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thunderpot · 4 years

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For the curious~

As soon as Alya was out of the shield, Marinette in her arms, Hawkmoth moved to approach them. The akuma hadn't been able to drain all of Mari thanks to the entire group getting in front of it, but it had still taken a good chunk and it was vital she was out of sight immediately.

Still unable to move freely, Adrien felt relieved when Nino ran as if his tigh wasn’t wounded and remade his shield in a constricting manner around the enemy, getting a cuss out of the villain's mouth that made his stomach turn. The more Hawkmoth existed, it seemed, the sicker he grew at the mere sight of him.

His entire body should be aching, but the adrenaline was getting too high for it —and for that he was grateful. He shouted against the rain to his friend to protect the other two, straightening himself and feeling the tickling sensation of Tikki's power. She was aprehensive, and he couldn't blame her. Once his friend was gone, the shield around Hawkmoth gave up and the man launched into his direction intent on taking the rare chance of snatching one of the two most powerful miraculous while he was still weak, a mere 5 meters between them.

"You are not getting the chance!"

Under any other circumstance, Adrien would've shouted something, anything to make light of the situation, but all jokes and fun had suddenly dried out. He wasn't fast enough to stop Hawkmoth and fell back to the ground, his legs his only barrier while the man tried to bring his hands close enough to pick one of his earrings out by force.

In a split second he mustered all the strength he had left and gave him a closed fist right to the chin, pushing him back with his legs right after and seeing him roll to the side with a groan. He had no time to revel in the sound, however, and struggled to get back on his feet once more. He needed to put some distance between them and grab his baton back.

Running to the edge of the building they stood on, he could see it shining faintly behind a pipe, but Hawkmoth was up and running right behind him again way too soon.

"You think yourself too smart, don't you" Hawkmoth said in an almost amusing way, and Adrien could almost see the grin on his mouth even without turning around. "But you're too weak! if it was any other miraculous..But using these two will be too much to your body right now. Just give the ladybug to me and I will fix everything!"

"Shut up!

"You prefer to die!?" His plan was working. Talking made the boy go slightly slower, and the energy his new miraculous gave him made him faster. he was just about to touch that damn fool. He just needed to close the gap, just a little bit more...

He wasn't fast enough, however, and halted as he saw Chat Noir take a last second decision to use the wet floor to his advantage, throwing himself on the ground and closing the distance between him and his baton with a slide, arms open and mouth muttering something he didn't need to listen to understand.

A beam of bright white light blinded him for a few seconds, and before he could even see again his instincts made him jump back just in time to avoid something that hit the ground with such force that he could hear the cement cracking before whatever it was was taken back.

He blinked a few times while his sight came back to him, following the thing that had almost caught him: It was Chat Noir's baton, that was for sure, but it was now black and splitted with a bright red cord between the pieces as if it was some sort of nunchaku. It came back to it's master's grip and closed itself as if the cord had never been there before, but it wasn't the new weapon that froze him in place.

Right in front of him was standing the annoying boy he had been trying to get rid of for the past 10 years.

No.

The boy that scrambled his plans over and over again and he swore more than once he would destroy. The boy he almost killed many times.

No.

The boy he almost succeded in killing many times. His son.

"Cat got your tongue?" Adrien told him with zero amusement, baton in hand growing as it usually did, and he could see when Hawkmoth felt the ground faltering below his feet.

While transforming, there were only two things in Adrien's mind: having enough resources to ditch every move Hawkmoth had into the trash, and be sure that bastard saw his face. And so his kwami friends conceded his wish, and his transformation had all the right bits except the mask to conceal his identity. He knew his eyes were still merged with Plagg's, and he liked it because it meant he could see very clearly through the rain and into the night. All his senses were ready for one thing only: Stop his father.

Without an answer, the hero continued, being thankful for his newfound force and regained energy, and gave a single, slowly step that made Hawkmoth go back one step in response.

"You--Adri--" Hawkmoth started, but jumped again at the leap his son gave to close the distance between them, his baton cracking the ground again just where he stood mere seconds before. "Adrien stop that! You could die!!"

"Death is overrated" His tone was smooth while he got up and leaped again, atacking over and over while Hawkmoth barelly defended himself with his cane.

He had so many things to ask, and yet none of them seemed to be able to blurt out of his mouth while he saw the man fanctically trying to protect his face and both miraculous he had active at the moment — as to not shatter them and undo the only thing protecting him from being dead by a single blow of his baton.

He wanted to say he couldn't care less, but deep down, something in him still cared.

"Why!?" He shouted instead of any other question, but never stopping his blows. Hawkmoth let himself get hit once before using his cane to push into his wounds and he grunted, the seconds he faltered just enough for the other man to jump to the next building to get some space between them.

"You do not understand!" Hawkmoth shouted back, Adrien could see a mix of anger and desperation bulding behind his now pink-ish eyes "I did this for us-I did this for you! If you just give me the Ladybug you'd—"

Adrien grunted once more, out of rage this time, and leaped after him. Hawkmoth conjured a swarm of butterflies that almost made him fall from the building - enough distraction to put even more space between them.

"For me!?" He got up the water tank on a corner and saw the butterflies leave him alone while his enemy listened "For me!?" an unamused laugh this time "The only thing you wanted all these years was power on top of power! You are a manipulative prick, a lying bastard, a killer!"

"I never intended to-"

"DON'T FUCK WITH ME!" He shouted, jumping to the top of the building Gabriel stood on and landing in a cat-like manner, not bothering to get back up before slowly circling him once, analyzing.

"All the people you manipulated to control and all the ones you hurt... Do you want to know how many times I would be fucking dead by your doing if it wasn't Ladybug!?”

That seemed to click something inside Hawkmoth's head, because the man started attacking him back with a mix of cane attacks and butterfly swarms in hopes of making him use his power and greatly reduce the time he had to fight.

"YES, I DID ALL THAT!" He seemed enraged, and Adrien wanted nothing more. "But you and Ladybug know nothing! I did it for a greater purpose! I did did for our family!!"

"Do you want me to enumerate how many innocent people Ladybug brought back to life that died by YOUR akumas!?" Adrien dodged his cane once and crouched when the butterflies tried to get to him "How many people are endangered right now because of you!? There is nothing that would justify what you did- nothing!"

Saying those things out loud made him even more enraged. He could barely get any rest some nights thinking about the amount of times they couldn't completely save the day, how many people were endangered or affected because of their fight. He had no idea how that man even slept knowing what he did.

Gabriel jumped to flee and he went right behind him. Deep down he still wanted a reason, something that was strong enough. He didn't want his father to--

"I DID IT TO BRING YOUR MOTHER BACK!"

This time, it was something inside him that lit up. A fire he did not know he was capable of having, but he felt nonetheless. Before he could even control his own body, he propelled himself full force on a chimney and caught Hawkmoth mid-jump, one hand pulling and throwing his cane away, the other holding his neck.

He could feel the fabric of his suit barely holding against his claws and, this time, he could truly say he couldn't care less.

The older man's head slammed against the wall of the building's lift motor room as they landed, and Adrien saw himself pulling him from it and slamming his father's head against the wall a second time, and then a third.

"Don't you dare." His eyes were wide and his tone was lethal as he pushed Halkmoth out of the ground, still anchored on the wall by his hand holding him in place. "Don't you dare bring her into this"

Gabriel was holding his arm with both his hands now, but Adrien's force was still too much for him to handle, specially now with two miraculous.

"It is--" he coughed, finding it difficult to breathe "it is true!!" He argued "You know the ladybug can do it-If you just- If you just give it to me--"

"You forced Fu to give up his memory." He started in the same tone, ignoring what Gabriel had just said completely, but shifted his gaze to the side. He could see the light changing. A few more moments and the sun would rise. "You made Nathalie permanently ill. You put the entirety of Paris in danger. You made an akuma to steal Ladybug's soul just so you could use the miraculous the same way she does and not suffer any consequences... And you have the nerve to say it was because of my mother? "

His grip got tighter as he pulled Gabriel out of the wall and hanged him out of the building, his hand being now the only thing stopping him from falling.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't end you right now."

"Adrie--" His voice was hoarse thanks to the pressure, and he saw Adrien's eyes flinch carefully as his gaze went back to him.

"It's Chat Noir for you, Hawkmoth."

" Wouldn't-" he coughed again, holding himself against his arm, but the hero didn't move a single muscle "Wouldn't you.. do everything..it took? Aren't you..too...Trying to bring her back?"

The shine in his eyes gave Adrien the confirmation he didn't need. He was talking about Marinette.

"Aren't we..The same?"

-----------------------------

It had barely been ten minutes, but the waiting was killing her. She was about to make a hole on the ground, walking from one side to the other, when she heard what sounded like muffed excited roars at a distance. What was going on? It sounded a bit like..cheering? She decided to talk to Nino about it, but the sound of his miraculous beeping with a new call distracted her.

“Bunnyx” Nino hid his face behind the hood and googles once more before answering, and the hero on the other side spoke quickly:

“Quick report! Chat and Ladybug are not answering, but whatever you guys did, good job!!” She said excitedly and he could hear people cheering behind her while he looked worriedly at Alya. Her face went instantly pale “The sentimonsters are crumbling, and the akumas are fleei-- Ah, here it comes!! It should get to you guys in no time. I need to help out the civilians! Great job everyone!” and she hung up.

Nino stood up, his heart suddenly skipping a beat. Both him and Alya approached Marinette as they noticed a big wave of ladybugs made out of light coming from all directions.

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momentofmemory · 4 years

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FICTOBER 2020 - day ten

Prompt #10: “All I Ever Wanted”

Fandom: MCU (Avengers: Infinity War & Endgame)

Characters: Gamora, Natasha Romanoff

Words: 2346

Author’s Note: Both Gamora and Natasha are stuck in the soul stone. It’s okay, though—they have a lot in common. But it’s not okay, because they have a whole lot to work through. Gamora POV. Part I of II.

>> die side by side

Gamora opens her eyes to a world painted in red and orange.

Red-orange sky, stretching out unbroken to touch a distant horizon. Red-orange water, silent and empty where they lap against her thighs. Red-orange rage, flickering in her soul and burning through the tips of her fingers; a remnant of something she can’t quite place.

A sense of lethargy clings to her as she eases into a sitting position, and her abs protest against the foreign movement. A lock of hair falls over her shoulder: despite just being pulled from the ankle-deep waters, when she touches it, both her hand and her hair are completely dry.

She cups the water in her hands. It’s cool, and wet, and the red-orange reflects against the green of her skin, just like she’d expect. But when she lets it drip through her fingers, every last drop slides seamlessly back to river, as if she’d never touched it at all.

“You’ll get used to that.”

Gamora whirls around instinctively, gathering her feet under her to fall into a defensive position. Barely a stone’s throw away, there’s yet another echo of red and orange: this time, found in a head of hair, half covering the face of a woman she doesn’t recognize.

The spectre smiles. “Hey, stranger.”

The words sound like something Peter would say, but the flat affect sounds like Gamora herself. Warning bells peal softly at the base of her skull—she wishes she could remember why.

Instead, she clears her throat, shifting into a stance that feels safer: spine twisting a little straighter, fists clenching a little tighter.

She jerks her chin in the woman’s direction. “Who are you?”

She doesn’t seem intimidated by Gamora’s demand, but a flicker of something flashes in her eyes. “The Black Widow.”

“Should that mean something to me?”

“No.” Another smile—sharper this time. “No more Daughter of Thanos will mean to me.”

Thanos.

The bells’ tolling turns into the crack of thunder; the fire in her veins to ice.

(And then the red-orange waters fade into blues and purples, brooding skies and angry mountains; a scream ripped from her chest and then the green, green blood dripping at the altar of her father’s—)

Gamora’s fingers grasp for a sword that isn’t there; she weaponizes her voice instead.

(Peter would be so proud.)

“What do you know of Thanos,” she demands, and her voice doesn’t tremble, because that’s what being His daughter means.

“That he killed you,” the woman says. “And then he killed half of everyone else, too.”

The Widow’s words cut far deeper than any sword Gamora’s ever possessed.

“You lie,” she spits, even as she bleeds out. “What is this place? Why’ve you brought me here?”

Something flickers in the woman’s eyes—equal parts determined and resigned; an emotion that feels eerily familiar. “Trust me; I’m no happier about being here than you are. This is where the Stone takes you when you die.”

No.

It can’t be.

Because if she’s here, then that means he—

(The universe has judged you.)

She switches tactics. Rotates onto the balls of her feet. “How do you know me?”

“I don’t.” The woman shifts ever so slightly in kind, enough to cover the new angle of attack. She’s good. “But I knew your sister.”

“Nebula,” Gamora breathes, before she can stop herself. Then, because she’s already revealed her hand, commits all the way. “Is she…?”

“Alive the last I saw her, yes. We worked together for a few years after Thanos.” A shrug, and the red-orange hair falls over her shoulder. “Though I guess after hasn’t happened yet.”

“The hell are you talking about,” Gamora snaps, though it’s not like she really cares.

“I’m from earth,” the Widow says. Gamora thinks, Peter. “After Thanos won, we went back in time to fix it. That meant someone had to die, so.”

“They sacrificed you?” Gamora remembers falling, falling, falling.

Then stopping.

“No,” the woman says. “I chose this.”

“Well I didn’t,” Gamora snaps.

The woman, infuriatingly, just stares at her.

Gamora breaks the standoff to gather her bearings, and this time when she looks around, spots a small structure rising in the distance.

“What’s that?”

The woman turns to where Gamora’s pointing, and a wrinkle of surprise passes her face. “I don’t know. I don’t think it was there before.”

Something like hope flares in Gamora’s chest. “A way out?”

“More likely a reason to keep you here,” the Widow says. “There’s nothing in this place that you didn’t bring in yourself. I wouldn’t go if I were you.”

Gamora’s jawline hardens. "I need to get out of here. My friends need me.”

“I don’t think so. If you’re here, that means the stone was restored to its timeline. All we have to do is wait.”

“For what?”

“For Thanos to destroy the stone,” she says. “And presumably, us along with it.”

A fresh jolt of fear runs through her. “That’s your plan? Sit around and wait for the end?”

The carefully constructed nonchalance in the other woman’s stature fractures for half a second, but it’s enough for Gamora to see it exactly as it is: constructed.

“We’re already dead,” she says eventually. “Might as well do it the conventional way, and get it over with.”

“Go to hell.”

The woman laughs: a brittle, ancient sound, and her red-orange hair ripples like water as a gust of wind blows over the lake.

“We might already be there.”

______________________

Gamora walks until the Black Widow becomes nothing but a black mark on the horizon, but no matter how far she travels, her silhouette never disappears entirely. The structure, however, becomes more defined as it looms closer: an open-walled pavilion, carved out of stone with intricate detailing on its columns, and a slanted, slate stone roof. She walks inside and spins slowly around.

Nothing.

She sighs, and stands ramrod straight at the edge, willing it to make sense. If she brought it here as the woman had said, surely it must—

“Daughter.”

It’s one word.

One word, and her entire body freezes, heart tripping over itself to climb out her mouth, chest heaving to pull it back inside.

She turns.

He’s there.

It feels like an eternity passes, the wind quietly ruffling through her hair, both ashamed to be standing in front of the other; neither of them able to speak.

Finally, the only words Gamora manages to claw past her throat:

“Did you do it?”

Did you win? Did you kill them? Did you kill me?

“Yes,” he says, and it’s in response to all of them.

He looks away, like he has the right.

Gamora’s voice trembles now, trembles with rage and hurt and the unfairness of it all. “What did it cost?”

She doesn’t know what she wants him to say. She knows what she doesn’t want him to say.

He stares straight at her, that same stare that always seemed to dissect every part of her, and yet miss her entirely, and says, “Everything.”

He vanishes, and Gamora crumbles to the floor.

______________________

She doesn’t know if the man that looks like her father is real.

All she knows is that every time she comes back to the pavilion, he’s there again, and every time, no matter how often she’s rehearsed a different set of questions, the second she sees him, she forgets all of them and the conversation plays out in the exact same way.

She doesn’t know how many times she tries; just that they never, ever work.

She’s sitting outside the pavilion after another failed attempt, watching the water flow purposelessly through her fingers, when the Widow's shadow falls over her. Gamora doesn’t bother looking up. After a moment, the shadow moves, and then the woman is sitting down beside her instead.

“Natasha,” she says.

Gamora looks up.

“It wasn’t my first name,” the woman shrugs, “but it’s the only one I chose.”

It sounds like an invitation to something, but Gamora’s not sure what. She’s too tired to puzzle it out, but she figures just waiting is permission enough.

“I grew up in a place called The Red Room,” she says, and Gamora instantly recognizes the neutral tone she uses to talk about it. “We were just kids, maybe six years old. All girls. They were training us how to dance.”

Gamora remembers Peter. “Kevin Bacon?”

“Vaganova,” she says. “And occasionally, Legat. But you’d be most familiar with Systema. We used that one to kill each other.”

The familiarity she’d recognized from before slots into place. “I was six, too. When he took me.”

Natasha nods, like she’s not surprised. She probably isn’t. “Is that who you see when you go in?”

Gamora draws her hand out of the water. She holds her five perfectly dry fingers in front of her face, and thinks about futility. “What do you see?”

The other woman looks away. “Red.”

______________________

They hang around each other a lot more after that.

It’s not like they could ever fully get away from the other, even if they wanted to. As Gamora had discovered that first day, no matter how far they walk, they can still see the other on the horizon.

The problem is that that means they can always see the pavilion, in Gamora’s case, and a dance floor, in Natasha’s case, too. They try, once, to see if the other can join them in the strange rehearsal, but however the mechanics work, they’re clearly locked to one person at a time.

Time still passes. They’re not sure how much, or how fast, because they don’t need to sleep, and it doesn’t feel long. But their hair still grows, and sometimes they’ll just braid each other’s hair, trying to one-up the other with the various styles they’ve learned.

Gamora’s in the middle of a complicated twist in Natasha’s hair when the other other woman breaks the silence.

“I had a sister once, too.” Gamora pauses, glancing down, but Natasha’s expression doesn’t change. She teases out a strand of hair and continues the braid. “How’d it work out?”

“It didn’t.”

The weight of Natasha’s words settles into her bones, and she contemplates them; metabolizes them. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.”

Natasha plays with one of the free strands of her red-orange hair; the red-orange waves lick against the stone.

“What about you?” she asks, finally. “It work out with yours?”

Nebula.

Nebula, attacking her again and again, trying and nearly succeeding in wiping her off the face of the galaxy. Nebula, destined to never be the favoured one, always fighting against fate for just a scrap of acknowledgement. Nebula, coiled with rage and pain and hurt and still straining against everything their father built into her.

Nebula, the girl who only ever wanted a sister.

Gamora shifts the piece of hair into her other hand and grips the fastener between her teeth.

“Yeah. Yeah, it did.”

They were finally in a good place. And now she’s left her.

Natasha waits until Gamora finishes fastening the braid in place. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Me, too.”

______________________

Gamora wipes angrily at her eyes, refusing to meet Natasha’s pointed stare.

“I told you to stop going in.”

“There has to be a way to change it!”

“Maybe there’s not,” Natasha says. “It’s the past. You need to move on.”

“No. he can’t win.”

“By choosing to relive the same memory over and over, hoping that this time it’ll change, aren’t you the one letting him win?”

“He murdered me,” Gamora snaps. “You don’t think I deserve a little closure?”

“People get murdered every day.”

Gamora’s body tenses, ready to strike. Natasha’s responds in kind. “Don’t. Don’t—pretend like this is the same.”

“Don’t pretend like it’s special.”

Gamora launches herself at Natasha.

“Pretend?” she spits, falling into a flurry of strikes, all of which Natasha evades. “The greatest power in the universe looked at Thanos murdering me and decided to call it love, so yeah, I think I deserve the right to be a little pissed!”

Then they're rolling through the water, trading blows at frightening speeds. They’re fast and they’re strong and they’re both very, very good, and Gamora feels more alive than she has since the day she stepped on Vormir.

“It’s—a goddamn—stone, Gamora!” Natasha says, punctuating each word with an attack. “Its central premise is that love is something you should be willing to kill, and you think its approval would be a good thing?”

Gamora attempts to sweep Natasha’s legs out from under her, only to be roughly thrown to the ground when Natasha wraps her hand around her braid and pulls.

“Yield,” Natasha demands, pressing her knee firmly into Gamora’s ribcage to keep her pinned.

Gamora growls and bucks against the weight for a moment, then sags. “Yield.”

“Good.” Natasha slides off, dropping into the water before flipping onto her back and staring up at the sky. She sighs. “Why do you care so much?”

“He didn’t love me,” Gamora says, and it’s so tired; so rehearsed. Cautiously, she tries for honesty this time. “…And I hate that all I ever wanted was that he would. And maybe that’s why it worked.”

“The people who raised me were cruel, fucked up people. And I would’ve given anything for their approval,” Natasha says. “That doesn’t say anything about what love is. Just means they were important, and important things can be good or bad.”

“But the stone—”

“The stone asks you to murder someone just to prove that it’s worth more. It doesn’t know love. It knows jealousy.”

Gamora dips her hair into the water, just to watch the droplets bead and roll off without leaving it wet. “But it worked for you.”

“Yeah, well,” Natasha shrugs. “That’s as far as my advice gets you. But all I know is this: if you’re going to ask something evil to define love, don’t be surprised when you get an evil answer, too.

“So if you really want a good definition of love?” Natasha props herself up onto her elbows and makes sure catch Gamora’s eyes. “Then you go ask someone that’s also good.”

#fictober20 #gamora #natasha romanoff #mcu #soul stone #fanfiction #tw:language #memsfic

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the-metaphorical-jellicle-cat · 4 years

Conversation

Alonzo: uh-oh! it’s almost four am! you know what that means!

Munkustrap: What?

Alonzo: It means it’s almost four am and YOU SHOULD BE A-FUCKING-SLEEP RIGHT NOW-

#source: tumblr #tw: language #munkustrap #munkustrap needs a break #and sleep #alonzo cats #cats the musical #incorrect cats #incorrect cats quotes #incorrect jellicles #why do i do this to munk #he needs sleep #tw:language

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plague-deene · 4 years

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Favorite curse words

#Artts #sh*tpost #Laurah #Kayleb #Delta #Jai #original characters #tw:LANGUAGE #artist on tumblr

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mvltxmvsc-blog · 5 years

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He hadn’t been there long, but certainly long enough to overhear the main conversation. Call it his protective side, call it having worked on the force for so long, call it whatever you liked, but Stefan couldn’t just stand idly by, while someone was being mistreated, or talked down to. Taking a step towards the pair of people in question, he motioned to the one being more aggressive,” Is this person bothering you? “ he asked, keeping the gendering ambiguous, as he knew some people didn’t identify with what some might immediately observe, or assume. Stefan was as observant as a detective ought to be, but he was not about to go insulting someone, even if they were making an ass out of themselves.

#1x1 roleplay #1x1 rp #LGBTQIA+ RP #indie rp #open starter #tw:language #tw:verbal abuse #𝕤 𝕥 𝕒 𝕣 𝕥 𝕖 𝕣 𝕤 #𝕤 𝕥 𝕖 𝕗 𝕒 𝕟 // 𝕤 𝕥 𝕒 𝕣 𝕥 𝕖 𝕣

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iliveinaconstantstateoffire · 5 years

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*3 A.M.*

KS: *answering the phone* TX, most normal people are sleeping right now, what do you want?

TX: So, if I fed a a goose (geese? Fuck, I hate this language) turkey meat or chicken, would I create a cannibal race of geese?

KS: Texas, go to sleep.

*2 hours later*

KS: What do you want, TX?

TX: So, geese aren’t, like, venomous, are they? Or poisonous? They’re just vicious bastards with teeth? Asking for a, ah, heavily bleeding friend.

#aph quotes #aph state quotes #state quotes #aph kansas #aph texas #state 28 #state 34 #tw:language #language warning #local tx man attacked by geese #fl is angry that they werent invited #these two would be quite a pair #cause theyre too much apart #but together they balance each other out #or theyre worse

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r4ikkonen · 1 year

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It’s not that bad

Max Verstappen x y/n

tw:language

It was right after the Bahrain GP, Checo finished P3 while Max had a problem with his car which made him P7.He was furious kept blaming the team and much more.”FUCK” He entered his driver’s room slaming the door behind him.He has startled me not gonna lie.Max threw his helmet on the floor and sat besides me on the orange sofa.I wanted to say something but i felt like my tongue was knotted.

“They just keep doing this to me and i don’t fuck know why”Max barked with his head in my lap.

I was playing with his wet hair while trying to comfort him since i know that he will make a chaos if he doesn calm down.

“Baby it’s really not that bad, It wasn’t your fault you did everything you could to win.” I said while looking at his red face and gorgeous blue eyes.He just grunted on what I had to say and finally he sat up and faced me.My heart was beating rapidly he grabbed my chin and pulled me into a very passionate kiss.

“(y/n) Thank you for being here.”

He hugged my small torso while I tried my best not to say something stupid.

“Always Max” I replied.

Few minutes passed and we were just laying in silence, he had to adjust to everything that just happened knowing how angry he was i tried comforting him by placing my head on his chest.

After a little while a RedBull Mechanic knocked on the door to get out and go party since Checo was 3rd.We eventually got out and congratulated Checo.

I’m so sorry this is so bad omg

#f1 #formula one #red bull f1 #red bull racing #max verstappen #max verstappen x reader #max verstappen x you #formula 1 #bahrain gp 2023 #grand prix #f1 smut #f1 imagine #f1 x reader

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zyesvx · 5 months

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HANGE ANGST & SMUT

PG13 12 and under scroll away

TW:LANGUAGE,ANGST AND A BIT OF SMUT

Hange comes home late from work “Im not in the mood to fight” they said coldly as you say “Where the hell were you?! You think its funny?! You didn’t answer your phone at all?!”

“YOU THINK ITS FUNNY THAT YOU PICK A FIGHT?! Im fucking tired! Dont fuck with me and my mood cause im not fucking around with yours!” Hange said completely bursting out at you, causing you to start crying, Hange realizes what they’ve said and then they add “Baby im so sorry for busting out at you like that please don’t cry my love”

you continue to cry as they say “Look baby im an asshole for yelling at you its my fault im sorry, it wont happen again i swear im just so tired babe” you start calming down as they say “What do you wanna do to me? Ill do anything you want.”

You pause and then say “You deserve to get punished you know?” They smirk as you add “Cmon, lets think of your punishment my love”

#aot #aot angst #hange zoe smut #hange zoe #light angst

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blackberrywidow · 6 years

Text

Cut My Heart Out

Summary: Murder/Serial Killer AU. Detective Bucky Barnes had planned to spend this year’s Purge the same way he spent all of them—locked safely inside his home, avoiding trouble. However, his plans are unwillingly changed when a woman breaks inside his home.

Warnings: It’s a Purge AU, so there are a lot. Language, violence, implied rape threat, blood, attempted murder. I promise there are also some nice things too!

Word Count: 8k (I'm so sorry)

A/N: This is my submission for @chrisadoodle‘s writing challenge. I struggled with deciding to do a reader-insert or oc, but felt that given the nature of the story, the oc fit better. So I’m sorry, but I hope you still like it!

I also have a taglist now, so if anyone wants added to any of my one shots or series, just send me an ask!

“Yeah, Steve. I know. I’m locking up now,” Bucky said, continuing to shovel food into his mouth, decidedly not locking down his apartment like he had promised.

“No you’re not, Buck. I can hear you chewing,” Steve retorted, and Bucky knew that he was shaking his head the way he tended to when he was annoyed with him.

“No, I swear I’m doin’ it right now Steve.” Bucky chewed the slice of pizza even louder, earning him an exasperated sigh from his best friend. “Relax, man. It’s still thirty minutes until commencement. I’ve got plenty of time.”

“I know. I just wish that you would have come over tonight. I feel better when we can all spend this terrible night together.”

Steve was clearly stressed, as he always was on this night. Bucky and Steve were partners at work, where they were both detectives with the Brooklyn PD, but they had been partners for far longer. They grew up together, had been through everything together, so Bucky knew Steve better than anyone. And Steve had trouble saying no when he saw someone in trouble, which made the Purge incredibly difficult for him.

He had a family to protect—Peggy and the kids needed him to be there to keep them safe and he couldn’t go out on the streets to save the innocents that were targeted by the Purgers. Steve had always had too big of a heart, something that Bucky couldn’t fault him for, but it didn’t mean that he understood why he got so worked up about it. The Purge had been around for most of their lives and there was nothing they could do to change that. Terrible shit happened to good people—that was just life.

“I know,” Bucky sighed. “But you’ve got your own thing goin’ on. I’d like to just stay home and deal with this shit on my own.”

“You mean by getting drunk?”

“Hey, you have your coping methods, I have mine.”

“Listen, Bucky,” Steve said, sounding resigned, but stern, “I know that you like to deal with your… problems on your own, but just know that you don’t have to. I’m here for you. I always will be.”

“’Till the end of the line,” Bucky replied as he took a long pull from his beer, the line a reflex at this point.

“”Till the end of the line,” Steve repeated back, ending the call.

---

Twenty-five minutes later and Bucky was actually doing what he promised Steve and locking down his apartment. He triple checked every entryway and ensured that the locks were secure. It wasn’t exactly high-tech stuff, but it would do. Usually any sort of barricade was enough to deter Purgers in this area, and anyone that knew who he was knew better than to target him.

The sirens wailed as Bucky made his way to his living room, cold beer in hand, with every intention of riding the night out in relative peace. His years of getting worked up over the Purge had long since passed.

At least, that’s how he assumed he would be spending the night. Until he heard a thump sound from his bedroom.

Bucky tensed, every muscle contracting as his hand drifted to the gun he still had strapped to his belt and waited. After a moment of heavy silence where no one came into view or made another sound, he slowly stood from his chair, drawing his handgun as he did.

He cautiously made his way down the hallway that connected his living room to the rest of the apartment, gun expertly raised and ready to shoot whoever he found. His tolerance of the Purge was already thin, he definitely was not in the mood to deal with whatever bullshit had found its way into his apartment.

The bedroom door was slightly ajar, but Bucky was certain he had closed it the last time he was in there. He kicked it softly, turning quickly into the room eyes roving over every inch to locate whoever had broken in.

It was empty.

He scoured every inch of it with all the caution of a good detective before determining that it was clear. He furrowed his brows, processing his situation as quickly as possible.

It should have been impossible to break into his apartment without alerting him—he had an alarm system that he set during lockdown and breaking through steel bars wasn’t exactly a quiet business. And while not impossible, it was unlikely that someone would be able to sneak out of his room before he got there without him noticing.

But he had heard something, and he had a feeling that that something meant trouble—and if there was one thing Bucky trusted, it was his gut.

He made his way back out of the room, keeping his back to the wall and his gun raised. He inspected the laundry room and guest room in the same fashion, both empty and showing no sign of a break-in. He had just begun to suspect that maybe he was losing it when he heard the scraping of a chair coming from his kitchen.

He whirled around to face the other end of his hallway, eyes narrowed. “Jesus Christ,” he growled under his breath, beyond irritated at this point. Whoever was fucking with him was in for it the second he got in that kitchen.

He held this thought as he made his way back down the short hallway, ready to pull the trigger the second he laid eyes on his intruder.

Despite his determination, the sight that greeted him in his kitchen made him hesitate, luckily for the woman that was currently lounging at his island.

She appeared to be an average woman, with long caramel-colored hair and sun-kissed skin. She was sitting at his counter as though she had been there a thousand times before, eyes focused on a manila file as if she hadn’t a care in the world.

It was the exact opposite of what he had expected, which was enough to shock him into hesitating against his better judgement. He had been prepared for a previous perp back for revenge or a random thug looking to be “cleansed” in the wrong place. Not a seemingly harmless woman reading in his kitchen.

His foot shifted slightly, causing the floor under him to creak. The woman’s gaze snapped up at the sound, taking him in with one quick glance.

“Hello,” she said, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. As though she hadn’t just broken into his home on the most dangerous night of the year. “You must be Detective Barnes.”

Bucky inched inside the room a bit, hands still clutching his gun and aiming it at the stranger’s chest, analyzing everything about her. She was still sitting at his island, legs crossed as she stared at him, a calm sort of challenge in her eyes. She didn’t seem to be armed, and she didn’t seem to aggressive—but anyone crazy enough to break into his house and act like they owned the place was clearly some sort of threat.

“Who are you?” He finally asked, eyes locked on hers as he continued to make his way inside the kitchen, gun unwaveringly steady.

“My name is Evelyn Mason. And you,” she said, finally breaking eye contact to stare back down at her file, “are Detective James Barnes. Four years in the Army, two of those served overseas before you came back and joined the police force, working your way up to be a detective. And you’re a good one. You’re a good guy, James Barnes. That’s why I’m here.”

She locked eyes with him again, the green of her irises seeming to pierce him with their ferocity. He wasn’t sure what kind of crazy shit this woman was going on about, but he wanted no part in it. “How did you get in?”

The woman’s lips curved up into a smirk. “Your bedroom window. You left it unlocked before commencement—not the safest of moves, especially for a detective.”

“So you broke in before the Purge started?” Bucky asked, ignoring the dig at his “safety.” Generally speaking, he didn’t have to worry about people breaking into his home on any other night—his job was actually almost obsolete thanks to the Purge. “That’s still considered illegal, you know. I could have you arrested in twelve hours.”

“I’m not too worried about that.” She said without emotion, her eyes cold as she stared back at him. It almost seemed threatening.

Bucky eyed her, trying to piece together all of this information and see the bigger picture she was after. “You here to kill me then, Sweetheart?”

It seemed like the only logical explanation—people didn’t just break into other peoples’ houses on Purge night to compliment them. So he was surprised when she rolled her eyes and sighed as though he was being ridiculous. “Do I look like I’m here to kill you, Sweetheart?”

Bucky cocked a brow at that. “Can’t say for sure at this point.”

The woman—Evelyn—huffed, but rose slowly from her seat, hands raised. Giving him a meaningful look as if to say are you happy now, she turned in a circle, moving painstakingly slow, giving Bucky plenty of time to take her in. She was wearing dark, form-fitting jeans tucked into knee high black boots paired with a loose white t-shirt and a black jacket. No outward signs of any weapons, but Bucky had enough experience and common sense to know that she could be concealing something in her boots or her jacket.

“So, if you’re not here to kill me, why are you here?” he finally asked, deciding to play along for the moment, after she had made a full turn, coming to a stop to continue looking at him with that look of impatience as though he were wasting her time.

“I need your help,” she answered, gaze steady and tone serious as she looked back at him.

“Explain,” he said after a moment of hesitation.

“Everything you need to know is in there,” she said, jerking her head in the direction of the island.

His eyes left hers long enough to take note of the file that still lay there, before snapping back to hers. “So you broke into my house to make me read a file? Why don’t you just fucking cut to the chase so I can decide if I need to shoot you or not?”

“Shoot me or don’t,” she replied easily as though they were simply discussing the weather. “It won’t matter if you don’t help me.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Bucky snapped, beyond annoyed with the woman and her riddles.

She moved slowly, maintaining eye contact as she took something out of the file and held it out to him. “You ever heard of the Reaper?”

Bucky blinked at her, taking in her serious expression before refocusing on what she was holding. A letter. And based on what she had just asked him, he had a pretty good idea of what it said. This whole encounter suddenly made a lot more sense.

Bucky sighed deeply, cursing whoever he could think of for bringing this shit to his doorstep, before gesturing at Evelyn with his gun. “Sit back down. Hands flat on the countertop.”

He saw her clench her jaw before wordlessly complying, placing the letter on the corner of the island before doing as he said. As soon as she did, he shoved his gun into the waistband of his jeans and snatched the letter up.

Dear Ms. Evelyn Mason,

Today marks the first day after the 19thannual purge. Which means that it also marks your 364thday left to live.

By this point, I’m sure you already know who I am and what I will do to you once the clock strikes 7 on March 21st. You may think that you have time—to run, to hide, to save your life. But I must confess, Ms. Mason, that none have succeeded in escaping me and neither will you.

You may use the time you have left on this Earth to try to evade your fate, but we both know that in a year’s time, I’ll be holding your still beating heart in my hand. I do hope you’ll try though—it’s always so much more fun when I have to hunt you down.

So consider this your warning: on the 20thannual Purge, I will be coming for you, Ms. Mason. You have been marked. I hope you wear fear well, as it will be your constant companion for the next 364 days.

With Admiration,

The Reaper

Bucky felt sick. He had seen a lot of twisted stuff during his time overseas and as a detective, but it was rare that he saw evil of this variety.

Serial killers went almost extinct with the creation of the Purge. There were, of course, the exceptions who loved the thrill of the chase and couldn’t help themselves. But to hold a letter like this in his hand and to have the woman it was threatening sitting in his kitchen was a very different feeling than working a case from the precinct.

“So…” she said, and Bucky heard what sounded like the beginnings of fear in her voice as he read over the letter a second time. “Do you understand now?”

Bucky nodded slowly, hesitantly, because he understood what the letter meant but not how it applied to him. Though he had a feeling. “This the only one you got?”

“No,” she replied calmly, as though they weren’t discussing the details of her upcoming murder, though he could tell from the set of her shoulders and the glint in her eyes that she was more affected that she wanted to let on. “I received more letters like that one randomly throughout the year—counting down the days or commenting on my outfit that day. Random shit to remind me of what I had to look forward to. I received sixty-three, in total.”

“So,” Bucky started, placing the letter back on his island in an attempt to distance himself from it and the grip it already had on him. “Why are you here then?”

“Why do you think?” Her eyes flashed at him, showing him all the rage and fear that had likely had a hold on her for the past year. “I already told you, Detective Barnes. I need your help.”

“What can I do?” Bucky nearly shouted, throwing his hands up. “It’s the Purge. It’s legal and there’s nothing I can do about that. I’m off duty for the next twelve hours, lady. I couldn’t help you even if I wanted to.”

He was pacing now, something he didn’t even realize until he noticed the way Evelyn’s eyes were following his movements. He stopped abruptly, turning to face her again with a huff. “I’m sorry.”

That seemed to be the final nail in the coffin for her: her shoulders dropped, and her eyes went distant as they filled with sorrow. She didn’t look at him as she said, “That’s what they all said too.”

“What?” Bucky asked, eyes going wide as Evelyn stood and moved toward the front door. She didn’t answer, just turned to face him with an expectant expression.

They stood there like that for a long moment, neither of them saying anything as they watched each other. “You’re already locked down,” she finally said with a sigh and a jerky motion at the door. “You’ll want to unlock it quickly to let me out and then be ready to lock it back as soon as I’m gone. I’ll figure something else out.”

They both knew she wouldn’t.

Bucky shook his head, hating himself for it as he dug even deeper. “What did you mean? Who else said they were sorry?”

Evelyn cocked her head to the side and almost looked surprised, as if she hadn’t even realized she had said that. “You weren’t the first one I went to, you know. I took the letters to precincts all across the city, trying to get them to do something. But technically receiving mail isn’t illegal, and considering he was threatening to hurt me on Purge night specifically, there wasn’t anything they could do anyway. They were all sorry—I could even tell that some of them meant it. The second they saw the letter, they knew I was dead. I was the only one foolish enough to think I had a chance.”

The life seemed to be leeching out of her the longer she spoke—she had seemed so strong and sure before, but she was growing paler by the second and any will to fight for her life had faded. She had been counting on him to help her—she knew that there was no way to escape the Reaper and the death he brought with him without help. No one ever did.

And Bucky was just going to let her die.

“Why me?” Bucky asked, swallowing past the lump in his throat.

Her eyes snapped back to his since the first time he had told her no, and Bucky felt like he couldn’t breathe. “I asked around, and you’re the best detective in Brooklyn, James Barnes. A lot of police are content to live an easy life handing out speeding tickets since the Purge took care of a lot of the day-to-day shit. But you still do your job—you go after the people who deserve to be taken down. I thought if anyone would help me, it would be you. And I know that I put you at risk by sneaking in here like this, but I figured you would be more likely to help me if you didn’t know about it before. It’s easier to say no to a girl with a letter than a girl with 12 hours to live.” She finished her explanation with a wry smile, and Bucky felt like he had been punched in the gut.

“I am sorry,” she continued after a moment of him not saying anything, smile fading. “But I won’t force you to keep me here. I’ll go. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

He wasn’t sure who she was trying to reassure, him or herself, but it didn’t work either way. They both knew she was dead if she went out there alone, Reaper or not.

Ultimately, the fact that she was apologizing and trying to alleviate his guilt with false promises was what made his decision for him. Bucky had felt like a monster for years now, ever since… well, it didn’t matter. He couldn’t save them, but he would save her.

“What else you got in that folder?” he asked her, jerking his chin in the direction of his kitchen.

She blinked, processing his question before slowly answering. “All of the information I could find on the Reaper—the women he’s killed over the years, how he does it, past letters. Anything I could get my hands on.”

“Good,” Bucky nodded, turning and walking back to the kitchen. “Hopefully some of that will give us an idea of our plan of attack.”

He heard Evelyn follow him after a moment of hesitation, and once he stopped in front of the island to start riffling through her notes, he looked up to see her smiling at him in clear relief. “Thank you, Detective Barnes.”

“Bucky,” he said, extending a hand and feeling ten pounds of weight drop from his chest when she placed her hand in his and looked at him as though he had just saved her life. Even though he had been an ass at first and they still had the whole night to make it through, she was trusting him to get her through this.

“Evie,” she responded, dropping his hand and turning her attention to the folder. “So, where do we start Bucky?”

---

“Are you sure about this?” Bucky asked two hours later, looking at Evie with rising panic.

“Yeah,” she said, gripping the railing of his balcony and looking at the street below with none of the concern Bucky was currently feeling.

He wasn’t sure what it was about reckless blondes that he seemed to attract to him, but he was sure that he wouldn’t survive this night if she didn’t show just a little more care. He’d say she was worse than Steve, but Steve wouldn’t have waited this long to make the jump.

“You know the whole point of this is to keep you alive, right?”

Evie rolled her eyes, turning away from the metal railing to face him. “Yes, Bucky, I understand. But we’re not going to do that by locking me up in your apartment. We’ve already established that it’s not exactly Fort Knox. And based on his previous… Purges, we can guess that he’s been following me all night, just waiting to make contact. He already knows I’ve met with you, which means I need to get my ass on the street if this is going to work.”

“And what if it doesn’t?” Bucky asked, suddenly unsure of the plan that they had concocted. He knew it would be dangerous but knowing that and actively letting Evie do it is another thing. He’s a cop—he shouldn’t be allowing a civilian to do something batshit crazy like this.

“Then I’ll die.” She said this without a change in expression or any emotion. It was a fact that they both knew well, and Bucky was honestly impressed. Just a few hours ago she had shut down and given up at the thought of dying, but now that she had hope—now that he had given her some reason to hope—she was calm and ready to fight once more.

He was almost upset that the first time he got to meet a woman like this was after she had broken into his house during the Purge. It didn’t exactly allow for much time to consider the way his heart picked up when she smiled at him or that he liked the way her hair smelled.

There was a high chance that they were both about to die, so now was definitely not the time to be reliving his past as a man who could actually appreciate a beautiful woman. If anything, it was a reminder of why he couldn’t.

He took a deep, steadying breath. “Are you ready then?”

“Of course,” she replied, lips quirking up in a small smile.

“Good luck,” he said before shoving her over the edge.

She stumbled back, hitting the railing and toppling over it with a piercing scream. Bucky clenched his jaw, resisting the urge to go down and check on her. He knew that she should have landed on the dumpster below, and that from just one story up it wouldn’t hurt her too bad. Of course, that’s if everything went well.

He shook his head, stepping back inside his apartment. The next part of the plan was on Evie, so he could only hope for her sake that it went well. He’d be sure to be ready for his part, but it was up to Evie to get that far.

---

Evie hit the top of the (thankfully closed) dumpster with a crash before rolling off and onto the hard ground with an oompf.

She groaned, pushing herself up, careful to keep her cursing under her breath. The theatrics of her exit were painful, but necessary if they wanted to trick the Reaper.

She looed around, taking in her surroundings. The alleyway was dark and damp, as alleyways tended to be, and was thankfully empty of people. She stood on shaking legs and made her way to the street.

She could hear people screaming and bursts of gunfire from further down and squashed her fear down. This night would end one of two ways: with her death or the Reaper’s. Evie knew that, and she knew that her fear wouldn’t help her take down her would-be murderer. Remaining calm and collected would.

She took deep breaths as she creeped down the street, careful to stay to the shadows as much as possible. She thought of Bucky in an attempt to keep her mind occupied as she tried to stay out of trouble until thereal trouble came for her. She was surprised he had agreed to help her and beyond grateful. She just hoped that he would follow through with their plan—if he decided to go back on their deal, she was dead.

She was winding her way between streets, trying to make it seem like she didn’t have a destination in mind in case the Reaper happened to be watching her—which she was sure he was. It’s what he had promised he’d do, after all.

She had spent an hour or so like this, relatively close to her designated meeting point but still waiting for any sign of the Reaper when they saw her.

Shouts were thrown at her across the street seconds before gunfire was. Evie leapt for cover behind a car, peeking around the front at the men that were converging on her. They had stopped firing, knowing that she had nowhere to run. She could hear them talking to each other about what they would do to her, how they would kill her, things they may do before they did.

She closed her eyes, forcing down the bile in that was rising in her throat, and tried to come up with a plan that wouldn’t get her killed. She was prepared to face a serial killer that she was familiar with, not a group of assholes just looking for a quick kill.

Her hand went to her boot as her eyes snapped open, and she pulled out the pocket knife that was hidden there. It wasn’t much, and she was hoping to keep it hidden in case she needed it to use on the Reaper, but she was more than desperate at the moment.

“Hey there, honey,” the first man cooed at her as he reached the car. “If you’re good, we may let you—”

She didn’t let him finish, shooting up from the ground to slash at him with her knife. She swung wildly, given her inexperience and fear, but she hit him in the chest, slashing through his shirt and causing him to stumble back with a startled yell.

She took off down the street, taking advantage of their momentary distraction, but they were already hot on her heels.

They seemed to be enjoying the chase, based on their whooping and the disgusting words they were screaming at her—which was lucky for Evie, in a way, as that meant they weren’t shooting her.

However, she didn’t feel lucky when the first one caught up with her and grabbed a fist full of her hair.

“Where do you think you’re runnin’ off to, sweetheart?” he sneered down at her as he yanked her to the ground. “We weren’t finished yet.”

Evie screamed as the grip on her hair tightened, and she tried to turn and slash at him with the knife she still had in her hand. He laughed, grabbing her wrist and twisting it until she dropped the knife. “Didn’t you hear me? You ain’t gettin’ off that easy bitch.”

He pulled her forward by her wrist and let go of her hair to grab her chin, grinning down at her. Evie froze, blinking up at him. It was the first time she had gotten a look at him and his asshole friends, and she was suddenly struck by how normal he looked.

He probably worked a normal, nine to five job. Maybe had a wife and kids. She wondered if they knew where he was, what he was doing. If they knew that he was the kind of man who, given the chance, would murder a woman for doing nothing more than walking by him.

She doubted they cared.

“See sweetheart?” he leaned in to whisper in her ear as his buddies circled them like sharks. Evie shuddered, unintentionally remembering the way Bucky had called her that only a few hours ago—how it didn’t sound so horrible coming from him. If only he could see her now. She couldn’t even make it far enough to make their plan work. He was right.

“I’m not too bad to look at,” the man continued to breathe in her ear, but Evie wasn’t listening anymore. Bucky was not going to be right about her. “I promise it won’t be too bad. If you’re good, you might even en—gah.”

Evie, finally gathering her wits enough to do something, had just kneed him in the groin. Probably not the smartest move, considering the men surrounding her with guns, but she wasn’t going to go down without some sort of fight.

He dropped her wrist and steeped away from her, clutching himself and cursing her. Evie only had a second to feel proud before another one of the goons grabbed her from behind, spinning her around. She punched him in the throat before he could restrain her, and she moved to run again, but was quickly stopped by the next one.

It continued on like this for what felt like hours but was probably only a few minutes: Evie scrambled to fight back, using what power and defensive moves she had to hold them off, but there were more of them and they were all larger than her. It didn’t take long before she was being pinned to the ground, laying face-down with a gun to her head.

“You’re more trouble than you’re worth,” he snarled, breath hot against the side of her face as he panted. “As much as we’d love to have fun with ya, I think I’m just gonna have to put you down.”

Evie struggled fiercely but unsuccessfully against his hold and felt a single tear roll down her cheek. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go at all.

“Unfortunately,” a smooth voice cut in. “I can’t let you do that.”

Evie heard the gunshot only a millisecond before she felt the spray of blood against her neck and the man’s hold on her release as he fell to the side, dead.

She screamed, scrambling back from the body as best she could as more gunshots sounded all around her. She had just lifted herself up onto her knees with shaking arms when the last shot hit its mark and silence consumed her.

“Hello, Ms. Mason.”

Evie whipped around, eyes wild as they landed on the neatly-dressed woman in a black trench coat and dress pants. She smiled at her, blood-red lips striking against the night, and Evie felt her stomach drop.

“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”

---

Bucky paced around the roof. Again.

He checked his watch. Again.

He swore under his breath and regretted agreeing to this insane plan. Again.

Evie had been gone for two hours now. That was plenty of time for her to draw the Reaper out and lead her to the corner across from Dot’s Diner, just as they had discussed.

Bucky was waiting on the roof of an apartment building across the street, gun out and ready to shoot the Reaper the second he came in his sights. But it had been two hours and there was still no sign of Evie or her psychopathic shadow. Plenty of the normal crazy Purge bullshit, but not Evie.

He didn’t want to admit it, but he was worried.

Bucky tried to tell himself that he should just go home. He had no obligation to Evie and her baggage. He didn’t even know her six hours ago, but he was out here freezing his ass off for her.

But he knew that if he left, said “screw it” and went home, Evie would die. If she wasn’t already dead.

“Fuck it,” Bucky mumbled, packing up his gun.

A sniper was supposed to be patient—the key was to be ready the second the target presented themselves, not to go out hunting for them. But he may have only known Evie for less than a day, but she reminded him of what it was that the Purge took away from people like her. People like them.

And if he were in the business of being honest with himself—which he fortunately wasn’t—he would admit that he had felt some sort of spark between them as they had plotted their asinine plan together, and he wanted the opportunity to get to know her better, preferably when her life wasn’t at stake.

And he couldn’t very well do that if she was already dead or dying.

He stepped out on the street, one hand on the gun strapped to his hip, the other clutching the strap of the one that was slung across his back. He had been watching this area for the past two hours, so he was very familiar with its traps and the people that were stalking it, and he set out on the path that he knew would keep him out of the line of fire and would hopefully lead him to Evie.

---

“Who are you?” Evie swallowed thickly, staring at the woman with what she hoped was a detached expression.

“Oh, I think you know, Ms. Mason.” The woman’s smile turned mocking, and she looked at Evie with feigned pity. “Get up,” she ordered, gesturing at her with her gun. “I’ve come to collect, and it’s no fun if you just lie on the ground like that.”

Evie stood slowly, mind racing. “Collect? You mean my heart.”

“Of course,” the Reaper replied almost cheerfully. “I’ve already told you. I’m going to cut your heart out of your chest and add it to my collection.”

“Right,” Evie acknowledged. “Your collection. Why do you do that exactly?”

The Reaper blinked, her smile slipping for the first time. “What?”

Evie immediately wanted to kick herself—why the fuck would she say that? She was facing the person who had been threatening her for the past year, someone she had wrongly assumed was a man at that, and now she was asking her why she was a murderous hag. Well, she might as well lean into it if she was going to die anyway.

“I mean why are you doing this? Why me and why do you cut people’s hearts out? You have to realize how fucking crazy that is!” Evie rushed out, moving to back away from her before freezing the moment she retrained the gun on her chest.

“It’s my right, given to me by the Founding Fathers,” the Reaper said, stepping closer to Evie. Now that she was standing in the light of a streetlamp, she could see that she had light brown hair, pale blue eyes, and a softly rounded face. Again, Evie was struck by how normal she would look if not for the half-crazed smile and the gun in her hand. “I’m going to kill you because I can. But I’m going to enjoy it because I love the feeling of a dead woman’s heart in my hands. Now, turn around and start walking. We have places to be.”

Evie hesitated, looking from the barrel of the gun to the Reaper’s eyes. This looked bad. Really bad.

She obviously couldn’t lead her to the corner where Bucky was waiting for her, considering it was in the opposite direction and the Reaper seemed to have an idea of where she wanted her to go in mind. She had no more weapons on her and the Reaper had the gun. She needed more time.

“So, you can kill me and you want to kill me, but that still doesn’t answer why. I mean, if you’re gonna cut my heart out, don’t you think I deserve to know why you picked me? Why are you doing this to me?”

The Reaper sighed, looking impatient, but replied. “There’s no rhyme or reason, Ms. Mason. That’s all part of the fun. I pick my target out the day after the Purge, and planning begins then. I saw you in a coffee shop—we ordered the same drink, and I noticed that you had the same taste in books. I like to see a little bit of myself in all of my victims, you see. Though I’ll admit, you were much more resourceful than I would have been. Going to a man like James Barnes for help was smart. Did you know that his entire family was murdered six years ago? It was on a Purge night, just like this one.”

Evie felt nauseous as she shook her head no. She hadn’t done that much research on Bucky, but now she wished she had. She didn’t know that his family had been killed during a Purge. If she had, she never would have pulled him into this. He had suffered enough because of this holiday. She got the feeling that the murderer knew what she was thinking as her painted lips curved into a sly smile.

“Ah,” she sighed. “Well, I’m sure you can see why he threw you out—quite literally I might add. He’s not been much of a people person since I’m afraid. A nice effort on your part, but some things were just meant to be. He had to tell you no so that I can look you in the eyes as I cut your still-beating heart out with my knife. It’s the way you were meant to die, Ms. Mason, and there’s no shame in that.”

Evie’s breath caught. So she had believed their little stunt—she didn’t expect for Bucky to be waiting on her. And she had just reminded her of the Reaper’s biggest flaw: she liked routine, and she liked for things to follow her plan.

She wasn’t going to shoot her if she wanted to get her heart before she died.

With that thought bolstering her, Evie charged at the Reaper.

It caught her off guard, if the woman’s wide eyes and gaping mouth were anything to go by. Evie knocked her to the ground, causing her to lose her grip on the gun and send it skidding away. She had briefly considered trying to end it there, kill the killer before she could kill her, but Evie wasn’t a fighter, let alone a killer, and she was sure there was a reason that the Reaper’s victims never survived. It would almost be arrogant to think that she could end it herself when so many other’s couldn’t—Evie wasn’t anything special.

So she hopped back up and took off in the direction of where she could only hope Bucky was waiting for her.

As she anticipated, the Reaper had regained her wits after only a second of confusion and was now hotly pursuing her. Evie was close—she had been relatively near the meet point when she had run into the Purgers, and she was just a couple of streets away now. But it was still too far. Over the beating of her heart and her feet slapping against the pavement, she heard a soft thwipand felt something bite into the back of her thigh.

She tried to ignore it, to keep running and make it to Bucky, but her whole leg was suddenly numb and she was falling.

Evie caught herself on the sidewalk with a gasp, feeling the numbness spread. What the fuck did she do?

The Reaper’s smiling face reappeared in her vision and Evie felt every last scrap of her will to live fall away. She hadn’t made it. All of this, and she still wasn’t strong enough to make it.

“A tranquilizer gun,” she happily explained, holding it up to show her. “Of course, I need something to ensure you can’t fight me back. Everyone always expects some big, strong man, but ladies like us? We need a little help to make things go smoothly. Usually I slip a sedative into their food or drink before the Purge if I can—technically illegal, I know, but who are you going to tell? You were a little overly cautious today though and I couldn’t, so I brought this just in case. Good thing, too. You had more fight than I thought, Ms. Mason. Which is always a lovely trait, but I’m afraid it means we’ll have to cut this evening a bit short.” She whipped out a long knife and grabbed Evie’s shoulder, rolling her onto her back and straddling her hips. “I can’t have you running off anymore, you see.”

She brought the knife down in a sweeping arc, and without even noticing, Evie’s arms came up to stop it. They were still mostly responsive, thankfully, but Evie could feel the numbness taking over her body and knew it was only a matter of time.

“Just. Let. Me. Kill. You. Already,” the monster grunted between gritted teach, pressing down with more force.

“How about no,” Evie spat back, her mind working double to formulate even that response. She knew it was pointless, that the Reaper had won the moment Evie had received the letter, but she wasn’t going to just let hermurder her.

Her arms ached from the effort before the numbness slowly seeped in to relieve it, and Evie had resigned herself to her fate when she heard the gunshot crack in the night.

There was warmth on her face and suddenly the woman on top of her was crashing forward, Evie just barely managing to jerk the now limp hands away from her to drop the knife next to her head.

Her mind was cloudy and muddled and she was just so tired. The last thing she saw before she let herself fall into sleep was the frowning face of what must have been an angel.

If this was death, she didn’t mind it so much.

---

Evie awoke slowly and painfully with mumbled curses and a lot of confusion.

She sat up carefully, taking in her surroundings. She was lying in a bed with a blue comforter, in a room with bare, white walls and little else. She recognized this room.

As though to confirm her suspicions, Bucky breezed into the room with a bottle of water. “Oh,” he said, coming around to sit on the edge of the bed next to her. “You’re awake already. Good.”

“Already?” Evie asked, blinking the sleep out of her eyes and shaking her head. “How long have I been out? What happened?”

Bucky handed her the bottle of water, allowing her to take greedy gulps of it as he answered her. “Just about six hours or so. She hit you with a tranq, and I wasn’t sure how big of a dose it was. I hope you don’t mind, but I went ahead and got all of the blood off of ya—couldn’t really tell how injured you were with all of it. Good news is that other than a few scrapes and bruises, you’re fine. You survived.”

He gave her a small smile, and everything seemed to rush back to her, including her drugged-out thoughts about angels. Her cheeks burned as she handed back the water bottle. “Yeah, thanks to you.”

Bucky shrugged, but still seemed to be happier than she had ever seen him before. Which wasn’t saying much, honestly. “Maybe, but you’re the one who dragged me into it. So really, it’s still kind of your doing.”

Evie nodded slowly, debating on whether she wanted to say anything or not. It didn’t take long to decide; her mind was still a bit muddled and Evie had always been one to say what she was thinking anyway. “She told me about your family. The Reaper, I mean.”

It was all she needed to say to gain Bucky’s understanding. “Ah.”

That was all he said, and Evie immediately regretted bringing it up. “I’m sorry. I would have never dragged you into this if I had known. I don’t know how or why she knew, and I wish she hadn’t told me, but I just wanted you to know that I am truly sorry for all of this.”

Bucky shrugged, eyes trained on the water bottle as he picked at the label. “It’s fine. It’s not like it’s some secret. I just—I’ve always hated this night and what it represents, and I used to dream about doing something about it. But after my family—after they were killed, it just seemed so pointless. The Purge destroys lives. It’s what it was meant to do. So why try to fight it? The best I could do was keep my distance and hope I never had to watch it destroy mineagain.”

“So why did you? Fight for me, I mean,” Evie pressed, voice soft and quiet in the overwhelming silence of the room.

Bucky’s eyes snapped up to hers. “You gave me a reason to, I guess. I couldn’t save them from the Purge, but I could at least try to save you.”

“Thank you,” Evie breathed. “I wouldn’t be here if you didn’t.”

Bucky opened his mouth to respond but was cut off by the shrill sound of the siren. Evie looked out of the window, surprised to see the first tinges of sunlight streaming in, and breathed a sigh of relief.

It was over.

“Well,” Bucky said, smirking down at her. “You’ve officially survived the Purge. What are you going to do next?”

Evie shrugged, smiling back at him. “I don’t know. I was pretty sure that I’d be dead, so I didn’t exactly make any plans.”

“Well,” Bucky drawled, leaning back against his headboard so that he was reclined beside her in the bed. “How do you feel about taking a long nap and then getting some food?”

Evie’s smile turned mischievous as she raised a slender eyebrow. “With you?”

Bucky shrugged, but his eyes flashed down at you playfully. “If you want. I figured the least I can do is let you stay here and feed you after you almost died.”

“Mmhmm,” she agreed, rolling over so that her back was facing him, giving him enough room to lay down. “Sleep first, then you can take me on a date.”

Bucky laughed, and she felt him lay down next to her, though he was careful to stay above the covers and not touch her. “I never said it was a date.”

“I know,” Evies said, closing her eyes and nestling into the blankets. “But I did.”

Bucky chuckled, but didn’t disagree. “Goodnight, Evie.”

“’Night Bucky.”

*One Year Later*

“You ready, Sweetheart?” Bucky asked, glancing back over his shoulder to see his girlfriend lacing up her boots.

She looked up at him, rolling her eyes. “Yes, Bucky. We’ve been over this a million times.” Evie stood, readjusting her belt and the gun that it held. Once she was satisfied with the way everything was situated, she strode over to Bucky with the coy smile he loved so well. “We’ll be fine.”

Bucky grabbed her by the beltloop of her jeans, inclining his head down to kiss her. He tasted the familiar cherry of her chap stick and hummed happily into her mouth, causing her to smile. He didn’t like that she was risking herself, but he couldn’t deny that seeing her like this did things to him.

“I just need to be sure you’ll be okay,” he mumbled against her lips, reluctant to pull away.

Evie planted a hand on his chest and stepped back with a breathy chuckle. “I know, and I will be. I’ve been training all year to do this, and we’re going to do what we can to fight the Purge. Together.”

“Together,” Bucky agreed, eyes raking over her tactical attire and numerous weapons. If anyone were ready to take on the city’s worst Purgers, it was his girl. “Alright, Baby,” he said, opening his door as the sirens blared. “Let’s do this.”

Taglist: @everythingbooknerd

#marvel #mcu fanfiction #Bucky Barnes #Bucky Barnes x OC #Bucky Barnes x reader #Bucky Barnes x you #murder/serial killer au #rosie300 #my writing #tw: violence #tw:language #tw: blood #tw: implied rape threat #tw: murder #tw: death

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