to one of my favorite games of all time and remained PC-only for two years until releasing on Xbox consoles. I spent a majority of those two years kicking myself for not having a way to play it, not being able to watch the progression of development over time during its testing period. I wanted dearly to be an early member of the community, and the Steam Deck will ensure that doesn't happen again.

I've spoken often on and off the show about my love of the emulation handheld market. These tiny devices enable us to revisit games that have been left behind by their developers in a form factor that feels modern and with functionality to match, like the ability to save and load a game wherever and whenever. As time marches on the games being left behind require more power and better hardware to run, and while that means trade-offs like the devices themselves becoming large enough to exceed pocketability, the caveats are worth it for those whose favorite games launched in the PlayStation 2 era and beyond. Besides being great for PC gaming, the Steam Deck is also run via the Linux operating system and is compatible with a plethora of emulators. Not only do I have a deep admiration for the previous generations of consoles gone by and frequently challenge myself to explore more of gaming's history, but I absolutely love tinkering with emulators. What the Deck is already capable of running needs to be seen to be believed.

With these three tenants in mind I've found the Steam Deck to be a resounding success by Valve in terms of providing what I expected and hoped was possible. The more time I've spent playing games and messing around with the many many options available to me, the more I feel like this is close to becoming An Everything Machine. That's not to say it's going to replace anything I currently use, but the flexibility offered branches into spaces I couldn't quite wrap my head around until using it for myself. The more I reach out into what I expect to be the Deck's limitations, I'm surprised at its ability to surprise. One shining feature offered by the Steam Deck is the ability to hold the power button down and shift the device into "desktop mode" — a fully featured PC based on the Linux operating system that makes use of the on-screen keyboard and trackpads to provide a surprising amount of mobility and customization. Taking it a step further, plugging any USB-C dongle with and HDMI port into the Deck allows users to make any external monitor an extra (or the primary) display. Add Bluetooth support to the mix with a wireless mouse and keyboard, and you've turned the Steam Deck from a device running a "desktop mode" into what is just simply a desktop computer. In my testing I've already gotten a ton of mileage out of the mouse and keyboard I have paired to my Mac Mini (the Logitech MX Master and the Keychron K3, both of which support multiple connections simultaneously) alongside a cheap $30 USB-C dongle I bought years ago from VAVA¹. You could, hypothetically, just purchase and use one of these things as your main computer. I absolutely will not do that. But you could, dear reader, and that's wild.

Moving the Steam Deck into desktop mode with this setup also wipes away my concerns about games that don't play well with the hardware's more obvious control schemes. The beauty of the options Valve has provided means UI-intensive strategy games with small text and a bevy of keyboard commands can be played exactly as they were intended. Sure it would be nice to find a community gamepad layout and make these games portable, but in the same way the spectacle of AAA sometimes demands a big screen, some strategy games demand sitting in your desk chair like a troubled lord in a ponderous rabbit hole waiting twenty real minutes before finally reaching towards the mouse to make your next move. Games can be both! And the Steam Deck can do both easily!

And then there's the emulation, which absolutely blows away the many devices I already own specifically for emulation purposes. I won't go too into specifics, but I will add my voice to the choir of people singing the praises of how impressive the Deck handles games from even the more recent generations of consoles. However, I do think it's worth noting that my experience getting to the point where I felt like retro games were working as expected took arguably more effort than many online would have you believe — there's more elbow grease required in almost all of the steps involved than you'll expect from the outset. We are, of course, early in the lifecycle of this product and all of the hiccups I ran into will smooth out over time between simpler custom-built software by community members and forum post after forum post of fixes and solves for those with the search-box acumen required. But as it stands right now, I found a lot of road blocks in my path to what I'd expected... and I consider myself to be pretty good at this stuff. There's bliss on the other end of that journey though. I'm playing games I missed dearly and completely lost access to, I'm playing games I've always been meaning to try, and all of them run about as well or even better than they did on original hardware somehow. And they can be taken on the go!

Playing Wind Waker – the original GameCube one – upscaled with HD textures truly is an amazing experience. The game is so beautiful and, 20 years later, I still love the sailing and soundtrack. And I get to play this on a Steam Deck. Without an official remaster, this will do 😍 pic.twitter.com/PPDkqRmB1V

— Federico Viticci (@viticci) September 19, 2022

Verified

So far, for my needs, the Steam Deck is all it's cracked up to be and then some. I appreciate that Valve has been shifting all of their production power towards getting consoles in the hands of players quickly because it means more and more people will have the same transformative experiences I've been having for the past week. And again, I'm only scratching the surface here. The extensibility of this product and the software it's built upon is going to continue to reveal new and exciting use cases over time and I'm deeply excited about the growing possibility-space. Valve themselves have stated they're hard at work on a second generation of this hardware, and while this might launch prospective buyers into the "should I wait for the Steam Deck 2" gravity well, as a current owner it only speaks to the success of what's been accomplished here and a commitment to further updates and development.

I'm amped about the future.

⏆

---

¹ Using a standard USB-C dongle and a Bluetooth controller like something from 8BitDo you can even come close to something resembling the Nintendo Switch's titular magic trick of easily flipping between handheld and docked modes. I'm currently eyeing this surprisingly affordable dock from JSAUX as Valve's official dock is delayed indefinitely as a way to test this out for myself on the big screen, or possibly even for a dedicated streaming setup.

[ghost-town-dwellers]

its lifesteal smo ans heah weve. only ever had one fandom togerhe ebut i am into the life series

ooooo i was actually catchin up on lifesteal a bit earlier, but i dont know too much, i just watch branzy n clown sometimes- n the life series absolutely slaps, im so excited for season 4

#ex answers #moondrip!

[lucidtrust]

Big brother cirkus

Big brother cirkus series#

Seen at the circus: Gabrielle Stewart, Tim Atwood, Kristen Robinson, Laura Veydt, Tina Davis, Jennifer Miller, Lauren Hill, David and Vicki Danielson, Marty and Joann Perz, Doug Chew, Mary Humberger, Bob and Chris Markley, Jim and Pat McRickard and Brian King. The Big Brother Housemates got a chance to show they are great performers as they presented the. Guests also tried their luck, bidding on auction items such as tickets to see Broman in “Hamilton” at Pittsburgh’s Benedum Center, rinkside Pittsburgh Penguins tickets, and a getaway to Nemacolin Woodlands Resort.Įvent committee members included Gloria Brown, Robie Shoff, Rachel Sloan, Doug Estok, Josh Bogert, Julie King, Natalie Shoff and Alexa Mapstone. The interactive galleries bring the circus to life by making children of all ages part of the big show. of the Maxwell Brothers Circus, the big cats and of Jesse in the ring. Big Brother oekuje da se ukuani pridravaju pravila, a njihovo krenje moe znaiti da e ukuan biti zamoljen da smjesta napusti kuu. It is dedicated to the people at the Maxwell Brother's Circus who took the time. U nastavku je navedeno sve ono to se smije i ne smije raditi u Big Brother kui. After dazzling their new housemates with their circus skills Emilia got into her bikini and. R&B singer blasted as ‘transphobic’ for rejecting transgender woman’s advances on ‘Big Brother’ show. Big Brother ovisi o tome da li se ukuani pridravaju strogih pravila i uvjeta. The siblings perform a circus double act.

Big brother cirkus series#

It was produced and cowritten by Irwin Allen, later known for a series of big-budget disaster films. Davida sicer nismo priklicali, Maa pa nam je odgovorila na vpraanja. Na spletu smo zasledili fotografijo njenega nekdanjega fanta Davida v ljubljanskem klubu Cirkus, na kateri je z drugim dekletom. Rukenbrod said he is not a performer but he is a friend of BBBSLR Executive Director Stephanie Babich Mihleder: “She said, ‘Can you play the bearded lady?’, and I said yes.”ĭuring the dinner hour, the 200 guests were introduced to the evening’s honorees: Donna Bailey, Partner of the Year Dave Schroeder, School-Based Big of the Year and Eric Davis, Community-Based Big of the Year. Emilia Arata, 18, is in the house with her brother Victor, 19. US/ Canada rentals) 2 The Big Circus is a 1959 film starring Victor Mature as a circus owner struggling with financial trouble and a murderous unknown saboteur. Maa Levai, plavolaska, ki se je spomnimo iz Big Brotherja, je samska. Big Brother 24 is the twenty-fourth season of the American reality television program Big Brother.The season premiered on July 6, 2022, on CBS in the United States and Global in Canada.

#Big brother cirkus

[kashimos-hajime]

scorched | s.r. + b.b.

summary: “You utterly destroyed me, you know that? I loved you more than I needed to breathe and you just walked away. I lost everything and you walked away.”

WARNINGS: swearing, angst, violence, a post-endgame rant wrapped up as a fic pairing: steve x fem!reader, bucky x fem!reader word count: 7.3k

a/n: inspired by praying by kesha. written for @coffee-with-bucky​​ and her 2k challenge! congrats lyn :) my prompt was “i failed you. i failed everyone.”and i’d be lying if i said i wasn’t inspired by @heli0s-writes​​ and her series “as it was”. check her out! she’s one of my favourite writers on this site!

“She’s not at the compound,” Sam says, not at all surprised to see him and almost resentful, defensive. His phone is still in hand, screen alit from the text Steve sent him a few minutes ago. Everything he left behind is still here by the lake.

Almost everything.

It’s a ghost town.

“But she doesn’t want to see you anyway.”

“Sam—”

“Five hours for you was five, very long years for us,” he continues, but his tone softens when he catches sight of Steve’s face. Absolutely crushed, eyebrows weighed down, shoulders hunched forward, defeated. “She’s different, now. She’s not the woman you left.”

The mere mention of you makes Steve’s heart, already choked with dread, crack.

“And you shouldn’t go, man. It wouldn’t be good for her after all this time.”

Before, maybe Sam would’ve thought of Steve first, but there’s a distance, a yawning gap standing between them now. Sam was here for the bitter consequences of his departure—Steve wasn’t, and he knows they must’ve been shattering, terrifying, because by the way Sam is so cold about it, he doesn’t want to remember it.

“I made a mistake, Sam. I can’t let her go on thinking I don’t regret what I did.” He looks out at the lake where he passed the shield and mantle and responsibilities on to the man before him before he left, and the sun hits the lake so clearly that his breath nearly catches. You loved swimming, propelling circles around him in the blue-green pool at the compound, splashing it into his eyes. Laughing and laughing and laughing because you’re so limber on land but here you’re definitely a fish out of water.

Funny, funny, funny.

“She won’t care.”

“She has to.”

“Look, man. I’m trying to save you some pain.” Sam puts a hand out, hovering before his chest as if he stopped himself, as if he doesn’t even want to touch Steve, and the blond swallows the painful little knot in his throat. “It’s too late, and I know you want to think better late than never, but she’s changed. Things have changed.”

“That won’t stop me from trying,” Steve murmurs, walking around Sam to where a car is parked. His car. The damned car he drove to Tony’s funeral. He’s sure the keys are still in the cupholder beside your old coffee cup. He wonders who drove you home.

Sam? Bucky?

Who held a body with a heart that was tearing apart while he was chasing some fruitless daydream?

“Dude, the woman you knew is gone,” Sam calls, but Steve doesn’t listen. “You need to leave.”

“No, Sam. We made a promise to wait for each other.”

Okay, clause one: we wait for each other no matter what. Clause two: no matter what happens, we promise to work everything out. Clause three: this love is forever. Sign here.

I can’t believe you’re making me sign a fake contract for something we know won’t change, doll.

It’s a real contract because I wrote it, and it’s just for fun, anyway. I would never love anyone else besides you.

“That doesn’t matter. She’s fucking Barnes anyway.”

That stops him in his tracks. Blood freezing over in his body, he turns to look at Sam in his leather jacket and washed jeans, arms crossed tightly over his chest. His eyes are impassive, severe, and dark with blunt honesty.

“Look, they’re happy. So can you just… leave? Go back to the forties. Settle down anywhere but here, because she is happy and so is he. Do you know how long it took for them to even think about trying to move past you?”

“Wait—” The word comes out ripped, hoarse, and he feels the blood drain from his legs as he takes a step back—

“You should just go.”

For a moment, Steve’s eyes, wide and impossibly guilty, shine with tears. At the thought of you with some other man—somehow the possibility never crossed his mind. In his mind, you are the girl who shelters underneath his arm when it thunders, who tucks her face into his chest when the movie is too scary, who peppers his faces with kisses and makes him lemonade after a good training session, who puts flower crowns on his head when they spend a weekend outside the city and makes apple pies so fulfilling he could cry, who would never love another man because you are so wholly, helplessly, in love with him.

And he left you anyway.

So he nods, because he deserves this.

He deserves this, and he leaves.

.

The wind is warm against his cheeks as he tries to think how he ended up here in Puerto Vallarta, although he does know. Sam dropped him off here with a mission that’ll hopefully lead to another, and you can build a new life for yourself, Steve. One without her in it. If you need something, you know you can call me.

An arms deal. He got a tipoff from one of his CIs that it’s happening tonight by the docks, because he needs his own resources now. There is no Ross, no Tony, no Natasha, no one on his side.

His body yearns for a fight, and he gets it when he hears a soft voice down the docks, speaking in British English, just barely over the lap of the ocean. Crouching behind a metal freight container, he tries to distinguish the voices. At least three bodies, all armed, and his target. One of the biggest arms dealers in Britain down here to make a deal.

Steve, darting out from his cover and to the fire escape by the warehouse, catches a glimpse of the silhouettes of the men waiting. Their shadows are long against the concrete of the dock. The metal clangs underneath his boots as he slowly climbs the steps.

“Where is this woman?” the first man asks roughly, impatience laced through his tone as Steve pulls himself onto the roof. Feet pattering over the metal roof of the warehouse, he keeps himself crouched as the warm, golden sunlight filters through the oily heat. He’s sweating through the kevlar suit he’s got strapped on, and droplets beads around his forehead as he adjusts the shield gauntlets along his wrists.

“She said seven, sir.”

“Tardiness,” the man tsks. “We should’ve known better than to deal with the likes of her. What did I say?”

“That you shouldn’t trust an American, sir.”

“Precisely.” Leaning over the roof, Steve spots the man in question speaking, his suit glowing from the lamplight he stands beneath and he grips the edge of the roof, frowning. The buyer and the seller in one foul swoop. A car door slams and he blinks, tearing his eyes away from his count of at least twelve men, three standing around crates and the other around the man complaining.

A woman steps out of the car, pocketing her phone as she walks towards the illuminated circle, and he frowns, narrowing his eyes. Her face is covered by hair that sways with her every step, but her figure is outlined by the fit of her pantsuit. Even through the clothes, he can see the curve of muscle, the purpose in her step.

A dangerous woman.

“Sorry for the hold up,” she calls out, her voice smooth, rich with confidence. Steve frowns as she stops just outside the circle of light, her silhouette illuminated by warm, rusty orange and cloaked in shadow. “You wouldn’t believe the legalities surrounding contraband in America,” she continues teasingly. “Let me see.”

The man jerks his head to one of his henchman by the crates who cracks it open revealing sleek black rifles, laser sights, silver canisters with a bar along the sides: EMPs, grenades of all kinds. “Is it to your satisfaction?”

“It is. I’m docked in bay four. My men will meet yours there,” she says and head honcho nods. It’s a sign for the three men to pick up one crate each and begin their slow trail up the docks. The crates are massive things, hard black metal that softly rattles with every sway and Steve’s ears prick as the woman steps closer, her heels sharp against concrete.

“I assume this concludes our business, ma’am. It has been a profitable few months. I hope you find your new treasures… helpful in your endeavors.”

“Oh, I’d love to keep communications open. You’ve been a wonderful seller, and as you know, I pay handsomely for quality goods.” Despite his previous irritation, the boss seems to straighten, smiling almost as the men around look at each other. Money. It all comes down to money.

“Of course. My London warehouse, as you know, is open to you should you find yourself across the sea.”

“Perfect. Pleasure doing business with you.” It is then that she steps into the light, and Steve’s eyes narrow at the glint of metal on her ears and in her hair as she reaches forward to shake the man’s hand.

And twist it behind his back, using him as a body shield between her and his henchmen. Her other hand goes to her head, pulling out the pin and digging it gently into the man’s throbbing vein at his neck. It sits comfortably in her palm, almost as if it is molded for her and Steve’s muscles tense, blood rushing to his fingertips.

“Shoot her, now.”

“Watch it, Fitz,” hisses the woman, voice low. She digs the tip of the pin deeper. In the washed lamplight, Steve can see the curve of the blade, the hoop her finger slots into. A throwing knife. “I want you out of this situation alive.”

The knife trails down his body to his thigh and she wraps her fingers tighter around the handle.

Schluck.

The man’s scream rings in Steve’s ears as she tosses the man aside, diving to a stack of wooden crates. Wood and stone splinters beneath the force of bullets following at her heels but she simply unclasps one of her earrings, presses a button and throws it over the crates.

There’s a moment of silence as the men stare at the device at their feet before there is an explosion of smoke. He watches as the woman vaults over the crates and sprints into the cloud and Steve leaps off the roof, pumping his arms to activate his shield gauntlets.

The first man he comes into contact with lets out a startled scream as Steve punches his lights out and his blood is singing. Smoke burns at his eyes and thickens in his lungs as he whirls around, spotting a shadow of a man and he runs toward him, sweeping out a leg to take him down before slamming his knuckles into his nose until he’s knocked out cold and there’s a painful grunt behind him, the resounding collapse of a body that has no intention of getting up again.

Bullets whiz past his face, slamming into concrete and flesh as something rushes past him and he grabs the charging man, swinging his whole body weight into his arms and bringing them both crashing into the ground. The smell of sweat leaks into his mouth as he shoves the curve of his shield into the henchman’s stomach. Once. Twice. Thrice.

The man is rolled over, eyes scrunched tight, when Steve gets off of him.

Eyes straining through the smoke, he watches as a shadow charges at two figures, latching onto the first man and striking the geezer behind him with a power kick to the chest with both legs. The second man stumbles back just as the shadow swings her legs back and brings the first man down to the ground.

Natasha.

That was something he’d seen Natasha practice a hundred times over.

The thought makes his blood run cold and he pauses for a moment, the smoke beginning to thin out as she rolls over the first man and takes down the second with two punches to the gut and a knee to the nose. 

Natasha.

This can’t be real. No. Natasha is dead.

Unless they brought her back.

No, Sam would’ve told him, wouldn’t he?

He’s not sure anymore. 

His throat cinches shut at the thought of the redhead, of the woman who’d been by his side for years, who encouraged him to fall in love with you. Maybe it’s Natasha’s ghost haunting him, taunting him with some lookalike spy, reminding him of his mistake, and he feels himself paralyzed. The memories, the smile of hers before they went back in time— He’d felt so exhausted at the responsibility of it all, the five years of his failure weighing down between his shoulders. It all rushes back to him: your wobbling lips, brave face on his brave girl, fingers digging into his suit, ordering him to come home safe, Natasha’s coy little smile.

See you in a minute.

Strong legs wrap around his abdomen and he lets out a grunt, yanked out of his dazed state as he wrenches the attacker off his back. The woman falls with smack but her fingers dig into his wrists. Her legs wrap around his arm, dragging him down with her.

Steve pitches forward, tumbling forward as she slams his hand into the concrete. His skull collides with the ground and he squeezes his eyes tight, pain blooming from the back of his head. A sharp knee digs into his other elbow and he sucks in a deep breath, eyes fluttering open to a blurry face.

“No.” The word comes out choked and he blinks against the streetlight, eyebrows furrowing together and the weight vanishes off of him. “It can’t be.” Sitting up, he feels his head swim in a dull ache, world tilting as the woman takes a step away from him. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

The words ring in his ears, cold, wretched, and he jerks his head up to see your face drained of blood, lips parted, eyes wide. Your shoulders are shaking, chest heaving for air and it rattles in your lungs. Steve can hear your heart pounding, your throat swallowing nothing but wet air.

“Y/N—” He soaks in your figure, the muscle, the confidence, the sharp lines where everything had been soft. You don’t even look too different—you just feel different. He used to sink into your arms thinking of golden sunlight and soft pillows. Now, when he looks at you, he thinks of serrated edges, ironwire bones. You’ve lost your heels in the fight, but you look taller than he’s ever seen you. “You’re… it’s you.”

“Steve.” For a moment, your voice is choked up and your expression softens as you scan his face, but then you tear your eyes away. Your hair is chopped shorter for practicality, just barely past your shoulders. It suits you. Suits the girl he loves, the girl he doesn’t know anymore. “Steve.”

“Are you hurt?” He reaches for you but you shrink back like he’s burned you. This isn’t who you are. You’ve never been a fighter, yet here you stand, pantsuit a bit scuffed but otherwise untouched, and his stomach twists into a Gordian knot. This is what Sam was warning him about. The snake in the garden come to life. “What are you doing here? You could’ve gotten hurt, doll—”

“Don’t call me that. You don’t have that right anymore,” you spit, voice pure poison. He pushes himself to his feet just as something makes you pause and your eyebrows knit together, raising your left wrist where a watch is strapped on. His head is spinning from his skull cracking against concrete and the new revelation that the girl he knows is a stranger again. He wobbles for a moment, arms out to the side as he tries to regain his bearings but you don’t so much as give him another second of your attention. “Docks are secure, Fury. Fitz is ready for pickup. I’ll send London co-ordinates when I get back to base.”

Steve glances at the bleeding man still panicking about the knife sticking out of his leg, and you go over to him, hauling him to his feet. The man shivers, whimpers when he puts weight on his injured leg but you give no hint that you care. As if on cue, a helicopter swerves through the air, rotors sending powerful gales of air down to the ground as it lowers itself to the ground and you look at Steve with a cold disinterest, hand a fist around Fitz’s collar.

“Believe it or not, I’m not just Captain America’s pretty little girlfriend anymore.”

“I just want to talk—”

“There’s nothing I want to say to you.” Turning around, you lug Fitz into the helicopter with a strength Steve doesn’t recognize and you climb onto the chopper with a grace he knows didn’t exist before he left you.

Don’t go. Please don’t go. I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you.

“I’m going back to the compound,” you say over the loud gusts of wind whipping at the ground. “You’ll find Bucky there, if that’s who you’re really here for because if I wasn’t enough for you then, then I certainly won’t be enough for you now.” Pulling back into the helicopter, you yank the door shut with a slam, and Steve watches as it rises, a steady ascension to a place where he can’t follow.

His stomach twists, his whole body wracked with a shaking agony as his heart pushes itself up your throat. Falling to his knees, he keens over and throws up, acid splashing between his hands. He vomits out his heart, every inch of warmth you’ve ever given him so freely, every smile he’s taken for granted, the taste of your smile after you’ve made those apple pies.

He’s left hollowed out, colder than death.

He wants to cry, but even his mind tells him you don’t deserve to cry for the woman you chased away, so he laughs. Laughs until they turn into tears, and even then they don’t feel real. His body is unwilling to yield to the possibility of defeat, and yet here he is.

It was a one in a million chance for us both to survive that Snap, Steve. And Thanos destroyed the stones. If we can’t find a way to bring them back… maybe the only thing we can do now is move on.

Some people move on. But not us... Not us

Take your ring and give it to the girl you really love because it isn’t me.

Steve’s shock. There was less of a protest, only your determination to stop your lip from trembling, the tears already falling from glassy eyes. Grief bit him in the stomach, but yearning tugged his heart toward the platform.

If all you could think about in the ten years we were together was Peggy, I don’t see why I should stop you.

Y/N, you know I love you.

Not enough.

.

The compound is different. Different plot of land, different inhabitants, different facilities. He pulls up in the lot where the Avengers sign is carved into the stone and he walks the grounds, grounds he used to know but this is different soil.

Another man’s grounds.

“Steve,” Sam says, cautious on the track. He’s wearing a tee-shirt and shorts, skin glistening with sweat and a water bottle in hand. He’s got a comm link in his ear and it glows blue for a moment before muting itself. There are a few recruits running a few laps and Steve eyes them wearily before approaching Sam. His beard was shaved two days ago, his hair chopped clean even though it makes him more noticeable now. He hopes no one says anything about the old Captain America pathetically dragging himself back to a place he tried to run from. “F.R.I.D.A.Y. told me you came in.”

“Yeah. I… I just wanted to see Bucky.” Your name bites at his tongue and it takes all his strength not to confess what happened down in Mexico before Sam glances behind him to a building he doesn’t recognize. It’s connected to the main facility by a long tunnel but there are doors to the track as well, and they open just as Steve fixes his gaze on it.

Two figures stumble out of the building, a piercing shriek splitting the air with glee as one of them runs away from the other. Even from the distance, Steve can see the metal glint of Bucky’s arm, your favourite swimsuit strapped to your body. Bucky’s holding onto something as he chases after you and you barrel through the grass, towel cloaking your shoulders.

“They’re happy, man,” Sam murmurs lowly as they get onto the track and you’re still running but you’re no match for a super soldier. Bucky scoops you up, tossing aside his water gun and wrapping you in a huge hug from behind. “Even if Barnes wants to see you, do you think she does?”

“I already saw her in Mexico,” he utters softly. You’re laughing so loudly it makes Steve’s chest explode with light. You thrash in Bucky’s arms and he pretends to nip at your skin, growl into your ear as you tug at the towel around your neck. You’re… you. Just as he left you. Nothing like Mexico. “Why is she in the field, now? She’s not a soldier.”

“That’s for her to explain, not me. I don’t get to try to describe the hell you put her through, Steve.” Bucky puts you down and your feet in those strappy tan sandals sink into the grass as you spin around. You plant a kiss gently on Bucky’s lips, using the corner of your towel to wipe away drips from his hair before stealing another kiss. Steve’s mouth tingles, burning uncomfortably and he looks away. That used to be him, leaving the pool, smelling like chlorine and sweat and then popsicles to cool down because nothing screamed summer like fruit popsicles and swimming.

“Steve?” A tentative voice calls and Steve’s eyes refocus to the source on reflex. You’re staring at him, eyes narrowed into knife points and you hold Bucky’s arm to your chest, your fingers entwined with his as his old friend walks towards him. “Steve— you’re back? What are you… what are you doing here?”

“Guess the past isn’t where I belong,” he says with a forced smile that digs into his cheeks and Bucky lets go of your hand to hug him but his lips are parted, his eyes wide. He doesn’t believe this is real and when Steve meets your eyes over Bucky’s shoulder, your gaze is burning. Bucky’s arms squeeze around Steve tighter, tight enough that even he can’t breathe. He’s shattered in his arms, Bucky is, and Steve can only hold him.

“Let’s go inside,” Sam says, ever the mediator. Steve looks at him but his eyes are on you, and Bucky’s pulling back and then his eyes are on you, too. All eyes on you and your worried lip between your teeth. You’re tanned, toned, and your hair is shining underneath the summer sun as Bucky steps away from Steve as well. As if the euphoria of having his best friend is gone—it is. He chose a daydream over his family. “You guys need to get dry.”

“Yeah,” Bucky murmurs, eyes darkening as they linger on Steve’s face. Soaking him in, thinking a thousand miles a minute, trying to sort through whatever storm lingers in his head. His eyebrows hood his gaze as he lowers his head and Steve can see him slip away as you take Bucky’s hand, cup his face, and turn him away.

“Popsicles, yeah? Gotta get the last ones before Wanda steals ‘em away,” you whisper and Bucky’s nose brushes against your head before they begin to walk away. Bucky’s shoulders are hunched over and you’ve got an arm around his waist, and there is something sacred in the way his head brushes against yours, the way his arm drapes around your shoulders. The way his fingers play with the fluffy towel around you, bringing the corner of it to your wet cheek. The way you step in tandem. 

Something tender, something hallowed, something not his.

You’d been sharp and scorched in Mexico. In Bucky’s presence, you are nothing but dewy grass and a gentle fire, and he sees the tension ease in your shoulders despite a knot lingering in your back.

Once you’d been soft like cotton clouds like it was your nature, eager to stay away from the fight. You were just the receptionist at Stark Towers and Steve had fallen first, so eager to protect you because you were kind, gentle, funny and you didn’t care about who he was. Just that he was Steve and you were you.

I can’t let anything happen to you. You can’t protect yourself against these guys, Y/N. They’re… they’re monsters.

And he left you to them anyway, in a world still struggling to find itself repopulated and alive—

I failed you. I failed everyone.

The realization devastates him. No matter how hard he tried to fix the world, he destroyed his life anyway.

“Come on, man. If you wanna talk, we should do it in private,” Sam says. Steve follows him numbly into a building he doesn’t know anymore.

.

You’re sitting with your legs bent and angled in towards Bucky, playing with a butterfly knife that flows too easily between your nimble fingers. Sam sits on the leather seat and Steve leans back into the sofa as you bite softly into your red popsicle. Strawberry. Your favourite.

Bucky’s sucking down a blue one but his face is placid, eyes burning into the glass table between them as Sam sits down with a cup of coffee he had offered to make for Steve. The blade flips over your index finger, and then back around again. Your hair is stringy and wet, tied away from your face as you set down the knife and turn to Bucky, eyes searching. You brush his hair away from his face even though it’s cropped shorter now and smile even though he doesn’t focus on you.

He doesn’t miss Bucky’s hand around the curve of your thigh, holding you to him as if you’ll slip away otherwise. He fights the nasty remark pounding against his teeth—that’s his girl his best friend’s got his hand on—but he knows it isn’t his place anymore. Steve watches you lick sweet strawberry melt from your lips, trail your fingers along Bucky’s head delicately and pull his temple towards you for a quick peck.

It’s almost as if Bucky wakes up at your touch, and he turns to you. He searches too, scans your gaze and Steve feels like he’s intruding on a moment so he looks into his lap.

“So?” Sam prompts, tearing everyone out of whatever bubble they’ve encased themselves in and pulling them back into harsh reality. “Who wants to go first?”

There’s silence where Bucky puts down his popsicle stick on the bowl brought out, blue melt sliding down the wood slowly as you bite down on the last of your own treat.

“Steve?” Bucky’s voice is quiet, accepting already.

“I have so many things to say and I don’t even know how to say any of it, but I know to apologize,” the blond says after a moment of hesitation. His breath keeps catching in your throat and you lean forward to drop off your own stick by Bucky’s, almost a statement to his own words. “I’m sorry.”

“For?” Sam asks for clarity, but Steve entertains the notion that maybe even his friend wants to draw it out of him.

“I didn’t know what I had until I lost it.” Steve makes a point to meet three pairs of eyes except you refuse to look at him, instead staring into Bucky’s lap like he doesn’t even exist, like you don’t exist either. “I should’ve stayed. Should’ve thought it through and realized that... everything I had back then is everything I had here.”

“Is that all?” Bucky stares at him with something like pity, something like jealousy, and Steve knows it has all to do with the woman in his arms. Ten years of conflict to push lovers together compared to five years of overcoming heartache because of one man. Steve would be jealous—had been jealous of Steve of 2012. 2012 Steve had a whole decade of love waiting for him and he has none. “Are you here to stay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

“If you think you can come here and have everything that was yours just given to you on a silver platter, then you’re wrong,” you speak up for the first time and it sucks all the warmth out of the room. Bucky turns to you, hand raising from your thigh to brush a wet strand of hair away from your cheek and you clench your jaw, lips pressed together. “We built our lives without you in it.”

“Y/N.” He leans forward, elbows on his knees but you seem to shrink away from him, eyes tortuously meeting his.

“You leaving me was the best thing that could’ve ever happened to me,” you whisper with a rage unbridled, unchained, just barely containing itself from exploding. “It made me realize how much stronger I am then you have ever given me credit for.”

“You weren’t that girl when I met you.” Soft girl with sunshine smiles and gauzy white dresses—lemonade pitchers, tulip gardens—you weren’t that girl, Steve’s mind protests but when you unwind from the couch, stretch every languid muscle in your body, he wonders if he ever saw you as anything more than someone he had to protect.  

“I believed you when you said I couldn’t fight.” You stand, gazing openly at him and he swallows at the hopelessness residing in your gaze, still there after five years. “That I wasn’t enough like you to even try to help. All I ever was to you was some pretty little thing who was scared to fight back and maybe I was because you sheltered me for ten fucking years.” Your voice twists with pain, overflowing with a frustration of lost time and pure, pure sadness. “You leaving me made me stand on my own two feet again.”

Bucky reaches forward to take your hand when they all see it tremble but you simply roll it into a fist and step away.

“You put me through hell, Steve. I had to learn how to fight for myself because you weren’t there. Because you left me for some fucking daydream.” For a moment, he thinks you soften because your eyebrows fall and you close your eyes. The muscle in your jaw ticks, your nose twitches, and when you open your eyes again, they are glassy with tears. “You utterly destroyed me, you know that? I loved you more than I needed to breathe and you just walked away. I lost everything and you walked away.”

Tony. Natasha. Boss. Best friend. Colleague. Sister.

“How could you do that?” you whimper, blinking as tears scorch down your cheeks and you wipe them away angrily with the heel of your hand. “How could you just look at me, look at Sam, look at Bucky, and think that there is nothing worth staying for?” You throw out your hand helplessly, waiting for an answer that won’t come and Steve chews on the inside of his cheek, throat swelling shut.

“It felt like minutes,” Bucky says at last, and the darkness in the room, the stifled feeling in Steve’s chest eases only a tad because Bucky is not nearly as thunderous as you are. You twist to look at him, arms crossed over your chest and Sam reaches to touch your arm, fingers wrapped around your bicep. You spare him a glance before looking at Bucky. “We died, we came back five years later, and it only felt like minutes.”

“Bucky—”

“You chose to leave what felt like minutes after I died, after Sam died, and when Y/N told me what happened… Steve…” A shuddering convulses down his throat and Bucky looks down into his lap. You unfold your arms and immediately go to sink into the couch, wrapping an arm around Bucky. Your eyes pin him down, red-rimmed with unshed tears, accusing: you did this to an already broken man.

“I’m so sorry, Buck.” The apology sounds plastic in his mouth with how many times he’s said it, thought it. “I’m so sorry.” He says it again anyways, and he directs it at the two other bodies in the room. You gauge his expression, watch him like he’ll vanish in a flash of smoke.

“I was happy for you if leaving meant I never had to see you again. I know you deserve a happy ending, Steve. You deserve rest more than anyone I know,” he says, “but you need to know what you want before you decide to risk it all. You can’t come crawling back for second chances because there are none. You don’t come back and have everything stay the same. There’s a price every time you give something up.” He looks up, eyes like clear water. There’s nothing angry in his old friend’s gaze, just drained. “If you’re here to stay, you better be sure that this is what you want in the end.” And then Bucky is up, rubbing at his face like he’s tired rather than an inch from crying. Steve watches him go—they all do—silently, and then you look at Sam who gets up to follow.

There’s a moment when you meet eyes with Steve and he can feel the love you swaddled him in for ten years, through the Snap, through the Accords. No matter where he was, you were there.

Then that love disappears.  

“I want you to hurt like you made me hurt,” you begin softly, hands folded in your lap, t-shirt hanging off your frame, stuffed into your shorts. “Like you still make me hurt. I want you to wake up crying, I want you to rub your face raw, I want you to stay awake all night just wondering why this has happened. I want nothing more than you begging on your knees for something you can’t stop no matter how hard you try because somehow you just aren’t enough.”

He closes his eyes, lets your words devour him whole.

“Bucky was there,” you continue quietly. “He was there for me in a way you never were. He drove me home after you left. Told me that the best was yet to come. That I just couldn’t see it yet, and I didn’t believe him. For the longest time, I didn’t believe a single word he said.”

“Until you did.”

“Until one day, I looked at him and told him I know. That I know, one day, things will change,” you agree and something melts in your voice when you speak of Bucky. Kindred souls, the same heartache lurking still in chests just beginning to warm from love again. “Maybe it hurt less that day so I decided that I have to accept that this was my life now or maybe I was just so sick of crying that I told myself that this isn’t who I’m going to be. I don’t know. I just woke up one day, and he asked if I wanted to go swimming. First summer after everyone came back, and I wanted to say no, but I just had to say yes because it was swimming, and it was Bucky, and he was barely holding it together but here he was… taping and gluing me like I was some abstract project.” You chuckle, a wet sound, before glancing down at your knees. There is something you’re not telling him, and he knows it’s something secret to you and Bucky alone, so he doesn’t push it. Doesn’t ask—his chest already feels like it’s cracked open. “Some of the pieces won’t ever fit again.”

“Bucky,” Steve says, “did he train you?”

“Yeah.” Explains a Black Widow move. You sound proud, but not of yourself, of your own feats and talent, but of him. “He encouraged it. Said it was only right I knew how to fight.” Steve’s stomach turns and he looks down to swallow. Bile is burning in his throat. The threads of his heart are tearing.

“I know it’s all I’ve been saying, but I’m sorry. I… I just tried to protect you in every way I could.”

“I know.” Your words are soft against his battered ears, and he looks up at you sitting there, ramrod straight but a certain gentleness that reminds him of the past. “I know you loved me in the way you could.” Clutching, grasping, desperate not to lose another woman he loves. “When you saw Peggy, did you just decide that that was easier?”

“I don’t know,” he admits. “I just felt like I was missing something. Something…”

“... you couldn’t find here?”

“Just something.”

You ruminate on that, eyes fixed on the popsicle sticks and Steve rubs his hands together, head bowed. The silence is terse but not hostile, and you pick up the butterfly knife on the cushion. You don’t flick it open, just run your thumb over the edge and Steve thinks you might cut him stem to stern before you place it down on the glass table.

“I used to stay up all night wondering where I went wrong,” you say it frankly. It’s not meant to hurt him anymore. You seem tired of being angry, but it’s still there, just there underneath your skin. “I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t eat unless Bucky made me. I would’ve rather starved than live in a world where you didn’t love me, but he said if he had to go on, then so did I. He never asked for anything in return, and I was just so fucking angry at myself that I listened to him just to spite myself. I cried all the time. I didn’t move from my bed for months. Yet, one little part of me,” you murmur, gaze rising to meet his, “always just wanted you to be happy. I wanted so desperately for you to make the right choice because then maybe this would’ve been worth it for you.”

It’s big. Your words hang on imaginary strings around his head, whistling in the faint air conditioned wind, and he clenches his jaw, unable to tear his eyes away from you. Although you’re barely holding yourself together before him, you’re deathly beautiful.

“I’m so glad that you’re so loved,” Steve intones quietly. “I’m so thankful that Bucky loves you.” He doesn’t need eyes to feel it. It’s a quiet thing, unshaking yet fragile as flowers and light as dandelion wisps.

“I didn’t think he did.” You lean back into the couch, tuck your feet underneath yourself and cross your arms over your chest. “It took me a long time to accept that he does, and now he won’t believe that I do, too.”

The confession sinks its teeth into Steve’s throat and threatens to tear his flesh.

“I tell him and I can tell he doesn’t believe me sometimes. No matter how much I want him to, it’s the one thing he can’t believe because…”

You were my girl, Steve thinks.

“He doesn’t believe he’s worth staying for. Worth choosing. You did that to him, you know? Did that to me.”

“I know.”

You stare at him and he looks at you, curled up on the couch. Your face is drying, but that torn expression still sits on your face as you run a hand over your middle, fingers folding as you close your eyes and duck your head.

His eyes trace the gesture, eyebrows knitting together, and then he looks at you because he knows. Because it had been their dream once, and when the fight is over, baby. The world still needs you, Captain America.

He had said, half joking, When will they ever stop needing me?

When you grow old and grey, and another Captain America is ready to take your place.

“Bucky’s?” he asks, body numbing. You nod, raising your eyes to his. “Does he know?”

“No. I only found out a few days after Mexico.” Three weeks ago. “I want to make it past a few more weeks, just to make sure.” You tuck your knees to your chest, arms folded over your abdomen and Steve tries to imagine it swollen with life. No longer lean with muscle but bountiful with a miracle. Blue eyes, blonde hair— no. Not anymore. “Just wanted time.”

Time. It’s all he’s ever wanted, and now…

“I know.”

Now he has none at all.

Your eyes meet his, fluttering and haunted, and he simply meets your gaze. There’s a quiet understanding in that moment as you bring your hands up to hug yourself, and he swallows, leaning back into the couch. His hands rest on his thighs, and your back sinks into the back cushion of your loveseat as he thinks of what to say.

Perhaps there is nothing to say.

Instead, his right hand goes to his pocket where a ring is still pinched tightly in between the creases. The diamond is sharp against his flesh, and he tugs it out carefully before setting it on the glass table between them. You stare at the thing, watch it glint. It’s mocking you, but Steve doesn’t want it and he doesn’t know what else to do.

“It’s always been yours,” he says, pushing it to your side of the table. The diamond scrapes against glass but doesn’t leave a mark. “It’s never been anyone else’s but yours.” The ring clatters against the gass. You’d worn that damned thing for years on end. First it was the Accords, then Wakanda, then the Snap, and he should’ve married you when he had the chance—he should’ve done so much more than what he did.

“Do you love me?” you ask quietly, eyes unmoving from the winking gemstone. The golden band is glowing in the pale lights of the compound as he nods.

“Yes.”

You reach forward to grab it, extend a leg to shove it into the pocket of your shorts, and then you’re sitting there, feet on solid ground again. You gauge him, study him, eyebrows down, lips curved into a soft frown.

“Okay.”

You stand and pick up the knife before grabbing the bowl as well. You clear your throat and look over Steve’s head, at the walls with photographs and paintings and a dartboard by the doorway, and then you look at Steve again.

Your futile attempt at a smile makes Steve smile, just barely, before you walk past him and head for the open kitchen. You set the bowl down in the sink before heading for the hallway, and Steve can hear your step, your off-rhythm breathing.

“Do you love me?” he asks, turning to look at you, and a sigh whispers past his lips as you pause. Your hand is in your pocket as you turn around, playing with the knife or the ring, he doesn’t know.

“You can’t ask me that, Steve.” Your voice is steel, your eyes unforgiving, and that soft girl is swallowed up by the scorched woman, burned by his absence. You haven’t forgiven him. You never will. “Look, I’m going to go find Bucky. We have… we’re going berrypicking in the afternoon, so…”

“Yeah, no, go. Don’t let me keep you.”

“See you tomorrow, Rogers.”

There’s an utter sense of finality to it. A chapter closing permanently and you’re already on the next page.

“See you.”

The door slides shut and you’re gone.

#fic: scorched #bucky barnes x reader #steve rogers x reader #bucky barnes #steve rogers #bucky barnes fanfiction #steve rogers fanfiction #steve x reader #bucky x reader #bucky barnes fic #steve rogers fic #stucky x reader #steve rogers x you #bucky barnes x you #steve rogers x y/n #bucky barnes x y/n #chris evans #sebastian stan #lyn2k #my writing

[musinglymuse]

This recommendation list focuses on a popular pairing in Check Please! They bicker, they argue, they fight, they smo-- well, no smooching in canon but that’s what fanfiction is for! Nursey and Dex often embody the ‘enemies to friends to lovers’ trope, sparking constant speculation and hundreds of fanfiction.

I’ve compiled some of what I consider excellent fanfics that feature this couple although it does not contain all of my recommendations. They are in no particular order. I plan on creating more recommendation lists down the line, especially for other pairings in this fandom. You can find other fic recs tagged in my blog.

As a reminder, please make sure to check the tags and any warnings before reading. Take care of yourself!

got those wayfarers on by somehowunbroken Canon Divergence // ~8k // PG-13

It's all Bitty's fault. Indirectly. That's his story, and Chowder's sticking to it.

[In which Chowder does his best to matchmake from the other side of the continent over summer break, and is immensely pleased with the results.]

Petals and Thorns by rhysiana Musician / Florist AU // Series // ~17k // PG-13

Goddammit, Will thought as he dodged around a few strategically tall people and turned down a side street. How had he managed to leave the apartment without a hat? He peeked back around the corner. His fans were less than a block behind him, and he really couldn’t deal with them today. Frantically, he studied the shops around him, hoping for somewhere to hide.

Coffee shop? Too easy.

Ah! Nursery Rhymes: Poetic Floral Arrangements. Perfect. No one would ever look for him in there.

can’t change what the seasons bring by growlery Canon Divergence // ~1.7k // PG-13 They get back after winter break, and Dex has done something to his hair, and he was hot before, but now he’s, like, hot and he doesn’t look like a grumpy old man.“New year, new me,” Dex says dryly, and Nursey might be having kind of a crisis about it.

want to be (yours) anyway by shellybelle Canon Divergence // ~39k // PG-13

Dex learns Nursey’s secret halfway through practice on a cold morning in October.

“What the hell,” someone says, interrupting the Dex's shooting drill. “Is that a baby?”

(Or: Nursey has a secret, Dex has a crush, and things get complicated before they get romantic--which isn't to say they don't get romantic at all.)

Paint Me Like One of Your French Canadians by Denois Canon Divergence // ~6k // R

Lardo hooked Dex up with an extra part time job to help make ends meet back in his frog year. Modeling for the art classes was pretty easy money, and the team never had to know. Until Nursey took an art elective and needed a private model to complete his project and pass the class. Nursey's sure that he can keep it professional and friendly....as long as Dex never sees the completed paintings.

up to 104% perfect by winchysteria The Good Place AU // ~34k // NC-17

Will Poindexter and Derek Nurse finally know what happens after you die. You wake up in Hot God's office, you move into a really nice house, and-- you realize that you hate the person who's supposed to be your soulmate? Join a smug poet, a frigid computer nerd, and the rest of the Scooby gang as they ask questions like: what makes two people right for each other? what does it mean to be happy? does heaven get software glitches? and most importantly, why does this computer have a Southern accent?

Welcome! Everything is fine.

The World Only Spins Forward by Liminal_Space_LLC Soulmates AU // ~63k // PG

Dex and Nursey have been at odds for as long as they’ve been friends, but when Dex’s heartbreaking new soulmark has him turning to Nursey for advice, they will discover they have more in common than they ever realized. Together, they will help each other heal their heartache and become closer than they’ve ever been before. As their friendship grows, neither of them is prepared for newer, sweeter feelings to emerge.

However, Nursey has his secrets, and nothing scares him like the possibility of having his heart broken again. That doesn’t stop him from wanting, though, and as their feelings become stronger, both Nursey and Dex find it ever harder to hide them. Meanwhile, the stakes are becoming higher as the team comes closer and closer to the Frozen Four. Can Nursey and Dex overcome their fears to realize the love they feel, or will their anxieties destroy everything they’ve worked for?

starting to get to me by playingforkeeps Buzzfeed Unsolved AU // ~12k // PG-13

“You’ve been dragging us to bumfuck nowhere with that mating call for three years when you hear there’s a sighting. But we’ve never considered: what happens if Bigfoot answers it? That’s the goal, isn’t it? You’ve been after that good, good Bigfoot dick this whole time!”

Dex sputters. “I don’t want to fuck Bigfoot! Jesus, Nurse!” He glances at the others, disbelieving. “Back me up here, guys.”

Silence. Lardo says, “You do own a Bigfoot mating call, dude.”

All Hail the Underdogs by xiaq Boarding School AU // ~76k // PG-13

Lucifer was an angel once.

That’s what Nursey thinks, the first time he sees William Poindexter.

Because the boy is beautiful even though he shouldn’t be. Even though he’s doubtless the kind of person who would punch you in the face if you said the words “you” and “beautiful” to him in the same sentence.

His skin is choked with freckles. It’s potentially more freckle than skin. Not just his face, where his nose and cheekbones are so hyper-pigmented they look tanned, but his collarbones and forearms and knuckles. The close-shaved dark ginger stubble of his hair should make his ears look too big or his mouth too wide but instead it accentuates the long curve of his throat, the cup of velvet skin between the tendons in the back of his neck.

“You’re the new defenseman?” Nursey asks. “William Poindexter?”

And the boy turns around and considers him with what might be contempt but what might just be the way his face looks and says, “Yeah?” like its a challenge.

And Nursey thinks:

Oh no.

In So Many Words by alocalband Canon Divergence // ~17K // R Derek writes a short story. That's his first mistake. His second is getting it published.

bless this mess and call it a home by pepperfield Magical AU // ~27k // PG-13 The thing is, being able to talk to houses doesn't actually preclude them from conspiring to ruin your life. Dex finds this out a little too late. First comes the Dib Flip, then Nursey's bed, and the water heater...the Haus definitely has it in for him. In which Dex has house magic, Haus has Haus magic, and at least one of them is in love with Nursey.

#mine by rispacooper Urban Fantasy AU // ~17k // R Treasure, Will thought with an angry little snort. Nursey called almost everyone on the team treasure. He called Ford treasure. He’d even called Coach Hall treasure once. He did not call Will that. That was probably Will’s fault. Knowing that didn’t make Will feel any better about it.

love you as the plant that never blooms by sugarybowl & wishingonalightningbolt Canon Divergence // ~27k // NC-17 Dex doesn’t roll his eyes, but only because he’s overwhelmed with the thought that he really does have feelings for Nursey. Gooey feelings. Romantic ones. They see each other every day; they’ve been close, there’s been touching, and maybe—maybe it’s not quite as platonic as Dex assumed it was. From watching Ransom and Holster, anyone could get the idea that that’s just what friends do. But… It feels different.

“I like him,” he says, soft, contemplative. “I like when he’s around and it’s frustrating to watch him go. It’s horrible to think he might be upset at me, or that he thinks I lied to him. It’s killing me.”

Dex doesn't know what it is to want. With Nursey, he learns.

#nurseydex #omgcp #omgcp fic rec

[masterwordguy]

If Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous Characters had stands (JJBA AU prompt #6)

So I’ve made a decision for this series, I might make more stand prompts for more Jurassic Park/World characters in the foreseeable future. But this will be based on whether or not I want to do it (FYI, I will be doing it for the foreseeable future, just so you know). Today is a double one for everyone’s germaphobe turned mini Rambo and Jurassic World’s answer to Baby Yoda. 

Stand Master: Ben Pincus

Stand Name: Canned Heat (Named after the Jamiroquai song “Canned Heat”)

Localized Name: Trapped Heat

Power: C

Speed: A

Range: C

Durability: B

Precision: B

Potential: C

Stand Info: Canned Heat is a stand with height and build similar to Ben, its body is encased in a silver armor that resembles an Egyptian warrior, save for the lower half which resembles the body of the upper right hind legs of a lion. Canned Heat is considered to be the fastest stand in the world, rivaling speeds that outmatch Rocket Man. The main ability of Canned Heat is to warp any physical surface into a spiral when touched, how long it stays spiraled depends on how long Ben concentrates.

Stand Cry: HORA HORA HORA HORA HORA!!!

Stand history: Like Yasmina, Ben is a natural born stand user who received his stand early in his life. Believing he was the only stand user, he felt alone for being the only one to see Canned heat. However, once his friends began to show their stands, he began to feel a little better. 

Stand Master: Bumpy 

Stand Name: Bumpy Road (Named after the Big Smo song “Bumpy Road”)

Localized Name: Bumpy Ride

Power: E

Speed: E

Range: E

Durability: A

Precision: E

Potential: E

Stand Info: Bumpy Road is a stand that is placed directly on Bumpy’s back, it is a secret room that accessible when an individual touches the red sphere at the top of her back. The room itself has been decorated by Ben with items that were found around the Jurassic World hotel.

Stand Cry: None

Stand History: Bumpy received their stand after hatching out of their egg when Dr. Wu was experimenting with making some of the animals Stand Users, it was discovered after the campers accessed the secret room while Bumpy hid from a large carnivore. Now because of their larger size, the room grew too.

Next: ???

#jurassic world camp cretaceous #ben pincus #camp cretaceous bumpy #darius bowman #brooklyn #kenji kon #yasmina fadoula #sammy gutierrez #JJBA #jjba headcanons

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

New SpaceTime out Wednesday: SpaceTime 20200701 Series 23 Episode 66 Exploring the mysteries at the edge of the solar system NASA’s IBEX spacecraft has confirmed the Sun’s heliosphere is shaped like a giant comet. The lifespan of Neutrons A new mission to Venus could finally determine the life span of the neutron. ESA’s mission to study the Earth’s hydrological cycle The European Space Agency Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity or SMOS satellite has now been in orbit for more than a decade studying Earth’s water cycle and climate. China completes its military satellite navigation system China has launched the final satellite in its Beidou military navigation system. The Science Report Summer sea ice in the Weddell Sea area of Antarctica drops by one million square kilometres. Record breaking heatwave conditions cooking the usually frozen wastes of Siberia. What could be Australia’s biggest meat-eating dinosaur. New research brings suspended animation a step closer. SpaceTime covers the latest news in astronomy & space sciences. The show is available every Monday, Wednesday and Friday through Apple Podcasts (itunes), Stitcher, Google Podcast, Pocketcasts, SoundCloud, Bitez.com, YouTube, your favourite podcast download provider, and from www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com SpaceTime is also broadcast through the National Science Foundation on Science Zone Radio and on both i-heart Radio and Tune-In Radio. SpaceTime daily news blog: http://spacetimewithstuartgary.tumblr.com/ SpaceTime facebook: www.facebook.com/spacetimewithstuartgary SpaceTime Instagram @spacetimewithstuartgary SpaceTime twitter feed @stuartgary SpaceTime YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/SpaceTimewithStuartGary SpaceTime -- A brief history SpaceTime is Australia’s most respected astronomy and space science news program – averaging some two million downloads per year. The show reports on the latest stories and discoveries making news in astronomy, spaceflight, and general science. SpaceTime features interviews with leading Australian scientists about their latest research. The show began life in 1995 as ‘StarStuff’ on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) NewsRadio network. Award winning investigative reporter Stuart Gary created the program during his many years as NewsRadio’s evening anchor and Science Editor. Gary wrote, produced and hosted StarStuff, consistently achieving 9 per cent of the national Australian radio audience – based on the ABC’s Neilsen ratings survey figures for the five major Australian metro markets (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, & Perth). The StarStuff podcast was published on line by ABC Science -- achieving over 1.3 million downloads annually. However, after some 20 years, the show finally wrapped up in December 2015 following ABC funding cuts and despite a landslide of protests from devoted fans. Rather than continue with the ABC in another capacity, Gary decided to produce the show independently. The move saw Gary’s audience leave with him. ABC NewsRadio has remained at the bottom of the ratings ladder ever since StarStuff’s departure. Gary rebranded the show SpaceTime and the first episode was broadcast in February 2016. Over the years, SpaceTime has grown, doubling its former ABC audience numbers and expanding to include new segments such as the Science Report -- which provides a wrap of general science news, weekly skeptical science features, and Skywatch – which provides a monthly guide to the night skies. The show is now published three times a week and is also available from the United States National Science Foundation on Science Zone Radio, and through both i-heart Radio and Tune-In Radio.

#space #science #Astronomy #physics #news #starstuff #spacetime #nasa #esa #spacex #ula #jaxa #isro #csiro #asa #spacetimewithstuartgary