#my tablet is still broken but the touch screen worked for me a long time so its okay

[grineerios]

(for the ask game) Kaine - his greatest failure

Log of the R.I.V.V. Avisto, serial number ZRJ-628443. Entry logged by Kine Dax, Captain. Recorded by Ship's Cephalon Lark.

I do not know why they've given me this data tablet. Perhaps to get an admission of guilt. Perhaps to keep me busy, keep me distracted.

I'm not supposed to be communicating, I don't think. After all, I'm not a Cephalon, I'm Tenno. A simple war machine, made to serve the golden empire. To obey orders. To crush the Sentient enemy.

Kine has come over to me, and sat down. She's giving me a little smile, and nodding. I must be doing something right.

She asks me to describe what happened earlier.

... It has been a struggle to not think about it. I am surprised that words haven't filled the screen yet, repeating over and over how I should be subsumed for what I did, how I'm a waste of the Golden Masters' time and resources, how I bring shame to the names of Executor Ballas and the rest of the Seven-

She's touching me.

Kine has her hand on my arm- not in a restrictive way, but- with a certain... gentleness? She's the captain, she should be angry with me, be furious- but... she's not.

I can feel her sorrow through her touch. I don't need to look at her to tell that. It leeches through my skin like Void through metal, hooking into me. She is upset, but not enraged.

Kine tells me to focus. She can only be away from the helm for so long.

I will.. try. I turn away from her, hiding this tablet from her helmeted gaze with my metal body. She need not read my heretical thoughts. I should not have thoughts. I am a machine. I'm not the enemy. I am not Sentient.

... am I? No, focus-

We are- were- returning from a raid on a small Sentient outpost, close to the empyrean proxima of Ceres. It was a success. The ground crew, consisting of Gunner Amos Dax and I, were able to clear the satellite with relative ease. There were some minor problems, but I have been experiencing... faults, as of late. Hence, why Amos accompanied me on what would otherwise be a Tenno-only mission.

She asks me to go into more detail about the mission. I feel the somatic bolt in the back of my neck heat in humiliation. She knows I can't outright lie, only skirt around the truth. I feel compelled to comply.

When aboard the outpost, I scouted ahead as Amos inspected a data bank. Things were silent, we hadn't seen any Sentients thus far. We.. should have been more careful. Our crew was battle-fatigued, in need of a break from sprinting in and out of the Void, attacking small groups of Sentients like an angered hornet.

Around a corner, I was taken aback briefly when I saw Amos standing in the organic halls. His back was turned to me, his syandana, in retrospect, unnaturally still. My mind was hazy, a fog of exhaustion and static. I made the faulty assumption that he'd managed to pass me, and approached him, ready to continue our mission-

It was only when I felt the burn of laser cannons pierce my chassis, I realized I was wrong. Very wrong. The outpost was crawling with Sentient Mimics, and we'd walked right into their trap.

By the grace of the Golden Lords, the actual Amos and I managed to flee the complex, returning to the Avisto with no injuries other than my own- and even those were healed rapidly. There isn't much in this System that could give a Tenno a serious injury, and a single, lousy Sentient isn't one of them.

I show her the tablet- Kine seems satisfied with this response.

I will continue.

Not long ago, no more than a few hours, likely, we were ambushed by Sentient fighters. A living ramsled pierced our hull, and we were set upon by a flood of conculysts, battalysts, and brachiolysts. At the time of impact, I was with our Engineer, Paxal Dax, working the Ordinance Forges in the hold.

... Perhaps this really is an admission of guilt. Perhaps I am signing my own execution document by thinking this. My actions make me a traitor to the Orokin Empire. I am a broken Warframe. What I did makes me too flawed to function. I am Tenno. I should've been better. I am not a traitor, I am not a traitor, I am not a traitor, I am not-

Kine has taken the tablet from me. Her head turns quickly from looking at the tablet to looking at me. My somatic bolt is still connected, transference of thought is still happening. My mind is being spilled into flowing, digital letters before her very eyes. I want to turn my vision off, I want to be anywhere but here, I want the normally soothing hum of the reactor to stop. Everything is too loud, too bright, my syandana and armor are suddenly overwhelming. I wish I was a Saryn, so I could shed my skin and run away, or a Limbo- to hide in another place, even if just for a moment-

I realize I've gotten caught up in my thoughts. I look at myself, discovering that I, a Tenno, am curled up into a pathetic metal ball, like a scared child. I am shaking, my arms wrapped around my knees and head in a fearful fetal position. I feel a hot, wet pressure in my chest, coming from a place immaterial. From the corner of my eye, I see Kine on her knees, reaching towards me, tablet on the ground.

I dig my heels into the deck, leaving a deep gash in the metal. Cephalon Lark will be upset, but I do not care, I cannot care enough to be afraid of those consequences right now. I try to pull myself away from my Captain, like a kuaka fleeing a kavat-

Captain Kine stops in her tracks, pausing, before pulling back. She settles into a kneeling position.

There is silence. I can feel my chest heaving in what I assume is traitorous panic. I have been discovered. She is trying to trick me.

Kine opens her mouth to speak. "I am sorry, Raze."

She uses the nickname the crew has given me- a shortened form of "Railjack- Zetki". My assignment. To have a unprimed warframe on a Zetki ship is a bit of a rarity- almost an affront to the name of esteemed House.

I pause. I cannot tell she's continuing to trick me, or if she's being genuine. She would never use my nickname on any official records- I'm a machine. You're not supposed to get attached-

She's interrupted my train of thought.

"Lark, I'll finish the report later."

I feel the fear rise in my chest again. She turns to look at me once more.

"Raze, you have nothing to be scared of. You think this looks bad, you think you're unforgivable-"

I do. I really do.

"-but, this is nothing to be ashamed of."

I feel sleepy. My mind begins to haze over as I brace for a lecture.

"When Paxal came up behind you during the battle with his Quellor, you thought he was another Mimic, didn't you? What with the light from the shots, and the other Sentients fighting us-"

I cannot focus on her words. Perhaps I am a Limbo instead of a Volt. My mind feels trapped in the Rift. Everything isn't real.

Kine pauses.

"I have seen Dax who react similarly. Those who have fought enemies real and not, who- away from the prying eyes of our Golden Lords, flinch at the shots of guns, who are troubled by twisted nightmares and visions of the past-"

She doesn't move, but cocks her helmeted head.

"Who don't mean to, but lash out when startled. Like you did, when you overcharged your systems and sent out that electric shockwave- paralyzing the Sentients, but also putting Paxal into a coma."

The wet feeling returns to my chest.

"You didn't mean to. Any one of us could've done the same thing in your position."

...

I don't know how to react properly, if at all.

Kine rises to her feet, brushing off her greaves.

"We may not have a healer, but the ship's medical systems has him stabilized. Lark thinks he'll be fine, once we dock."

She faintly smiles, "We Dax might not be quite as resilient as you Tenno, but we can take a beating and a half. I promise Paxal will be no worse for wear. You two will be back to doing Void-knows-what in the hold in no time."

I know this should soothe me, but it doesn't.

"In the mean time, we'll need to shift some responsibilities around. Being down a man in a five-person crew means we're taking quite the hit-"

She turns her back to me, the gold details on her syandana catching faintly in the dim light.

"Amos will be replacing Paxal for the time being, and I will be joining Dahlia on the turrets."

But.. what about the helm? Who will pilot the ship?

"You seem like the type to feel the need to earn forgiveness, Raze. Join me at the helm, and Lark and I will teach you the basics. When you feel grounded again, at least."

She chuckles to herself, "Pun unintended. I apologize if that was insensitive, Tenno."

I feel my mind and body start to relax. I don't feel entirely there, but I don't feel like I'm drifting any further away from my body.

"Enjoy your break. Maybe go sit with Paxal for a bit. He might not be conscious, but I'm sure he would appreciate your company if he were."

I stare at her as she leaves.

End Log

--------

"Lark-" Kine's normal authoritative tone returned the moment she's out of earshot of the Volt.

"Yes, Captain?"

"Delete the most recent log, and scrub your data banks of anything relating to this incident. Overwrite Paxal Dax's medical records to indicate a run-in with an electric-adapted Battalyst."

"Ma'am, are you sure? If this is discovered-"

"Screw the consequences. We're a crew- a team, a family. We leave no one, Dax or otherwise, behind."

"This is borderline traitorous. Punishment could be severe, Kine."

"I know, Lark. Do it anyway- and if they come for you, or anyone else for this- let it be known that I, as your Captain, ordered you to do this."

"... Right away, Kine."

#warframe #warframe fanfiction #operator kaine #volt #crew of the avisto #kine dax #paxal dax #amos dax #dahlia dax #cephalon lark #not exactly a traditional journal entry but hey #transference bolts amirite #long post

[depression-stays-but-you-dont]

#depression #vent art #art #digital art #digital painting #depressive #sad #sadness #hurt #pain #anxiety #ptsd #cptsd #digital illustration #anxious #chronic pain #bpd #painful #my tablet is still broken but the touch screen worked for me a long time so its okay

[rumblelibrary]

"How many times can you look me in the eye and lie to me?" Also with Ernest, break my heart please 💔, I need like angry and broken Ernest

“How many times can you look at me in the eye and lie to me” - with Ernst Schmidt x Fem!Reader

Warnings: masturbation, mention of attempted murder

I wasn't ready to write this and when I was, I still wasn't.

Ernst smiled at you, he just woke up to find you laying beside him like very morning, his little corner of paradise, your silky nightgown clinging sensually around your shape, that amazing curve of your body always getting him more and more turned on.

“Good morning, Ernst”

You said to him and he smiled happily whispering it back to you.

“Oh, looks like Dr Schmidt is more awake than you”

The way you giggled and nicknamed his dick would have made him blush if he wasn’t so aroused by your presence.

“Get naked for me, I don’t have time”

You pouted but then you obliged as you stood on the bed slowly giving him a strip tease, you even hummed the music waving your body in front of him.

Your voice only rang through him, the way you sang was pure poetry.

You swayed from side to side as the silk slipped off your skin like water, you picked a moan as you touched over your body as he pumped himself nicely.

“Fuck, show me your ass”

He cursed as he went immediately hard on himself, he was hungry, needy for you and yet he didn’t have time to fully give into the pleasure.

You obeyed, you rolled your hips turning around as your panties made their way down your ass and quickly precipitated to your ankles before being kicked out of the way.

The way your hands moved, the moans that escaped you as your hands travelled between your legs gifting pleasure to yourself.

Ernst was thrown into a very fast orgasm against his own stomach while staring at you.

“Your breakfast is ready now”

You smirked as he chuckled “I hope not this one” he said pointing at his chest as you giggled jumping off the bed.

“I need the calculation for this”

You nodded providing him the answer in a moment, you worked side to side and you were his right arm, always helping him.

“So? How long is it going to take freak?”

Volkov voice made you roll your eyes.

He annoyed you like hell, but he really took a tool on Ernst.

Don’t let him get into you

You typed it on the computer for Ernest to see. He now needed to be focusing on the task ahead instead of the teasing, he pushed his glasses further on the bridge of his nose as he looked up at the screen ignoring the Russian.

Thank you he typed back to you

;) your answer

Nevertheless, the experiments kept failing and you kept working tirelessly with him. Where it was the error? What could it be?

“Ernst, I brought you something to eat” Lin said as she came to the control room and stared up at you for a moment, you leaned your head on side, you glared at her but smiled, it wasn’t even polite as a smile, it was just circumstantial.

“Don’t worry, I don’t need it”

You said it quite harshly earning a look from Ernst that made you turn around and go back to your calculations.

“Forgive her” Ernst said for you and Lin shrugged “I am worried for you” she whispered to him “you’re getting too much into this, it is not healthy, do not listen to Volkov but I need you to be awake and ready more than anyone, you’re our only physic here”

He chuckled lightly “the one who could survive here among you crazy heads” he joked as you looked back at them interacting and frowned lightly.

That evening he was applying some cream to ease the bruise Volkov left on his face after last experiment.

“That man should have been checked, with such a temper he shouldn’t be allowed on the mission” you mumbled as you stared at him while programming the dinner on the big screen to be delivered. Usually you would fetch it but the beating accident pushed Ernst to be asked to go to his rooms earlier than usual.

“I know, but I gave him his fair share and it is good like this. We are all stressed on board, Lin taught me this word which means actually stressed because of the pressure due on the mind, I need to ask her again about it”

“You like her, don’t you?”

You asked it like a firing shot, he rolled his eyes “please, not again with it”

You frowned as he dismissed always that topic but you hated it.

“You think she is more attractive than me?”

“That is not possible” he just said and you looked down at your floral shorts and top coord pyjama.

You looked back at the screen as you downloaded the exercises he had been prescribed before leaving the Earth to keep his back and neck healthy after so many hours on the computer.

“Would you fuck her?”

He glared at you “I said it is a closed topic”

You sighed nodding lightly, you nibbled your bottom lip but just carried on with the evening.

It was like an accident, Volkov was checking the oxygen reserve as always when he started to feel dizzy. He frowned as soon as he realised he rushed to the door. There was a leak. But when he rushed to the door it was locked and not even the code worked to open it.

He really thought it was the end but Lin saw him and with the help of Kiel managed to get him out of there.

Volkov didn’t speak to anyone for the rest of the night.

But Ernst knew perfectly who he had to talk to.

When he came to his quarters and locked the door you were wearing a nice deep blue dress, one of his favourites with off shoulders and a tight skirt, the dinner was ready for him to eat and some soft music playing in the background.

“You’re out of your mind”

He only said that and you looked at him confused “What? Why? Don’t you like salmon?”

“Don’t you play innocent with me Y/N, I saw the codes, you hacked the door, a clean job but you should know I can find your ID print anywhere, even behind the electricity system”

You frowned “I probably messed up, what door got blocked?”

He laughed out loud smacking his hand loudly over his forehead “How can you even be such a liar? Killing Volkov won’t solve anything”

You frowned as he spoke like that “He beat you Ernst”

You said it finally after a long silence “he handles you in that way and punches you and threatens you constantly, I can’t see him do this for more years”

“Killing him is not the solution”

“I was just trying to protect you!!” You screamed to him.

He stood straight in front of you, cringe colouring his features as you stared at him helplessly.

“What do you even know about protection? You’re not even -“

“I love you, that’s what I know”

He looked at you as you said that, the disgust on him turned to pain and then to rage.

“Take it back”

“No”

“I said” he came closer to you, his voice tone lowering “Take it back, now”

You shook your head as you felt tears forming in your eyes, your chest starting to hiccup as you tried to hold back the fear and the sadness of his reaction.

You daydreamed so much of him telling you that little ‘I love you too’.

And yet, here you’re.

“Ernst”

“No, no Ernst, this is over”

You paled up as he moved past you taking his tablet.

“Ernst, but it is true, I love you, I swear, it is love” you said, your voice trembling as your tears started to roll down your cheeks “Every day, you’re my only thought, you’re what I live for, I live to see you smile at me, to see you happy, to see that little quirky smirk you do when all the analysis work. The way you look at me when we are alone, the way you smile at me, share things with me. That’s all I wish for. Please. Please Ernst. You have to believe me”

“Liar.” His answer was dry, filled with anger and disgust, his eyes not even gracing you.

“I am not lying, I can’t lie to you. Ernst. I beg you, talk to me”

“How many times can you look at me in the eye and lie to me??” He shouted at the top of his lungs taking his dinner plate with his free hand and smashing it on the wall in front of him.

“Ernst” yours was a whisper, his name your only reason to live left as fear was now dominating you “please”

He glared at you, jaw clenched, hand locked into fists so tight that his knuckles were white.

He pressed something on the tablet that he still clenched on his side and on the big screen in the room that usually projected a night skyline for dinner appeared a red notification:

Are you sure you want to interrupt the hologram?

Yes - No

You stared at the screen as you closed your eyes, tears rolling even more down your cheeks.

“I love you Ernst”

“You’re not supposed to love, Y/N” his voice betraying the pain simmering after that mask of rage you know too well by now.

The tap of his finger on the tablet screen the last thing you heard before being caged back into your code.

#ernst schmidt x y/n #ernst schmidt fanfiction #ernst schmidt #ernst schmidt x reader #ernst schmidt x you #ernst schmidt smut #ernst schmidt imagine #Cloverfield paradox fanfiction #ernst Schmidt angst #daniel brühl #daniel bruehl #daniel bruhl

[blue-mood-blue]

Juno’s vision fizzes out right around where the man’s face should be.

He rubs his eye. The interference doesn’t go anywhere, and he sighs. He’s already tired - always is, lately - but this, at least, is not on him. Will the wonders of modern technology never end, he thinks, and there’s a ping at the back of his head of what is probably admonishment. I’m right, he thinks back, stubborn.

The man sits down at his table. Juno leans back; the shadow already obscures his features, but something about not seeing the expression on the face of his unexpected guest makes Juno want to sink farther into the darkness. He doesn’t like being looked at - call it paranoia, call it being shy, whatever. When you have one person in the world - another ping at the back of his head - one and a half people in the world, being generous, most people’s attention loses its appeal.

Juno waits. He doesn’t talk much, anymore. His voice is... uniquely recognizable.

The man is probably smiling; his tone sounds teasing, and that’s about all Juno can glean from the unnaturally stilted sound. Audio distortion, too - whoever this is, the chip in Juno’s neck is throwing a blanket over Juno’s head in an outdated and unneeded attempt at protection. He would get angry, or suspicious, or march over to his partner in crime with a scalpel and demand it out of him, damn the consequences... but he knows the feeling of that shadow in his head, now. The chip doesn’t know why this is happening.

“Do I have the good fortune of speaking to one of the pair people are calling ‘the new Buddy and Vespa’?” The man is tall and skinny, and folds himself into the seat across from Juno like it was left out for him. Juno feels one of his fists clench and hopes the scowl isn’t clear on his face, visible or otherwise.

He’d like to correct the man; he’s not trying to be anyone else. Juno doesn’t speak. His voice would be a dead giveaway.

“Not much for conversation, hm? That’s fine. We don’t have much to talk about.” The man leans closer. Juno guesses that the look directed at him now is one of quiet intimidation; he can’t say, since the features are blurring out like static on an ancient television screen. “You’re here for the Maxine Rutherford job. I’m here to tell you to drop it.”

Juno tenses, and the thief - because that’s what he must be, if he’s here to talk another thief out of a job - must pick up on it, because he chuckles. “It’s a big ask, I’m aware. There’s a pretty penny to be had - that experimental technology is worth an incredible amount of money on its own, and that’s not even touching what might be gained from selling her out to a competitor.” There’s something in the way the thief is sitting, the set of his shoulders - or maybe it’s just the chip in Juno’s neck, setting off urgent warning signals. This is a threat. “But I need you to understand something. Maxine Rutherford is mine. And you do not want to be in my way when I get to her.”

Juno pushes the panic button in his head, the one that will bring Jet running. And he’ll need to run, because Juno’s about to do something incredibly stupid.

“Not if I get to her first,” Juno says in two voices. The thief is still, and if he’s afraid, Juno doesn’t blame him. He remembers the way he felt, the first time he heard the Theia layered under his words.

~~~

The detour wasn’t part of Buddy Aurinko’s plan. Even calling it “on the way” would have been generous; the Carte Blanche should have passed it like it had a hundred other space stations, and it would have. It would have, except for the seven names Rita had been listening for ever since she left Hyperion.

“It doesn’t hafta mean anything,” she’d told Juno, holding her tablet to her chest and looking nervous. He remembers thinking it wasn’t her usual kind of nervous, with fretful energy and too much talking - she’d been holding onto the tablet like it was the only thing keeping her tethered to the ground. “Maybe it’s not even the same person, but. But I was doin’ some listening, you know, and a name came up, and.” Juno remembers thinking she looked almost sick, saying it out loud. “One of those names. And the soul.”

Juno doesn’t know what he thought he could do about it. He’d wanted to try, and when he and Rita went to Buddy, when he’d forced the bones of what happened in Hyperion from his throat and onto the kitchen table during a family meeting... they’d all wanted to try. Maybe that had been his mistake, Juno considers. He could have been quiet. He could have let it go.

It started with an infiltration. The Dogstar Space Station was small, relatively, but it was still the size of two major cities; finding Maxine Rutherford in the crowd would take some looking, with or without Rita’s ‘listening.’ Juno and Jet would go first, bumbling tourists who might, if they were lucky, stumble across a newly-acquired lab space. The idea was to uncover everything they could - location, security systems, layout, plans - and then get back to the ship to decide a next step. Juno packed for a short surface stay. He pulled the last Theia soul from where he’d stowed away in the back of a drawer and, after a long moment and with no clear reason, put it in his pocket. He squeezed Rita and whispered in her ear that he’d be okay when she had a hard time letting go. He kissed Nureyev and promised to call. He walked away and he didn’t look back.

Twenty-four hours later, the siege started.

That’s what the reporters on the hotel’s screen called it, while Juno and Jet sat on the edge of the couch and watched everything change. Some kind of hostile takeover, a grab for power or property or... something. The reporters didn’t know, and if the way they looked off-camera during their reports was any hint, there wouldn’t be time to find out.

If there are gaps in his memory after that, Juno thinks it can only be that he doesn’t want to remember. There’s him, running behind Jet through streets that are eerily quiet and terrifyingly loud by turns. Hiding, and running, and hiding - the thought that it’s a good goddamn chance Jet seems to know where he’s going because Juno is already lost, the shouting of soldiers behind them, the emblem on a ship Juno spends just a little too long looking at because something is wrong. The two of them finding a back entrance to the docks, using the chaos to cover them. The... wreck.

Juno will never forget the wreck.

They must have hit the docks first, is his first thought. It’s the last semblance of reason over the high, keening sound that’s enveloping the rest of his brain - they must have hit the docks first so no one could get out, they must have destroyed every waiting ship to keep the people of the Dogstar Space Station right where they were, because there is nothing but wreckage and broken parts.

Juno might have screamed. It might have been Jet. It might have been someone else, any voice out of hundreds speaking for all of them: loss, despair, desperation. It didn’t matter; the damage was done, and they were alone.

Jet held his hand. Weeks, months - however long they survived on the Dogstar after that, it was with Jet holding his hand and Juno clinging back. There were names they didn’t say for a long, long time but they held onto each other while the soldiers-who-weren’t-soldiers rounded up stragglers and led them to the government facilities that didn’t belong to any government Juno had ever heard of. They were lucky enough to have each other, but it didn’t feel like luck; it felt like borrowed time.

(He said he would call, and he did. He called, once, and he didn’t know what he expected - but he got no answer, and if he dropped his communicator the next time they ran, well, who was going to miss him?)

“I get it, if you hate me,” Juno said into the dark of the shelter they’d found, a hidden nook between big, steel beams of a bridge. “For her. For all of them.”

“I do not hate you, Juno.”

He didn’t know if that felt better or worse. “You should. You’re the only one left to feel anything about it, and they deserve -” He didn’t finish the thought. He didn’t need to; Jet knew already.

A relapse, Juno will call it later. Healing is not linear, not when the wounds are torn back open every other day or so, and these things happen. Sometimes there’s a stumbling block on the way to better. And Jet will look at him, ask him if he’s any closer now, and Juno will tell him “a day closer than yesterday.” Jet will nod, because that’s all Jet ever asks of him.

Survival became an exhausting thing. When Juno knew the streets of a couple of districts of Dogstar like the back of his hand, he felt like a rat in a maze, nudged back and forth along pre-determined paths by uniformed sentries and reinforced vehicles. Jet had the kind of patience a person worked for, and Juno could see him clinging to the shreds of it; just shreds, because the hope of patching it back into a serene whole was less likely with every hole the two of them were flushed out of. It had always been only a matter of time before they stood outside of the lab doors and asked each other if they were going to do what they came here for.

Maxine Rutherford was on Dogstar. Maxine had been on Dogstar a long time, plenty long enough to set down roots for a research facility and collect a space station’s worth of subjects by force. If it looked like anything else from the outside, well, that was just a pretty face to convince everyone else that it wasn’t their problem and it wasn’t worth getting involved. The first news reports were of a siege, and that was the last outgoing message anyone received; by the time the theory fell apart, communication outside was an impossibility.

The reality was that Dogstar was a testing ground. Maxine had the Theia, and she had plans.

Juno and Jet became her personal annoyance. And it felt good, for a while; Juno felt alive, Jet laughed sometimes, and at last there was a purpose in being the ones left behind beyond dumb luck and timing. It felt good like another hit felt good, like dodging blaster fire close enough to feel the heat of it on your face felt good, and they would take what they could fucking get. There wasn’t anything else.

(They needed something, in that hell of a prison they were trapped in, with no guarantee that the people they saw were people the way they used to be. The reports they stole were horrifying and complex, and Juno was as frustrated as he was relieved he couldn’t parse the science of it. Bioengineering, maybe, or technology taught to behave like biology - a machine fed raw materials that grew them into circuitry, twisting and growing like roots into a person, along muscles and bones and into the brain and good luck, Hanataba, coming up with instructions to rid a person of an infestation that deep. Juno put down the reports. He pulled out his own Theia, considered crushing it under his foot - looked at the way Jet looked at it and knew he would understand if Juno gave in to that little violence - and then put it away. He talked about close escapes and running guards, and Jet laughed, and who cared if they were running along a cliff’s edge because they needed something.)

A relapse, Juno will call it later. An instinct he thought he’d put away, dragged back out of him into daylight. In hindsight, he could even see it coming.

Maxine had gotten sick of them, clearly; her guards were better armed every time Juno and Jet went in, and the escapes were getting closer. The thought of can we afford to do this anymore had been pushed back by well, what else are we going to do and it was a compelling argument, especially to a couple of people carrying their grief along with them everywhere.

It only took a second. Out of the corner of his eye, Juno saw it: one of the guards unclipping something from his belt. There was just enough time to think he wouldn’t, he’s too close, he’d get caught in the blast, just enough time to see the look in his eye and think if he has the Theia and he thinks this is for the greater good, he would. Just enough time to push Jet forward and press the button for the door.

Jet has to tell him what happened next, and he does, eventually - by stops and starts, in pieces, and it’s the way he tells the story that tells Juno how much it hurt. When Jet opened the door, Juno was... broken. He may have been dead already; Jet didn’t stop to check. He scooped him up like a doll and carried him away, deeper into the lab until he found a room with a reclining chair and a looming machine hanging over it.

Here, he always pauses. “I could not be alone, Juno,” he explains. “I could not lose you too, after everyone else. I could not.”

There were instructions. He needed a Theia and he had one, fished out of Juno’s pocket. He didn’t know if he was making the right decision, so he held his emotions at arms’ length, leaned into his work with the quiet, steady determination required of him in a dusty clinic hidden beneath Mars’ surface, and he knit Juno back together again with filaments of woven metal.

(So much later that it feels like a different life, Juno gets to see it. The scanner picks up the roots that wrap around him, concentrated on the back of his neck at the base of his skull. They’re in his muscles, his bones, around his brain. Tiny, delicate, firm, and Juno can trace the fault lines that would have killed him in their paths.)

Juno didn’t dream, he tells Jet later. When he woke up there was just a heaviness in his mind that he didn’t understand yet, the lab, and Jet standing next to him. When Jet looked down on him, he looked so angry that Juno was sure he was going to scream until he was hoarse - but Jet pulled him close and held him like he was something breakable.

“Never again,” he whispered, and he sounded so pained that Juno was already nodding into his shoulder, agreeing to whatever he said. “You will never do that again. You will not make that choice, for me or anyone else.”

They stayed away from the labs. Jet held his hand all the time while Juno remembered and relearned how to walk, how to move his body, how to deal with the heaviness of his mind. Every time he spoke, Jet squeezed his hand harder... and eventually, Juno just spoke less. He could hear it talking from his mouth. If he had more energy, that would have terrified him. But Juno had other things to be afraid of.

There was something else in his head. It didn’t speak; it could have, maybe - it had the last time it had been there, supplying him with information and rote instructions and orders. The Theia didn’t use words anymore, by choice or by limitation, and it’s presence was still inescapable.

Juno didn’t talk about it at first, the ideas and images that came from nowhere. They were tentative and reserved, and it was so unlike what he was used to that he was half-convinced it was all him and the disjointed feeling was just... the result of shoddily-repaired brain damage. That was a thought awful enough that it didn’t bear repeating to Jet, who already looked at Juno in the silence sometimes like he was asking himself how much he’d broken by trying to fix him. Juno shoved the whispers back into the shadows, and they went willingly; he never met resistance, and that convinced him he was right. His head didn’t work the way it used to, but nothing did; it was another adjustment while they picked their way over the ruined station.

And then he answered a question Jet hadn’t asked.

Juno stormed into his own mind. Jet saw the glaze of his eye, took him by the shoulders and called his name to coax him back out, but Juno was flooded by frantic, overlapping images of radio towers and the repair of something he didn’t know was still floating in his blood. For communication, the Theia said without words. For the kind of communication the chip knew better than spoken language - direct transmission.

Direct transmission.

It was the beginning of an idea. It was the only thing stopping Juno from doing something they’d all regret, ripping the chip back out and to hell with it.

Juno spent a lot of time in his own head after that. He poked, he prodded, he looked for traps. The Theia didn’t have anything to offer - the Theia didn’t have anything to hide. He was given the impression of a long, dark quiet, a nothing; even disconnected and not operating, something in the chip had... stayed awake. Being where it was now felt like a second chance.

There are a lot of other people I’d rather give second chances to, Juno snapped out bitterly, silently. The chip already knew. Hard to keep secrets in his own head.

Juno pushed farther. He pushed out, and sometimes Jet turned to look at him, a strange expression on his face. Sometimes, a radio hissed and whined with feedback, or a screen popped and shuddered, or he and Jet stopped walking when Juno’s view was suddenly too high. Whatever Juno’s head was doing, it didn’t work like it had before - where that invasion used to operate something like a two-way knife, now it was a battering ram, ungraceful and swinging wildly. The repair the machine and the chip had attempted in tandem was a miserable patch job at best, dangerous at worst, and Juno pushed anyway. Jet asked him about it once, and Juno let him into his head instead of answering, invited him right in to see the mess of complicated feelings and uncertainty. Jet reached for his hand.

Every day, Juno found something new. It was the worst kind of game, running up against walls: a new rat maze that he was running mostly alone, but never really alone because he was never really alone anymore. He stuttered like anything over Rita’s name, out loud and to himself. The chip caught stray transmissions and placed them right in Juno’s head, a disorienting mix of updates from the lab and tentative calls from survivors. Some memories took a long time to recall, and some weren’t his. And he ached, he ached with every step while his body healed around him.

They walked. They hid. They planned. And when they reached the dock’s communication hub, Juno leaned his forehead against a transmission tower, exhausted all the way through, and gave everything to one last attempt.

(“Symbiosis,” he says later, so much later in a different life and a different world, the kind of life that has room for beds and money for transport to other places; the kind of life that calls them thieves instead of survivors. Jet looks over at him with a raised eyebrow; if that word in two voices upsets him, he’s good at not showing it - but Juno knows better. He knows. “That’s the word for it.”

“The word for what?”

“For me. For... us.” Juno looks up at the ceiling. Jet knows which ‘us’ Juno means - he knows. “We’d be dead without each other. I get held together and it gets to exist. Symbiotes.”

Jet hums. “You are more than a chip’s second chance to be, Juno.”

“But I’m that too,” Juno says in two voices. “I’m always that, too.”)

They get away from Dogstar. Of course they do; if Dogstar and its destruction couldn’t kill them, if a tossed bomb and losing absolutely everyone and everything couldn’t finish them off, maybe they just weren’t meant for death. One call makes it through the communication barrier with enough memorized confidential information to send several planetary governments scrambling into action and Juno sleeps for a week, but no one besides two and maybe a half people know the connection. Jet carries Juno onto one of the ships sent in to clean up the mess and hides them in a distant corner; they don’t speak, and eventually concerned authority figures leave them alone. When they land somewhere - anywhere - else, Jet leads them away from the ship.

It feels like a rebirth. It feels like a second chance that Juno isn’t sure he deserves, but won’t waste - if not for his sake, for theirs. For Jet’s.

Maxine Rutherford gets away, too. She’s long gone by the time the authorities descend, no doubt trying to sink her roots into some new place, and when Juno picks up that transmission from a closed, secure line and shares it with Jet, there’s no discussion. They’ll do this, one more time, for the right reasons. After that? After that is anyone’s guess.

Jet and Juno waste no time; the flurry of criminal activity in their wake inspires rumors and nicknames, and when Juno thinks to ask Jet if that bothers him, Jet chuckles.

“The legend lives on,” he says. “I think they would be pleased.”

~~~

“I’m guessing that means you poached our contact,” Juno mutters. He’s annoyed enough about the waste of his time that he has no reservations about subjecting his guest to more of his voice - and the thief is unnaturally still, which is satisfying and offensive at the same time. “What, did the people who told you the nickname not warn you about the voice?”

“Let me see your face.”

The flatness of his tone is obvious, even with the audio distortion. Juno frowns; he can’t picture what kind of expression goes along with a tone like that, and it makes him uneasy. “...why?”

“Please.” He hasn’t moved an inch. Juno would wonder if he was still breathing except that he keeps talking. “I just need to... please.”

Not without seeing his first, Juno thinks. He doesn’t have to ask the chip to know that it’s working on it, but it’s the kind of work that’s going to take months of concentrated effort - reclaiming Rita’s name taught him that, and that’s still not a sure thing.

Jet, stop where you are.

I am almost there.

That’s great, big guy, but I need your eyes for a second and if we do that while you’re moving, you’re gonna run into something.

Juno can feel the skepticism; no lying to him in his own head. If you say so, he says anyway. What do you need?

Somebody stole our meeting and I need to see his face - the distortion on this guy is something else. Can you take a look and tell me what you see?

Jet doesn’t answer in words; he doesn’t need to. He looks, and the inside of Juno’s head is quiet for a long time. Juno, he thinks, and there’s a strange echo that usually only comes from him -

“Juno?”

Juno, it’s -

But Juno doesn’t need to be told. He knows. There’s no evidence for him to point to, but he knows the person who would say his name like that, can hear what it would sound like in the right voice in his memory.

Juno leans forward. “Nureyev?”

#the penumbra podcast #tpp #juno steel #jet siquliak #junoverse #this one is heavy so mind the tags! #body horror #suicidal thoughts/tendencies #mental health relapse #very vague mentions of serious injury/surgery #assumption of character death #but! no death! #that’s right folks no matter what it seems like there is NO DYING in this fic #so uhhhhhh you ever have an au idea #and you think ‘if i dont write something immediately i’m not sure i ever will’ #that’s... this #i wanted Juno and Jet stranded somewhere and it evolved #into fun with symbiosis! :D #god Vespa is gonna get one look at this mess like what the FUCK #also yes i know this isn’t how science works i don’t care if Kevin Vibert can ignore science so can i

[tsarisfanfiction]

Colour Prompt :)

#22 - purple: bruise, pain, mystery

For Scott & John (& Gordon?)

A Little Ruthlessness

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Teen Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Family Characters: Gordon, John, Scott

First thing I've written in a good week and a half, and the longest thing I've written in... a while (thank you, rl, for hitting me hard enough to wreck my muses when I was planning on celebrating finishing my dissertation by writing lots). Also highly self-indulgent because why not.

So we have some Scott&Gordon&John, which is a highly entertaining combination and I loved writing this. I think I actually hit all three of those prompts with this...

Colour Symbol Prompts

“He’s late,” Gordon huffed, fog erupting from his mouth as he rubbed his arms to stave off the winter chill. “What’s taking him so long?”

Leaning against a nearby wall nonchalantly, bundled up in so many layers Gordon had laughed when he’d first seen him and poking at his tablet, John shrugged. If Gordon didn’t know his brother as well as he did, he’d think the ginger wasn’t worried at all.

There was an urgency to the way he was poking at the screen, though. John didn’t do big, flashy, displays of emotion, but when you knew what to look for, the deliberate placement of each digit as he manipulated whatever was on the screen screamed unease, and even a little bit of frustration.

Their brother was supposed to have met up with them an hour ago, as soon as he escaped the social gathering he’d been coerced into by what Gordon could only assume was an old flame from high school. For all that Scott was naturally charismatic and popular, it was an open secret in their family that he hadn’t managed to keep any of his old high school friendships. Teenagers were fickle things, and he’d been too busy raising four younger brothers to fill the social quota they’d expected of him at the time, let alone after they lost Dad as well.

Still, the high school reunion had called, and for some reason, Scott had answered.

He wasn’t supposed to stay there so long, though. Gordon and John had both determined that there was a high chance Scott would be leaving the reunion reminded of all the reasons why he hadn’t been able to keep those friendships and decided to make their own arrangements for the evening. Nothing outlandish – not when John was involved – but a trio of brothers hanging out without the stress of their otherwise busy lives hanging over them.

Not the usual trio of brothers that might be expected to hang out, but as much as Virgil would always jump to help Scott, where they had planned really wasn’t for their softer brother – and Alan was underage anyway.

Beating casinos at their own money-laundering game required just a touch of ruthlessness, and that was very much John’s area of expertise. Gordon found it fun, and Scott always enjoyed taking selfish rich snobs a peg or several. It also required enough strategic thinking and brainpower to cut off any unwelcome dwelling their big brother might otherwise land himself in.

That meant nothing if Scott wasn’t even showing up in the first place.

“Have you called him?” Gordon shot over at John, who was still poking away deliberately at his tablet.

“No answer,” the ginger replied, breath fogging in front of his own face. He didn’t even seem to notice – then again, all those ridiculous layers were probably doing their job to keep him warm. Gordon’s had failed him about half an hour ago. In his defence, he hadn’t exactly planned to be hanging around in the cold this long. “He’s not read any messages, either.”

If they’d gone to all this trouble to plan a pick-me-up for Scott after an expected downer of an evening, their big brother had better not have managed to find some entertainment and forgotten to let them know.

But that wasn’t like Scott at all – even if he had initially forgotten, a call or message from John would have reminded him instantly.

Gordon shivered again. Something didn’t seem right.

“So now what?” he asked instead, not because he didn’t have any ideas – crashing the reunion was an obvious one that sprung to mind – but because John was probably already enacting a plan or several of his own already.

“His phone’s location transmitter’s off,” John said by way of answer. “Actually, his phone seems to be dead in general.” The same phone John and Scott had both checked was fully charged on the way here so he didn’t lose contact with them?

Gordon’s eyes narrowed.

“So what have you got?” There was no way John hadn’t got something by now.

“His watch isn’t transmitting, either,” his brother reported. “But…” He trailed off, staring intently at something Gordon couldn’t see on the screen.

The temptation was there to prod him – verbally or literally – but unlike when John was a mere hologram that may or may not be transmitting, this time Gordon could see that he was mid-thought, still working, still doing something to figure out why their big brother had gone dark, and held back.

It didn’t take John long to finish whatever he was doing.

“I’ve got a location.” The astronaut kicked off from the wall he was leaning against and started striding forwards, long legs uncaring that Gordon’s were much shorter. It took a second or two to jog to catch up.

“What have you got?” he repeated.

A map of the area flashed up above the tablet; orange and yellow highlighted their own position, moving quickly down the street, while a flickering blue icon blinked in and out of existence unsteadily down a side alley four blocks away.

“You said it wasn’t transmitting?”

“It’s not,” John said shortly. “I triangulated all the signals within the appropriate parameters until I picked up traces of its electronic residue.”

Residue didn’t sound promising. Gordon resumed his jog, knowing that John was fully capable of keeping up with him, and mentally mapped out the shortest route to the weakly flickering blue dot. It was staying in the exact same location, not even a slight waver in position, and that, Gordon really didn’t like.

Scott wasn’t one for staying still.

Unconsciously, his pace hastened further. By the time the alley loomed ahead, visible in person and not just lines on a hologram, he was all but sprinting. John was a little way behind him, but that was fine.

Gordon’s instincts screamed for him to keep going, to charge straight into the alley and find out what was going on, but he reined them in, forcing his legs to slow to a walk, and then a stop at the entrance to the alley.

They had no idea what they were walking into, and despite all the signs pointing to not, Gordon really didn’t want to interrupt if Scott had simply found entertainment and forgotten about them. More realistically, he also didn’t want to charge into a hostile situation unaware.

There were no sounds coming from the alley. Nothing to tell him what was going on, but also enough to tell him what wasn’t. With one glance back to see how far behind John was – not far, only seconds out – Gordon slipped around the corner.

Alleys were always somehow gloomier than the surrounding streets. Lighting never seemed to work quite so well; John could no doubt explain it, but an explanation wasn’t important right then.

What was important was that, in the resultant gloom, something was slumped over on the ground. Something that Gordon approached carefully, glancing around to make sure nothing else was laying in wait with a nasty surprise.

Nothing appeared, even as he took the last few steps, and his rigid restraint snapped.

“Scott!” His knee protested as it hit the street sharply but that was insignificant in the face of the ragdoll impersonation his eldest brother was doing spectacularly well. “Hey, Scott?”

His cold fingers found his brother’s throat, pressing up against the pulse point. Scott’s skin was almost as cold as his own, but the steady thrum of his heartbeat beat reassuringly against his fingertips.

Hurried footsteps behind him announced John’s arrival.

“Give me some light,” Gordon ordered, not looking up at him. A blink later and a pale, holographic blue washed over the pair of them. Tablets didn’t have the best torches in the world, but it did the job.

Scott’s eyes were closed, although the lack of response had already implied their brother was out cold. One had a spectacular ring of colour around it, matching the blotches that covered every visible section of skin. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth in a way that had Gordon fearfully inspecting his lip in the hopes that it was just a cut.

The light quivered a little as John knelt down on Scott’s other side.

“His watch is smashed,” the ginger reported. It made sense, considering how difficult it had been to track, but their watches were IR standard. They didn’t smash easily. “Broken wrist, too. How’s his head?”

“Bruised, like the rest of him,” Gordon replied. “Looks like he cut his lip on his tooth, and he’s going to have a fantastic shiner.” He gingerly felt around. “Splitting headache, too. His head’s not bleeding but it’s taken a hard knock.”

“Try and get a response while I deal with his wrist,” John ordered. The tablet light moved away from Scott’s face, leaving it shadowed by alley-gloom, but Gordon could still see well enough to lightly tap a less-colourful portion of his cheek.

“Hey, Scott,” he coaxed. “This isn’t a great place for a nap, you know, bro.” Rustling indicated that John was deploying something medical. Gordon wasn’t even surprised he had something on him, although it was probably brought along just in case gravity got the better of him, and not because he was expecting to patch up their brother when they’d left home earlier. “C’mon, Scotty.”

The faint groan he got was music to his ears.

“That’s right,” he encouraged. “Really not a good place to nap.”

In the gloom, he couldn’t make out the exact moment familiar blue eyes edged open, but he heard the second, louder, groan, followed almost immediately by a sharp inhale that could only be pain.

“G’don?”

“Right here,” he confirmed, resting his hands lightly on Scott’s shoulders in case his idiot of a brother thought attempting to sit up was a good idea. “John’s here, too.”

He got a pain-smothered grunt in response. Muscles twitched under his palms, and then he was predictably forced to keep Scott still.

“Nope,” he chirped. “No moving for you just yet. How’s his wrist, John?”

“Strapped up,” the ginger answered. “How aware is he?”

“’nuff,” Scott rasped weakly before Gordon could reply. “W’ah-ow.”

“Hospital or home?” Gordon looked away from Scott to glance at where John was once again poking at his tablet, somewhat awkwardly as he was also holding Scott’s arm still with one hand.

“’ome,” Scott interjected.

“We’re closer to Thunderbird One than the hospital,” John agreed. “Once we reach her we can run a scan.”

And if the scan showed up something they couldn’t handle at home, Thunderbird One could get Scott to a hospital faster than an ambulance. Gordon nodded.

“Sounds like a plan,” he agreed, looking back down at Scott. “I’ll need a hand picking him up.”

“Ic’n-”

“Nope.” He overrode Scott’s protest. “I doubt you can even see straight right now. You’re not walking.”

The wordless noise he got in response told him he was right, and that Scott didn’t want to admit it.

John’s tablet vanished somewhere in amongst the multitude of layers he was wearing as the ginger left Scott’s wrist to kneel opposite Gordon instead. “How do you want to do this?”

Gordon considered his options, quickly realising that the one that would hurt Scott the least was also the one his brother would hate the most. With no idea what damage he’d taken to the ribs, putting any substantial pressure on his abdomen could spell disaster.

He drew Scott’s unbroken wrist up, to renewed protest, and looped it around the back of his own neck. “It’s not far,” he said. “Bridal’s safest.” Not the easiest, but Gordon was always up for a challenge.

“No,” Scott huffed, but John nodded, like he’d come to the same conclusion. He probably had.

Between them it took no time at all to get Scott loosely in position, broken wrist cradled limply on his stomach as Gordon and John slipped their arms beneath him and prepared to shift.

“Whenever you’re ready,” John said, and Gordon’s mouth twisted into a wry grin.

“On three. One, two, three.”

Scott wasn’t light by any means, but despite his protests he didn’t resist as between the two of them they got him into the air, suspended between them for a moment before John carefully shifted his grip until the battered body of their big brother slipped neatly into Gordon’s arms.

His shoulders protested at the weight, but Gordon ignored them in favour of immediately starting to move. He wasn’t Virgil; he couldn’t carry Scott around as though he weighed nothing, and there was a definite, short, time limit before his muscles gave out.

Scott gave a pained huff, the air brushing past Gordon’s jaw. “Ic’n walk,” he muttered again. Gordon appreciated that he wasn’t trying to prove it, because if Scott actually tried, he’d almost certainly end up dropping him and probably injure them both in the process. At least Scott was mentally aware enough to recognise that.

“Not until we know how badly injured you are,” John told him firmly. “One’s not far from here.” Gordon let him lead the way, trusting him to pick out the shortest route to where the Thunderbird was secured. They left the gloom of the alley for the better-lit streets, and Gordon almost wished they hadn’t. The bruising had been bad enough in the half-light conjured by the tablet; under the powerful street lighting, Scott looked even worse.

When Gordon found out who did this to his brother, they were going to regret it.

Blue eyes, one barely able to open, were regarding him worriedly, as though Gordon was the one that needed fretting over. The hand slung over his shoulder squeezed shakily when something made him stumble, and Gordon grinned down at him thinly once he regained his footing.

“Nearly there,” he promised, both his brother and his protesting muscles. In front of him, John had reproduced his tablet from the volume of clothing he was wearing and was tapping away even as he led Gordon around another corner.

Thunderbird One glittered in the darkness of the park, tucked away mostly out of sight. The stealth coating Scott rarely bothered to use since the Zero-X had done its job at preventing gawkers gathering around, although now John had turned it off it was only a matter of time before late night crowds gathered.

Gordon stumbled again as he approached, muscles burning, and Scott let out an almost silent hiss. A hum of a hover stretcher murmured its way into earshot, guided by John, and Gordon gratefully let it take Scott’s weight, slipping his screaming arms out from underneath him and ducking away from the arm slung around his shoulder.

True to form, Scott immediately started to sit up, but John was there with a gentle but firm touch. In his other hand, the medscanner flickered yellow.

Rubbing at his protesting shoulders, Gordon was reluctantly relieved to hand over responsibility to his older brother as John somehow managed to keep Scott laying down long enough to get the stretcher inside Thunderbird One. Gordon followed, just in time to hear John sigh.

“-broken foot, so no, you couldn’t walk, Scott.”

“So,” he interrupted before Scott found a reason why that wouldn’t stop him. “What’s the verdict, Johnny?”

“Don’t call me that,” John snapped back automatically. “Nothing’s flagging up as beyond our facilities, but I’ve sent the results to Grandma for final verdict.”

Grandma, Virgil, and their arsenal of medical equipment could handle a lot, so that by itself wasn’t completely reassuring, but it went a little way towards it.

“Do we know what happened?” he asked, rather than dwell on that for long. “Scott?”

“N’dea,” his brother mumbled. “D’n r’mber ‘thing ‘fter th’arty.” He sounded put-out enough for it to be the truth.

Gordon caught John’s eye and the ginger’s lips thinned. They’d find out who did it, one way or another. No-one messed with their family and got away with it, no matter how much that contradicted with International Rescue’s philosophies.

Sometimes, a little ruthlessness was necessary.

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds are go fanfiction #tsari writes fanfiction #scott tracy #gordon tracy #john tracy #thunderwhump #drabbles #purfectpurple #a little ruthlessness

[wkemeup]

By Any Other Name (17)

series summary: When Special Agent Bucky Barnes is tasked with infiltrating the notorious gang Hydra and gathering evidence against its leader, Brock Rumlow, Bucky finds himself drawn to the woman who doesn’t seem to belong in this world of violence, the wife of the head of Hydra… you. pairing: bucky x reader chapter word count: 6k warnings: arson, cannon level violence, gun violence, the moment you’ve been waiting for 🌹series masterlist 🌹

"I said I’m fine, Steve,” Bucky groaned, swatting away the hand of the paramedic as he tried to disinfect his shoulder. Blood was bubbling at the surface over ripped and frayed edges, dripping down his arm and onto his ribs. He held his shirt balled up in his hands, clenching at the fabric as the sting of alcohol burned against the open wound.

“You were shot, Buck. Let the man work,” Steve warned, glaring at him until Bucky dropped his resolve long enough for the paramedic to begin stitching the mess on his shoulder. It was surrounded by hardened tissue; muscle that had been carved and mutilated in his time overseas and the time between. He’d lost some of his nerve endings amongst the scarring, so the needle twisting through his skin wasn’t so bad.

“She did a good job. Clean hit. Looks like it went right through,” Sam said, eyeing the gunshot wound in Bucky’s shoulder. He pursed his lips, impressed. “Y/n know about the vest?”

“No.” Bucky sighed, breath heavy like stones in his lungs. “There wasn't time to tell her.”

The vest he wore under his shirt was not bulletproof. No, it was a stage prop, a gimmick from the set of a television studio that actors wore when they were shot on screen, one that released balloons of fake blood. It was what was currently drying on the concrete on the office floor just a few feet away.

It was supposed to be used after he was arrested, to make it look like James Karpov died on his way to the station in a dramatic shootout with at least a dozen witnesses, giving Bucky Barnes the opportunity to walk as a free man again. It was a part of a plan that had long been thrown to the wasteland and it forced him to improvise. So, when he stared down the end of your barrel, he knew setting it off was the only way to get you out of this, to keep Rumlow from suspecting you.

Bucky managed to snag the release at the time of your shot, making it look like you’d hit a critical artery. He fell to the ground and played dead.

"Shit,” Sam cursed, hands on his hips. “Does she know you’re alive?”

“I don’t know,” Bucky sighed, clenching his jaw as the paramedic tugged on the rudimentary string keeping his skin together, “but she’s out there somewhere, alone with that fucking psychopath. I can't be wasting time on this. I need to be out there looking for her!”

“We’ve got dozens of our finest searching for them,” Steve said, trying to reassure him, but it was no use. “We’ll find her. You need to let us do our jobs.”

Bucky pushed himself from the back of the ambulance, shoving away the paramedic the moment he pressed on the bandage over the mess on his shoulder. He spotted his reflection in the side mirror of the ambulance, grunting at the stain of red against his cheek. He wiped at it with the sleeve of his shirt, trying to scrub it away, though it only seemed to make it worse. Dried blood crusted on his jawline.  

Bucky slipped his shirt back over his head, wincing at the sharp pain in his shoulder as he tugged it down to his waist. He brushed out the wrinkles, ignoring the heavy patch of red on the left side of the fabric before he retrieved his weapon from Sam.

“I’m going after her,” Bucky reported flatly, heading towards the door.

“Come on, man!” Sam chased after him. “Don’t be an idiot, okay? We’ll come up with a plan.”

“You’re going to get yourself killed, Buck,” Steve warned, though he was following close behind. A hand landed on Bucky’s good shoulder and he froze, tension hardening like a rock through his spine and Steve quickly pulled away.

“Look,” Bucky growled, hands clenched, “you can either come with me, or get the hell out of my way.”

“How about a third option where you come with me?” Natasha appeared at the edge of the doorway, holding a tablet in her hand. Pursed lips, raised eyebrow staring back at him and Bucky shook his head, pushing past her.

“I don’t have time for—”

“I found her.”

He froze dead in his tracks, head whipping back around. “You what? How?”

“I’ll tell you on the way,” Natasha said as she gestured for the team to follow to the van out back. She turned and started walking before caring to see Bucky’s acknowledgement. Steve and Sam exchanged a quick look as they quickly jogged behind.

She jumped into the passenger seat, instructing Sam to drive as Bucky and Steve piled in the back. Sam didn’t ask questions as the engine turned to a low purr and Natasha gave him the first set of instructions. Left out the back gate. Continue to the fork in the road, then right.

“Nat,” Bucky urged impatiently, hands squeezing at his knees as he tried to look over her shoulder to get a glimpse of the tablet, but she held it secure to her chest, like there was something she didn’t want him to see.

“I’ve already alerted the NYPD,” Natasha told Sam, “so they know not to pull us over. Don’t stop for the reds.”

Bucky squeezed his hands to fists, nails digging into his palms. His jaw was clenched, wired shut, and his breaths were hot like fire on every exhale. He tried to focus on the feel of his jeans, the faint smell of the corn syrup soaked into his shirt, the cool breeze of the window cracked next to him, but nothing eased the boulder forming in his chest, pushing down on his lungs and suffocating his heart.

“Nat,” Bucky gritted out again, voice strained in the effort, “where is she?”

Natasha sighed, eyes flickering back at Steve, who slowly nodded in response to her silent question. She tapped on the screen of the tablet, twisting around in her seat until she could see Bucky over the shoulder.

“You said Rumlow’s pet scientist removed all of the bugs from the house?” Natasha started. Bucky narrowed his eyes, remembering the pieces of the small listening devices broken on the floor of the factory. Natasha bit on her lip, slowly extending the tablet to Bucky. “Seems he missed one.”

The tablet was heavier than he expected and it dipped a little as she released it to his hands. His heart was pounding, like thunder, bursting at the seams and aching to push past his ribs, break open skin, and plummet straight to the floor.

Bucky stared down at the screen, the image in its reflection of a room he knew well; shelves upon shelves filled with books, assorted mugs left around the room still steeping tea from hours earlier, the soft light of the pale blue lamp by the couch, the series of awards and degrees hanging on the walls.

Bucky’s hands were shaking, gripping so tightly to the edges of the tablet he thought he might crack the glass, because what drew his attention wasn’t the familiarity of the room, the memories of the time he spent there loving you from afar, loving you up close.

He couldn’t see the pile of books on the end table that you’d gathered for him for him to read. He couldn’t see the solid black mug with golden marbled cracks you’d designated as his mug sitting upon the coffee table. He couldn’t see the aisles where he’d loved you, rushed and rough, laughing as he pressed your back to the shelves and your legs wrapped at his waist, the heated flush of your breaths as you clung to him, the sweet whimpers he drew from your lips.

No—instead, he fixated on the novels laying haphazardly on the floor, books you cherished face down, pages bending, where you’d once kept them meticulously organized along the shelves. The plants thrown from their pots on the windowsill, ones you talked so kindly to every time you watered them, wondering how they were still alive because you’d killed just above every other plant before them. The faint discoloration of cigar smoke filtering to the top of the room, clouding over wooden engravings at the tops of the bookcases, staining the room with a smell of a man you worked so hard to escape from.

Then, though his heart was in his throat, he let his eyes drift to you – you tied at the center of the room to a chair as Rumlow sat on the edge of a couch, your couch, dragging in smoke from a cigar. There were ashes on the cushions, smeared into the fabric where Bucky had laid with you on late evenings when he couldn’t stand to leave you alone in that home.

“I didn’t--” Bucky started, finding his voice dry, like sandpaper, and he cleared his throat. He gripped tighter to the tablet, knuckles turning white. “I didn’t think we were surveilling this room.”

“We weren’t,” Nat replied gently, sensing the tension in Bucky’s voice. “I had the transmission cut off since last year. It’s probably why they didn’t find it when they swept for bugs. There was no signal coming from it until I turned it on a few minutes ago. We lost audio though.”

Bucky nodded, feeling an ounce of relief, knowing that your sanctuary wasn’t completely tainted until now. This room, the only room in the house you truly felt safe in, was still yours. Or, it was, before your husband laid waste to it.

“This is a good thing, Buck,” Steve added slowly, setting a light hand on Bucky’s leg. “We know where she is. You can keep an eye on her until we get there.”

Bucky watched as Rumlow knelt down in front of you, gripping tight to your jaw as you struggled to recoil from his touch. He could see the tears reflecting on your cheeks, the tremble of your chest as you tried to find your breath, even from the angle of the camera high in the corner of the room.

He couldn’t stand to see you like this; afraid.

He was supposed to be on his way to you from the back door of the police station, clean of the theatrics and the corn syrup dye on his clothes, free of the name binding him to a vile organization, ready to start his life again as the man he always wanted you to know him to be. He was supposed to protect you from this, from Rumlow, from the life you’d been chained to for years.

But instead, you were bound to a chair in the middle of your safe haven, a witness as your husband tore it to pieces, like pieces of your heart breaking off with every novel tossed to the ground; alone, as Bucky let his promise you to go unanswered.

His promise to save you from this, to take you away, to give you back the life you’d lost.

He might not get that chance.

“I’m going to kill him.”

The words were heavy on his tongue but there was a relief in it, a certainty. It was a fate he’d been slated to from the start.

The car was silent; the only response the low purr of the engine.

***

“What’s her status?”

Bucky shook his head, unable to respond to Natasha’s question without finding bile in his mouth. It was like watching a horror movie, knowing that at any second everything could go up in flames. Rumlow was shouting at you, his arms waving about, and though they had no audio, Bucky could tell by the way you were avoiding your husband's eyes, that you were afraid.

But it was when Rumlow bent to pick up a large container, one with liquid that sloshed up over the top and spilled to the floor by your feet, that Bucky stopped breathing entirely.

“Bucky?”

He couldn’t hear Steve’s voice, not as he watched Rumlow spill the thick, dark colored liquid around the room, onto the couch, onto your shelves lined with books, onto the hardwood floors. You were shouting at him, struggling against the wires binding you to the chair, blood trickling down your wrists. You winced at the smell of it, pushing your nose to your shoulder the closer he got.

“Jesus Christ,” Bucky muttered out, hands shaking violently against the tablet. His heart was lodged up into his throat, threatening to choke him.

“What is it?” Sam called from up front. “What’s going on?”

“Sam,” Steve warned, eyes glued to the screen as Bucky veins filled with fire, with rage, and the heat of his breath was that of a dragon’s. “How far are we?”

“Five minutes, boss.”

Steve stole a glance back at Bucky, watching as he gripped painfully at the tablet, gritting his teeth as Rumlow stalked around you, dumping what looked to be gasoline to a room quite literally filled to the brim with novels that would go up in flames in a matter of seconds. Bucky was shaking, whether it was with rage or fear, Steve couldn’t tell.

Steve caught Natasha’s eye, a silent conversation between them before he leaned forward and put a hand on Sam’s seat.

“Floor it.”

***

Bucky jumped from the car before Sam could even pull it into park. He shoved his way out the door, the pavement still moving under his feet as he rolled along the driveway, back skidding into the rocky surface that only worsened the pain in his shoulder. He scrambled back to his feet, sprinting towards the mansion, when a thunderous explosion to his froze him dead in his tracks.

An arm came up instinctively to shield his eyes as an influx of bright light punctured through the night sky.

Glass shattered out into the grass and from the window of your library rose angry, orange flames into the night sky, dancing and crackling in the wind. A large gust of a breeze swept by and the flames seemed to scream, pulling down pieces of the wooden architecture of the outside walls with deafening snaps.

He could vaguely hear Steve shouting behind him, warning him to wait until the firefighters arrived, to stop putting himself at the front lines of a beast he couldn’t hope to tame. They were only a few minutes out. It was too dangerous to go inside himself. He wasn’t trained for this.

But none of that mattered to Bucky, not in that moment. All he knew was you were trapped inside, alone, in a burning room and he’d be damned if he stood on the sidelines and watched.  

Bucky sprinted to the front door, bounded over the cracks in the pavement and skipping the stairs leading to the door. The knob seared hot enough that it burned right through his palm and he hissed at the sting of it, staring down at pink and blistering skin in his grip.

He threw his shoulder to the door, shouting out in frustration when it refused to budge. His shoulder was aching, pulsing, from the impact. Again and again and still nothing. Black smoke spilled out from the library just a few windows down, taunting him as it tainted the night sky.

“Come on!” he screamed, voice hoarse as his eyes kept darting to the flames bursting from your sanctuary. He only had so much time before the heat was too much for your body, before the smoke infiltrated your lungs and you were burned by the consumption of fire to your most prized possessions.

“Stand back!”

Bucky turned abruptly at the voice to find Steve at his side, gun in hand as he fired three shots at the knob and slammed the sole of his boot to the vulnerable wood at the left of the door. The wood cracked, the hatch falling loose and it cracked open, pooling thick, grey smoke from the living room.

“I’m not letting you run into a burning building on your own, you jerk,” Steve grunted, shouldering the door until it swung open, slamming against the adjacent wall, and they were met with a wall of smoke. Steve pulled the edge of his shirt over his nose and nodded for Bucky to lead the way.

Bucky nodded at him, unable to find his own voice. He rushed into the living room, crook of his elbow pressed to his nose, coughing at the sudden gasp of smoke. It was still high amongst the ceilings, but in a short glance down the winding hall to your library, the smoke only became thicker, heavier, and it was so clouded he could hardly see the door.

“This way!” Bucky shouted, taking off towards the library.

It was a path he knew well, one he’d once walked slowly with a careful glance over his shoulder and one he’d raced to the moment he stepped foot in this home. He knew the dip in the floorboards at the edge of the foyer, the slight stain on the wood from where you’d dropped a mug filled to the brim with herbal tea, the paintings lining the walls that you’d slowly replaced over your years to the works and designs of local artists depicting mountain ranges and sunsets and gardens and all the places you’d rather be.

Small pieces of you were embedded in this home. It seemed they, too, were up in smoke.

Bucky slammed into the doors at the library, though they didn’t budge. He pressed his hands to the wood to find it scorching hot and he hissed, jumping away from it. Eyes trailed down to the knobs and he found the double doors shackled together with a thick, metal chain.

“Oh God. What do we—”

“I’ve got it!” Steve shouted over the roar of the fire behind the door. He pushed Bucky aside and fired one shot to the lock. It released with a slight kick of his foot to the chains and they fell to the floor. Steve quickly holstered his weapon with a single look in Bucky’s direction, a nod, and he pushed open the doors.

They were met with a heat that singed at their skin, flames that pulled towards them in the flood of oxygen sweeping into the room.  

“Shit!” Steve cursed, shielding his face from the fires as he stumbled backwards, but Bucky was advancing forward, as if the heat wasn’t drying his lungs with every breath, as if the smoke wasn’t winding him, like he wasn’t about to walk through a wall of flames. “Bucky, wait!”

Bucky took a deep breath though his lungs filled with smoke and he sprinted inside. He could feel burning on his skin, the singe of the flames against his exposed forearms, but none of it compared to seeing you strapped to that chair at the center of the room. Your head was lulled to the side, cheek to your right shoulder, eyes closed, and your skin covered in dark soot, some patches of burn marks seared raw.

He rushed at you, skidding to his knees and trying to ignore the fact that his jeans were soaking in gasoline pooling under your feet that was sure to light up at any second.

“Y/n,” he called, voice too soft, as he gripped at the sides of your face. “Sweetheart, wake up. I’m here. I’ve got you.”

You didn’t respond and Bucky could hardly feel a touch of your breath under your nose.

“Please, I need you to come back to me,” he begged, shaking you, harder than he meant to, but God, he’d never been so scared in his life. A muffled groan pulled from your lips, a slight twitch in your nose, and that was enough for him.

“That’s my girl.” He exhaled, laughing through the adrenaline and panic in his veins.

He pulled a scalpel from his pocket, one he’d stolen from the ambulance back at the factory, and quickly began working at the wires binding your wrists. He tried to ignore the raw and bleeding skin underneath.

There was a loud crackling above and Bucky glanced up to find a large fracture in the ceiling, spreading rapidly to the window. Small pieces of the paint chipped off and fell down around him like snowfall.

“Bucky!” Steve shouted behind him, warning him.

Bucky gathered you into his arms, hulling you to his chest. You were like a rag doll, limp, though you curled into him, nose finding the crook of his neck as if you were only sleeping, seeking out his scent, his warmth, even amongst the flames.

“I’ve got you, honey,” he whispered, a gentle kiss at your forehead as he stared down the wall of fire ahead of him. “Steve!”

“I know! I’m working on it!”

Steve was prying the door from the hinges, the metal already warped and easily manipulated by the heat of the flames. It detached suddenly and Steve stumbled under the weight of it before he slammed down ahead of Bucky, acting like a bridge to suffocate the fire in his path if only for a minute.

Bucky didn’t waste a second, no hesitations, and he sprinted to the hallway with you safe in his arms, leaving your library up in flames.

“Can we get the hell out of here now?” Steve grunted, panting, hands on his knees though he was smiling. He straightened his back, looking down at you and Bucky was certain he saw relief in his friend’s face, to find the slight movement in your chest with every breath, even if it was shallow and rasping.

“Yeah,” Bucky nodded with a tired smile, “let’s—”

The words died on his tongue as he spotted a figure in the distance, waiting, watching. It paused, incredibly still, before it descended further into the shadows. Calling him. Beckoning him forth. A challenge he would not dare go unanswered.

“Take her,” Bucky ordered flatly, already pushing you to Steve’s arms before he had a chance to object. “Get her to the paramedics.”

“Buck, what are you—”

"There’s something I need to take care of.”

The flames were starting to follow them into the hallway and Bucky gently released you to Steve’s arms. He leaned closer to you, swept your hair away from your eyes and kissed your temple; eyes closed, lingering, because he needed to remember this. He pulled back to find Steve staring at him in disbelief, eyes flickering down to the end of the hallway.

“Don’t,” Steve said, though there was an aching there, a pleading.  

“Get her somewhere safe,” Bucky replied, putting a hand to Steve’s shoulder, a slight squeeze, an appreciation for a debt he will never repay. “Steve, please.”

“You won’t have long,” he warned, eyeing the unstable foundation around them. Your library was starting to cave in on itself, pieces of the ceiling falling into the flames, until the shelves collapsed, and hundreds of novels lent themselves to the fire. Steve pulled back, shielding you as the heat of it carried out into the hall.

“I know,” Bucky said slowly, guiding Steve down the hall to the front door. He kept his eyes trained on the man in the shadows. “I’ll see you soon, brother.”

Steve paused, his eyes catching on the man lying in wait. He clenched his jaw, gritted his teeth, and then nodded. “You better.”

Steve rushed out the front door, carrying you safely in his arms away from the flames, and Bucky stood still in the living room, staring down into the dark corner where Brock Rumlow emerged from. Bucky’s hands curled to fists as he stepped forward, watching while Rumlow poured himself a glass of scotch amongst the thick fog covering the ceiling.

“I thought you were dead,” Rumlow said, a bit annoyed, as he took a swig of the amber liquid.

“Yeah, well,” Bucky shrugged, hand gripping around a vase to his left, “you’re used to underestimating my girl, aren’t you?”

Rumlow chuckled, though it was dark, humorless. He threw back the rest of the scotch, smacking his lips loudly. Then, he sharply pulled a handgun from the back of his waistband and aimed it at Bucky, quickly releasing the safety as a maniacal grin slithered along his lips.

“Guess I’ll have to finish the job myself.”

Before he could fire, Bucky threw the vase across the room with the full force of his strength. The crash of it against the wall to Rumlow’s right distracted him enough to give Bucky the advantage to propel himself over the couch, using the ottoman as leverage, and tackle Rumlow to the ground.

The gun was thrown a few feet away and Rumlow let out a grunt as he slammed to the hardwoods. With Bucky’s full weight on top of him, he fought like a feral animal, kneeing and kicking and shoving hands to Bucky’s face. The heel of his palm slammed straight to Bucky’s chin, causing him to hit his head on the end table beside them. It served its purpose as Bucky fell off of Rumlow and slumped to the floors, dizzying him enough for Rumlow to crawl out from underneath.

Rumlow smirked as he reached out for the gun, his fingers touching the warm metal of the handle for only a second, vengeance in the palm of his hand—

Bucky scrambled forward, grabbed a tight hold of Rumlow’s jacket and yanked him back, sliding down along the floors as the gun slipped out of reach again. Bucky threw a punch to the left corner of Rumlow’s jaw and a splatter of blood spewed from his lips and coated the white wall beside them and dripped down over his chin.

Within his rage, a vicious kind of roar released from deep in Rumlow’s chest as he bared his teeth, blood seeping through his gums and spilling from the edges of his lips. He slowly climbed his way back to his feet, legs wobbling underneath him as he stood from the exhaustion.

“You won’t survive this, Agent Barnes,” he spat, pacing to the edge of the room where the thick cloud of black smoke began to sink down from the ceiling.

Over Rumlow’s shoulder, Bucky caught sight of flames creeping in from the hallway making their way to the living room. He tried to catch his breath but it was hard to find, shallow in his chest, and he was losing energy quicker than he shoulder. Sweat beaded on his brow, dripped down his face, his neck, and he felt like his lungs were aflame. He hulled himself to his feet, feeling a little disoriented from the hit and the smoke in his lungs.

“You think you can just infiltrate the greatest underground empire this city’s ever known?!” Rumlow roared, diving forward and slammed a closed barreled fist to Bucky’s jawline. It nearly sent him spiraling to the floor as he clamped down on the inside of his cheek, blood pooling quickly in his mouth.

Rumlow’s lip twitched, a kind of chaos and recklessness lurking under his skin unfamiliar for a man who spent his life meticulously planning and strategizing, draped in Gucci and Armani.

“You think you stood a goddamn chance against Hydra, you fucking traitor?!”

A knee to Bucky’s stomach, then a fist to his nose, to his shoulder, until Bucky couldn’t shield himself anymore. The heat was singing on his skin, burning more than whatever Rumlow could dish out. 

Bucky risked a glimpse a few feet away as Rumlow prepared for the next hit and the flicker of metallic caught his eye. He froze.

But so did Rumlow.

Bucky lunged for the gun, scrambling over the floors, nails digging into the exposed wood and diving splinters into his skin. He grasped it just long enough to spin the chamber of the revolver before Rumlow came up behind him and kicked him hard in the ribs, forcing him to curl in on himself as he let the gun slip through his fingers.  

Rumlow bent down slowly and picked up the gun, admiring it in his hand as he backed away.

“You know, I thought you’d put up more of a fight,” Rumlow tsked, the spin of the chamber clear as Bucky forced himself to his feet. He was uneasy in his stance, blood dripping from his forehead, wet in his hair. Rumlow eyed him cautiously.

“It’s over, Rumlow,” Bucky warned. “You’re finished.”

“Finished?” he mocked, laughing, deep and boisterous over the roar of the flames behind them. “Wake up, asshole! You’re the one staring down the end of the gun. You’re not walking out of this house alive.”

“You’re not going to kill me,” Bucky replied defiantly, certain as he took a slow, calculated step towards the end table, pacing around Rumlow as he followed in opposite tracks.

Rumlow scoffed. “I’ve got six rounds here that say otherwise.”

“Do you?”

Bucky released his hand as six golden bullets fell from his grasp, chiming against the hardwoods in deafening clicks before they settled and rolled under the couch. Rumlow stared down at them in disbelief, slowly turning to the gun in his hand and spinning open the chamber to find it empty.

In the pause of his distraction, Bucky slipped his hand under the end table, grasped the handle of the gun he’d stored there on his first day patrolling the mansion and ripped it from the duct tape securing it to the underside. He aimed it at Rumlow, stone cold in his features as sweat beaded down his temple.

But Rumlow started to laugh.

“You can’t beat me, Agent Barnes,” he sneered. “Hydra will always win.”

“Not once we put you away,” Bucky hissed, hands gripping the gun impossibly tight, until his knuckles were ghost white. Above him, cracks were opening in the ceiling, the foundation slowly giving way to the heat.

“You think that’s going to stop me?!” Rumlow bellowed, advancing forward and causing Bucky to take a step back. “You think that putting me in jail is going to do anything?! Hydra may be burned to ash but I still know who’s responsible.”

Bucky swallowed, a slight give beyond the hardened mask he wore, and Rumlow saw straight through it.

He chuckled, low and demonic. “Yeah, I know she was a part of this. That conniving little bitch!”

Bucky clenched his jaw, knowing the panic was evident on his face but he held his stance, watching Rumlow as he started to pace, grinning like he knew he’d won.

“Here’s what you’re going to do, Barnes,” Rumlow smirked, folding his arms, “you’re going to hand over the gun and then, you’re going to let me go.”

The ceiling behind them gave way as wooden beams and scaffolding plummeted from above. Bucky turned back to Rumlow, holding the weapon steady.

“That’s not going to happen.”

“I beg to disagree,” Rumlow shrugged, unbothered by the heat of the flames as they inched closer. “You’re going to let me walk out the back door, away from your buddies waiting to put me in cuffs and you’re going to do it happily –”

“Fuck off.”

“—otherwise, I’ll use every last resource I have to slaughter your girl.”

Bucky’s heart stopped, like the full force of a freight train to the sternum. Muscles to stone, blood to ice. His stomach twisted and warped on itself.

“That’s what you called her right? ‘Your girl?’” Rumlow rolled his eyes, laughing to himself. “Pathetic. You would have sacrificed everything for her, wouldn’t you? Its fucking weak! And for it to be her? Are you kidding me, Barnes? You risked it all for my fucking leftovers!?”

Rumlow was laughing – no, cackling – and maybe it was the smoke or the flames but there was something unhinged about it, manic, and the look in that man’s eye was chilling, like ice straight to his core.

“Shut up,” Bucky warned, voice low, cracking. Heat boiled in his veins that had little to do with the flames surrounding him.

“You took everything from me,” Rumlow growled, features shifting abruptly into something much darker. “I’m going to destroy you.”

Bucky shook his head, tightening his grip on the gun. “You won’t have the chance, asshole. Now start walking.”

Bucky gestured the barrel towards the door, but Rumlow didn’t budge. Instead, that small maniacal smirk returned to his lips, cracking through dried skin and leaving slivers of blood in his wake.

“You think some prison bars and an orange jumpsuit are going to stop me? You think I won’t be able to ruin your whole fucking existence with the snap of my fingers!? You think I won’t rip your girl straight from under you?!”

Stone in his throat, blood on his tongue, Bucky couldn’t control the pounding in his chest.

“You’re fooling yourself if you think I don’t have connections in the FBI! I’ll find her, even if you hide her in the smallest no-where-shit-town in the country!” Rumlow goaded, shouting above the flames, almost deranged as his pupils blew wide. “I’ll find her and I’ll send the worst kind of man to finish the job. She’ll be begging, crying, wondering how you could have let this happen to her when you could have just let me walk away! She’ll know when she takes her final breaths, when she’s choking on her own fucking blood, that it was your fault!”

Bucky’s breaths were uneven, rasped and wheezing from the smoke and heavy from the painful thumping of his heart. He gripped the gun tighter in his hold, until the crevices pinched his skin and the heat of the metal seared into his grasp.

“You won’t see it coming,” Rumlow sneered, shaking his head, baring his teeth. Vile. Evil. Unhinged. He stepped forward, challenging Bucky to pull the trigger. “You could have months, years together and just when you think she’s safe from me… just when you think this is all over… when you’ve let your guard down just long enough… you’ll come home to find her IN PIECES!”

BANG!

BANG! BANG!

BANG!

Rumlow stumbled backwards, the impact leaving him clutching to the bar cart for support. Slowly, he glanced down at his chest in disbelief, shaking hands reaching out and touching the blood as it pooled against his white pressed button up. It seeped along the pristine fabric, soaking deep stains of crimson as it spread.

His mouth was agape, trying to form words as his legs gave out from under him and he collapsed to the ground. Lips parting, breaths shallower with every inhale, and hazel eyes fell on stormy skies of dark blue until they glossed over, faded away, and soon, there was nothing left.

Bucky lowered the gun, staring down at the body of the man he gave more than a year of his life to put behind bars; a man with no extraordinary ability, but a malice wretched into his soul and darkness in his veins. He bled like any other man. He died like one, too.

Bucky felt cold, empty, but a boulder was lifted from his shoulders and he set the gun down on the desk beside him, leaving it behind to the flames.

The mansion was caving in around him as he turned to the front door. Flames erupting from the hallway to your library now taking root to the staircase, traveling along the back wall to the kitchen. It consumed the furniture, the paintings, the tapestries, the priceless artifacts Rumlow had illegally acquired to gather dust on his shelves.

It was all ablaze.

A section of the ceiling collapsed by the front door, blocking his path, and Bucky started to feeling the effect of the smoke taking hold. His breaths were far too short, like he was gasping for air at the surface of an ocean’s tide before it swept him under again. A piercing pulse ached through his head, leaving him dizzy, and he struggled to remain on his feet.

The second story was starting to cave in. He didn’t have much time left.

There was only one way out. Through the flames. To you.

Bucky pulled the collar of his shirt up over his nose and ran.

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n

[littlemissaddict]

Like Brothers

Summary: Carlos has an accident at baseball practice and is unable to get in touch with Ray or Julie so he call Luke instead. (Requested)

Word Count: 1.6K

“Luke” Carlos says when he hears the older boy answer the phone.

“Hey buddy, what’s up?” Luke asks, he’s kind of confused and worried as to why Carlos has rang him because he knows Julie had given her brother Luke’s phone number for emergencies when he can’t get a hold of her or their dad.

“Can you come pick me up?” he asks which confuses Luke even more.

“Yeah, where are you?” he asks, already grabbing his shoes as he hears Carlos telling him he’s at baseball practice “Okay, give me five minutes” he says before the younger boy hangs up. He slides his shoes on quickly, grabbing his car keys and letting his mom know that he’s going out. 

It doesn’t take him long to get there, parking the car and jumping out going in search of the boy. Luke finds Carlos sat on the bench watching the rest of his team play and the closer he gets to him he can see that he’s holding his arm against his chest and he wonders what the boy has done.

“Jeez Carlos what have you done?” Luke asks as he reaches him but before he gets an answer the coach comes over to them.

“Are you here for Carlos?” the coach asks and Luke nods not getting a chance to say anything because Carlos speaks up letting him know that he couldn’t get a hold of his dad because he was working. “Okay well you should probably get that arm looked at, you went down pretty hard” the coach says as Carlos stands up and goes to pick up his bag but Luke knocks his hand away.

“I’ve got it” he says, putting it over his shoulder and Carlos gives him a grateful smile as he says goodbye to his coach and follows Luke back to his car. Luke unlocks it letting Carlos climb into the passenger seat and he puts the bag in the trunk. Climbing into the car himself he notices Carlos struggling to put the seatbelt on with one hand.

“Do you want a hand?” Luke offers knowing how stubborn he can be when it comes to doing things by himself. Carlos groans and nods as Luke twists in his seat to face him, he takes the seat belt from Carlos’s hand and pulls it across him, careful to avoid his arm and clicks it into place. 

“So a trip to the emergency room then” Luke says as he buckles his own belt before starting the engine. They’re quiet on the way to the hospital, only the sound of the radio playing softly in the background as Luke navigates the roads. The car park is surprisingly full when they get there and Luke has to drive around it a couple of times before he finds a space.

At the front desk of the emergency room they ask the usual questions: name, date of birth and what they’re here for. Luke answers the first and last questions easily but pauses and looks to Carlos for his date of birth, which makes him laugh.

“You’ve been dating my sister for how long and you still don’t know my birthday” he asks and Luke shakes his head waiting as Carlos answers the lady behind the desk, after she inputs it into the computer she tells them to take a seat and that it won’t be long.

They sit for about half an hour before a nurse calls them through, taking them into a room where she can examine Carlos’s arm. She makes small talk as she checks it over, asking how he did it and when he tells her it was at baseball she talks to him about that.

When she’s finished, she sits back in her chair “I think it may be a break but we’ll send you down to x-ray just to double check and then we’ll get you patched up” she smiles leading them out of the room and telling them where to find the x-ray department. The boys follow her directions only getting lost once on the way there, which Luke thinks is a miracle because all the corridors feel like a maze. Luke lets them know that Carlos is there and they take a seat waiting to be called through, this time they’re not waiting long before his name is called. The x-ray confirmed that Carlos’s arm was in fact broken and he left the hospital with a cast on.

“You hungry? How about we stop for something before I take you home?” Luke asks as they climb back into the car and Luke helps Carlos with his seat belt again to save him from struggling with only one hand. They decide on burgers and get take-out, planning to eat it back at the Molina house while they wait for Julie and Ray to get home. 

They pull up outside the house, Luke takes the food and grabs Carlos’s bag out of the trunk, meeting him at the front door which he’s already unlocked. Luke places Carlos’s sports bag down by the front door then the two boys head straight through to the kitchen to unpack the food. Luke notices that Carlos had disappeared while he was putting the food on plates but he comes back in just as he’s putting the food on the table and Luke see’s he’s got his tablet with him.

“You don’t mind if it put this on while we eat do you?” he asks, sitting down and opening up the youtube app. Luke shakes his head as he takes a bite out of his burger as Carlos props the tablet up in the middle of the table where they both can see it and he presses play on the video. From what Luke can tell it’s a ghost hunting video, he shouldn’t be surprised really Julie has told him about Carlos’s latest obsession with ghosts and he knows that he had even roped Reggie in to help him search the house for ghosts after band practice a couple of weeks ago. Luke’s not sure he believes in the existence of ghosts and he’s certain that all the tricks that they pull off in shows like these are faked but despite this he finds his attention glued to the small screen and Carlos definitely notices.

“Didn’t know you were a believer too” he teases as he stuffs a couple of fries into his mouth.

“I’m not, I'm just trying to work out how they’re doing it” Luke answers truthfully because one video is not going to change his mind.

“It’s ghosts.They’re not doing anything” he proclaims before gesturing to the person on screen and he sounds so certain that Luke doesn’t try to argue just gives him an amused look. “Okay I’ll make a believer out of you just watch this one” he announces bringing up another video.

They hear the front door go and Luke looks at the time it’s almost four, they’re still sitting at the table watching ghost videos even though they had finished eating a while ago and Luke’s still not convinced about the whole ghost thing but he has to admit the videos are pretty entertaining. Ray comes into view shortly afterwards and he seems shocked to see Luke there but he doesn’t say anything until he sees Carlos’s arm.

“Carlos” Ray says, walking over to them and gesturing to the cast on his arm.

“Oh it’s broken” Carlos states looking up at his dad but Ray gives him an unamused look and Carlos sighs before speaking “I fell at baseball this morning and landed funny. I tried calling you but there was no answer and I know Julie was out with Flynn all day and wouldn’t be able to come for me so I rang Luke. He took me to the hospital and then stayed with me all afternoon” he explains. Ray reaches into his pockets searching for his phone but can’t seem to find it then he looks up seeming to remember where it is going out into the hall and returning with the phone in hand.

“I’m sorry Carlos I must have left it on the side when I was looking for my keys this morning” he admits before turning to face Luke a smile on his face “Thank you Luke for looking after him” 

“It’s no problem really,” Luke shrugs “but I better be going, my mom will be wondering where I am.” He smiles getting up from the chair, Ray nods walking him to the door and thanking him again for looking after Carlos as Luke gets into his car.

“So I heard you had an interesting day” Julie smiles when she calls Luke later on that night and Luke agrees “Carlos had fun though despite everything” she tells him and he can’t help but smile.

“How’s his arm?” Luke asks

“It’s a little bit sore but it’s not hurting as much now that he’s taken some pain killers” Julie responds before she starts giggling slightly “You know I asked him why he didn’t try ringing Tia and you should have seen the look on his face” 

“I can imagine” Luke laughs along with her, he had only met Julie’s aunt a couple of times but from what he’d seen she did tend to go a bit over the top with things.

“He said he’d rather spend the day with you” she says becoming serious “I think he sees you as a brother rather than just his sisters boyfriend, especially after today” she adds and Luke can’t help the warm feeling that washes over him, he didn’t have any siblings himself although he would’ve liked a brother to play with when he was growing up but then he got Alex and Reggie when he started school and they became his brothers. Now here he was with Carlos and he couldn’t help but smile. Julie saw but she didn’t tease him for it just started telling him about how her and Flynn almost got kicked out of a store while they were out, which Luke found hilarious.

#julie and the phantoms #jatp #carlos molina #jatp carlos #luke patterson #jatp luke #julie molina #jatp julie #julie x luke #juke #jatp juke #requested

[wulfies-kpop-fanfics]

One Photo → Mark Lee [8]

↳  Pairing: Mark Lee/Reader

↳  AU: Soulmate!AU - The first touch of two soulmates permanently scars their bodies.

↳  Warning: angst if you squint, I guess

↳  Word count: 2,294

↳  Chapters: Prelude | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | You Are Here! | 9

⁙ Summary: For an end of the year photography project, you’re tasked with taking a photograph for your favourite group, NCT127, and coincidentally, discover your soulmate.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

WEDNESDAY - 8 TWO YEARS LATER

The heart of Toronto would never compare to the magnificence of Times Square in New York, but the mass amount of billboards by the Eaton Center always managed to send you into awe during your nightly trek home from work. 

You looked up toward the billboards with a sigh as you waited for your streetcar, barely managing to squeeze out a smile as you saw Mark’s visage splayed along one of the electronic spaces. The night sky was too polluted with the city’s light to display any real stars, but Mark’s face was more than enough for you. For the past week, you had seen NCT127’s faces sprawled across that billboard, part of promotions for their latest global comeback. It was a brief respite as you waited for your streetcar home every night, to finally know that the day was over and that you could relax.

It had been such a long time since you’ve seen Mark in person. Even though you texted him every day when the two of you were awake at the same time and video chatted whenever he had five minutes to himself, it always felt depressing to be without him. To not kiss or touch or hug at all was torture.

Everyone knew that it was deadly for soulmates to be apart for so long, that depression would set in and even worse physical illnesses were a real risk. It was hard to be so far away and over the past year you had been let go from multiple jobs because you were constantly sick, and therein lies the problem. You simply couldn’t afford the solution to your problem. So, depression and illness it was. It took everything you had to keep your head above water, to keep your dream alive and know that one day your heart wouldn’t ache as much as it does at the present moment.

After a 20 minute ride on the streetcar, you entered your building and took the stairs up to your little hole-in-the-wall apartment, the bare minimum that you could afford after Rhiannon paid her last half of the old place’s rent. A single bed, bath and a tiny kitchen that housed a little chair and round table. Thankfully, there was enough counter space that you could place a tiny TV to watch Netflix on while you ate. You were lucky that the house had a large living room, which doubled as your studio.

The coffee table was one of the only things left from your old apartment, along with the tote of Marvel films you kept hidden below it. Atop the table now rested all of your cameras, a drawing tablet and cards that you got in the mail from Mark from time-to-time, instead of notes, binders and textbooks. Sitting against the wall across from the table was a small bookshelf and an easel with a large frame sitting on it, housing the last portrait you finished the night before, ready to be shipped to the buyer.

After… somewhat enjoying a quick pot of white cheddar mac & cheese and watching a rerun of Supernatural on your little TV, you head into your room and sit at the desk next to your bed. After starting your computer, you opened up discord and sat back in your wheely chair, waiting for Rhiannon’s status to change to green. Wednesday was the day that she had to be up early for her job, so that meant time for a 10-minute call before you went to bed and she went to work. 

Next to your computer was a copy of the photo you took two years ago, of your soulmate and all his friends beneath the shedding cherry trees in High Park. You smiled at it, the memory was fond but now faint in your mind. You reached forward to pick it up, but you stopped yourself. You knew that if you inspected the photo more, you’d only miss Mark and all your friends more. 

There were times where your apartment became so quiet that it reminded you how alone you really were. You had lived with Rhiannon most of your life, and that meant there was at least some noise going on at all times. Whether she had her headset unplugged when she was listening to music or watching youtube videos, she was clattering about when helping you wash and dry the dishes, or if she was walking around and tripped on nothing. She was always talking, laughing, or doing something that always let you know that she was there. Now, you had nothing.  

The silence is broken and you’re startled by the calling sound from discord, Rhiannon’s icon popping up on the top of your screen. You place your hand on your mouse and click the join call button, adjusting the webcam perched on the top of your desktop monitor. 

"Hey," Rhiannon was the first to speak, yawning and reaching back to pull her hair into a perfect, tight ponytail. 

"Hey," you respond, watching her closely and leaning your chin on your right palm. "How are you holding up?"

"I should be asking you that, Jesus, you look like the Hulk if he got the swine flu," she retorts, and even through the grainy quality you can tell she has sympathy written all over her face. "I'm doing great, we've got two cleanings today and a wisdom teeth removal, so that'll be fun." 

You scoff and attempt to smile, "I'm fiiiiine, other than the fact that I'm here and you're there, 13 hours in the future and at least one ocean in between us and an entire continent and a half. I'd say that constitutes abandonment."

"I got the getting while it was good and you know that," she stuck her tongue out at you. "You need to keep saving so that you can fly your ass out here." She squinted at the screen. "You really need to drink like… an entire bottle of nyquil, dude."

"If only it were that easy," you groan. "I don't even have a photographer's position yet. All I get is sitting at a desk and responding to emails… even with my head start, I can't find a good job and I barely make enough to keep living in Toronto." You stick out your tongue back at her for the nyquil comment. "As if I haven't been hiding a bottle of dayquil in my desk for the past week."

Rhiannon stopped what she was doing and leaned toward her camera. "You know why you can't get the jobs you want," her voice is soft, empathetic. "Mark is having trouble, too. He's been doing a lot of half days, so I don't know how they plan to do their tour with him being constantly sick." 

You looked away. "I can't afford to take any more time off… I don't want to lose this job. If I do, I'm not sure that I'll be able to make my rent."

"You're going to need to take time eventually,” Rhiannon stated firmly. "If you don't get at least some of your strength back you're going to end up in the hospital like I did. Remember?" 

You glanced back at your screen, watching Donghyuck wander around in the backdrop. You were beyond jealous that they got to live together. 

"Maybe. I just miss you. More than I miss having a clear passageway in my nose." 

Rhiannon smiled sadly at you. "I miss you too, everyone does. You'll be here soon, I promise. I gotta go, sleep well and drink plenty of water, okay?"

"Okay." 

Rhiannon waved at you before her screen went dark, ending the call. The call was shorter than usual, so you presumed that she had woken up late. You zoned out a little, acutely aware that the apartment had gone silent again. You didn't want to cry, to give up after surviving for so long. You had made it this far without letting everything get to you.

You knew that your deteriorating health was because of your separation from Mark and companies saw that as a liability, even though laws had come into place last year to protect separated soulmates from workplace discrimination. You felt a tiny ping of hope when Rhiannon said you would be able to move soon, but you knew she was lying to make you feel better. 

Feeling lethargic, you stand and make your way to the dresser in the corner of your room, stripping and throwing your clothes about the room. You open up a drawer and pull out a pair of sweatpants and the softest t-shirt you could find and slipped them on, wandering to your bed and slowly climbing in. You slipped off your glasses, placing them on your desk and reached forward to turn off your lamp.

You hugged your polar bear and tried to get comfortable, hoping to fall asleep quickly. You supposed you could call into work when you woke up; at least your manager was nice enough to understand when you needed a day off. You rolled over, tossed and turned, but sleep wouldn't come. Not while your phone was constantly buzzing. 

"What the hell," you mumble to yourself, untangling yourself from the knot of blankets you had tied yourself in to reach for your phone. Your lock screen lit up with a photo of Mark, one you had taken two years ago of him standing in Union Station. 

[Rhiannon (5)] 

She sure knew how to type quickly. 

Rhiannon: I'm on my way to work, I'll let you know when I'm there

Rhiannon: sorry our call was so short, I was running a little late

Rhiannon: I talked to Mark last night, did he say anything? 

Rhiannon: are you asleep already? It's been like 5 minutes 

Rhiannon: ok you're basically just ignoring me at this point

You: calm down bro I was getting in my pyjamas 

Rhiannon: I forgot how slow you get when you're sick, I could die of boredom waiting for you to respond 

You: hardy har 

Rhiannon: so have you talked to mark today? 

You: around lunchtime he woke up from a nightmare but I assume hes busy right now 

Rhiannon: Things have been pretty bad around now, I think you might have guessed that

You: Yeah, things aren’t really that great here either, but I’m more worried about Mark… have they given him time off? 

Rhiannon: Not much besides half days. He’s really been missing you. Maybe you should message him and see if he’s not busy

You: Yeah, maybe. I feel really guilty

Rhiannon: I know. I still could help you buy your plane ticket, you know. You: You know I can’t do that, I can’t take more from you than I have already. I owe you too much.

No response. 

You: Rhiannon I’m sorry 

You: Come on, you can’t have scrubbed in that fast!

You sighed, staring at your screen and still seeing no response from your best friend. You took a deep breath in and immediately regretted it when you began coughing up a lung, but at least you weren't upchucking your dinner. Instead, you decided to send a text to Mark.

You: mark, you there? 

You close your mind for a moment, thinking that maybe going to bed even later than usual would just make you more sick in the end, but you really needed to know what was going on. 

Mark: yeah I'm here babe, what's wrong, can't sleep? 

You: no not really… do you have time to talk for a bit? 

Mark: yeah, my legs gave out during our first practice so I'm taking a break

You: I'm sorry

Mark: it's not your fault (Y/N) 

You: it kind of is, we're both dying because I can't afford to move 

Mark: (Y/N), we're not dying, and it's okay, you'll be able to move soon

You: face it you know that we are… I haven't felt this horrible in a long time and I've thrown up three times today 

Mark didn't respond right away. 

Mark: why are you putting yourself down so much 

You: I just… have a lot of regrets right now 

Mark: what do you mean

You licked your lips and rolled over in bed, wondering if you should tell him.

Mark: are you okay? 

You: no, I feel like this would make you hate me 

Mark: I could never hate you and you know that. Tell me what's been bothering you.

You: For the past while… Rhiannon’s been offering me money. It’s honestly not much because everyone’s struggling nowadays, but it would be enough for me to fly to Korea, and I’ve felt so guilty about it that I kept saying no and she stopped offering

Mark: You mean that you could have been here faster? You: and now I feel that saying no was a really bad idea… and I.. I can’t afford anything, barely even food and now I hear that you’re even more sick than I am and I feel terrible

You: I don’t know what to do

Mark: It’s okay, (Y/N), really. I know how hard it is to take money from someone else, I’m not mad at you

You: Really?

Mark: I’m just disappointed that I have to keep waiting. You’ll be able to move soon, I promise, I promise, I promise

You: Are you going to be okay

Mark: As long as you are. Take care of yourself, okay? I’ll be there for you the second you land. Okay?

You: Okay. I… I should probably get some sleep now. Mark: Rest well, I love you

You: I love you too 

You sighed, placing your phone on your desk and turning over in your bed. It was time.

#mark lee #mark lee x reader #mark x reader #nct127 #nct #nctu #nct scenarios #nct imagines #reader insert #fanfiction #kpop fanfictions #kpop scenarios #kpop imagines

[brittapcrrys]

so my laptop fell in half last night - it still WORKS but i have it strapped to my v first laptop thats like 13+ years old and weighs 2kg bc.... i still have it, and it’s strong and sturdy enough to hold the 2 parts of the new, physically broken one at a functional angle. all the plastic and metal casing and joints are completely fucked and the screen/lid part just gave out while i was watching smth last night.

BUT in order to get in touch with the australian customer support for this laptop, i have to CALL THEM or use whatsapp, and i need a reliable phone in order to do both of those things and mine is....not. it glitches when i type, it wont take photos, it loses charge super quick and now thinks 50% battery is “critically low” & shuts down then after like a MAXIMUM of 1hr after fully charging. (sidenote to say in my flustered state last night i unintentionally went to the North American support site and y’all have an in-site online chat support feature which is GOOD and NORMAL and then they were like ‘ok i will switch u to the aus office’ and i expected the same thing but no ~contact us on whatsapp~ bitch WHAT the fuck. and u can allegedly use that on a computer but u have to do it via the mobile app and scan a qr code from ur browser onto ur phone????? absolute bullshit. the company doesn’t even make phones)

so. if i disappear or stop contacting ppl im “fine” but it probs means all my devices have become completely unusable xoxo

in the meantime i need to figure out an affordable way to get a new laptop that i can game on w/o being a super high-end fancy gaming laptop, and also a phone that will work where i live & that i can HOPEFULLY hold in just one of my tiny hands (2 to type whatever but if i cant hold it n read with just 1 hand bc it’s too large or heavy FUCk off that’s why u make tablets). a couple friends - have made some suggestions but im rly not likely to get any financial (or even emotional bc like....the social and feel-good and calming and ~sense of achievement~ and creative outlets i have are all....on my laptop or phone like i have limited independence w/o a job or driver’s license and these 2 devices are like.... It. so. being without is not rly an option in terms of uhhh a safe or healthy way for me to exist for v long esp bc my therapy happens online or over the phone now). im rambling bc im stressed but.

if anyone has suggestions please lmk!!!! i dont wanna ask for d*nations or anything bc i can’t rly offer anything in return ESPECIALLY while my laptop’s like.... i am scared to move it or open more than 1 tab at a time bc those 2 wires are barely holding on at the hottest part of the computer :////  n also bc.... i will survive, im not w/o food im not w/o my meds im not abt to lose the roof over my head or ANYTHING, i know it’ll impact my depression and anxiety negatively and most of my strategies to diffuse those .... are attached to internet or device access in SOME way but. i’ll cope. but i just... i can afford to buy ONE or the OTHER and probably a low-end version of either that will die on me within 12-18 months again anyway so id rather find a way to go a BIT bigger/better and hopefully get more life out of them idk idk

#depression mention #anxiety mention #money mention #this turned into a messily long post but just a heads up and also if u know wtf i should do abt all this tell me kjfdhkjdshfhkj #kim speaks. #personal. #medication mention #v briefly sjkdhhsf idk what else idt broken electronics needs a tag

[natalyelle]

Broken Connections

Shepard receives a task to investigate a broken connection with laboratories on a distant planet. She and her companions arrive there to find out that something is wrong there and they should find it out as quickly as possible.

Chapter 1 of 3, around 2k words

Also on AO3

One of Gloria Shepard's favorite star systems in the Galaxy was the Pandonea system. An unusual bright star, whimsically colored planets, most of which were rich in minerals.

The most beautiful planet in the system was a turquoise-purple gas giant surrounded by a thin pale ring of asteroids. Gloria was looking at it with interest through the porthole when the Joker's voice announced over the speakerphone:

“Commander, Admiral Hackett wants to get in touch with you, he's on the line in the communications room.”

“I'm on my way,” Gloria replied, turning away from the window.

“Commander,” the admiral said politely, bowing his head. “I'm glad to see you're all right.”

“Likewise, Admiral,” Shepard nodded. “Do you have a task for me?”

“Yes, we need to check what happened to the communication in the research laboratory on Eltrea. You are the closest to the planet among the Alliance ships, so it was decided to entrust the investigation to you.”

“Acknowledged. What are the details? What happened?”

“The laboratory includes several employees from different research institutes from different planets, including Earth. Every week they send a signal confirming that everything is fine in the laboratory and it is functioning. With the same signal, as a rule, new materials and scientific information obtained during the work of the laboratory are regularly received. However, for the third week now, the laboratories have been silent. No new information, no confirmation signal. The institutes are concerned about the fate of their employees.”

“Don't worry, Admiral, we'll figure it out.”

Gloria turned off the video link and turned on the speakerphone with the cockpit.

“Joker, set a course for the orbit of Eltrea. We have a new task.”

“It will be done, Commander,” the pilot replied cheerfully.

“I heard that we have set a course to Eltrea,” Liara began cautiously, meeting Shepard near the elevator between the decks of the Normandy.

“Yes, do you want to come to the surface with me? We need to find out if everything is in order at the local laboratory,” Gloria smiled.

“If possible,” Liara smiled back. “The fact is that my friend, Lydia Orlova, works in this laboratory, I would like to make sure that everything is fine with her. She is a xenolinguist, we met at the Prothean excavations.”

“A xenolinguist?” Shepard's eyebrows went up. She went to the porthole and gazed thoughtfully at the stars floating in the darkness. “I thought that the laboratory was engaged in the extraction and study of minerals or something like that.”

“No, as far as I know, the Prothean pyramid is being excavated here. Lydia is a very good expert in alien languages and symbolism, her knowledge helps to decipher the symbols on the pyramids.”

“The Prothean pyramid? Quite unexpectedly… Okay, I'm including you in the landing team. Prepare your tablets, documents and materials, I think we can take advantage of the opportunity for cultural and scientific exchange.”

“Yes, Commander!” Liara happily ran to her cabin to collect things, Shepard just watched her dreamily and smiled at her thoughts.

“Tali, Garrus,” Shepard said over the speakerphone, “get ready to land on the surface of the planet. We have a special task.”

“Commander, are you sure you should include only alien companions in the landing group?” Kaidan asked cautiously, coming up to Gloria. “If this is an Alliance task…”

“There's also me,” Shepard smiled dazzlingly. “Don't worry, I know what I'm doing.”

* * *

“So, guys, let's repeat our legend,” Shepard said, sitting at the wheel of the Mako all-terrain vehicle. Garrus was sitting on her right hand, Liara and Tali were in the back seat.

“Why invent some kind of legend if something serious happened?” Tali asked. “What if there is no one there who will listen to us. And if they will, then why invent something, and not just say everything as it is?”

“Even if everything looks good, you can't trust this apparent well-being,” Gloria remarked. “It will not be superfluous to cover ourselves so there are no additional problems.”

“It's kind of complicated,” Liara muttered.

“So the legend,” Shepard repeated. “Liara was sent here from the Citadel as a new Prothean specialist. The Citadel could not inform her appointment, because there were some problems with communication, so Liara arrived here without warning.”

“In my opinion, it is quite logical,” Garrus said.

“Tali was on the same ship as Liara, learned about the laboratory and decided to come here for her Pilgrimage to help with communication problems,” Shepard continued. “In exchange for some useful, but not classified information. See? We are not even deceiving anyone yet.”

Liara looked thoughtfully out of the small window. A deserted valley passed by, low hills could be seen in the distance. The bright, slightly reddish sun, setting below the horizon, gave the landscape a purple hue. Shepard's eyes sometimes took on the same shade.

“And Garrus?” Liara asked quietly.

“And Garrus is my assistant, escorting us to the laboratory so that we are not attacked by wild animals and all that.” Gloria happily turned the steering wheel of the all-terrain vehicle.

“Shepard, I don't know what is your human custom, but aren't you driving too dangerous?” Tali asked.

“It's all right!” Gloria replied cheerfully, looking into the rearview mirror with a smile. Liara caught her eyes shining with joy and involuntarily smiled herself. They are going on a possibly dangerous mission, and Shepard is enjoying the trip like a child. It was a little surprising, but for some reason Gloria's joy was contagious, and Liara also cheered up a little.

“Do you have any qualification tests for drivers?” Garrus asked, gripping his seat.

“Relax, guys, what can go wro – ”

Mako suddenly fell into a hole, the sky seemed to mix with the earth. With a thud, the vehicle landed on solid ground, and Shepard, as if nothing had happened, drove it forward.

“It's just a shorter way!” Shepard exclaimed. “We'll be there in no time!”

After a while, the dark buildings of the laboratory appeared from behind the hills. They looked like large boxes placed side by side and on top of each other. To the left of the buildings, the dark top of the pyramid could be seen sticking out of the ground. Liara fixed her eyes on this vague, gloomy spot. How many secrets this pyramid must have kept! How she would really like to be among the researchers of this laboratory to learn the Prothean secrets that bothered her a lot.

On the other hand, next to her now is a person who holds no less secrets of the Protheans than, perhaps, this pyramid. Liara shifted her gaze to Shepard. The violet light gave her eyes even more depth, and her lips an unusual and attractive color. Is it only the secrets of the Protheans that attract her to Shepard?..

“How interesting, their lights are on,” Shepard drawled, nodding at the laboratory buildings.

Liara looked ahead through the windshield and saw that Shepard was right. The small rectangular windows glowed slightly with a dark orange light.

“So, scientists are working there...” said Liara.

“Or they all ran away from there,” Gloria said melancholically. “Or they are lying dead. And the lights are on because the generator is still producing electricity.”

Garrus coughed slightly.

“Well, we will believe in the best!” Shepard smiled, driving closer to a large building with a door.

The team got out of the vehicle and went to the door, near which was a communication screen. Gloria punched the button under the screen with her fist, and it came to life. A young man's face appeared in the gray interference. His dark, thick brows were furrowed. "So, at least someone is alive here," Liara thought with some relief.

“Good evening!” Gloria said with a smile in her voice. Her very face was covered by a helmet. “I am Commander Gloria Shepard of the Normandy, Spectre, who has arrived here to accompany your new colleague, Dr. Liara T'Soni.”

“I haven't heard about any new colleague,” the man behind the door replied.

“It's kind of weird,” Shepard continued. “I was told that the message was sent to you a week ago. Perhaps you have problems with communication? We can help you solve them.”

“Everything is fine with us!” the man insisted.

“Maybe you should tell your supervisor about us?” Gloria asked and put her hands behind her back, showing that she was ready to wait for a long, very long time. The man sighed and pressed a button on the side. The front door hissed and opened. Gloria waved her hand solemnly, letting her companions inside.

After passing the buffer zone, where everyone took off their helmets, the team went into a small hall. It looked cozy - there was a table with artificial flowers against the far wall, along the walls there were small display cases with extracted Prothean artifacts. A tall, red-haired woman came out of a door at the side. Her piercing green eyes scanned the Normandy team and settled on Shepard.

“Hello!” Gloria took the initiative and took a step forward to the woman.

“Hello,” the woman said, slightly tilting her head, walked up to Shepard and held out her hand. Gloria shook it politely.

"My name is Gloria Shepard, " she said.

“Yes, I have already been informed,” the woman nodded. The man from the screen appeared behind her. “ My name is Ariadna Dowsell, I am the head of the local scientific laboratory. This is Greg Nicholson, a specialist geologist.”

The man nodded.

“I am very glad that a new specialist was sent to us, and at the same time I am a little puzzled.”

“Something happened? Shepard asked, tilting her head to the side.

“The fact is that we requested a new specialist two weeks ago, but we did not receive any response. And no messages from our institutes either. Your arrival is a surprise for us.”

“And yet, this is a pleasant surprise!”

A short, fair-haired woman appeared from the same side door. She smiled happily as she walked up to Ariadna.

“This is Ioanna Viktorova, a specialist in xenoarchaeology,” Ariadna introduced her.

“We at the laboratory are always happy to see new faces!” Ioanna chirped cheerfully.

“Xenoarchaeology?” Liara asked. “ Sounds very interesting!”

“Oh, yes, it's really interesting! But let's not stand on the doorstep, come in, let's drink tea!”

Shepard and the company followed the cheerful Ioanna. Ariadna and Greg also joined them.

“It's quite cozy here,” Liara said, looking around the small room furnished as a living room. There was a sofa and soft armchairs, a coffee table in the middle, near the walls there were cabinets with books and a couple of stone exhibits.

“Yes, you can't say that you have a laboratory here,” Gloria drawled, sipping the black tea offered to her.

“We have been here for quite a long time, so in order not to go completely crazy, we decided to organize a more familiar, homely atmosphere,” explained Ioanna.

“I heard that Lydia Orlova is also here,” Liara said, looking awkwardly at Ariadna.

“Yes, she's here,” she nodded. “She's checking out the dig site before it gets dark.”

“And are there many specialists here now?” Shepard asked.

“We have enough,” Ariadne smiled. “In addition to the four humans, there are also two asari from Tessia and one from Nevos, three turians from Palaven and one volus.”

“And how are the studies going?” Shepard poured herself more tea.

“Pretty casual,” Greg said. “We are clearing the found pyramid from the dirt so that we can study it better.”

The door to the living room opened, and a tired young woman with her hair tied up in a bun entered the room.

“Lydia!” Liara could not contain her joy, jumped up from the sofa and ran to the girl who entered.

“Liara!” the girl smiled,hugging asari. “Is it you?”

“It is!” Liara laughed. For some reason, all the tension that had not left her in this room dissipated. “I'm very glad to see you!”

“But by what fates?” The girls stopped hugging and sat down on the sofa together.

“Dr. T'Soni was sent to us as a specialist in the Protheans,” Ariadna said. It seemed to Liara that the temperature in the room dropped by half a degree. Why? She couldn't understand. Perhaps it was just her imagination. Lydia beamed.

“You will be delighted with what we have dug up here!” she exclaimed.

“Commander Shepard, this is the Normandy,” a voice whispered in Gloria's earpiece.

“I'm listening to you, Kaidan.”

“We have a little problem, due to the asteroid debris, we have to adjust the orbit, and we will not be able to lift you in the near future. Do you have the opportunity to wait on the planet for about a day?”

Gloria caught Ariadne's eye. She nodded slowly and said:

“We can accommodate you and your team in the reserve rooms, Commander.”

“Excellent. Kaidan, we're staying in the lab, keep me updated on your situation and condition. Shepard out.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

The rustling in the ear stopped.

“And what about your connection?” Shepard asked Ariadna.

“I don't know for sure,” Dowsell said.

“I can check the status of your communications center,” Tali offered. Ariadna frowned a little and exchanged glances with Ioanna.

“Quarians are famous for their techniques,” Shepard said, leaning back in her chair. “Perhaps you just lost some wire, and we will quickly fix it.”

“Yes, thank you, it's a good idea,” Ariadna smiled again. “Ioanna conducts…”

“Tali'zora,” quarian introduced herself with a slight bow.

“Yes, yes,” Ariadna said quickly and nodded to Ioanna. Ioanna nodded in response, and she and Tali left the living room.

“And where are your other colleagues?” Shepard asked. “I would like to meet them. Especially the volus scientist.”

“They're probably already asleep,” Ariadne shrugged. “Well, and you must be tired. Greg will show you to your rooms.”

“Tomorrow you will show me everything!” Liara said happily to Lydia, and they wished each other good night.

#Mass Effect #mass effect fanfiction #sometimes I write #oc: Gloria Shepard #my writing

[randomingoftherandomness]

So I just realized we share another fandom!! Anyway, I have a rather angsts Booker prompt that I think only you can do justice and it’s long, so I’m so sorry: (1) so the team are still on the splits, maybe a couple years into Booker’s exile, and Nike asks Copley to keep an eye on Booker. Being ex-CIA, he has a camera out in Booker’s apartment but Booker only glances at it, salutes with his bottle, proceeds to get drunk. Then he lays out an envelope then spends the night in the bathroom.

Hello! First up, are you OK? 👀 Coz like. If you wanna talk it out, my messages are always open to friends, yeah?

Also, a big super thank you for the prompt and for your belief that I can do it justice. Am very touched and very grateful. Gonna keep the other parts and the fill under the cut coz there’s four parts to this prompt and I am living for the specificity 😍 Hope you like this!

Please do note that I am not of the medical profession. If you have feelings of harming yourself or of suicidal thoughts, please reach out and talk to someone. I know it gets repeated a lot, but, You are not alone. You are so loved. You are precious. And I send you nothing but love. If anyone ever needs an ear, please know that you can always drop me a line x

[[ TW: Suicide ]]

(2) This continues for a while until Copley tells Nike about it, and she mentions it and the gang watch the footage. Every night, Booker gets drunk, lays out a large envelope on the kitchen table then spends the night in the bathroom. He looks like absolute hell when he comes out every morning. After a couple watches joe suddenly starts cursing and rushes out the door, Nicky right behind him. Much travel later, they get to Booker’s apartment and Joe immediately goes to the bath.

(3) He barges in and there’s Booker in the tub, in his underwear, some kind of metal tube gauged in his arm as he bleeds out over and over every night, but the worst part is how *organized* he is: all the blood is is carefully in the tub, his clothes folded neatly, the apartment is spotless, money for a cremation and a will to have him buried at the family plot on the table and letters to be mailed to Copley to get to the others. He does this Every. Night. As Penance.

(4, long prompt is long, sorry) but the worst part is how *organized* he is: all the blood is is carefully in the tub, his clothes folded neatly, the apartment is spotless, money for a cremation and a will to have him buried at the family plot on the table and letters to be mailed to Copley to get to the others. Just, all the broken and depressed Booker and Joe still being angry as hell but mourning for his friend and what he’s going thru? Do your worst, you beautiful, wondrous person, you.

---

There was a too smooth hesitation in the way Copley asks for her attention and it immediately sparks suspicion in Nile when he casually directs her to the console on the far end of the office.

Far enough from the rest of her family that they would not be able to overhear, or at least will have to work to listen in, on whatever he was about to tell her.

She waits him out. Calmly holding her ground as he casts her a calculating gaze, unfolding the tablet and powering it on. “You know that thing you asked me to do? The one about Paris?” He looks down onto the screen before turning it to her. “I think you should see this.”

Suspicion bleeds into curiosity now because the last update Copley had given her about Booker was that the man was doing his best to drink himself to death. Was he successful? Wouldn’t his liver just heal itself if it was damaged?

The video plays without any audio. Booker crosses the screen, pausing at the kitchen sink for a moment, hands braced and head bowed like a man broken. He stays like that for a good minute before he pushes off, rummaging through the topmost drawer and pulls out an unmarked envelope. Placing it on the dining table, he picks up a fresh bottle of whiskey from its crate, looking up directly into the camera, saluting with two fingers before moving into the bathroom and closing the door.

“He has been doing this for months now and it seems like it’s something he has been doing even before we started our surveillance,” Copley says. Nile checks through the folder of recordings. “Every night it’s the same thing. He places that envelope on the table and goes into the bathroom until morning comes. He comes out, gets drunk and repeats. I’ve put in inquiries to the landlord if there are any disturbances and so far nothing. We don’t have a camera in the bathroom so we don’t know what he’s doing in there every night.”

Nile taps on a random one and watches the practised way Booker braces himself as if trying to gather courage for something big that he has to do.

“I’ll talk to the rest about it.”

She waits until they’re all settled with debriefing to broach the subject. Andy reacts with a tinge of worry in her brow that Nile has learnt to pick up on. “I’m sorry. I know you guys said he can’t contact us. But I just kept thinking about it and...”

“And you thought you wanted to check in on our brother,” Nicky finishes for her. Reaching out to pat her hand, she smiles weakly when he nods sagely. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Nile. You care.”

Andy picks up the tablet, watching the recording before passing it off to Joe. “Booker’s been doing this for months?”

“Longer, if Copley’s right about it.”

“Shit!” Joe curses in a rapid stream of languages that Nile could barely keep up with. Nicky, however, can.

“Are you sure?” He stands, the chair scraping on the floor as it is pushed back, eyes gone a pale steely grey. “Yusuf-”

“I’m sure,” Joe says, meeting their eyes in turn. “I hope I’m wrong.”

“What? What are you hoping to be wrong about?” Nile asks, dread slowly creeping up her spine. Andy stands too still next to her when Joe’s eyes flicker back onto where the video footage of Booker is saluting the camera.

“I hope I’m wrong,” Joe says slowly. “But I think he’s dying every night in his bathroom.”

They catch the next flight out to Charles de Gaulle, wasting no time in between the horrible realisation and packing up their most bare essentials. Copley seems to know their intentions because he arranges for a car to be ready for them with preprogrammed directions to Booker’s flat. The drive into Paris in the summer twilight is quiet. No one daring to speak more than the necessary need to point out exits, turnings and road signs.

God, she prays they’re all wrong. Nile keeps praying even as they steal past the front door under the shadows of night. Keeps on clinging to that hope of divine intervention even when they prepare to pick the lock of Booker’s flat, only to find it open.

Andy leads them in, cutting through the space with strong strides until she pushes through into the bathroom and something stops her in her tracks.

Joe and Nicky sweep past her, causing her to stumble back a little. Nile catches her, still not processing what she is seeing. Booker’s clothes were placed in a neatly folded pile on the stool by the door. The man himself is out cold. Looking for all the world to be content to spend the night naked in an unheated bathroom. A metal tube sticks out amongst the blood in the tub and it takes a second for her to realise that the tube is protruding from Booker’s limp arm.

“Oh,” She says.

Andy moves then, going to help pull Booker out of the tub and lay him out on the floor. He stirs, eyes blinking up at the ceiling before rolling back. Nicky has pulled out the tube, letting it clatter on the tiles, placing his hand over the gaping hole. “It’s not closing.”

“Find out if he has any clean towels. Something,” Joe instructs, keeping his fingers on Booker’s pulse point. Ever since Andy’s newly regained mortality, they’ve all been brushing up on the latest first aid measures to the point that Nicky has been talking about going to medical school.

Spilling back into the kitchen, she digs through the drawers for fresh tea towels when her eyes spy the unmarked envelope sitting innocently amongst the worn wood of the tabletop. Unable to resist, Nile tears it open. Instructions first greet her written in French. She has enough time to learn now that she can understand that Booker was instructing whoever found him to take the money enclosed and use it for a simple funeral and that the letters inside must be mailed to Copley. He ends it with an apology for inconveniences caused.

Inconveniences caused. As if this were a simple grievance. As if to whoever found his self-exsanguinated corpse, the trauma could be dealt with by an apology for inconveniences caused.

“He planned this,” Nile says in sick horror when she walks back into the bathroom. In the dim yellow light from the lone bulb, the blood in the tub and all over the tiles look almost black. “He has been doing this every night for God knows how long.”

Joe meets her gaze. “I had hoped I was wrong.”

They wait until the gaping hole begins to heal. All of them breathing a sigh of relief they did not know they were holding. Only then does Andy come close to cradle his head on her lap. Between the three of them, they get Booker cleaned up as best as they could, dressed and into his own bed.

“I’ll stay here with him,” Andy says, already undoing the laces of her boots. “I don’t want him to be alone.”

“We’re all staying here with him,” Nicky chimes in before she can say anything else. “We’re not going anywhere.”

The bed was far too small for three full grown men and two women to pile onto, but they make it work with Booker safely ensconced in the middle. Andy covers his right, the lovers take either side of his hips, leaving Nile to tuck herself on a shared pillow with Booker's head. There is an unspoken need to anchor themselves on their wayward brethren. Joe and Nicky murmur to each other in soft streams of reassurance, but she catches Andy's gaze and there is a deep sadness that was heavy with regret. How they all fall asleep, she does not know, but when she opens her eyes, it's in the liminal silvery-blue of night turning into day.

"It's not a century." She hears.

"I know," Andy answers in barely a whisper. "I know."

"It was meant to be penance," Booker's tired voice fills the small space between them. "I--"

"Are a coward," Joe interrupts. Nile gives up feigning sleep. Instantly moving to be at the ready if there would be an altercation. Joe's eyes are a firebrand of heated emotions. Crawling up until he cradles Booker's cheeks between his hands. "A coward and a selfish fool."

"I know," Booker whispers, breath hitching around a sob. "I know."

Joe presses their brows together, blinking rapidly at the tears that stream down his face. "But you're my brother and I love you. This is not a world I want to be in without you. Not like this."

Booker whimpers, hand not holding on to Andy's goes to touch Joe by the nape. Nile leans in then, pressing her cheek against strong arms that move to wrap her in a hug. She feels the bed move and the shifting of the air when Andy and Nicky come to join in on their embrace. There is still so much healing to be done and Booker obviously needs more than just their forgiveness now. She doesn't know how they'll come out of this or what shape their family will take. But she has faith that whatever that will be, they'll face it together.

#the old guard #the old guard fic #sebastian le livre #booker #nile freeman #andromache the scythian #joe x nicky #yusuf al kaysani #nicolo di genova #nicolò di genova #tw: suicide #immortal husbands #gab writes stuff #fluerallinmylis

[flying-nightwing]

Dark Fox (7/7)

Thank you to everyone who took the time to read Dark Fox! It was my first longer serie ever since my writing hiatus, and the first one I actually finished ever lmao. It was quite an adventure and I really enjoyed writing this persona. This is the last chapter to close the story. I hope you like it gang!

Previous

Pairing: Jason Todd x Reader

Word Count: 6821

Warnings: usual

You hadn’t had a lazy morning in years, and you had all but forgotten how good it felt. 

A single sun ray warmed the bed, making the temperature under the thin sheet just ideal. The slow, steady rise and fall of Jason’s chest under your head was soothing, as well as the random pattern his hand was drawing on your back. Usually, you’d have already trained and eaten by that time. Today, you had no intention of leaving the bed anytime soon. The last night had been spent fucking so many times in so many different ways, you were both exhausted and happier than before. Jason was even wilder than you remembered (or he got even better?), so much you were still riding the absolute high you had reached. 

You traced his scars with your fingers; some old ones he had told you about, some you had put there yourself, and some others your had yet to know how he got them. You had a lot to catch up about.

“The last time we found ourselves like this,” You began, trailing your soft touch up and down the browned mark on his shoulder. It was as large as your sword, and a witness of the rocky beginning of your relationship. “I begged you to come back to the League with me”

He angled his head toward you. You could feel his eyes on you, half closed and relaxed as he’s even been. “But I begged you to follow me back here first” 

It had been a heartbreaking moment. The build up of the unanswered question for a whole year had lead to there. None of you had wanted to talk about the time his training would be done, you had rather wanted to keep doing your stuff and ignore the impending separation. That morning hadn’t been unlike this one, with the sun coming through the hut and with you both on the hammock, naked and intertwined under the fur cover. He had broken the silence, asking you to forget the League and stay with him. Back then, you were so sure you could only reach Luthor through it. So you asked Jason to instead join the League at your side. 

He had dressed up and left the hut, and you hadn’t heard from him from then until you crossed paths in Ukraine.

“I guess this is the fight you won” You smiled, flicking up your gaze to his. “Seeing as I’m here”

“The fight I won?” He raised his eyebrows. “Implying I didn’t win any other fight?”

“You did, but…” You teased, gently tapping your fingers up his collarbone. “Let’s face it, I still won most of them”

He gasped. “Excuse me?”

You smirked. 

Before you could see him move, he rolled on top of you and caged you underneath him between his arms. His eyes were narrowed in indignation as he channeled his mean face on. It once might have worried you, but it had lost most of its purpose now. Especially since you were both naked.

“I’ve won plenty of fights against you” He sneered. 

“Mhmm” You hummed, knowing all too well how he didn’t like to be challenged. You hadn’t poked at his pride in too long, so you couldn’t pass the occasion. “Sure you did”

“Have you forgotten what happens when the fighting range gets too small?” 

You simply blinked.

“Or when I truly got angry? Or…”

You cocked your head to the side as he halted his words. Then, understanding flashed through his expression. 

“You’re still riling me on purpose” He sighed.

“What did I like to say again?” You asked rhetorically, pausing for emphasis. “Ah, yes. When you’ll stop falling for it”

“I hate you” 

“Don’t blame me for being such an easy target” You rolled your eyes. “Now come here”

“Bossy” He finally grinned. “I love it”

He lowered himself so his lips touched yours and kissed you softly. However, the moment didn’t last long, as his cell phone vibrated on the nightstand. You could feel the shift toward annoyance in his mood, and it only grew when the phone vibrated one more time, and another one after that. With a long sigh, he rolled off of you and to the side of his bed. He frowned, then all trace of displeasure at the interruption wiped off of his face.

“What is it?” You asked, peeking over his shoulder. He shut off the screen immediately.

“You’ll see” He chuckled. “Get dressed”

“Ooookay” You nodded slowly, watching him throw his legs on the side of the bed and reach for his shirt on the floor. You put on your clothes from the day before and went for the guest bedroom you had, changing into something clean. When you got out, Jason was waiting for you leaning on the doorframe. 

“First though, breakfast”

You followed Jason, as you were still unfamiliar with the place. Sure, you had mapped the way from your room to the cave, and from the cave to every close escape around. But for the rest, you had barely the time or desire to explore. All this space was pointless to you, as you couldn’t figure out who would need all of this. However, it did provide a good way to avoid any Wayne during your stay, you’d give the manor this point.

But it didn’t allow you to avoid Bruce this time.

He caught you around a corner, and you three remained in a stare off for a few seconds. You knew it probably wouldn’t result in a fight, but your hand still hovered above the blade hidden at the back of your waistband. 

“I think you have overstayed your welcome here”

Jason gritted his teeth, but you remained calm. You had expected this.

“I will be gone by tonight” You replied on a neutral tone, then pulled Jason with you to side step him.

“One more thing” 

You halted your steps in the doorframe to the next room, turning your head to look at him. He hadn’t moved.

“I don’t want to see you in my city again”

“You must be fucking kidding me” Jason yelled, but you held up your arm to stop him from marching back to Bruce. 

“Absolutely not” He turned to face you. “Ever since she’s came, she has conveniently disclosed very precise information on the weapon’s whereabouts, except when it mattered. And hid her family ties to Luthor”

“You think she’s working with him?” He scoffed.

“I don’t know, is she?”

Jason glanced at you, about to reply something, but you just shook your head at him. It was pointless to try and convince Bruce Wayne, especially since you knew your word could never overturn your suspicious behaviour. He rolled his eyes and walked away, and you were about to follow him before you paused.

“I’m not” You spoke up, and you could feel Bruce’s eyes on your back. “If you must know, I’ve come here to kill him, and I don’t need your permission for that” 

With that, you walked away, not waiting for an answer from Bruce. You joined Jason in the kitchen, who was already working on cooking oatmeal. His jaw was still clenched, and his posture tense. 

“I can’t believe the fucking audacity” He grumbled. 

“He is entitled to his opinion of me” You shrugged and leaned on the counter next to him. “I don’t really care what he thinks about my intentions”

“Still” He sighed. “Are you still planning on finishing your mission?”

You crossed your arms against your torso and furrowed your eyebrows. You could just leave Batman and the others take care of it, and leave them to deal with Luthor. But again, you hadn’t came all this way to just give up. 

“Bruce was very clear on his stance about me remaining involved in this shitshow” You hummed, before glancing up at Jason. “But we do have a bio weapon to stop, and I’m far from done with Luthor”

His disappointment morphed into a grin at your words. “Attagirl, that’s what I like to hear”

“I most certainly don’t like to leave things unfinished” The corner of your lips lifted. “You okay with going against Batman’s orders?”

“Oh my dear” He chuckled as he poured the oatmeal in two bowls. He glanced at you with an excited glint in his eyes. “Nobody has a better record of disobeying him than I do”

“Good”

He put a spoon in each bowl and handed you one. “Now we need to have a game plan for what’s next”

“Any idea?”

“I sure have” His grin widened. “I want to show you something”

He motioned you to follow him as he ate his oatmeal mid walk. He got down to the cave and led you to a small side room, where he grabbed the tablet on the table. You slowly ate your breakfast as you watched him press buttons and mumble to himself. Then, he turned to you.

“You ready?”

You nodded, unsure of what he was talking about. He dramatically pressed one more button, making the wall in front of you turn on itself with a woosh. Your eyes widened as you took in the content of the compartment.

“So?”

You blinked at glanced at Jason. Your grin slowly stretched to match his. 

“Oh yeah” You nodded again, this time, with way more assurance. “This will definitely do”

----

Jason heard Bruce coming from miles away.

Even if he technically didn’t, his course of action was so predictable that the Bat’s dramatic landing on the rooftop behind him was no surprise at all. 

“I thought I had made myself clear”

Jason stood up from his crouched position and turned to face him, arms crossed against his chest. “You did”

“Then what are you doing here?” He sighed in annoyance. 

“Well obviously you’re blaming your wrong intel and failures on someone who has nothing to do with it, which is a classic you” He taunted. “So we’re here to finish the job. Her and I really do work well together, thanks for noticing”

“Red Hood” He warned.

“Batman” He mimicked.

Someone landing next to them grabbed their attention.

“Red Robin” Tim announced himself under Bruce’s hard glance and Jason’s amused one.

“What are you doing here?” 

“Well, I knew something was up when I didn’t see Foxy in the cage all day” He explained. “So I followed you here. By the way, where is she?”

As if on cue, a shadow dropped behind them. The movement did no go unnoticed, and as if on instinct, Tim spun around and threw a shuriken. His expression quickly changed as he realized who was in front of him.

There you were, still crouched from your landing and holding his shuriken mid air inches away from your face. You were smirking under your mask as Tim stared at you in disbelief. 

“Twice” You spoke as you stood up fully. His eyes quickly scanned you from head to toes, almost overseeing you handing him back his shuriken. “Twice you have thrown one of these at me”

“Where’s the League suit?” He asked, slowly taking back his small weapon. “And you’re stupid bow?”

You shrugged, sharing a knowing glance with Jason. “I thought it was time for a change”

Then, understanding washed across his face. “Oh, oh my. You’ve dropped the League” 

He did another once over. You had ditched the heavy coat for a lightweight suit made of silk and leather, with armored plastic on the stomach, the upper arms and the back. The arm bracers had smaller spikes than the previous ones, and you no longer wore a heavy mask. Instead, you had only kept your half mask and wore a hooded robe crossing on your torso. Your grappling hook was now in your utility belt, and your arrows were replaced with sharper, more volatile darts kept in a sheath on your thigh. You now had 25 regular darts, five explosive and your two classic sedatives. Only your sword remained on your back, so it would “unclog your aesthetic”, as Jason had put it. 

You did like it better like that, the bow wasn’t your style anyway.

The new gear was still all black, for the exception of a silver kitsune draw into the back of the armor that would show if you took off the robe. It was comfortable and flexible, and resistant to bullets and stabbing. Jason had hit the target right on with the design. 

“Do you keep your wrist shooter?” He asked, squinting his eyes.

You raised your arm and shot over his shoulder to prove your point. He caught the small arrow mid air, nodding impressively. 

“Still the best part of the suit” He muttered to himself. 

“I thought you said you’d be gone” Bruce cut in. Your eyes went to him. 

“I still have a couple of hours” You replied without missing a beat.

“Talking about” Jason said. “Your time window just opened”

“You can either help us or stay out of the way” You told Bruce as you adjusted you comm. “But this is happening regardless”

He didn’t speak right away, taking a moment to ponder your words. Then, he voiced his thoughts. “Are you going to kill him?”

You held eye contact for a few seconds more before taking off. You ran along the ledge and jumped on the next building, then letting yourself slide down the fire escape. You chose not no reply to him, as you didn’t need to give him another reason to come after you. Granted, not replying was practically the equivalent of giving a positive answer, but at least it could give you the benefit of the doubt for what it was worth.

Using the shadows of the city, you quickly made your way through the blocks by the back alleys until you reached the imposing tower in the middle of the Diamond district, the same building you and Tim had sacked for show barely a week before. Whatever damage you had done, it didn’t show anymore. It was like nothing had happened. 

This time, you came in by the front door. The second you walked through the glass doors, all activity stopped. You took a few step forward, and four guards met you halfway in the lobby. Without a word, they escorted you past the front desk and through the metal detector going off like crazy. Anytime you could have easily gotten rid of them, but you held back for now. You waited a short time for the elevator, then got in and up to Luthor’s floor. He was waiting for you by the window, and turned around with a smirk once you got in his office. You pulled back your hood and unclasped your mask.

“I see you’ve got a new look” He pointed out. “Changed your mind about the league?”

“Something like that” 

“Well, I’m most certainly pleased to see you’ve decide to do the right thing” He took a step forward. “This is where you belong”

Slowly, you reached for your sword and took it out. A shadow passed across his face, and nodded to something behind you. Or rather, someone. You dropped to a crouch to avoid the tazer being stuck in your back--once was enough--and thrusted your sword in the legs of the guys around you. You rolled forward and shot the four guards coming your way, before jumping on the desk and holding them in your aim. Luthor now had four new guards around, letting you know more would come if he needed. You reloaded your crossbow.

“I’m disappointed” He revealed with a sigh. “Those were good men”

“Let it be a reminder I can and will take them all out if they're in my way” You twirled your sword. “Step forward and none of them die with you tonight”

“How noble” He chuckled, not concerned at all. His hand rested in his pocket and his stance was relaxed. “Did your boyfriend with the red helmet tell you to do that?”

You shot an arrow to his knee, but he easily side stepped it like he had predicted that move. He raised an eyebrow.

“I see” He hummed. “But I had expected you would deny your destiny. So I decided to help you make a choice”

Four more men came in the room and ran at you. You vaulted over them and landed behind them, taking them by surprise. Before the could fully turn around, they were on the ground. You wiped your sword in the crook of your elbow and faced Luthor again. He was watching, unwavering, almost out of the door. He was stalling, that was clear, but you didn’t know for what yet. He smirked again, and you knew he’d finally reveal his thoughts.

“Now I know you won’t back down like last time” He taunted, and your jaw clenched. “So I guess you can come at me now, tear through my guards and get to me…”

You narrowed your eyes, knowing there was something more coming. He wouldn’t make it that easy for you to get to him.

“But like I said, I had expected trouble from you, like your mother before you” He sighed sarcastically. “So I prepared a backup plan. I decided to launch my weapon sooner and instead use it elsewhere, since you forced my hand. In twenty minutes, it will discharge quite literally the plague in the city aqueduct”

You tensed, your hand going to your ear to your comm and turning it on.

“Ah, I don’t think telling your friends will work” He tsked. “The only way to stop it is through my genetic code”

“Therefore mine” You concluded.

“Smart” He mocked. “Yes. So you can either kill me here and get it over with, or you can run around and save a bunch of people, and miss your shot. Again. But you don’t have the time to do both, I’m afraid”

You calculated his ultimatum, and he was right. If he kept the men coming, it would be enough to stall you too long for you to go from the diamond district to the aqueduct. He had planned this move carefully, knowing he’d get a win in either case.  

“Don’t worry, the cure is ready to go, there won’t be much casualties” He brushed off. “You came here to kill me, didn’t you?”

You flexed your fingers on the hilt of your sword.

“Do it” He challenged. “That’s what you are. You were made to finish what you started, to stop at nothing to get what you want. This is how I made you, even if I disapprove what you’ve done with my gifts. So go ahead, kill me and prove me right”

He was almost in your face now, staring right at you. You straightened your back and levelled up with him, feeling something strange, yet not unwelcomed, swelling in your chest. You thought about Jason and what he said, about those civilians you saved from a certain death, and about the man in front of you. Seeing him from so close, you realized every ounce of anger you held toward Luthor was… Gone. You thought with him so close you would be tempted to fight him, but all you could feel was indifference. He didn’t matter to you anymore, he never should have. He represented your insecurities, and tried to drag you down with him to excuse his own failure in making you a copy of himself. You became aware he was a pointless chase, and you had better things to do than indulge in it. 

“I’m the Dark Fox” You jutted your chin up, squaring up your shoulders. “Don’t fucking tell me what to do”

You turned around and jumped over the desk, grabbing an explosive arrow and throwing it in the window. You jumped through as it exploded, plunging down the building. You pulled out your grappling line and hooked it on your shooter, then aimed for the roof. It slowed your fall midway, and you used your glove to slow yourself down. 

As your feet touched the ground, you saw Jason’s motorcycle pull in in front of the building. You put back your sword in its sheath and your mask on your face, then your hood up. 

“Aqueduct, we’ve got fifteen minutes” You spoke as you climbed on the bike.

“Yep, I heard everything” He had a grin in his voice. Yet, he didn’t go yet.

“What?”

“I am so fucking proud of you”

You felt your neck heat up as you looked down, even if he couldn’t see you, in fact, you were glad he couldn’t. You never knew his praise would make you react that way, or that you would be so important for you to hear it.

“And for the record” He added. “It was very hot, too”

“Fucking hell, Jay, go!”

“Fine” He sighed and sped away from there.

“Okay so what is your thing with jumping out of windows?” Tim said through your comm. You had no idea he had stayed.

“It makes me feel less dead” You replied, and Jason audibly laughed. 

“You madwoman”

“Since you’re here, I have a task for you” You said. “Could you pull out the files on the weapon and figure out how the failsafe works?”

“I’m already on it”

Then, a bullet barely grazed your shoulder. The sound followed closely after, but it was like in slow motion. You raised your arm to protect Jason's shoulder, letting the bullet hit your arm brace instead. Reacting quickly, you turned around facing backwards and shot an arrow through the gun aimed at you. You then noticed five motorcycles following you, probably tasked with taking you down.

“What’s going on? How many?”

“Keep driving” You ordered. “I’ll take care of this”

You shot another arrow, but it bounced on the body of the motorcycles, and from your position you couldn’t aim elsewhere. You emptied your arrows to get one good shot, and it was enough to take one down. But looking at your recharges, you only had ten darts left, and potentially more people to take down around the bomb. You looked down, then up again to the guns aimed at you.

“Fuck it”

You reached for one of Jason’s gun on his thigh and clicked the safety off. Then, you shot.

“Holy shit” Jason yelled, and you could only imagine his expression. “HOLY SHIT”

“Did… Did Foxy just use a gun?”

“I wish I could have seen that” He whined. “I am so turned on right now”

“Too much information Jaybird”

You clicked the safety back on and turned around again, then slipped the gun back in his holster. 

“I thought you thought guns were disgraceful” 

“I kind of still do” You smirked under your mask. “So don’t get used to it”

“You’ll at least do it once when I look, right?”

“Hmm, maybe” You hummed.

“Aww, aren’t you two the cutest”

“Shut up Tim” Jason warned.

“Alright then, I won’t tell you what I found on turning off the weapon”

“Speak, Tim” You contradicted Jason’s order.

“First you have to apologize for throwing me out of a window”

You thought for a moment before answering. “No”

“Then no intel”

You sighed. 

“Let’s compromise then” You suggested. “I will not apologize because I am not sorry, but for the intel and not telling on me after you found out who I was, I will consider not pushing you out of a window again”

There was silence radio, then he spoke again. “Good enough for me. There should be a code pad, I decrypted it and the code is 0000. Yes I know, but then you’ll see a slit, and you gotta put your left hand in it. It’ll read pulse, heat, fingerprints, and more. Since you should share all of this with Luthor, it’ll stop. Or it’ll explode, that was unclear”

“Well that’s reassuring” Jason grumbled. 

“Alright, we’re almost there” You rolled your eyes. “Thanks”

“See ya later”

You turned off your comm and reloaded your shooter minutes before Jason pulled in the aqueduct yard. He parked his bike and you both easily climbed the barbed wire fence, and even though the place looked deserted, you remained careful. Luthor wouldn’t have left his device without surveillance. You grabbed your sword and fell in step behind Jason, who had his guns up. Then, he halted his steps and held a hand for you to do the same. You had this feeling you were being watched, and you could only imagine he had it too. 

“Get ready” Just as he said that, bullets began raining over you. “Go find the weapon, I’ll cover you!”

You held an arm up to protect your face and disappeared into the darkness. You kept running along the walls of the building, allowing you to get in undetected. You reached the main water room, where you could see from the upper platform about eight guards surrounding the very device you had been hunting. The countdown indicated 2:37, so you had no time to lose.

You jumped over the ramp and landed quietly on your feet behind the men. You approached the first one and swung your sword around to let it rest on his neck. You used him as a shield as the other guards noticed you, blocking their bullets. You raised your arm and shot your five darts at them. You pushed the dead man off of you and faced the two remaining guards, taking a fighting stance and swirling your sword at them. Before they could start shooting again, you lunged and knocked their guns out of their hands. They kept fighting around you, trying to get to you with punches and kicks. But they were sloppy and predictable, and even after one fetched a small blade from his belt, they were no match for you. You glanced at the countdown, and it almost reached the one minute mark. Your eyes then trailed on the two guards around you, still trying to get the upper hand. They both extended their arms at the same time for a hit, so you dropped to a crouch.

Like you did during training with Bruce and Damian, you sweeped your sword in a quick motion. Unlike them, however, your current opponent weren’t quick nor skilled. The blade of your katana sliced their knees, making them collapse on the ground. You quickly reloaded your last round of arrows and sheathed your sword, then made your way to the device. You easily found the locked pad and entered the code, then pulled off your glove and stuck your hand in the slit. You pressed the button and watched as the biometrical scan began. 

You heard noise behind you as backup reached the room, and without taking your hand out, you turned your body and aimed. The first five men fell, but there were still five coming your way, so you reached for your shurikens in your belt. But you didn’t get to take them out as other, all too familiar shaped shurikens reached the goons first. You sent a deadpan look at where you noticed none other than Red Robin standing there smugly.

“Oof, I hope you didn’t have dibs on them”

“I had it handled” You replied. 

“I’m sure you did” He smirked as he walked past you and took a look at the countdown, then at the weapon. His expression turned grim. “Twenty seconds”

The scanner was still working. 

“If it doesn’t work, you’ll have to slice the pipe off” You said, analysing the situation. Cutting the water and flooding the building would bring less casualties than letting the virus flow in the water system.

“What!?”

The system unlocked. You quickly entered the command to stop, and the countdown halted. You pulled your hand back and put on your glove again, then grabbed an explosive arrow. You planted the dart in the slit and backed up, pushing Tim with you. Soon enough, it went off and the weapon went up in smoke. 

“Phew, that was close” He blinked. “Well played”

“Motherfucking Dark Fox!” Jason dropped from the platform at his turn. His helmet was off and he had a wide grin on his face. “That’s what I call making a difference! The League could never”

“That was really cool” He nodded in approval. “By the way, what happened to, you know..?”

“Did you do it?” Jason’s eyes were now on you, his grin not so intense now.

“He’s gone” You said, but it didn’t help ease the questions in their eyes. “As in, I don’t know where he is. I let him flee to come here instead”

Jason’s eyes widened. “And you’re fine with this?”

You shrugged. “It doesn’t matter to me anymore. His time will come, like everyone else. I just won’t be involved when it does”

“That was unexpected” He whistled. “But hey, what goes for you goes for me. Love the new mentality”

“Killing him was what the League would have wanted” 

“That’s nice. Good choice” Tim nodded. “So you’ll stay here then?”

“Well, not here, since bats and foxes apparently don’t get along” You snorted as you unclasped your mask and pulled back your hood. “But I’ll be around”

“About that, how does Blüdhaven sounds?” Jason chimed in again, sliding a hand around your shoulder. You raised your eyebrows at him “I’ve got a pretty nice place there, and it’s technically not Gotham”

“That won’t be necessary” A deep voice came from behind you. You glanced over your shoulder where the massive shadow of Batman stood. “I’ve seen you work tonight. You acted good, I can allow you to stay in Gotham as the Dark Fox”

Jason coughed in surprise as you blinked, then turned around. 

“Thank you” You began, nodding respectfully. Jason’s wide glance was now directed to you. “But no thanks. Besides, I still don’t need your blessing to stay, or to be me”

Bruce stared at you blankly, not moving or commenting. Your guess was that he wasn’t expecting this answer, or at least not delivered this way.

“Oh, B” Jason mocked as he put back his helmet. “Nice try. Anyway, we should get out of here before the cops show up”

You put back up your mask and hood and followed Jason out, waving at Tim on your way out. You left the aqueduct and waited until you were further into the city before ditching the bike and finding a rooftop to station yourself on, just in case you were being followed. The masks and helmets came off once again, and you took a moment to breathe the air from up there. It was a clear night, with a good wind chasing the clouds away. Jason observed the city lights with you, crouched on the ledge. Then, you heard quiet shuffling behind you. You spun around, then held Jason back when he was about to lunge. You kept your eyes on the outline of the figure in the shadows, knowing all too well who it belonged to. You took a few steps forward.

“You look different” Talia smiled. “A good different. I’m glad you finally found yourself” 

“Thank you” You lowered your head. “For allowing me”

“I only want the best for you” She stepped closer to you, her smile never wavering. “Has he taken good care of you?”

You both glanced at Jason for a moment, and you chuckled. “He has. He was gentler than I’ve been to him”

“I figured he would” She winked. “You two were meant to be”

Your smile dropped as you looked down. Surely, she would know what it meant. Her sympathetic eyes fell on you and her hand rested on your shoulder. You had chosen to part with the League, therefore, with her. It would be the hardest part for you. 

“You don’t have to explain” She reassured. “I knew this would come to this, and I am here to free you”

Your eyes shot up.

“I talked with my father” She explained. “Seeing your unwavering service for all these years, he has agreed to relieve you from your duties to the League. All he asks in exchange is for you to remain out of the League’s affairs, and he gave his word he will not come against you or your family”

“Really?” Your voice was barely above a whisper. 

Her smile was encouraging as she nodded at you. Slowly, you took off the black robe, exposing the silver fox on your back. Then you took out your sword from the sheath in your hands, kneeled and offered it to her. She took it and held it upright in front of you, just like the day you had been initiated in the League.

“In the name of Ra’s al Ghul, I release Thaelib fi alzalam from her servitude to the League of Assassins” She spoke. “Your debt has been paid and your bounds are no more. Rise”

You got back on your feet, your breathing hitching in your throat. You reached for your sword in her extended arm, looked down at it and putting it away again.

“Thank you” 

“You’re very welcome” Her hand went to your cheek. “If you need anything, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I will be there for you”

“And I for you” You gave her a genuine smile. She offered her arm, and you took it at the elbow like she did. Your foreheads touched for a few seconds before you pulled away with a step back. 

“It was nice to see you again, Jason” 

“You too, Talia” He nodded with a small curve on the corner of his lips. 

“Take care, children” She said before disappearing in the darkness again. 

Jason approached you and took your hand, gently pulling your around to face him. He had this glint in his eyes, it was full of relief and happiness like you had never seen on him. To be honest, you were feeling the same way. It was like a burden had been lifted off of your shoulders, and you had never felt lighter. Sure, it brought you uncertainty to navigate without the League’s guiding hand, one you had relied on for most of your life, but it felt right. You knew Jason would help you like you had helped him, and things would start to look up from now. 

“So, what now?”

“I don’t know” You chuckled. “It’s the first time I don’t need to follow any agenda. I’m kind of lost” 

“Ah, this calls for the return of Teacher Todd” He grinned. “Lesson number two, you get to learn what fun and freedom taste like”

----

The grass was high as your mid thigh and small bugs swarmed up with every step forward you took. You didn’t mind though, you prefered it ten folds to the smog of Gotham.

For Jason, however, it was a different story.

He was sweating and grunting, and even if he was behind you, you knew he was getting annoyed by the flies and mosquitoes around. He was swatting his hand wildly and you could tell he was slightly regretting sharing his suggestion to you. The sun was high, and even for the end of the summer it was surprisingly hot. 

“Ugghhh” 

You rolled your eyes, but didn’t stop.

“Are we there soon?” He asked. “Jeez I had forgotten how far was that thing”

“Come on, stop lying to yourself” You teased as you spotted a familiar path up a small hill. “You like this”

He scoffed. “It reminds me of my ass being kicked”

“As I said” You smirked over your shoulder, and he raised his eyebrows at you. 

You climbed up the small hill and came face to face with a small, half decaying structure with the roof caved in by the elements. Moss and grass was growing on the outside of the round walls, but the feeling of home you had subconsciously associated with it was very much intact. Jason stopped behind you, his annoyance completely gone and replaced by fondness over the sight in front of him. There were so many memories tied to the small hut, some bad but mostly good, and it was like you could feel them all at once. You dropped your bag on the ground and took a deep breath.

“So, was the trek up here worth it?”

“Fuck yes” He sighed in amazement, his eyes never leaving the hut. “I missed this place so much”

“Even if we had to work hard for survival?” 

“Being here alone with you far outweighed any inconvenience this place brings” He stepped closer to you, his arm wrapping around your waist. Who would have ever thought? His nose nuzzled on your neck and your relaxed in his arms. “We’ll still have to do a bit of renovation around though”

“I hope you’ll help me this time” You looked up at him innocently. Last time you had built the hut alone before Talia had brought Jason, and even if he had been there, you would have absolutely not trusted him to help you with anything

“But you’re so hot when you work” He pouted. “I wanna watch and enjoy the view”

“And how would you make up all that work to me?” You asked, then you felt him smile on your skin. A smile full of mischief and promises. 

“Oh, I have plenty of ideas” 

“Oh me too” You grinned, stepping out of his arms, then you winked at him and disappeared in the hut. Only one hammock was still up, the other had fallen on the ground due to broken ropes. Stones of the small fireplaces were kicked in and weeds were growing around. The kitchen supplies were scattered around the makeshift shelf, but otherwise the place seemed to have been left untouched by human activity. Jason followed suit and took in the damages. 

“Do you think we can still both get onto this hammock without the ropes breaking?” He asked, side glancing at you. You rubbed your chin in wonder, then hummed.

“There is only one way to know for sure” You tilted your head to the side. You nodded at each other and he walked around you, with you in tow. He carefully lowered himself first, then opened his arms for you. You joined him, and waited for a few second to test the resistance of the ropes. You heard them creaking and straining, but you were still hanging. You relaxed, and barely a second after, the ropes snapped.

In a blink, you were on the ground, and both of your weights made the wood give in. You ended up in the dirt, directly on the forest floor. yOu remained in silence for a moment blinking at each other.

“Well” You sighed. “The hammock could not support us both”

“Alright, there is a lot to do” He conceded. “How about you fix this baby, and I’ll gather the wood for the fire, hunt dinner and get the herbs for tea?”

“That’s more like it” You said as you stood up and dusted off your pants. You offered a hand to Jason and you pulled him up with you. “Do you remember where are the bows and arrows?”

“In the bark of the oak facing the boulder, yeah” 

“Good” You chuckled. “I wasn’t sure you’d get it right”

“Come on” He groaned playfully. “I was quite a good student”

“Oh not at all” You laughed, taking a step in his personal space and looking up at him. “The worst, actually. You’re lucky you learned fast, or we’d still be there”

“Then I should have dragged my training on purpose” His lips hovered above yours. “You’d still be my incredibly unforgiving yet very hot teacher, and I your wild, stubborn and irresistible student”

“Hmm, does another sword in your shoulder sound good?”

“Only if I get to face you hand to hand”

“You’ve got yourself a deal” You whispered, before backing away abruptly. He blinked in confusion. “But it’ll have to wait. It’s almost sundown and we need to be installed by then. So get your sweet ass out there and stop distracting me here”

He sighed. “Why do I like it so much when you order me around?”

“I have no idea” You tapped his chest. “But the quicker we prepare everything, the sooner we can go to the lake for a swim under the stars”

He perked up at that, and with wide, excited eyes, he shot out of the hut faster than you could register. You chuckled and leaned on the threshold, lazily crossing your arms against your chest and taking a deep breath. You stared outside for a moment, enjoying the breeze and the sound of nature surrounding you. It was peaceful and beautiful, taking it in fully. 

Then, you got to work. 

#jason todd x reader #Jason Todd #jason todd imagine #red hood #red hood x reader #red hood imagine #jason todd reader #red hood reader #dc #dcu #DC Universe #dc imagine #dcu imagine #dc universe imagine #outlaws #outlaws imagine #League of Assassins #League of Shadows #batman #imagine #dark fox #dark fox 7

[tisfan]

Lucky Buck’s Magical Coffee

Chapter Two - Working for a Living

Fantasy Bingo: Square Magical Exhaustion

link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24743212/chapters/60835351

Jarvis flapped Tony’s coat at him as he was ready to leave. “I have insider information that the weather ifrit’s had a fight with his spouse. It may rain later today.” It didn’t look like rain according to the screens that Tony had open that showed the outside world. It looked sunny and peaceful and lovely. But Jarvis was seldom wrong about these things.

The spirit of technology was still relatively young, compared with his brothers and sisters -- spirits of air, earth, fire, water, and void -- having only started coming into being about the mid seventeenth century, or so.

Jarvis himself had been formed in 1835, fathered, one might say, by the invention of the Analytical Engine, in the workshop of Charles Babbage. For a spirit, he was practically a baby. To Tony, he was impossibly old and wise. But then, Tony was a technomage, and spirits of the “natural world” didn’t tend to speak with him.

“Right, so I’ll want an umbrella,” Tony said, digging through the closet for one, “and to bump personal force fields up on my to-do list. And not to suggest a walk in the park for my date. Or maybe I should; Bucky’s a Natural Witch, maybe he’d enjoy getting caught in the rain.”

Tony was on his way to Buck’s Lucky Coffee as soon as he found a functional umbrella, to meet up for their third date, as soon as Bucky turned the afternoon shift over to Clint. He was somewhat unreasonably giddy about it; three was an important number in both the physical and magical worlds, and so three dates seemed... significant, somehow.

He wondered if, after three dates, he could call Bucky his boyfriend, instead of “this guy I’ve gone out with a couple of times.” And why in Turing’s name did he have a pink umbrella with flouncy little ruffles all around its edges? They looked like they’d hold onto water and dump it on you at exactly the wrong moment.

The line wasn’t quite out the door, but only until Tony got there. The next person would, in fact, be out the door. Although that might have been because Bucky had an actual troll as a customer, and he both took up a lot of space and people didn’t want to stand near him. Tony was pretty sure all the nonsense about trolls was just racist bullshit. They did a really good job building bridges, so what, exactly, was everyone’s problem? There hadn't been an incident involving trolls and children in at least a century. (well, sensationalist magazines and abusive parents dragged that story out all the time.)

And even as Tony was putting that together, three more people got into line behind him. The date was not going to start on time, because there was no way Bucky was walking away and dumping a rush like this on Clint to handle alone.

Which was fine, it actually, absolutely was, because Tony was a little overloaded with work, himself, so he could get his coffee and go stake out a table in the corner and knock out a little work on his tablet while he waited. They both worked in customer service; it was a thing you planned around.

Tony squinted up at the ceiling and huffed over the patchiness of the shop’s wards. Bucky was going to have another imp in his espresso machine if the building super didn’t get some fresh protections up soon.

The line inched forward. The troll spoke actual trollish, which Tony didn’t understand. Neither, apparently, did Bucky, but Bucky gestured to Clint, who made a few gestures. SSL -- Supernatural Sign Language, which was left over from when trolls and witches and dwarves all worked together on some of the city projects, and had to learn to effectively communicate. These days, almost everyone spoke English, which seemed very human-centric, come to think of it. Maybe Tony could get some mileage out of a translation app.

“Get me a bucket,” Clint said. “He wants a venti-venti-venti.” Clint signed again, and the troll dropped a gold coin on the counter about the size of a jar lid.

 A triple-venti was going to take a while to pull. Tony fished out his phone and started making notes. Translation app, personal force fields, the somewhat sticky problem of a cursed laptop that a college student had brought him that held the student’s only copy of their master’s thesis -- bad idea, that, always have multiple backups -- and thus couldn’t be de-cursed the quick and easy way, which had a tendency to leave a few memory sectors fragged.

The line kept growing behind Tony. But he’d finally gotten up to the second in line when the door pushed open and a tall, willowy woman came in with strawberry blond hair that was soaking wet and stuck to her face. “I don’t understand it,” she said. “It was sunny. The weather report said sunny all day--” She gasped a few times for breath -- if Tony had been running in those shoes, he’d have broken an ankle -- and gazed at the line in horror.

“Ifrit domestic trouble,” Tony volunteered. “Or so I heard.”

“You think I can send him my dry-cleaning bill?” She wrung out her hair and then took off her jacket, flapping water toward the door. Her shell top was sticking to her. “I’m soaking wet, I’m going to be late, I’ve been working the worst hours.”

“Hi Miss Potts,” Bucky yelled from the counter.

“Mr. Barnes,” she said. “Tell me you can save me.”

“I can save you.”

The troll collected his drink -- the repurposed ice-cream bucket still looked like an espresso cup in his huge hand -- and headed out into the weather. The door yawned and stretched around him to make room. That was a neat trick. Tony hadn’t seen it before; tech wizards said it was too hard, and so trolls and giants and some of the taller elven tribes complained about lack of access.

“Huh. I wonder when he had that installed,” Tony mused, eyeing the door, and then his attention snapped back to -- Miss Potts, apparently. “Does he save you on a regular basis? What’s your standard?”

“I’m probably only alive because of Mr. Barnes’ shop,” Miss Potts said. “Have you been here before? I love this place. I would live here, if they’d let me. Working for A Living. I think I might either die falling down the stairs in exhaustion, or actually push my boss down an elevator shaft without it.”

Tony let the two or three people between them skip ahead of him in the line -- he wasn’t going anywhere until the rush died down, anyway -- to make it easier to chat. “I only discovered it a couple of weeks ago,” Tony admitted. “Came in to exorcise the espresso machine -- it’s fine now, don’t worry -- and well, like you -- didn’t want to leave again.” He grinned. “Sounds like your boss needs to pause and have a cup, too. What do you do?”

“Personal Assistant,” Miss Potts said. “Pretty much whatever my boss says to do, all the way from taking notes at meetings to fetching his dry cleaning. Which wouldn’t be so bad, except they’re in the middle of a hostile takeover, and between angry dwarves and multiple on-site labor disputes, I’ve been putting in sixteen hours a day, six days a week, for almost a month.” She did look on the brink of falling over with exhaustion, her hands shaking.

“Yike,” Tony sympathized. “Is this his first hostile? I mean, someone with experience would have known to hire a temp for the duration or something.”

Up at the counter, Bucky was making two Money for Nothings, keeping up an easy patter with the customers about lottery tickets and checking their pockets. 

“He seems to think that I’m the only one who can keep this company going,” she muttered. She pulled a magical compact out of her purse and opened it. The compact spouted a few uplifting and cheerful advertising-disguised-as-pep-talk phrases, and then-- “damn.” The purple smoke drifted out of the back and pooled around their feet. “It got wet. I am going to complain to the weather guild about this.”

“Nah,” Tony said. “I mean, go ahead and do that, sure, but here, let me see--” He plucked the compact out of her hand and peered into it. It wasn’t very sophisticated tech, but it only took a little for Tony to be able to manipulate it. A locking clasp, a tiny speaker and some wires connected to a button battery for amplification, and boom, tech.

Tony balanced the little thing on the palm of his hand and let energy flow into his witchmarks, making them glow a bright blue. There were some who said it looked spooky, but Tony had always found the light comforting. He coaxed little wisps of magic up into the compact and swept out the water, reversing some corrosion and a little bit of normal wear-and-tear, and reinstalling the sprite software that had drifted loose.

He popped the lid open again.

“Oh, honey, that shirt with that jacket, really? We’ve got some work to do.”

Tony rolled his eyes at it and handed it back to Miss Potts. “Here you go, good as new.” Well, it might be a little bit sassier than it had been before. Semi-autonomous sprite technology seemed to do that whenever Tony put his hands on it. 

“How did you-- thank you,” Miss Potts said. “My name’s Pepper Potts, it’s nice to meet you.” She held out a hand for a professional shake, but when her fingertips touched Tony’s, he felt the brief surge of Empathic Magic. No wonder her boss wanted her on site all the time. Empaths could affect the moods and compliance of people around them with a simple touch.

“Tony Stark,” he said. He considered her briefly. “Want to quit your horrible job and come work for me?”

“Are you joking?”

The woman in front of Tony in line took so long deciding what pastry she wanted with her coffee, Tony was almost certain that her coffee was going to be cold by the time she actually took a sip. 

“Here,” Bucky said. “I got yours already, doll. And Miss Potts, I’ll have your life affirming moment ready in just two minutes.”

Bucky put a mug, rather than a to-go cup on the counter in front of Tony. The heart in the steamed milk on top was glittering red and gold at him.

Tony shot Bucky a warm smile and a thanks, and stepped aside with his mug so Pepper wouldn’t have to reach past him when Bucky finished hers. He turned the mug until the point of the heart was pointing straight at his chest -- sympathetic magics always worked better if you gave them a bit of a push -- and then tipped the froth into his mouth. Like it had the previous times he’d had Bucky’s Lucky in Love brew, everything felt extra-warm for a moment, and a little bit sparkly, and behind the counter, Bucky seemed glow, just the tiniest bit.

“I wasn’t joking,” he told Pepper, when he’d finished savoring that first sip. “My dad died a couple of years ago and failed to leave the business to me free and clear, and last year, almost on the anniversary of his death, his old business partner split the company and walked off with about two-thirds of the staff for his branch. I’ve been scrambling to keep up and looking for good people.”

Obie had done a little more than simply splitting the company, but the sob story wasn’t something Tony liked to wave around. Maybe, if she took him up on it, he’d tell her about it sometime.

Bucky, perhaps feeling something going on -- he seemed to have that sense -- put Pepper’s drink in a tall glass, complete with a bamboo recycled straw instead of in the to-go cup. “On the house,” he added, pushing an actual brownie-crafted brownie on a plate at her. “With a little extra daydreams.”

“I would live here,” Pepper repeated, taking a sip of the drink. “So, job. Details. Would you like to do an interview, I could do an interview. Right here. I even have my resume up to date.”

Tony glanced at the line behind the ordering counter, then shrugged. He wasn’t going anywhere soon. “Sure,” he said. “Let’s do that.” He pointed at a table.

It took barely a minute of scanning Pepper’s resume to know that she was vastly overqualified, and probably not getting paid anything like she was worth. She’d successfully negotiated a dozen contracts, as a personal assistant.

A little nudging and she didn’t quite admit to being sexually harassed by her boss, but Tony could sense that maybe that had happened, too.

When Bucky finally came out from behind the counter, leaving Clint to finish out his shift, Pepper was smiling, cheerful, and enthusiastic, and it probably wasn’t all entirely due to Bucky’s coffee.

“Hey, snowflake!” Tony greeted him cheerfully. “I’m going to steal Pepper from her obnoxious boss. I’d offer to pay her what she’s worth, but frankly, I’m not sure I can afford that, so I’ll have to settle for merely doubling her current salary.”

Bucky tapped the plate in front of her, where she’d eaten the entire brownie except for a few crumbs. “Opportunity Knocks brownie. Glad you enjoyed it.” He gave Pepper a wink. “But now, I am going to steal my boyfriend from you, since we have a date as soon as I’m off shift.”

Tony pulled just a little magic out of his phone and flipped it at Pepper’s. “That’s my number,” he told her. “I’ll call tomorrow, and we’re going to do this. Start writing your resignation letter. Hire some clowns to see you out. Or strippers. Stripper clowns?”

Bucky rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I know a clown dominatrix,” he volunteered. “She could always use extra work.”

“Perfect,” Tony declared. “Talk to you tomorrow, Pep!” He tucked his arm through Bucky’s and turned them toward the door.

Guess he could start calling Bucky his boyfriend, now. That was easier than he’d thought.

On the way through the door, Bucky offered his hand to the doorframe, cupping what looked like a thimbleful of honey and a tiny piece of bread. “Wood fairies,” he said. “She deserved a bonus after that trick with our Troll earlier.” He glanced up at the sky, which was still pouring rain, and the occasional spates of hail, in anger. “I don’t know if you had anything in mind, specifically, but there’s a traveling mystical petting zoo in the park. They probably have wind sprites to keep the weather off. I always wanted to see a unicorn up close.”

“I’m more of a wyvern man, myself,” Tony said, feeling the happy buzz of Bucky’s potion fizzing through him at Bucky’s closeness. “Yeah, let’s go to the zoo.” He held up the pink umbrella. “I can even keep us dry on the way, if you don’t mind walking close.”

#Fantasy Bingo #Winteriron #magical coffee shop AU

[crescentmoon223]

I know you’re busy with other stories so I can wait patiently, but may I request a Stella x Scully ficlet from you? Maybe where Stella sprains her ankle at work or something and Scully takes care of her at home, smut ensues...

I hope you don’t mind that I flipped this, since I’ve written back to back fics where I had Scully caring for others, and also because I put Stella through the wringer in Never Tear Us Apart. So I wanted to see Scully being taken care of this time ❤️

-----

Playing Doctor

Read it on AO3

Stella dropped her gym bag beside the bed with a sigh, muscles delightfully spent after an hour at the pool. She stripped out of her clothes and tossed them in the hamper, then walked into the bathroom to start the shower. After checking that the water was hot, she stepped inside, letting the steaming spray pound against her skin. Scully had used a shower bomb last night, the kind that melted during her shower for aromatherapy, and consequently the shower still smelled vaguely like gardenias.

Stella had teased her about the shower bomb, but as she closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath, she couldn’t deny that it was a pleasing scent. Combined with the tranquility that always filled her after a long swim, she was feeling pretty damn peaceful. She washed the chlorine from her body and rinsed her hair before shutting off the water.

She dried off and put on her copper-colored robe to dry her hair, mentally running through the rest of her day, errands to be run and a dinner date with her wife, their Sunday routine. She had just walked into the bedroom to get dressed when her cell phone rang. Scully’s name flashed on the screen, and Stella frowned. That was odd. Scully was on her daily run with Dobby.

“Dana,” she said as she connected the call. “Is everything all right?”

On the other end of the line, Scully sighed. “Don’t laugh.”

Stella’s frown deepened. “When have I ever? Has something happened?”

“Well…” Scully hesitated just long enough for Stella to really start to worry, a tightness forming in the pit of her stomach. “I sort of tripped over Dobby and sprained my ankle. You know how he likes to dart between my feet when he’s chasing a squirrel?”

“I do.” Stella pressed a hand against her chest, relieved it was nothing serious. A smile tugged at her lips at the mental image of Scully tripping over their dog. “How badly are you hurt?”

“I’m fine,” Scully said quickly. “But I wouldn’t mind a ride home in the car if you’re back from the pool.”

“I am.” And Scully was obviously not fine if she’d asked to be picked up. They were equally stubborn in this way, and Scully would have limped home if she could. “Where are you?”

“In the park, near the exit on Clarendon,” Scully told her.

“I’ll be right there.” Stella ended the call and dressed quickly before jogging down the stairs to grab her purse. She left through the back door and got in the car.

Several minutes later, she pulled to the curb by the entrance to the park that Scully had indicated. She left the car and started down the main path, spotting Scully almost immediately. She stood with one hand braced against a lamppost, the other gripping Dobby’s leash. Her left foot was lifted so that only the toe of her trainer touched the pavement, bearing no weight.

Stella winced as she noticed Scully’s red-scraped knees. She’d obviously gone down hard. Dobby bounced excitedly against the end of his leash as he caught sight of Stella, and Scully wobbled on her good foot.

“Sit,” Stella told him firmly, not wanting the dog to cause Scully to fall a second time. His furry butt hit the pavement, tail still going at lightning speed. Stella reached them and took his leash, giving Scully a sympathetic look. “Looks like it hurts.”

Scully grimaced. “Yeah.”

“Hang on. Let me put him in the car first.” She turned and walked back to the street. As soon as she opened the rear door, Dobby hopped in obediently. She shut it behind him and went back for her wife.

Scully was just as she’d left her, standing by the lamppost. Stella stopped in front of her, giving her an assessing look. Scully’s ankle was visibly swollen, and her lips were pressed into a firm line, evidence of her pain.

“We should go to the hospital for an x-ray,” Stella said, earning her an exasperated look from Scully.

“It’s not broken, just sprained. Come on, Stella. I’m a doctor, for Christ’s sake.”

“So you have x-ray vision, then?” Stella challenged. “Because I’m not sure how that diploma hanging in your office enables you to determine whether or not your bones are broken.”

“I can tell,” Scully said, grimacing again as she attempted to put weight on the foot.

“It could be a small fracture,” Stella countered. “Impossible to know for sure.”

“Can we argue about this at home? Please?”

“Fine,” Stella acquiesced. She’d keep an eye on Scully, and if she thought her ankle needed an x-ray, she’d insist on it later. Right now, she needed to get Scully home and off her feet. “Can you walk to the car?”

“I don’t see that I have a choice,” Scully said, taking a hobbling step forward, which ended up more like a hop. She—like Stella herself—was as stoic as they came, so if she was having this much trouble walking, her ankle must be pretty severely damaged.

Stella could offer her a shoulder to lean on, or she could just get her off that ankle all together. She turned her back to Scully, gesturing with her hands. “Hop on.”

“What?”

When Stella glanced over her shoulder, she saw Scully staring at her, one eyebrow slightly raised in disbelief. “I’m not going to break, Dana. Take advantage of those muscles you’re always admiring, and let me carry you to the car.”

“Um…”

“Go on, then,” Stella said, her tone leaving no room for argument.

“Fine,” Scully muttered, hopping forward so that her hands landed on Stella’s shoulders. “Tell me if I’m too heavy.”

“You’re not.”

“You say that now…” Scully jumped, arms coming around Stella’s shoulders as her thighs clamped around Stella’s hips.

Stella suppressed a grunt, sliding her arms beneath Scully’s knees to anchor her as she leaned forward to better balance their combined weight. As it turned out, Scully was a bit heavier than she’d anticipated, but the car wasn’t far. She had this.

“Okay?” Scully asked breathlessly.

“Yes.” Stella began to walk as briskly as possible toward the street, thankful she’d put on her trainers instead of heels in her dash out the door. Her back ached beneath Scully’s weight, and her already fatigued hamstrings burned, but there was the warm press of Scully’s breasts against her shoulder blades to make up for it, not to mention the sense of power that came with carrying her.

“Gives new meaning to riding you,” Scully mumbled, forearms clamped tight over Stella’s chest.

Stella huffed a laugh. “Don’t get any ideas back there.”

“Me? Never.”

* * *

Scully scooted backward in bed to lean against the headboard, seething with irritation. During her time with the X Files, she’d spent entirely too much time sidelined by various injuries and illnesses, and perhaps as a result, she had absolutely no patience left for any of it. Right now, her whole body ached from her fall, and she wanted to scream in frustration.

Stella entered the room with a bag of ice in one hand. She grabbed a cloth from the bathroom before sitting on the bed. “Tell me if I’m doing this wrong, Dr. Scully,” she said lightly.

“I’ve got it,” Scully said, reaching for the ice.

Stella sat back, holding it out of reach. “You nursed me through broken ribs and an appendectomy. I’m certain I can properly care for your sprained ankle.”

“Come on, Stella,” she protested, impatient for the numbing cold of the ice on her throbbing ankle. She hated being fussed over, and Stella knew it, so why was she turning this into such a production?

“Hold still,” Stella said, her tone leaving no room for argument.

So Scully held in her sigh and let Stella drape the cloth over her swollen ankle before settling the bag of ice on top of it. Almost immediately, the cooling sensation reached her skin, soothing the worst of the pain, and when Scully released her sigh, it wasn’t one of impatience as much as relief. “Thank you.”

With a brisk nod, Stella stood and left the room, returning a minute later with a glass of water and two ibuprofen tablets on her palm, which she passed to Scully. She swallowed them without protest. “What else can I do?” Stella asked as she adjusted the bag of ice on Scully’s ankle.

And Scully had a new appreciation for how Stella had felt when she was injured, forced to accept Scully’s care. It didn’t come naturally for either of them, but she knew the satisfaction of helping to ease Stella’s pain, and as she met Stella’s eyes, she saw that same satisfaction in their indigo depths. Stella wanted to care for her, and maybe Scully owed it to her to let her.

“I suppose I should put some antiseptic cream on my knees,” Scully gave.

“Yes,” Stella agreed. She went into the bathroom and returned with a little white tube in her hand, looking absurdly pleased as she climbed onto the bed. She uncapped the cream and squeezed a glob onto her fingertips, which she began to smooth gently over Scully’s raw knees.

She winced at the contact, although it didn’t hurt as much as she’d expected, perhaps thanks to Stella’s whisper soft touch. Scully had already cleaned the scrapes in the shower, having insisted on rinsing herself off when they first got home, because she was sweaty from her run and dirty from her fall. Now that she was in bed, sore but clean, she was grateful she wouldn’t have to get back up. And okay, maybe it wasn’t the worst thing, letting Stella care for her.

Having finished with the cream, Stella leaned forward and blew on Scully’s glistening knees. Scully gasped at the unexpected sensation. The cool gust of air felt heavenly against her abrasions, causing goose bumps to rise on her skin.

“My palms,” Scully whispered, holding them out to show Stella the scrapes there.

Stella took Scully’s left hand in hers, palm up, as she smoothed cream over it. She moved with the graceful quiet that she embodied better than anyone else, again blowing on Scully’s damaged skin once she’d finished. And again, Scully felt a shiver of pleasure at the sensation. When Stella had finished with both palms, she set the cream on the table beside the bed and turned the full force of her gaze on Scully.

“Anything else I can do?” Stella asked, her voice light and breathy, the tone she reserved for sex.

“I’m sure you can think of something,” Scully responded, chest heaving beneath the heat of Stella’s gaze.

“Mm,” Stella agreed, sliding forward to press an open-mouthed kiss against Scully’s exposed collarbone. “I do know a few ways to boost your endorphins, and that’s supposed to help with pain relief, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Scully gasped as Stella kissed a hot trail down her chest, her breath gusting against Scully’s wet skin, producing an even more pleasurable version of the sensation she’d first demonstrated on Scully’s scraped knees.

“Scoot down for me,” Stella said. She sat back, placing one hand on the bag of ice on Scully’s ankle to hold it steady as Scully slid down flat on the mattress. Stella adjusted the pillow beneath Scully’s head before reaching for the sash on her robe, and Scully couldn’t remember a single reason why she’d protested against Stella’s care in the first place.

Stella’s tongue swirled over Scully’s nipple before she sucked it into her mouth, and Scully gasped with pleasure as the heat of Stella’s mouth lit her on fire, burning away the discomfort of her scrapes and sprained ankle, replacing it with the needy thrum of her pulse between her thighs, an entirely different kind of ache, one that Stella would soothe spectacularly.

She transferred the attention of her mouth from Scully’s left breast to her right as her fingers trailed down Scully’s stomach to settle right where she ached for her.

“Mm,” Scully moaned, arching her hips.

Stella flicked Scully’s nipple with her tongue and then blew on it, causing it to contract into a hardened bud. The contrast of hot and cold played out across her skin in a surprisingly erotic dance. There was the cool slip of her silk robe against her shoulders, the cold bag of ice on her ankle, and the occasional chilly gust of air as Stella teased her wet skin, offset by the hot pleasure of Stella’s mouth, the warm slide of her tongue and her body where it touched Scully’s. Together, they combined to confuse and arouse her senses in a wholly unexpected way.

Stella licked a glistening trail down Scully’s stomach, eyes holding Scully’s as she moved, and as many times as she’d watched Stella do this, it was never any less electrifying. Each time was different. Would Stella go straight to her clit or would she take her time teasing the tender skin of Scully’s inner thighs first? Not knowing was half the thrill, and Scully could hear herself panting, breathless with anticipation.

Her gasping breaths were the only sound in the room, and the silence only seemed to heighten her other senses as Stella ghosted her tongue over Scully’s clit before sliding down to plunge it deep inside her. Her inner walls tightened, warmth coiling low in her belly, before Stella returned the heat of her mouth to Scully’s clit, swirling her tongue in the way that always had Scully spiraling toward release as she pushed two fingers inside her.

Scully groaned, moving her hips against Stella’s mouth. Her hands fisted in the sheets, scraped palms forgotten as Stella flooded her with all the endorphins she’d promised. In fact, she was taking a surprisingly gentle approach, no teeth, no nails, just her lips, her tongue, her fingers and oh fuck…she blew against Scully’s clit.

A sharp cry escaped Scully’s lips, shattering the silence in their bedroom. Stella closed her mouth over her and sucked, hard, sending Scully right over the edge. She moaned as she came, eyes tightly shut as her body lit with pleasure, obliterating the pain. And then she lay there, limp and gasping on the bed, feeling like a whole new woman.

Stella sat up, closing Scully’s robe before she slid down to prop a pillow beneath her ankle, elevating it. She steadied the bag of ice before bending to press a tender kiss against Scully’s swollen skin.

“You’re really good at that,” Scully murmured.

“At what?”

“Playing doctor.”

#fanfic #scully/stella #stella and scully #scullyxstella #Stella Gibson #Dana Scully #The X Files #The Fall #Two Worlds Collide

[peteywillproceed]

Photobooths

Author’s Note: Hi guys! Thank you so so much for all the support on Kiss Me! That was my first post on here and I was so nervous :) I’ve had this idea stuck in my head since Youth by Troye Sivan came out, but I never actually finished it (yay for drafts!) Still don’t really know what it is, but anyway, as always, I hope you enjoy it x

Summary:  “When the lights start flashing like a photobooth, and the stars exploding, we’ll be fireproof” - You and Tom have been friends for years, even if you have been keeping your feelings a secret. Sometimes all it takes is being drunk off your ass to finally get the answers you didn’t know you needed...

Word Count: 3,150

The camera clicked and you were blinded, the silly moustache Tom had stuck on your upper lip falling half-way across your mouth as the heat from the lights made you sweat. It was cramped in there, the faded black seat cracked and peeling and the touch screen photo selector taking ages to register your choice. You hadn’t been in a photobooth in years, too smelly, too dirty, too boring. But the alcohol coursing through your body had made short work of any reservations you may have had, too intoxicated by the boy tugging you towards it to care.

“I want the beer goggles too, Y/n,” Tom whined beside you, reaching up to tug them from your eyes. You glanced sideways, swaying in your seat and steadying yourself against his shoulder.

“Take ‘em them,” you mumbled, smiling as he practically snatched them from your head and shoved them over his eyes.

“Best. Birthday. Ever.”

You giggled, too drunk on alcohol and his presence to care. “It’s your party, dipshit.”

You’d known Tom since year 10, and you’d lived with him whilst you were at Uni, grateful for the rent-free place whilst you were broke. You didn’t know when your feelings for Tom had changed, all you knew was you’d woken up one day and wandered into the kitchen, following the smell of pancakes and bacon. And bam, there he was, shirtless over the oven, towel flipped over his shoulder and sending you a slow grin like he’d planned it all. You were pretty sure that was the day everything had changed, but honestly it could’ve been years ago.

You giggled as the screen slowly counted backwards from three, feeling like you were floating far up in the sky. Tom might have asked you to pull a stupid face, but you were so concentrated on the way his lips were moving that you barely registered it. His hands slid into your hair, threading through the strands and made a peace sign behind the back of your head. You scrunched your nose up and dragged the bright pink feather boa over your mouth, pouting in a drunken attempt to look sexy.

“What are you doing?” Tom laughed as the camera clicked and you were dazzled by the lights again.

“Lookin’ sexayyyyyy,” you threw your hands in the air, frowning at the screen “We only have one more picture left!”

Tom licked his lips, trying to meet your eyes. “Guess we’d better make it special one, then.”

If you’d been sober enough to catch the double meaning, maybe you would have been prepared for what came next. But as the camera started counting down for its final shot, Tom grabbed your chin and turned you towards him, pressing his lips gently against yours just as the click rang in your ears.

For a second, you thought about nothing but the way his lips were moving on yours, the sheer fire that snapped you out of your drunkenness and spread over your skin. You shivered as he cupped your cheek, sure the photo had been taken, but the noise of the party outside had faded and it was just the two of you, your lips moving in time to whatever music was blaring through the speakers.

A strange sensation came over you, the photobooth and Tom’s face beginning to spin, and you jerked backwards at the feeling.

“I’m…I’m sorry, I um…I don’t know where that came from,” Tom stammered, wiping his palms against his jeans.

You wanted to tell him it wasn’t him, but blackness was appearing at the corner of your eyes, begging you to fall into the void that awaited. You could see Tom’s mouth moving, desperation crawling into his face, and you tried so hard to make your own form the words you wanted to say. But the tiredness was overwhelming, and soon you were falling into nothing, barely noticing when your head hit the floor of the booth, and Tom crouched over you in panic.

***

The next morning, your eyes opened to a dim room and the scent of caffeine wafting up your nose. Groaning, you tried to sit up, grabbing your head as it began to throb. Dribble ran down one side of your cheek and your hair stood on ends, but as you rubbed your eyes and allowed them to focus, the steaming mug of coffee and two advil tablets placed carefully on the side table drew a smile from you.

You leaned over and choked back the tablets, taking a gulp of the black liquid and savouring it on your tongue. You tried to think back through the mist and fog of last night, remembering basically everything up until you’d gone in that stupid photobooth with Tom. God, you didn’t know why you’d done that, but he’d seemed so excited and it was a chance for you two to be alone, something you hadn’t had in months. You’d have been lying if you’d said you didn’t enjoy the proximity.

“Morning sleepy head,” a familiar, velvety voice whispered.

Looking up, your eyes found Tom’s, and you groaned at the noise. “What time is it?”

“One in the afternoon,” he looked over his shoulder and laughed as he strode towards the curtains and threw them open. “Time to get up.”

“Ugh, Satan,” you mumbled, crashing back into the soft duvet.

“Y’know, I took the day off to keep an eye on you, the least you could do is not compare me to the King of Hell.”

“Sorry, your majesty.”

“Better.”

“Wait you took the day off today?” You frowned, running your fingers through your hair.

“Yeah? Why wouldn’t I? You were drunk off your arse and I didn’t want you to choke on your own vomit.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Anytime,” he grinned, scratching the back of his head. Bizarrely, he kept shifting from foot to foot, like he was trying to decide whether or not to sit down.

“The bed’s not made of lava, y’know,” you blinked, patting the space next to you “you can sit down.”

He nodded, still not moving, rubbing the side of his face as your confusion grew. “Y/n, I think we should talk about last night.”

“Last night? I don’t remember most of it,” you brought the coffee cup to your lips and took another gulp, eyes never leaving Tom’s. “Why? Did something happen?”

Tom’s eyes widened as he moved to sit next to you, a frown appearing on his face. “You really don’t remember anything?”

“Nope, sorry,” you shook your head and shrugged your shoulders as you ran a fingertip around the rim of the mug. “Is there something I should remember?”

You started racking your brain, wondering if he’d told you something you should have remembered or pointed someone out to you. If you were being honest, the most you remembered of the night was drowning in his eyes and paying no attention to any of the songs the rather terrible DJ was playing. You tried not to think about how he’d looked in that suit, the top few buttons of his shirt undone, and the burgundy jacket that showed off his arms. Right now, he was in his pyjamas, slung loosely at the hips and barely concealing what you knew was there – you couldn’t decide which look you preferred.

Tom looked at you for a long moment, something that looked like pain dancing behind his eyes. You bit your lip and cocked your head, wondering whether someone had said something to him and you’d forgotten. “Shit, Tom, was something said?”

“No, no, nothing like that,” he blurted, sighing audibly. “It doesn’t matter, just forget it.”

“Are you sure?” You raised an eyebrow, convinced you were missing something. “Something’s not right.”

“Nah, I’m cool, don’t worry about it,” Tom shrugged, and started to walk towards the door.

“Do you wanna get dressed and go catch a movie? You never have a day off, you shouldn’t have to spend it looking after me.” Maybe you were trying too hard, but the little pinch at the top of his brow made your heart hurt, and all you wanted to do was reach out and smooth it over. And preferably punch whoever had been there in the first place.

He shook his head. “No, I think I’m just gonna go to work.”

“But you took the day off!”

“There’s always something to do,” he laughed, the sound hollow and sad.

“Okay…” you nodded, the coffee cup shaking in your hand. “If you’re…if you’re sure.”

With a final nod, he turned and disappeared from your room, leaving you staring after his retreating back. Whatever had happened there, you wished you could have made it better. Maybe if you could remember what he meant, you’d be able to put the pieces back together and stitch up his clearly broken heart. Seeing Tom upset was like losing a piece of yourself, and until he was fixed you’d be constantly searching for a way to cheer him up.

Half an hour later, you heard the front door slam and the distant sound of his feet ringing on the steps as he left. For some reason, you felt empty, like when he left he took a piece of you with him. All you wanted to do was curl back up in the bed and fall asleep, but it was no use staying cooped up here if there was nothing to do. Sighing, you got to your feet and grabbed your hairbrush, shrieking when you saw the state it was in.

No wonder Tom had practically run away, you had a bird’s nest on your head.

***

Three Months Later

“Tom?” you called out, kicking the front door shut with your foot. “Can you help me?” Grocery bags were piled high in your hands, oranges spilling on the floor as you struggled into the kitchen.

“Here love, let me,” he swept in and gathered the three heaviest ones into his arms. “Harry’s here by the way.”

“Hi Harry,” you yelled “are you the one eating all my chocolate digestives?”

“nrgrnej,” Harry mumbled, stepping into the kitchen with half a biscuit hanging out of his mouth.

“Typical!”

“Can’t help it they’re so delicious,” he shrugged, looking at you with his hands raised.

Laughing, you shook your head and waved your hand in the direction of the bags. “As payment, you can pack those away.”

“Yes, sir!”

You walked into the living room, expecting the bomb that followed Harry everywhere to have crash landed in there too. Sure enough, pillows and blankets were strewn everywhere, the telly was blaring and biscuit crumbs were scattered everywhere, crunching beneath your feet as you stepped into the room.

You couldn’t help the eyeroll that followed, starting the clean up job that would otherwise have taken hours later on. Every so often, you’d come across one of Tom’s socks or a pen he had chewed on whilst making notes on a script, and you smiled at how tidy he was. As you started to finish up and the boys packed away the final can of peas, you noticed Tom’s script thrown on the floor, the bookmark he’d been using turned face up against the grey carpet.

Gingerly, you picked the script up and tucked your finger in the page he’d been reading, then flipped the bookmark over. You smiled as you realised these were the pictures you’d taken in that photobooth all those months ago, probably too drunk to remember to pick them up. But Tom had remembered, like he always did, and a slow grin crept across your face as your eyes trailed across the photos, tracing memories you didn’t know you had.

Until the last one.

The last one you couldn’t remember, but it was clearly there, in black and white, staring you in the face. Your lips on Tom’s. Tom’s lips on yours. And suddenly everything he’d said the morning after, how he’d wanted to talk to you and the hurt look on his face when you said you couldn’t remember anything, came shooting back all at once. You took in a deep breath, hearing noises at the door, and looked up with tears in your eyes.

“Y/n?” Tom said, panic lacing his voice “What’s wrong?”

He ran his eyes over you, freezing as he finally saw what you were holding. You held it out in a trembling hand, lips shaking as you asked him what it was.

“I think I better go,” Harry mumbled, turning for the door. “I’ll call you later mate.”

Tom didn’t reply, still not breaking your gaze and for the first time in the entire time you’d known him, you didn’t have a fucking clue what was going through his mind.

“I didn’t mean for you to see that,” he stammered.

“Why not?” Your voice was barely a whisper, the image of what you had wanted so desperately for years still seared into your mind. How could you have forgotten something like that? Something so cataclysmic and beautiful? You’d kissed Tom – and you had forgotten.

“You said you couldn’t remember…I figured you didn’t like it.”

“I was drunk, you idiot!” You hissed, waving the piece of paper in his face “I definitely wanted to know this happened.”

“But why?” he asked, and you stared at him like he was insane until he clarified. “You didn’t remember it, and you passed out before we could talk about what it meant. And in the morning, when you couldn’t remember, I figured maybe you’d just supressed it, and you didn’t want to think about it.”

Your mouth dropped open, thinking about how all this time the man you were in love with had thought you didn’t want to remember your kiss. “You’re insane.”

“Maybe.”

“You really thought I wanted to forget that?”

“Didn’t you?”

“NO! Oh my God, you are blind!” you groaned, dropping the strip of photos. It fluttered to the floor between you, the chasm of space feeling miles across yet only centimetres deep. “I’m freaking in love with you Tom, I’ve been in love with you for years, I didn’t want to forget that!”

His eyes were wide with shock, and his mouth kept moving like he wanted to say something. But you were done with wondering whether he felt the same; you’d kissed and now you felt like you could finally let it all out, what you’d bottled up since that day with the pancakes. What only his mum had heard when she’d found you crying on the kitchen floor the day Tom announced he was seeing someone new. What you’d scribbled about ferociously in diary upon diary, convinced you were stupid and he would never see you the same way.

You were done with the pretending, had been for years, and now was your chance to finally say what you’d only thought about in your dreams.

“I fall asleep at night and I think about you, I wake up and you’re the first person I want to see. When you go away filming I sneak into your room and fall asleep there because it’s the only place that smells like you. I’ve spent hours crying over you, sounding pathetic because I was too scared to tell you how I felt. And then this happens, and you don’t tell me about the one thing that could have changed everything! I had to find out through some stupid photo that you didn’t even mean for me to see!”

By the time you were finished, tears were streaming down your cheeks and you were panting with exhaustion, relief washing over you as you finally let go of the deepest secret you’d ever had. Tom said nothing, his mouth parted in shock, and you closed your eyes and tilted your head back, wishing you could just fall through the floor and never come back.

Suddenly, his arms wrapped around you, gently pulling you into a hug so tight you could hardly breathe. His breathing stuttered against you, and you pulled away so that you were looking him in the eye, your faces only inches from touching. Exactly like that night in the photobooth, only now you could remember every part of this. And you would for years to come.

“I didn’t know that,” Tom’s voice cracked, and your heart broke at the desperation slipping through his lips. “I didn’t know you felt like I did.”

“Like you did?” Your breathing stopped, and you didn’t dare believe you’d heard him right.

Taking a deep breath, Tom gripped your shoulders and looked you dead in the eye, all the bravado stripped back until he was just Tom. Your Tom. “Y/n L/n, I have loved you since the day I met you. Since the day you walked into that classroom, and I haven’t looked back. I never thought you felt the same, and I kept it bottled up for years. For a while, I thought I was over you, but my mum reminded me that love isn’t something that can fade just because you have a replacement.”

“If I could have anyone, I’d still choose you. I’d still choose your stinky morning breath and bed head, the way you can’t cook and the way you can’t stand tomatoes on your sandwich but you love ketchup. I’d choose your body and your mind, you heart and your soul, because you have meant everything to me since the day you first sat next to me in class, and I haven’t seen anything as beautiful since.”

You blinked, barely able to absorb the words let alone process them. You’d dreamed of him saying these words for years, and yet now that you were finally hearing them, it felt less romantic than it was sad.

“You’ve loved me too? All this time?” you choked, letting the realisation wash over you.

“All this time, and more too,” Tom replied, his voice low and thick with emotion.

“And that night in the photobooth?”

You held your breath, not sure if you wanted to hear the answer. For once, your future was out of your hands, and it lay in the balance of a boy you had loved in private for years. You were quite literally on a knife’s edge, and whichever way you fell you had to hope there was someone to catch you.

“That night in the photobooth was the greatest decision I ever made,” Tom replied. “You’re the greatest decision I ever made.”

Maybe you would’ve heard what he was going to say next, but you no longer cared as you flung yourself towards him and let your lips collide. As electricity sparked against your skin, you found yourself slipping once more into the dark abyss, but this time you were ready. This time the only thing you were drunk on was the scent of Tom – and this time, you were never letting go.

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