#so apparently jeremy renner is in the hospital?

[funnyincorrectmcu]

Nat: Every zoo is a petting zoo unless you’re a coward. Clint: … Clint: You concern me.

#clint barton #natasha romanoff #hawkeye #black widow #clint and nat #nat and clint #best friends #friendship goals #so apparently jeremy renner is in the hospital? #i hope he's okay #some sort of weather accident #mcu #mcu incorrect quotes

[movienotesbyzawmer]

August 30: Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

(previous notes: Mission: Impossible III)

I bet the powers that be at the Mission: Impossible movie factory didn't lose any sleep over the stupid colon in the title that screws everything up. I mean, just look at that up there with the colon after my date, then the colon in the middle of the OG title, and then it's like, well, you can do whatever you want with punctuation but we're adding a subtitle after it now and you just have to deal with it. On posters and stuff it's just "Mission: Impossible" and then underneath those words they put "Ghost Protocol" so they don't have to deal with it. What a mess. I tell you it is a damn mess is what it is.

Anyway, we have arrived at the M:I movie that, more than any of the others, just really hit the spot for me when I saw it upon its original release. I saw it at the end of a frustrating and tiring work day and it was exactly what the doctor ordered. At some point in the middle I realized that I was enjoying it thoroughly without having to tolerate the kinds of flaws that were apparently part and parcel of this kind of movie. Maybe there were flaws that I just wasn't registering. We'll soon see.

Continuing the tradition of making very hip choices for the directing duties, here we have the live-action directorial debut of Brad Bird, who started off directing episodes of The Simpsons before moving on to no less than The Iron Giant and The Incredibles. Dude had two Oscars on his mantle by the time he showed up for this. Press play already!

Um Sweet Christ those opening shots look gook in 4K like HOO boy

Whoa, neat opening where Sawyer from Lost is chased off the top of a building in Budapest but his jacket deploys an air mattress right as he almost-hits, but then he's shot by Lea Seydoux in an alley, rat-a-tat-tat with the action here, like what is up

Simon Pegg is back, and he's being tricksy with the tech in a prison! He's opening cell doors and the prisoners are surprised and delighted with that twist! He plays them a jazz standard on the intercom and Ethan Hunt suavely emerges from one of the cells. Fun silly things ensue involving Ethan's rebellious and confident independent strategy and a small riot that seems kind of like a bar fight.

He has made a pal in the joint and he's breaking him out. Some kind of cool tech creates a really sweet vortex-y hole in the floor and they are swooped up by their helpers, it's fun.

We're introduced to Paula Patton who is a new team member, and then the credits roll, and they are spirited in a way that recalls the first movie, also showing real scenes from later in the movie.

Flashback to the thing that was happening with Sawyer shows how that botched operation, something about a file and a courier, got Sawyer killed because lots of bad guys were all over the place there. AR contact lens technology figures prominently, and that is a good idea (plus we totally might have those soon, right?).

0:18:16 - Once again we begin the movie without the leading lady from the previous one, but we're starting to get an explanation here. Or just a tease of one I guess.

And quickly we get a sneaky-style self-destructing message that sets up that Ethan has to disguise himself as a specific Russian and sneak into the actual Kremlin. This movie 100% gets what a Mission: Impossible movie is supposed to be.

This time, they aren't using fancy masks or voice shifter things, just costumes and a fake mustache. They comment about that in the dialogue but don't explain why.

0:24:52 - Dialogue mixed SO QUIET here I have no idea what SP just said. It seems like you're supposed to have heard it.

But that is quickly forgotten when they use the coolest spy gadget of them all - a screen that is placed in a corridor that makes the guy at the other end of the corridor think it’s the corridor, but it's a screen and SP & Ethan are hiding behind it and it is super super neato I love it

Then just when it's cool that that is going well, it's suddenly cool how NOT well it's going because someone is spying on their spycraft! The thing they were going to heist isn't there, and someone deliberately makes their comms thing be heard by the bad guys!

And THEN we see something we really didn't think we'd see and it is kind of mind blowing - Ethan escapes from the Kremlin with a very smooth quick-change of his disguise that we see him do in all one shot… but then the Kremlin totally explodes and it explodes all over Ethan as he's running away! It looks amazing!

Right after that there is some fun with subtitles - Ethan is in the hospital all damaged and concussed and stuff, and the news is talking about the obvious big story, and the subtitles are in Russian. At first I was like, "hey is my home theater tech busted?" but no, the subtitles become gradually more in English as Ethan starts to come out of it. Then we see with subtitles that Ethan is reading lips about the police people that want to be bad guys to Ethan.

After Ethan escapes, we shift to a wholesome-looking Russian family we haven't seen before. The scene is a nice little piece of drama about how the dad sees the Kremlin news and wants to get the family out of there, and very quickly that goes south and thugs have them all at gunpoint, it's nicely done

Ethan is being extracted by two new characters played by accomplished, Oscar-nominated actors Tom Wilkinson and Jeremy Renner… the conversation is dire and I don't want to type during it gahhh gah gah gah I am watching because holy shit this goes south too! TW informs Ethan that the DoD is going to frame him for blowing up the Kremlin and his only choice is to escape. He's telling him HOW to escape in a funny way, but they are attacked and it's visually very interesting and TW is headshot and they are in the water and it is such bad news for Ethan and his new colleague played by Mr. Renner, I probably typoed a lot during that because it was so hard to look away.

So Ethan is on the hook for the terrorist attack of the century and he's being chased by a little battalion of thugs who just shot that important spy boss, and he's in Russia. It is very not good for Ethan.

He's with JR and JR is playing a different character for him. He's a bookish analyst guy who feels very out of place in action-land.

We're learning about the main bad guy, Hendricks, who was the guy that screwed everything up in the Kremlin. He's a super-smart theoretical physicist or something who has big, well-thought-out ideas about destroying the world with nukes, and he took nuke codes from the Kremlin. So things are just really really hairy and it's effective storytelling is what I'm saying.

Also effective is that they met up with SP and PP on a neat secret train car thing that is well appointed with spy gear

And VERY VERY EFFECTIVE is what happens next, which is a series of establishing shots of Dubai which KILL ON MY TV. I am glad I have a 4K panel, kids. This begins what I recall as being an extended sequence of sweet-ass suspense. Ethan has to break into a server room by climbing the outside of the 130th floor of the Burj Khalifa using glove-gadget tech that will hopefully work. There is at least some actual Tom Cruise clinging to the side of that building. It's so cool looking. And to make matters worse, a dust storm approaches! Or should I say "to make matters even cooler looking". Yes I should. Please read that part.

Paula Patton's character seems underdeveloped so far, especially compared to her teammates Simon Pegg and Jeremy Renner.

Jeez you guys, if you like suspenseful action scenes about barely surviving climbing a skyscraper this movie is for you.

1:05:34 - In the middle of a tense conversation we see that they were using the maskmaker but it wasn't working. They just don't want us to have mask fun in this movie. They hate mask fun. Why does Brad Bird hate mask fun.

Oh then this scene which is neat - bad guys are meeting with LS… but Ethan and JR are taking their place, and PP is taking LS's place for the real bad guys one floor down. The movie explains it better than me, but it is pretty exciting, the two meetings happening at the same time with opposite trickery.

Hah, SP does a sweet fake-hand trick to get the diamonds from the bad guys so he can get them to Ethan and JN, and JN is doing the thing where he uses the contact lens tech… gosh why are you even reading this, just watch the movie. I really like the tricksy espionage.

It all falls apart because LS spots the contact lens in JR's eye. The plot is moving along in a way that, I'm once again noticing, would normally require more half-assed-ness. It's just a solid spy plot. Which probably makes these notes more boring. Poor you.

LS dies by getting kicked out of the open window of the Burj Khalifa with a brewing sandstorm in the background! Neat looking!

And then a thing where Ethan is in a thick dust cloud and he's tracking the important paper thing with his tracker device, and it starts moving quickly at him and we realize just as it's too late that it's in a car that's gonna run him over! Then that mechanic gets used in a car chase in a dust storm, which we don't see very often outside a Mad Max movie, and that climaxes in a really cool looking collision, followed by the reveal that one of the nuclear code bad guys was Hendricks in a supermask. So we DO like mask fun after all! Except why do we care that it was Hendricks?

A scene where JR is confronted for maybe being a double-crosser has a beautifully choreographed gun-get-grabbity-grab thing that was probably super fun for the actors.

1:27:05 - JR tells a story that at first we think is that family we saw briefly almost scramming, but no, he's talking about Ethan, and what seems to be a story about Ethan's wife (Julia from the last movie) getting killed in Croatia, and Ethan killing six Serbians for revenge, and that's why he was in prison in the beginning? It's still a little mysterious and kind of complicated. It doesn't quite fit with what we think we know.

Dubai imagery is pretty. I have been to Dubai. I am standing by for your marriage proposals now.

I didn't really follow how we got to this point, but Ethan went for a walk and met with some underworld Dubai person and made a deal the ended up with a huge cache of spy gear and a private plane to India. I went to India like right after Dubai. I have my own car and a job kind of so you might need to calm your hormones at this point.

A probing exchange with PP establishes that indeed Ethan's story is that he killed the men who killed his wife. Doesn't really seem legit, though. There's more to the story, clearly.

One of the tech things they play with on the plane is the most magic-seeming one. It is a suit that looks like tight chain-mail, and it floats over a cart, like a magic carpet that you wear.

We're introduced to Brij Nath, whose name I had to look up so I could tell you how it is spelled. He has an access code that they need, which seems like they just kind of simplified the situation, and he's one of those only-kinda-bad bad guys that's really just a pawn, for our heroes as well as for these storytellers.

The wearable magic carpet gadget is fun and funny! SP has to remote control JR wearing the floaty-suit and JR is trying not to freak out too badly, and maybe on purpose it recalls the scene from the first movie where Tom Cruise hovers parallel to the floor.

Hendricks is now in a secret room in the place where they all are, and he has a bad-guy briefcase computer and orders some subordinates to do something with a virus, and I don't actually understand what's really happening but am I to believe that Ethan et al are thwarting literal nuclear terrorism here in Mumbai? Right here at this pleasant party at the palace of an only kinda-bad bad guy?

1:48:30 - Ha, the climax of the wearable magic carpet thing involves JR barely surviving by doing an acrobatic stunt that seems oddly intuitive and satisfying. You'll just have to watch the movie to know what I mean.

The spy-tech car they have is rad.

They fail to prevent the launch of a nuclear missile! We see it come out of the sub and start missiling toward its destination which we have learned is California! Hendricks mutters things about how that should get the ball rolling making world powers hate each other and nuke each other and may there be peace on Earth, he also, yes, says that.

A chase on foot has Ethan and Hendricks suddenly brawling on an exotically elegant robotic parking ramp. Platforms move around mechanically and transfer unmanned cars to different areas, and it is against that video gamey backdrop that Ethan and Hendricks struggle to get that sinister suitcase which is all bouncing around that environment. Unexpectedly, Ethan's hope of grabbing it is thwarted by Hendricks suicide-jumping down several stories! We see it! He definitely does that! Ethan drives a car off a thing to follow him, plummeting down hood-first, and the airbag saves him! He gets the briefcase and barely saves the day in time!

Again a denouement making it very clear that everything is really shockingly okay and tidied up. Even the thing with Ethan revenge-killing Serbians and the thing with his wife is cleaned way up, but with an elegance and sweetness that elevates this movie above the others. She's not dead after all, just fake-dead for her protection. And they're only where they are in Seattle so he can glimpse her lovingly across a marina.

So! I feel strongly that this is the best Mission: Impossible movie! It is an extraordinarily deftly-constructed spy thriller! It's got all the funnest types of things that are in the other movies, and other fun spy thrillers, but with so much less garbage! They did a great job and they should be proud.

#Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol

[darylandbethfanforever9]

So, Johnny Depp gets treated badly while AH is given sympathy for being an abusive woman and cutting his finger?

Never, have I been so ashamed of being a woman. I’m sickened and disgusted. I’m sending well wishes to Depp, who is apparently in hospital after suffering a heart attack.

feminist272 domestic abuse isn’t just women, men are abused too by their partners or husbands. Also, it just shows what a feminist you are, by saying I should kill myself and deserve to be raped for liking Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Renner, Chris Evans and Anthony Mackie.

#personal #setting things straight

[rayshippouuchiha]

I came out of Endgame with tears in my eyes and my heart filled up to the brim with absolute seething rage.

Even as I write this now my hands shake with some sick mixture of sadness, rage, and bitter disappointment.

So I preface this by saying that I am emotionally compromised and some of my views might shift with time and distance.

But, for better or for worse, this is my first rage flushed take:

I am so disappointed and so angry that after all of the tension, all of the build, all of the time and sweat and tears, all of the loyalty, we were rewarded with this.

Endgame had its high points, I’m not saying that it didn’t.  There were some genuinely funny moments and some heart rending ones as well.

Every single second Tony Stark was on screen was flawless as always.  Robert Downey Jr. once again proved why he and he alone was suited for the role of Tony Stark and the task of carrying the majority of the MCU for the past 10+ years.

That’s not to say that the rest of the cast wasn’t good.  All of the actors all obviously brought their A game and then some when they were allowed to by what I loosely call a script.

So yeah, there were some highs.

But when its comes to Endgame’s low points?

Its low points were subterranean.

They lowered the bar and then they dug underneath it.

Again I’m writing this basically fresh from the theater and with my emotions still high so do forgive me if this is a bit jumbled around or if I ramble a bit as I cover some of the real issues I had with the film.

So, first thing to address was the overall tone of the film.

For this to be the much glorified Endgame, the “battle of our lives”, there was, in my opinion, a distinct lack of true tension in this film.  Instead of a fraught, nail biting, tension filled ride, Endgame is more of a ... brisk jog through some vaguely sticky situations.

Instead of playing the story straight and giving the situation the gravity it deserved, the narrative went out of its way to put humor that served no other purpose than to ruin what tension had been previously built.  And, in my opinion, the tone of the film suffered for it.

The humor and jokes were humorous, I’m not saying they wasn’t.  I genuinely laughed out loud in the moment.  But I also feel that, with the majority of the comedy that was wedged into the narrative, the film suffered for it.

Now let’s move on a bit to the actual plot of the film.  Again, forgive me if I bounce a bit:

Jeremy Renner was breathtakingly heartbreaking as Clint Barton.  Renner was finally allowed to stretch his legs a bit in this film and he proved that, had he been given the chance, he would have given us a Clint Barton to take our breath away.

Watching with Clint as his family died helped to set what should have been the tone for the majority of the film from there on while reminding us of just what was lost and just what was at stake all at the same time.

Chris Evans brought heart to his portrayal of a Steve Rogers who seems both lighter and more weighted down in this film than ever before.

Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha finally showed more emotion than “head tilt”, “lip purse”, and “arched brow” and it was beautiful.

The brief flash of friendship and affection between Nebula and Tony was perfect and heartwarming as well.  Nebula was magnificent as the “feral space cat desperately in need of softness and a friendly hand” when placed side by side with a slowly withering Tony Stark who is, even at his lowest moments, still kind to this alien cyborg he doesn’t know but to who he owes his life.  They flowed together with an onscreen chemistry in their few moments side by side that felt organic and aching.

Together Tony and Nebula embodied a truly important life/plot point of “meet kindness with kindness and kindness will be your reward”.

Moving forward in time hearing Tony vent his anger and his pain and his distrust at Steve was cathartic in a lot of ways.

As was watching Tony rip the arc reactor from his chest and slap it into Steve’s hand.

In this moment Tony is handing Steve his metaphorical broken heart and leaving someone else to, for once, try and pick up the pieces.

But then, unfortunately, things go rather steeply down hill from there.

With Tony out for the count in a hospital bed the others hunt down and execute Thanos with basically a hand wave and all hope for the stones is lost.

Until deus ex rat-ina unleashes Scott Lang from the quantum realm and the logic of the film takes a sharp left turn.

Scott Lang was missing for 5 years.

To him it was 5 hours.

To which I say, why did Janet van Dyne, age during her stay in the quantum realm?  If, according to the MCU canon, every year in our world was roughly only an hour for Scott Lang, then why didn’t Janet come out of the quantum realm only 30 hours older instead of 30 years?

I feel like the answer is probably “because” but yeah maybe I’m just fuzzy on my Ant Man so if I’m wrong then just ignore that bit please.

Also, just a side note, I adore how it’s been 5 years, Wakanda is very much an ally and still up and running, and yet Rhodey still don’t have working legs.  But alas, racism.

Moving on. 

So with the main villain dead and Tony Stark having solved time travel in his living room, because I stan legends only, we’re now subjected, and that is the very word I’d use to describe what happens next, to what is called a Time Heist.

Cute.

Also Bruce Banner and Hulk have now merged Steven Universe style despite Hulk being scared green-less 5 years ago.  But that’s all good, Bruce smoked a ton of weed, they meditated, went on a cleanse or whatever.

Either way Bruce finally did that character development that everyone had been shouting at him since Avengers 2012 and accepted Hulk as part of him and they’re now Dr. Hulk which was … something that happened?

A thing that they chose to do.  The direction in which they set their narrative wheels and then powered full steam ahead and plowed us right over in the process.

But yeah, Time Heist!  That’s the way to go, the only way apparently.

Because going back in time to stop the Snappening isn’t an option due to reasons that are explained and still look and feel paper thin but probably just honestly boils down to “Russos”

Our intrepid heroes will now split up and surf through time Bill and Ted style to collect the Stones from different points in history.

Yay.

So the rest of the film is basically that, a big old jewel hunt through space and history where the Russos attempt to fool us into thinking their plot points are cohesive and cool by donkey punching us repeatedly in our nostalgia-sacks.

We’re treated to, in no particular order, such hits as:

“Ah 2012 and the invasion of New York only not as interesting but Tony Stark is very much an ass man, but then we been done known that.”

“The Ancient One and her still very distracting skull vein coming at you right now”

“LOKI YOU LITTLE SHIT”

“The one time I envied Scott Lang because, for a split second, he got to be inside Tony Stark”

“Let’s watch Tony Stark simultaneous take a Hulk to the face and have a small cardiac event all at the same time but from different angles”

And let us not forget

“Tee Hee Hee us white bois just had to find a way to make sure Captain America say “Hail HYDRA” but it was for “spy reasons” so weren’t we clever???????”

Yeah boys, great job.

So edgy.

(Although as a side note I do agree, Steve Roger’s ass really is America’s ass and I’d like to thank him for that. Personally.)

But then, of course, Endgame would not have been complete without:

“Steve Rogers stares longingly and creepily at Peggy Carter from behind a window, further backing up his one defining character trait in the MCU which is the inability to move on.  Also she doesn’t look up at all despite being a trained spy and all around badass who probably should have noticed the 6 foot slab of American Beef staring at her from less than a foot away, dark room or no dark room.”

And then my personal favorite:

“Tony Stark sees Howard Stark, the father he described as “calculating, cold, he never told me he was proud of me, never even told me he loved me” but it’s all good cause Tony’s a dad now so looking back all he sees are the good times with his emotionally neglectful and abusive father who says there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for his unborn kid and now they awkwardly hug while I try not to scream “FOOTAGE NOT FUCKING FOUND HOWARD AND NO THAT ONE 3 MINUTE VIDEO DOESN’T COUNT YOU SHIT” at the screen and explode in pure rage.”

Joy.

Truly a scene that was necessary and fit the narrative of Howard Stark’s personality and was needed for Tony to uh get closure or grow as a man and a father or something …

It totally wasn’t yet another excuse to give a canonically abusive father screen time in a way that seems genial and sweet in an attempt to give them a bit of redemption that they neither earned nor deserve.

But yeah, whatever, moving on.

Also Rhodey remains an absolute gem and he and Nebula get shit done.

Only oops, not so fast.

Because apparently the only one who is going to run into the whole “two of you can’t exist in one place at one time without consequences” rule is Nebula who, despite her bitchin orange stripe/badge of character development, managed to like synch up with her past self?

Because she didn’t turn her bluetooth/quantum entanglement function off I guess.

Either way Orange Stripe Nebula, O’Snebula as I call her, has accidentally air dropped all her files into OG Nebula’s mental iPhone.

So yeah now big old Past Grimace knows what’s up.

Ooops??

So shit goes down and then Past Grimace is like “you need to Trogan horse this shit, least favorite daughter” so OG Nebula does because “daddy issues”.

Dr. Hulk puts on the gauntlet and Kentucky fires his arm bringing all the people lost in the Snappening back to life now, 5 years after they got dusted.

Which is … honestly a recipe for disaster in so many ways.  What about the people, like the guy in Steve’s support group, who have started to move on?

What about the people who have remarried, have built new lives?

All of that’s ruined now.

It’s fantastic all those people are alive again but jobs, housing, food, healthcare, government, all of it is back in massive disarray across the universe.

And bringing those people back does nothing to bring back the people who didn’t die in the Snappening but died from causality instead.  All the deaths caused by suicides, by car/bus/train/plane/ship/etc crashes, by a lack of first responders, by the civil/world/interplanetary wars that probably raged across the universe due to entire governments disappearing?

All of those people are still dead.

The Snappening killed half of all life in the universe.  Causality probably killed another good ¼ after that.

And Dr. Hulk’s Un-Snappening saves none of them.

This isn’t a true solution, it’s a shitty band-aid.

But yeah, Russos so….

Moving on.

Yadda Yadda Yadda, plot plot plot. OG Nebula goes undercover, Past Grimace ends up in the future, there’s some fighting (which was admittedly BAD ASS), shit happens, and Tony saves the day like we all knew he would.

YAY!

Despite the massive rambling up above I’m not gonna plot out the entire movie right here though a lot will probably get covered coming up because here’s where I get down and start talking about the various character arcs too.

Because what a wild fucking ride those were.

Okay to take it from the top Scott Lang’s arc was fine.  Beyond my questions about the quantum realm his was clear cut and fine although I do wonder at his luck at being, apparently, the only Scott Lang in San Fran to go missing.  Well either that or he was staring at some other Scott Lang’s name instead of his own and in that case “awkward”.

Bruce’s arc was … look I could have done without all of the cringy Dr. Hulk stuff that they played up for laughs.  If they were gonna brush Hulk being terrified under the rug they could have found a better way to do it besides just erasing the duality between Hulk and Banner with a hand wave.

But yeah, Russos.

Carol Danvers was beautiful and magnificent and completely brushed aside.  Yes she was out in the universe handling shit, yes I know they did that so they could focus on the core Avengers, etc etc etc.

But it’s a damn shame that Carol Danvers, and her glorious haircut, was reduced to being the sorely needed and totally badass cavalry and last minute ace in the hole when she should have, logically, been a part of the vanguard.  Honestly I have thoughts on why Carol’s entire character should have been saved completely for the next phase of the MCU instead of introduced so late in this one but I digress.

O’Snebula was a perfect shining bionic light and I love her.

Gamora is now alive in the future but at what cost?  Not that her life isn’t worth something on its own, it totally is and she deserved the loophole resurrection 10000%.

Shit’s gonna be awkward though cause she doesn’t love Quill, she doesn’t love the Guardians, doesn’t really know O’Snebula or the universe she’s been thrown into.  She doesn’t have the memories or the experiences or the character growth and even if she does go back to her family she’ll never be the same person.

Now her and Quill’s relationship, if they ever have one again, will be reduced down to Quill going “you fell in love with me once you could do it again despite us no longer having the shared experiences that bonded us together”.  Same can be said for the rest of the Guardians as well.

Guess we all know what the plot of GotG 3 is gonna be about.

And that brings us to the story lines that really and truly upset me.

Which is basically all the rest of them.

Natasha/Clint’s combined story-line, Thor’s everything, Steve’s … Steve, and then finally Tony.

Now the Natasha/Clint story-line started out promising.

Clint’s rage and pain was obvious, his heartbreak poignant.  His decision to use all of those to cut a bloody swathe through the criminal underworld was both Dramatic(™) and understandable.

Natasha’s love and grief for him, her desperate attempts to hold onto what she has left by throwing herself into her new job, was a perfect demonstration that Natasha Romanoff is very much not a robot.  She was exhausted, frayed at the edges, and she had tears in her eyes, over Clint.  And then she pulled herself together, slipped her mask back on, and pushed her way forward.  This was all excellent.

It was also a nice narrative callback/parallel to have Natasha be the one to go out and bring Clint in from the cold.

Natasha plays touch stone, plays stability, for Clint and for many of the others.  For the first time Natasha is truly portrayed as a person all the way down to the core instead of some witty quips in a catsuit.  Plus her eyebrows finally came back from the war and her hair looked good again.  So there was that.

Clint and Natasha’s arc comes to a climax on Vormir as they search for the Soul Stone and Red Skull, the Nazi cockroach that he is, gives them the same spiel he gave Thanos.

To get the Soul Stone you must give up the life of the one you love the most. A soul for a soul.

Narrative wise this is consistent, we all knew this would happen as soon as they started searching for the Stones again.  It was obvious.

It was also obvious that Clint was the perfect sacrifice.

He’s got nothing left, his family is dead, he’s already lost the people he loves the most, he’s spent five years being a borderline monster.

And he is also, without a doubt, the thing that Natasha loves the most.

Clint was ready and willing to go, ready to die for the blood on his hands, ready to sacrifice himself for the chance that his family would be saved.

Ready to lay down on the wire and let Natasha walk over him for the sake of everything.

Clint dying made sense, was narratively sound, and heartbreaking.

All of which are only a few of the reasons why Natasha’s death was such a goddamn betrayal.

Instead of following along with the narratively sound death of Clint Barton, an Avenger that’s been ignored for most of the films as is, the Russo brothers instead chose to fridge Natasha.

Clint dying would have been the perfect mirror to Gamora’s death.

Gamora was a daughter unwillingly sacrificed by her father to destroy half of all life in the universe.

Clint would have been a father willingly sacrificed by a friend to save half of all life in the universe, his own sons and daughter included.

But no, we didn’t get that, instead we got a gratuitous scene of Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, splayed angel like and bloody on the rocks below.

Instead they fridged the Black Widow, the only woman of the original Big Six, because they couldn’t bring themselves to fridge a man.

So Clint gets the Soul Stone.

Such a fitting end for the Black Widow right?  Dying in a man’s place, mourned on screen by a circle of men, but ultimately set aside rather quickly.

I understand why Natasha wanted to be the one to go, I understand that she didn’t want Clint’s family to lose their husband/father and that her true family was the Avengers. I get that.  It doesn’t mean I enjoy or agree with the decision they made any more.

It doesn’t make me any less tired of watching female characters die for the sake of men and their families.

Natasha Romanoff sacrificed herself for the universe and her family and that deserves respect even if I absolutely hate it as a narrative choice.

Oh and what about the absolute NERVE of the Russos to have that awesome Lady Power Battle Strut happen but only after they killed Natasha, one of the Big Six?

Bitter? Me? Nooo.

Now, moving on to Thor.

Thor.

Oh my actual God, Thor.

The levels of disrespect Thor, Chris Hemsworth, and the fans were shown with this character arc/story-line in Endgame is breathtaking.

The absolute, shameless disrespect.

They turned Thor into a cowardly, drunken slob who has spent the last 5 years ignoring his responsibilities to what’s left of his people and instead has spent his time drinking, sulking, and literally yelling at kids over PSN??

Endgame’s Thor has the bullshit reasoning that he needs to stop trying to be who he thinks he should be and instead be who he is.

Which flies completely in the face of literally all of his character development from Thor all the way to Thor 3 and then Infinity War.

The entirety of Thor 3 was Thor’s hero’s journey culminating in him finally being the king he was always meant to be.  Finally maturing and stepping forward to lead his people.

I am supposed to believe that Thor, depressed and guilty or not for not killing Thanos when he had the chance the first time, just abandoned his people like that?

I’m supposed to believe that Thor would piss all over everything the majority of his family and friends died for?

I’m supposed to believe that Heimdall, Loki, countless soldiers, and The Warrior’s Three and Lady Sif (I guess), all died to protect Asgard, died for the people and for Thor, and Thor just what? Turns his back on all of that to become a drunk?

No, Thor wouldn’t do that.  Thor should have been down there beside Valkyrie working those fishing vessels when Bruce and Rocket came calling.  If Thor had any hesitance to join them it should have been, “I can’t abandon my people, I am needed here.”  He should have been fiercely guarding the tiny fraction of Asgard that’s left.

Thor’s depression and guilt was valid. Don’t mistake me on that. But they played it for jokes.  They made him a caricature of depression, made him “gross” and incompetent and the butt of the jokes, and in the process diminished what should have been a painful and poignant arc for Thor.

Instead we got Big Lebowski Thor, bathrobe included, who does stand up and fight yes but, in the end, gives up his crown and just fucks off to space to have petty pissing competitions with Peter Quill so he can?? find himself?? despite finding himself in Ragnarok already???

Thor’s entire arc in Endgame was shallow, mishandled, and disrespectful to the character, to Chris Hemsworth, and to the fans.

You, we, he, all deserved better than this.

Now we get to Steve.

Steve Rogers, Captain America himself.

I’ve had a lot of salt about Steve’s character and actions in the MCU but, all of that aside, he deserved so much more than what the Russo’s did to him in Endgame.

Hell he’s deserved so much more than what’s been done to him since post-CA:TFA.

But this is about Endgame specifically soooo….

Steve’s shown leading a support group in the beginning of Endgame, is shown talking about moving on and moving forward and learning to let go. Which is wonderful.  It sounds like the exact character development we’ve all been waiting for for Steve.

Which is, of course, the exact moment when Steve goes “nah just kidding, we don’t ever move on”.

Which, given the circumstances, is pretty fair.  If Steve was only thinking/talking about Thanos and the events of Infinity War.

But of course he wasn’t.

CA:CW should have been the end of the Peggy Carter saga for Steve.  He mourned her, he was finally moving forward, he’d kissed Sharon, he threw everything away to save Bucky, he gave up his shield, etc etc.

But no.  Endgame finds him right back there, clutching that goddamn compass, and making moon eyes at a woman who we all thought went on and lived a life without him, got married, had kids, and generally existed outside of Steve Rogers.

But no.  The Russo’s had to take that away from us too.

And yes yes I know I know multiverse or whatever but still.

Steve steamrolls his way through Endgame with skill and determination.  He picks up Thor’s hammer, finally worthy, which how??? Why???  (perhaps because he’s no longer keeping secrets??? Or maybe that’s just my salt talking? Who knows? Not me?)

And then he fights Thanos head to head.

(Although him wielding the hammer brought up an entire separate set of issues cause I’m pretty sure Mjolnir doesn’t actually summon lightning. Ragnarok pretty much said that the lightning has always been within Thor.  Mjolnir was just a control accessory.  But, you know, Russos *jazzhands*)

And then, in the end, he insists on returning the Stones on his own.

Only he doesn’t come back like he was supposed to.

Instead we’re given old Steve Rogers.

Because Steve returned the Stones and then ….went and found Peggy Carter and got married and lived an entire life with her ignoring everything he would have known was going to happen to her and around the both of them or something???

Or maybe not if the multiverse thing holds up but then who knows any more???

But then how did Old Steve end up right there by that lake on that day at that right time if he’s technically from a different multiverse???

Either way Sam gets his shield and the mantle of Captain America, which was fantastic, and Bucky more than likely knew Steve’s plan all along but the best read I really got on him was basically “eh” so he might well have been happy for Steve too.

But still, instead of finally achieving peace and continuing to learn to live in the future with Bucky and Sam and the remnants of the Avengers, his family and the life he’s built there over the past years, instead of putting the shield down because he’s learned to let go in the now, Steve only puts the shield down because he chooses the past.

He chooses the past over all of that and all of the people left who love him. Sure the argument could be said that he knew they’d be alright but still.

There is a deep well of dissatisfaction inside of me as to how Steve’s entire ending arc was handled.  Why did peace only come to Steve after Tony and Natasha were both dead and then was only found in the past?

No disrespect to Peggy Carter, I adore her, but were the relationships he had in the future worth so little that the past was the only place he could find happiness?  A past with a woman that he knows loved him but still moved on and found happiness outside of him, lived a full and happy life without him?

Steve didn’t get a character arc so much as he got a character circle.  A character loop.  He went right back to where he started.

Endgame erases all of the character development Steve underwent post-Avengers.  Just brushes it all under the rug.

The Russo’s stole the character development Steve Rogers spent a decade undergoing to give him their version of a happy ending.

They robbed him and us both of every bit of growth and forward motion Steve has underwent and I will never forgive them for that.

And now we get to Tony Stark.

Anthony Edward Stark.

The Iron Man.

Tony’s arc is, was, the longest and best developed arc in the entirety of the MCU.

It’s spanned 10+ years and has been nurtured and hand fed by Robert Downey Jr.

If Endgame got one thing right, one thing at all, it’s how they handled the majority of Tony’s arc.

From him laying the smack down on Steve once he was home, finally venting his emotions and his anger, all the way to him solving time travel before tucking his kid into bed, and then building an Infinity Gauntlet on his own even though Thanos committed genocide to get the one he had.

Tony Stark’s arc was glorious and expected and sad.

I think that my one almost complaint is that Tony stopped for 5 years.  On one hand he deserved the rest, deserved the chance to find happiness.  He was hurt and tired and he’d faced his demons and been left bleeding out with the death of half the universe weighing on his shoulders.

He deserved to just stop for a while.

On the other hand stopping is not something Tony has ever been good at, just like Pepper said.  A part of me thought Tony would be working, frantically, to find something, anything, to turn back the hands of time.  To track Thanos down. To get the Stones and then to get everything else back.

To get Peter and all of the others back.

But that’s not the route they went and I’m … okay? I guess, with that.

Tony was validated and vindicated and everyone would have finally listened to him.  It only took the death of half of the universe to do it.  But he was too tired, too hurt and untrusting to keep pushing.  I can respect that.

But of course once an idea worms its way inside Tony can’t let it go.  So he solves time travel on the fly and sets out to save the world.

Again.

His one stipulation is that he will do anything, everything, he has to in order to keep what he has now.  His wife Pepper and Morgan, his sweet little daughter.

So of course he doesn’t get to do that either.

After all of the blood, sweat, suffering, and mental illnesses, Tony doesn’t get his happy ending.  Not really.

He gets to rest, yes, but he loses out on everything he wanted to do with his kid.  In the process of saving the universe he becomes the one thing he never wanted to be for Morgan, a distant father.

A face on a screen, stories, memories other people have.

No matter how many holograms or inventions or whatever Tony left to Morgan, it’ll never replace him.

Morgan got 5 years with her father.  She’ll spend the rest of her life hearing stories about him, about how much of a hero he was.  And hopefully, with Pepper and all the others behind her, Tony will remain a hero to her and will not, instead, become her version of Captain America.  An untouchable symbol that Morgan will never live up to.

So, in the end, Tony sacrifices once again.

Watches the future he wanted crumble to dust in his fingers, lightning scorching him from the inside out as infinity rips him apart.

And he dies there, surrounded by some of the people who love him best.

His best friend.

His wife.

The son he almost had.

And, despite all of that, it is very very fitting that his death was at his own hands.

Thanos could take out half the universe, he could traverse time and space, he could humble Thor, terrorize the Hulk, rip Steve Roger’s up, survive shield and hammer and so much more, but the one thing he couldn’t do?

He couldn’t kill Tony Stark.

The only thing that could kill Iron Man, could kill Tony Stark, was his own heart.

Tony Stark takes the Infinity Stones in hand knowing how this is going to end, knowing that Stephen Strange set him on this path years ago.

Because didn’t Strange warn him?  Didn’t Strange tell him outright “I’ll let the kid and you both die to protect the Time Stone”?

Tony just never expected it to take a few hours and then 5 more years for Strange’s promise to finally be fulfilled.

So Tony does it knowing that after everything he’s been through, all of the pain and the suffering and the battles, it was only enough to have earned 5 years of happiness, 5 years of his dream.

5 years of being the father he always swore he’d be.

Tony Stark takes the Infinity Stones and dies for the entire universe, for his family, for his daughter.  Dies knowing that he’ll be doing the one thing he didn’t want to do, swore he would never do.

Leaving them behind.

Tony Stark brings us full circle as he stands as both equal and mirror of Thanos once again.

Man to Titan.  Good Father to Bad Father.  Life to Death.

Tony Stark picks up the weight of the universe and then he dies making sure that it has a future free from the same fear that has haunted him for a decade.

A warm light for all mankind, sent to sleep, to rest, knowing that finally everything will be okay.

And all he had to do was die for it.

So, I’ll close this out saying this:

This was written in one solid push after my first viewing and Endgame was dissatisfying for me as you might have guessed.  I am disappointed and angry at so much they chose to do to end out this iconic decade of cinema and to close out these character’s arcs.

There were a lot of points and little details I didn’t get to cover in this and perhaps a lot of points you might not agree with me on.

That’s okay.

Because, no matter what, there is one thing I know for sure.

We, I, will always have Tony Stark and the lessons he taught me.  The pain he endured and shared with all of us.  The bravery and strength he inspired in so many of us as we watched him struggle with physical and mental illnesses on screen.  As we watched him obsess and stress and love and grow.

I have never loved a character more than I love Tony Stark.

I have never been impacted by a character as much as I have been by Tony Stark.

I’m not sure if I ever will again.

So, Tony Stark is Iron Man.

He always will be.

And he saved more than just some fictional universe.

He saved a lot of us along the way too.

And we’ll always love him for that.

#MCU wank #Avengers Endgame #avengers 4 #Avengers #Endgame #A:4

[dukereviewsmovies]

Duke Reviews: Thor

Hello, I'm Andrew Leduc And Welcome To Duke Reviews Where We Are Continuing Our Look At The Marvel Cinematic Universe....

As We Look At The First Movie With The God Of Thunder, Thor...

This Film Sees Thor (Played By Chris Hemsworth) Being Banished To Earth By His Father Odin After Reigniting A Dormant War, Stripped Of His Powers, Thor Seeks To Return To Asgard When His Brother, Loki (Played Memorably By Tom Hiddleston) Seeks To Take The Throne Of Asgard For Himself, Will Thor Return To Asgard In Time To Stop His Evil Brother?

Let's Find Out As We Watch Thor...

The Movie Starts At Night On The Planet Earth As Jane Foster (Played By Natalie Portman) Erik Selvig (Played By Stellan Skarsgård) And Jane's Assistant, Darcy (Played By Kat Dennings, Who Is Apparently The Jar Jar Binks Of This Film) Who Are There To Monitor Atmospheric Disturbances Which Tie Into Jane's Work...

Eventually Finding Something, They Drive Off To See Whatever It Is But When They Drive Into It They End Up Crashing Into A Guy With Blonde Hair And A Beard, This Leads To An Introduction By Odin (Played By Hannibal Lecter Himself, Sir Anthony Hopkins)

(Start At 3:02)

Showing His Sons, Thor And Loki The Casket Of Endless Winter, Thor Promises His Father That He'll Hunt Them Down And Slay Them All, However Odin Tells Him That A Wise King Does Not Seek War, But He Must Always Be Ready For It....

Years Later, Thor Is Ready To Ascend To The Throne Of Asgard With His Brother Loki And His Friends, The Warriors Three (Hogun (Played By Tadanobu Asano) Fandral (Played By Once Upon A Time's Josh Dallas) And Volstagg (Played By The Punisher)) And Lady Sif (Played By Jaime Alexander) By His Side...

But When 3 Frost Giants Break Into The Weapons Vault At Asgard, Odin Destroys Them With The Prototype Version Of Cyclops So, Him, Thor And Loki Can Come Down To See What Happened...

Seeing This As A Possible Threat To Their Boarders, Thor Suggests Going To Their Homeworld Of Jotunheim To Teach Them A Lesson So They Won't Dare Cross Their Boarders Again, However With Odin Seeing This As Just An Isolated Incident That Will Never Happen Again As The People Behind It Have Paid With Their Lives, Odin Tells Thor No...

Having A Major Temper Tantrum In The Dining Hall Because Daddy Won't Let Me Have My Way...

Loki Goes To Talk With Thor To Say That Despite What Odin Thinks He Thinks He's Right, Saying That If The Frost Giants Broke In Once, They'll Do It Again...

Which Sounds Right...

Thor Is Right, The Frost Giants Broke The Truce And They Should Be Going To War But Odin Is Like "These Things Do Happen" Bull! Something Needs To Be Done And Just Simply Raising Security Is Not Enough...

Deciding To Go To Jotunheim With Loki, Sif And The Warriors Three, They Race To The Bifrost Where They Try To Convince Heimdall (Played By Idris Elba) To Help Them, Which He Only Does Because He's Pissed Off A Frost Giant Got Passed His Watch And He Wants To Know Why...

Once On Jotunheim, They Meet The Ruler Of This Frosty Realm...

(Start At 0:17, End At 1:46)

No, No, Not Him!

This Guy, Laufey, Who Tells Thor That The House Of Odin Is Full Of Traitors, He Doesn't Know What His Actions Will Unleash And That He Should Leave Now While He Still Allows It, Which They Start To But One Lousy Frost Giant Couldn't Shut His Mouth

(Start At 2:07, End At 4:28)

Being Chased By Frost Monsters, Odin Eventually Appears To Try To Barter Peace With Laufey, But It Is Too Late And Laufey Declares War On Asgard...

Taking Them All Back To Asgard, Odin Argues With Thor About What He Has Done And For His Actions, Odin Takes Away Mijonir From Thor And Banishes Him To Earth And Sends Us Back To Where The Film Began With Jane And Her Team Finding Thor...

Believing Him To Be On Drugs Or Something, Darcy Tazers Him And They Take Him To The Hospital Only For Thor To Attack The Doctors And Nurses When He Comes To...

Meanwhile On The Other Side Of New Mexico, A Driver Comes Across A Big Crater Where Mijonir Landed And Tries To Pull It Out Only To Be Unsuccessful...

Back At Their Lab, Jane And Her Team Go Over The Data Of What Happened Last Night And Discover That Whatever It Was Had The Characteristics Of An Einstien-Rosen Bridge Otherwise Known As A Wormhole...

Coming Across A Picture Of What Looks Like A Man Inside Of The Wormhole, Jane Races To The Hospital To Get Thor...

Strapped Down After Trying To Escape By Beating The Living Hell Out Of Doctors And Nurses, Thor Somehow Manages To Break Free Before Jane And Her Team Get There...

However, When They Go To Leave, They End Up Running Thor Over Again...

Do You Just Run People Over On A Regular Basis, Jane?

Meanwhile At The Crater With Mijonir, Millions Of People Are Around The Area Trying To Get It Out Like It's The Sword In The Stone...

Hell, Even Stan Is Getting Involved...

Stan Lee Cameo!

But While Everyone Tries To Get It Out, A Car Arrives On A Hilltop, With The Driver Getting Out Of The Car, We See That It's Phil Coulson (Played By Clark Gregg) Who's There To Redo The End Credit Scene From Iron Man 2 For The People Who Didn't See The Film Which Is Most Likely The People Who Live Under A Rock Or Martin Scorsese...

Jane Gets Thor Some Clothes Along With An Easter Egg To Dr. Donald Blake, While On Asgard, The Warriors Three And Sif Are Missing Thor. However, They Soon Wonder How The Guards Found Out, This Leads Loki To Admit That He Told Them, However He Had No Idea That Odin Would Banish Thor For What He Did...

Sif Asks Loki To Convince Odin To Change His Mind But Despite Loving Thor More Than Any Of Them, Loki Knows How Arrogant, Reckless And Dangerous Thor Is And He Believes That That Is Not What Asgard Needs Right Now...

As Loki Walks Away, Hogun Remembers What Laufey Said About The House Of Odin Being Full Of Traitors, Stating That A Master Of Magic Could Bring 3 Frost Giants Into Asgard, But Sif, Fandral And Volstagg Just Dismiss The Idea...

Meanwhile In The Weapons Room In Asgard, Loki Grabs The Casket Of Endless Winter Only To Be Confronted By Odin Who Discovers That Touching It Has Briefly Transformed Loki Into A Frost Giant...

(Start At 0:50, End At 2:22)

With Loki Mad At His Father For This, Odin Soon Faints And Falls Into What He Calls The Odinsleep...

Taking Thor For Food, Him Along With Jane And Her Team Hear About A Crater Where A Satellite Crashed In The Desert, But When They Say That No One Could Lift It, Thor Knows That It's His Hammer And Asks The Gentlemen Where It Is And They Tell Thor Where It Is Only To Warn Him That Feds Showed Up...

Walking In The Middle Of The Road With Jane And Her Team Following, Thor Tells Jane That If She Helps Him Reclaim Mijonir, He'll Tell Her Everything She Needs To Know. But Selvig Tells Jane Not To Go Because He Believes Thor To Be A Delusional Nut So Jane Doesn't Go With Him And They Just Walk Off Only To Get Screwed By Coulson And S.H.I.E.L.D. Who Take Everything From Them...

And I Do Mean Everything, Their Data, Their Facts Their Scientific Equipment...Everything Without Even Saying Please...

With Their Research Gone, Erik Lays Down A Reference To Bruce Banner Before We Go Back To Asgard To See That With Thor Gone And The Allfather Deep In The Odinsleep, Loki Has Been Placed In Charge Of Asgard...

(Start At 0:40, End At 1:49)

Jane Decides To Help Thor By Driving Him To The Crater Site Which Has Been Taken Over By Coulson And S.H.I.E.L.D. Sneaking Under The Gate, Thor Fights Dozens Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Soldiers While Coulson Gets Clint Barton (Played By Jeremy Renner) To Try To Take Thor Down From Above, But Eventually Reaching Mijonir Thor Tries To Grab It Only To Discover That He Cannot Lift It As He Is Not Worthy...

Arrested By S.H.I.E.L.D. Guards, Coulson Interrogates Thor Only To Get Nothing Out Of Him. Once Coulson Leaves, Loki Appears To Thor...

(Start At 1:10, End At 3:09)

Getting Selvig To Help Her After A Talk About How Magic Is Just Science That They Don't Understand, Selvig Goes Down To The S.H.I.E.L.D. Site To Free Thor, By Stating That He Was Upset That They Took Their Research And The Reason He Was Able To Take Down Their Soliders Is Because He's A Health Nut On Steroids...

Buying Selvig's Story, Coulson Lets Thor Go, But Before He Leaves, Thor Manages To Get Ahold Of A Book That Belongs To Jane...

Taking Thor To A Bar To Talk, They Get A Few Drinks Which Ends In Selvig Getting Drunk To The Point That Thor Has To Carry Him Back To Jane's Trailer...

Meanwhile On Jotunheim, Laufey Has A Visitor In The Form Of Loki, Who Tells Him That He Was The One Who Let The Frost Giants Into Asgard Mainly Because He Wanted To Ruin Thor's Big Day. Offering To Conceal Laufey And A Few Of His Soldiers In Asgard So He Can Kill Odin And Take Back The Casket Of Endless Winter, Laufey Accepts...

Travelling Back To Asgard, Heimdall Tells Loki That He Couldn't See Him On Jotunheim Which Has Him Suspecting That Loki Was The One Who Brought The Frost Giants Into Asgard...

But Telling Heimdall To Never Question Him As He Is King And To Not Open The Bifrost To Anyone Until He Has Repaired The "Damage" That Thor Has Caused, Loki Exits...

Talking Outside With Thor, He Gives Jane Her Book Before Telling Her Everything She Wants To Know And Where He Comes From...

Back On Asgard, Fandral And Volstagg Are At The Point Of Fighting Before Sif And Hogun Unite Them When They Realize What They Must Do And That's Go To Earth To Get Thor Back. Going To Heimdall At The Rainbow Bridge After Hearing Them With His Powers, He Somewhat Helps Them...

And Somewhat Helps Them, I Mean He Walks Out, Leaves His Sword That Opens The Bifrost And Lets The Warriors Three And Lady Sif Use It To Go To Earth..

Seeing The Bifrost Being Opened, Loki Sends The Destroyer To Detroy Thor And His Companions...

Arriving On Earth, The Warriors Three And Sif Go Into Town To Try To Find Thor Only To Be Spotted By S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents On The Rooftops...

No, No, No, You Twit! This Is Robin Hood..

He Was Prince Charming...

Eventually Finding Thor, He Tells Them What Loki Told Him Only For Sif To Tell Thor That Odin's Alive And He's Been Lied To...

Confronting Heimdall Who Knows The Truth Now, He Fights Loki After Loki Dismisses Him From His Job Of Gatekeeper Only For Loki To Freeze Him With The Casket Of Endless Winter

Arriving At The Site Where The Warriors Three And Sif Landed, Coulson And His Agents Watch As The Destroyer Arrives On Earth...

(Start At 0:38)

Talking With The Destroyer, Knowing That Loki Is Watching, Thor Tells His Brother That Whatever He Has Done To Lead Him To This, He Truly Is Sorry But Taking Their Lives Will Not Gain Him Anything So Instead He Offers Up His, And The Destroyer Kills Him Only For Thor To Be Brought Back To Life By Mijonir As He's Proven Himself Worthy Enough To Regain His Powers To Destroy The Destroyer...

Confronted By Coulson Who Says It's Obvious That He Hasn't Been Telling Him The Truth. Thor Tells Coulson That They Fight For The Same Cause And To Consider Him An Ally If They Return The Items They Stole From Jane, Which Coulson Promises To Return...

Taking Jane, To The Bifrost Site With The Warriors Three And Sif Going There In Selvig's Car, Heimdall Breaks Free Of Loki's Ice Prison And Opens The Bifrost To Bring Thor And The Others Home....

But Before He Leaves, Thor Promises To Return For Jane Which Ends Up With Them Kissing...

But While Thor And The Others Were On Their Way To The Bifrost And Heimdall Was Still Frozen, Loki Brought Laufey And His Frost Giants Into Asgard To Kill Odin But When Laufey Goes To Kill Odin, Loki Double Crosses Him And Kills Him Instead...

Making The Attack Look As If It Was Orchestrated By The Frost Giants, Thor Arrives To Reveal All Of Loki's Lies...

Blasting Thor Out Of Odin's Room, Thor Flies To The Bifrost As Loki Heads There To Release The Full Power Of The Bifrost On Jotunheim To Destroy The Entire Planet...

(Start At 0:28)

Realizing That He Can't Stop This, Thor Decides Instead To Destroy The Bifrost With Mijonir, Knowing That He Will Never See Jane Again..

But When The Bifrost Is Destroyed Loki And Thor Are About To Go Over The Edge But Luckily, Odin Wakes From His Odinsleep To Save His 2 Sons, However After Telling His Father That He Did This For Him, Loki Lets Go Of His Staff Only To Supposedly Fall To His Death...

Holding A Celebration/Funeral Over The Return Of Thor And The Loss Of Loki, Thor Talks With His Father, He Tells Thor That He Will Be A Wise King But Thor Admits That He Has A Lot To Learn And Says That Someday He Will Make His Father Proud, However Odin Says That He Is Already Proud Of Him Before He Walks Away...

Headed To The Rainbow Bridge (Can't Really Say The Bifrost As The Bifrost Is Gone) Thor Talks With Heimdall Asking If He Can See Jane, Saying That He Can He Tells Thor That She Is Searching For Him...

After The Credits Roll, We Get The End Credits Scene Of The Film Which Shows Selvig Meeting With Nick Fury (Played Again By Samuel L. Jackson) Who Is Impressed By His Work With Jane Foster And Shows Him The Tesseract In Which He Needs His Help Adapting It In Someway...

Looking In A Mirror, We See That Loki Is Alive As He Puts Words In Selvig's Mouth...

This Film Is...Pretty Good...

Alot Of People Complain That This Is Just A Fish Out Of Water Story With Only Best Scenes Being In Asgard But Me, I Just Like This Movie, The Stuff With Thor And Loki And Thor And Jane Is Interesting And I Love The Fight Scenes, I Love The Warriors Three And Sif As Well As The Stuff With Darcy (I Know I'm Going To Get Alot Of Hate For This But I'm Sorry I Like The Character, I Thought Anthony Hopkins Was Good, I Thought Asgard Was Amazing As Well As The New Mexico Setting, It Was Just A Good Film And I Say See It...

Till Next Time, This Is Duke, Signing Off...

#Thor #chris hemsworth #tom hiddelson #anthony hopkins #Rene Russo #natalie portman #stellan skarsgard #kat dennings #josh dallas #ray stevenson #marvel #marvel cinematic universe #MCU #Loki

[ramajmedia]

10 Horror Movies Starring Your Favorite Avengers, Ranked by Scariness

Superhero actors often make their bones in similar action or comedy movies, if not just other comic book adaptations. But the genre has grown to such a size, and incorporated such a high number of talented actors, that you can find your favorite heroes in some unusually horrific situations. You just need to know where to look and, preferably, what you’ll find when you get there. (Unless you’re the kind of person who likes to roll the dice with their horror movies.)

Here’s ten horror movies starring actors who double-up as members of the Avengers in the MCU, ranked from the least scary to the most.

RELATED: 10 Campy Horror Movies To Watch If You Liked Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark

10 Repentance

Starring Anthony Mackie (A.K.A. The Falcon), Phillipe Caland’s psychological horror movie sees a life coach, played by Mackie, taking up the job of one-on-one therapy sessions with Forest Whitaker’s deeply troubled renovator. When it becomes apparent that Whitaker’s character suffers from a psychological haunting that may border on the spiritual, and that Mackie’s coach has many demons of his own, their relationship takes a dark turn.

Though mostly more on the thriller side of horror, Repentance does stray into the torture area of things once the situation fully deteriorates. It’s a movie that possesses a lot of the hallmarks of Bad Movie Syndrome but it’s undeniably bolstered by the performances of Mackie, Whitaker and – surprisingly enough – comedian Mike Epps on solid dramatic form.

9 Priest

Starring Paul Bettany (A.K.A. Vision), Priest is a big screen adaptation of the Korean comic of the same name by Hyung Min-woo. It follows Bettany’s titular Priest (a practically superhuman vampire hunter living in a post-apocalyptic world where his services are no longer needed) on his quest to rescue his niece from a vampire plot.

RELATED: Ranked: Every Version Of Vampires On TV/Movies

Priest, like the comic it’s based on, is really a mishmash of a number of genres from martial arts action to Westerns. Its horror elements go hand-in-hand with the undead monsters at the heart of its story, falling more on the action-horror side of the equation. Fans of the Blade movies will be familiar with it.

8 Gothika

Starring Robert Downey Jr. (A.K.A. Iron Man), Gothika is the Hollywood debut of acclaimed French director and actor Mathieu Kassovitz. It follows Halle Berry’s psychiatrist as she awakes to a nightmare scenario where she’s institutionalized in her own hospital after apparently murdering her loving husband. Downey Jr. plays a colleague trying to get to the bottom of things in this unusual thriller/chiller.

Gothika's horror, while supernatural in many instances, is mostly psychological but the movie has its fair share of gore in certain scenes. It fits more neatly under the category of 'disturbing' than it does 'frightening', with its central mystery playing comfortably to the conventions of the ghost genre.

7 Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers

Starring Paul Rudd (A.K.A. Ant-Man) in his movie debut as Tommy Doyle, a young character from John Carpenter’s original Halloween movie, The Curse of Michael Myers is the last of a kind of trilogy of Halloween sequels before the series began continually rebooting itself. 

Its production troubles resulted in two very different versions of the movie existing for public consumption, each with pros and cons. You could call the original theatrical version scarier, as it adds some much more graphic kills, but the so-called Producer’s Cut has the benefit of making a little more sense.

6 Silent House

Starring Elizabeth Olsen (A.K.A. Scarlet Witch), Silent House is another psychological horror movie but presented in a very unique way. The movie, like the original Uruguayan movie La Casa Muda from which it’s adapted, is presented as one continuous take. Meaning there are no visible cuts as it follows its main character, played by Olsen, in real time. 

RELATED: The 10 Most Haunting Ghost Movies Of The 2010s, Ranked

It follows Olsen’s character’s nerve-racking journey through an old family home as instances of trauma from her past begin to manifest around her in a ghostly fashion. It’s overall style and presentation will seem familiar to lovers of modern horror video games.

5 The Cabin in the Woods

Drew Goddard’s hugely entertaining monster mash horror comedy doesn’t skimp on either the frights or the laughs. As the title suggests, it riffs on the conventions of the supernatural slasher genre, with a just pre-career-explosion Chris Hemsworth (A.K.A. Thor) perfectly cast as the stock jock. But The Cabin in the Woods evolves into an examination of the horror genre itself, eventually folding in every type of phobia and thing that goes bump in the night that you can think of.

Things get progressively wilder and wilder as the movie progresses, leading to a parade of highly creative kills in a blood-soaked finale.

4 The Midnight Meat Train

Based on a short story from Hellraiser and Candyman creator Clive Barker, The Midnight Meat Train stars Bradley Cooper (A.K.A. Rocket Raccoon) as a photographer who falls down a deep and dark rabbit hole of grisly murder when he seeks more shocking photo opportunities on the subway system at night. 

The Midnight Meat Train is a movie that starts out pretty dark but there’s not much that can prepare you for how just how horrifically weird things get. Gory, macabre, and not necessarily a movie you should watch if you want to look at Bradley Cooper the same way ever again.

3 28 Weeks Later

Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s sequel to Danny Boyle’s game-changing, rejuvenating, surprise zombie hit 28 Days Later surprised audiences in its own ways. To get a truly original-feeling genre movie of that type was shocking enough the first time it happened. But to get a sequel that amped up the scale and the action and the threat, while keeping the emotional intensity at an incredibly high standard, was something that beat phenomenal odds.

RELATED: The 5 Scariest Zombie Films (And The 5 Funniest)

Jeremy Renner (A.K.A. Hawkeye) plays a US military sniper overseeing the rebuilding of London after the zombie apocalypse of the first movie. When things go bad again, a chain of shocking, visceral, events plays out as he attempts to protect a group of survivors. 

2 Oculus

Starring Karen Gillan (A.K.A. Nebula), Oculus was a landmark moment for both director Mike Flanagan (adapting the movie from an earlier short film of his own) and Gillan on their journeys into the spotlight. The movie’s classical American horror story, about a haunted mirror standing in as a traditional metaphor for the horror of losing one’s grip on reality, established Flanagan as a filmmaker able to weave complex character-based horror stories with real staying power.

Effective in its build-up, but never afraid to take the terror to dark and delirious places, Oculus is a movie that accomplishes a lot with relatively little and showcases exactly why Flanagan would go on to be trusted with several Stephen King adaptations.

1 Under the Skin

Scarlett Johansson (A.K.A. Black Widow) plays an alien Siren on the streets of Scotland, hunting for prey to seduce and lure back to her lair to be slowly digested, in Jonathan Glazer’s one-of-a-kind sci-fi nightmare. 

Johansson’s unflinching performance sees her interact with a number of non-professional actors in key sequences throughout the movie, often on the street with hidden cameras, and it intensifies the otherworldly feeling flowing through Under the Skin. Whether it be the tone of the scenes, or Mica Levi’s haunting music, Under the Skin is all but guaranteed to mess with your brain in one way or another.

NEXT: 10 Facts Behind The Making Of Avengers Endgame

source https://screenrant.com/10-horror-movies-starring-favorite-avengers-ranked-scariness/

#screenrant

[lonelyandgone]

Previous Chapters:  Teaser/Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9

 Unexpected – Chapter 10

 He’s spent the last twenty minutes watching and waiting.  His eyes moving to the door each time it opens, each time providing him with a friend or family member but not her.  He’s smiled and waved, chatted and talked and tried his damndest to be he his typical self but he can tell by the looks he keeps getting from both his mom and Jeremy that his acting skills are failing him now.

He knows he probably shouldn’t be expecting her to show up.  Not after yesterday.  Not after she sat stiffly on his living room couch, her hands folded neatly in her lap as she listened to Haley speak.  She had been polite.  She had been sweet and considerate.  But then she had walked out of his door with her gaze not even meeting his, with her smile slipped downward into a frown.    

She had provided him with the excuse that she wanted to go by the hospital, that when she had talked to them the day before they had mentioned some other patients she may want to visit.  Since she planned to see Emily tomorrow, she had said, maybe I should try to visit the others today.  He knew it had been a lie.  He could read it all over her face, in the darkness of her eyes.  She had provided his mom with a hug and Haley with another shake of the hand before she fell to her knees beside of Dodger and pulled him to her.  

His heart had ached at the scene, at the bond that was so apparent between his beloved dog and the woman he struggles to call his friend.  The bond even more apparent when she rose up, Dodger looking up at her and moaning.  She hadn’t even walked out the door and he missed her.  He understood, he had thought.  Then and now.  He fully understood.  

He considered going to the Four Seasons.  Considered going to the Children’s Hospital.  Even now, part of him wishes that he had.  Then he called her four times, texted five more.  It wasn’t until almost midnight though that he finally got a response.  I got you a ticket for the Patriots opener tomorrow. I had planned to surprise you with it today but you left before I could, he had told her in one of the texts, It’s a thank you for all you did for me and Dodger. Please come.  Please.  He had followed it up with a praying hands emoji and waited with baited breath for a response.  

When it finally came, it was in the form of a simple and direct maybe.  Then, she ceased contact.  

He glances at his watch and then to the field.  It’s ten minutes before the presentation of the Super Bowl trophy and likely ten minutes before he will give up all hope that she’s coming.  He throws a look at Jeremy before he makes his way through the room toward him.  

“I hadn’t decided if you had developed a nervous tick or you were going to try your hand at interior decorating and you really liked the look of that door,” Jeremy squawks before he lifts his beer bottle to his lips and drinks.  “But then . . . .,” he tips the bottle toward him, “your sister mentioned Taylor coming and whatdya know, everything made perfect sense then.  How is the lovely Ms. Swift anyway?”

He shrugs, finding himself partially annoyed at his friends question and partially wanting to talk about what’s been going on with someone . . . . anyone.  “I wouldn’t know,” he says with a shrug and his own swig of beer, “the lovely Ms. Swift has been ignoring me since I arrived back in the States.”

Jeremy cocks an eyebrow, his expression shining with humor.  “Hiddleston find out you were after his woman and tie her down?”

Chris bites at his cheek, shaking his head, before he answers.  “First off, I’m not after her.  Do I want to be after her?  Fuck yes. But I am being as good as I can possibly be.”

“What does that mean,” Jeremy interrupts, tilting his bottle again, “good as you can possibly be. That mean you’ve been bad a little bit too?”

His mind instantly goes into playback mode.  Taylor pinned against his counter as they had sex at his apartment.  Kisses in elevators and on ferris wheels and at sunrises. Flirtations and touches.  

He lowers his chin. “I have perhaps been a step or two over the friend line.”

“One or two,” Jeremy pries, his face showing his obvious skepticism.

He throws his head back, exasperated, “Ok so maybe, sometimes, one or two hundred steps.”

“I knew it,” Renner cockles, “And I’d place bets that Tom has caught wind of your steps and is pulling his woman back in.”  Titling his head to the side, he raises his eyes as if in thought.  “But then again, why would she be in Boston, huh?”

“She came to Boston to bring Dodger back to me,” Chris chimes in.

“For fuckin’ real? Taylor Swift came to Boston just to bring your dog back to you?  What kind of sorcery is this that you have over her?  Cause I can’t get a woman to bring me a cup of coffee from the kitchen to the living room much less someone like Taylor to bring me my dog from wherever the fuck she was at at the time.  Hiddleston better be keeping an eye on you for sure.  Bring out his Loki powers or something because damn, apparently you are good.”

“Do you not remember I just said she is ignoring me?”

“Oh right,” Jeremy says, his expression lightening, “So what exactly did you do to make her decide to ignore you because the way I see it, she brought your dog to Boston because she wanted to see you.  I doubt she was bored and I really doubt she couldn’t find anyone else to do it.  So what did you do?”

He has no chance to answer, his vision immediately pulled to the door behind him when he hears it opening again.  He’s greeted by the sight of a beautiful blonde.  His heart drops a little.  It’s not the beautiful blonde he wanted to see.  Actually, it’s not even one he expected to see.  

“Who is that,” Jeremy questions from beside of him and he takes a swig of his beer before he answers.

He notices Scott walk into the room just behind the woman, his gaze immediately finding Chris’s.  He shrugs, hands outstretched slightly, eyes wide.

“Haley Bennett,” Chris says, mustering a smile for her and his sibling as they enter.    

He hears his friend scoff, can see from the corner of his eyes as he turns his body away and mutters something under his breath.  “So that’s what you did,” he believes he says but he doesn’t question.  He couldn’t even if he wanted to because by the time the words register in his mind, Haley has stepped in near him.

“Hey,” she whispers softly, her brown eyes dancing.  “I hope you don’t mind I came by.  I was sitting at the hotel, bored out of my mind, when I remembered you talking about this game and how excited you were for it.”  Her gaze moves behind him to the field briefly before moving back to him. “I paid an outrageous fortune for a ticket at the top of the stadium but honestly was silently hoping to find you so I could end up here.  I found your brother instead so I guess that works.  If that’s ok with you, of course.”

Lowering his chin, he nods with a smile.  “Yeah, sure. It’s not like I would kick you out, Hales.”

She smiles when he uses her nickname, one that pinches at both of her ears.  It honestly makes him feel uneasy but he pushes the feeling away.

He introduces her to Jeremy and then to his sisters before gesturing to his nieces and nephews playing in the back of the room.  “My dad might be here later,” he says, trying in vain to ignore the multitude of glares and stares around the room.

The door opens again, his eyes flying to it once more.  A waiter enters just as his heart sinks and he turns back to the field.

Haley takes a stand just to his side when the announcement is made that the Super Bowl trophy presentation is about to start.  Jeremy steps in to the other side.  His family also makes their way to the glass, standing with giddy smiles on their faces in anticipation of what is to come.  He notices though that his mother chooses to stand farther back in the room, her hands stuffed in her pant pockets.  He throws her a confused glare but she simply smiles and shakes her head, prompting his eyes back to the field.  

He can feel his elation settle in his body as the ceremony begins.  The cheers are deafening, the excitement compounding.  It’s an amazing and surreal experience, one he wishes he could fully enjoy but he finds his eyes still streaming toward the door even amidst it all.  

“How many super bowls have the Patriots won,” Haley asks, pulling his view.  

“Five,” he answers, clapping his hands as loudly as Mark Wahlberg walks onto the stage.  “2002, 2004, 2005, 2015 and 2017.”

He can feel Haley’s smile without even looking.  “Wow,” she utters, “you are a true fan, aren’t you?”

“In the flesh,” he chuckles, “I’ve seen them win each one.  Each time it gets better.  The last one was the best though.  Everyone had counted them out.  Even part of me had given up on a comeback.  But they did. It was madness.”

She giggles, her smile broad and bright as she joins his applause.  “I bet.”

Kevin Faulk, Matt Light and Deion Branch saunter onto the stage, each carrying a previously won Lombardi trophy, the noise growing louder with each introduction.  

Trophy number four is carried onstage by Julian Edelman.  He leans back in his chair when he sees the injured Patriots wide receiver, catching Scott’s view a few feet away.  “The Squirrel is walking better than I thought he’d be.  Maybe he will make it back this season.” When Scott winks, he chuckles.

“The Squirrel,” Haley says, her eyes focused on the large screen, Edelman’s face prominent on it, “that man looks more like a model than a squirrel . . . . or a football player to be honest.”

“Yeah, I know Scott would agree with you on that one.”  He tosses a side eye toward his brother.  “But that’s Julian Edelman.  Star wide receiver.  Notorious ladies’ man.  Without a doubt, the favorite player of all of my siblings.  Maybe even mine too on some days.”

“He’s nice to watch play,” Shanna barks from her position on the other side of Haley, “you can trust me on that.”

The crowd grows louder as Robert Kraft makes his way onto the stage, the newest Lombardi trophy in hand. The noise is deafening to the point that he can’t even hear the chatter he knows is going on around him.  He flails his arms in the air to cheer himself at a few points, sometimes placing his fingers in his mouth for a screeching whistle, and as the ceremony nears an end, he feels a soft touch on his wrist.

He moves his head as Haley slips onto her tiptoes and places her lips near his ear.  “This atmosphere is amazing,” she says, trying to speak over the crowd.  

His eyes catch on hers as he smiles and nods, enraptured in the moment of his favorite team and their massive win.  She smiles back, keeping her hand on his wrist and her face close to his until he turns away.  

Jeremy taps his shoulder against his then, tossing his head back while keeping his view on the field in front of them.  Chris narrows his eyes momentarily before he follows the direction his friend was indicating, looking back behind him.

He sees his mom first and then follows her gaze to her right.  To a pair of soft blue eyes that are settled on him.  

Taylor.

She smiles when his eyes latch onto hers, her expression warm but those eyes that have haunted him so much, void of their normal vibrancy.  From his side, he can feel Haley’s stare but he ignores it, and her, moving away and taking the few steps needed to get to his mother and Taylor.

“You came,” he says, reaching for her and pulling her to him in a hug.  He can feel her edge, how guarded she seems, and he pulls back to look at her incredulously.  

“Well your mom called and asked me to come,” she says, her lips raising a fraction of an inch, “I figured I couldn’t let Mama Evans down.”

“But you could let me,” he chuckles.  

He watches as Taylor’s eyes move behind him and then back.  “I doubt you would have noticed with the excitement and all.”  Hesitating briefly, she takes a deep breath and forces her smile wider.  “I hope you and Haley had a good day yesterday.”  She smiles, letting her chin slip down.  “And Dodger of course.”  

Squinting his eyes, he gapes at her.  “My mom made lunch.  We ate. By then it was well past check-in time and I asked mom to take her to her hotel.  Dodge and I went for a drive and I tried to reach you.  That was my day and night.”  

He can see the skepticism painting its way across her expression but then her gaze moves again, this time to his other side.  “Regardless, I heard Maren Morris is singing the National Anthem tonight.  I . . . . I don’t want to miss that.”

She starts to step around him but he reaches out and wraps his fingers around her forearm.  “You’re walking away from me already?”

Her gaze slips behind him before she nods and gives him a faint smile.  “I just want to hear her sing.”

She steps away from him the instant he drops his hand from her arm and he turns in time to watch her move to stand in between Carly and Scott.  Scott glances back at him suspiciously when she does.

He shrugs, shaking his head at his brother’s reaction and then pulls the hat from his head as he hears the first notes of the National Anthem being sung.  He somewhat expects her to turn at some point, to throw him that beautiful Taylor smile that she typically reserves for him but she never does. The only person that turns to him after the anthem has ended is Haley.

“I’d love a beer if that’s ok, Chris,” she says, her voice loud against the roar of the crowd.  He turns to look at her as she speaks and from the corner of his eye, he thinks he sees Taylor look at her too.

“Yeah,” he answers, slapping his hat back on his head before he moves.  He grabs a beer from the bar and makes his way back to his seat between Haley and Jeremy.

When the game starts, he finds himself fielding questions about plays and penalties from Haley, typically accompanied by a snarky comment or laugh from Jeremy.  He shares at tray of nachos loaded with cheese with Ethan at one point, Haley laughing at his nephew’s inhalation of the food.  

He finds himself though consistently looking across the room at Taylor no matter what he does.  

He watches as she laughs with Scott and seems to get embroiled in a deep conversation with Shanna and Carly.  And then watches more when Miles and Ethan find their way to her, climbing on her and covering her with kisses before she laughs at their Gronkowski jerseys, telling them that Gronk is her least favorite Patriot.  Stella joins her soon after, mimicking Taylor’s words and declaring him her least favorite as well.  

By the second quarter, Jeremy begins tossing him questioning glares, narrowing his eyes and tilting his head back and forth slightly.  He knows what the inquisition is about but he doesn’t know the answer.  

He hates the way it all feels.  Every bit of it.  The game and the way his team is playing.  The atmosphere and the weird, unsaid tension that exists amongst them all.  The way everything feels so unsettled and different.

It’s unnerving and not at all like he anticipated this night would go.  He had expected, or at least greatly wanted, it to go like the Red Sox game had gone before.  Maybe even all the way back to his place like before.  

He’s answering another of Haley’s football questions when time runs out for the first half and the room starts to grow louder with chatter.  He reaches his arms above his head as he stands up and stretches and he hears Haley laughing at his movement.  

He sees her then. Taylor.  She gets up, the first time she’s done so the entire game, and starts toward the back of the room.  She doesn’t allow her eyes to drift anywhere near him when she does and he finds himself wondering if that’s on purpose.

He stares after her, hearing Haley speaking beside of him but not registering the any of her words. She goes to Stella, Ethan and Miles near the door, leaning down and smiling as she talks with them.  It takes no time before Stella’s arms are around her and Taylor lifts back up, clutching his young niece to her.  His nephews run off soon after, Nintendo Switches in their hands, yelling “Go Gronk” as they do.  He watches as Taylor laughs after them, their chiding playful to her.  

Haley says something again, again words he doesn’t truly hear and he glances down at her.  “I’ll be back in a few,” he says, his words hollow to her.  

Turning away from his costar’s stare, he wills himself forward, taking a few steps toward Taylor and Stella.  

It’s just the two of them in the back corner of the room when he gets there.  “You having fun Stell bear,” he asks with a grin, watching as Stella nods her head enthusiastically.  

“I’ve ate seven cookies,” she beams, proudly, “but don’t tell mommy.  She told me I could only have one.  And I’ve won four games of Mario Kart.”

“Ethan letting you win,” he asks with a cocked eyebrow.  

Stella grins. “Nope.  I’m winning all by myself.”

He reaches forward, placing his hand on her head and rubbing it quickly.  “Why don’t you go challenge him to another game.  I thought I heard him say he was letting you win.”

She basically jumps from Taylor’s arms then, sprinting off in search of her brother.  Taylor glares at him.  “Ethan didn’t say anything did he?”

“No,” he chuckles, “but I figured that was the best way to get her away so I could talk to you.”

Taylor lowers her eyes, shaking her head.  “Why do you want to talk to me?”

“Why wouldn’t I want to talk you to,” he asks disbelievingly.  

“I can think of some reasons,” she says with the smallest of smiles, “Anyway, you have me.  What do you want to talk about?”

He can feel the trepidation in his bones as his words flow from his lips.  “Why you are ignoring me,” he says quickly.    

Her expression falls but she picks it back up instantly.  “I’m not ignoring you, Chris.  If I was ignoring you, I wouldn’t be here at all.  But I am.”

He takes in her response but shakes his head in disapproval.  “Taylor, you are here but you aren’t.  And you’ve pretty much been distant since I got back home.  I don’t like that.  I miss you.  Hell, even Dodger misses you.  The poor dog whined for an hour after you left my apartment.  I had to give him four of your special cookies just to get him to not pine so much.”

“Sounds like Stella,” she starts but he moves his head more forcibly.

“Don’t change the subject, Taylor.”  He allows his head to fall back for a split second and he looks at the ceiling as he collects his thoughts.  When his chin falls back down, he takes a deep breath.  “I’ve been around you enough to know that something isn’t right. So what is it?  What’s this about?  Is it me?  Is it Haley?” He watches as Taylor’s eyes move instantly behind him at the mention of Haley’s name but she jerks them back just as fast.

She inhales sharply, her gaze slipping.  “It’s not about Haley.  Haley is lovely.  She’s gorgeous and sweet and likeable.”  Moving her head, she bites at her bottom lip.  “And it’s not about you.  Because you are just being you.  I know that.”

“Then what,” he presses, placing his hands on his hips as he watches her.

“It’s just me, Chris. It’s about me.”  Her voice cracks as she seems to force a laugh.  “It’s about me and my silly stupid head. That’s all.”

The confusion sets in within him immediately and he narrows his gaze on her.  “That’s all?”

“I’m not being a good friend, I know,” she says with another forced laugh, “And I should be because that’s what I promised to you.  I do only want your happiness.”

“Taylor,” he says, dragging out her name in exasperation, “are you implying that I’m happy with Haley? Because we are just friends.”

Taylor’s lips move up, a gentle smile peaking.  “Yeah, and so are you and I.”  Her eyes move then and he doesn’t have to follow them to know she is looking at Haley. “You know, I was talking with Emily today at the hospital and I was watching how her eyes changed when she would talk about you.  It was like a fire would ignite in them.  The sparkle. The adoration so apparent.  It honestly made me miss you.”  She laughs briefly but then shakes her head, her eyes settling on Haley again.  “And then I’ve watched Haley today and remembered how she looked at your place. She has the same sparkle, the same look of adoration on her face every time she’s near you.  I know the look . . . . and the feeling . . . . well.  Of connection.  Of yearning and longing.”

He narrows his eyes on her. “You know it from Tom,” he asks, his heart twinging with merely speaking his name.

She smiles a half-smile and then lets it fall, along with her gaze.  “I did feel it with Tom and . . .,” she takes a deep breath and lets it slip back through her pierced lips.  “I just know how it is, Chris.  I know what’s going through Haley’s head right now and how she’s feeling towards you.”

“I’m really not sure what you are saying, Taylor,” he says, cocking his head to the side.  

“I’m not really sure either,” she sighs, momentarily placing her glassy gaze on his, “I’m just saying that it’s obvious that Haley is here for you and wants to be with you.  And . . .”

“And . . .,” he pushes, his head swimming again, “are you telling me that I should notice that?  That I should consider that?”

She seems to freeze then, her head downtrodden, her breathing seeming to vanish.  It takes a few seconds for her to shake her head. “I can’t tell you that because it’s your life, Chris.  Not mine.”

He glances behind him, following Taylor’s gaze again, to Haley.  She smiles softly when she sees him and then gets up, starting to move in their direction.  

“She thinks I’m a threat to her,” he hears Taylor say, springing his view back to her.  She doesn’t look at him.  

“Are you,” he asks, his heart pounding so steadily against his chest that it feels as if he can’t breathe.

She seems to contemplate his question, glancing at him and at Haley before she sighs.  “Obviously not.”

“Taylor,” he begins, wanting to press her words even more, wanting to ignore the pain they bring to him, but he’s interrupted before he can.

“Chris,” Haley says, her voice virtually singing, “I was telling Jeremy about the movie and he was asking about the story behind it.  I thought maybe you could explain it better.”

He breathes heavily. “I’m busy right now . . .”

“No, it’s fine,” Taylor says, her eyes on his briefly before moving to Haley’s, “he’s all yours.”

She starts to walk off then but he grabs her arm, pulling on it slightly until she reaches him again. “Not yet.  I haven’t even got to ask you the one question I came over here to ask.”

“What’s that,” she says quickly, her gaze hooding.  

“What you said you were going to tell me when I was in South Africa and you’ve yet to do.  I need to know, Taylor.”  He glances at Haley and then back to her.  “You said face to face when I was home.  I’m home.  We’re face to face.  You were prepared to tell me before and I’m ready to listen.  Please tell me.”  

She shakes her head and then smiles hesitantly.  “There’s no use even saying it anymore, Chris,” she whispers, “I think it will only bring heartache.”  She then turns her head back in Haley’s direction.  “All yours.”

His hand falls from her arm as she walks away and his eyes follow her as she returns to her seat beside of his sister, Carly throwing a look his way before he reluctantly moves toward Haley.

He spends the entirety of the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth thinking of Taylor’s words, her reluctance and her resistance.  He tries to smile when he needs to smile and cheer when he needs to cheer, hoping to not clue everyone in the room in on the massive amount of convoluted thoughts roaming and rampaging through his head destructively.

Jeremy hands him a beer five minutes into the fourth quarter, shaking his head in disgust as he does so.  “This game isn’t even worth being sober for.  We should have just handed them the W when Hightower went out.”

“Yeah, probably,” he replies, not even remembering Hightower’s injury until his friend brings it up.  Saying he has been completely uninterested in this game would be an understatement and he’s fairly certain Jeremy knows that.  

He’s also fairly certain his friend can sense the discomfort and uneasiness written all over him. “Drink that,” Jeremy chimes again, nodding toward the bottle in Chris’s hand.  

He does just that, flipping off the top and taking a long drink.  He’s tilted his head back for another when he sees Jeremy glance behind them and then do a double take.  

“Aww fuck, Edelman,” he laughs, bounding from his seat before Chris even finishes his drink.  

Haley’s eyes follow his pal just as his do and he finds him nearing the Patriots wide receiver as he walks in the door.  

He catches Scott’s eyes as he stands up, laughing just a bit when his brother wriggles his eyebrows at him, and then lets his gaze catch on Taylor as he starts to walk.  She looks at him only long enough to look back away. He desperately tries to ignore the reaction in his heart.

“Nice to see you again, Cap,” Julian cockles, taking his hand and shaking it firmly when he reaches him, “Robert told me you were in your box so I thought I’d try to not see the rest of this pathetic game and come and say hello.”

“Not much worth seeing down there anyway,” Jeremy laughs, tossing his head back toward the field, “why’d you have to get injured again?”

Julian moves his head, smiling widely.  “Preseason sucked, that’s for sure.”

He’s watching the football player’s face when he sees his view gravitate behind him.  He squints for a moment and then his smile grows even wider than before.  “Is that Taylor Swift,” he asks, throwing his head back a bit.  

Right away, he glances behind him, catching sight of Taylor beside of Carly.  He nods.  “Yeah.”

He hears Julian snicker and then hum.  “She here with you,” he asks, cocking an eyebrow, his grin increasing.  He already knows where this is going, the knot tightening harder and harder in his stomach revealing that

His voice lumps in his throat, feeling like a softball stuck there, preventing him from breathing or speaking.  He looks back at her again and shakes his head, coughing a little to catch a breath. “No.”  

“So she’s not your girl,” Edelman asks, his question loaded, his words laced with hopefulness and pretension.  

He feels Jeremy’s eyes on him instantaneously.  “Nope,” he chokes out, pulling his beer bottle to his lips and taking another long drink.  

“But I believe she’s got a man,” Jeremy adds, his gaze now roving.  Chris knows what he’s doing.  He’s trying to throw Edelman off for his sake.  He also knows that it’s highly unlikely it’s going to work.  

“Man.  No man.  It’s all the same if they aren’t here and there is no ring,” Julian laughs, “And she looks pretty goddamn hot.  Gronkowski is going to fucking flip his lid when he finds out she was here.”

“She doesn’t like Gronkowski,” Jeremy adds, his eyes switching back and forth between the two.

Julian snickers. “That’s alright.  I bet she’ll like me though.”  

He can feel his cheeks growing hot, knows that he is unconsciously clenching and unclenching his free fist and locking his jaw.  His gaze is heavy on Edelman when he shakes his head.  “Anyway, when’s the next Avengers movie filming?”

He fights with his annoyance, unlocking his jaw long enough to force an off putting grin.  “Starts next week.”

“Captain America biting the dust in this one,” Julian continues with a raised eyebrow.

He coughs out an uncomfortable laugh.  “Can’t tell you that.”

“Yeah, I got it.  Top secret shit.  Like play sheets,” he winks and then snorts heavily.  

“Oh that’s low,” Jeremy howls, “really fucking low man.”

Julian throws his hands out, holding them out in front of him.  His smile is bright and mischievous.  “It’s best to make jokes out of crappy situations.  Like we should probably be making a joke about this shitty game right now. Maybe at least joke about Gronk looking like a stud out there or something.”

“Or that Bill forgot to give you all a practice session with fully inflated balls and that’s why we’re playing like shit,” Carly yells from her position behind them.   His eyes immediately draw to his sister, to the woman sitting beside of her, her attention now on the man near him for the first time.  

Edelman points at Carly, cackling.  “Haha . . . . good one.  See, that one knows how to make a joke about a joke.”  His eyes then move over a couple inches and Chris feels a punch in his stomach.  “What about you,” Julian asks, his gaze fully engrossed on Taylor, “you have a Patriots joke for me.”

Chris watches as Taylor smiles softly, her eyes focused solely on the brooding footballer standing beside of him.  “Just that your tight end must be a joke if he’s making videos with Katy Perry.”

Julian’s face lights up as the room erupts in laughter, both he and the player's eyes never leaving the leggy blonde near the glass.  “I agree with you there,” Julian spouts, “but if you’re looking for a video costar anytime soon to combat Gronk and Katy, I’m more than willing to provide my services.”

From Julian’s other side, he sees Jeremy shake his head.  “I’m sure you will,” he mutters.  

Taylor though says nothing, simply smiling and nodding until she pulls her gaze from Edelman, glancing at him and then moving her eyes over slightly.  It’s then that he notices that Haley has taken a stand beside of him.  

Edelman notices as well. “Julian Edelman,” he says, reaching his hand out.  

She takes it, shaking it lightly.  “Haley Bennett.”

The younger man winks at him when he drops her hand and starts to turn back away.  “So that one’s yours,” he laughs, prompting the knot in his stomach to tighten even more.  

He doesn’t even have a nanosecond to respond as Julian slaps his shoulder.  “I’m going to chat with the ladies,” he says before he walks off. Chris doesn’t even have to follow his movement to know that his sights are set on Taylor but even though he knows that, he watches after him anyway.  

Julian takes little time in planting himself in a chair just behind Taylor and then leaning forward and placing his elbows on his knees.  He says something, who fucking knows what, and Taylor smiles.  Her cheeks tint with pink and the knot grows. Then it twists as he watches her smile brighten and her laughter blossom in the room.

The emotions start bubbling in his chest.  The fear. The loathing.  The motherfucking insane jealousy.  This isn’t at all what he expected this night to be like.  Not with Haley attached to his side, confusion eating away at every fiber in his soul and Taylor getting eye fucked by Julian Edelman.

And then there’s the tension.  Heavily apparent amongst everyone in the room outside of the duo chatting near the windows closest to the field.  He feels Shanna’s roaming gaze switching from his mom, to Jeremy, to him and then to Haley before quickly scanning over to Taylor and Julian.  

“So Haley,” she says loudly, her words quickened, likely by nerves, “How are you enjoying Boston?”

He knows that she is making an attempt, any attempt really, to pull attention away from Taylor and Julian but in the back of his mind, he curses her for doing so with Haley.  But her aim at diversion works, for as soon as Haley starts to respond, Taylor turns her attention to her.

“It’s been good so far,” Haley responds, “but I haven’t been able to do too much.  I know Chris gave me the 411 about how amazing Boston is on the plane ride from South Africa but I haven’t been brave enough to explore the city on my own.”  Taylor’s eyes shift, landing on his for a short time before she shifts them back to Haley.  

Haley turns slightly in her chair, looking at him.  “I was hoping, maybe, that you would be willing to show me around some tonight. I’ve been wanting to try Mike’s cannoli because you raved about it so much.”

He doesn’t answer, he doesn’t even have a chance to, his words and thoughts cut off by Julian. “Not Mike’s man, you want the best cannoli in Boston, you have to get Modern.”

Chris clears his throat, searching for his voice again and forcing a chuckle as he points at Taylor. “You’re girl there disagrees with that. She’s tried both.  With me,” he emphasizes, “and chose Mike’s.”

Edelman’s eyes sparkle, his grin sinful and straight, as he turns to her.  “Well I guess then it’s time for you to try them both again.  And you can let me show you more of Boston at the same time.”

His head literally feels like it’s about to explode.  His thoughts and emotions cascading through him like a fucking waterfall, beating and beating over and over again, wearing him down.  He clenches his eyes shut, his jaw at the same time.  When he shakes his head, he hears Shanna speak up again.

“Um,” she stutters, “let’s talk about South Africa.  Chris, how was it.”

Diversion. Again.  But he can’t even find any words to say or enough energy to even push his eyes open at the moment.

When he doesn’t respond, Haley does.  “It was beautiful.  Such a gorgeous county with warm and beautiful people.  We all had an amazing experience.  And the food there was sensational, unlike anything I’ve ever had before.”

His eyes slowly rise back open then, revealing themselves onto Taylor, her gaze surprisingly now on him too.

Haley continues. “There were a few of us who went out at times to this local place.  Amazing food. Electric atmosphere.  Pretty awesome booze too,” she laughs, “Chris got drunk this one night there.  After I pretty much begged him to come. He drank tequila of all things . . . in South Africa.”  Taylor’s eyes fall a bit.  “And he starts raving about someone joking with him before about falling in love with costars and Michiel volunteers to be the costar this time.  Then one of your songs came on.”  Taylor’s gaze springs back up, this time to Haley and then to him. “I don’t remember which one it was but one of your songs came on the radio and he made the bartender turn it off.”

“Ouch,” Julian says with a chuckle but Taylor simple shakes her head.

“That’s quite alright. He’s admitted to me that he would have chosen Katy Perry over me and I admitted that I would choose Chris Hemsworth over him.  Perhaps they should have played Roar.  Or better yet, Swish Swish.”

“Or Feels,” Haley laughs, he knows attempting to join in with the sarcasm but realizing her inappropriate move once the words are shared aloud, “I’m sorry, that was crossing the line.”

Taylor shakes her head. “It’s ok.”

Julian throws his hands up, looking around the room at his family members and then him.  “For what it’s worth, I’ve always preferred Taylor to Katy.”

“Me too,” his mom chimes in, the first time she’s done so all night.  He glances at her and she nods.

On the field, far from the minds of everyone in the room, the game comes to an end.  He glances at the scoreboard only long enough to acknowledge the dismal loss.  

“So is that ok?”  His gaze moves to Haley again.  

“Is what ok?”

“A tour of Boston? Cannoli.”

Beside of him, he hears Jeremy snicker.  “Yeah, probably.  Soon,” he musters, turning to his friend and rolling his eyes at him before he steps away from Jeremy and Haley and moves to the counter.  

He grabs another bottle of beer, flips the top off and downs two quick drinks before Jeremy saunters over. “I know I shouldn’t say this,” his friend begins, “especially with the amount of weirdness in this room right now, but this is fucking awesome.  Like I need popcorn and one of those fancy movie theater seats that recline because this is so much better than any rom com I’ve ever watched.  Not that I’ve watched any.”  He winks.  “You got Haley over there batting her eyelashes and virtually panting for you. And then you have sex on legs Edelman blatantly wanting to fuck Taylor up against the wall.  And then, my friend, there is you . . . who is fucking this all up.  You got that right?”  

He takes another drink. “Yep, I got that.”

“So what you gonna do about it?”

He shrugs, “What the fuck am I supposed to do about it?  Taylor is my goddamn friend.  She basically told me that she knows how Haley feels about me because she felt that way about Tom.”

“You just said the word felt,” Jeremy snickers, “past tense.  Felt.  You realize that right?”

“I don’t know what I fucking realize,” Chris exasperates.  

Jeremy looks at him then, the humor now vanished from his eyes and replaced with perplexation. “Well you better figure it out before you really fuck this all up.  Because the last thing I heard when I was near Taylor and Julian was Edelman telling her every woman just needs a good orgasm every now and then.  For stress management purposes of course.  And Taylor certainly looks stressed.  And Edelman is way more than willing to provide her with as many orgasms as she needs to release that stress.”

He can feel the daggers in his own eyes.  They are the same ones jabbing his heart and piercing his stomach.  He clenches his jaw and shakes head.  

“Another side note,” Jeremy adds, pushing the daggers even farther, “Your mother asked me to give Taylor a ride to the hotel.  Which likely means she came here thinking you would give her a ride home.  But that was before Haley hijacked any chance Taylor would ask you that and before Julian stepped into this room and started asking her to let him give her tours of Boston, tastes of cannoli and tastes of other things.”

He says nothing, only watches from his position at the counter as Taylor gets up from her chair, moving away from Julian long enough to wrap his nieces and nephews in hugs and place goodnight kisses on their cheeks.  Her eyes latch on his as he moves back to her seat and that knot in his stomach tightens to the point of breaking when he sees Julian lean closer to her, placing his hand on her knee.  

His eyes slam shut as he twists his head to the side.  He waits a few seconds before he inhales sharply and his lids fly back open.  

He glances at Jeremy, tipping his chin slightly, before he places his beer bottle on the counter and walks off toward Taylor and Julian.  

“Taylor,” he says, keeping his gaze solid on her and not on the man beside of her.  She looks at him blankly.  “C’mon, let me give you a ride.”

Julian laughs and even though he doesn’t move his eyes to him, he can see him nodding.  “You said Taylor wasn’t here with you so I don’t think she was expecting you to give her a ride.  Your girl over there . . . that’s a different story.  She’s waiting on you to give her a ride and probably a lot more,” his laugher bellows, “I promise to get Taylor back safely.  And I’ll be a perfect gentleman.”

As if on cue and as if in conspiracy, Haley walks up beside of him.  He sees Taylor’s eyes flutter shut then and she hesitates momentarily before opening them again.  

“Thank you for the offer, Chris,” she says softly, licking and then biting at her bottom lip, “but go ahead and take Haley for her tour.  Maybe a visit to Mamma Maria’s and cannoli in the elevator to follow. Julian can take me to the hotel or I can call Brandon.”

He shakes his head, conflicted, but fully aware that he has no way out.  Not one avenue.  Not one fucking foot path.  

“I don’t know who Brandon is but there is no need to call him.  I’ll take you,” Julian exclaims, “It’s really no problem.  And Chris . . .” He turns to face him, grinning wildly. “Chris can take Haley.  Just like the pretty lady asked him to.”

It’s a sucker punch to his gut.  A full on, Connor McGregor type blow that is quickly followed by the Floyd Mayweather Jr. knockout.  Taylor stands up, taking one step forward and wrapping her arms lightly around his shoulders in a cold and awkward embrace.  “Give Dodger kisses for me,” is all she says before she turns around and walks away, Julian Edelman right behind her, the football player placing his hand on the small of her back as she waves at his family and Edelman guides her out of the door.

Motherfucking fuck is the only words scorching through his mind.  Over and over.  Doing flipflops and nose dives with daggers.  MOTHERFUCKING FUCK.

His eyes meet Jeremey’s and his jaw goes rock solid.  

His friend simply shakes his head and takes another drink of beer.

 He finds himself driving through the streets of Boston two hours later.  Two hours after he gave in to a pleading Haley to introduce her to Mike’s pastry and one hour after he dropped her at her hotel with a simple goodbye.

He knows it was rude. Knows damn well that he shouldn’t have even taken her anyway, that he should have just begged Jeremy to give her a ride or show her around Boston.  Hell, he knows his pal has been here enough times to at least provide her with the basics and maybe even provide her with a new goddamn distraction.

But the second Taylor walked out the door with Julian Edelman on her heels; he lost all sense of rationale and reason.  There was part of him, a big part he admits, that wanted to take Haley back to her hotel and fuck her just out of spite.  There was an even bigger part of him that wanted to follow Taylor and Julian out the door and, at least attempt, to beat the shit out of the brooding football player.  But it was the part of him that Lisa Evans shot her knowing glare at after Taylor and Julian’s exit that he felt most compelled to go with.  At least mainly go with.  

So he put on his nice guy/friend face and showed Haley 3.5 seconds of Boston, made sure she got a cannoli stuffed in her face and then, like the gentleman his mother raised, took her to her hotel and left her completely and utterly alone.  Unlike the gentleman his mother raised though, he’s been fuming and furious as he’s drove around Boston, trying with absolutely no success to get the image of Taylor of Julian out of his mind.

He doesn’t recall actually making a conscious decision to end up on Boylston Street though.  He honestly doesn’t even recall actually driving here, the streets all but lost as he passed down them.  But when he pulls up in front of the Four Seasons hotel and the bellhop makes his way to his door, he figures there is no turning back now.

He tosses him his keys, makes his way inside and heads toward the penthouse elevator.  

“Taylor’s expecting me,” he says to the surprised lift attendant, rattling him enough with his knowledge of Taylor being there that he doesn’t question if indeed she is aware of his arrival.

He allows him in without a single word, pressing the penthouse button on the panel and the elevator starts to lift.  

Its only then that he considers Taylor’s reaction.  That perhaps she will be livid with his unannounced visit, or at the very least, shocked.  And as quickly as that consideration comes into his mind, another thought slices like a knife through it.  That perhaps she will be wrapped around Julian Edelman.

MOTHERFUCKING FUCK.

He’s two seconds from telling the attendant to just take him back down when the bell chimes and the door opens.  In front of him is a large black door, a shiny silver P on it.  He stares at it for a few moments before he hears the man clear his throat.  “We’re here,” he says, his tone pointed and obvious.  

He tosses the man a twenty dollar bill and a sarcastic smile and then steps out, waiting on the elevator to close behind him before he steps closer to the door.

He rasps on it once, then twice, before he hears her voice.  

“Brandon,” she questions, her voice close enough to tell him she’s just on the other side of the door.

“No,” he replies, “Not Brandon.”

The door swings open instantly, Taylor’s prying eyes on his just as quickly.  “What are you doing here?”

He knows he probably shouldn’t give her the once over, especially not with the leering look she’s placed on him.  But he does. Moving his eyes down her body, letting them linger on the Patriots shirt she now wears as a nightgown and then down, down those never-ending legs to her bare feet.  

He takes one step forward, stopping just in front of her as she stands in the doorway and he raises his hand to her neck, running one finger along the thin chain that lies there. He feels the goosebumps rising on her skin as his fingers trail down, padding against more flesh when he reaches the edge of her shirt and pinches the chain, pulling the rest of it out from under the fabric.  

He eyes it.  “My necklace,” he says.

She shakes her head then, stepping back and forcing him to let go of it.  He watches it fall back to her chest.  “No, it’s my necklace.  Unless you want it back.”

He howls, his laughter rocking against the walls.  “I don’t want it back.”  His gaze trails down, back over her again.  “But I can’t say I like it much with that shirt.”

“It’s a Patriots shirt. I thought they were your team.” The sarcasm is heavy in her tone, even heavier in her expression and he can feel a warmth seeping into his face as his irritation is fueled.  

“They are my team but they aren’t yours.  I’d say I’m surprised you are wearing it, especially since that is definitely not what you were wearing at the game, but that would be a lie.”  His eyes move over her again.  “I have no doubt Edelman gave you that shirt,” he smirks when he sharply pulls his eyes back up.

“Actually he did,” she says, her voice bathed in mockery and inflammation, his own irritation growing by the second.  

“Oh great.  So where is Mr. Wonderful now,” he asks, his eyes roving behind her, searching for any inkling of Julian even if he doesn’t want any inkling of him anywhere.  

She scoffs, her voice echoing, cutting through the room.  “What do you care?”

“I don’t,” he lies. He steps inside the room, continuing to talk but not turning to look at Taylor.  “I’m just a little bit shocked that you actually left with a man you’d known for a total of twenty minutes.  I figured I’d better come check on you so Brandon doesn’t kill me for letting you leave.”

“But you did let me leave,” she laughs, slamming the door shut and walking into the room herself. He watches her as she does, watching the way her ass moves against the thin fabric of the shirt, her fucking insanely perfect her legs look, even if walking away from him.  “I figured you’d be happy I left with Julian anyway.  I gave you what you wanted.”

“And what was it that I wanted, Taylor,” he hisses.

She moves to the counter, grabbing a bottle of red wine and a glass and pouring herself some. “Haley. I figured perhaps you’d give her the same tour of Boston that you gave me.  That one ended the way I’m sure she wanted hers to end as well. ”

Placing his hands on his hips, he laughs sarcastically, lowering his eyes briefly to the floor.  “Are you jealous of her?”

He looks up to find her staring at him, a hard smirk on her lips.  “No.  No.  I have no reason to be jealous of her.”

His jaw clenches as he lowers his chin one single time.  “You’re right, you have absolutely no reason to be jealous of her.”

“Great,” she says, raising her glass to him, “But I’m not jealous of her so it doesn’t matter anyway.”

“Good.”

“Great,” she emphasizes again, taking another drink of her wine.  

He takes a few more steps in, his face still aflame with the heat of their interaction.  When he steps to the counter, he reaches across, grabbing the bottle of wine from in front of her and popping the cork out.  He takes a drink directly from the bottle, letting the smoky red Malbec burn down his throat.  

When he no longer feels the sear, he drills his gaze into her. “Did you fuck him?  Wrap your legs around his waist and ride him?  Or maybe a romp on the couch or the balcony for that matter.  I’ve heard stories about him.  A hellavu lot of stories.  He show you how kinky he is or did you show him?”  She shakes her head, watching his feverish rant with her mouth partially open. “He get your sunset kisses? Moonlit sex.  Let me guess,” he howls, throwing his gaze upward.  “You’ve already wrote a song about your secret rendezvous with the Patriots sex god.”  

She immediately huffs, tilting her head back and shaking it.  He can tell by her expression that she’s pressing her tongue into the roof of her mouth, trying to get herself not to talk back.  It does no good.

“Do you think I’m a whore,” she seethes, her vibrant blue eyes now electric on him, “Why the fuck are you here Chris?  Did you come here to yell at me?  To lecture me?  To keep your tabs.  Because I’m really confused as to why you are here because two hours ago, you didn’t seem to give a shit if I fucked Julian or not.”  She cocks her head to the side, a sardonic laugh escaping her lips.  “Oh . . . or maybe you want me to sleep with him? Is that it?  You came here to give me a high five.  Your friend bedded your favorite wide receiver.”

He shakes his head feverishly, his nerves on end.  “No.”

“You get cool points for that,” she continues, her eyes boring into him, “You want me to fuck Edelman? What you get a better in with the Patriots if I’m screwing their star?  Take one for the team, Taylor.  Literally.  Is that what you want?  Or maybe Gronkowski?  He’s sent me messages on social media.  Maybe I could kill two birds with one stone and get you easy access to these guys and get Gronk to forget about Demi and Katy if I jump in the sack with him.”

The heat that’s been building inside of him is scorching him now, searing his every nerve, ever bone. She looks at him and he can tell that she knows, that she’s well aware that she’s generating this explosive reaction in him.  He watches as her expression falls ever so slightly as she turns away.

“Julian seems like an amazing guy,” she says, “He was nice to me and was a gentleman like he promised.”

“Ok, great,” he says, the words cutting, not calm.

“And you want to know the truth, for a second I considered sleeping with him.  I gave it a nanosecond of thought.  But I couldn’t because I’m not a whore who sleeps with a man the first night she meets him and my stupid heart is on reserve anyway so my stupid brain wouldn’t even let me consider it too long.”

“What does that mean,” he demands, his voice tethered.  

“It means that you’re silly for even showing up here asking me if I fucked Julian Edelman.  I’m not that type of woman.  Apparently you think I am but I’m not.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” he taunts, his skin ablaze, his thoughts incoherent and jumbled.

She leans forward, placing her hands on the counter and leaning into them slightly.  “I’m not the one who showed up at your place demanding to know if you fucked Haley.”

He cocks his eyebrow up, his words springing forth without much consideration.  “Do you want to know if I slept with Haley?”

She shakes her head. “Honestly, no I don’t.”

“Why,” he pushes, following her lead and pressing his hands onto the counter, his gaze hard on her.  

She shakes her head feverishly.  “This isn’t about me and my need to pry into your life.  This is about you in mine.  You came here.  You started spouting about Julian.”

“You’re wearing his goddamn shirt, Taylor,” he virtually yells, throwing his hand out in front of him, directing it at her clothing.

“It’s a new shirt, Chris. He didn’t take it off of his back. It doesn’t smell like his cologne or his sweat or his fucking pheromones.  He literally had the shirt in the backseat of his car, in a freaking box with several other that look just like this, and he asked me if I wanted one.  This isn’t my reward for sleeping with him.  I didn’t steal it off the floor after I ripped it off his chest.”  She raises her hands to her face, cupping her temples as she looks at the ceiling.  “Do you honestly still think I slept with him? I told you I didn’t.  But maybe I really fucking should have.”

He shrugs, rolling his head. “Maybe you should have.”

Turning on his heels, he walks away from the counter, moving quickly back in the direction of the door. Once he is there, he grabs hold of the handle, slinging the door open and standing to the side of it.  “There you go.  If you’ve had a change of your stupid heart or stupid mind,” he mocks her, “then there you go.  Go find him. I’m sure he left you his number and I’m very sure he’d haul his ass back over here just for you.  So go get your Julian.  Maybe Tom won’t mind sharing you.”

She shakes her head, biting at her bottom lip.  “And you said I’m ridiculous.  Why do you care who I sleep with,” she shouts as she steps out from behind the counter, “Don’t act like you’re so self-righteous.  That you are standing on some moral high ground.  You aren’t my bodyguard.  You aren’t my protector.  You aren’t my boyfriend.”

He feels his grip on the door handle tighten as her words impale him.  His jaw ticks and he shakes his head slowly, reaching his free hand out to his side.  “You think I’m not acutely aware of that?”

He watches as her expression completely changes then.  How the fiery red that has been coursing her veins and staining her neck drains to white. She puts her gaze on the floor, her voice vanishing from the room.  

His gaze is still on her when he sees her breathing even out and sees a gentle sheen settle into her eyes. She looks up at him, her mouth slightly ajar, and stares for a few fleeting moments.  

“What’s that look for,” he says, his heart beating like a drum by the sheer and utter confusion not only of the moment but by the change that’s taken place in her expression, in her body language.

“I get it now,” she says softly, her words such a stark contrast to earlier that he barely even comprehends them.

She takes a step toward him. Slowly.  And then another.  His eyes grazing hers and her body with each step.  And then she picks up the pace just a bit, taking step after step until she reaches him.

She grabs the edge of the door, pushing it hard and waiting for it to slam shut.  He jumps a touch when it does.  

Then, without any warning, she steps into his still outstretched arms, pressing onto her tiptoes as she grasps his face in her hands and presses her lips to his.

#taylor swift fanfiction #chris evans fanfiction #unexpected #chapter 10

[screenandcinema]

Coming Attractions - June 2018

As usual, we present monthly previews of new movies being released. These are the movies what will be hitting your local cinemas this month:

June 1st

Action Point - After a short-lived and failed attempt to be considered a serious actor, Johnny Knoxville, the star of Jackass according to Action Point marketing, is going back to his roots in this comedy based on a real-life theme park in New Jersey. If you never heard of Action Park, which operated from 1978 to 1996, please do yourself a favor and learn about this ridiculous theme park that threw safety out the window. Action Point, which clocks in at an impressive 84 minutes long, is essentially a Jackass movie with a plot. So if you are into that sort of thing, enjoy.

Adrift - Veterans of the young adult adaptation wars Shailene Woodley (Divergent) and Sam Claflin (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire) star in this romantic drama about two people lost in the Pacific Ocean after a horrific storm. Adrift is based on a true story from 1983 and is directed by Icelandic director Baltasr Kormákur (Everest).

American Animals - Evan Peters stars in this true-life crime drama about college students attempting to rob a library. Yes, a library. American Animals premiered at Sundance earlier this year and has been getting fairly positive reviews. Definitely one to consider if you are heading out the cinema earlier this month - and you already saw Solo of course.

Upgrade - The writer of Saw, Leigh Whannell wrote and directed Upgrade, which looked like the thriller version of a watered-down Robocop. Upgrade comes from horror mega-producer Jason Blum. The film premiered at SXSW in March and has been earning some early favorable reviews.

June 8th

Ocean’s 8 - The Ocean franchise returns with Ocean’s 8 that follows the escapades of Danny Ocean’s sister Debbie Ocean, played by Sandra Bullock. This new all-female crew have set their heist sights on the annual Met Gala. As a huge fan of the Ocean’s trilogy, I have been super excited for this spin-off since I first heard word of its development back in 2015. Very much looking forward to this one.

Hotel Artemis - Drew Pearce makes his directorial debut with Hotel Artemis, a place that looks like it was pulled directly out of the world of John Wick. In Hotel Artemis, Jodie Foster runs a secret hospital for criminals with Sterling K. Brown, Sofia Boutella, Jeff Goldblum rounding out the cast. Hotel Artemis looks fantastic and a whole lot of fun.

Hereditary - Nothing turns me off of a movie quite like the words “supernatural horror film” do. And while the reviews for Hereditary are so far very very positive, I couldn’t be more uninterested.

June 15th

Incredibles 2 - It has been 14 years since the release of Incredibles and it looks like the sequel picks up exactly where the first one left off. Incredibles marked Pixar’s first attempt to make a film that focused in on human characters and quickly became Pixar’s second-highest grossing feature back in 2004. In the year’s since however, Incredibles was pushed down to seventh on that list due to the likes of Finding Dory, Toy Story 3 and Inside Out. Maybe with Incredibles 2, the superpowered Parr family will be able to regain a spot near the top of that list. If Finding Dory can be seen as director Andrew Stanton’s way of making it up to Disney after all the money they lost on John Carter, well the same can then be said for Brad Bird’s return to the world of Incredibles after his 2015 flop Tomorrowland.

Tag - I vividly remember reading an article back in 2013 about a group of lifelong friends who played an intense game of tag for one whole month a year. Shortly after the article’s publishing in the Wall Street Journal, work began on turning this unbelievable true story into a film. And this month, Tag is finally here. As someone who had been eagerly anticipating this story on the big screen for half a decade, I can admit that trailers for the film starring Ed Helms, Jake Johnson, Hannibal Buress, Jon Hamm and Jeremy Renner have been remarkably underwhelming. Not to mention that Hannibal Buress and Jon Hamm are 12 years apart and I can’t foresee how they are lifelong friends since childhood. I still want to see Tag, just not as much as I did three months ago.

June 22nd

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom - Director J.A. Bayona (The Impossible) helms the fifth installment in the Jurassic Park series (the second in the Jurassic World series). Bryce Dallas Howard and Chris Pratt both reprise their roles from the first Jurassic World which broke box office records back in 2015. Jurassic World, for the first time, showed the fully realized dinosaur theme park of John Hammond’s dreams, and while that park didn’t survive to be featured in the sequel, hopefully, some of the luster of Jurassic World lives on in Fallen Kingdom. 

Under the Silver Lake - Andrew Garfield stars in this neo-noir comedy-drama from the director of It Follows. Under the Silver Lake looks batshit crazy and there isn’t really more that can be said about it.

June 29th

Sicario: Day of the Soldado - Confession: I never saw Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario. And while I missed out on the 2015 film, I am eager to see this month’s sequel - after I see the first film of course. Anyone want to loan me a copy?

Uncle Drew - If you were planning on drinking a Pepsi Max when you see the former Pepsi Max advertising character Uncle Drew make his big screen debut later this month, I have bad news for you - Pepsi Max was renamed Pepsi Zero Sugar in the U.S. back in 2016. NBA player Kyrie Irving plays the titular Uncle Drew in full old-age makeup. Fun fact: apparently Irving learned of his offseason trade from the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Boston Celtics while filming Uncle Drew. Former NBA players Shaquille O’Neal (Steel), Reggie Miller, Nate Robinson and Chris Weber in old-age makeup round out Uncle Drew’s starting lineup.

Now for a quick look ahead to July, my top picks for next month are Ant-Man and the Wasp, Skyscraper, and Mission: Impossible - Fallout.

-MB-

[lonelyandgone]

Previous Chapters:  Teaser/Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2

 Unexpected – Chapter 3

 His mom has, he believes, six different faces.  He’s grown used to them through the years.  Well-tuned at reading them.  Maybe damn near perfect at it.  He considers it a gift.  

There are your normal, happy and sad faces.  There’s worried and angry.  Then there are his favorites.  Her “straighten your ass up before I do it for you” face, which, perhaps, he’s seen far too many times in his lifetime.  And there is the one he’s seeing right now.  The one that has been resting upon her for the past thirty minutes.  Her “I’m skeptical as fuck” face.  

He called it that to her once.  When he was 16 years old and he asked her if he could borrow her car so he could go to his friend Lauren James’s house to study.  She had looked at him, her eyes narrowed, her face a shade darker than her normal shade.  Study, she had said as she planted her hands firmly on her hips and tilted her head to the side.  His stomach had turned, tightening into what felt like a knot when he uttered a not so convincing yes.  When those eyes narrowed on him even more, he had thrown his hands up in the air and found himself spewing words like “you don’t trust me” and “it’s just studying” before he added “why are you looking at me like you are skeptical as fuck.”  

His mouth had clamped shut the moment those idiotic words escaped his lips and he spent the rest of the evening and the next two weeks grounded to his room.  He knew long before that, though he had apparently had temporary amnesia that night, and he’s known every day since then that Lisa Evans was no fool.  She knew every trick in the book.  She knew her kid’s personalities, their ways of doing things, to a tee.  She could see every emotion, every intent, every action in the faces around her regardless of what was being said or done.  She was a reader.  She is a reader.  

And right now, she’s reading him like a novel she can’t put down.

The strangest part though, this morning he found that same look staring back at him in his bathroom mirror.  It was there last night too.  When he went back to his condo after kissing Taylor and then asking her to join him here today.  He had looked at himself with skepticism, as his brain questioned his actions.  He had wondered why he kissed her.  Why he had stopped that elevator when he did.  And then he looked at the man in the mirror, the man whose face was clouded with skepticism, and he asked one more question. . . . why did she kiss him back?

But then he walked away from the mirror.  He pushed the questions out of his mind.  And he drove to her hotel to pick her up and bring her here.  

He had walked into the room, into his family’s normal Fenway Park box, a little less than an hour ago. He had expected the reaction, the mouths to fall, the eyes to widen, when those closest to him saw the woman who entered at his side.  It was his nephew, Miles, who spoke first.  “Taylor Swift,” he had said, his voice dancing, his entire body indicative of the surprise and excitement he was experiencing.  

Miles’s younger sister, Stella, would be the first to react.  Instead of remaining frozen, which the others in the room seemed to be, she had run full force toward them, crashing into Taylor’s body and wrapping her arms around her slender legs.  Taylor had laughed, leaning down and peeling her away from her only to encompass his niece in her arms.  It was adorably beautiful and he couldn’t stop the smile that formed naturally on his face.

It didn’t take long for his family to find their voices, and their manners, again.  Each one welcoming Taylor, giving her bear hugs or firm hand shakes.  He had noticed, he couldn’t help but, that each of their eyes was a mirror to those of the kids.  He had inherited his mother’s vast skill of reading faces and while their voices were calm and composed, their faces were full of awe and . . . . . well, amusement.

He would see similar expressions when Jeremy arrived a couple of minutes later, daughter Ava in tow. Jeremy had glanced at him, then to Taylor and back to him before he punched his hand out toward the blonde. “Jeremy,” he said before Taylor added the “Renner.”

“Nice to meet you,” she beamed, reaching her other hand in to encompass his in a firm shake.  When Jeremy’s gaze returned to his, he could see the questions written all over.  Questions he is sure are on the tips of the tongues of everyone in the room over the age of ten.

When he did his best to explain, telling them about running into Taylor in Paris and then again at the hospital the day before, he could tell most were sufficed.  When he added that he had told her she needed to discover Boston and Fenway Park is quintessential Boston, they were sufficed even more.  But his mother . . . . . his wise beyond words mother, she simply narrowed her eyes on him before she slipped her arm around Taylor’s shoulder and took her to the window, talking to her as they looked down upon the historic field.

Within minutes, the atmosphere in the room would change.  Gone were the confused glares and rehearsed words.  Stella and Ava had drug Taylor away from his mom, each rambling incoherently as they vied for her attention.  From his position nearest Jeremy, he could hear them go on and on about their favorite Disney Channel shows, each also telling her about their different trips to Walt Disney World in explicit and animated detail.  His sisters, Carly and Shanna, had each took their own turn talking to the newcomer, though he didn’t hear what they were saying. He could tell though from the looks on each of their faces that the conversations were easy and effortless, much like his own with her.  It was something that made him happy, though he isn’t sure exactly why.

Throughout it all, without even as much as a glance, he could feel his mom’s face . . . . that face . . . on him.  

“How long have you been a Red Sox fan?”  Taylor’s voice hums and he turns to see her taking a seat next to him.

He cackles sarcastically. “I was born here.  It’s in my blood.  So, I’ve been a fan pretty much since I was in the womb.”

She smiles and then moves her view to look straight ahead.  It’s the bottom of the third inning.  The Sox currently down 1 to nothing to those other Sox, the Chicago ones.  Jose Quintana is on the mound pitching to Dustin Pedroia.  Taylor moves forward in her seat just as the Quintana’s pitch hits Pedroia’s bat, a loud smack thundering through the stadium, followed instantly by another loud thunder, this one of the fans cheering.  

He reacts immediately, it is, after all, in his blood, his eyes following the ball through the outfield and over the right field wall.  The box erupts and Chris throws his hands in the air, mimicking the action of every other inhabitant, minus Taylor and the kids.  “Yes,” he exclaims, “home run.  Tie game.”  He high fives his dad behind him and then Jeremy to his left.  

Taylor is laughing and clapping but hasn’t budged from her seat.  “You don’t watch baseball,” he asks, his voice glistening and reeking of a hint of sarcasm.  

She shakes her head, her lips slipping into a sheepish grin.  “Not really.  I’ve obviously seen games on TV before.  My dad watches it sometimes.  He’s a Rays fan.  But I’ve never actually sat for more than five minutes and watched a game.”

His curiosity and his eyebrow peaked, he sits back down in the chair beside of her.  “So this is your first game?”

“Yep,” she admits, looking almost guilty.  

“Well, then I’m glad I brought you because I can’t think of anywhere else you would get the best first game experience than Fenway.”

“Why is that,” she asks and he glances at her, surprised.  Or at least, he feigns surprise.  

“Are you kidding?” When she shakes her head again, he continues on.  “Fenway Park is the most famous ballpark in the world.  I’m not even saying that because I’m a Bo Sox fan or because I’m from here, it’s the honest truth.”

“What about Yankee Stadium,” she interjects, a gleam of mischief in her eyes and he realizes that, at the very least, she knows a little more about baseball than she is letting on.

“Don’t say that word here. For real.  Using the Y word in Boston can get you hurt or harassed at a minimum.  And I’d rather your first game experience be remembered fondly, not because someone went Boston on you.”

She raises her eyebrows to him, a slight smile lifting her cheeks.  He can see her amusement in the glimmer in eyes.  “Went Boston on me?”

“Nevermind,” he boasts, “Anyway. . . . Fenway Park.  Built in 1912.  Oldest ballpark in the majors.  It’s small, as you can see, but it’s mighty.  That there,” he says, pointing to the left field wall, “is the green monster. Everyone who knows anything about baseball knows the green monster.  Knows Fenway. Knows the Red Sox.  Eight-time world series champs.  Home of some of the greats like Ted Williams, Dwight Evans, Cy Young, Pedro Martinez and, more recently, David Ortiz.  I could literally go on all day.”

“I can tell,” she laughs.

“You are inside history right here,” he croaks and then leans to his right, placing his shoulder just to the side of hers, “and since this is your first baseball experience, you have to do it the right way.  Scott . . . ” He turns his head, looking over his shoulder at his brother standing near one of the tables, a beer perched in his hand.  “The lady here has never been to a baseball game period.  Not just a Red Sox game.  So we need to be good baseball hostesses and make sure she gets the whole shebang.  She needs,” he laughs, holding his hands out around him as if he’s making an important announcement, “a Fenway Frank.”

“Coming up,” Scott chirps, nodding as a smile encompasses his face.

“What is a Fenway Frank,” Taylor asks, narrowing those vibrant blues on him.

He smiles, pointing toward the crowd outside of the window.  “What a good 90% of those people are eating right now.  It’s another Boston favorite and not to mention a baseball staple.  A hot dog. Relish, onion, spicy brown mustard. You can alter it but that’s the best combo.”

When she squinches her nose, laughter pours from the depths of his belly.  “It sounds awful.”

“You will love it. Trust me.”  He winks and for a second, he believes he sees a gentle shade of pink swell in her cheeks but she quickly turns her gaze back to the game and away from his view.  

Scott arrives a couple minutes later, two Fenway Franks teetering in one hand with two bottles of Sam Adams dangling precariously on his fingertips in the other.  “You ready for Boston’s finest,” Chris asks as he takes the goods from his brother, virtually tossing one dog to Taylor before handing her a beer.  

With her gaze back on him, she places a knowing grin on her face and tilts her head.  “I thought the cannoli from last night were Boston’s finest?”

“Well I’m from Boston so obviously we have more than one thing that can be deemed as its finest.” His response is immediate, and not quite what he is meaning to say, but there his words nonetheless.  When his view spans over her, he has no doubt of the shades of pink that tint her cheeks this time.    

He’s cursing himself, shaking his head at his words, when he sees her lift her head, winking at him before she places the hot dog to her lips and takes a bite.  He watches as she chews and he smirks when he sees a smile slowly take form on her lips.  She takes a drink of the beer before she speaks.  “It sounds awful . . . . but it tastes good.”

“I’m going to make you love Boston,” he chuckles before he takes a bite of his own frank.  

She grins, biting at her bottom lip, and then leans forward.  He doesn’t know what she’s doing, but when he feels the delicate skin of her thumb at the side of his mouth, his body inadvertently quivers, his chest tightens.  She swipes along his skin, no doubt feeling his reaction, and her smiles drops slightly, her expression turning nervous and rushed.  

“I’m sorry,” she mutters, “you had mustard on your mouth.”

He can feel her anxiety, her tension, in her words and in the stiffening of her body.

“Thank you,” he slaps at her arm playfully, hoping to lighten the moment, lessen her nerves. “I need to make sure I continue to look like one of Boston’s finest and mustard certainly detracts from that.”

His joke softens her and he feels his chest tighten once more when he sees the gentle smile tug at her lips again.  That’s more like it, he thinks. That’s absolutely more like it.  

He spends the fourth inning explaining the ins and outs of the game to Taylor, finding Jeremy joining in at times as they discuss positions, plays and why pitchers sometimes spit on their hands.  She listens intently, just as she has before, moving her eyes around the field as she takes in their words, as she processes the information in her head.  

By the top of the fifth, she seems well versed in the game, giving her own play by play, glancing at Chris and Jeremy for approval each time.  “You catch on quick,” his dad pipes in from his seat three down from Taylor, “I’m impressed.”  She smiles and offers a sincere “thank you.”

Seconds later, she excuses herself and he watches her as she heads off toward the private restroom in the far left corner.

He knows what will happen next.  Knows the questions that will no doubt come from someone, pretty much anyone, in his party. When he moves in his seat, positioning himself toward the game, he discovers who will get first dibs at him. Jeremy.  “So, Taylor Swift,” he says, his eyes wide and full of delight.

“Please don’t go Lisa Evans on me,” Chris pleads amusingly, running his hand down his face as he leans back in his seat.  

Jeremy hearty laugh fills the room and prompts his own brief chuckle.  “Yeah, I’ve noticed Momma Evans’s skeptical eyes on you and Taylor all day.”

He shrugs, trying his best to return his attention, and Jeremy’s, to the game but knowing that the likelihood of that happening is slim to none.  “I fully anticipate an interrogation whenever she gets me alone,” Chris sighs, knowing the truth of his statement.  

Jeremy nods, “How about I give you a mini one now.”  

Chris groans, expressing his displeasure but knowing that arguing against Jeremy’s questions will be useless.  “We’re friends.  That’s all,” he spills, placing his hands in front of him as a crutch to what he says, “We spent some time talking in Paris, some more time talking yesterday after the hospital visit.  She’s nice. Interesting.  I enjoy talking to her and thought I’d talk to her some more today.  Nothing wrong with talking.”

He can feel Jeremy’s eyes on him, feels as if he is studying him, and then he sees his longtime friend pierce his lips together.  “Nothing at all wrong with that.  She’s cool. It looks like everyone has enjoyed having her here.  I know Ava has told me about a zillion times that she’s been hanging out with Taylor,” he feigns excitement, waving his hands in front of him like his daughter has, “I can’t breathe, Swift.”

Chris glances to his right. “Yeah I think Ava and Stella are in a competition to see who can hug on her the most.”

Jeremy chuckles, taking a pull of his beer as he leans back in the chair and throws one leg over the other. “Ava will win that battle.  She’s a little huggy monster.”  A few seconds pass, and Chris settles back into the game, hoping beyond hope that Jeremy has as well.  

He hasn’t, his words soft this time, but still coming.  “So what’s the deal with her and Hiddleston?”

Shrugging one shoulder and keeping his eyes locked on the field, Chris takes his own drink of beer and then clears his throat.  He narrows his eyes on the field.  “Not together but she’s still in love with him.  Apparently he’s not responding to her when she tries to contact him.  I don’t know.  It’s not my business.”

Without looking his way, he can see Jeremy contemplating his words, sees him nodding his head as he does. “Tom Hiddleston is a lucky bastard. Having a woman like that pining over him.”  When Chris doesn’t respond, he hears Jeremy laugh.  “Think I could sway her?”

“What,” he says, the word sounding far more cutting than he intended it to.

Jeremy shrugs, raising his eyebrows in surprise or skepticism, which he isn’t sure.  “You said they weren’t together.  No harm in seeing if I could redirect her pining.  I am single and I have eyes.  And that woman,” he says, leaning to Chris as he nods toward the door Taylor slipped into minutes before, “she’s pretty fine.  And . . . . you said yourself that she’s fun to talk to.  I would have been ok with just the fine but being more than that is an added bonus.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Chris spews, a forced laugh storming from his stomach and through his lungs. He can feel his stomach clench until he tells himself to stop.  The last thing he should care about, he thinks, is who is or is not flirting with Taylor.  Jenny is the only one he should care about in that regard.

Jenny.

He can feel Jeremy’s gaze still on him.  “Why? Do you want to flirt with her?”

“Of course not,” he says, finally bringing his eyes to his friend, “but she’s the ex-girlfriend of our friend and I just told you she’s still in love with him.”

When Jeremy’s eyes fall behind him, he knows Taylor is near so he allows the conversation to fall.  Luckily for him, Jeremy does as well.  What his friend doesn’t do is not flirt.  Spending much of the next inning throwing subtle flirtatious comments toward Taylor, all the while glancing at Chris.  Chris doesn’t play into his game.  Keeping his gaze on the field, cheering on the Sox when needed, and trying his best to ignore Jeremy’s words and Taylor’s polite responses.

When the sixth inning ends and the first notes of Sweet Caroline start to play, everyone in the room rises to their feet.  Everyone, that is, except Taylor, who looks around, her eyes narrow with confusion.   “What’s going on,” she asks, looking up to him as he stands beside of her.

He reaches down, offering his hand to her, and she takes it without hesitation.  He pulls her beside of him, the words to the song now being sung loudly around them and throughout the stadium.  “Seventh inning stretch,” he says, his voice nearly a yell amongst the noise, “another Boston tradition.  Sweet Caroline is always played and you’ll be booted from the ballpark if you don’t sing along.”  

He’s kidding with the last part and he can tell by her expression that she knows it.  But she moves her amused gaze to the field, looking around it at everyone swaying and swinging.  “I love it,” she says just before she surprises him, stepping into him and sliding her hand around his waist until it rests at his side.  She clutches strongly there.  On impulse, and clearly without thinking, he places his own arm around her shoulders.  She leads their sway, teases his voice to join hers and soon, everyone around them are joined the same way, with their arms and their voices linked to the words of Sweet Caroline.

When the park booms with cheers as the song ends, Taylor turns her body slightly toward him, her arm not moving.  He looks down at her for a few seconds, noting the velvety look on her face, how she is charmed with this experience, with this ballpark and his Red Sox.  “This is fun,” she says and he slips his arm off of her shoulder, moving his hand to his head and removing his cap.  When he plops it down on her head, her smile widens.

“Now you’re a true Sox fan,” he laughs.  

She straightens the cap on her head and from the corner of his eye, he sees his mother’s gentle, and completely questioning, smile.  He shrugs it off.

Mookie Betts hits a go ahead home run in the 8th and, this time, Taylor jumps and cheers along with the rest of his family and friends as he does.  By the 9th, his sisters have drawn Taylor back to them. They sit perched near the window, Shanna and Carly occasionally glancing toward him and smiling.  He knows what is going on.  Knows they are telling stories about him, likely ones he would never want told.  But he knows there is probably more taking place too.  He can’t forget that his sisters too learned from the master.  So, Taylor, likely without having any hint, is being read.  Her expression analyzed.  Her words about him, or anyone really, being silently picked apart and interpreted. They’ve probably asked about Paris. About the hospital visit.  And likely, he fears, about Tom.  

With Taylor occupied by his sisters, his mom finds her way to him.  

“Don’t start,” he says, beating her to the punch before she even sits.  Beside him, Jeremy snickers.  He takes a long draw from his beer.

“Start what?”  She feigns innocence.  

Chris throws a hand up, gesturing toward the women sitting at the window.  “We’re just friends.  Don’t make me regret inviting her here.”

His mother, his all-knowing, all loving, mother, simply winks.  “You wouldn’t regret it no matter what I say.”  And then, she glares.  Not just any glare.  A mothers glare.  It makes him fidget.  “I like her. She’s delightful,” Lisa continues, “You should never regret going anywhere with a delightful woman.”

And then, she says it . . . her eyes gleaming, skepticism written all over her face.  “You found any answers to your Jenny problem yet?”

He closes his eyes, his head shaking, and gives her a firm, “No.”

“Hmmm….,” is all she responds, prompting more snickering from his friend at his side.  

They both stop, thankfully he thinks, when Taylor gets up from her seat with his sisters and makes her way back to him.  

“Sit here,” his mother utters, rising from the chair she has occupied.  She turns to face Taylor, her smile widening.  “By the way, that hat looks perfect on you.”

His eyes fall shut, his jaw clenching.  God love his mom and her subtly.

When the game ends a short time later, he tells Taylor they will wait a few minutes before they leave. Let the crowds die down, let the experience still simmer.

She thanks him, as she does his family, and tells everyone what an amazing time she has had.  His heart grows warm at the smiles that abound around the room.  

By the time his mother takes a seat near them again, both Stella and Ava have taken up residence on Taylor’s lap, both barely awake, their heads resting on her chest.  Miles and Ethan play near her feet, tossing a baseball back and forth between them.  

“Are you leaving Boston soon,” his mom asks, her voice prompting Taylor’s attention to her.

“Tomorrow,” she responds, “I was supposed to leave today, actually yesterday . . . but the storms grounded my plane last night and when Chris mentioned coming to this game today and asked if I wanted to join you all, I couldn’t turn him down.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Lisa smiles, her eyes moving ever so quickly to Chris before placing them back on Taylor.

“I’ll fly to Watch Hill tomorrow.  I have a house there on the beach.”

“The beach,” Miles chimes in, eavesdropping on the conversation, “I want to go to the beach.”

He watches Taylor smile, her face warm and genuine.  “Then you should join me there sometime.  I have a pool and a big inflatable slide.  And I can make a mean s’more.”

Miles’s face lights up when Taylor winks at him and he sees his mother nod slowly.  Taylor turns to him then, lowering her chin, “Really. I’d love to have you all visit one day.”

“They will hold you too that,” Chris laughs.

When she turns back to Miles and Ethan, both enthusiastically watching her from their perches on the floor, she giggles.  “I hope they do.”

His mom pulls her back into conversation a few seconds later, keeping her there until his sister announces that it’s getting late so it’s time to head home.  As the group gets up to leave, Taylor offers hugs all around, wrapping his niece, nephews and Ava into bear hugs and placing kisses on each of their temples.

“Where’s my kiss,” Jeremy asks playfully as he steps in to her and she pulls his head in, brushing her lips against his temple as well.  

Chris meanwhile, stands back, shaking his head until Jeremy notices and shrugs his shoulders animatedly. “You can’t blame a guy for trying.”

He nods, stuffing his hands into his pockets, his laughter spilling over.  “Yes you can.”

Tapping down his hat lower on her head, he leads her out of the box, down an elevator and through a near empty corridor in route to his car.  Night has set in, the warmth of a summer evening tickling upon his skin and immediately causing it to feel dewy.  He loves that feeling.  He always has.  It’s Boston and baseball to him.  It’s home.

He opens the car door, allows her to take a seat, and then closes the door behind her before he heads to the other side and slips in behind the wheel.  With his hands planted firmly upon it, he turns to her, “Are you hungry?  That Fenway Frank didn’t do it for me.”

Her lips slip up into a grin and she nods softly.  “Yeah.”

“The restaurants nearby will be crowded with people from the game.  We can head out a few miles and see what we find.  I know a few places that have private dining rooms or won’t be as busy . . . .”

“Why don’t I cook for you,” she says, her words catching him off guard, “I mean if you want.  You’ve been so amazing to me the past couple of days so I owe you this time.  And I know my way around a kitchen pretty well.”

He eyes her momentarily and then shrugs.  “I have some stuff at my place.  You are welcome to use it . . . . if you don’t mind going there.”

“I don’t mind,” she whispers, her smile never slipping.

It takes them 35 minutes to navigate through traffic, park and take the elevator to his condo.  It takes her about the same amount of time to toss his hat and her purse onto his couch and then pilfer through his kitchen, perching tomatoes, onions, garlic and pasta, along with a few other ingredients, in her arms and then on the counter before she starts cooking.

He attempts to help her. He does.  But he finds himself catching her eyes every time their hands touch or their arms tap against the other, both of them laughing uncomfortably when they do.  When it happens again, she closes her eyes, placing her hands down on the counter briefly before she places her gaze on him and she points to the chair on the opposite side of her.  

“You,” she laughs, noticeably forced, “sit.  No more helping.”  No more touching, he tells himself.

It doesn’t take long before the naturality of their conversation resumes, until he finds himself watching her laugh as she cuts, stirs, simmers and tastes.  She tells him, again, how much she loved the game. Asks him questions about some parts of the game she is unsure of.  She tells him about going to a NBA game and also to an NHL game and he feigns being shot when she tells him she had predicted the Falcons to win the last Super Bowl.  

She makes a dish she calls Pasta ala Taylor, and he devours it.  She grins sheepishly when he tells her it could rival anything he’s eaten at Mamma Mia’s or even at his own mom’s house but makes her promise never to mention that to her.  Scouts honor, she giggles as she crosses her heart with her finger.

Her eyes move about the house and she tells him how much she likes it, how she enjoys its simplicity and the openness of it.  And as she nurses the wine he selected, she mentions how it’s her favorite and she’s surprised that he picked that bottle.  I’m glad I did, he tells her.  

When their meal ends, they find themselves in the same positions they were in the previous night. Both resting back in their chairs, wine glasses perched within their fingertips, their conversation overflowing.

“Really Chris, I enjoyed today.  Your family is amazing.  Even after spending just a few hours with them, I can see how close you all are. It’s how families should be.”  She stops momentarily, looking down at the wine on the table, “And I loved the enthusiasm.  Not just for the game, but for each other, for the kids.  Even for the hot dogs and beer.  You don’t see it as much anymore and I don’t know why.”

He lifts his shoulders, smiling at her words.  “We’ve always been that way.  We love each other, even when we say we hate each other.  We joke and pick on each other and sometimes we fight but we always have each other’s back.  I know that at the end of the day, any day, I always have them to fall back on.  My mom especially.  She’s the nucleaus that we all revolve around.  Our rock.”

The smile that slips onto her lips is the most genuine he believes he has ever seen.  “That’s how my mom is.  She’s my best friend.  She knows me better than I know myself.  When I looked at your mom, I was reminded so much of mine.”

He kicks his leg over his knee, his back fully against the chair.  He watches her for a few silent seconds. Her gentle face. Her easy expression.

“My mom thinks there is something going on between us,” he says, shaking his head.

She bites at her bottom lip, nodding as she chuckles.  “I think everyone in that room thinks something is going on between us.”

He laughs but the expression feels off.  It feels out of place.  Like it’s forced.  Like it’s a cover.  He’s not completely sure why.  

“Anyway, I’m sorry for Jeremy,” he quips, changing the subject.  

Taylor sips from her glass before she smiles.  “I like him. He’s very real . . . very open.  I like that.  And I love the way he dotes on his daughter.  You can take one look and him and tell that Ava is the only woman he needs in his life.”

“He would’ve been ok to let you in too,” he laughs, hating the way his stomach clenches with even the words.  Hating that he continues to say words that he wishes he did not.  

“He was joking.  I know that.” She sips on her wine again and when she brings her glass down, he can see the change in her face.  She waits a few seconds, before she raises those vibrant eyes him.  “Why have you been so nice to me?  Even from the start, you were nice.  I didn’t expect that.”  She takes a deep breath, allowing it to slip from her pierced lips.  “I’m sure you’ve heard everything that’s been said about me recently.”

He allows her words to soak in, allows his mind to go back to the articles he’s seen, the headlines on tabloids in the grocery store, the reports on TV.  “Let me tell you a story,” he starts, resting further back in his chair and planting his eyes on her, “My mom told me when I was 11 years old and came home with a fat lip, courtesy of my so-called friend Brad Cooper, that not everyone has a pure heart.  She had suspected Brad of being fake from the beginning, I had seen it all over her skeptical and cynical face.  But I had talked him up, told her how awesome he was and all these cool things he did. And then, when he convinced me to bring him four Nintendo games to school one day and then proceeded to punch me in the lip and call me a sucker, she sat me down at the kitchen table and explained to me her theory on people.  She said everyone has good in them but not everyone knows how to be good. You have to watch people, listen to them, study them, and then you will see who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.”  He chuckles, shaking his head as he recalls her words.  “Remember, she was talking to an 11 year old.  She also said that a person’s eyes don’t lie.  So, I took her advice to heart and ever since then, when I meet someone, I do as she said.  I watch, I listen, I study and I read their eyes.  And it didn’t take me long to realize you were genuine and your heart, pure.  Granted, I had figured as such.  I know Tom well, Taylor.  I know he is a good man so I knew there must be something good within you for him to fall in love with you.”

She smiles softly, her eyes falling.  “Well I don’t believe he does anymore.”

Breathing heavy, he takes another drink of his wine and then places the glass on his knee, holding it there. “I’d be hard pressed to believe that he doesn’t.”

The depths of those blue eyes fall on him again, twisting a knot in his stomach.  “I’ve been thinking about that.  I did last night.”  After he kissed her, he thinks.  She raises her eyes toward the ceiling.  “Wondering. . . . When is it too much.  Now. Two weeks or two months from now. Never?  When do I take the fall, throw in the towel?  When do I admit that I fought for his love but I lost?  Is there a point where I can soften the blow, limit the pain, and give up?”

“Do you want to give up,” he asks, his words sifting gently in the air.

She shrugs.  “I don’t know.  I just feel . . . . . like an idiot.  I picture myself as this old fisherman.  He keeps throwing his lure out there, waiting for a bite, but getting none.  But still, he just keeps throwing it back out there.  When does he just realize that he’s not going to get a bite and pack up and go home?”

“Taylor, I don’t have an answer for you,” he sighs, wishing beyond reason that he did.  

She smiles softly, knowingly.  “I know. I just wonder if I’m burdening my heart too much, if I’m burdening his life.  I just know that I can’t fight forever for something I have no idea that I’ll ever get back.  My heart, my soul, can’t take that.”

Bringing his glass to his lips, he takes a long, slow draw.  He closes his eyes as he feels it settle in his stomach, the hint of alcohol clouding his senses.  “Your fisherman.  Maybe he’s just scared.  Maybe he’s so used to that river that he’s too tired and too scared, to move to another one.  The uncertainty of another river could scare him more than not knowing if he’ll ever get a bite in the one he’s used to, the one he’s loved going to.  But eventually he’ll get stronger and he’ll realize that he deserves fish just as much as the next guy.  So he’ll move to another river.  When he’s ready.”

“Maybe,” she whispers before she tips her glass up, gulping down the last drink and then placing the glass back on the table, “you know, we are horrible fishermen.”

He laughs, shaking his head. “It’s looking that way.  Yet we keep tossing that lure, don’t we?”  With his own glass in his hands, he swirls the liquid around, his eyes focused on it.  He doesn’t take a drink.  “I called Jenny last night.”  After I kissed you, he leaves out.  After I felt guilty, he also omits.

He can see the surprise in her eyes, hears it when she speaks, “How did it go?”

With a half shrug, he shakes his head.  “It didn’t really.  She said she was busy.  In a meeting. She asked me to call her back today.”

“Have you,” she asks.

He licks his bottom lip. “No.”

She doesn’t ask why but under her breathe, he hears her say, “A nibble.”

She waits a few moments, letting their words settle between them, and then she glances behind her, toward the door at the side of his living room.  “Do you have a balcony?”

“Yes,” he answers.  

Standing, she grabs her glass and reaches it towards him.  “Top me off and then take me to see it.”

Doing as she asks, he fills her glass with wine, then his, and steps in front of her, leading the way to the door.

When she steps outside, he sees her smile brighten.  The city spans like a glistening picture in front of them and for a second, he wonders if she’s thinking of Paris.  If she does, she doesn’t say so.  

He joins her view, realizing that the is the first time he’s even been on his own balcony in a while. He had forgotten how beautiful it was. How soothing.  How relaxing.  He takes a drink of wine, closing his eyes briefly as it, again, clouds his brain.

“Do you know what I miss,” she asks a few seconds later.

He’s not positively sure what she’s talking about so he shakes his head.  “What?”

“The feeling,” she sighs, her gaze still on his beloved city before her, “the way he felt beside of me. How my pulse would race when he touched me.  How I felt safe in his arms.  I miss the feeling.  The pheromones.  The chemical reaction.”

“If that’s what you want, you should have taken Jeremy up on his offer.”  His words are said in jest but he can’t help but regret them once he places them in the open.  And when she doesn’t respond, he regrets them even more.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” he murmurs, glancing at her frozen figure a few feet away.

“No, it’s quite alright. I get what you mean.  But that would be a different river.”  She snickers and he feels a sense of relief wash over him.

Turning around, he rests his rear on the railing of the balcony.  His gaze glosses over her.  She’s beautiful.  There is no denying that.  There never has been.  But as the light of the moon frames her face, he believes her to be even more beautiful. It’s a thought he curses himself for having.  So much so that he pulls his eyes away, placing them almost nervously upon the door into his condo.

“Your leaving tomorrow,” he asks, keeping his eyes focused away from her.

“Yeah.  I’m already a couple days behind schedule.  Not that I mind.  I’ve enjoyed the delay.”  He smiles softly at her words, lowering his head.  “But Watch Hill awaits.  And I meant what I said about bringing your family there.”

“They would like that.”

From the corner of his eye, he sees her lips pull into a grin.  “I would too.”

He feels a smirk on his face, a glint in his eyes.  “You know though,” he scoffs, angling his head to glare at her, “I won’t wear an I love TS shirt.”

And there’s the laugh. The one that sounds like a melody to him.  With her glass teetering between her fingers, she raises both hands up, surrendering to his words.  “That was all him though I’m sure many would love to blame me.  But if you’d like, I can make sure there is an I love JS shirt available.”

His blue eyes land on her, his smirk widening.  “That won’t be necessary.”

“C’mon,” she hisses, her laughter echoing all around them, “that would be the ultimate tossing out of the lure.”

“Ok, but if I wear that, then you do the same for Tom,” he challenges.  When he sees her scrunch her nose, shaking her head, his laughter booms.

Their amusement settles between them and he places his free hand on the railing of the balcony.  “I like this.  Laughing.  Talking. It’s easy and natural.  I don’t recall it being this way with anyone else.”

For a split second, he considers how she will take his words but when he sees her delicate grin, the thought slips from his mind.  “I agree,” she whispers, her voice still melodic and happy and then she winks. “I’m pleased to have officially met you, Captain America.”

With her words, he reaches his hand out, “Pleased to have officially met you too, Ms. Swift.”  

She’s giggling, cackling really, her head thrown back, when she takes his hand.  And there it is.  Again.  A touch. A moment.  A sensation.  He had felt it last night.  He had felt it, but not admitted to it, in Paris.  He felt it earlier today at the game, with her arms around his waist. He’s felt it every time his skin has brushed hers since.  And Jesus, he just felt it again.  And he knows she felt it too.  Because she jerks her hand away and runs a nervous hand through her hair.  

“We need to stop doing that,” she whispers, her words aching with anxiety, “stop touching or getting wrapped up or whatever we’re doing.  I don’t know if I’ll be able to pull away the next time.”

His breath hitches at her words.  It’s a reaction he can’t stop.  He shakes his head, searching for words, a word, any word, to say.  All he can find is “Yeah” before he clears his throat and tilts his head, “It’s probably just the wine anyway.”

Her smile softens as she hears him.  “Yeah. Probably.”

She excuses herself a few seconds later, telling him she needs to go to the restroom.  He remains on the balcony, his mind raging with thoughts, his body searing with unexplained and unpredicted emotions. What the hell is he doing, he thinks? Is he lonely?  Maybe.  Is he in need of human, female, contact?  Perhaps. But fuck, what is he doing?  

He’s in love with Jenny. She, with Tom.  There is no denying that.  But he also can’t deny that something happens, what he has no clue, whenever he touches Taylor.  Something happens.

He rubs his hand down his face, hoping to find some sort of clarity from the action.  As expected, he doesn’t.  

With one long slow drink, he finishes his wine and then places the glass on the table near him. He slides the door open and he’s greeted by the darkness of his living room, illuminated ever so faintly by the light seeping from his kitchen.  Three steps in, he hears water running and he turns his gaze in the direction it’s coming from.  

The kitchen.

His eyes narrow as he walks toward the room, finding Taylor pressed against the edge of his counter, one hand moving in circles around a plate perched in her other hand.  “What are you doing,” he asks, watching as her body reacts to his sudden words.  Stiffening.

She doesn’t move, keeping her eyes steady on the dishes in front of her.  “Cleaning up.  It would be rude of me to leave this mess for you since I’m the one who made it.”

“I have a dishwasher,” he says, trying to find a laugh, a chuckle, a . . . . something, but he doesn’t.

“That’s ok,” she chimes, placing a clean plate in the right side of his sink before she plunges her hands into the sudsy water in the left and retrieves a pan.  “I enjoy the normalcy of washing dishes.  It helps me think.  Helps me clear my head.”

He takes three long strides across the room, stopping a foot or so away from her and grabbing a dishtowel from the counter.  “I can do it,” she says sharply, “really, it’s not a problem.”

“I can help,” he starts before she interrupts him.

“No . . . really, I can do it.”

She reaches for the towel in his hand, attempts to remove it from him.  All she does though is cause, again, a sensation, a jolt, when her hand inadvertently crosses his.  As if she’s touched an open flame, she pulls it away and plunges it back into the water.

“Is washing dishes really helping,” he pries, his voice ripping through them, increasing the ever-present tension.  

“Helping what?”  Her voice is telling.  She knows.

When he tosses the dishtowel back on the counter and turns around, he catches a glimpse of her closing her eyes, clutching them shut.  He takes a step away but she reaches behind her, her wet hand grasping on his arm.  That’s all it takes.  That simple little contact.

He turns on his heels, his movement thoughtless and quick, and spins her around, pulling her to him. Her eyes flutter and then shut again as soon as she’s near him.  Reaching down, he grabs her other wrist, pulling both hands up until they rest between them.  He can feel his shirt start to dampen but beyond that, he can feel her.  The rapid rise and fall of her chest.  Her hot breath tickling his chin and neck.  He leans into her, resting his forehead on hers.

It’s a moment.  Their moment.  A mind blowing, punch you in the gut, romance novel worth moment.  It’s electric and damn he knows she is feeling it to.

He pulls her wrists, wrapping her arms around him as he presses into her and mimics the action. “Chris,” is all she mutters as her eyes fly open and his lips find hers in a ravenous kiss.  It’s scorching.  Searing. The heat from their bodies, the intensity of their actions, burning between them like a fire.  

He’s not being rational. Damn, he knows that.  He’s not thinking of consequences, not thinking of how this moment, their moment, could hurt others.  All he can think of is Taylor.  Of how she feels.  How she tastes.  How he wants . . . . more.

He can feel her tepid resistance, keeping her lips closed but when he presses his hands on the small of her back and draws her closer to him, she relaxes, falls really, into his kiss. She accepts them hungrily. Readily.  Willingly.  Feeling her on him, wanting him, meeting his kisses time after time, evokes from him things he hasn’t felt in a long time.  He responds by kissing her harder, fiercer, drawing her breath into his as if it’s the last breath he himself will ever have.  

He can’t fucking get enough.

His senses swirl, clouding his brain, twisting his stomach.  His heart pounds wildly as his hands roam and discover, feeling every inch of her that he can, tangling into her hair, pressing her more and more into him. Damn, she feels so amazing.  This feels so amazing.

She quivers when his tongue darks into her mouth.  “Chris,” she utters again against him.  The sound of his name off of her lips engaging him even more.  When his arms move again, he lifts her, placing her ass on the counter as his mouth continues his exploration of her skin.  He can feel her shake against him, can feel every emotion his touch is generating in her body.  It fuels him.  Drives him. Sends him into an unstoppable frenzy.

He catches her breath in his mouth when his lips find hers again.  She purrs, the sound sending a shrill through his body.  Cupping her face in his hands, he moves his mouth to her neck, working there for a few seconds as he feels her press her chest tightly to him.

“What are we doing,” she says breathlessly, pulling her head back only long enough to look into his eyes before she finds his mouth again.  

“Chemical reaction,” he whispers and then grasps his hands on the bottom of her shirt, ripping it up over her head and discarding of it on the floor.  He pushes himself into the counter, in between her legs.  His mouth finds the delicate skin on her neck, biting and nipping at it as his fingers work at the clasp of her bra.  When it flicks open, he pulls it off, revealing her supple breasts to him for the first time.

“Fuck, Taylor,” he mutters just before his lips envelope her nipples.  He suckles, his teeth grazing the skin there every few seconds.  He hears her purr, sees her throw her head back when he raises his eyes just enough to see her face.  

He’s working on her other breast when he feels her tugging at his shirt so he steps back long enough for her to slip it over his head before he finds her breasts again, this time licking, flicking his tongue out over the hardened nipples.  

Her hands are clawing at his jeans.  “You first,” he says, pulling her hands away and then his own finding the button of her jean capris.  She lifts her ass off of his counter so he can tug them and her white lacy panties down her legs and onto the floor.  He eyes her briefly, his body responding instantly to the view of this woman, naked and ready for him.  

Leaning forward, her hands find the waist of his jeans again and he meets them there, helping her unbutton before he pushes them and his briefs down and kicks them away.  Her arms immediately go around his neck, pulling him into her, catching his lips and then wrapping her legs around his torso. He feels her heat instantly.  

Part of his head screams at him to take her to his bed, ravage her there, but he knows he can’t wait that long.  He needs her here.  He needs her now.

His arms encompass her waist, maneuvering her on the counter until she barely rests there.  She moves with him, her body shaking with the same need, her mind knowing exactly what he is doing.  When her legs wrap firmly around him, her center aligning with his hard and ready dick, he thrusts.  Hard. So hard it bucks her body up, her breasts bouncing.  She tightens her arms around his back.

They’re at a place of no return now.  And he doesn’t want to return.  He’s powerless against this . . . whatever this is.  The emotions being elicited.  The need being evoked.  

The nuclear reaction.

He pounds into her again and she rocks her body to meet him with every single movement.  It’s hard and soft.  Fast and slow.  Her mouth is against his, moaning and purring.  Her sounds making him harder, making him want her more, want to hear her more.  

He increases his speed and she moves her hips to intensify the friction.  This time it is Chris who is moaning.  A deep, throaty moan that echoes through his kitchen.  He dips his head, finds her breast again.  Sucking.  Licking. Clenching his arms so tight around her torso.  Pounding into her.  Over and over and over.  She’s wet, slick with her desire for him.  And she’s hot.  Insanely hot. He can feel her nerves pulsating, awakening against him.  It pierces every nerve in him.  

Her fingers scrape down his back as she clings to him, her mouth finding the crook of his neck, kissing there before she kisses a line to his shoulder.  She bites him and he bucks into her, eliciting a long and breathy moan. He drives into her harder.  And harder.  Until he feels her release, feels her cum drenching him.  It drives him to his edge and he feels his dick pulsate inside of her as he pants.  

“Fuck,” he says, his voice raw and broken.  He allows himself to finish in her, his damp forehead pressed to hers, removing himself from her once the nerves stop twitching between them.  He steps into the counter, placing her rear fully upon it again. Neither seem to remember how to breathe.

“Chemical reaction,” she whispers a few seconds later, causing him to cough out a ragged breath as he places another kiss on her shoulder.  

They catch their breaths, regulate their breathing, holding each other, she still on the counter, he between her legs directly in front of her.  She places her head onto his, aiming her gaze down.  Her fingers pad softly along the tattoo on his collarbone. Leaning down, she kisses it.

“We keep getting wrapped up,” she whispers when she raises her head, placing it back on his.  “And you still need to take me back to the hotel.”

“Do you want to go back to the hotel,” he presses, his voice still ragged and raw.  He doesn’t move from her.

Against him, she shakes her head.  “No.”

“Then don’t,” he says just as he tightens his arms around her waist and pulls her off the counter. Her lips find his when he does.

“Show me your bedroom,” she whispers, tangling her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck.

He does as she pleases. And they please each other again, tossing bedsheets aside as they taste and tease each other.  Her lips on his length.  His tongue inside of her.  He smiles when he makes her cum.  Again. And his senses tingle in overdrive when she does the same for him.  They move together for an hour more, until both collapse with exhaustion and fall into sleep.  

He awakens the next morning with the brilliant Boston sun beaming directly into his eyes.  Shit, he mumbles to himself before he rubs his hands down his face, noting the soreness and exhaustion in his body as he moves. A smirk lights up his face when he remembers why.  

Chemical reactions. Nuclear fucking reactions.  With Taylor.

He rolls over, anticipating finding the woman responsible for his fatigue, but instead finding a single piece of paper.  As he reads it, he notices for the first time that his shower is running.  “Borrowing your water,” it says, a simple smiley face after her words.  It makes him smile.  

He’s considering joining her, considering yet another mind-blowing reaction, when her phone starts to ring from the living room.  He glances to the room and then to the bathroom.  

“Taylor, your phone,” he says, noting the hoarseness in his voice as he tries to speak.

The water continues as does the phone so he reluctantly pushes himself up and slips from the bed. His body feels as if it creaks.  “Taylor . . . .,” he yells again, his voice muffled by the screeching ring.

He figures it’s Brandon. Likely panicked with worry at her not returning last night.  He would assume it’s probably his tenth call, a half dozen texts likely there as well.

But as he grabs the phone from the table and turns to make his way back to the bedroom, he notices for the first time the name that appears on the screen.

His eyes fall shut and he shakes his head.

Tom.

#taylor swift fanfiction #chris evans fanfiction #lonely and gone #unexpected #chapter 3