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josephquinnswhore · 1 year

Note

What about a fic where the reader and Pedro are working to together and one of them has an accident while doing a stunt

And that they were dating in secret and they go into panic mode when it happens

Bunch of fluff and angst

Accidents Happen

Pairing: Pedro Pascal x fem! reader

Summary: you insisted on doing your own stunts for the Kingsman movie, you get badly hurt.

Word Count: 2.2k

Content Warning: doing stunts, weapons, knives, whips, head injury, mentions of blood.

Note: they’ll be on the set of “kingsman” cause I feel like agent whiskey does a lot of stunts lol (let’s pretend Pedro can use the lasso ;) Also love this idea thanks for requesting!!

Secretly dating Pedro Pascal wasn’t something that was easy to hide, he was the heartthrob of the internet and he was a very open book. His people pleasing tendencies had him opening up to everyone just to make them comfortable in his presence. It was fairly new, you’d only been together for just over 12 months, your first anniversary was spent at home over dinner and wine; watching your favourite movies, most of them being Disney or Nick Cage movies, cause let’s face it, he was a phenomenal actor.

Being an actor and working with your secret boyfriend was even harder. You were having to put up two acts, one in being your character Agent Brandy, working alongside other well known actors as a team of secret agents, playing the good guys, you’d read your script and to your surprise, Pedro’s character “Jack Whiskey” kills your character after she finds out that Jack was going to destroy the cure, there were a few stunts that production had warned and offered you may need a stunt double for. But you refused; you had done some stunts in other movies before, you knew you could handle a whip and lasso.

You and Pedro were in position, both in costume and in a room full of camera men and producers ready to watch you play the scene out, the scene in which had all the stunts.

“3,2,1, ACTION.”

You stare at Agent Whisky, brows furrowed and huffing, your hand lingering above your knife ready to fight after you learned of jacks betrayal. “How could you, Jack? Lives are at stake here, the world is at stake. It’s not too late for you to redeem yourself, just hand me the cure and we can work this out.”

He scoffs, accent heavy in his mock fury, “over my dead body, Brandy,” you grunt, “so be it.” Your hand is quick to reach for your knife, pressing the button as to extend the blade. He moves swiftly, quicker than you could react, the lasso in his hands within seconds, spinning it and catching your arms around your torso, the rope pulling tight making you drop the prop, pulling your legs together and you fall onto the mat on the floor. He leans over you, “should’ve minded your damn business, we could’ve been somethin special sugar.” He winks before picking up your knife and jams it into the floor next to you, you’re gasping and heaving as he walks out of the building.

“Cut! That was incredible, I want to reshoot the lasso scene, perhaps we can get Brandy tied up a little quicker, just to get more action into the scene.”

You’re untied from the lasso, Pedro offers you a hand in his costume, smile on his lips as you stand, wishing the warmth of his hands didn’t have to leave yours. You stand about 8 feet from him, in your defensive position, hand above knife ready for the scene to begin.

“Ready in, 3, 2, 1, ACTION.”

“How could you do this to us Jack, the world is at stake, millions of lives are at stake here.” You lower your hand away from the knife, going a little off script to make a more emotional scene, “please, just give me the vile and you can come back from this, we can get away from all of this agent nonsense.” You hold your hand out to him, a soft look in your eyes as you waited for him to surrender the cure that would save millions of lives. He scoffs, pulling his lasso out of his back pocket quickly, emotion quickly turned resentful, he swung the lasso quickly and your arms were bound by your torso. “Please jack, don’t do this.” He pulls the lasso tighter, encouraging you to shut up. “It’s a real shame you didn’t join me sugar, could’ve changed the world, you an me.” With a swift yank of his arm you fell, your body spinning off course from the mat you were meant to land on and your head hits the corner of a chair seat.

“Fuck!” You wail in agony, unable to hold the sore spot on your head.

“CUT. Get medical in here now, we’ve got a head injury.”

You feel lightheaded, your own cries of anguish are drowned out by the dozens of voices crowding you, unwrapping the lasso from your torso. Pedro kneels over you, his hands on either side of your face, his eyes full of tears with a fearful look on his face. “Fuck what have I done.” He brushes his hands over your head to get the hair out of your face, when he feels-something. He pulls his hand back to see it’s coated in slick warm blood, your blood. “She’s bleeding, her heads bleeding!” Pedro exclaims desperately, a man from the film crew tosses him a shirt, Pedro holds it to your head and sees how fast the white shirt is staining red. He can’t stop the tears from falling at how unresponsive you are.

“Move out of the way the paramedics are here!” Your producer exclaims. Pedro is hesitating to move, his body frozen in shock at what he’s done to you. The paramedics put a neck brace on you before picking you up onto the stretcher and wheeling you out to the ambulance.

“Pedro, for all our sakes and your own, go with her.”

He doesn’t waste another second following you, explaining to the paramedics, “she’s my fiancé.” He lies, they’re not, but he’s thinking he should after this, after this feeling of dread that he’s going to lose you, he’s never been so afraid in his life.

The wailing of the ambulance siren is drowned out by him being stuck in his head, guilt and self blame for changing the way he was meant to do the stunt on the script. How would you ever forgive him? He held your hand as it rests on your chest, the monitor connected to your finger reads a low, but steady heartbeat and low blood pressure.

He refused to leave the hospital, he sat on an old dinky green chair, the stuffing had started to fall out because the stitching was ripped. No matter how badly his joints ached he refused to move, the nurses bringing him water every so often as he’s dehydrating himself from having cried for hours on end. You were in surgery, they said that your head has actually split open, they weren’t sure how long it would take to operate or how long it would take for you to wake up, but he was feeling the guilt full force.

A doctor comes up to the nurse at reception and she gives Pedro a look. “Okay, thank you. I’ll pass it on.” She thanks the doctor quietly before standing from her desk and walking over to Pedro. “Let’s go for a walk, shall we?” He nods solemnly and stands, his legs wobbling from sitting for so long. His boots squeak on the hospital floors, he gets weird looks from other patients and nurses they pass as he’s still in costume.

“She’s stable, she had to have 50 stitches, she’ll be okay eventually but, it’s possible she may have short term memory loss, she may not-we just thought you should be aware of that possibility.”

Pedro frowns, “memory loss?” The nurse nods sympathetically, “it’s possible.” They come to a stop after what feels like an eternity. He stops outside of a room, the letters 31B on the door in bold letters. The nurse opens the door and Pedro’s heart stops beating in his chest when he sees you.

You’re connected to a few monitors, a drip is inserted into your arm. Your eyes are sunken and your skin is pale. Black half circles are dark underneath your eyes, you look so fragile, so unwell. “She lost a lot of blood. She’s due for another blood transfusion within the next two hours. You may take a seat if you’d like, I’ll bring you something from the canteen.”

“Thanks,” he mumbles, sitting down in the leather chair that was slightly more comfortable than the one in the waiting room. His eyes feel heavy as they droop, exhaustion overcoming him from todays events.

Your head throbs as you come into consciousness. Your eyes blink hard in an attempt to open them. When they open your eyes are squinted, the bright lights pulling a groan from you, wishing the lights were turned off. You look around the room, head still attached to the pillow as your head feels to heavy to lift.

You see Pedro sitting in the chair next to the bed, his face is red and puffy, he has huge bags under his eyes and your heart physically aches while you’re remembering what happened to you. The monitor beside you beeps loudly and constantly, your heart rate becoming abnormally high for its usual base rate. The beeping wakes Pedro up, he shuffles in his sleep before prying his eyes open, looking at you starting right at him which startled him.

“Hey.” His voice was hoarse, vulnerable. “Hi.” You whisper, your throat in desperate need of water to rid your cotton mouth.

The nurse comes walking in, seeing your heart rate, “it’s totally normal waking up from surgery, so don’t panic. We’ll get some more pain meds sent in straight away, how are you feeling?” Your eyes are half shut, looking at the woman in scrubs as you groan, “sore.” She puts your clipboard back onto the end of your bed, moving to your right side to check your temperature. “36.2. Temps good. What’s the last thing you remember?” You frown, not wanting to remember the pain and guilt Pedro had been through at the sake of your pain.

“I remember doing a stunt with Pedro, I think I fell and hit my head and waking up here.”

Pedro shakes his head, knowing that’s not the whole truth. The nurse nods, “okay, get some more rest if you can. I’ll get those pain meds back to you as soon as we can.”

The silence in the room was defeating, the noise ringing in your ears as you internally begged him to speak. He didn’t, so you did.

“I know I didn’t fall, it’s not your fault Pedro, we both messed up.” You turn your head to look at him and he’s still in his costume which makes you smile. “I thought I lost you. They said you might wake up with amnesia and you’d forget me.”

You reach out to him, holding his hand and weakly caressing his knuckles. “How could I ever forget you baby?” He finally looks at you, brown orbs watering at your kindness. “What did I ever do to deserve you?” “You did everything right to deserve me.”

“Are you sure you wanna do this?” Pedro questions, his finger hovering above the play button as it’s paused right before your and his scene, when it happened.

It’s been a couple of months since your incident, unfortunately due to the severity of your head injury you were unable to continue filming, your producers were kind enough to pay you for the entirety of the film. You had given them permission to use the last take they filmed, they said the chemistry and emotion the two of you had brought to the movie was something they wanted to keep, and the lasso scene they had edited to make it look like a full on action movie. Of course during this whole incident, people had found out that you and Pedro were dating. Some weirdo in the hospital snapped pictures of the two of you kissing, you addressed it and admitted that you’d been together for a while now. Thankfully the fans have been nothing but supportive, but they’ve been asking if you’ve seen the new movie, saying you did a phenomenal job, praising you and Pedro for your work. You decided it was finally time to watch it.

“Yeah, I’m sure.” You exhale a shaky breath, Pedro presses the play button and he holds you close to him. His arms drawing circles down your arms to keep you grounded while you both watch the familiar scene unfold before you. “They have great chemistry don’t you think?” Pedro laughs, “yeah they sure do. Maybe they should just get married or something.”

The vulnerability of the scene nearly had you in tears, the music and editing was incredible. You tense as you brace yourself for the scene. You can’t will yourself to even blink let alone look away while it happens. You look to Pedro and sigh, “I’m okay, it’s just.. intense to relive all of that.” He kisses your temple, “I know baby, you’re so strong and I’m so proud of you.” You turn to him, “I’m proud of you too, you know.” He raises an eyebrow at you, “proud of me for what?” You snuggle into him, the warmth spreading between you like a house fire. “For not blaming yourself and for being there for me.”

“Always gonna be here for you baby.” You turn your attention back to the next scene where you were replaced with a stunt double who did the remainder of your scenes, so they decided not to kill your character off.

“Hey she’s pretty hot.” You jest. Pedro shrugs at the unfamiliar body with your face that’s been edited to it, “she doesn’t have an ass like you though.” He gives your ass a quick squeeze and you squeal. “You’re so lucky I love you,” his lips meet yours in a soft kiss, “I know honey, I am lucky.”

#Pedro pascal #pedro pascal x reader #pedro pascal x you #pedro pascal x fem reader #pedro pascal angst #pedro pascal and reader actor #pedro pascal secret relationship #pedro pascal as jack whiskey

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astralbulldragon13 · 5 months

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A Cheeky Little Dance

(TW: mentions of some mild gore at the end as well as a little angst)

Cheeky blinked, realizing where she was. She was in Kayley’s room, she had just finished reading the little one her bedtime story out of a handmade story book. Cheeky heaved a sigh as she closed the book, and set it on her bedside counter, pressing a kiss to the little girl’s forehead as a shadow fell over them from the open doorway. Cheeky looked over her shoulder to see V.

He was leaning against the door jamb with a smirk. She stood and carefully exited to room, leaving the door cracked open so a bit of light can enter the room. Kayley may have had powers that would have terrified most Corporation agents, but she was still only five years old and was afraid of the dark.

Cheeky met V in the hall and looked up at him. “What is it?”

He took hold of her hand and began to tug her along to the living room. “There was something I wanted to show ya.”

She nodded and followed him, seeing an old LP player on the coffee table. Cheeky couldn’t help but laugh when she noticed the stack of vinyl next to it. “What are you doing V? We just put the kids to bed.”

He looked at her with a smile as he placed a disk on the turn-table. “Well, I just thought, since we finally have a minute, we might as well enjoy ourselves.”

V took her by the hands and they began to dance. It was honestly the most fun that they’ve had in a while. Most of the songs had a fast pace, with lots of spins and twists, she thinks the moves were from the Jitterbug. She didn’t know either of them knew how to dance like that. With the slower songs, they did some sort of waltz. For some reason, she couldn’t tell what the songs were, but it didn’t feel like it mattered.

V couldn’t help but make jokes about Yanks and high school proms, and Cheeky would laugh, poking his sides as punishment for his teasing.

“I just don’t get the obsession for it? Just seems like some stupid pomp and circumstance for girls to get all dressed up and show off.”

The blonde rolled her eyes. “That’s cause you’re a dude.”

Cheeky didn’t exactly have a good tell of the time, but it felt like hours. As the dancing seemed to wind down they were doing a cheesy slow-dance. His arms were wrapped around her waist and held her close, her arms were wrapped over his shoulders, with her head resting on his chest with her eyes closed.

“This feels nice,” Cheeky whispered as they swayed back and forth to some sort of acoustic song. After a few seconds she sighed and opened her eyes. “Is this a dream or are we dead?”

V took a deep breath and rested his chin on top of her head. “I dunno, love. I admit, this does feel too good… what do you think?”

Cheeky felt tears sting her eyes as she gripped his shirt. “If this is a dream, then it’s the happiest dream I’ve ever had in my life. And if this is death… it’s a better afterlife than I deserve.”

She leaned back and looked at him. His appearance had chanced. There were darker shadows under his eyes, and his hair was longer, brushing the collar of his shirt. She reached up and brushed a thumb under one eye to reveal the scar under his right eye, as thought it was hidden by makeup.

Then everything began to crash down around her as it became harder to breathe, like her chest was tightening around her.

V lifted a hand to touch her face, a sad smile on his face as he wiped something from her lips, only for her to see that it was blood.

There was the horrific sound of a scream behind her, and Cheeky whirled around to see…V, flying towards a giant creature, with long red hair and teeth so sharp it would make Atrocity look for a nail file for his teeth.

Cheeky turned to run towards the fight as the monster stuck V in mid-air with his claws like a poor mouse being pierced on a thorn by a butcher bird. She could see the others, Wilder was bisected, his blood and entrails staining the grass and concrete, L was propped up against a rock, her body as limp as a puppet with its string cut. The mousy girl was trying to pull L away as she screamed

Cheeky reached out, trying to use her light magic to do something, anything! Only to trip, fall, and land face to face with… herself. Cheeky saw her own body, laying on her back, her ribcage was exposed, as well as her lungs, but… her heart was gone. Her legs were folded under her body, she was kneeling on the ground when that monster… tore her heart out.

Cheeky could barely make out the sound of V trying to make a joke with his final breath, before she screamed to the heavens, tears falling down her face as the light seemed to fade away from everything. Leaving her alone in the dark.

#scythe v #scythe audio #scythe cheeky #let me self indulge for a while!!!#a little bit of gore #not really described in all that much detail #angst

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brightnote · 9 months

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Secret Invasion theories & coming back down to reality (re: Maria Hill) -- spoilers!

BUT before I get into some self grounding on my Maria revival theory, here’s a little more Maria Hill hair appreciation.

I love the chaotic look of her hair in this scene, her hair really says “she was working in Russia all day as her cool secret agent self chasing bad guys or whatever and then she’s finally driving to her secret safe house to go home and take a shower and then freaking Ross calls. Surprise, some how he is also in Russia and that’s not weird and is totally normal and makes sense and he has Maria on speed dial for reasons we don’t know why. But here she comes to rescue some man AGAIN before her day can be over, but then that man dies on the ground in front of her and turns into an alien. Surprise! And then another alien friend is around and they just leave together and leave skrull Ross’s dead body on the ground exposed as an alien in Russia... and they never tell anyone about this except probably Fury (not confirmed) and it never comes up again and then she can’t even go take a shower because now she has to go pick up Fury from space.” That’s definitely what this hair says, and major props to the hair department because they nailed that look to complete perfection!

Anyways, as the finale looms I am afraid I may have hyped myself up (and potentially hyped up others) too much on the outcome of the show. I still think my Maria + Fury made a huge play would be the BEST AND MOST FUN outcome of the whole series and since there have been zero freaking twists I think it’s necessary now but I don’t want to give anyone false hope or make the Maria stans sad all over again. Also, Marvel has been so afraid to slay in this series or take any risks or do anything new. I just don’t get it. It could have been so good!!!

So just to remain grounded after my spiraling out last week over why Maria is probably still alive--which some other outlets think so too FINALLY (!!) but here’s the evidence that Maria Hill is dead for real and not coming back:

She died on screen and she was very very dead and she died in a very sad horrible emotional way that should devastate any human being (except not Fury apparently?) and they cast her mom to guilt trip Fury. And then they keep showing that death over and over and over again. And killing off a woman for a man’s storyline is a classic trope that for some reason Marvel thinks is risky? (TBH I think the killed off Maria because they didn’t want to pay Cobie her money in any future projects and get someone younger + cheaper)

Cobie did a bunch of interviews saying “She thinks this is it” “it looks real, it felt real, it felt different” and “it was a sad day” and she was “sad to never get to develop Maria further” and that Maria was really dead. I think doing this interview was a bummer because it could have left the mystery open for the rest of the series but my guess is Marvel said go do this interview which is annoying because there actually is a great set up for Maria to come back into the show at the end.

Cobie posted a good bye to Maria on IG after episode 2 which was later deleted.

Cobie “knows nothing about [being in the Marvels]” which was at least in part filmed around the same time as SI was filming! Around 2021 but some of the SI was filming in 2022 for sure! If some of the Marvels is before SI I am not sure why it would be a secret that Cobie was in it? But who knows, the NDAs are wild but also I don’t know if Cobie would do a whole “i think this is it” interview set if she was for sure coming back.

Cobie got paid 4 million for her 1 episode (and many outstanding Guest Star appearances where she died over and over from different angles for 2 seconds, give this woman an Emmy!) I think if it was her last Marvel gig and she knew she wasn’t coming back she’d probably ask for a solid pay day which she seems like she got. Don Cheadle got 2 million for the whole show and Emilia Clarke only got 750k for the entire series and this was all behind Sam’s 20 million!!

Also Cobie said she had scenes at the same time as Don. I keep linking to this clip because it gives me hope we will have more Maria content in the show at least in some way THAT BETTER NOT BE A DEAD BODY. But I guess to totally destroy my last inch of hope it’s possible they were just on set at the same time even if they didn’t have scenes at the same time and that’s why they hung out? ALTHOUGH counter point she did say “i had a lot of scenes at the same time as Don” not “we were on set together at the same time.”

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meatmuncherlol · 2 years

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Admirals and others on Halloween 🎃

Sakazuki/Akainu: Would not participate in Halloween but this is his costume, he would dress up as Satan. He always works and never relaxes, but sometimes on Halloween, Borsalino/Kizaru would talk to Sakazuki to participate in Halloween, sometimes it works, but most of the time he would say the same excuse "I have a lot of work to do". If he did participate in Halloween, he would go around and set up decorations w/ Kizaru and everytime, Akainu asks Kizaru if we could use real bodies as props but Kizaru always says no.

Borsalino/Kizaru: Always participates in Halloween. His costume would be like some agent. He would give candy to kids and sets up decorations with Akainu. Sometimes he smokes on Halloween but gets caught by Tsuru. Also, he enjoys telling scary stories with Sengoku and Fujitora.

Issho/Fujitora: He likes Halloween but he doesn't wear a costume and he claims he's "too old". He helps his marine folks' kids go trick or treating. He enjoys scary stories, especially when Kizaru tells them. He enjoys Sengoku and Kizaru's company.

Aramaki/Ryokugyu: I don't know much about him, but he would prob work for the holiday.

OTHERS:

Garp: He loves Halloween, dresses up as Frankenstein to match the scar on his left eye and scares kids, even steals their candy. Scares the vice admirals aswell.

Tsuru: Doesn't like Halloween since she's claims she's "too old" and she gets jumpscared (mostly by Garp). But she does enjoy accompanying the kids while they're trick or treating.

Sengoku: Enjoys Halloween for the food and the scary stories. That's all.

Kuzan: Always makes popsicles on Halloween, which is pretty weird since there's no popsicles on Halloween.

Smoker: Doesn't even like Halloween. Follows the same path as Akainu, working.

Tashigi: She enjoys setting up Halloween games for the kids. Her costume is Shimotsuki Ryuma, a dead samurai. Somehow loses her glasses every Halloween games.

Hina: She ONLY and I mean ONLY attends Halloween for the fashion. Her costume is a witch. She doesn't participate in any games nor trick or treating with the kids BUT she smokes with Kizaru, she knows she's not gonna get in trouble from Tsuru.

Koby and Helmeppo: They ADORE Halloween. They dress up as Wizards and goes trick or treating with the other kids and play games. Sometimes they do Halloween pranks on the admirals. They do prank Akainu but not sometimes, like a 000000.01% chance you'll see them prank Akainu since, well, they don't wanna end up like Ace...donuts..

T-bone: Likes Halloween but mistakes props as injured marines and always helps them. He gives candy to kids who trick or treats but, ofc, mistakes their costumes as injured kids with "blood" and helps them.

Sentomaru: He loves entering Halloween games. He dresses up as like an agent's sidekick to match w/ his uncle, Kizaru. Whenever he wins a game, he would brag about how he won and he "claims" he wasn't tryharding.

Tajio(non-canon): He would cook Halloween related food w/ Jessica(non-canon) and her crew (also non-canon).

Vice Admiral Jonathan and Lieutenant Commander Drake(both non-canon): Gets drunk and gets The Worst Hangover Ever

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serendipityrogers · 3 years

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a monday in new york city || b. barnes

one & two

summary: another date with bucky, but this time its in new york city with some familar faces.

pairing: bucky barnes x female!librarian!reader

warnings: some ANNOYING as cliches that i just love, swearing

an: okay so i know its been a week, but hey i’ve been busy! this series is going to have one more part! and it’s going to be spicy, but that is gonna take awhile because it takes a lot for me to write spicy stuff. also, this series doesn’t take place in a specific part of the mcu timeline, i just pick the characters i want and throw them together. the next part of my steve series should be out soon, like within the next couple days! enjoy!!! <3

“You should meet me in New York City tomorrow.”

You and Bucky were talking on the phone, no Facetime or Skype, because this man still had a flip phone. After knowing about his history, this did not surprise you. Funnily enough, you didn’t actually know he had a phone until about two weeks ago. You proceeded to laugh at him for about thirty minutes when he pulled out the phone. It had been almost three months since he walked into your library for the first time. And the two of you had spent nearly everyday together, of course, except for those days he was gone on ‘obligations.’

“Like a date?” You asked, rolling onto your stomach, and moving the phone from between your ear and shoulder and onto your pillow. You heard him chuckle, and your cheeks warmed up. “We could call it that.” It was a Sunday night, and tomorrow was a holiday so the library would be closed, and for once, you had a day off. And you were over the moon about spending it with Bucky.

“What do you have in mind?” You said, propping your head up on the palms of your hands. “Well, before I ask you, promise me you won’t freak out.” This peaked your interest. “Well what is it?” You pushed, “Promise me, first.” He was being stubborn. “Fine.” You sighed. “Well, the Starks are throwing a party tomorrow night…” He started, The Starks..? Like Tony and Pepper Stark? “...for our little group and some S.H.I.E.L.D agents, and he said I had a plus one, so of course, I want to take you.”

You were speechless, and you could feel the nerves creeping up from your stomach, all the way up to your throat. “Hello?” He asked, making sure you were still there. “Yeah, yeah, I’m still here. Just processing.” You muttered, now completely sat up in your bed. There were a few more moments of silence, then you spoke. “So you want me to go to a party thrown by Tony and Pepper Stark, and not only that, but a Stark party that will be mostly all your superhero friends?” You asked more rhetorically than anything else. “Yes.” He said confidently, which for a moment made your nerves waiver, but only for a couple seconds.

“If it’s any consolation, I really want you to come, and everyone really wants to meet you.” Everyone? Who is ‘everyone’..? Like the Avengers? They knew about you? Holy shit. You couldn’t think about that right now though. You broke it down in your head, trying to simplify it. Bucky really wanted you to go, and you really didn’t have a reason to say no, other than being very anxious about the whole thing. “You know what, sure.” You were finally able to get out the words. “Wait, really?” He asked excitedly. That made you feel good, that he was so excited for you to meet his friends.

He gave you all the details, adding to the nerves creeping up your throat. “I’m gonna get some sleep.” Bucky muttered at around 11, which was late for him. “I probably should too.” You said with a yawn. “Goodnight, Doll.” He said in a raspy tone, followed by him yawning as well. “Goodnight, Buck.” You said sleepily, about to hang up the phone, but then he spoke again. “And doll, I promise you won’t regret saying yes.” And with that, the phone line went dead.

It was a restless night, you tossed and turned for a couple hours, thinking about all the ways you could fuck up on this date. The last time you checked the clock it was just after one in the morning. When you did finally wake up, the sun was beaming straight into your bedroom. Warming up the room around you, you felt a thin layer of sweat covering your body, but that honestly could have been from the nerves. The first thing you did was grab your phone, and check if you had any text from Bucky, and you did.

It was a simple ‘good morning, doll,’ the same text he’s sent you every morning since you guys traded phone numbers. You sent him a similar text back, and rubbed the remaining sleep from your eyes. After contemplating staying in bed for awhile longer, you decided against it and figured you could start the day, as it was already almost ten in the morning.

After a warm shower, which consisted mostly of shaving and washing your hair, you decided to make a quick breakfast. While you ate, you contemplated on what to wear. Bucky said it was more on the fancier side. You had a couple ‘fancier’ options, but not a closet full. Breakfast was done and dishes were clean, so now it was time to try on all your options. By the end of you trying on almost everything in your closet, you decided to keep it simple but elegant. It was a black satin slip dress that fell right above your knee, and the shoes were a pop of color and definitely brought the outfit together.

As you pulled into the parking lot of the hotel, you felt those same nerves creeping up the back of your throat. The lot was full of cars, but you were able to get a spot closer to the front. This party looked like a lot more than a ‘little group and some S.H.I.E.L.D agents.’ After sending Bucky an ‘I’m here’ text, you gathered your phone and some little extras into your clutch. While you did some last minute touches and repositioning of your hair in your rear-view mirror, there was a small knock on your driver-side window, making your entire body jump, head snapping towards the noise.

Your eyes landed on Bucky, who was practically doubled over on laughter. After getting in a good laugh, he pulled open your door, giving you a hand to step out more smoothly, which you swatted away and rolled your eyes at him. Once he got a good look at you, his face shifted. The dress you wore accentuate parts of your body that your everyday clothes certainly did

not. And you were not the only one who noticed. You could feel Bucky’s eyes on your as you walked in front of him to navigate through some of the cars.

Once there was enough room for both of you to walk side-by-side, you felt his metal hand slide along your lower back, coming to rest on your furthest hip. His fingers rested on your hip bone, with each step you took, his hand followed the curve, giving it a small squeeze. “You look amazing, doll.” He whispered into your ear, making a layer of goosebumps cover your arms. “So do you, Buck.”

You were glad you wore black, because of course, so did Bucky. He wore a black undershirt, with a black blazer with leather lapels, and of course black dress pants. The two of you looked like a pair, which you liked. The two of you approached the front door of the hotel, pulling his arm away from your body, making you feel empty. He whisked the door open for you, letting you walk in before him.

The lobby was pretty empty, just a receptionist and a couple security guards standing around. You could hear talking and laughter from behind a couple pairs of closed doors. You followed Bucky towards one of the security guards, who was standing in front of one of the sets of doors. “She’s with me.” He explained, as the two of you approached him. Those words made you giddy, and you smiled at the man. “Alright, Sergeant Barnes.” The guard said, pushing the door open for both of you.

“Oh, Sergeant Barnes, huh?” You joked, wrapping one of your arms around his metal bicep. He tensed up a bit, but then laughed, “I like the way you say that.” Then added a wink. You looked away from Bucky, and towards the crowded, very crowded, room. Bucky definitely underestimated the amount of people would be here, but it was a Stark party after all, so you weren’t surprised. Bucky and you walked towards the bar, taking a seat, which you were thankful for, your feet already killing you.

The two of you spoke for awhile, sipping on your drinks. You weren’t sure why Bucky drank, since he physically could not get drunk. But if the drinks were free, you would be drinking too. “Hey Buck, there you are.” A man approached you two, placing a hand on Bucky’s back. Both of you turned your head, eyes landing on a familiar face. “You must be (Y/M/N).” He smiled, sticking a hand out for you to shake, so you did so. “Hello, Steve.” You matched his smile.

After the three of you bantered back and forth for a few moments, Steve spoke again, “Well if you two want to join us, most of us are sitting on the other side of the bar.” He explained pointing to the side of the room. Following the direction of his fingers, you saw a group of some more familiar faces. You knew most of their faces from news articles, but knew their names from Buck’s stories. It was Natasha, Bruce, and Wanda. “Wanna go?” You heard Bucky ask you, placing a hand on your knee. “Of course!” You said, perking up. Going over there was the last thing you wanted to do, because you already knew this was going to be awkward.

Steve led as Bucky followed him through the crowd, pulling you by your hand. Maneuvering through the people, ‘sorry’ and ‘excuse me’ passing your lips every so often. “I’m back…” Steve said, “...and I brought friends.” His use of the endearing term ‘friend,’ made you lighten up a bit. After some, not so awkward, introductions, they all started talking, and you happily listened. Your stories could never match up to any of theirs, so you didn’t even try. “Do you want another drink?” Bucky asked, noticing your empty glass. “Yeah, sure.” You smiled, he grabbed the glass out of your hands. He left your side, walking to meet the bartender who stood closer to the middle of the bar.

“So (Y/M/N), has Bucky read every book in your library yet?” Natasha asked, but by the way she emphasized the ‘your’ in her sentence, you couldn’t tell if she was implying an innuendo, but you decided to keep it literal. “Ya’know, he actually tends to stick around the romance section, his favorites are the damsel in distress ones.” You joked, placing the back of your hand on your forehead, closing your eyes like you were fainting. This got a laugh out of the group, making a small bit of confidence grow inside you. “What’re you guys laughing at?” Bucky asked, placing the fresh drink in your hand. “Nothing.” You said, pretending to lock your lips, making the group laugh again.

After a few more drinks, you had stopped feeling so tense and started loosening up. You started talking with Natasha and Wanda, while Buck, still nearby, spoke with Steve and Bruce. The three of you were sharing some of your dating horror stories. That was until the DJ started playing some more upbeat music, Natasha immediately stopped and looked between you and Wanda.

“Do you guys wanna dance?” He asked hopefully, wrapping one of her hands around yours, and Wanda’s, wrist. “Sure!” You exclaimed, which made Wanda agree. The three of you left the bar, making your way to the large dance floor in the middle of the room. There were a good amount of people on the floor, and everyone was in their own worlds. It took you a while to get into it, but when the DJ played a song you knew all the words to, it was over.

The three of you danced in a circle together. You danced similarly to the day Bucky caught you dancing at the library. Eyes shifting from open to closed, hands running up and down your body, hips moving side to side, fingers running through your hair. You felt eyes on you, and you looked towards Bucky. He had a green beer bottle pressed to his lips, not sipping just sitting there, like he was frozen. His eyes followed every curve of your body as it moved. Knowing that he was watching you made you want to move even more, Natasha and Wanda matching your energy level.

After saying all your goodbyes to everyone, and Natasha drunkenly inviting you to one of her and Wanda’s girls night, Bucky walked you to your car. “You really shouldn’t drive.” He insisted, grabbing the keys you had hanging around your finger. You definitely weren’t drunk, but more like buzzed. “I’m fine.” You insisted, leaning against the side of your car, trying to get any weight off your feet.

“Stay the night with me.” He inisited, both hands resting on your hips, and his forehead resting on yours. You debated back and forth in your head, well the best you could in your buzzed state. “Fine.” You said, trying to sound reluctant, but you were the opposite, but he couldn’t know that. “But, I need to leave by 7:30 tomorrow morning!”

The drive was short, no longer than five minutes. “Now don’t make fun of me, as you know, I don’t spend very much time here.” Bucky explained, hand resting on the doorknob of his front door. “Oh shut up, I’m sure it’s fine.” You laughed, placing your hand on his and turning the doorknob. He stepped in first, flipping on the light switch. Your eyes scanned over the viewable part of the apartment,”I was right, you just need to do some major decorating.”

Bucky walked off as you practically ripped your shoes off your feet, sighing in relief. Leaving the foyer and stepping into the living room, you searched for Bucky and he was standing in the kitchen. So you snuck up behind him, wrapping your arms around his waist. “Hi.” You mumbled, eyes fluttering closed and cheek pressed against his back. “Hey, doll.” He muttered back.

You felt Bucky raise both his arms, and you heard some shifting, so you assumed he was searching for something in his cabinet. You heard what sounded like a pill bottle, and he shook some of them out into his hand. “Here take these.” He grabbed one of your hands, placing two small, circular pills in your hand. It was some form of Advil, you could tell by the familiar red color.

Pulling away from him, you placed the pills into your mouth and he handed you a glass of water. “Thanks.” You said, taking a gulp of the water. “But I’m not gonna be hungover.” You insisted, placing the glass into his sink. You could tell he didn’t believe you, but he just smiled. “Let’s go get you some comfier clothes.”

“These are not gonna fit.” You called from the other side of the bathroom door. Bucky had given you a shirt and some red flannel pajama pants. The shirt was fine, you wore big shirts quite frequently, but no matter how tight you pulled the drawstring, the pants fell down to your thighs. You peaked your head out from behind the door, and Bucky was sitting on the edge of the bed. “The shirt is pretty long on me, is it weird if I just don’t wear pants?” You asked him. He shrugged, “I don’t think so, as long as you’re comfortable.” He smiled. You opened the door all the way, and handed him the red pants, and he tossed them on the opposite side of the bed.

“Well, It’s almost one in the morning, you should get some sleep.” He stood up from the bed and walked towards his closet,“You can have my bed, and I’ll sleep out here.” He pulled out a pillow and a sheet from his closet. “What, don’t wanna sleep with me, Buck? I see how it is.” You giggled, acting like you were upset, and rolling your eyes.

“No-no, I-Buck, I’m kidding.” You cut him off, laughing at his sudden awkwardness. “I didn’t want to assume.” He finally muttered out. “I guess I don’t mind sharing a bed with you.” Continuing your joke, and slipping under the comforter. Engulfed by the smell of Bucky, which added another level of comfort. He pulled open the dresser once again, grabbing a shirt and some pajama pants, leaving you to go change in the bathroom.

You scrolled on your phone, setting multiple alarms to make sure you woke up on time tomorrow morning, then placing it on the bedside table. Letting your eyes fall closed, you turned so that your back was towards the bathroom door. Without opening your eyes, you heard the bathroom door open, and then the lights flickered off.

There was some quiet shuffling and you felt the bed dip beside you. Your eyes reluctantly opened, and you were greeted by the sight of Bucky’s back. Without thinking, you placed your hand on the arm that wasn’t tucked under his body, pulling at it softly. He rolled inward, now facing you. There was a sleepy smile on his face, and he blinked slowly, desperately trying to keep his eyes open. You placed a hand on his face, thumb softly running over the stubble on his cheek. His eyes finally shut, face full of content, the corners of his lips still upturned. Wiggling closer to him, “If we cuddled a little bit, I won’t tell if you don’t.” You said, letting some excess air out of your nose, as a laugh. “I know we aren’t dating, but…” Your voice trailing off.

“Yeah, about that…”

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thelukesalvez · 3 years

Text

Luke Alvez x Reader: Bruises

Request: @whormotional asked: “hi i have recently become obsessed with your writing! youre like the best luke writing on this app i swear. could you do one where the female reader gets kidnapped on a case and tortured and just like luke and the team saving her and luke being there for her later that night pls”

Word count: 5.4k

Tagged: @ssaic-jareau , @alvezstan , @lcvischmitt , @ogmilkis , @goldenalvez , @ssa-morgan , @akimagies, @zhangyixingxing1 , @pinkdiamond1016 , @yourwonderbelle, @rachelxwayne , @sc4rletw1tch , @ellvswriting

Warnings: Kidnapping, torture, gun tw, blood mention

A/N: love angsty requests thank youuu. hope youu enjoy!!

You wake up to the taste of blood in your mouth. Your breath was ragged and shallow as you shook yourself out of a deep sleep. It was the first sense you were able to regain, but before you could force your eyes open, you felt the pulsing pain coming from the back of your head. It shot down your neck and around to the front of your forehead, making you wince.

Images from the dream you had been having were still clear in your mind. You had dreamt of Luke. Maybe you dreamt about him because he occupied most of your thoughts, or maybe it was because his face had been the last thing you saw before blacking out. You remembered seeing his brown eyes- usually warm and inviting, turn wide with worry as they didn’t quite meet your gaze. It was like he was staring at something behind you.

You saw him raise his gun and aim it slightly to your left. You had been just about to ask him what was wrong before he opened his mouth to warn you. His words were inaudible, though, as the blow that suddenly hit the back of your head had ensnared all of your senses. The look on his face was what lingered in your mind now. You tried desperately to memorize all of his features- the lines around his eyes and the way his hairline curved around his face. You squeezed your eyes shut even harder, thinking of his tan skin and stubble beard. You really didn’t want to open your eyes, because you knew that wherever you were and whatever had happened to you, wasn’t good.

…

When Luke comes to, he’s propped up against a cold wall and there are voices around him. A headache was pulsing behind his eyes as he finally cracked his eyelids, eyelashes fluttering on his first few attempts.

The blurry faces of Emily and Tara slowly start to come into focus as he wakes up. He sees Tara sigh a breath of relief when her gaze meets his own.

“Thank God,” she exhales quietly.

Blood. There was blood running down his head. And there was a bloodstained brick lying close to him.

“Luke,” Emily’s voice is louder. “What happened?”

“He came out of nowhere-” Luke states, he raises his hand to find the spot on his forehead that throbbed. When Luke pulls away, there’s blood on his fingers. Suddenly, images of the incident reentered his mind. “I tried to shoot- but I didn’t want to hit her-”

“Where is Y/N?” Emily asks calmly.

Just the mere mention of your name makes Luke sit up straighter. The sudden movement makes his head wobbly, but he ignores it.

“Woah, take it easy,” Emily instructs. She puts her hand out to steady him.

Luke falls back against the wall. “She’s not here?” he asks, panic and fear flooding his insides.

Instead of a yes or a no, Emily states, “We’ll find her.”

...

When you do finally open your eyes, you find that you're sitting in the corner of a dingy room, arms and legs bound to the worn chair. The room reminded you of a basement, concrete walls with pipes and ducts running along the ceiling between the hanging lightbulbs that were much too bright without covers.

You blink your eyes a few times, trying to make everything stop blurring together, but it seems impossible.

You gasp, chest constructing at the sharp pain suddenly shooting up your left side. You breathe through your nose, trying to will down the panic and fear that’s engulfed you. Each breath pulled in the strong presence of mold and mildew, making you want to gag.

There’s a man in the corner of the room fiddling with something. His back was turned to you until he realized you were conscious again. He begins approaching slowly. You recognize his wild hair and narrow eyes almost instantly.

From the information Garcia had gathered online earlier, the man’s name was Greg Atwood. And he was your Unsub.

You and the rest of the team had been called to Seattle over a week ago- after the third body showed up. Once Seattle PD made the connection between the victims, it was clear their problem was severe enough for reinforcements. You had worked the case just like any other- analyzing victimology, creating a geographic profile, combing the crime scenes. It became glaringly obvious that you were dealing with a professional, someone who killed efficiently and knew how to clean up their mess. And when Emily sent you and Luke to interview the witness who found the latest body, neither one of you had any idea you were about to walk into the arms of the apparent killer himself. But the profile the team had established, fit.

When Atwood opens his mouth to speak, his evil smile makes you cringe. “You’re awake,” is all he states. His voice is filled with venom.

You jerk, thrashing against the restraints that bind you. The man steps forward, his finger trailing along the barrel of his gun. He smiles confidently, but it’s his eyes that burn into your brain.

“What do you want from me?” you ask. You knew all too well how these interactions went, but you were desperate to stall.

The man looks at you for a long moment before inhaling deeply. But he doesn’t speak.

You blink again, trying to rack your brain and remember the profile. What would buy you some time?

You dig your teeth into the inside of your cheek- a habit Luke had always given you shit for. You briefly wonder if you’d ever get to hear him lecture you about it again.

You tug at the restraints again, testing it. But there’s no give.

“What do you want?” you try again.

Atwood takes another step closer, creepy smile still in place. “I want to know how you found me,” he says simply.

You bite your lip. He takes your hesitation as an invitation to talk more. “You see,” his voice trails. “I was very careful. I cleaned up my mess, I didn’t leave behind a single trace of DNA.”

“We didn’t find you with DNA, we found you with our profile.” He didn’t need to know you and Luke had originally thought he was a witness.

His smirk returns. “Right,” he says, like he doesn’t quite believe it. He turns his back to you and walks back towards the corner of the room he originally came from. He hoists something up, you can’t quite tell what it is until he turns around with it in his hands. It’s a tripod, and attached at the top is a camera.

Your chest feels tight again- you didn’t like where any of this was going.

The tripod is placed about six feet in front of you. Atwood adjusts the angle a bit before pressing a button. A light flashes red before he turns to look at you again. His smile has faded.

“Tell me where she is,” he orders.

Your eyes widen, but you don’t speak.

He waits, only a moment, before saying it again. “Tell me where I can find Emily Prentiss.”

You clench your jaw.

“I know you know where she is. She is your Unit Chief after all, isn’t she?”

You ignore his question. “Is my team seeing this?” you ask, nodding your head towards the camera.

His silence makes you assume that’s a yes. “You know- we profiled that you’d be extremely intelligent,” you say. “But if you think I’d rat out my Chief or anyone on my team, we must’ve gotten that part wrong.”

Your response gets you backhanded- hard across the face. Your head whips back, but you try to shake it off quickly.

You taste copper in your mouth again as you raise your head up. Your hair has fallen in your face, but you don’t make any effort to move it.

Atwood is looking at you, expression calculating. “If you want to get out of here alive,” he says, “you’re going to tell me where she is. It's up to you how hard you want to make this on yourself.” When you stay silent, he continues. “You see, it’s not you I really want. I don’t want to kill you. Just like I didn’t want to kill the agent you were with. You’re collateral damage to me, it means nothing.”

His words make you freeze in place.

Just like I didn’t want to kill the agent you were with.

The sentence seeps into your skin like poison.

Luke.

Your face is blank and your mind can’t process the entirety of what he’s said, before he proceeds.

“You see, it’s Prentiss I want. Tell me where she is and this will all be over.”

“You killed-” your voice is shaky as you try to comprehend the words Atwood has just spoken to you. “Y-you killed him?”

His smirk brings bile up in your throat.

He was lying, you say to yourself. Luke was fine, he was lying. “No,” you whisper, your eyes burning with unshed tears. “No-”

Atwood sighs, pretending to be sympathetic. “Like I said- I didn’t want to do it. But he got in my way. Just like you’re getting in my way right now.”

His words are muffled in your own head as your mind races to make sense of it all. Luke- Luke was your purpose and your happiness and your reason. Luke was everything.

“Tell me where she is.” Atwood presses.

If he was telling the truth, and Luke really was dead- then what did it matter if you died too? “Go fuck yourself,” you spit, trying not to show him the brokenness he’d just caused.

Atwood sighs, “I was hoping we could do this the easy way.”

He approaches you, rolling up his sleeve as he walks. You noticed a brass ring on his finger.

You wonder what the rest of the team was thinking and if they could even see you right now. You knew that they’d be looking for you, no matter what. They’d probably even encourage you to give up Emily’s information- even though none of them would. But it probably didn’t make whatever was about to happen to you easier for them to watch.

“This doesn’t end until you tell me where she is,” Atwood sneers. It’s his final warning. You look straight at the camera and try to broadcast a message to the team. In case they were watching, you wanted them to know you could handle this. You offer the slightest smile, one they’d probably only catch if they rewound the tape, you’re reassuring them that you’d be fine.

…

When the video stream first comes through, it makes Penelope gasp. She was sleep deprived after being transported to Seattle. Her job was to comb through the Unsub’s computer, and to hopefully find a hint as to where he might have taken you.

At first, she’s surprised, and disturbed by the distressed looking girl tied to the chair. Penelope has seen her fair share of gruesome images and videos in her days with the Bureau, but she never could seem to get used to it.

But when the girl lifts her head and reveals a face Penelope recognizes immediately, she’s horrified. Your eyes are tired, and every breath looks ragged.

“Emily!” she calls out, “Guys!”

Just then, a man comes into the frame, his voice is muffled and quiet. Before Penelope can turn the volume up to hear what he’s said, he raises his hand and strikes you across the face.

“No!” Penelope cries, squeezing her eyes shut. Only when she feels a warm hand fall on her shoulder does she dare to open them.

It’s Emily, and in her trail is JJ and Rossi.

“What’s going on?” Emily asks, concerned.

“It’s Y/N-” Garcia has tears running down her face.

“Oh my God,” JJ breathes, she covers her mouth with her hands.

“She’s hurt,” Garcia whimpers.

Emily inhales sharply.

“Is this live? Can you trace it?” Rossi asks, leaning in.

Garcia nods, the rapid clicks of her keyboard answering for her.

“Where’s Luke?” JJ asks, turning her head. “He can’t see this-”

“See what?” Luke’s voice rings through the room, making everyone turn their heads. He’s standing in the doorframe with an ice pack held firmly to his head. After being attacked, he’d refused to go to the hospital. Not until you were home safe, he had said. No one tried to argue it.

They stand speechless, unsure of what to say to Luke.

“See what?” he repeats. But that’s when he sees the screen.

“Who is that?” he asks, voice cracking. He leans so that he can see past Garcia. The panic on his face told them that he already knew.

“We’re going to find her,” Emily says calmly, placing a hand on his shoulder.

Suddenly, there’s a man’s voice speaking from the video. It’s Atwood.

“All I need is a location,” he says calmly. “Tell me where I can find Emily Prentiss.”

Everyone in the room inhales sharply. Luke grits his teeth as he sees you pick up your head. Your face looks scared. “I don’t know,” you say weakly.

Atwood sighs. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

With that, Garcia cries out again as he sucker punches you in the jaw. Just as you’re wincing from the first impact, you take another hit, a punch to the gut that leaves you heaving and breathless.

Luke is wild, gritting his teeth. “I’m gonna bash this guy’s head in myself,” he roars, turning away.

Just then, the rest of the team filters in the room. “What’s going on?” Reid asks. He’s holding an evidence bag in his gloved hands.

“The motherfucker’s recording it- he’s live streaming it,” Luke exclaims. He’s gripping his hair frantically.

“Anything, Garcia?” Rossi asks.

Her typing has become more frantic as she desperately tries to secure a location.

The assault against you continues, hit after hit, mostly centered on your left side. It’s clear that you were doing your best to zone out.

Luke has started watching again, despite Matt trying to pull him away.

You keep your mouth shut, even when your side aches so bad you think he’s broken one of your ribs. When Atwood finally stops hitting you, your face is hot and bruised and bloody.

It makes Luke want to be sick.

Just then, a pinging noise comes from Garcia’s computer and the room goes dead silent.

After a moment, she turns to Emily questioningly. “I have an address,” she states.

“What’s wrong?” Tara asks, picking up on the confusion in her tone.

“What’re we waiting for?” Luke roars. “Let’s go-”

“It just feels- wrong,” Garcia says, unable to put her finger on it. “Why would an Unsub as intelligent as him not block his streaming location?”

“Do you think it’s a trap?”

Garcia shakes her head. “I don’t know-”

“That’s a risk we’re going to have to take,” Emily says. She turns to the rest of the team. “Let’s go.”

“Be safe,” Garcia whimpers.

…

You barely feel alive anymore. You had your eyes closed, and were resting your head against the back of the chair when you tried to imagine yourself back in your apartment with Luke. You imagined being snuggled into him on the couch as you watched some cheesy, romantic movie. You had given up struggling- your restraints were too tight, it was no use. You tried to count how much time it had been since you’d been here. But the truth was, you had no idea how long you’d been out for. Hours? Days?

You were wondering if the team was still looking for you when you hear a distant thump coming from upstairs.

The thing was- you knew this wasn’t just about Emily’s location. It wasn’t even about your team’s location. It was about beating you- the power involved in outsmarting the FBI.

You kept your eyes closed, taking deep breaths and trying as best as you could to get your body to stop shivering. You were bruised and bloody and dehydrated.

You hadn’t opened your eyes in a while now. And even though you couldn’t sleep, you didn’t want to open them because you didn’t want Atwood to know you were awake.

You wished your mind would quiet down, but of course it wouldn't. You had nothing to do here besides think. You think about the last words you said to Luke, and you think of how meaningless and insignificant they were. You try to remember when the last time you told him you loved him was. You think about if you even wanted to get out of here alive if there was no Luke to go home to.

In the midst of your thoughts, you gasp loudly when the only door leading out of the room blows off the hinges. Dust fills the air and you flinch at the feeling of your neck suddenly being barred by a strong arm.

Atwood.

“Drop it!” Emily’s familiar voice fills the room.

You sigh a breath of relief, despite knowing there was a gun pressed directly against your temple.

“You’re not getting out of here,” Rossi’s voice says. “So you might as well put the gun down now.” When the dust finally settles, you see him filing to the left corner of the room, his gun drawn. Matt has already situated himself in the right corner.

Atwood chuckles from behind you, his grip tightening.

“What makes you think that?” he sneers.

“Look around you, man-” Matt says. “We’ve got you cornered.”

Atwood shoves the barrel of the gun harshly against your temple, making your head spin.

“I like my odds.”

His eyes flicker to the clock on the wall- a motion that Rossi picks up on immediately.

“What’re you waiting for Greg?” There’s a taunting tone to his voice. “For three o’clock?”

Atwood’s head shoots up. That hit a nerve.

“We know what your plan was, Greg,” Emily says. “We found the bomb.”

For a brief moment, you feel the gun being dropped from your temple. Just as quickly, the sound of a single gunshot makes you flinch. Atwood drops to the floor behind you, collapsing in a pool of his own blood.

It was Matt who took the shot- taking advantage of the brief moment of hesitation that Atwood demonstrated. You turn to him, trying to express your gratitude, but your head is spinning.

“You’re okay,” Emily states. It sounds like she’s trying more to convince herself of that fact.

You nod without even realizing it.

Matt’s the first one at your side. He’s frantically ripping away the ropes from your wrist. There’s ligature marks already visible on your skin.

Cops and EMTs start rushing through the room just as Emily speaks into her mic that it’s clear.

You try to stand up, but the world around you spins immediately, tilting on its axis. You almost black out in just about half a second.

“Woah-” Emily says.

Matt catches you before you fall to the floor.

You struggle to look around the room, but everything is too bright and people are moving too fast. It’s impossible to tell who’s here and who’s not.

“L-Luke?” You hesitate because you almost don’t want to know.

Matt gives you a soft smile, pausing when you’re finally free from your restraints. “He’s okay, he’s outside.”

You blink a few times, not sure if you heard him right. “He’s alive?” you lock eyes with Matt.

Matt nods, his face sincere.

“But he’s hurt- Atwood said-”

“Hey,” Matt whispers, tightening his grip around your waist. “He’s okay, I’ll take you to him.”

You let out a sigh of relief, but it could double as a soft sob. There are tears falling down your cheeks.

With Matt bearing the majority of your weight, you let him lead you out of the building. The glaring, afternoon sun makes it hard to see once you get outside, but you trust Matt’s guidance.

After only a few steps, you hear your name being called.

It’s so hard to focus, and you can feel your vision blurring in and out- but you’d know that voice anywhere.

“Luke-” you whisper tentatively, because you still weren’t entirely sure that the voice wasn’t a hallucination.

But then you hear it again. This time it’s clearer and closer.

You blink a few more times, the brightness fading as you strain to see.

Slowly, Luke’s figure comes into focus. He’s rushing towards you, and you realize that’s the first time since being taken that you feel like you could breathe again.

“Oh my God-” Luke stammers. Once he reaches you, he hesitates, like he’s too afraid to touch you. You were sure nothing about you looked even remotely beautiful right now. Between the bruises on your face and your tear-stained cheeks, you can only imagine the type of image Luke was taking in. “Are you okay?” he asks, he grasps your upper arms gently.

You ignore his question and throw your arms around him, letting your cheek rest against his chest. He wraps his arms around you, one hand falling on your upper back, while the other cradles the back of your head. He kisses your hair firmly before pulling away. He holds you at an arm’s length and scans your body.

He takes in the sight of you. There’s bruising along your jawline, red swirled with blues and purples from broken blood vessels. It makes his stomach lurch to know you’d been hurt like this- that he couldn’t stop you from being hurt like this.

There’s blood caked into the side of your hair- crusty and turning dark crimson. Luke runs his thumb along the length of it.

Suddenly, he sees you frown. After blinking a few more times, his face has finally come into focus, which allows you to see the cut visible on his forehead. “Your head-” you observe.

Luke starts protesting immediately. “I’m fine, I’m okay.” His small cut was nothing compared to the bruises that inevitably littered your body.

Your head spins again, making you sway in place. Luke’s quick to wrap an arm around you and you fall into his side with ease, wincing when his hand falls on your bruised side.

The EMTs are already on the street, ready to throw you into the back of an ambulance.

You try to protest, assuring Luke and everyone else that you were fine. But Luke insists. “You need to be checked out. You’re not fine.”

It feels like forever before the hospital clears you. You have a concussion and a couple broken ribs, nothing that won’t heal on its own. You’re grateful to not be more severely injured. But you’re also just exhausted and sore and ready to go home.

Luke barely let’s go of your hand, let alone leaves your side for the next twenty four hours. It’s comforting having him beside you, but you don’t like seeing him so worried.

Once you’re discharged from the hospital, Luke and you head straight to the jet, where the rest of the team is waiting.

Everyone wants to know how you’re feeling- how you’re holding up. But talking about it made you think about it, and you really didn’t want to think about it.

The plane ride home feels agonizingly long. Every time the jet jostles or has turbulence, you wince. And every time you wince, everyone rushes to your side to make sure you’re alright.

“Can I get you anything?” Tara asks. She had just stood up to refill her own cup of tea.

You shake your head, offering her your most convincing smile. “No thanks, I’m fine.”

“Blanket?” Reid offers.

“Ice pack?”

“Want to talk about it?”

“Coffee?”

“Vodka?”

You decline.

You sprawl out on the couch with your head resting in Luke’s lap and feign sleep just to avoid their fretting. It makes you feel guilty to know you had them all so worried.

His hands are in your hair, stroking the strands softly.

“Luke, m’tired,” you whisper quietly enough so that only he hears.

“I know,” Luke answers. “We’re almost home.”

You lose track of the rest of the plane ride to your scattered brain, only picking up on small details: the murmur of Rossi and Emily talking beside you, the roughness of Luke’s jeans against your bruised cheek, the way your legs have to be slightly bent in order to fit on the couch. Time passes in a disorienting lurch.

It is an eternity before you land in Virginia.

And it’s an even longer eternity before you’re pulling into the driveway of you and Luke’s shared house.

He tries to help you walk up to the door but you wave him away. “I got it, I’m fine.”

You add a small smile when you see the hurt look on his face.

“Bed or couch?” he asks while rushing to collect his keys out of his pocket.

“Couch,” you murmur. Your choice was based solely on the fact that the couch was significantly closer to you than the bed. It also didn’t involved a flight of stairs.

Luke drops your bags by the entryway before guiding you to the living room. His hand hovers wearily on your lower back- like he’s afraid you’ll collapse at any moment.

You exhale choppily when you’re finally able to sit down on the couch. It’s worn, familiar fabric makes you feel safer. Your eyes are heavy and your head wants to lull forward. It’s hard to focus.

Luke pulls the throw blanket down from the back of the couch and lays it gently on top of you. It’s warmth brings comfort and ease.

Luke kisses your forehead gently.

“I’m gonna go grab some water,” he tells you.

You just mumble incoherently in response.

You quickly succumb to the exhaustion- letting your eyes fall shut. But as soon as you let them close, his face appears. It’s right in front of you, so close that if you reached out you could touch him. Atwood is flashing his teeth with his signature evil grin, their tint of yellow and crookedness felt way too detailed to be a dream. You wonder if you’re back in the basement- if you never really left in the first place. Maybe being rescued was the dream.

A soft clinking sound makes you shoot up from the couch, alert and panting while you frantically look around the room.

Luke is setting a glass of water on the coffee table in front of you, but your startled response makes him whip his head towards you.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, face full of worry.

As soon as you see him, you realize that you’re home and safe. You try to calm yourself down, embarrassed by your reaction.

You take a deep breath. “Nothing,” you mumble, shaking it off. “I’m fine.”

You both knew it was a lie.

But Luke doesn’t argue- he doesn’t push. He just settled down beside you on the couch, his arm wrapping around your shoulders carefully.

You wait for a minute, steadying your breathing, before attempting to close your eyes again. At first, it’s just the back of your eyelids and their darkness. You stay focused on that and your breathing.

As you finally start to relax, you start to feel a strange pressure against your wrists. You jostle your arms, but for some reason they won’t move. You’re stuck in place- restrained to the chair again.

Suddenly, you feel Atwood’s fist against your jaw- his ring tearing open the flesh of your cheek. His snickering is loud in your ears.

You snap your eyes open again- you’re met by your dimly lit living room.

Luke’s thumb is trailing up and down your arm comfortingly. You were safe- these images you were seeing weren’t real.

The third time you close your eyes- you see him almost instantly. This time he’s close enough so that you can feel his hot breath on your neck.

You shoot up quickly, panting heavily. Your face collapses in your hands as you try to rub the images from your eyes.

It was real. It was very real, and you had the markings and bruises to prove it.

This- laying on your own couch, finally getting to sleep- was what you’d been waiting for. But now that your adrenaline had faded and some of the grogginess from your concussion had subsided, you couldn’t shut your eyes without hearing him, seeing him, feeling him- all over.

Luke sits up too, attentive to your uneasiness.

“I c-can’t-” your voice is shaky. “I can’t close my eyes,” you explain.

Luke’s large hand rubs your back soothingly.

“I can’t close my eyes without seeing him.”

Luke nods, his hand travels from your back to your arm, he grips it securely before leaning in and pressing his lips to your temple. You lean into his touch, letting him pull you closer to him. He falls back against the couch, and you fall against his chest, practically on top of him at this point.

“You're safe now,” he soothes.

“I’m so tired,” you whisper, exhaustion making you start to tear up.

“I know,” Luke murmurs. His fingers trail up and down your arm, leaving a path of goosebumps in their wake.

It doesn’t take long of Luke holding you like that for you to fall asleep. At first, it’s nothingness- just a deep, peaceful slumber. Until it isn’t.

This time you don’t see Atwood. Instead, you see someone curled up on the ground. As you step closer, you realize it’s Luke. You call out to him, but there’s no response.

When he doesn’t answer, you reach your hand out, fingers grazing his bicep. His skin feels ice cold. You shake him lightly- but there’s no response. Harder this time, you pull his weight towards you, hoping to get his attention. Instead, Luke’s lifeless body flops onto his back. His eyes are still open, lifelessly baring into your own. His mouth is parted slightly but there’s no air coming in or out of it. That’s when you see the blood dripping down his face and pooled beneath his hair.

You wake up screaming.

“Hey-” Luke’s spinning and sitting up to position himself in front of you. He cups your face between his hands. “Hey, hey- you’re okay. You’re safe, I got you.”

But you shake your head. “It wasn’t me-”

Luke’s brown eyes narrow slightly, like he’s trying to understand.

“It was you,” you say, voice fading into a sob. “He t-told me that he k-” you swallow the lump in your throat, but it does little to make you stop crying. “He told me that he killed you. He told me you were dead.”

Just saying it outloud makes you erupt into a puddle of tears. You’re so distraught that you barely notice Luke pulling you into his lap on the couch.

He’s murmuring soothing words into your ear, but continues letting you cry into his chest. The numbness from earlier had completely worn off, and while you were scared and hurt- it felt good to feel something other than exhaustion.

You’re not sure how long you stay like that- curled into Luke’s chest sobbing into his cotton t-shirt. At some point, Luke had used his free hand to reach for the remote. He put your favorite show on the television. You’d seen every episode several times, but Luke knew it brought you comfort.

Your eyes were red rimmed and puffy and you sniffled weakly. “I’m sorry I’m keeping you from sleeping,” you whispered, when you were confident you wouldn’t burst into tears again.

Luke tightened his grip around you. “It’s okay,” he assures you. “We’re both concussed, and I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to sleep while you’re concussed, anyway.”

You smile.

Luke linked your hands together, looking down at you and giving you a soft smile. “I love you.” He whispered, lips pressing against the top of your head.

“I love you too.” you replied quietly.

Things were a mess. And you were sad and scared and it would probably take a lot of sleepless nights and painful sobs for you to get through this. Luke would be there to dry your tears though, just like he always was. And Luke would probably have to try harder to keep you feeling safe and eventually, you were going to have to talk about what happened.

But right now, wrapped in each other's arms on your shared couch, all you needed was each other.

#luke alvez fic #luke alvez imagine #luke alvez x reader imagine #luke alvez fanfiction #luke alvez angst #luke alvez fanfic #luke alvez x reader #luke alvez x reader fanfic #luke alvez x reader fanfiction #luke alvez x reader fic #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds x reader imagine #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds fic #criminal minds x reader fanfic #criminal minds x reader fic

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sisterspooky1013 · 3 years

Text

Only One Choice, Chapter 7

Read it here on AO3 / Tagging @today-in-fic

Saturday brings an unexpected heat wave, the high temperatures uncharacteristic even for D.C. Dana has grappled all week with how to explain her Saturday evening plans to Ethan. Her instinct is to lie, to tell him she’s getting dinner with Missy or has to go into work for an emergency autopsy. But lying makes it impossible to tell herself that what she’s doing isn’t wrong; if she has nothing to hide, why would she be hiding it? In the end, she goes with vague truth and tells him that she’s meeting up with a colleague to discuss some interesting new research they shared with her. Never mind that said colleague is a very handsome and apparently very single man. Never mind that she feels a rush between her legs whenever she pictures his cocky smile. Meeting with a colleague. Interesting research. Nothing more.

She and Ethan spend the morning lying around in their underwear, too overheated to do anything else. The air conditioning hums and sputters, trying to keep up, but it's no match for the sweltering heat.

“Do we have ice cream?” Ethan asks, splayed out on his back against the hardwood clad in green boxer shorts.

“Nope, I ate it all when I was PMSing last week,” she replies from the couch, arms and legs draped off the sides so that no part of her body is touching any other.

They are quiet for a bit.

“Wanna have sex?” Ethan asks offhandedly, and she feels a flush of dread.

“Too hot,” she replies with an equally offhand tone, glad he can’t see her face.

They are quiet again.

“Are you okay, Dana?” he asks hesitantly, his eyes on the ceiling. She waits a little too long to answer.

“Yeah, why?”

“You just...you don’t seem like yourself. Since we got engaged, I mean. You seem kind of distracted. Distant, maybe?”

She takes a steadying breath. She knows he’s right. If she were honest, she’d tell him that she feels crushing guilt for being so infatuated with another man. That she feels like a horrible girlfriend, fiancée, almost-wife, for continuing to seek out interactions with him, but she can’t bring herself to stop. That she loves Ethan, so much, but can’t deny the pull that Mulder has on her. That she feels like she’s cheating when they have sex, because Mulder invariably takes his place in her mind. But she can’t tell him any of that.

She rolls to her side so she can look at him.

“I’m sorry, Ethan. I guess I’m just feeling overwhelmed lately, with work and the wedding. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

He rolls his head to the side to meet her eye.

“So you’re not having doubts? About getting married?” The pain and worry in his voice is like a kick in the gut.

“Of course not,” she implores, crawling off the couch and across the floor to where he lays. She gingerly throws a leg over his hip and straddles him, placing her hands on his sweat-damp chest and leaning forward to kiss him on the lips. “I can’t wait to be your wife,” she says with a soft smile, and the twist in her belly alerts her to the fact that this might be a lie.

They make love, there on the living room floor. She keeps her eyes open, not allowing her mind to wander from this moment, this man. Not allowing herself to admit that this is a consolation, an attempt to prove to them both that she is in this, with him, for the long haul. Her orgasm is weak and brief, not the same. Nothing is the same, anymore. Not since Mulder waltzed into the autopsy bay and complicated her life.

————————

The heat has abated only slightly by 5:30 as she’s preparing to leave her apartment and head to Mulder’s. She debates what to wear for an agonizingly long time; the temperature calls for a dress or shorts, but she fears sending the wrong message if it looks like she’s intentionally bearing skin. She finally settles on a black maxi dress, a compromise in coverage and air flow, paired with flip flops. Casual, not trying too hard, but not frumpy either.

As she makes for the door, Ethan stops her with a gentle grasp on her wrist, pulling her to him.

“You look beautiful,” he says with an affectionate gaze, and that guilty feeling in her belly is back. Their impromptu living room floor love-making seems to have assuaged his concerns over her demeanor for the time being, but it only served to deepen her own inner turmoil.

“Thank you,” she replies before kissing him on the cheek and escaping the emotional heat of their apartment for the temperate heat of the DC evening.

2630 Hegal Place is a stately brick building that has been decently maintained. It’s not as nice as her neighborhood in Georgetown, but it’s hardly the slum that Mulder suggested it was. She feels a little sick as she rides the elevator up to the fourth floor, taking in the dark wood trim against the yellowing walls of his hallway. She finds apartment forty-two and pauses outside the door for a long while. She has a feeling that walking through this door is a decision with consequences, one she shouldn’t take lightly. She realizes she’s not wearing her engagement ring; it’s likely sitting on the bathroom counter beside the sink. A simple oversight; she’s not yet used to wearing it. Certainly not a Freudian slip of the mind...she has the sudden overwhelming urge to flee. Perhaps she knows exactly what she’s doing after all. She turns to walk back to the elevator when the door swings open, startling her.

“Scully,” he says with a lopsided smile.

He’s wearing dark wash jeans, his top half bare, a bag of garbage in one hand. Her eyes immediately light on the broad expanse of his chest, smooth and dappled with a light dusting of hair. His abdomen is solid, sleek and defined. A swimmer’s body, she thinks with a sigh.

“I was just taking the trash out, you’re a little early,” he says with a hint of embarrassment, passing her to stuff the bag down the chute at the end of the hall.

“Oh, sorry, am I?” she looks at her watch; it’s 5:55.

“Or maybe I’m just running a little behind,” he replies sheepishly, then lifts his arm and gestures for her to enter the apartment, “please, come in.”

She enters a combination foyer and dining room, the kitchen tucked off to the left and the living room straight ahead. The ambiance matches the hallway, dark wood and yellow walls, the ceilings impressively high. The decor is sparse; nothing on the walls and only small trinkets littering the surfaces, a fish tank burbling near the window. She waits to see where he directs her to go. The dining room table seems like a suitably professional place for two colleagues to review work files. He brushes past her to the living room, the shower-fresh smell of him drifting into her nostrils; Irish Spring and Old Spice.

“You can take a seat,” he says gesturing to the couch, “let me just grab a shirt and the files.” He disappears through a door that must be his bedroom.

She sets her purse on his cluttered desk and sits on one end of the worn leather couch, looking around at his few furnishings. She startles when a black blur springs onto her lap with a high-pitched meow, and Mulder re-enters the room with a bankers box tucked under his arm, his torso now covered by a black T-shirt.

“Jesus, Priscilla, don’t assault the woman,” he says as he sets the box on the coffee table and plucks the cat off her lap. “Sorry about that, she has an affinity for pretty girls,” he continues, then directs his next comment to the cat. “We have that in common, eh, Prissy?”

She feels a flush to her cheeks and he takes the cat with him to the kitchen, returning with two beers in its place.

“I hope your boyfriend doesn’t mind me borrowing you for the evening,” he says as he hands her an open beer.

She looks at him with a mildly shocked expression, his mention of Ethan feeling out of place and somehow obscene. Noticing her discomfort, he changes the subject as he sits on the opposite end of the couch.

“This is all I walked away with, one box of the best, brightest, and weirdest X files I came across during my time. About half are those I investigated myself, the rest were left from the previous agents who started the division,” he slides the box down the coffee table towards her and she plucks the lid off carefully to see dozens of neatly labeled orange folders. She pulls a random one out from the middle and sets her beer on the coffee table, opening the file across her lap.

“So tell me why the X files division was shut down,” she says as she leafs through the pages.

“Well, the official reason is that an investigation into a man with green blood resulted in multiple deaths, which was just the last in a series of...mishaps. But the real reason is that I was too close to the truth.”

She lifts her head from the file to look at him. He has his bare feet propped up on the coffee table, his elbow resting on the arm of the couch. He seems so at ease all the time, so comfortable around her.

“The truth about what?” she asks, working to peel her eyes from his plush lower lip.

He takes a deep breath. “A lot of things, but namely a government conspiracy to conceal the existence of extraterrestrial life, even as they’re conducting experiments and research on said extraterrestrials. Perhaps even working with them.”

It’s that same even, factual delivery. Her mouth blossoms into a slow smile.

“Working with the aliens? To do what, open a KMart on Mars?” she teases, and he returns her smile with one that is so devilish it makes her pelvis twitch.

“Read on, Scully. The more you see, the less crazy it sounds.”

He stands and goes to the stereo, and after a few minutes of fiddling around she hears Radiohead begin to play. “You like Radiohead?” he asks, and she gives a half shrug, half nod. Doesn’t love ‘em, doesn’t hate ‘em.

“So this one appears to be about some kind of tree-dwelling insect?” she asks, reading over details of a dead man sucked dry of all fluids and bound up in a giant cocoon.

Mulder returns to the couch and sits beside her, much closer this time, their thighs nearly touching. The heat of his body on top of the warmth of the air makes new sweat prick at the back of her neck.

“Indeed, prehistoric insects that were released from the inner rings of the tree when they were logged. I nearly got eaten up by them myself,” he remarks, reaching over to turn the pages that lie across her lap. She shivers a little despite the heat.

“And what does that have to do with aliens and government conspiracies?” she asks, keeping her head down, knowing that if she looks up at him he would be close enough to kiss.

“It’s not that straight forward, Scully. There are things, many things, on our planet that are unexplainable, and having control over that which can’t be understood by science and intelligence gives you a certain degree of power. Unfortunately, it’s a power that’s most often used for evil instead of good.”

She does turn to him then, getting an up-close look at the greenish, almost-hazel of his irises, the pronounced bridge of his nose.

“There’s nothing that’s unexplainable on this planet, Mulder. Just because we can’t explain it now doesn’t mean we never will. Consider how much science has progressed in the last fifty years alone. Who knows what we deem unexplainable now that will be perfectly understood in another fifty?”

He tilts his head closer to her and her heart speeds up, her lips parting unconsciously. His smirk is devastatingly sexy, and she suddenly doesn’t trust herself.

“May I use your bathroom?” she asks abruptly, looking away.

“Of course, it’s through the bedroom,” he says, hitching his thumb to the door behind and to their left.

She carefully makes her way into his bedroom, which contains a queen size mattress on a mahogany frame, a dresser, and not much else. He’s a man of simple means, it would seem. The bathroom is clean and devoid of skid marks and stray pubic hairs; the seat is even down. When she returns, he’s placed several of the files in a neat stack on the coffee table.

“These are the ones I’d recommend you read. At least they may be the ones you find most compelling,” he says as she returns to her seat, inching just a bit further away from him than she’d been before.

She takes the first from the stack and opens it. “So how’d you get into all this, Mulder? Have you always been into aliens, or did you see E.T. too many times when it came out?”

He doesn’t answer and she looks at him. He’s considering her, pondering. Deciding whether to tell her something.

Continue Reading here

#the x files #txf #dana scully #fox mulder #gillovny #msr #sculder #x files #xf fanfic #alternate universe

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imgoingtohellsofuckit · 3 years

Text

Healing Process

Spencer Reid x Reader

Warnings - None that I can think of

Summary - After Spencer got shot the bau put him on a two week leave to recover. He’s not taking it well so you try to help him find the good in all of this.

This takes place during season five so read at your own risk.

"Spencer come on," Y/n says as she moves to her boyfriend's side as he tries to get off the couch, "you need to lie down."

"I finished my book I'm just getting another," He says struggling to grab at his crutches. She moves over to him as Spencer gives up and sits back on the couch. "Can you-?"

Y/n grabs the stack of books he pulled earlier to read and sits them down on the table beside Spencer.

"Anything else Spencer?" She asks as she moves to adjust the pillow under his knee lightly. He tenses. Clearly in pain. "Do you want something for the pain maybe?"

"No," He says at once. She nods lightly. Knowing how uncomfortable he is with the idea of taking any pain meds after his past issues. She moves to tuck a piece of hair behind his ear. He groans slightly. Pain clearly too much for him. He tries not to show it. Instead, he lifts his book up. Trying to focus on the words.

"I'm going to start lunch," Y/n says softly. He doesn't acknowledge the statement. She moves into the kitchen. Gathering the supplies to cook. She's trying to stay positive. However, every sneak of glance she gets at Spencer just reinforces her worry. "Emily we both are fine- I promise."

"What's he doing?"

"He's reading," Y/n tells the other girl, "and before you even ask yes I'm keeping him off his feet."

"How's he doing though?" Emily asks. Y/n looks over at her boyfriend flipping through the pages of the book. "Okay, I hope?"

"Uh he's doing- alright," She says softly, "mostly." Y/n sighs as she goes to stir the soup. "He's reading a lot... Has been since he got released from the hospital." Emily chuckles lightly. "He's read these books a hundred times- maybe more. I'm surprised he can still stand them." Y/n laughs lightly. She moves to look over at Spencer. He was trying to get up. "Emily I'll call you back- Spencer." She sets the phone down as she rushes towards the man. "Spencer come on you know you can't keep getting up."

"I just need to go to the bathroom," Spencer assures the girl. She moves to his side.

"Then let me help you," She says as she moves to support his side, "come on."

"I've got it-"

"Just let me help you, love," She says softly, "come on Spencer." He sighs letting her help support his weight. She gently helps him along the hall to the bathroom. He takes over once inside. Making a point to shut the door on her. She sighs. "Just yell when you need help out." She hears him mumble beyond the door. She moves to step towards the living room. Straightening up the stacks of books and folding the blankets. The door opening catches her attention. She moves to try to help him. He pulls away slightly.

"I've got it," Spencer says firmly.

"It's alright I can help-"

"I said I've got it!" Spencer snaps. Y/n backs away. Clearly surprised by the tone. He sighs lightly. "I'm sorry I didn't mean to yell. It's just- I have to be able to do this on my own." She nods. He moves using the crutches to move along the hallway. She watches him closely. Making sure he isn't hurt in any way. Once he gets back to the couch he starts to fall. She rushes to his side to grab him. Helping him onto the couch. "Dammit." He growls.

"Spencer it takes a bit you won't get it overnight," She tells him, "but you're doing so well Spence." He huffs loudly. A guy like he isn't used to not being able to learn something quickly.

"I don't feel like it," He groans.

"I know but you're already getting better love," Y/n assures him as she carefully sits beside him. She reaches for his hand. Gripping it gently. "Let me get you something to eat." She stands moving to get him something to eat. Making sure the placement is neat. Hoping to give him some kind of comfort. Once she hands it over he still seems slightly upset. She knows this is weighing on him. He hates feeling useless like this. "Eat up Spencer."

"Thanks," He says softly. Y/n moves to help him prop his knee up. He doesn't look at her. She tries not to take it to heart.

"Need anything else?"

"No I think I'm fine," He says. She nods. She moves to sit beside him. Grabbing her laptop to work on her own work. Despite the fact, Rossi sent them both home until Spencer was better she was trying to help them as best she can. I mean losing three agents at once is a huge hit on the force. But after Hotch was shot he needed time off- and of course, Spencer needed time to recover himself. And if Spencer can't walk he can't exactly take care of himself. So Rossi sent you with him. "What's the new case?"

"I'm not allowed to tell you," Y/n says as she runs through the background check, "Rossi's orders. Sorry love."

"Come on I can help," He says leaning towards her. She tilts the screen so he can't see it. He rolls his eyes lightly. "Come on-"

"Spencer you should focus on resting," She tells him, "besides you won't be on this case. They are already in Arizona giving them the profile- your job would be done anyways."

"You know it doesn't end at the profile," He points out.

"Yeah- but your jurisdiction does," She tells him, "this part is my job. Tech lady remember."

"Just let me help-"

"Spencer," She says firmly, "I don't need your help. I'm perfectly fine running a background check by myself. You should eat while it's still hot." He sighs. Leaning back to start at the soup again. "Besides- I have their guy right here. I'm sending it to JJ and Rossi now." He nods lightly. She shuts her laptop and moves to place her hand on his thigh carefully. Making sure not to mess with his knees or bandages.

"I just feel useless like this," He sighs, "I mean Hotch is already out. They need me there- they need us there." She smiles lightly. Trying not to show pity in the look. "It just sucks."

"I know babe," She says taking his hand, "but you need to be here recovering. If you don't take care of it now then you won't get to go back on the field. And that is so much worse than 2 weeks out." He nods.

"I guess you're right," He says softly.

"I always am," She smiles, "besides it's not all bad here." He raises a brow. Wondering how this could in any way be something other than bad. "We get to spend our time together. Not looking at dead bodies." He smiles lightly. "And we don't have a no PDA rule here."

"That's true," He says smirking, "you know there was a study- it hasn't been completely proven yet but it's worth a shot?"

"Yeah what is it, Spence?"

"Rumor says a kiss can make someone feel better," He says smirking lightly. She moves gently pulling him into a soft kiss. He deepens it immediately. Moving his hands to the sides of her face. He takes control. They both are clearly enjoying it. She chuckles as she breaks the kiss.

"Feel any better?" She asks.

"Hmm, I think we should try it again," Spencer says, "I don't think it took its full effect." She nods. He moves meeting her for another sweet kiss. This time he's the one to break the kiss. A big smile stretched across his face. "I think this study has a point. I feel much better."

"Sure you do lover boy," Y/n says smiling lightly, "now how about some ice? Might take the swelling down at least."

"That would be fantastic," Spencer says. She moves off to get her boyfriend the ice back. He smiles lightly as he watches her move off. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad he thinks to himself. They don't get much time with just the two of them outside of work and the free time they normally get is spent catching up on sleep. It's nice for them to have moments where they can just enjoy being around each other. Sure he wishes the situation was different but he can't exactly change that now.

"Alright here is your ice," She says handing it over to him, "10 minutes on. I'll set a timer for you."

"Thank you," He says smiling lightly.

"You're welcome Spencer," She says brightly as she sits beside him again. She moves to grab her laptop again but Spencer stops her. "What's up?"

"Can we try that independent study again?"

"Anytime Spencer," She says meeting him in another soft kiss.

Maybe these two weeks wouldn't be so bad.

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid criminal minds #dr spencer reid #spencer reid #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid x reader one shot #one shots #criminal mind oneshots #season five spencer reid #healing spencer

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whump-town · 3 years

Text

As Long As It's You

Chapter One

Summary: Boston AU which predates the show in which Hotch and Morgan are together when Gideon's decisions with Adrian Bale change the course of their lives.

Warning: typical violence and bomb stuff

Pairing: Hotchgan/Mortch

The air conditioning in the room rages through the August heat, Boston has nothing on Quantico humidity but the air is still dense. Uncomfortably thick and showing no reprieve in the days since they arrived. On top of the sheets, the thin comforter underneath his sweaty body, Derek looks up at the spackled ceiling. The room’s too poorly lit to see it well but the whirling patterns are still there, easy to track in their simplicity. The shower runs in the background. The bad water pressure and too hot water working to wear down Aaron’s edges, leave him in his bare-bones. Sleepy and compliantly ready for bed.

“Oh Aaron,” Derek sighs. He props himself up on his elbow, his face eaten by a smile he feels no control over. Wet hair standing in crossed, leaning patterns Aaron steps out of the bathroom. He’s wearing his favorite pajama pants, the one’s he packs on every long case away. An old worn cable knit sweater pulled down over his hands. “It’s too hot for that.” Derek sits up, shaking his head affectionately. Aaron’s cold natured but the room is too hot for that sweater.

Yawning, sweater-covered hand coming held over his mouth, Aaron trudges to the bed. Feet scuffing across the cheap worn carpet, he pays Derek no mind. Their physical differences are so apparent in this little room. Derek’s abs hard and flexed with his arms stretched up above his head, a toned leg thrown over the side of the bed. Foot dangling just above the carpet. Aaron is worn and scarred in places where Derek is hard and smooth. He’s marked and scuffed across his stomach, scars scattered over his skin. And Derek sees right through him. To the self-conscious fool underneath the layers of clothes he puts between them.

Aaron’s rolled over onto his side, back facing Derek. He’s attempting and failing to settle down. The comforter is miserable and the bed much too small for two grown men. Especially with the amount of distance Aaron’s attempted to put between them. He flinches when Derek’s hand comes to his back, slowly creeping up under his sweater until warm fingers spreading out over his skin. Derek’s palm over his stomach, holding him together. Attempting to pull Aaron into Derek’s skin, meld them into one person. “Is this okay?” Derek asks.

Aaron nods, the tears in his eyes slipping down to the pillow.

“For breakfast,” Derek mumbles, “we should get waffles.” He yawns, pressing closer until his chest is against Aaron’s back. “Mmm and bacon,” he whispers, dreamily. His stomach growls and Aaron laughs a deep chuckle. Derek squeezes him, kissing the back of his neck. “What are you laughing at? I’m basically wasting away! I’m starving.” Wet hair against his forehead, Derek presses his face into Aaron’s neck. Squeezing him tight, holding him to his chest so he can’t get away. Worm away like he sometimes does in the middle of the night.

With a yawn, Aaron taps Derek’s hand and turns around until he’s facing Derek. He scoots down until he can fit his head under Derek’s chin, presses his face against Derek’s chest. Crinkling his nose he mumbles, “your breath stinks.”

Derek huffs, “you are so mean to me, Agent Hotchner.” His hand comes down to tilt Aaron’s head up, Dere kisses Aaron’s forehead, then his nose. Smirking when Aaron tries to worm away from this too. He turns himself into a koala, throws a leg over Aaron’s hips, and pins his arms to his chest. Aaron fights it, always does, but he secretly loves it. Being held that close. “So terribly mean,” Derek whispers.

Aaron falls asleep first, the anxious feeling he’s grown to be quite accustomed to stifled by how tightly Derek holds him. It’s easier to sleep with someone else. He’d never asked for this particular treatment, had always assumed he was actually more of a hands-off kind of partner. In a lot of ways, he is but not in this one. He’s not asleep though when Derek kisses his cheek, his warm palm dragging up his back. Coming to rest against his cheek, thumb brushing against his lip. Aaron smiles, Derek smiles back catching the edge of his lips in a kiss.

It’s not surprising Derek never moves in the night. Aaron wakes up on his stomach, lifts his head up out of where he’s wedged his face between Derek’s shoulder and the pillow. Out of the warmth. He looks over his shoulder, frowns at how far his squirming has caused his sweater to ride up his back. He really doesn’t sleep all that calmly but that doesn’t explain everything. Especially not Derek’s hand resting against his ass, above his boxers but in his pants.

Aaron’s mastered the art of crawling out of Derek’s arms but the pants situation is not something he’s equipped for. Derek groans when he moves, unhappy to be shifted in his sleep but he stays asleep. Aaron gets dressed in the dark, his slacks making soft swishing noises as his legs slide into the designated holes.

“Aaron,” Derek whispers. The bedsheets make a soft swishing sound as Derek moves his hand along the sheets, making another discontent groaning sound. He rolls over, squints into the darkness until he can see Aaron moving around. “What’re you doing?” He rubs his eyes, sits up. “Babe, it’s early. Why are you up?”

Stifling a yawn with the back of his hand Aaron stumbles over to the bed. He trips on Derek’s pants, his disregarded clothing leaving a trail of tripping hazards for him to break his neck on. “I was gonna go to the hospital? Get the reports that Gideon was talking about. I have to get a jump on them because Gideon thinks there might be something in them we can use to build the profile.”

Derek hums, laying back down. He waves Aaron over, “lay back down.” He yawns, pulling the comforter back and leaving Aaron plenty of room to do just that. “Come on,” he whines. “Fifteen minutes, you don’t even need to go just yet.”

Aaron wants to disagree, to keep going on about his morning, but Derek reaches over and snags his hand. Tangles their fingers, pulls him closer. “Fine,” Aaron whispers. “Until you fall asleep.” He lays down where Derek was, immediately warmed by the heat Derek’s body left seeped into the covers. Derek attaches himself to Aaron’s back, pushes his face into Aaron’s back, and falls back to sleep. Like it’s nothing.

It’s much harder to get out of bed this time.

He shuts the door behind him softly, fighting the lock thudding back into place. As childish as it must look, he eases past Gideon’s door. Knows that if he’s found out Jason will chase him back to the room, he won’t find Aaron’s early start to the day ambitious but rather foolish. They’re all exhausted, they need to sleep. They’ve been in Boston for four intense days, split out across the city watching three different victims fall prey to a bomber. Derek’s breaking his back profiling bomb fragments, angry that he can’t provide the final answers they need in the profile. In whatever dark room he’s afforded, Aaron closes himself off with the case files. Looks over Derek’s notes and relays information about the victims to Jason.

They’re stuck.

At five, Derek wakes up alone. It’s not unusual.

He’s halfway down the stairs when he hears Gideon come out of his room. Derek looks over his shoulder, nods his head in acknowledgment to Gideon, and keeps walking. Neither have to say a thing to know where Aaron is. “Will you be joining us for breakfast?” Derek asks. He fails to keep his tone even, to not sound annoyed by Aaron sneaking off so early in the morning. It’s not healthy and if he’d been more awake he’d have stopped him. Aaron’s answer is no but he dancing around the answer enough to make it sound like a yes, Derek just isn’t stupid enough to fall for that anymore. “Here,” Derek shrugs it off. It’s too early for a fight. “Gideon wants to talk to you.”

He has blueberry pancakes because they’re doing a physically demanding job and living on an empty stomach isn’t healthy. No matter how Aaron dances around it. Gideon hangs up the call, Derek simply holding up his hand and shaking his head when Gideon tries to let him have the last word. He doesn’t want to talk to Aaron right now. He’s still bitter about his own four a.m. wake-up call and too hungry to make it through a conversation with him without snapping. And that’s not what either needs right now.

“He’s been distance lately,” Gideon says into his tea.

Derek grunts and keeps his head in his pancakes, doesn’t want to encourage the conversation.

“You going to be okay?”

Gideon knows but… Aaron and Derek aren’t sure about how much or to what extent. They know that he sees right through them and that’s a dangerous thing but he says nothing. Aaron dispels Derek’s fear with practiced words, a profile he’s been building since he met Gideon. He’s been watching how what little trusted information Aaron gives him blows over. What he reacts to and what he doesn’t. He’s only actually a little certain that Gideon won’t have them hung and tried for their crimes. Leave them for dead. Worse, outed to the entire government.

“I’m not sure,” Derek mumbles. He’s looking down into pancakes, picking one up with his fork and examining how pathetic and unappetizing it looks. “I think four more days in this city is going to kill him.” He drops his fork, runs his hands over his head, and just sits like that for a moment. This relationship and this silent moment go against everything he’s ever taught himself. Not to trust men, especially ones in power, but Gideon… When Aaron shuts a door like this Gideon has the flourish to pick the lock.

“Mmm,” Gideon agrees. He sets his mug down, wipes his mouth with a napkin, and clears his throat. “Well, I guess, we better get to work.”

Work pays in migraines.

Aaron comes back with reports upon reports. The receptionist offers them coffee when they step in -- she has a thing for Derek, which they all ignore in favor of her bringing them the freshest coffee -- she beams a smile at Derek and motions to Aaron sitting in the press conference room they’ve been given to work in. “He’s been here all morning, he’s like a robot.” Derek takes her coffee and doesn’t exchange the flirting like he has been, though it’s the unspoken payment for her coffee.

Gideon winks, patting her shoulder and expressing his gratitude for the coffee. “He is,” Gideon agrees, “that’s why we keep him around.” He laughs even he doesn’t find it that funny. He busies himself outside of the room they’ve been working in none-stop since they got here. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Derek wake Aaron up, purposely distancing themselves so the outside world doesn’t see. To hide how badly Derek wants to wipe the file’s imprint on Aaron’s cheek away with his sleeve. He gives them enough time to settle things and he steps into the room, clearing his throat. “Well, it seems since Hotch has such a jump on us this morning, why don’t you tell us what you’ve found?”

Hotch looks up at Derek but stands, clearing his throat. He has to move his shirt around, sleeping on paperwork has worn down his charm and carefully curated look. “I was looking at the -- the metal rods Derek found in the bombs--” his trembling hands hunt through the files. Searching for the pictures that Derek took but he ends up making a mess, the papers too thin for his uncoordinated hands. Derek pushes him away, takes over the mission and finds the prize before Aaron can start stuttering through his findings again. “I thought they made it seem like all that matters is the bombs. Not the victims, that explains why there isn’t a type, in the victimology. He’ll kill anyone because it’s about the bombs, not the victims. It’s about the rush, the fire, and the control.”

Derek nods, he’s not so sure that’s what the metal rods are there for. It’s maximum carnage for a great distance, over-kill for one soul person. To him, it just sounds like Aaron isn’t sleeping enough.

Gideon seems to agree but he’s pleasantly forgiving. Aaron’s worked hard for the last four days carrying more than his share of the profile. “It’s good, that’s good.” With a nod, he shifts the focus to Derek. “I think I’m going to split us up today. Send Derek to look at the bombs again. There has to be something we’re missing there.” Gideon steps to leave the room but turns back, “keep looking into the rod thing, Hotch. I think you’re on to something.”

With two light slaps to the doorframe, Gideon disappears back into the station. To the whirs and light conversation being had by the officers. Where Aaron knew Derek would eventually abandon him too as well. Disappearing into the uniforms easily, not returning until lunch or dinner. Coming back to reprimand him about whatever meal he’s missed or how he didn’t call Derek back. But for just a second Derek keeps his hand on Aaron’s shoulder, soaks in all the physical proximity he can before he has to step away. Turn themselves into different people, with different motives.

“I love you,” Derek whispers, stepping away from Aaron. “Please, please get lunch with Gideon. Do not sit in this room all day. You need to get some sun.” He hesitates to leave the room completely, wants to stay here just a little longer. Bask in Aaron’s proximity before he has to go sit in front of his own reports all day, looking at pictures of charred bodies and analyzing bomb fragments. “We should take a day when this is over. Go to the beach, drink vodka out of a watermelon on the sand.”

Aaron’s head has already gone back to his hands, fingers seeping through his dark hair. “I don’t like the sand,” he mumbles. It’s childish, it’s picking a fight where there doesn’t need to be one. He doesn’t like the sand but he does like the beach. How happy that it makes Derek and even dragging chairs and an umbrella down to the water. Letting Derek pull him into the waves and falling asleep hours later with skin warmed by the sun, Derek’s arms holding him down, and the residual rocking of phantom waves easing him to sleep. It sounds… amazing but he’s just in the mood to be an asshole.

“Think about it,” Derek asks, “I’ll see you in a few hours.”

He does think about it. He wants to spend hours in the car with Derek, listening to his music shift in styles and decades the farther they get away from Quantico, Virginia. To feel the residual ache of a nap he takes in the car, neck bent awkwardly to rest his head against the window and Derek’s hand on the inside of his thigh. To be awakened by the sun on his face, the heat of it good against his chilled skin. To go on long walks along the boardwalk, taking bites out of the greasy food Derek loves, and to hold his hand when it gets dark enough. To initiate contact only when the night swells his chest with bravery, daring anyone to say anything when the buzz of alcohol in his veins fills him with liquid courage. Just the sun and the beach and Derek.

But there isn’t a break in the case.

Only a hostage.

A forty-seven-year-old white man, the bomb held in his shaking hands. His front porch is too small for most of the officers so they have to regroup, come up with a proper plan. The hostage won’t last much longer in the heat. Adrenaline and humidity will do him in. They’re fighting two clocks. They need Derek here but he’s halfway to Virginia, consulting with Gideon in angry shouts as the two feverishly disagree with the plan they’re making. Derek doesn’t trust Bale to tell them what they need, Gideon thinks he’s a coward, he’ll cave.

“I’ll do it,” Aaron interrupts. He’s wearing his vest, already hooked up. If Gideon mans the negotiations, tries to get Bale to tell them what to cut he can handle getting closer to the bomb. Being their man in the field, the filter between what Gideon says and making sure what Derek says gets done. It would be far more helpful to just have Derek doing it, someone here who understands everything. Aaron knows about bombs… he learned about them as a cadet but he knows enough. To help. To get this handled.

“No,” Derek says and Gideon nods his head, “go. Keep your radio on 4, I don’t want anyone else out there.”

Aaron nods, all he needs to say is done. His vest agitates the skin under his arms but as he pulls the straps in tight it stifles the anxiety hammering through his bones. It’s comforting, it’s dangerous.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Aaron looks up, knows he’s the only person that can hear Derek through his earpiece but he still freezes a little. Glances over at Gideon now bowed back over his preciously set up desk, on the phone with Bale and trying to find some way to make this disastrous situation end without more death. Under his breath, he answers Derek, “my job. Someone needs to be out there. You’re not here. So it has to be me.” He looks down at himself, vest pulled down to meet his belt. Zipper up. Radio properly fed to his ear. “Are you ready?” Aaron asks, clenching his fists tight. Calm, he needs to be calm.

“Aaron, please be careful.”

There isn’t actually much that he can do. He’s a mid-point, a place wedged between phone calls. A voice to be drowned into the mix of others, not as important as Gideon’s sharp no non-sense negotiating. He’s a body in the sea, a calm voice. “Eric,” he offers calmly, “just hold still for us. We’ll get you out of here.” The poor man’s hands are showing no signs of steadying out. The bomb explosive element is mercury -- perhaps it’s not the explosive element but Derek was telling him about all this while they were laying in bed, Derek’s fingers scratching at his scalp so no he wasn’t paying enough attention. Mercury, though, is very unsteady, and the way the bombs are made the mercury is unstable. It’s going to tilt over and… boom.

“Agent Hotchner,” a bomb squad agent steps forward. “I’m going to approach the bomb now. Agent Gideon and Agent Morgan have spoken to Bale, he’s helping them.”

Aaron nods steps out of the way. “Eric, this man is going to help you, okay? Just keep steady, alright?”

It’s agonizingly slow. Aaron stays close, he’s only allowed at the bottom of the porch. Eric standing right by the door to the house. He says what he has to, what he’s trained to. It’s not that hard, he trusts Derek and he trusts Gideon. No matter how his gut twists. How at the back of his mind he’s reminded that he thinks this is all end-game, it ends in a bang. How seven federal agents would make the best ending, a great story for a bad guy.

“Eric,” the bomb squad agent says. “I’m going to disarm the bomb now--”

Seven hundred miles away and Derek Morgan feels that bomb shatter his world.

#criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #as long as it's you #aaron hotchner #derek morgan #jason gideon #mortch #hotchgan

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captainsy-cookiemonster · 3 years

Text

Five Minutes

This is a collab fic that was originally a tiny smutty drabble in response to an ask @wendimydarling sent me. We decided to make this a collab fic and other fantastic writers jumped in. I decided to put all the previous parts into this post since the thread has gotten a little out of hand.

Anyway, I wanna say thank you to all the amazing writers who participated and hopefully will participate.💗 I love you, and this is so much fun💕

@wendimydarling @emyearns @foodieforthoughts @oh-for-fic-sake @littlefreya @wolvesandhoundshowltogether @thelastsock @crimsonrae @the-soot-sprite

Last tagged was @viking-raider, if you don't want to do this, please pass it on💕

⚠️Warnings⚠️: male!Sub, fem!Dom, later switch, bondage, teasing, use of toys, punishment(?), female masturbation while the male watches, begging, pleasure denial i think you could call it, list ongoing since i can’t predict where this goes. so read with caution.

Part 1 me (@killjoy-assbutt-1112)

It took you said five minutes to tell him what you’d like to do. He’s… not very happy with your plan, rather sceptical. He wants to touch you, not watch you. But you’re in charge now!

You tie him to the chair, strap him tight. He won’t be able to even touch himself. This is your try at driving the controlled CIA agent to his limits.

Once he’s all tied up, you stand opposite of him, giving him a smile, biting your lip, before slowly, so damn slowly, slipping out of your clothes, leaving teasing touches all over your own skin.

Napoleon groans. He really doesn’t like this. Oooh, but you love this. You’re determined to make him beg for you without even touching him. Slipping out of your underwear you settle on the chair opposite of him, spreading your legs and softly, oh so softly run your fingers through our petals, soaked with need and excitement already.

You gasp when you touch your clit, and hear him groan, desperate already. Flicking your eyes to his, you give him a mischievous smile and go deeper.

This is going to be fun.

Part 2 @wendimydarling

“Tell me, Leon,” you drawl, letting out another gasp as your fingers slip between your folds, “Do you want to touch me? Or do you want me to touch you?”

“I want to touch you!” He growls, fighting the straps. You grin and sink your fingers deep within you, fucking lightly, teasing yourself as much as you’re teasing him.

“Do you, pretty boy?” You grin, groaning as your fingers hit a pleasant spot.

“I don’t think you do. But I’ll tell you what, I’m feeling generous… so I’ll make you a deal. You can touch me, but only with your tongue, and you don’t get to come if you do.”

You keen for emphasis, fucking harder, manipulating him how you want. You know what he’ll do, it’s just a matter of getting him to do it.

Part 3 @emyearns

His eyes darken as he looks at you, knuckle deep in yourself.

“That’s not fucking fair!” he snaps, his voice dangerously low, tugging against the straps, to no avail.

You tsk disapprovingly at him, look him dead in the eyes, arch an eyebrow. “Such a mouth on you.”

You get up slowly, drag your chair forward until it’s directly in front of him. Leon looks straight ahead, the muscle in his jaw twitching. You cup his chin, tilt his face up to look directly at you. “It’d be a shame if that silver tongue stayed unused, no?” You can feel the breath he’s holding as you run your thumb across his bottom lip, tug at it for a second.

Every muscle in his body is tense with anticipation.

You let go of his face, sit back down on the chair. Slowly open your legs and prop them up over his knees. He breathes out slowly, eyes glued to where your fingers are disappear inside of you again.

“You want to touch me?” you ask again, each movement of your fingers bringing you closer. You moan loudly, curling your fingers, your head thrown back. You’re certain you hear a low growl come deep from the man in front of you.

“I’ll ask again. You can touch me, but only with your tongue, and you don’t get to come if you do. You want that, pet?”

He gives in slightly, his voice raspy as he breathes out a yes.

“Then beg for it.”

Part 4 @foodieforthoughts

“Don’t you know me at all. I don’t beg, I claim what’s mine.” Leon rattled the chair as he strained his arms against the restrains.

You could see his body reacting to you, the hard bulge in front of his pants, straining to be freed. A thin sheet of sweat is beginning to form on his forehead, making his hair stick to his skin. He looked at you sternly with crumbling determination. You felt an electrifying power surge from watching the smug agent be reduced to nothing.

“Maybe you need a little more coaxing.” You offered, turning around and bending at your hip with your hands resting on the chair. You twisted at your waist to look at him, the strained gulp that he took made his Adam’s apple bob, with his eyes trained on your slick pussy.

Reaching down to your tender folds, arching your back so he could see exactly what he couldn’t touch, you circled your hole with your fingertips. Leon pushed against the chair, the hinges creaking under his force.

“See what you’re missing Leon. Beg for it, and it’s yours.” You offer before slipping your digit inside, moaning loudly before adding another finger and twisting to watch as Leon’s eyes fixate at what was deprived of him.

Part 5 @oh-for-fic-sake

“yes please, please let me -i want to taste you” he whispered between heaving breaths. He groaned as you moved your wet flinged across your mound then up yur body in a slow drag.

“oh you want to taste me? Sweet boy all needy and ready, but…” you tralied off as your fingers reached your bra the fastening on the front holding steadfast as you plucked at it staring him right in the eye.

“I expected a little more enthusiasm~ so i might just keep this treat all to myself~” yu teased ghosting your fingers higher relishing in the violent tugs of the tied man in front of you.

He growled snarling for a second then huffed eyes growing wide as you dodnt stop, popping the wet fingers in your mouth and suckoling with the lewdest of sounds closing you eyes moaning at him provocatively.

“No nooo please love-i h0need you please let me! I want your taste please” he begged voice thick dripping with a desire that rivaled your wet fingers. You chuckled pulling away and trailed the fingers down on a mighty power trip as he usually composed man lost his cool just from watching your tiny fingers glide down south once again.

“Oh? Then i have to get them all wet again dont i love?” You said voice thick with a dark promise. You threw your head back letting the digits sink inside of you once more this time curling them just right drawing higher louder moans from yourself in a way that would make the man seeth in jealousy and boil with lust. You rocked on your fingers forcing the blunt tips onto your gspot, making it clear you didnt need him for your pleasure.

Then you stopped and pulled away biting back your dissapointment at the loss.

“Here theres a good boy you want a taste? Work for it~” you purred watching threw half lidded eyes as you held your hand just out of reach forcing him to crane his head simpering, stuicking out his tongue unable to stop himself from trying to lap at the cream coated fingers. The man was a weak pliant mess~

Part 6 @littlefreya

On and on, you enjoy your little seductress game. Watching Leon squirm with torment was a treat for a woman like you. Every bulging tendon in his throat, every shift and writh of his muscles and that stretch at the fabric of his trousers set burning sparks through your breasts.

You needed more, you needed to bring him to utter despair.

Pacing toward the the chair, you lifted your Obsidian-black heel against the chair’s armrest and shoved it carefully, making Leon go down on his back.

A heavy huff left his lungs and he gaped to the ceiling with shock, listening to your footsteps as you marched toward him.

It was not long before you towered above him, placing each of your feet at the side of his head so he can face with your sopping petals as you stood there leg-spread above him.

“Enjoying the view?…” you asked, voice as smooth and soft as velvet.

Leon sucked in his bottom lip, trying to taste you on his tongue. The scent of your arousal wafted him with an aphrodisiac mist, the sight of you, all swollen and glistening made a civilised man mad.

“Please, please, please, come here, put your pussy on my face!” he begged for you.

But you were still not convinced.

Shaking your head, your reached your fingers below your skirt and slid them once more between your folds.

“Almost…” you moaned, “almost there…”

Part 7 @wolvesandhoundshowltogether

The loud groan of Leon made you even more aroused, which you wouldn’t have thought possible. The sense of power over this man was already intoxicating as it was.

He was staring at your drenched petals being fondled by your nimble little fingers, but you noticed that his hot and bothered expression molded into a sinister mien.

He was still aroused, his breathing still laboured, but he seemed to be more and more in command of his reactions.

“You’re flying too close to the sun, little dove” he warned you. “Be careful or you’ll melt your wings.”

Your confidence didn’t falter and you were determined to reach your goal, but your lover, the trained CIA agent, was getting at the end of his patience.

Part 8 @thelastsock

You felt his breath ghost across your folds in the echo of a laugh, across the back of your hand where you were diligently working to towards ecstasy. So close but just out of reach.

Annoyed, your other hand reached down to gather in his dark, slightly dishevelled hair and pulled his head back. A groan left Leon’s lips once more at the sharp but pleasurable tug.

He merely smirked, arousal still clear in his blown pupils, but an air of nonchalance about him. Your fingers stilled, walls throbbing around your digits.

“Yes my little dove, push your fingers deeper, try your best to reach that place that only I can reach.”

He was taunting you, trying you goad you with his sinful words. Glaring at the agent, you moved backwards, allowing some of your weight to rest on his chest and your heel to come up to rest on the edge of chair. Napoleon finally still and seemingly pliant between your thighs as he watched you.

“Oh Leon, you really think me so easily won over? You’re here at my mercy and you still think you have the upper hand?”

You tutted, pushing a little more weight onto his ribcage. You delighted in the small wheeze of his chest as he sucked in air.

But still the smirk remained etched onto his features even if the scent of you was driving him crazy, pulling at the last strings of his restraint.

Part 9 @crimsonrae

“I know I have the upper hand, Kitten.” Leon taunted lowly. His sapphires glimmered like dazzling jewels of mischief as he drew his sordid, hungry gaze over your exposed body, “Nake, wanton, and performing a show for my eyes only, like the little whore you are, my dear.”

You huffed, heat scoring your cheeks with muted humiliation as he devalued your play. It made your stomach clench with fury, but your core flutter with unquenched pleasure. Still, this was your game and you were determined to win.

With a slow mocking smile, you stepped away from your tethered Adonis, gliding your hands over your ripened breasts with a simpering moan. “You say the meanest things, Leon…. and to think I was ready to play with you too.”

There’s a moment of silence as your words penetrate and you don’t need to look to see your puppy perking in hopeful dread. You can feel his gaze burn you as you walk to your toy chest and rummage for your treat.

Napoleon couldn’t help but growl, “Kitten….”

Your hands slid over the wand, testing the weight before your deftly flicked the switch. Vibrations coursed through your hand instantly and you couldn’t help but groan as you imagine those tremors beating at your swollen clit, “Yes, baby?”

“Come. Here.” Napoleon demanded, and you hear the chair lurch as he attempted to yank free of his bonds.

You grinned to yourself, but carefully schooled your expression into something far more innocent as you turned to blink prettily at him. Warning peered back at you, but your lust needed quenching and he wasn’t playing by your rules. This was his punishment, you decided stoutly as you sauntered back to your chair and splayed your legs wide.

Pouting faintly, you teased, “I thought you wanted a show?”

The wand dove to your vulnerable apex and you moaned with delight as electric shocks spiraled up your spine as the toy massaged your hole. Your back arched and pressed more fully against that succulent vibration, never once pulling your gaze from the wolfish stare of your secret agent.

Part 10 me

The vibrations of the toy and his stare were enough to make you come undone then and there, but you wanted to drag this out. You wanted this to last, your power over him.

But really, who were you fooling? You needed him. But you wanted him to be desperate. You wanted him sobbing for you, so needy all he could do was whimper. Whimper two words: your name and please. But he was far from that. His defiant glare… He’d not easily break.

You moved the toy back to your clit, gasping loudly and moaning even louder - only partly for show.

“See this?” the words leave your mouth in a strangle whine more than anything. Your fingers were beck between your petals, collecting your dew and spreading it all over. “See how wet I am for you? You want it, don’t you? Want to taste me? Feel me shake and twitch on your tongue? You know what to do, Leon. Say it, beg for it and it’s your- ohh, I’m so close!!” you whine, bucking your hips against the steady vibrations that sent your spine aflame.

“Don’t you dare cumming on that toy,” your agent growled through gritted teeth, “or you won’t cum for a week.”

Your stomach dropped at his threat. He wouldn’t dare, would he? He loved to see you writhe underneath him. Too much to go without it for a whole week!

“Then tell me - ah! - want I to hear, Leon!”

You closed your eyes in ecstasy, barely controlling yourself now. The growling and rattling of the chair only adding to your excitement.

Until-

You heard a leather band slide through the buckle.

Part 11 @the-soot-sprite

You looked up from your lust induced haze, surprise colored your features when you made out the scene in front of you. All the thrashing around he’d done had loosened up the leather straps, allowing him to free one hand.

“Leon!” you gasped as he continued to free himself from the bindings.

The buzzing of the vibrator still in your pussy brought you back to awareness of your state. You looked down to pull it out when a large hand stopped you.

“Shit,” you cursed aloud.

“Tut tut, pet,” he scolded. “Good girls don’t curse, do they?”

You hadn’t dared to look up upon realizing he’d escaped his confines. You were fucked…you hoped in more than one way.

His large palm firmly gripped your chin, forcing your gaze to meet his. The steely gaze that met yours made you both nervous and quiver in excitement. You inadvertently clenched, hissing at the immense pleasure you felt.

Gripping a hold of the vibrator, he turned the dial to the highest setting. “Now, darling, you won’t cum until I tell you or else you’ll be sorry. Do you understand?”

You closed your eyes, trying desperately to hold off from falling over the edge.

“Do. You. Understand,” he repeated slowly, and he began sliding the toy in and out of you.

#napoleon solo fanfic #napoleon solo #napoleon solo x reader #Henry Cavill #henry cavill fanfic #Henry Cavill collab fic #Napoleon Solo collab fic

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wiypt-writes · 3 years

Text

Stark Spangled Banner

Ch 18: Told You I’d Say Yes

Summary: Steve, Katie and Sam begin their search for Bucky and they uncover something that makes Steve start to question where their priorities as a team should lie. Decision made, the two of them head back to the Tower in New York to join up with the other adventures, and when Katie’s 30th birthday arrives, Steve asks a very differen question…

Pairing: Steve Rogers x OFC Katie Stark

Warnings: Bad language words, smut (NSFW), no under 18s. And a whole lotta teeth rotting fluff…

A/N: I think this is my favourite edit yet, @angrybirdcr

Disclaimer: This is a pure work of fiction and classified as 18+. Please respect this and do not read if you are underage. I do not own any characters in this series bar Katie Stark and the other OCs. By reading beyond this point you understand and accept the terms of this disclaimer.

Chapter 17

Stark Spangled Banner Masterlist // Main Masterlist

Steve had no real leads and as such he, Katie and Sam spent weeks combing through the information that Natasha had provided, using JARVIS to translate the Russian which none of them spoke of course. It was hard work, stressful and gave them nothing of real use either, other than give them a bit more of an understanding of who the Winter Soldier was, so to speak, and then Sam had a brainwave. If Bucky was starting to get his memories back and pieced together that he had been working for Hydra under duress, he might go looking for answers, possibly even revenge.

They decided to start in the nearest Hydra base they knew about from the leaks on the internet, and as such they were now ransacking an old abandoned bank in the financial district in the middle of the night.

What they found wasn’t great- a dozen bodies of dead Hydra agents. Most looked as if they had had their throats crushed apart from one who was sat in a chair, a bullet between his eyes. From the look, and smell, they’d been there a while.

“That’s an execution.” Sam muttered, nodding at the man who had been shot and Katie looked at him as Steve simply turned and walked from the smaller room, back into the larger corridor. He made his way down, pulling open a thick door into the main vault and stopped dead as he saw some form of chair in the middle, surrounded by restraints and a device that looked like some kind of macabre halo. Steve felt his mouth go dry as he looked at it. I was some perverted form of the chamber he’d been in when they’d administered the serum…

“Looks like they were deleting data when they were interrupted…” Sam bent over to get a closer look at the computer to the side. Katie passed him the device she had brought and he plugged it in and started the data mining. As Steve made his way towards the two of them, Sam frowned and clicked on something that caught his attention and immediately the sounds of tortured screams filled the room. Katie jolted slightly as Sam took a step back, the three of them glancing at the screen which was sat on the desk. And all 3 wished they hadn’t. As there, on the screen Bucky was strapped down the halo-like contraption lowered onto his head.

“Turn it off!” Katie instructed to Sam, who moved to cut the footage immediately but Steve grabbed his arm.

“No…” he said firmly, his eyes fixated on the grim footage in front of him, his chest heaving with anger.

Finally the screams stopped and someone was saying words as they were in Russian but when they finished Bucky slumped down in the chair staring blankly ahead, as he spoke a single sentence, his face and voice completely void of expression and emotion.

There was a moment of silence when Steve suddenly snapped grabbing the edge of the table and flipping it over with a loud crash, all of the equipment and computers meeting a rather abrupt end along with it. He felt sick, upset, angry…and he couldn’t help but feel this was his fault for leaving his friend behind.

“Steve?” Katie asked anxiously, whilst she watched his shoulders heave with anger.

“Let’s go.” He instructed sternly, already making his way to the exit.

“Steve?” She called again.

“Now.” He bit back.

Steve didn’t speak a word whilst they drove home. Once they were in the apartment he stormed straight through the hall and up the stairs to the bed room. Katie turned to Sam who was hovering in the hall.

“That went well.” he quipped.

Katie sighed, walking into the kitchen and handed Sam a water which he thankfully took, draining it in one go.

“The thing is, Sam…” she ran a hand over her face “It’s gonna get worse, the more we dig, the more we’re going to find.”

“Yeah well, on that note I’m going to go back to the bank, do a bit more digging of my own tonight.” Sam sighed “See if I can find something that would give us an indication as to when exactly Bucky hit the base, might help us piece together a timeline of sorts.”

“Alright, but be careful, yeah?”

“I’m always careful, sugar!” Sam grinned, and Katie rolled her eyes. “Listen, you gonna be ok?”

“Yeah, I’ll give him some time. He’ll come round, he’s just…” she paused searching for the right word before she concluded “sad.”

Sam nodded “Call you tomorrow then, I’m at the VA in the morning but my afternoon is free”

“Will do…oh, and Sam?”

He turned around and Katie threw him the keys to the Q5 as he still hadn’t replaced his car. “Take this, but bring it back in once piece.”

“Cheers dude!” He beamed, catching the keys expertly before he headed out of the door.

Once he was gone, Katie walked over to the sofa and dropped down onto it, pulling out her phone. She knew it was late, but Tony answered straight away.

“Did it work?” She asked instantly.

“Did it work…” Tony snorted “I made the damned device, of course it did. JARVIS took everything off their system…he’s already sifting through and cross referencing… any mention of Barnes in any form he’ll find it.”

“Thanks Tony.”

“There is something he has found thought, that’s kinda interesting, but also very worrying.”

“What?”

“He found an encoded list of locations, locations for HYDRA bases across the globe. Curiosity got the better of me, and I ran a couple of cross checks on the bases that were already captured or infiltrated, and it matches 80%…”

“Yeah, there’s bases out there that didn’t fall… that’s what Fury’s doing, you know this.”

“Well here’s the thing…” Tony sighed “That 80% rallies to around 10 bases. One-Eye-Willy knew about 6, which he is currently working on with SHIELD or whatever they’re called now. The other 4 were unknown, until now.”

“Shit.” Katie sighed. If they had gone unknown, unchallenged, then it was possible that more of Hydra remained than they thought.

“Pretty much what Fury said when I called him.” Tony replied “Anyway, I think it’s time we put the band back together Kiddo…”

She groaned. “Steve already turned Fury down to find Bucky first.”

“Well, for once I’m inclined to agree with the Goth Pirate.” Tony continued “I think rounding the last of these bastards up is slightly more pressing than Spangles chasing his old school buddy.”

“Don’t call him that…” She sighed, rubbing her hands over her face.

“Fury says he’ll make contact with Natasha and Clint, no idea how to reach Point Break though. I called his girlfriend, or paramour, whatever, who said he was off chasing something, no idea what, but when he comes back she’s gonna tell him we’re looking for him.”

“I’ll talk to Steve…but I can’t promise anything.”

“If anyone can talk him round it’s you.” He said, his voice adopting a more sympathetic tone “You know, there’s no reason why we can’t look for Barnes along the way. I mean it’s all Hydra, right?”

“Yeah, good point. Let me talk to him. I’ll call you tomorrow, or later today, whatever.”

“No sweat, take care. Love you kiddo.”

“You too Tones”

Katie dropped her phone onto the couch and sighed. Time to tackle Steve. She unzipped her combat boots, shucked them off and headed up the stairs. She gently opened the bedroom door and saw Steve, hair damp from the shower, led on the bed, looking up at the ceiling.

“Hey.” She crawled onto the bed next to him and propped herself up on her elbows so she could look at him.

“Hi.” He rolled his head to accept the kiss she offered as she reached a hand up to twine in the hair at the top of his head. “I’m sorry.” He leaned into her hand like a dog seeking attention. Katie opened her arms to let Steve snuggle into them, like a child, as she rolled onto her back, his head laying on her chest as her hand continued to tangle in his hair.

“Do you think we’re wasting our time? Looking for him?” Steve asked after a moment.

Katie hesitated, choosing her words carefully. “Bucky has been brainwashed and tortured by HYDRA for longer than I’ve been alive. It’s going to take more than saving you from the river to bring back the man you knew” she took a deep breath “I think we’re going to struggle chasing someone as resourceful as he is when he doesn’t want to be found. And we may have another problem…”

“Like what?” He asked, frowning at her.

“I just spoke to Tony. J has been going through the info that we pulled from the servers. Apparently there’s a list of 4 secret Hydra bases that no one knew about, not even Fury, that didn’t go down when we took out SHIELD.”

Steve let out a groan “So now I have to choose, between Bucky and taking down what remains of Hydra…”

Katie kissed his head sympathetically as the turmoil raged within his brain. They couldn’t let Hydra get a foothold again. But he didn’t want to let Bucky down either.

“You know, going after Hydra might help.” Katie spoke softly “I mean, we have nothing other than vague ideas and supposition about where Bucky is or what he has planned next. We might find something along the way. In the meantime, Sam can keep working our current angle and line of thought.”

“You’re right.” he said after a pause “I’ve tried twice to bring these bastards down. I can’t let them slip through my fingers a third time.”

*****

“Gotta say Cap, you’re looking better than last time I saw you.” Tony grnned as they entered the lab in the tower.

“I feel it!” Steve smiled, shaking Tony’s hand.

“What you looking at?” Katie asked, nodding to the screen, taking in the map.

“Got JARVIS running a bit of an analysis on the bases we found out about. Terrain surrounding them, best places to land the jet, potential areas of weakness that kinda thing.” He said, “Could take a while but, best to be prepared with some form of plan I suppose.”

Katie turned to Steve, grinning, about to launch into a rendition of “Star Spangled Man with a Plan” but Steve gave her a filthy look, knowing full well what was going through her mind. She grinned at him innocently and he turned his attention back to Tony.

“Any news on the others?”

“Banner is due back at some point tomorrow. He’s at some kind of Scientist band camp…” Tony waved his hand. “Barton is on his way, but you already know that. As for Nat…well she said she’ll be here when she can…which just leaves Point Break to show, whenever he’s back from riding the rainbow road that is.”

“He’ll turn up.” Katie shrugged “If all else fails I’ll do what he told me to when we needed him.”

“Which was what?” Steve asked, looking at Katie, frowning. As if she knew how to contact him and hadn’t said anything…

“Stand on top of a tall building a shout.” she said, grinning. Steve gave a roll of his eyes as Tony snorted. “Although I think he may have been joking.”

“Maybe we should get him some kind of Bat Signal” Tony mused “but with a hammer instead of a bat.”

“No.” Katie shook her head and Tony pouted at her.

“Why do you always piss on my parade?”

“Because your parade is usually dumb. Look we’re gonna go upstairs and unpack a few things.”

“Sure.” Tony nodded. “Oh, happy said he’ll get your apartment in DC cleared over the next week, and I thought we could go for something to eat tonight. Do the whole…” he waved his hand in a circle motion as he looked back at the screen, “fmily thing.

“Sounds great.” Katie smiled, looking at Steve who nodded, thankful of something ‘normal’ to look forward to, and the pair of them made to leave.

“By the way, I renovated the living floors so your Penthouse has had a bit of a facelift.” Tony said. Katie stopped and turned to face him.

“What do you mean facelift?” She frowned “I liked my floor…”

“Yeah but when I did the rooms for everyone else they got new furniture so I ordered you some too. If you don’t like it you can change it, no big deal. I didn’t change the décor to much…I know how much of a princess you are about people touching your stuff”

“Princess here technically owns forty percent of this tower so…” She flicked him the finger and he rolled his eyes.

“Yeah yeah…there’s a spare suite for you anyway Spangles opposite Thor’s, you know, just in case you get pissed off with her. No one would blame you if you did…”

“You’re a dick.” She rolled her eyes at her brother and turned back towards the elevator.

In all fairness Katie did actually quite like the changes Tony had made. Her penthouse spanned the entire floor below Tony’s whilst everyone else shared a floor a couple of levels down with another Avenger. Perks of ownership, after all. There was a new coffee and cream coloured L shaped sofa in the room, a walnut coffee table replaced the glass one that had been there, and a brand new HD OLED TV adorned the wall opposite, along with a media system. A state of the art sound system was installed and the kitchen was completely new and had been knocked through to the dining area giving them a huge open plan space similar to the layout of the apartment in DC. There was frankly the biggest bed Steve had ever seen in the bedroom and the furniture was sleek, with a slightly smaller TV adorning the wall opposite the bed. The en-suite now sported his and hers sinks along with a double shower, a corner spa tub and there was a smaller bathroom just off the hallway along with another bedroom, a study and a balcony spanned the entire length of the floor, which was accessible from the main bedroom and the kitchen-diner. It overlooked the New York skyline and contained a small patio area and a hot-tub along with some outside furniture. But true to his word, Tony had kept the colour scheme. Different shades of blue throughout the bedroom, steel grey in the kitchen and warm coffee and walnut colours in the lounge.

Steve loved it.

As promised, late that evening, the two of them accompanied Pepper and Tony out for dinner. They had gone to Anatolia’s, an Italian restaurant on the outskirts of Brooklyn much to Steve’s delight. It had been a really nice evening, the 4 drinking and eating far too much but as Tony had pointed out, things were about to get a little bit crazy so who knew when the next time they would get chance to relax and socialise was.

“Other than your 30th that is.” he said, looking at Katie over his wine.

“So there is something planned…” she grinned.

“Maybe.” Steve shrugged. Oh, he had something planned alright. He’d spoken to Tony about it a week or so ago, the Inventor gleefully agreeing with his idea.

“Man, my little sis is turning 30 in 3 weeks…I feel so old.” Tony continued to grumble.

“You are!” she teased.

“Yeah but not as old as your boyfriend…”

“Well done, you almost went a full evening without mentioning it.” Steve dead panned, folding his arms.

“You know he’s technically younger than me, Tones.” Katie said “

“What?” Steve looked at her, “How do you work that out.”

“You were born in July 1918 right, went into the ice in, what, March 1945?”

“Yeah…”

“Woke up in May 2012. So when you count how many years you spent actually awake and living, and not taking a cold nap, you’re really only 29 this time round.”

“So Captain America is your toy-boy?” Pepper giggled. Katie shrugged and took a sip of her wine as Tony and Steve looked at one another, both of them wearing expressions of bewilderment.

“Wait, does this mean we can throw a Happy 97 minus 67 party for Spangles next year?” Tony grinned and Steve let out a groan.

“See what you’ve done?” he looked at Katie with exasperation, and she just shrugged.

The night ended with a few drinks in a bar before a car picked them up and the couples both bid each other goodnight before going their separate ways

“That was proper pizza.” Steve said as they walked out of the elevator into their living area, the panel sliding in place leaving the door hidden.

Katie laughed as JARVIS gently flipped on the ambient lighting. “Well you certainly enjoyed it…getting through 2”

“Yeah, think the last 3 slices were a mistake” he mumbled as she headed into the kitchen. “They’re sitting in me like a brick.”

“Awwww poor baby!” she mocked thickly. “Getting so old you can’t even have a few slices without indigestion.”

“Hey, I’m younger than you, remember?” He laughed as Katie pulled 2 beers out of the fridge handing him one as she glided past him to flop onto the couch.

“I’m gonna regret pointing that out, aint i?” She laughed as Steve nodded.

*****

Katie had a meeting with her Editors and New Business department the next morning and Steve had a job of his own, a different mission that he was fucking nervous as hell about. He asked JARVIS where Tony was, who located him in the large, open plan main common room area of the tower, the one Loki and the Hulk had decimated 2 years previously.

“Tony you got a minute?”

“S'up Cap?”

Steve took a deep breath “I err…” his palms suddenly felt sweaty. “You know I love Katie and…" He cleared his throat before he looked Tony square in the eye, surprised to find the man watching him, warmth across his features. “She’s the most important thing in my life, and I…well, I wanted to ask for your permission, to ask her to marry me.”

“My permission?” Tony quipped.

“Well I’d normally ask her dad but…”

Tony smiled and glanced down at hands before he looked back at the blonde haired man stood besides him. “You gonna do better than a ‘we can get married if you want’ outside your apartment door?”

Steve let out a sigh and shook his head “she told you about that?”

“In the hospital” Tony smiled.

“Not my finest moment” Steve rubbed at his temple.

“Oh I dunno.” Tony said pushing off the front of the Bar area where he had been leaning. “Given the fact you were inches from death she was pretty upset at the fact she told you to come back with a Tiffany special…”

Steve smiled.

“You got one yet?” Tony asked. “A ring I mean.”

“No.” Steve shook his head.

“Well it just so happens I know one of the consultants at Tiffany.” Tony smiled, and Steve looked at him, his face creeping into a smile as he knew that this was Tony’s confirmation he was giving him his blessing. “Whenever you’re ready, I’ll make a call.“

The two men looked at one another, sharing a silent moment of respect before Tony reached out with his hand and Steve shook it, a shit-eating-grin spreading across his handsome features.

“Oh fuck this, come on Spangles, bring it in. I’m secure enough in my sexuality to hug another man.” Tony sniffed, and Steve stood up off the bar stool with a chuckle, the men exchanging a quick embrace, punctuated by a lot of back slapping.

“For what it’s worth…” Tony smiled as he stepped back, his eyes shining with emotion. “You make her happy, you treat her right, you put her first and I’ve never seen anyone metaphorically slap her back into place as well as you do….sorry, lot of dust in here…” he wiped at his suddenly watering eyes, water that may or may not have been tears before he took a breath and looked at Steve again “I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather grant permission to.”

Steve smiled, his own eyes shining with emotion.

“And I’m pretty sure you’d have gotten it off dad too.” Tony nodded at him and Steve looked at the floor for a second before he glanced back up at him, taking a deep breath.

“Thank you Tony.”

*****

“What is this?” Thor’s voice was loud. “I can’t see them…”

“No you turn it…hang on” The 4 Avengers in the lab looked at one another, Tony grinning from ear to ear as Jane was trying to explain how to use the video call facility on her phone.

“He’s worse than you!” He grinned up at Steve who merely rolled his eyes as Bruce stifled a grin.

Eventually Thor’s face, or rather his left nostril filled their screen and all of them urged him to move the phone away. Finally he did so, and his handsome face beamed down at us all.

“Greetings!” he smiled “It is good to see you all again, Little Stark you look as radiant as ever.” “Thanks Thor!” Katie laughed as besides her Steve bristled a little bit.

“Jane says you need my help.”

“Yeah, we got a job Point Break.” Tony said.

“Is this to do with SHIELD and Hydra?” the God’s deep voice rumbled.

“You know about that?” Katie asked.

“Of course, it was all over the news. I watch that now, with Jane” he said, a glint in his eyes, “But that reminds me, I have a bone to pick with both you and the Captain…”

Steve frowned and looked at Katie, the pair of them sharing a glance before they looked back at the screen.

“I saw you both on the television fighting SHIELD alongside the Birdman…” Thor continued, ignoring Katie and Steve’s laughter as they both thought of Sam’s face if he could hear that nickname, “Why didn’t you call me? You know how much I love fighting.”

“They didn’t send for me either…” Tony said, putting his hand up.

“Call you, do you have a cell phone?” Katie looked at Thor.

“No, what for?”

She didn’t reply, instead she looked away trying not to laugh at the perplexed look on the God’s face

“We have a lot of loose ends to tie up.” Steve spoke, steering the conversation back to the purpose in hand. “Not all of Hydra went down when we took SHIELD out.”

Thor’s face split into a grin. “More fighting?”

“More fighting.” Tony said, as Banner let out a small sigh.

“Why is there always fighting?”

They explained the basics of what was going on to Thor, before he promised to join them as soon as he could and then Banner headed off to shower and to unpack following his trip.

“I’m going to head to the office for a few hours.” Katie said. Steve nodded.

“Tony and I have stuff to do.” he said simply, but met her gaze with a passive one of his own as she glanced at him, arching her eyebrow.

“Ohh…I get it…” she grinned, “You’re sorting my birthday surprise. Cute.” As she turned to go she walked straight into the desk behind her, jabbing the corner harshly into her thigh.

“You alright?” Steve asked, trying but failing to hide the chuckle in his voice at her clumsiness.

“Thanks for your genuine concern.” She grumbled, instantly rubbing where the sharp corner had dug into her. “Shit, that hurt…Jesus fucking Christ…”

"Ooooh, hey. You kiss Spangles with that mouth?” Tony raised an eyebrow at her

“Yes, Tony, I kiss him all over with that mouth.” She glared at him as she rubbed her thigh. “Every inch of –”

Tony clapped his hands over his ears. “Lalalalalalalalala! I can’t hear you!”

Once Katie was out of earshot, Tony turned to Steve “You get it?”

He nodded, holding up his mother’s ring that he had managed to slip of when Katie was sleeping.

“Alright, let’s go.”

They drove the short distance into Manhatten, and Tony parked his car up in a private space behind the department store they were visiting. Steve followed him into the store where they were greeted by a small, grey haired mousy looking man dressed in an immaculate 3 piece suit.

“Mr Stark, Captain Rogers.”

“Hi Robert.” Tony smiled at him, clapping Steve on the shoulder “Take good care of him, he’s shitting himself.”

Steve sighed and shook his head but the inventor had already wandered off to the other side of the store, examining something in one of the glass cases.

“It’s perfectly understandable to be nervous, it’s a big thing.” Robert smiled, gesturing for Steve to follow him. He did, as they walked across the store to a small room at the back. Steve walked in and dropped into a seat. “So, do you have anything specific in mind?”

Steve took a deep breath, “Something elegant, but flashy enough to be special, I’ve no idea really, other than she prefers white gold to yellow.”

Robert smiled at him, “White gold or platinum. Ok. Any idea on the cut of diamond?”

“Princess.” Steve said, smiling. That he did know, from way before they were even dating.

“Oh my god!” Katie said, looking at the gossip magazine Natasha was reading, as Steve peered up at them from the seat behind his desk. “That’s fucking hideous.”

Natasha snorted “20 carat apparently.”

“Who the fuck needs a 20 carat ring?” Katie shook her head.

“I dunno, not something Tony would buy for Pepper?”

“Nah he isn’t that tacky.” she shook her head “And I’d kick his ass, it’s so…garish.”

“I don’t think the cut helps” Nat said, holding the magazine up “It’s a Brilliant, so looks a bit..”

“Shit?” Katie offered and the girls laughed “Seriously, if I ever have a man who’s ready to propose you better tell him it’s Princess or bust…”

He and Robert chatted for a few moments, Steve assuring him that the budget was healthy, whilst the man headed off into the store and came back with a few options set on a blue velvet tray of sorts. Steve’s eyes were instantly drawn to one in the middle. It was held a large diamond and was set into an elaborate clasp which melted into the band which was studded with smaller diamonds.

“Ahh yes.” Robert smiled as Steve picked it up “That’s one of my favourites. It’s a Tiffany Novo…”

“Sorry, did you say Nova?” Steve’s head jerked up, a smile on his face.

“Novo, Captain.”

Close enough Steve thought as he grinned.

“Princess cut with a Pave set Diamond band in platinum. That one’s a 2.05 carat, but we can do it smaller.”

“No, this one is perfect.” Steve smiled, looking at him.

“Well, that was easy…” Robert quipped and Steve nodded, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah…” he let out a chortle of a laugh, “you had me at Novo.”

Robert frowned, but didn’t ask for an explanation. “That one there is Sixty-Six thou…”

“Holy shit.” Steve exclaimed, before hastily apologising for his outburst. He knew he had said he had a decent budget but…

“However, Captain, seeing as it’s you, I can shave twenty percent off that, leave my commission.” he man smiled as Steve began to protest “And offer you a further ten percent for Tony being a regular customer.”

“I couldn’t…”

“You guys saved my daughter’s life in New York.” Robert looked at him, smiling softly “She was in the bank.”

Steve took a deep breath and shrugged, a faint flush on his cheeks. “Just doing my job.”

“So am I. So we’ll call it forty, and I’ll throw in an extra eighteen months care package. So she can bring it in to be cleaned, repaired should anything happen to it over the next three years.”

Steve hesitated, it was a lot of money. He knew he had enough, more than enough. His wages from SHIELD had been generous, plus his Army back pay that Katie and Fury had secured for him had been piling up and earning interest, but he still wasn’t used to being able to just flash it around. Plus now he wasn’t technically earning either…but the more he looked at it, the more he just knew it was right.

And she was worth far more to him than anything money could buy.

“I’ll take it.” He nodded, decision made.

He handed Robert his Ma’s ring, which Katie had had resized to fit properly and Robert nodded, smiling as he slid it onto a measuring cone.

“You’re in luck Captain. We have one that size in stock so you can take it away today. Whilst we’re here, would you like me to give this one a polish?”

“Oh, err, yeah, great.”

He shook hands with the man and headed back into the store where Tony was now leaning over a cabinet, talking to a blonde haired assistant. He pointed at a necklace with an obscene price tag, and she nodded, picking it up and turning around.

“Something for Pep.” he said, gesturing to the gift as he nodded at Steve. “You know, just because.” he frowned “That was fast.”

“Found the perfect one.” Steve smiled “It’s called a Novo”

“Nova?” Tony looked at him, eyebrow raising as he smirked.

“No, Novo…although that’s what I heard too at first.” Steve laughed.

“Huh.” Tony said, as Robert approached them. He opened the box he was holding and reached in for the ring, setting it down on a velvet tray again to show to the men. It was even brighter in the store lights than in the room. Steve heard Tony whistle at the side of him.

“That’s a rock and a half Cap.”

“She’s worth it.” he shrugged, simply. “I just hope she likes it.”

“If she doesn’t we can exchange.” Robert said, as he finished his inspection and after making himself happy the ring was perfect he boxed it up and handed it to Steve in a Tiffany bag.

“Cap, you could propose with a ring pull and she’d say it was perfect.” Tony smiled.

“Now you tell me.” Steve said, handing over his credit card.

*******

“Shit, shit, shit…” Katie was panicking. Her ring was gone. Steve’s Ma’s ring. The one he had given to her at Christmas. The only real thing he had of his mom left. She’d ransacked the bedroom, living room, her office. “No,no…”

She made her way back into the kitchen, looking everywhere, before she headed into the bathroom. Nothing. She collapsed onto the closed toilet seat, her head in her hands as she began to cry when she heard the elevator door open.

Steve stopped as he walked into the living room, frowning at the utter chaos that greeted him. Cushions were all over the place, drawers in the large unit were flung open. Immediately he went on the defensive, knowing it was ridiculous as there was no way anyone could have gotten in here, but still…

“Katie?” he called. Katie’s head jerked up and she wiped her eyes

“Bathroom.” she said back, and he could tell from her tone something was wrong.

“Doll, what’s going on?” He strode into the bedroom and then stepped into the large en-suite. She’d been crying. “Baby?” he crouched in front of her.

“I…I’m so sorry…” Her voice cracked. “But your mom’s ring… I can’t…”

Steve felt a sudden pang of guilt, she was distraught, thinking she had lost it. He hadn’t thought of that.

“No, sweetheart, it’s ok, I’ve got it.”

“You do?” she frowned.

“Yeah.” he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled it out. “I was looking at it when you were asleep last night and thought it could do with a bit of a clean-up so I took it off and Tony took me to a place Pepper takes hers…”

Katie looked at the ring, before she felt her anger simmer over.

“You complete ass Steven Grant Rogers!” she yelled, hitting him in the chest “I’ve spent the last 3 hours out of my mind with worry…”

“I know, I should have told you but I wanted it to be a surprise.” Steve lied, hoping to god for once she wouldn’t see through it “I’m so sorry!”

She snatched it off him, returning it to its home and she glared at him, before looking down at it.

“Well, it does look nice and shiny” she said, admiring it and Steve let out a sigh of relief “Don’t touch my stuff.”

“Your stuff?” he looked at her as she wiped at her face.

“Yes, my stuff.” she repeated petulantly. “You gave it to me, remember. It’s mine.”

He was about to laugh and call her a brat, when there was a loud clap of thunder and a flashing of bright white light, punctuated by various rainbow colours, outside the bedroom window and they both turned their heads to look at it.

“Thor!” Katie said, jumping up and beaming.

“Am I forgiven?” Steve asked, rising to his feet. She turned and looked at him, rolling her eyes at the injured puppy dog eyes he was giving her.

“Pull another stunt like that again and I’m imposing a sex ban for a week.”

“Yes Ma’am.” he grinned, giving her a peck on the lips.

****

Thor’s arrival spurred the Avengers into getting down to some real planning, and when Clint arrived that day too, bringing with him the news that Natasha would be with them by the middle of June- she was on some kind of trip with Fury-those of them present began to take all the information they had, planning their first raid on one of the uncovered Hydra bases, this one being on the outskirts of Seattle.

“Your call Cap.” Tony looked at Steve, his jaw was twitching as he turned over the pros and cons of hitting the base whilst they were still one down on the team. Eventually he made his decision and looked around the team.

Suit up…” he said, straightening up “Wheels up in 20”

Behind him Banner groaned.

He needn’t have worried though, there was no need for a code green. In fact, it was a bit of a damp squib. There were minimum guards to take out and all in all it was relatively easy. There were also no computers, just a truck load of paper files which they meticulously boxed up and loaded onto the jet.

Over the next two weeks they hit the remaining unknown basis that they had discovered, and every one of them was the same. They were clearly never used as main strongholds, more like storage facilities if anything. Steve was frustrated, Katie knew that. But as she and Tony pointed out to him, they had a hell of a lot of information to comb through. They liaised with Fury, who had nothing new to add, other than that he would be in touch if his team needed help about the remaining bases in Europe.

As such they spent most of their time filtering through the information they had gotten from the bases, along with the boxes of files that Fury and Hill had pulled from SHIELD. Banner and Katie (when she wasn’t working) set up a simple filing system as they went along, cataloguing each bit of paper information so they knew where to find it in future, and could add to it as they went along.

There wasn’t much to go on, they didn’t find any new information, and nothing on Bucky, but there was one name that continued to crop up time and time again.

“Baron Von Strucker…” Katie said to the team which was congregated in the lab. “I’ve gone through the information available, including what was dumped on the internet when we released all the files…it isn’t pretty reading.”

Clint lounged with his feet up on the desk munching some popcorn. He offered it round and Tony took a hand full.

“Not likely to be where Hydra is involved.” he said, leaning against a desk, chucking the popcorn in his mouth.

Steve who had been flicking through a file clucked slightly with his tongue and shook his head “Says here he trained with Jasper Sitwell at the Preparatory Academy.”

Tony began choking and at first Katie thought it was reaction to the fact that Hydra had an academy but she soon realised, as he was pointing at Clint with a disgusted expression on his face that it was the popcorn. She grinned- Clint like his popcorn laced with cayenne pepper.

“What is wrong with butter and salt?” Tony gasped as Clint explained what was on the corn through his laughter. Thor reached over curiously and took a handful before declaring, much to Clint’s annoyance, that he enjoyed the spicy snack.

“He had his fingers in a lot of SHIELD pies” Katie continued “He was running the SHIELD STATION, which is the Scientific Training and Tactical Intelligence Operative Network, an R&D facility which was established to conduct investigations on the material retrieved from the ground during the battle of New York, you know, the shit Fury said he had destroyed?”

“Alright.” Steve nodded “Dig up what you can on it and then we’ll go from there. From the sounds of it he seems like the one we should be focussing on.”

Katie nodded.

“But not tonight.” Tony said, looking at Steve “I think we deserve a break, especially seeing as it’s someone’s 30th tomorrow.”

The room cheered and Katie rolled her eyes “Yeah yeah…don’t remind me.”

*****

Katie woke the next morning to soft kisses peppering the side of her neck and a deep burn growing at her centre as she was slowly pulled to consciousness. She let out a low moan and felt the lips at her throat spread into a sly smile

“You dreaming about me?” her Soldier whispered.

She bit her lip, arching her back and leaned into him as his hand splayed on her stomach, pulling her closer before she felt his fingers sliding down gently to the space between her legs. She didn’t say a word, she couldn’t. It was all she could do to simply groan as he gently pushed two fingers inside her, before he moved to massaging her spot. She pulled her legs together suddenly, thighs tightening as the muscles in her core clenched.

“You want more?” he asked, voice slow and deep.

She nodded eagerly, moving so that she was lay on her back and finally opened her eyes.

Steve gently moved, so his knee was positioned between her legs, sliding his T-shirt over her head before one hands moved up her body, tracing her ribs before he started to caress her breast, the other fingers continued to stroke inside, making her groan more and more. He placed a soft kiss on her jawline and smiled at her.

“Happy birthday, Gorgeous.”

His words undid her, and she let out a sound that was halfway between a gasp and a squeal, feeling for him under the sheets “Steve…” Every inch of her was on fire and he wanted him. “Please…” she begged, her voice catching as he moved over on top of her fully, shoving his boxers down and she let out a long shaky moan as he entered her.

“Good?” he asked, his breath a whisper and she nodded eagerly as he began to move. His thrusts were slow but deep and powerful, every roll of his hips sent his pelvis rocking up against her spot.

It didn’t take long at all, she was so close already and Steve watched her face, not wanting to miss the moment.

“Fuck…” Her head completely dropped backwards as her core spasmed again and then she came, hard, her orgasm rolling over her in such a way it had her clinging to Steve, crying out a strangled cry as he too reached his peak, her name tumbling from his lips.

The minutes passed as they lay curled in silence, completely blissed out and relaxed, hearing only each other’s gradually steadying breaths.

Steve’s hand gently stroked the arm that was draped over his abdomen before he gently moved her to one side, sitting up. He had things to do.

“Hey…” she began to protest before he smiled.

“I’m going to make you breakfast”

“You are?”

“Of course, it’s your birthday” He chuckled, from the edge of the bed where he was pulling on a pair of sweats.

"Pancakes,” she muttered hopefully.

He laughed. “Yup,” he said before lowering his lips onto hers. They shared a long, deep kiss that left them grinning like idiots as he pulled away, hopping off the bed and pulling on a t-shirt before leaving the room.

Katie stretched out and glanced over at the clock on the bedside table. It was half 9. A perfectly reasonable time to wake up on her birthday. And the best bit was, she had an entire day of being a spoilt birthday brat ahead of her! Steve was taking her to Coney Island in the afternoon, he had been dying to take her back to Brooklyn for ages and they’d picked today to go after the team had decided to take a break from the non-stop research and missions. Then later in the evening there was some form of meal booked, although where she had absolutely no idea. She’d been trying to catch everyone out about it for weeks but failed, miserably.

She was just about to get out of bed and into the shower when she heard her phone vibrating on the nightstand beside her bed. She reached over for it, and rolled her eyes. It was Tony.

“Happy birthday kiddo! How does it feel to be officially old?”

“You still got fourteen years on me, you dick!” she said, grinning before she yawned slightly “Why are you ringing me when you’re, what? A floor away?”

“Wasn’t sure if you’d be up or not.”

“Well there’s no worries on that account as for my birthday Steve got me a new alarm clock.”

“An alarm clock?” Tony said, his tone flat

“Yeah.” she said, biting her lip as she fought to keep myself from laughing “His penis.”

There was a pause “That’s gross.” Tony groaned and Katie laughed as he continued to complain “I mean it’s bad enough knowing that you two…you know, without being given some form of mental image like that…”

“Oh quit your whining!” she grinned “When you bringing me my present?”

“Ah well, you’ll have to come get it, it’s a bit big.”

“Big?” I said “It’s not a 16 foot teddy bear is it?”

It was his turn to laugh “No, although, speaking of big, stuffed animals, what did Cap actually get you?”

“You’re hilarious, and I’ve no idea. He’s making me breakfast at the moment.”

“More sausage?” he said sardonically.

“Pancakes, actually” she replied “Which is why I need to go and have a shower before he eats them all himself…”

“Alright, come up when you’re ready…” he said. “Not going anywhere…”

By the time she made her way into the large open plan living area, Steve had already completed 2 stacks of pancakes (his miles bigger than hers), a plate of bacon and was just setting 2 glasses of orange juice down on the breakfast bar in front of the 2 plates. He looked up and smiled, she was dressed casually for a day at the fair, tight jeans, boots and long white top, over which she wore an open beige half-sleeved cardigan, and her hair was pulled up into a high, messy pony tail. She looked beautiful as ever.

“You look lovely.” He said, pressing a kiss to the side of her head as she sat down. “So, how does it feel to be old?” He could barely get the words out without laughing, and she simply shook her head at his poor attempt at a joke

“You’re such a jerk!” She rolled her eyes, as he grinned.

They ate breakfast, and then like the big child she was she demanded to know where her presents were so Steve took her hand and led her into the living room where they were laid out on the coffee table.

She opened her gifts one by one, a few items of clothing, a pair of earrings, a new set of wireless earphones that she had mused over buying and then decided not to, a gorgeous white and rose gold diamond bracelet and a leather bound edition of the Wizard of Oz book to replace the one she had lost in Malibu.

“I saw that and couldn’t resist.” He grinned, as she grinned back “oh and here…”

This was the big one. He held out the envelope and Katie looked at him, gently taking it before she slid a finger under the top to rip it open. Steve watched as she pulled out the piece of paper and for the second time that morning her mouth dropped open in surprise. It was a print out of an itinerary leaving the 30th November and returning on the 14th December, with the locations being cities in Europe- Munich, Paris, Venice, Bruges, Dublin and London.

“2 nights in each…3 in London” Steve said as she glanced up at him, unable to speak “I didn’t know what else to do and I know you’ve wanted to go back to Europe for ages, and how much you love Christmas and the markets and stuff…”

“Oh my god, Steve… ” She glanced down at the paper, finally finding her voice. “This is amazing! I don’t know what to say.” Steve felt the familiar pink tinge growing around his cheeks before she threw her arms around him, “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

He smiled and then kissed her head before he pulled away. “Shall we go and see what outrageously flashy present Tony has for you?”

“Do you know what is is?” she asked.

“I might do…” he smiled as she stood up. There was no might about it. He knew what it was. And he knew she was going to lose her shit about it.

The two of them made their way up to Tony’s main living floor, her hand in his.

“You now I’m excited to finally take you to Coney Island.” He smiled as the door to the elevator shut.

“Excited?”

"Yeah, it’s just I watched Bucky take so many dates around there and I spent most of my time wondering when I was gonna’ get to take my own gal.” He admitted, bashfully.

"God, you’re adorable,” she smiled at him as the doors opened.

“Happy birthday!” Both Tony and Pepper chimed and she grinned, stepping out and into Pepper’s arms before Tony swept her into a hug.

“Well I don’t see any huge stuffed toys so…” she looked around and Pepper snorted.

“I talked him out of it.”

Tony handed her a small box and Katie looked at him.

“This isn’t big.”

“Brat.” Tony rolled his eyes and she smirked. She pulled the ribbon of the box, took the lid off and stared at the content inside. And as it dawned on her what it was she looked up at him, then to Steve, who was watching her, an amused expression on her face, then back at the box her eyes wide.

“You didn’t?” she looked up at her brother, her mouth dropping open.

Tony shrugged “Well you buried your Range Rover and gave away the Audi so…”

She looked at him for a split second before she squealed, threw herself at her brother and then turned on her heels, running.

Steve and Tony both watched her go before they turned to one another and followed her.

“You ready?” Tony asked.

“As I’ll ever be.” Steve nodded.

“Huh.” Tony nodded.

“Ready for what?” Pepper asked.

“Oh, they’re going to Coney Island.” Tony said as they headed down in the elevator, waving away her question.

Way ahead of them Katie burst into the parking lot and skidded to a halt. There, in all its glory was her own brand new Chevrolet Camero Exorcist, the car she had dreamed of since she was a teenager. It was gorgeous. Deep blue with cream leather interior. She unlocked it and sat in the driver’s seat, taking in the smell. The head rests were stitched with the Stark Industries logo and the dash was awash with every single button and function you could imagine.

“Fire it up.” a voice said, and Tony looked at her through the open driver’s side door. She did as she was told and grinned at the beautiful growling noise it made and squealed, feeling the leather of the steering wheel.

She turned to Steve who was stood leaning slightly on the door watching her.

“Hop in soldier!” she grinned, and he smirked, walking to the passenger side.

“Have fun…” Tony said, before he turned to Steve and looked at him, giving him a significant nod and a clap on the shoulder. Steve smiled back and then sank into the leather seat. He had to admit the car was nice. Katie pulled out of the space and gave a groan that was far too arousing than it should have been.

“Oh my god…” she murmured, as she pulled onto the street. The car purred and handled like a dream. As she put her foot down it sped forward, throwing them both back in the seat.

“Easy baby!” Steve chuckled as she laughed, speeding over Brooklyn Bridge. “You’re gonna get a ticket…”

She shrugged, not actually caring at that point.

*****

Steve wound up, pitching the ball which sliced through the bottles on the stall diagonally, knocking them completely off their pedestal and sending the ball through the back of the canvas booth as it ripped a hole clean through it. Steve bit his lip, not realising how hard he had thrown it and turned to look at Katie. She was doubled over, laughing at the look on his face, and then laughed even harder at the expression on the attendants face as he glanced from Steve to the bottles on the floor, to the hole in the canvas and back again.

“Which one do you want?” Steve asked, placing his arm around her as the attendant indicated for her to pick a toy.

“I think I’ll have that one…” she said, pointing to a brown bear that was dressed in a Captain America outfit, complete with helmet and shield.

Steve shot her a look and she held out her hands, protesting her innocence. “What?”

“Good choice ma’am” the attendant said, handing over the bear “He’s an all American hero is our Captain.”

“That he is.” She grinned “He’s incredibly handsome too I believe.”

Steve cut her off as he thanked the man before steering her away as he checked his watch. They had about an hour before they needed to get back.

“Come on, let’s take a walk.”

He led them both down to the sea front, pausing to get a hot dog each, and they walked, eating in comfortable silence. The sun was still warm in the sky, the sea was by their side and Katie was lost in her own little world until she realised Steve wasn’t besides her. She turned to look for him, wondering where he was and then spotted him a few yards behind her, crouched on one knee on the well-worn wooden slats of the boardwalk.

“I told you I was gonna ask you properly one day.” He cleared his throat, looking up at her with those blue eyes she loved so much as he held out his hand, opening the small box that was inside. The sun bounced off the surface of the ring and she couldn’t see it fully but she clamped her hands over her mouth. “I know we were a little too late to be each other’s firsts, well in some ways anyway…” he said, and Katie let out a choked giggle. “But I want all my lasts to be with you. Will you marry me, sweetheart?”

“And I told you I’d say yes one day!” She said, her voice cracking with emotion as she removed her hands shakily from her mouth and nodded. “Yes. Yes of course I’ll marry you.”

A few of the by-standers who had been watching started cheering as Steve jumped up, everything around him bar his girl faded to nothing as she threw herself into his arms. He picked her up, laughing like an idiot, his strong arms round her as he twirled her round, the pair of them sharing fast, rapid dizzying pecks on the lips as he held her off the floor. Eventually he set her on her feet, an utterly stupid grin plastered on his face as he looked at her, a grin that wasn’t going to fade any time soon.

“Do I errr have to put it on myself?” She spluttered a laugh, raising an eyebrow.

“What, oh, yeah, right…” he said, stepping back and removing the ring from its home, fumbling slightly before he managed to get it out, holding it in his right hand, but before he could do anything else she grabbed his left hand which contained the box before he could slip it back into his pocket.

“You bought me a Tiffany?” She almost shrieked as she looked at the distinctive blue-green box in her hand.

“Yeah, and if you give me a second you can see it.” Steve chuckled at her. Biting her lip she held out her left hand and he slid the ring onto her finger and she let out a loud gasp.

“Stevie, it’s beautiful.” She whispered, looking at it before she took his face in both her hands. “I love it.”

“I love you.” he murmured into their kiss. He grinned and dropped and arm round her shoulder as they made their way back down the boardwalk, back to the car, Katie’s eyes almost permanently transfixed on her ring.

“You definitely like it?” Steve asked, suddenly feeling nervous as he nodded to her hand

“It’s perfect, but how did you know?” she looked up at him as they reached the other side of the road

“Do the words, ‘big, fuck off Tiffany diamond’ ring any bells?” he looked at her, referencing their conversation outside his flat a few months ago.

“Not about the tiffany.” she shook her head “But the cut. It’s a princess one, the one I’ve always wanted.

“I have a good memory” he smiled, “And I picked that particular one because its a design called a Novo. I thought he said Nova at first.”

Katie laughed as she snaked her arms round his neck. “For the record, this was much a much better proposal than we can get married if you want….”

“Are you ever gonna let me forget that?” he sighed as he leaned down.

“I think you’ve redeemed yourself…” she said as her lips met his.

****

“Tony suggested we have a drink before we meet everyone.” Steve stepped into the elevator and Katie looked at him before she smoothed down her white dress.

“So where are we meeting everyone?”

“It’s a surprise, stop being so impatient.”

“Errr. You can’t tell me off, it’s my birthday.”

“Well stop asking so many questions and just enjoy your night!”

She didn’t get chance to reply as then the elevator doors opened onto the main party floor and there was a loud eruption of noise, making Katie jump.

“SURPRISE!”

Her mouth dropped open as she looked around the room. It was decorated in banners, balloons, and now paper streamers from the party poppers that had just been exploded by their friends. Clint, Thor, Bruce, Rhodey, Sam, Maria Hill, Tony, Pepper, Lawson, Evans, a whole host of people that worked in the offices and a familiar copper haired assassin stepped forward to greet her.

“Miss me?” Nat quipped.

“I can’t…” Katie began to speak, as she hugged her friend back “Oh my God…”

“JARVIS can you record this?” she heard Tony speak. “For this is a monumental occasion. She’s actually speechless…”

Katie turned to look at Steve who had been watching her reaction with a smile on his face. He loved seeing her happy, and he was pretty sure he’d managed to achieve that several times over during the day.

“Did you organise this?” she asked

“Why do you sound so surprised?” he chuckled, stepping forward to kiss her cheek “I had a little help but yeah, it was my idea. Happy Birthday baby.”

Before she could reply Natasha suddenly spoke very loudly.

“What is that?”

“What?” Katie asked, although she knew full well what Natasha was talking about.

“Errrr that?” She grabbed at Katie’s left hand.

The room fell silent.

“What does it look like?” Katie grinned at her

“Holy fucking shit.” Steve heard Clint chuckle as he slid his arm round his fiancées waist and the two of them exchanged a smile.

“We’re getting married” Steve grinned, finally tearing his eyes from Katie to look round the room. There was a pause and he locked eyes with Tony who winked at him before there was a flurry of noise and activity as everyone surged forward to congratulate them.

Tony reached them first and the two men shared a manly hug, which included lots of back slapping before he dropped a kiss to his sister’s cheek as Katie felt a hand grab hers. Natasha scrutinised her newest piece of jewellery before she looked up at Steve.

“You picked that all by yourself?” she looked up at Steve.

“I’m not completely useless” he rolled his eyes.

“I’m impressed Rogers,”

Sam clapped Steve on his back and as the two men began to banter, Tony pulled his sister into his side.

“Congratulations Kiddo.” He said, looking down at her hand “Looks even better on.”

“You’ve seen it?” She frowned.

“I may or may not have taken him to Tiffany’s…” Tony shrugged. “But I promise he picked it all by himself”

“So you knew he was gonna ask me?”

“He asked my permission.” Tony sniffed. “Well I might not be Dad but…”

Katie noticed his eyes were shining and she smiled at him as he continued.

“I want you to know,” Tony’s voice cracked slightly “I couldn’t be prouder of you, or love you more if you were my own.”

“Stop it, you’re making me cry!” Katie exclaimed, the tears in her own eyes gently spilling out as he pulled her into huge hug and she pressed her face into his chest. Eventually she stepped back, the pair of them wiping their eyes and Tony took the opportunity of a distraction, turning to a waiter.

Steve, who had been watching the two siblings saw the emotional exchanged and he stepped forward, as Tony was yelling about champagne for a toast.

“You alright?” Steve asked, gently wiping a tear off her cheek before he slipped his arms around her waist.

“Never been happier.” she beamed, honestly, her hands winding round his neck “ I know I said last year was the best birthday ever but this has smacked it straight out of the park.”

“Glad to hear it.” he smiled, leaning down to kiss her “I love you.”

“God job, seeing as I’m gonna be your wife.” she teased, her hand tangling in the back of his hair.

“Yeah…” he said, the shit eating grin spreading across his face again as he contemplated the words. His wife. “Yeah, you are”

Chapter 19

**Original Posting**

#stark spangled banner #steve rogers #Katie Stark #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers fic #steve rogers x ofc #steve rogers x original female character #mcu #mcu fanfic #captain america #chris evans #chris evans characters

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virovac · 3 years

Text

Nature of Ghouls

Lovecraftian Xenology #3: Ghouls [by Leila Hann Before continuing with Carter and the Pussycats, I'm going to be taking a closer look at the creatures that made their debut in "Pickman's Model" before receiving their official name here in "Dream-Quest." This is going to be a tricky one. Reading "Pickman's Model" in isolation gives you a very strong impression of the ghouls, what they are, and where they come from. However, reading it alongside the other, earlier Dreamlands tales - particularly "Celephais" and "The Festival" - one walks away with a completely different interpretation. As for their reappearance in "Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath," well. On one hand "Dream-Quest" does silly things with other stories' continuities and perhaps should be best ignored. On the other, in the case of the ghouls, "Dream-Quest" not only expands on them in much greater detail than their debut story ever did, but is also the source of their official name. As such, I'm going to be taking the continuity approach, and looking at the ghouls within the framework of the Dreamlands series as a whole. The funny thing about "Pickman's Model" is that while the narrator is probably reliable, he's mostly relaying information that he learned from Richard Pickman, who seems to be much less so. As I noted while reading that story, there's a very obvious disconnect between the actions that Pickman depicted the ghouls performing in his art - particularly the "Subway Accident" piece - and what they could have possibly really done. Throughout his presentation, Pickman comes across as very much a showman, trying to create fear and horror in his audience and reveling mean-spiritedly in his success. Then, there's the detail of him interacting with the ghoul who tried to walk in on him and the narrator in the same way that a circus animal-tamer would with an unruly beast; not at all what you'd expect from a man who's trying to talk down a sapient, malevolent, possibly transhuman demon. As such, I think we need to take Pickman's art with a hefty grain of salt when it comes to inferring things about his models. This is supported by the ghouls' appearance in "Dream-Quest." They are described as hideous, frightening, and generally unpleasant, but they don't seem to be all that dangerous (unlike the zoogs, who are said to be dangerous to MOST people besides Carter, the ghouls don't even get an aside to this effect). Other than their antisocial habit of eating bodies from cemeteries that the deceased's friends and families would probably rather stay in their coffins, they really don't seem so bad. As far as the stories have reliably communicated, the ghouls are thieves and desecrators, but not the murderers and causers of disaster and misfortune that Pickman would want us to believe in. In fact, everything about the ghouls, from their appearance to their diet to their penchant for tombstones, scary noises, and dark, underground spaces, says that they aren't a force of destruction so much as one of horror. And, looking at "Pickman's Model" from that angle, we can definitely see how Pickman was helping them grow stronger in their element. Camel Spiders and Harnessed Horrors There's an animal called a solifugid, also called a pseudoscorpion or a camel-spider, that came to the western public's attention some time ago. Its a scary-looking arachnid, and one that you could easily believe was deadly if you saw it. Solifugids are mostly nocturnal, and so when they're forced to venture out of their lairs during the day they prefer to stick to the shadows...including the shadows of people, which they will chase after for that purpose. They're fast enough to keep up with a running human, and the rubbing of their legs when they move creates a squealing noise that could easily be mistaken for an aggressive vocalization. They also are always on the lookout for soft fibers to line their nests with; they got the name "camel spider" by being seen climbing on the bodies of dead or sleeping camels to cut off bits of their hair. In some cultures, this association was so great that people came to believe that the solifugids had actually killed the camels themselves. Less commonly, solifugids will crawl up onto the head of a sleeping human for similar hair-stealing operations. More than one American soldier sleeping in a tent in Iraq or Saudi Arabia has been woken up by a six inch specimen crawling across their face to see it opening its deadly-looking mouthparts just below their hairline. The solifugid is also completely harmless. In fact, its one of the only members of the arachnid class to have no venom whatsoever. It can even be a beneficial creature to have around, as it preys heavily on other arachnids including spiders and scorpions that actually are dangerous. During the early to mid 2000's, there was a rash of hoaxes about solifugids growing to lobster-size, being venomous, and even using a fictitious numbing agent to paralyze sleeping humans so they can slowly disembowel them alive. Someone was finding a misanthropic delight in taking this creature, which seems to have been practically designed by nature for this purpose with its appearance and habits, and crafting it into an instrument of irrational fear. This fear didn't come from nowhere, mind. The legend of the camel-spider harnesses the very rational human fears of venomous insects and being threatened in your sleep. But it takes those abstract rational fears and uses them to prop up a concrete figurehead of horror that is, itself, irrational. I'm an amateur horror writer myself, and I fell in love with the solifugids the instant I learned about them. I even had the pleasure of meeting a few during my time in the Arava Desert. I don't think that my soft spot for these arthropods and my choice of genres is a coincidence. In the Dreamlands, the cruel realities of the universe seem to be embodied in the Outer Gods, and anthropomorphized in their soul and messenger Nyarlathotep. If the ghouls are, as Pickman's art implied, meant to be like the witches of Puritan superstition, responsible for everything that goes wrong for humanity at the whims of a universe beyond our control, then it would make sense for them to be minions of Nyarlathotep. It would have been the easiest thing in the world for Lovecraft to cast them as such in "Dream-Quest" if that was really his intent; the story already calls for Nyarlathotep's agents to appear in numerous scenes, and the ghouls could have been among them. But they aren't. Instead, Carter meets the ghouls back on Dreamlands Earth, in entirely friendly circumstances, with them as the loyal servants of Carter's (trans)human friend Pickman. The ghouls are creatures of the relatable and imaginative Gods of Earth, not the apathetic and inhuman Gods of Space. Rather than being a cause or manifestation of our problems, the ghouls might even be one of our defenses against them. The witch was created so that we would have some kind of enemy to hunt down and revenge ourselves on when we suffer a tragedy caused by impersonal forces of nature such as disease or weather. The boogeyman in the closet exists because the darkness it hides in is so much worse, and putting a FACE on the unknown lets us believe that we can deal with it in a form we understand. The ghouls are indeed connected to the nightmarish witch superstitions that Pickman referenced, but it is a metafictional connection: they are the legend of the witch and boogeyman, and an embodiment of the psychology that leads to the birth of those legends. They harness the rational fears of human powerlessness, victimhood, and mortality, and embody them as an irrational archetype-creature, and in this form - as Carter just demonstrated in the latest episode of "Dream-Quest" - our fears can be useful tools. Even if the purpose of that tool is just confronting other people with their fears for fun and (in the case of Lovecraft, King, etc) profit. At several points in both "Pickman's Model" and "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath," Lovecraft described the ghouls as being "gargoyle-like." They even look a lot like Gothic gargoyles, with their doglike faces, hoofed feet, and (in the case of at least one or two specimens that Lovecraft described) devilish horns. The purpose of the gargoyles in the European cathedrals wasn't to honor or appease the Devil; it was to mock him, and thereby rob him of some of his power. Ghoul-Changelings and Pickman's Transformation Given that Earth's Dreamlands are shaped by metaphors and symbolism taken from the subconscious of human dreamers (at least in part), its hard to say what is and isn't "literally" true about its inhabitants. Unlike most Dreamlands creatures, however, the ghouls are quite active in the waking world as well if only for brief periods at a time. As such, there are some objective observations that can be made. 1) Ghouls inhabit a network of caves in the Dreamlands' deep underground that contains portals to various urban dungeons and necropoli in the waking world, particularly in the New England area where the dream-sorcerers may have interacted with or even deliberately summoned them. 2) Ghouls eat the corpses of humans and other sapient creatures that they recover from both the waking world and the Dreamlands, but seem to be less interested in live prey. They also collect old tombstones and grave-goods. 3) After they've finished eating, the ghouls toss the bones into the chasm beneath their cave complex, which over time has become positively covered in bones, and attracted giant worm scavengers. 4) Richard Upton Pickman turned into a ghoul. The former three points are fairly self explanatory. The fourth, however, raises a lot of questions. In Pickman's art, he portrayed ghouls exchanging their own young with human babies in the classic fairy changeling mould, with both the changelings and the stolen babies eventually becoming ghouls themselves. Pickman also portrayed a Puritan-era changeling that bore a great physical resemblance to himself. Some readers have taken this to mean that rather than simply being a descendant of the Native American dream-sorcerers like Carter, Pickman was the descendant of a ghoul changeling, and the character he depicted in that painting was one of his own ancestors. Others, that Pickman was himself just one of many changelings from throughout history, and that he identified himself with an earlier New England instance out of whimsy. However, I find it a bit conspicuous that while Carter identified the fully transformed ghoul-Pickman and specified that he had once been human, he never mentions the possibility of any of the other ghouls being the same. Thus, its possible that what happened to Pickman is actually unique, or at least very rare, and that the changeling scenario depicted in his art was purely symbolic of the horror-artist's role as a devil's advocate to the rest of humanity and an ambassador to the dark forces of the universe. Pickman's transformation. I'm inclined to believe that what caused Pickman's transformation was not him being a ghoul pup switched with a human at birth, but a product of him being both a) an almost obsessive devotee of horror, and b) a powerful dreamer with access to the Dreamlands, perhaps helped along in accessing them by some recovered magic from his oneiromancer ancestors just like Carter was. It could even be that rather than his art depicting something that had or could have already happened with the ghoul-transformation, Pickman's acts of imagining and drawing a transformation were what CREATED THE POSSIBILITY for such a transformation to actually happen. An idea of his was made real through the power of his dreaming, warping his own flesh into one of his ghouls in a similar - but more visceral - manner as Kyle being transformed into Kuranes. Another question about Pickman's transformation pertains to him having mostly forgotten how to speak English by the time Carter met him again in the Dreamlands. Did his transformation rob him of his English, or did he just forget it after spending so long in the Dreamlands interacting only with other ghouls? For that matter, how long HAD Pickman been a ghoul by the time Carter stumbled into the bone pit? Months? Years? Centuries? Time in the Dreamlands seems to work in arbitrary ways, as evidenced by how Carter can be timelooped in the waking world while living through consecutive centuries as an explorer in the Dreamlands. In "The Silver Key," we learned that the Dreamlands (or at least, Dreamlands related artifacts) can even send you BACK in time. Origins? Since time in the Dreamlands interacts in very unpredictable ways with the waking world's timeline, its very difficult to say when and where the ghouls first came into existence. Since Pickman's art is also of questionable waking world veracity, we can't really tell if the ghouls have actually been popping up in the New England witch tunnels since the 1700's, and - even if they have - they could have been born in the Dreamlands from an event that had not yet happened in the waking world's timeline and popped out of those tunnels earlier in history as we waking earthlings perceive it. Another interesting fact to point out here is that Randolph Carter, Dreamlands explorer extraordinaire, only knew about the ghouls BECAUSE he met Pickman during his waking life. Its possible that the ghouls are a manifestation of some core archetype within the human collective unconscious. The Horror, the Boogeyman, the terrifying friend to artists and writers who delight in confronting their fellow humans with humanity's frailties and fears. The creatures that appeared in the dreams of H.R. Giger and caused him to wake up in heart-stopping terror on so many different nights, and yet that he adopted and came to love. Even if his own fear of them never diminished, it became HIS fear, and they became HIS monsters, and he began to feel possessive of them and delight in sharing their terror with others who lacked his mastery over them. The creatures that appeared in the dreams of Stephen King and inspired him to turn the anxieties of the modern United States against it, while cackling about keeping the hearts of fictitious young children in his study. The creatures that haunted the dreams of H.P. Lovecraft, and inspired him to write stories like "Pickman's Model," delighting in his own ability to scare Weird Tales' readers just as Pickman delighted in scaring the narrator. There is a moment in "Pickman's Model" when the ghoul walks in on them and Pickman has to go make it leave, when PICKMAN HIMSELF is described as looking terrified. And yet, despite that, he was able to reassert control over the ghoul and command it to leave him alone until he wanted it to return. I suspect that if Pickman ever stopped being afraid of the ghouls himself, they would have abandoned him and sought a fresh artist to inspire. Such is the relationship between the horrorist and the monster. There is another possibility, though. And that is that rather than being a universal manifestation of horror that serve as muses to numerous masters of the craft, the ghouls are the specific nightmare-turned-minion of one specific master of horror. Kyle/Kuranes dreamed Celephais and its people into existence, and then abandoned the waking world entirely to rule them for all time. What might another instance of this look like, if the dreamer in question was less of a sensitive too-good-for-this-world melancholic, and more of an angry misanthrope with a fixation with his Salem ancestry and an almost monomaniacal obsession with showing us fear in a handful of grave-dust? Perhaps it was just Richard Upton Pickman who loved his own, personal, imaginary monsters so much. And, through the power of the Dreamlands, they were able to love him back.

So ghouls are a combination of guardians, Halloweentown, and irreverance of 4chan.

A more benevolent take than my past one.

#dreamlands #ghouls #lovecraft

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