#where she is by far not the only hispanic person nearby | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mrsalwayswrite · 3 years

Text

This Night (40s!Bucky Barnes x Hispanic!OFC)

Summary: When she saved a scrawny blond in a back alley, she would never have anticipated the ripple effects it would have. Nor how meeting someone with a pair of baby blue eyes and cocky smirk would draw her in, encouraging her that for one night, to taste revelry like she never had before.

This is my submission for @allaboardthereadingrailroad Marvel Diversity Challenge! My prompt was “a little danger never hurt”.

I am going to admit, I’m super nervous to post this. I’ve never written a person of color before and would be horrified to accidently offend someone. That being said, I also had so much fun writing this piece. I adore 40s Bucky and Steve, so I was excited to finally have the inspiration to write them.

Few notes:

-All translations are via google and what I can remember from university (if any of my Spanish is wrong, please please please someone tell me and i’ll correct it!)

-I threw in some 40s slang for fun, so that will be in italics.

-In the little research I did (again, someone please correct me if I am wrong), in the 40s there were not many Hispanic or Latino people living in NYC yet. So for my OFC and her family, they would very much stand out.

Warnings: a few swear words, some angst, sexual tension, topic of racial discrimination and inequality

Words: 8k (the story kept growing, i’m so sorry)

She clutched the parcel to her chest, trying to avoid the muddy puddles on the sidewalk. Mr. Hendricks would be furious with her if she got any mud on the packaging of the parcel. He always said it reflected his reputation.

Weaving through those walking down the busy Brooklyn sidewalk, she could feel the few glares and inaudible comments following in her wake. She tried to ignore it, knowing was not the first nor last time others judged her for her different skin tone. Though she doubted she would ever get used to it. One of her older brothers would try and cheer her up saying the white folks were jealous since they burned when in the sun too long while Spaniards became more beautiful. Without fail, she would smack him but end up laughing along.

Peeking at the address scrawled in precise handwriting, she surveyed the street names around. A sinking feeling in her gut confirmed her fear- she had somehow gotten lost.

“Mierda.” She hissed, turning around in a circle. Not just to try and relocate her whereabouts but on the off chance her mother happened to be behind her to whack her over the head for swearing.

Not wanting to be run over by a fellow pedestrian, she stepped off the sidewalk into an alley nearby while she tried to get her bearings. She brushed down the front of her workwear, dark blue, princess style dress with its Peter Pan collar, double pockets and pleated skirt. A glance at her tights showed a couple spots of mud she somehow managed to still get on her even though her kitten heels were still mostly clean. A miracle really.

It was only mid-afternoon but Mr. Hendricks hated when she returned late from delivering parcels. He was the best tailor in Brooklyn and practically thrived off that title. He employed her to help keep things organized, the shop looking nice and delivering parcels to their patrons. It was mindless work but that did not bother her. It was a job...and she was lucky to have one. Being from one of the few Hispanic families in the area was not a perk when trying to find work. She knew the only reason she even got this job was she willingly took half the pay he would have given to anyone else, she could sew well, and she was pretty.

A crash at the end of the alley drew her attention behind her. There was some hushed talking followed by another sound of something hitting the ground. Hard.

Logically, she knew she should walk away. She was already lost. Her mother frequently reminded her to not involve herself in other people's business, it would only get her in trouble. The problem was her curiosity was a near palpable thing, driving her forward, along with her independent streak the size of the Upper Bay. So when she heard what sounded like a smack and another crash, her feet started moving without a second thought.

She darted around a half brick wall to find herself at an "L" intersection. And at the end of both alleys, stood a tall man with a face like a bulldog and the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to his elbows, fists at his side. Below him lay a much smaller, blond man who was sprawled out on the dirty ground. The smaller man groaned, rubbing a hand on his jaw. He rolled onto his side, then slowly and painfully rose back onto his feet, his own fists in front of him in a poor imitation of a boxer.

"You think you somethin' special, huh?" The larger man jeered, a nasty smirk on his face. He leaned on his back foot, preparing to throw another punch.

The smaller man raised his fists but made no other move, prepared to take the hit and most likely go back down.

So, she decided to do something stupid.

"BILL!!" She cried out, her voice echoing off the brick walls of the alleys.

Both men froze, turning to look at her.

Tucking the parcel under her arm, she jogged over to the smaller man, uncaring now of the muddy puddles. "There you are, Bill. I've been so worried. You promised to show me where Mrs. Wilcox lives. I tried to find her myself but I got so lost." Ignoring the quizzical look from the blond man, she stood between the two men, meeting the eyes of the larger one. She twirled a strand of her long, black hair around her finger, nerves getting to her but she pressed on. "I'm so sorry for whatever trouble he has caused you. He won't bother you again. We have to go now; our boss will dock our wages if we aren't back soon."

The man trailed his eyes over her as if looking for a lie tattooed on her skin or dress. Finding nothing of interest, he stared hard at his victim for a long moment. She found herself holding her breath, silently praying her ruse worked.

Finally, he rolled his shoulders and unclenched his fists, his thick jowls still tense. "Keep ‘im away from me or next time his ass will end up in the hospital."

Slowly, she released her breath as she watched the bulldog of a man turn on his heel and stomp away, back down the alley and onto the main sidewalk.

"Are you hurt?" She asked, looking over the smaller man. As he dusted off his brown trousers and tan jacket, she was surprised to realize he stood about her height, and probably about her age, in the young twenties. If her guessing was any good.

He rubbed his jaw again and winced where an impressive bruise was already growing. "I've had worse."

She could not help but smile at his nonchalance. His bright blue eyes met her own honey brown. A timid smile echoed hers, his face so open and expressive. Something about the man she found endearing already. Maybe defending him was not such a stupid action.

"All that stuff you said, about lookin' for me and gettin' lost…"

She huffed a laugh. "I am actually lost. I'm trying to find this address here." She showed him the scrap of paper with the address scribbled on it.

It took only a glance before he handed the paper back with a smile. "You're not too far. Only three streets away….I... I can take you there if you like."

"Oh, I'd hate to impose on you."

"No, it's really fine. Seems you saved me from...well…" He shrugged, sticking his hands in the pockets of his tan jacket.

"And... you...don't mind, you know, being seen with me?"

"No, why?" Eyebrows furrowed and lips pursed slightly, he stared at her like that was the strangest question.

It was in that moment she knew, whoever this scrawny man was- he was a good man. The difference in their ethnicity made no difference to him. He was a rarity in her experience with most New Yorkers.

Even though it was 1940 and this was supposed to be a land of equal opportunity.

It was not.

With a shrug and momentarily, awkward silence as they both thought about their own answers to his question, they fell into step with one another as they headed back out of the alley.

"So, what's your name? Or is it actually Bill?" She spoke up once they hit the sidewalk.

"Do I look like a Bill?"

She squinted her eyes then shook her head giggling. "No, you don't."

"It's Steve…. Steve Rogers."

"It's nice to meet you, Steve."

He directed them down another street. Their shoulders brushed occasionally as they walked, due more to their need to maneuver around puddles and other pedestrians than any sense of intimacy. "You gonna tell me your name or do I have to make one up for you?"

"Oh! Sorry. It's Elana Morales-Díaz. So, what caused the fight?"

The tips of his ears and cheeks turned pink as he ducked his head. "He, um, we...we had a disagreement."

"Obviously. I would hate to know you're friends and beat each other up for fun."

"My best friend is a boxer. He's tryin’ to teach me some moves…. does that count as beating each other up?"

She pretended to think about it. "I may let that one slide but it sounds like you might need some new friends."

"Yeah," he chuckled and peeked over at her. "Know of any openings?"

"I just might."

They stood at an intersection waiting to cross the street when they heard a shout from further down the road. Neither paid much attention initially until the shout repeated itself.

"STEVE!"

The blond looked down the road, a smile on his lips. He waved and tugged on Elana to move away from the curb. She followed along, surprised since he told her they needed to cross.

A man glided through the pedestrians easily, a few lingering looks thrown his way by some of the women. When he noticed her standing next to Steve, his eyes widened for a brief moment before a lazy smirk appeared on his face and his strut became more pronounced. With boxing gloves dangling over his shoulder, his white shirt and black trousers, he looked like he just walked out of a gym. Especially with the way his dark brown hair ruffled in the breeze, a few strands sticking up like he had run his hands through it a few times.

"I leave you for one afternoon and I come back to find you with the prettiest gal in all of New York."

Steve rolled his eyes. "You're always at the gym now."

The man put Steve in a teasing headlock. Only after a flirtatious wink at her, he released the smaller man. "So, you gonna introduce me to this wolfess, Steve?"

"Ah, right. Elana, this is my best friend, Bucky Barnes. Buck, this is Elana."

"Nice to meet you." She said, a small smile at their interactions. It reminded her of her brothers.

The man -Bucky- reached over and took her hand but instead of shaking it, pressed a kiss to her knuckles, maintaining eye contact the whole time. "Pleasure is mine."

Oh, he was a charmer. The kind her mother warned her about. Then again, her father had the same devilish charisma and Elana liked to remind her mother of that. To which her mother would laugh and say that's why she warned her daughter of those men, she knew from experience. With just a wink and kiss, she would fall madly in love, leave her home and give him five babies before she even knew it. It was always after this statement often said loudly and with feigned annoyance that Elana's father would wrap his arms around his wife, lovingly kiss her temple and remind her how long he had to chase her before she even agreed to go on a date with him.

"So how do you guys know each other?" Bucky asked, those blue eyes bouncing between the two of them.

Steve coughed, rubbing the back of his neck. It was then Bucky finally seemed to notice the slowly darkening bruise on Steve's jaw.

"Steve!" He grabbed his friend's face and glanced over him, concern etched in his movements and expression. "What happened this time, punk?"

"Nothin'...just a disagreement. I had 'im on the ropes."

He dropped his hand, running it through his brunet hair. "You gotta stop pickin’ fights, one of these days…" The implications hung heavily in the air.

"Ah, Steve…" When he looked over at her, she nodded toward the parcel still in her arms.

"Oh right! Sorry. Buck, I gotta take her to drop somethin' off."

Bucky shrugged. "Lead the way, punk."

"Jerk."

The three of them quickly crossed the street. Steve, and soon Bucky when he understood what was going on, pointed out markers for her in case she got lost again. In a short time, they arrived at the house, one of the nicer ones in Brooklyn. The boys waited on the sidewalk as Elana walked up to the front door and handed the parcel over with the man's tailored suit.

"Where you off to now, doll?" Bucky asked when she approached them.

"Oh, I need to get back to the shop. Mr. Hendricks will most likely be upset with how late I am anyway."

"The tailorin’ shop near Prospect Park?"

"Yeah." She played with a strand of her hair, trying to hide her nerves.

"What a coincidence. We were headed that way ourselves, right, Steve?"

"What?" Steve looked at Bucky, head tilted in confusion. Bucky cuffed him in the back of the head. "Oh, yeah. Yeah. Um, gonna take a nice walk in the park."

Elana could not help but giggle at the two. With Bucky looking skyward like he was silently praying for patience to deal with his best friend; meanwhile Steve rubbed the back of his head and glared at his best friend. Although she just met them and hardly knew them, she found herself enjoying their presence. Friends were not something she had in great supply...or any supply really.

Plus, if she was being honest with herself, she found her gaze drifting to the tall, charming brunet more times than she cared to admit. The butterflies in her stomach did not help the situation. She knew it was foolish. He was attractive and knew it. But when he turned those baby blues on her and winked, she could not help but be drawn to him, like a moth to the flame.

"How come we ain't seen you round before? I know I'd remember a dame as beautiful as you round Brooklyn." Bucky said on her left side while Steve walked on her right. Neither one crowded her space. Sometimes one would touch a hand to her back to direct her steps or hold her elbow when she jumped a puddle. It was sweet instead of condescending.

She shrugged. "I recently got the job at the tailor shop and I live in Queens."

They both winced making her laugh. She would never understand this animosity the boroughs had with each other.

"Well that explains a lot." Steve muttered.

"Hey!" She nudged the blond with her shoulder as she muttered. "Me gusta Queens. Ustedes dos están celosos."

"What language is that?" Steve asked, curiosity evident.

"Spanish."

"Is that why you have an accent?"

She nodded, unable to meet their gazes as she answered. "My family moved here from Spain when I was six." Although she had grown up here in New York City, gone to school just like the other kids, she still maintained a slight accent to her words, different from the stereotypical New Yorker's accent.

"Say somethin’ else." Bucky smiled down at her.

She laughed. "Like what?"

"I don't know. Anythin’."

"El cielo es azul. Me duelen los pies con estos tacones. Me he reído más con ustedes dos que en semanas".

Bucky had almost a dazed look on his face. "That's beautiful."

"You have no idea what I said."

"Doesn't matter." The brunet stated as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Steve can talk in Irish."

"Buck…"

"What?"

"I mean, a little." He rubbed the back of his neck. "My ma came from Ireland."

Bucky snorted. "You wrote a poem for a girl in the second grade in Irish and read it to her on the playground. I'd say that's more than a little."

Steve's face was red and jaw dropped as he stared at his friend. "How...how...how do you know that?" He sputtered. "We weren't even friends yet."

Bucky winked at Elana as he answered. "Gotta be friends with the right people."

The three of them walked back, talking and laughing. Well it was mostly the boys talking and teasing one another but she enjoyed just listening to their banter. Occasionally they would direct a question to her or she would throw out a remark that had them laughing.

She guided them to the back alley of the street front shops. Mr. Hendricks disliked her walking through the front unless she had her work apron on and clean shoes.

"Well thank you for helping me and walking me back."

"It's not a big deal." Steve said.

"We'll see you round, yeah? I'd hate to just meet a gorgeous dame like you then never see her again." Bucky threw a wink at her, adjusting the boxing gloves still over his shoulder.

She opened her mouth to tease them then stopped. She truly hoped this was not the last time she saw these two. In a spur of the moment decision, she stepped closer to say goodbye. She pressed her cheeks to Steve's first, giving the traditional cheek kiss. She did the same to Bucky, though she had to rise on her toes to reach his face, and she suspected he bent over slightly.

"Hasta luego, mis amigos."

"What was that, doll?"

She looked from Bucky's smirk to Steve's red face and back. "A traditional goodbye."

"Mmm…I could get used to that." The boxer teased, nudging his friend who refused to meet her eyes now.

She smiled and started to open the back door when Bucky's hand grabbed her forearm, stalling her movements.

"Hey, wait." Those baby blue eyes met her honey brown ones. "It's Friday night. We usually go to the Stork Club for drinks and dancin’. Come with us."

"Oh, I don't know…"

"Come on. It'll be great. If it helps, we'll pick you up from your house."

She could not help the laugh that slipped out at the thought. "You'd come to Queens... to get me?"

"It might break my heart to leave my beloved Brooklyn but I'd do it for you, doll."

"Honestly it'd be dangerous for you to come to my house."

"A little danger never hurt." He brushed some of her hair behind her ear, sending shivers down her spine.

He was trouble, complete trouble for her...and she knew it. But the longer he stared at her with those pleading eyes and hand now at the nape of her neck, she could feel her resolve crumbling. "I have three brothers and a protective father."

"They can't be that bad… Come on, please? Steve, help me out!"

Steve just laughed, raising his hands in surrender.

She bit the inside of her cheek thinking about it. Her brother Mateo owed her for when she covered for him when he almost got caught smoking cigarettes behind the apartment building. Tonight, her parents were supposed to visit her eldest brother and his new wife in the Bronx.

"Ok…" She whispered.

"Yeah?" A beaming grin spread over his face.

"Ok...I'll meet you there though."

"Yes!" Bucky bent over and kissed her cheek loudly. "You won't regret it! Nine o'clock!"

"Nueve. Estaré allí."

"I still don't know what you said, doll, but I love it."

She laughed, pushing him away from her. "Go! Before I'm even more late."

Before they were three steps away, she ducked inside the back of the shop. Hopefully she was able to slip in unnoticed. The shop should be closing soon so Mr. Hendricks would be in his little office room.

She leaned against the back door, hands pressed against her cheeks to will away the warmth in them. Thankfully with her brown skin, the blush would be harder to notice. As she stood there, the realization of what she just agreed to finally hit her. An icy fist landed in her gut, drowning the blush away. She had never been to a club before. She had no idea what to wear...or how to act. How was she even going to get there?

Underneath the fear though was a determination to go. Why couldn't she have fun for one night, like other young women she regularly saw and envied. Both of those Brooklyn boys seemed nice. Thinking about them brought the flush back to her skin, especially when she thought of the kiss on the cheek from Bucky. He was trouble and fun and charming and devilish and… and she wanted to spend more time with him. And Steve, the sweet, kind, funny guy that he was. She liked them both. But when thinking about those baby blue eyes, insufferable smirk and broad shoulders...her heartbeat sped up and butterflies erupted in her belly.

"Oh Dios, ¿qué voy a hacer?" She whispered to herself.

*****

Just after nine o'clock, Elana climbed out of the taxi. She stared up at the sign that brightly screamed ‘Stork Club’. So many people milled about, either walking into the club or chatting, waiting for others in their group. A couple people already looked like they had been hitting the bottles for some time, if the rambunctious yelling and obnoxious laughter said anything. The atmosphere was loud and vibrant with an air of debauchery...and she had not even stepped foot in the door.

"Oh Dios, ¿por qué estoy aquí? Estúpido. Tan estúpido. Debería irme. Ni siquiera se darán cuenta." She murmured to herself, her hands wringing the strap on her clutch. Actually, it was not even hers. She "borrowed" it from her mother's closet and prayed that she could return it before her mother noticed.

"Elana!"

At the call of her name, she turned around to see Bucky and Steve crossing the street, dodging a car that decided they were taking too long.

"You made it!" Bucky exclaimed, bubbling with excitement. He scanned her over, giving a low whistle. "Damn, doll, you look beautiful."

"Gracias." She smoothed down her floral-patterned tea dress that reached mid-calf, her kitten heels still on from earlier. Her raven hair hung loosely down her back, unstyled in the typical curls that most women wore. There had been no time to try one of those hair styles and not bring attention to herself before she snuck out. Just to make her even more self-conscious, the cherry red lipstick she wore felt heavy on her lips. Something she only wore on rare occasions. "You fellas clean up nicely."

Checking over them, they each wore nice suits. Though Steve's looked a size or two too large and the prominent bruise on his cheek ruined the look a bit. Bucky was practically sinful in his suit, showing off his broad shoulders and strong legs, his hair slicked back. Improper thoughts flooded her mind and a heat warmed her cheeks. She had a feeling she would need to go to confession tomorrow. That was tomorrow’s worry though, tonight was about fun.

"Ready to have the time of your life?" Bucky asked, excitement practically bubbled under his skin.

"That's a high standard."

"Guess I better not disappoint. C'mon!" He grabbed her hand, pulling her towards the crowded, open door. In her sudden fear, she reached back and snagged Steve's hand, dragging him along. She would never admit it but having both of them on either side of her made her feel better.

There were several different calls for Bucky, vying for his attention. He just waved or yelled something back but kept her hand in his, pulling them through. She noticed more than one disappointed female face when Bucky passed them. It churned something in her stomach which she tried to ignore.

When they finally entered the dance hall, she froze. It was nothing like she imagined and so much better. At the far end was a stage with a large band playing an upbeat song that made her bounce on her toes without realizing it. A large bar area was set up, packed with people already looking for something to wet their throats. Booths and tables lined the walls. Already the hardwood, dance floor looked packed with couples jiving. Mirrors and photographs hung on the walls making the place feel bigger even when it was so crowded. The air smelled of alcohol, sweat and a youthful zeal she had never experienced.

It was intoxicating and nerve-wracking. She could not wait to join in.

The next thing she noticed when she glanced at all the people...she was the only non-white person there.

"Let's get a table." Bucky tugged them along towards an open booth on the right side of the dance floor.

She slid in on one side while Steve scooted in on the other. Bucky stood at the end, grinning ear to ear as he seemed to quickly survey the place.

"Right." He tossed his suit jacket on the seat next to her then clapped his hands, the sound muffled by the volume from the band nearby. "What kinda drink would you like?"

"Ah, vino?"

He nodded and waltzed towards the bar, throwing an arm around the shoulder of one of the men standing there waiting.

She turned back to the blond. "You're not drinking?"

"Nah, too many health issues to make it worth it."

She hummed and took note of Steve's fidgeting. "Is this your first time too?"

He chuckled. "No. I just don't...well, this isn't where I'd prefer to be on a Friday night...but don't tell Bucky... though he probably knows."

"What would you rather be doing?"

"Drawin’ or paintin’, maybe playin’ cards but I'm terrible at them."

"You're an artist?" The realization warmed her heart. This scrawny man with a heart too big for his body and kindness an invisible cloak around him. It made sense somehow. He could look past the ugly and see beauty and somehow capture it.

"I don't know if I'd say that...I just enjoy it. It's usually what I end up doin’ when I come here. Doodlin’ on a napkin while Buck dances with every girl he can."

Her stomach dropped while hearing that, which was stupid. So stupid. She swallowed thickly, hoping Steve did not notice, before she spoke again to distract herself. "Well if you doodle something tonight, can I see it after?"

"If you like."

Bucky appeared a minute later with a foamy glass of beer and a glass of red wine. Carefully, he placed them both on the table. "Ready to cut a rug?" He asked, looking at her expectedly.

"Um, I don't...I've never danced like this before." She hesitantly admitted. Steve gave her a sympathetic smile like he understood.

"Don't matter. I bet you're a swell dancer." He held out his hand for her. When she did not immediately accept his hand, he wiggled his fingers. "C'mon, ain't that hard. I'll teach you."

With a sigh, she took his hand, his smile beaming as he tugged her out of the booth. She could not help but smile back at his sheer enthusiasm. It was contagious.

He led her off to the side of the dance floor. Putting one hand on her lower back and taking the other in his hand, he began demonstrating the steps. Her eyes stayed glued to his feet while he moved, willing her brain to understand and not make a fool of her.

"You got this, doll. Told you, you're a natural. Just follow my movement, let me lead."

So she did and before she knew it, they were flying around the dance floor.

Bucky was an amazing dancer and it showed in how he effortlessly led her. A couple times she stumbled or stepped on his toes but he would just grin and encourage her to keep going. The faces of those around them blurred. The music seemed to sink into her blood and with every beat of the drum or clap of the hands from the band, her heartbeat echoed it. It was intoxicating and she had not even had a sip of alcohol. Now she understood why people flocked to these dance halls. There was something freeing in them, losing yourself to the music and movements. For a short time, you could ignore the outside world and all its trials. Here, you could be free.

Eventually she begged a break, practically panting from the several songs they danced through. The brightness in her eyes and smile though showed how much fun she was having. Still holding hands, they weaved through the crowd back to their booth where Steve sat with a napkin in front of him, pencil in hand and eyes focused downward. She slid into the booth first, Bucky right behind her.

"Have fun?" Steve asked, eyes bouncing between the two before him.

"I can't breathe." She giggled out, hand pressed to her chest. Her lungs struggled to fill up properly but instead of installing fear into her, it only made her laugh.

Bucky took a long sip of his beer and slung his arm behind Elana, on the back of the booth. "Told you, you'd have fun. You're a great dancer."

"Only cause I had a great teacher." Taking a sip of her wine, she focused on the quiet artist. "Did you draw something, Steve?"

"Yeah, just a little sketch."

"Can I see it?"

He slid the napkin over to her, nerves obvious. Giving him a small, reassuring smile, she flipped the napkin over and felt her heart stop and jaw drop. The pencil sketch was of Bucky and her dancing. His mouth was next to her ear, whispering instructions or flirtatious comments, his hand on her lower back. Her gaze was on his chest but the brilliant smile on her lips gave her away. The sketch was so realistic, it was astounding. It completely captured Bucky's confidence and her nervousness but somehow the opposite emotions only added to the image, bringing a sense of balance and trust between the two dancing partners.

"Steve, esto es…. hermoso…. increíble." She breathed out, never taking her eyes off the napkin. When she finally looked up to see him blushing and fiddling with the pencil, she smiled.

Bucky had been leaning against her so he could see the sketch also. "That might be your best one yet, pal."

"Thanks, guys. S'nothing."

"May I keep it?" She softly asked, eyes tracing the delicate lines and shading.

The embarrassed blond flapped a hand at her. "Course. It was for you if you wanted it anyway."

Silently, she reached across and squeezed Steve's hand, unable to convey all the emotions she was feeling. "There's one thing you got wrong."

"What's that?"

"I'm not that pretty."

Both Steve and Bucky chuckled.

"Elana," Bucky started, gazing down at her. "He drew you like-"

"Bucky!" A silky voice interrupted. A young woman stood at the end of their booth. Her blonde hair in perfect curls, bright red lipstick matched the equally bright red dress she wore. Her eyes zeroed in on the handsome brunet at the table, ignoring the other two patrons like they were just wallpaper. "Wanna dance?"

The sun-kissed woman could feel Bucky's hesitation. Nudging him gently in the ribs, she nodded towards the interloper. "Go. Have fun. I still need to catch my breath."

With a nod, he slipped out of the booth and followed the beautiful woman onto the dance floor. The two easily fell into step like they had done this a million times, each movement flawless and smiles on both of their faces.

She turned back to Steve, ignoring the churning in her gut. "What's your favorite thing to draw?"

They talked for a few minutes about art classes he had taken and the few commissioned pieces he had done for local businesses. The passion he spoke with about art, hands flapping and eyes alight, it was impossible not to join in his enthusiasm.

The presence of someone standing at the end of the table drew their attention away from the quick sketch of a monkey Steve had drawn on another napkin. This young woman had a haughty expression on her otherwise pretty face, glaring down her nose at Elana.

"You shouldn't be here." She stated, venom lacing every word. Hands on her curvy hips, the gold stitching in her emerald dress catching the light from above.

"Ruby, we-"

"No one is talkin’ to you, Steve." She barked then continued glaring at Elana. "I bet you're a real floozy, comin’ in here lookin’ like that. Well news flash, no one wants you or your kind here."

Tears stung in Elana’s eyes, threatening to fall. She knew this would happen. It always happened. There was always someone to remind her she was not one of them, even if her own eyes could see it. She had hoped tonight would be different. That for once, she could fit in.

"I want her here. She's my date."

The lady -Ruby- spun on her heel so quick, her dress flared out. "Bucky," she crooned, her voice sugary-sweet, so different than a moment ago. "You're lookin' like a real Fred Astaire out there tonight. Let's go-"

Bucky did not even look her way as he slid back onto the bench, eyes focused on Elana. "You alright there, doll?"

She nodded numbly, staring at the table. Twirling a strand of hair absent-mindedly around her finger, she tried to force the tears from falling. It was not even the worst insult she had heard hurled at her, but it still cut her to the quick. Every time.

"Why don't we head out, yeah? Steve there looks like he's gettin' a little warm and the music ain't so good tonight." Bucky said gently.

She nodded again, not trusting herself to speak.

"Bucky, stay…" Ruby tried one last time but he leveled a glare at her that made her take a step back.

"Take a powder, Ruby, I ain't interested."

Bucky wrapped his hand around Elana's, entwining their fingers as he slid out of the booth with her right behind him. Without even a backwards glance, he led the three of them out of the dance hall. Elana kept her head down the whole time, unable to meet anyone's eyes for fear of what she would see.

The night air was blissfully cool after the heat of the dance hall. It kissed her skin as if trying to help calm her down. At this point, the street was not as busy, everyone mostly inside now. Only a few pedestrians and cars interrupted the quiet scene.

"Elana, I'm so sorry."

"Debería irme. No debería haber venido. Soy tan estúpida." She muttered to herself, not even hearing Bucky's statement. It was a foolish idea to come out. For so long she had tried to fit in, especially as a child. Her mother always told her to be herself and embrace her difference. That was easier said than done. Tonight felt like a taste of it when she was on the dance floor. What things could have been like if everyone was accepted. If where she was from did not matter. She had been so happy dancing with Bucky, this handsome devil who treated her like she was special, holding her hand in front of everyone. Sure, Steve said he danced with a lot of girls but for tonight, she was someone while on his arm. She was someone special.

And oh, did she love the feeling of his hand wrapped around hers. Him holding her close as they danced, his warm breath hitting her neck just right. He was trouble, through and through. Her mother would call him a Casanova and tell her to run the other way. Yet she did not want to. He drew something out of her. An almost recklessness. A desire for more. More in life. To experience life with a passion. Both this new feeling and Bucky’s presence were addicting...and she found herself unable to turn away. At least not for tonight. She wanted to revel in it tonight.

It was not until a hand cupped her cheek and tilted her head up to meet a pair of worried baby blue eyes that she was jolted from her internal spiral.

"Hey, hey. I have no idea what you're sayin' but it don't sound good. Why don't we walk for a bit, mmm? The night's still young."

Wordlessly, she followed. It was then she noticed Bucky was still holding her hand, palms flat against one another's. That realization drew a small smile on her lips. On her other side walked Steve, hands in his pockets but a genuine smile on his face when he caught her eye. Even after all this, these two Brooklyn boys wanted to be with her. With that in mind, she shoved her despair and pain away. Let tomorrow bring what worries that came with it. Tonight she wanted to be reckless without fear of the consequences. Tonight was supposed to be fun.

"Can't believe Ruby would say that. Always thought she was a nice dame." The brunet mused, slipping his suit jacket back on before taking Elana's hand once again.

"She only showed what she wanted you to see, Buck."

"Dance with a girl a couple times and she thinks you owe her or somethin'."

The blond quirked an eyebrow at his friend. "Was it only dancin'?"

"What you gettin' at, Rogers?"

"You ditched some other girl for her once before."

His head swiveled to stare at the smaller man in shock. "I did?"

Elana spoke up. "Sounds like you have quite the selection of dance partners to choose from."

Steve snorted. "Guy has been doll-dizzy since he was twelve."

"What can I say? I appreciate fine art." Bucky said with a self-satisfied grin.

"Don't usually lock lips with paintings or statues…"

"You know what, Rogers!"

Elana laughed as Bucky let go of her hand to race around her and put Steve in a headlock. The two pretended to box for a couple minutes, grins on both their faces. When finished, the champion boxer slid up to her, a rakish smile teasing his lips as he claimed her hand back.

"Well if those gals are fine art, you sweetheart, are a masterpiece." He twirled her around once, making her dress flare out around her legs. "Have I told you yet how beautiful you look tonight?"

"Yes, Bucky."

"Good, I'd hate for you to forget." He winked and the trio started walking again.

"Oh, here." Steve suddenly said, fishing something out of his pocket. He held out his hand almost shyly.

She took the offered item to see it was the napkin with the sketch on it. "Oh, Steve. Muchas gracias." She leaned over and pressed a kiss to his cheek, leaving a red stain behind. "Oops."

"Here." Bucky tossed over a handkerchief to Steve.

She glanced at the napkin one more time before reverently placing it in her clutch. She already knew where she was going to put this in her room so she would always remember this night.

"Oh drat." Steve said after glancing at his watch. "It's almost eleven. I have class early tomorrow."

"Go on, punk. I'll look after her."

Elana hugged Steve and was thrilled when he squeezed her back just as tightly. "I'm so happy to have met you."

"This isn't goodbye, right?"

"I hope not. You have more artwork to show me."

He blushed yet nodded before giving Bucky a quick hug.

"Night, Steve."

"Night, jerk."

Together, they watched Steve walk down the sidewalk, wave back at them then disappear down the next street.

"Wanna keep walkin'?"

She nodded. She knew she should go home. It was getting late and she still had to get back to Queens. Yet walking side by side with this man whom she had only met several hours ago, she found the idea abhorrent. Glancing up at the night sky, only a couple of the stars were visible through the smoke, clouds and street lamps. They were lovely though, a reminder that there were greater things out there, one just had to look for them. At least, that is what her father always said.

"Hey," Bucky's voice pulled her attention back, "I never got to say it earlier but thanks...for havin’ Steve's back earlier today. Punk doesn't know when to quit."

"I'm glad he got in that fight...is that odd? If he didn't, I wouldn’t have met either one of you."

"Alright, this ONE time I'm glad he got in a fight. Though, we probably would have ran into each other eventually."

They walked in comfortable silence for a couple minutes. Two cars passed them separately and only a handful of people walked their way. Otherwise it almost felt like they were alone. It was peaceful, still holding hands and wandering the streets of Brooklyn.

"Y'know, I was kinda hopin' we'd get at least one slow song at the dance hall."

"Me too." She confessed.

"Well, we should!" An idea sparked in his eyes. "Wait here." He moved over to one of the parked cars near them. He tried to open it but it was locked so he moved to the next one. This one opened without hesitation and he slid in. The whole time Elana switched between watching Bucky and scanning the streets for someone to yell at them. What was he thinking? Suddenly music came on, drifting from the radio through the open passenger door.

Bucky stood there, leaning against the car with the biggest grin on his smug face. "Who needs a dance hall?"

She laughed, understanding what he had done. "We’re going to get in trouble."

"No, we ain't. C'mon."

"Oh, Dios mío, yes we are!"

"Dance with me." He cooed, standing before her looking like an Adonis.

With that lazy smirk and enthralling blue eyes staring down at her, refusal was not an option. The words died on her tongue as she stared up at him. The music was slow, a singer crooning about his love. The moment felt like something from a fairytale story her mother would tell her as a little girl. She knew she should go home. Stop this heat that seared through her when she found herself caught in his eyes. Stop the butterflies in her stomach when around him. Stop the way she melted under his touch, his hands always so gentle.

But she wanted this. Right now. To pretend this was her reality. To dance with her prince under the stars. That love did not care about the differences in their skin tones. For when the sun rose and this dream faded, reality would seep back in. Plus, he was a charmer. Doll-dizzy. She would not keep his attention past this night.

For now though, she could pretend. Enjoy the night in a way she never had before.

He placed her hands behind his neck and his on her hips. Standing there under the streetlight and distant starlight, they danced, swaying back and forth. Her head landed on his chest, feeling his heartbeat beneath it. So steady and soothing. The world faded away around them, the only things that mattered was their dancing and the music. It wrapped around them like a warm, thick blanket. Enveloping them in a sense of security and vitality. One of his hands slowly traced her spine leaving a trail of fire behind. His cheek pressed against the top of her head. She felt safe...and wanted. A heady feeling that she could sense herself beginning to crave even more. Her hand tangled in the hair, her fingers lightly scraping the back of his neck.

"Say something in Spanish." He whispered, his lips against her scalp.

"Gracias por esto ... todo esto. Ha sido la mejor noche de mi vida".

She looked back up at him, hoping to convey without words what she said. As she lifted her head up, their eyes locked. Tension filled the empty space around them, pulling them closer. For a split second, his eyes drifted to her lips and back up. Her heartbeat began racing anew. Slowly, as if waiting for her to turn away, his head tilted towards hers, his hands gripping her just a little tighter. His breath fanned across her face, warming her inside and out. She swore her heart was going to beat out of her chest. His nose brushed hers, an almost timid action that drew a smile from her. He chuckled silently then somehow pulled her even closer. She closed her eyes, a gasp escaping her when she felt the faintest touch of his lips on the corner of her mouth.

"Hey! Hey, you kids! What ya doin’ with my car?!"

All the tension evaporated like rain drops under the scorching sun.

"Shit...c'mon!" He grabbed her hand and started running away. Holding on tight, she ran next to him, as well as she could while wearing heels. The yells of the car's owner soon a distant sound behind them.

Finally, they stopped two streets later. He let go of her hand, running his hands through his hair and pacing. She leaned against the brick wall, hand over her mouth, giggles spilling forth between gasps of air. Never in her life had she done anything like this. She closed her eyes as the giggles turned into full-body laughter. One hand covered her mouth and the other wrapped around her own waist to try and contain the sound. This night was nothing like she expected but it only seemed to get better and better. This newfound revelry of youthful zeal, this silly recklessness...she wanted more and more of it.

When the laughter dissolved into small chuckles, she wiped her eyes as she opened them, hoping her make-up had not smudged too much. Not that she particularly cared in the moment.

What she saw standing before her killed the laughter on her tongue.

Bucky stood just at arm's length, staring at her like she was the stars in the heavens.

In a single step, he crowded her against the brick wall. "Elana…" he growled, voice low, and it might have been the most exhilarating sound she had ever heard. One of his hands cupped the back of her head, as he lowered his lips to hers. The kiss was gentle, their lips just pressed together. A soft pressure that made her melt into his arms.

He leaned back to press his forehead against hers. His breath just as shaky as hers, both still breathing hard from their run.

"That was my first kiss." She blurted out, immediately regretting the words once they escaped.

He leaned back to look her in the eye. "Really?"

She shrugged nervously. "Not many fellas lining up to kiss a girl like me."

"Their loss, doll face." He smirked, running a thumb over her bottom lip. "May I have the honor of your second kiss ever?"

She giggled and nodded.

This time when their lips touched, it felt like more. The first was like licking the spoon used after mixing cookie dough. A taste of what was to come. The second kiss was eating warm cookies right out of the oven and practically ascending to heaven.

His lips slanted over hers perfectly, as if they were formed just for her. Their mouths moved in tandem, picking up speed. No longer were the kisses sweet and gentle. His tongue traced her bottom lip and she willingly opened her mouth to receive it like a present. These kisses were all-consuming and fiery. It was as if his touch seared into her soul, leaving an imprint there for all eternity.

She knew right away when she met Bucky Barnes, he was trouble. He was the kind of man her mother warned her about. The kind to sweep her off her feet and make her forget the world around her. He was kind, charming and so full of life. Yet she knew even as she was wrapped in his arms, lips pressed against his, that there was one truth that would haunt her. Even if she ignored it for now. That truth would never leave. So she overlooked it, sinking deeper and deeper into his kisses and embrace. Drowning herself in him. With her back pressed against the wall, her hands tangled in his hair and mouths devouring one another, she had never felt more alive.

Tonight, she would choose the fire he poured into her. Tonight, she wanted to enjoy life without fear. Tonight, she wanted to pretend that this night would never end. To thrive in this feeling of passion and life, that nothing could go wrong.

For the truth was one day, he was bound to break her heart.

#marveldiversitychallenge #marvel #marvel fanfic #marvel fanfiction #Bucky Barnes #James Buchanan Bucky Barnes #james bucky barnes #bucky barnes x ofc #bucky/ofc #bucky fic #Steve Rogers #Hispanic!ofc #POC character #40s!steve #40s!bucky #40s!#1940s #mzwrites

86 notes · View notes

pinktwingirl · 3 years

Text

Rats, Squirrels, and Unlikely Friends

A quick oneshot in which Squirrel Girl travels to the DC universe and meets Ratcatcher II. Enjoy! :) @oh-its-jennyyy

Doreen knew she wasn’t supposed to be doing this. Stark Industries’ prototype wormhole generator was strictly off-limits to anyone but authorized staff, and that certainly did not include Doreen. She was a new hire, fresh out of college. She didn’t belong in top-secret labs, tampering with cutting-edge technology that could alter the fabric of space and time as we knew it. And yet, there she was, hacking into the “supposedly” un-hackable security system to check it out when no one was working on it. (She was slightly more skilled in the firewall breaching and data encryption area than her supervisors were aware.)

Every cell in her body screamed at her to stop. God, what was she thinking?! If anyone caught a glimpse of her doing this, she’d be fired on the spot. But whether it was her unending curiosity or her stubbornness to blame, she kept going. She just couldn’t help it; the whole concept of wormholes and interdimensional travel was so cool! She only wanted to see what the thing could do and how far they’d come... and hey, maybe if there were any areas for improvements that she could offer ideas on-

The device, a tall, silver arch, suddenly illuminated in a bright white haze, with its center forming some sort of black void. She must have somehow turned it on by accident.

“Ohhhh shit...” she grumbled.

Frantically scrambling around to find an off-switch, Doreen quickly realized that there wasn’t one. In fact, there were no buttons or cord connectors on the device at all. Was it motion activated? Voice activated? Maybe thermally activated from body heat?

There was no time to find out. Before she could move or do anything, she felt her body pulled into the void, and everything went dark.

…

It took Doreen a while to fully process her surroundings when she regained consciousness. A bright light, that she assumed was the sun – or, at least, a sun, given that she was in a new universe – was shining in her eyes, and she had to blink a few times for her vision to adjust. She could feel hard gravel pressing on her protesting back, which begged her to sit up. When she did, she came face-to-face with a young woman posed in a defensive stance, ready to strike.

Doreen took a moment to size up her potential assailant. The woman had a small stature, much like her, with short, dark hair, a dirty black coat, and, most bafflingly of all, a rat sitting on her shoulder, which didn’t seem to bother her in the slightest.

“Who are you?” the woman demanded. She certainly had a bit of an accent, although Doreen couldn’t quite place what it was. Not that it would really matter, though; countries could be entirely different in this world, assuming that this even was another Earth in the first place.

Well, at least people in this universe could still speak English. That would make communication easy.

“Umm...” Doreen got out. “Would you believe me if I said I was from another universe?”

Before the woman could respond, they both jumped when they heard loud squeaking behind them. Doreen was shocked to see her three faithful companions, Monkey Joe, Tippy-Toe, and Mr. Liebermann, bounding to her side.

“Wh-? What are you three doing here?! Did you follow me?” Tippy-Toe nodded and gave an enthusiastic chirp as Doreen stroked her back. “Oh, you silly squirrels... You know you’re not supposed to come to work with me...”

The dark-haired woman, much to Doreen’s surprise, was looking at her not with disgust or judgment, but instead wide-eyed wonder and fascination.

“Are these your... friends?”

“Huh? Oh! I guess it would be rude to skip introductions. These are my pet squirrels, Monkey Joe, Tippy-Toe, and Mr. Liebermann.” Doreen stuck out her hand. “I’m Doreen Green.”

Reaching her hand out as well, the dark-haired woman tentatively shook it, apparently having decided that Doreen wasn’t a threat. “Cleo Cazo. Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, too! So, um... yeah... I guess you’re... wondering where I came from?”

Cleo nodded.

“Well, so... the company I work for kind of built a wormhole generator that could transport people to alternate universes. And... I guess this place is one of them. Although, I actually wasn’t supposed to be messing with it. This was all a huge accident.” After a moment, she gave Cleo a sheepish grin. “I guess that must all be hard for you to believe, though...”

The rat on Cleo’s shoulder squeaked something into her ear, and she smiled. “No, it’s okay. Sebastian says you are telling the truth. He can sense that you are an honest and kind person!” The rat suddenly scurried to a patch of grass nearby to chew a dandelion off its stem and present it to Doreen. “Aww, look! He is offering you a flower as a token of his goodwill!”

Doreen giggled as she took the flower and put it in her hair. “Thank you, Sebastian! Would you like an almond?” Sebastian squeaked happily as she reached into her pocket and handed him his gift.

As Doreen stood up, Cleo was surprised to see a long, bushy tail extending from her backside. “Forgive me if this is a rude question, but... do all people in your universe have tails?”

“Oh, no. I’m actually the only one. I was born with altered DNA that made me part squirrel. They call me a mutant because of that. Do you have mutants here?”

Cleo shook her head. “I do not think so. I have heard of people born with altered DNA, but I have never heard the word ‘mutant’ used to describe them. Your powers are so cool, though! I wish I were part rat. But I don’t have any rat blood in me. I just communicate with them and tell them what to do.”

“That’s still pretty impressive! How do you do it?”

Cleo showed Doreen her rat-guiding light. “With this. My papa taught me how. He was the original Ratcatcher. When he passed away, I became his successor: Ratcatcher II.”

“That’s amazing!” Doreen smiled at Sebastian. “Do you mind if I pet him?”

“Not at all! Can I pet your squirrels?”

“Sure!”

The girls swapped rodents, with Cleo stroking Monkey Joe, Tippy-Toe, and Mr. Liebermann and Doreen scratching the head of a very happy Sebastian. After a moment of silent contemplation, Doreen spoke up again.

“I’ve never... met anybody like me. I mean... someone who talks to small rodents. It’s a really underrated ability!”

“I know, right? Everyone always thinks I am weird or gross.”

“You know, I never got why people hate rats so much. They’re so cute and fluffy! I mean, sure, they eat garbage, but it’s not their fault! They don’t have anything else to eat! What else are they supposed to do?”

“That’s what I keep saying!”

“So... are countries still the same in this universe? Is this the U.S.?”

“Yes, we have a United States. And a Portugal. That’s where I am from. Does your universe have a Portugal?”

“Yep! It sounds like we have all the same countries! That’s a relief.”

“But this is not American soil. We are in the Hispanic nation of Corto Maltese.”

“Oh... I guess it’s a good thing I ran into you, then, instead of the natives. I don’t speak a lick of Spanish.”

“Neither do I. I don’t live here.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

Cleo pointed to what looked like the ruins of a tall building off in the distance. “Cleaning up that. The ruins of Jotunheim.”

“Jotunheim? You mean, like, the place where frost giants live?”

“What are ‘frost giants?’”

“Oh... you... don’t have those here? I have a friend who’s a frost giant, so I thought that’s what you were talking about.”

“Jotunheim was once a research laboratory. They used a giant alien starfish to conduct experiments with the creature’s mind control abilities. Many people died in the process, and the American government was behind all of it.”

“That’s horrible!”

“The government sent me with a team to cover it up. But when the monster got loose, we destroyed it instead. Now, we have to clean up the damage in the city. It is not as glamorous as saving the world, but no job is too menial for the Suicide Squad.”

“The ‘Suicide Squad?’ That’s what you guys call yourselves? That’s a pretty bleak name. See, I’m part of a team called The Avengers. Now, that’s a much better name."

“Well, it’s only a nickname. Our official codename is Task Force X.”

“You know, why does the letter X always make everything sound, like, ten times cooler? Like, ‘Task Force Y’ or ‘Task Force W’ just wouldn’t sound right, would it?”

Cleo giggled. “I guess not.” She handed the squirrels back to Doreen as Sebastian happily bounded back to her side.

“Well, this has been a real treat, but I should probably get back now,” Doreen laughed. “I don’t want to get-” She froze as she looked behind her, realizing that there was no wormhole device. “Oh... I... I don’t know how to get back... Oh no, this is bad...”

Cleo put a hand on her shoulder before she could start to panic. “Don’t worry! I’m sure my friends can help you figure something out! Let’s get you back to my teammates.”

The two walked down several blocks, where a tall man with heavy-duty armor and a walking shark were waiting for them. Cleo grinned at Doreen.

“Is seeing a giant shark with legs strange in your world?”

“Well, I’m friends with a talking tree and racoon, so, not really, to be honest.”

The tall man gave Doreen a weird look. She wasn’t sure if it was because of her tail or her last rather bizarre-sounding remark. Maybe both.

“Who is this?” he asked.

Doreen cheerfully stuck out her hand. “My name’s Doreen Green, also known as Squirrel Girl! I’m from another universe!” She paused. ��It’s kind of a long story. I also need help getting back home now.”

The tall man tentatively shook her hand. “Robert DuBois. Or Bloodsport. I guess we can get you down to the science people if you really want to come with us.”

Doreen took a moment to peer at him. “You know, it’s weird... You look just like this guy one of my friends used to know. Would you happen to be related to a guy called Heimdall at all? Guardian of Asgard? Watchman of the Gods? Is that ringing any bells?”

After staring blankly at her for a moment, Bloodsport turned to Cleo. “Is this girl on drugs?”

“Excuse me! I most certainly am not!” Doreen protested. “It’s strictly against company protocol to be under the influence of any substances during work hours! And I’m technically still working!”

The shark suddenly pointed at the squirrels. “Nom nom!”

Cleo sighed. “No, Nanaue, that’s not nom nom. Squirrels are friends. Just like rats.” She patted the shark’s back as he gave a dejected slump. “We’ll get you food when you get back.”

Out of nowhere, Doreen suddenly felt a tingling sensation in her body. Moving of their own will, her legs suddenly starting stumbling backwards. Her squirrels instantly jumped on her shoulder, ready to protect their human from any harm.

“Hey, where are you going?” Bloodsport called.

“I...” Doreen got out. “I think the device is pulling me back!”

“You’re leaving now?!” Cleo shouted.

“I can’t stop it!” Doreen grabbed onto Cleo’s hand in a last-ditch moment of desperation. “Cleo! Take good care of Sebastian! And don’t ever let anyone underestimate you! Trust me, I learned the hard way! People think we’re weak because they don’t understand us... But you’re stronger than you th-”

Before she could finish, she was gone.

…

Doreen collapsed on the ground, her heart racing at the familiar tile patterns. She knew this laboratory! She knew this building! She was back!

Her excitement quickly faded when she realized that return would mean consequences. Yep, she was definitely fired...

Except... there was still no one in the lab. No one had come back. Doreen checked the time. 2:15. She’d only been gone for 5 minutes! She looked around in awe at the silent room. All she would have to do now was sneak out. Had she really gotten away with it?

Slipping out the door and quietly returning to her workstation, she did her best to ignore her coworker’s questions about why she took a fairly lengthy bathroom break and whether she knew what they were supposed to be doing, instead giving them quick, uninvolved answers. Her mind was on Cleo and that strange, strange universe. It was so different, and yet... so similar to hers. The multiverse was certainly big and daunting, but no matter what people found in it in the future, no matter what research lied ahead, she knew it would always give her one source of comfort:

She’d found a friend that was just like her.

4 notes · View notes

latenightsleuth · 3 years

Text

West Mesa Murders: Theories differ on the identity of the West Mesa Bone Collector, or if he even exists

On Feb. 2, 2009, Christine Ross was walking her dog Ruca in a suburban housing development on Albuquerque’s West Mesa when they found a bone. Realizing it was a human femur, Ross contacted the police. As they investigated the area where the body was buried, authorities uncovered the remains of 11 women and one unborn child.

The women had gone missing between 2001 and 2005 and were similar — most of them were sex workers, most of them were Hispanic, and all of them were murdered. Authorities believe that a serial killer was responsible for the deaths, but in the almost 12 years since the crime became known, no suspects have ever been named.

The Albuquerque Police Department considers the West Mesa murders an active investigation, but as time goes on, it seems less and less likely that the city will ever learn who killed the women — or whether they are the only bodies buried on the mesa.

BONES ON THE MESA

In 2005, Albuquerque police detective Ida Lopez compiled a list of missing women after noticing that an inordinate number of women with ties to drugs and prostitution had vanished off of the city’s streets. Four years later, ten of them — Jamie Barela, 15; Monica Candelaria, 22; Victoria Chavez, 26; Virginia Cloven, 24; Cinnamon Elks, 32; Doreen Marquez, 24; Julie Nieto, 24; Veronica Romero, 28; Evelyn Salazar, 27; and Michelle Valdez, 22, who was four months pregnant when she was killed — were found buried on the mesa. The other one, Syllania Edwards, was 15 and had run away from her foster home in Lawton, Oklahoma.

The area where the bodies were found had been barren, empty land before housing developments began to encroach on it in 2006. The 2008 Housing Bubble collapse, however, halted that development before it reached the burial site. Before it ceased, the development had covered an existing arroyo, and complaints of flooding from nearby residents led the developer, KB Homes, to build a retaining wall to channel rainwater into a retention pond. This construction inadvertently uncovered the bone found on Feb 2.

The resulting criminal investigation, which uncovered the bodies of the 11 women over a two month period, was the largest in the history of New Mexico. It took almost a year to identify all of the victims, and the bones did not reveal how they were killed, though authorities have said they suspect strangulation. The fact that the bodies were found in a group led investigators to believe they were killed by one person — a serial killer who has come to be known as the West Mesa Bone Collector.

The investigation, at least publicly, was unable to establish any major connections between the women.

“We know that some of these women definitely would have known each other just by virtue of where they were,” said Tierna Unruh-Enos, an Albuquerque-based journalist who started “The Mesa,” a podcast delving into details of the murders, this year. “Albuquerque is not that big of a city. There have definitely been some more interesting connections that have come out in terms of like family members somehow knowing each other randomly, children of the women being in dance classes together, even though that wasn’t necessarily a factor either.”

Very little, if any, evidence was uncovered pointing toward the identity of the person who killed the women. As a result, the police have never named anyone as a suspect in the case, which remains active. They have, however, mentioned two individuals as persons of interest. (The distinction is important: A “suspect” is someone the police believe committed a crime; a “person of interest” may or may not be involved or have information about a crime.)

On Dec. 19, 2006, 19-year-old Shericka Hill met Lorenzo Montoya, 39, in a chat room and agreed to meet in person. During the meeting, police told the Albuquerque Journal, Hill and Montoya arranged for Hill to come to his mobile home — a few miles away from where the West Mesa victims would be found three years later — to perform a dance for him. Hill’s boyfriend, Frederick Williams, drove her to Montoya’s house and remained in the car while Hill went inside.

After waiting an hour, Williams grew concerned and went to check on Hill, bringing his gun with him. He encountered Montoya outside the home and Montoya brandished a gun. Feeling threatened, Williams shot him dead.

Williams found Hill dead inside the residence, bound with duct tape and strangled. It appeared that Montoya was transporting her body to his car.

“You don’t see this type of violent act committed the way it was,” Albuquerque Police Chief Ray Schultz said at the time. “It seemed like he knew what he was doing. It was very well planned and orchestrated, and that is what is worrisome about this.”

According to court records, Montoya had previously been arrested in 1999 under suspicion of sexually assaulting a 23-year-old prostitute, who told police Montoya had put his hands around her throat and choked her before he was caught by detectives. The case was later dismissed in metropolitan Court and never refiled. Montoya had also been arrested on suspicion of patronizing prostitutes in 1998 and 2005.

As Unruh-Enos points out, the fact that he killed one sex worker and may have tried to strangle another does not necessarily mean he killed others. No evidence connects him to the West Mesa killings. But notably, all of the West Mesa victims were killed before Montoya’s death.

JOSEPH BLEA

Within a week of the discovery of the first bone on the West Mesa, April Gillen contacted the police and suggested that they look into her ex-husband Joseph Blea. The man already had a significant history with the APD.

According to a search warrant affidavit, between 1990 and 2009, police had run across him over 130 times, usually in the area the West Mesa victims were said to have frequented — the East Central corridor. He was charged with the rape of a 14-year-old he knew, but that case was dropped. And his DNA was found on a prostitute left dead on the side of a street in 1985, though he was never charged for that crime.

After the discovery of the West Mesa Murders, police tailed Blea’s car for four days as he drove back and forth along Central Avenue. Police wrote that he appeared to be stalking prostitutes but never approached them. When police searched his home in late 2009, they found women’s jewelry and underwear. His wife, Cheryl Blea, told police that she and her daughter had found articles of both that didn’t belong to them around their home.

Years later, Robert Cloven, the father of West Mesa victim Virginia Cloven, told the Journal that families of the victims had noticed that the women’s jewelry was missing.

The only piece of evidence that the APD says may connect to him the murders, however, is a plant tag for a Spearmint juniper that was found near Virginia Cloven’s buried remains. The tag was traced to a nursery in California that provided plants for others in Albuquerque. Blea’s business records as a landscaper showed that he bought plants from those nurseries.

The case for charging Blea as the West Mesa Bone Collector never materialized, but evidence of other crimes did.

A rape kit collected in 1988 after a 13-year-old eighth-grader was assaulted near McKinley Middle School was tested in 2010 and led investigators to Blea. He was convicted for the crime in 2015. He then pled no contest when charged with the rapes of two women and another child that occurred between 1990 and 1993.

Blea, who is now 63, is currently serving a 90-year prison sentence. He has repeatedly denied any involvement in the West Mesa Murders, and he has never been charged with killing anyone.

OTHER THEORIES

It’s far from the most popular theory, but some believe that there is no individual West Mesa Bone Collector.

Thomas Grover is currently a lawyer in Albuquerque, but from January 2004 through December 2011, he was an officer with the APD, with the rank of sergeant when he resigned. These days he spends a lot of time representing officers throughout New Mexico in administrative matters and bringing whistle-blower actions against law enforcement agencies.

To him, the inability of the Albuquerque Police Department to find a suspect in the killings is emblematic of the disorder within the department.

“The best way to describe it is like a giant family domestic relations dispute where you’ve got some alliances working together, you’ve got antagonisms between others,” he said. “Ranks within the department personnel, cliques within the department, even units or divisions, have this acrimony, and from that, you don’t get the best application to whatever issues are going on that the community needs addressed, whether it’s large scale crimes, criminal events, ongoing patterns of criminal activity — criminal rapes for instance.”

He describes a department in which many of the best officers have departed over recent years, and supervisors with little experience and a relatively weak knowledge base are running the show. As a result, the APD has gotten increasingly less efficient and effective. Grover said that when he left the department, he thought it was going off the rails by not recognizing the concerns of citizens about the use of force and the escalating number of officer-involved shootings. That trend eventually brought the Department of Justice in to investigate the APD, which he said further reduced the police department’s efficiency.

As for why he doubts a West Mesa serial killer exists, he points to the fact that there was not a search for one prior to when the victims were found. Though Grover was never involved in the investigations, he knew people who were and confirms that there was a perception that prostitutes were disappearing — something that officers like Ida Lopez were concerned about at the time. But patterns of behavior surrounding the disappearances never suggested that they were directly related or that one person was behind them.

Grover compares this to the efforts to capture a serial robber who stole from Albuquerque businesses in the early 2000s by disassembling safes after hours. He said that even beyond the burglary unit, there was a massive effort among street-level officers to know what to look for that might indicate a robbery was being committed by this individual rather than a common thief. The burglar was never caught, but the search nevertheless illustrates to Grover that even a department in chaos was able to devote resources to catching a serial offender when they thought one existed — something that was never done in relation to the vanishing sex workers.

“Whenever there was a notion that there was an adversarial type entity out there, whether it was the burglar, or some sort of gangs, or something that really attracted a lot of attention among folks in the department ... just sort of the notion that there was a true bad guy out there — this is why a lot of people become cops,” he said. “You don’t necessarily want to go after the guys that are just committing crimes to fund drug habits. I mean, we’re talking about someone who’s a true antisocial adversary. And when those types of investigations were going on, everyone would sort of hear about it. And even if — and I don’t think this would be the case — but even if you’re talking about someone who preyed on the most vulnerable ... spectrum of society, sex workers, I don’t think that would take away from anyone’s interest.”

Why were the West Mesa victims all found in the same general area? That’s just where bodies ended up in Albuquerque, regardless of the crime.

That’s sort of the history of the West Side and the unincorporated abandoned area,” Grover said. “Detritus would just get left out there.”

ONGOING INVESTIGATIONS

The West Mesa Murders have never been designated a cold case by the Albuquerque Police Department, allegedly because the team investigating them, the 118th Street Task Force, consistently gets new tips about the killings. This also has the obfuscating effect of the department sharing few details about the investigation with the media and public, citing that doing so would interfere with the case.

This is part of the reason Tierna Unruh-Enos started her podcast. Now the managing editor and associate publisher of The Paper, Albuquerque’s new alternative weekly news publication, she was a journalist at local ABC affiliate KOAT when the bodies were found. She said the media covered the investigation extensively for about a year as it got national and international attention. But then interest died off and now it only really gets dusted off about once a year for anniversary stories.

“Watching this whole thing for the past 11 years, I just thought, there is a different way to tell the story,” she said. “I don’t want to just keep rehashing the same details over and over and over again that just don’t really take anyone anywhere. I want to talk to the families — a lot of these women had children, and those children are now adults or teenagers. And, you know, let’s talk to them and further the story than what was really being done with it.”

She is also seeking to humanize the victims.

“They were not just women who were on the street. They were not just women who were possibly a victim of their lifestyle — although that still hasn’t been proven. They were mothers, they were daughters. And this is a legacy that their children now have to deal with. And I think there’s a lot of people out there who don’t really have a lot of sympathy and kind of just want to move on and put in the past,” she said.

The majority of the women on Ida Lopez’s list of missing sex workers were identified as victims in the West Mesa Murders. But six were not. Felipa Gonzales, Nina Herron, Leah Peebles, Darlene Trujillo, Anna Vigil, and Shawntell Waites were all in their 20s when they disappeared between 2001 and 2005. They would all now be in their 30s or early 40s.

Since 2009, the West Mesa, which was previously open space, has exploded in development. A memorial park was built over the acre where the bodies were found, but the other 95 acres of that lot have gone undeveloped. Unruh-Enos believes it’s only a matter of time, though, before KB Homes finally develops that area as well. Perhaps at that time, more bodies will be found — assuming they’re not already under existing houses.

According to the city of Albuquerque’s website, a reward of up to $100,000 is still being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for the murders. The 118th Street Task Force can be reached at 1 (877) 765-8273 or (505) 768-2450.

By: Nick Gonzales

DGO Staff Writer

Dec 2, 2020

Read full article at: https://www.dgomag.com/contents/west-mesa-murders-theories-differ-on-the-identity-of-the-west-mesa-bone-collector-or-if-he-even-exists-4474

#westmesamurders #westmesabonecollector #rememberthevictim #latenightsleuth #murder #unsolved #jamiebarela #monicacandelaria #victoriachavez #virginiacloven #syllanniaedwards #cinnamonelks #doreenmarquez #julienieto #veronicaromero #evelynsalazar #michellevaldez

5 notes · View notes

suffering-and-happy-about-it · 4 years

Text

Oh, Sweet Jane... (Favored Ones, Part 31.)

Series description: Many things were surely fucked up in the year 2038, but no-one ever told anyone how all of it went down. What happened before a group of people left for Seattle to handle personal matters? Why did one girl refuse to leave all of it be? And why there were so many dead in the end?

Quote for the chapter: "Take me home - to the place I belong." - John Denver

Part summary: Seattle was seemingly over as you all tried to get back to a normal, day-to-day life again. But some things couldn’t be fixed anymore.

A/N: So... It’s here. This is the time I’m going to say goodbye.

Warnings: Depiction of torture, bone breaking, depiciton of blood and manslaughter, anxiety, rage, anger

Word count: 3 K

Tagging: @nemodoren @xxgoldenhour @missdictatorme @davnwillcome @pickleriiick @jodiereedus22 @gladiosamicitias @tamkashi @eternallyvenus @avengerssstuff @fangirl-inthe-us @avery-miller @mikah-writes @mad-hatter-98 @sadiaafrin99 @flavorishy @gabymiller

Series master list: H E R E

Joel Miller’s playlist for the bonfire occasions: H E R E

Youtube playlists: JACKSON DAYS | SEATTLE DAYS

Some time after the Seattle incident, unspecified location:

You knew the others will notice soon. You were gone for quite some time at that point, out of the radar, just you alone in the basement. The only light was coming from the lit-up candles - while you were shying away on an old sofa nearby, smoothing the instrument in your hands. You haven't played in such a long time... Could you still remember how to play guitar? Could you hold the chords, let your other arm play the rhythm? Jesus... It all felt so far away from the place you've been at the moment.

For a second, you smoothed the wood of which was the guitar made of, gently plucking the strings. The first signs of a melody came out effortlessly, having you smile at the sound. With that, you frowned and put your fingers so you could try the basic chords. It could be felt on your wrist that you haven't practiced for a fair amount of time - the bones were on fire when you kept on moving your hand. But the good news were that you still got the grip on playing the guitar. Slowly, you exhaled and prepared yourself to play one of the cheesy country love songs Joel once taught you. When you were sure that you can keep the melody, you started to sing the words - slowly remembering all of the small things about the song Joel had shown you. Your smile grew.

He'd be so happy if he could see you play and sing - if he'd be there. You hadn't done any of that in years, yet when you got out of the bed, you disappeared in the basement and hadn't come out the whole day. Sometimes, all you needed was to be alone. You still could see Abby covered in blood Lev's sobs filled your ears. On those days, you were nowhere to be found for a big portion of the morning - at least until you calmed yourself down. Then, when your head cleared up once again, you were good to do stuff.

Truth be told, you haven't thought about playing the guitar for a long time. Right, you were quite busy the last few years, but how long could it be since Seattle happened..? Four years? Five years? Jesus, you hadn't any idea, to be honest. JJ was such a big boy now... It was quite some time since all that massacring and terror which still haunted you inside. Sometimes, you woke up in the deep night, paralyzed and crying. You'd sweat that at these moments, Abby was kneeling on you, holding a fucking knife to your throat. It was strange for you to still have Seattle and Baldwin all mixed up after all the things that happened in the meanwhile, yet there you were, still seeing each of them in your dreams. Maybe you couldn't name the Hispanic man or the headphones girl, but you still saw their faces.

First months after Seattle were the most crucial. You were waking up alone in the middle of the nightmares that haunted you, panting and crying. Your body was tensing on its own. Sometimes the huge scar on your thigh was hurting. Your heart raced at those moments, your mouth was dry. Countless times, you've ended up on the toilette, puking as you cried. Ellie once came to you after midnight, looking similar to you. There were dark circles under her puffy eyes, she was crying. That night, you both made yourself a cup of coffee, listening to Ecstasy with your eyes closed. Before the shock from the experience passed away, you couldn't sleep for shit. You were sincerely happy when the whole disgust and terror slowly settled down inside of you, letting you sleep for at least six hours in a row. That was all you wanted and needed.

As you thought about Seattle once in a while again, a child's voice made you almost freak out as they spoke. - "I've found you! I heard the music!" - A small, black-haired boy was hugging the railings of the stairs leading to the basement with his small palms as he was crouching there, looking at you. You must've got lost for a minute there - letting your body play and sing while you thought about other stuff. Nervously, you stopped playing and put the guitar away into its cover, making sure it's on its place.

"You sure did found me." - A chuckle came out of you as you blew out the candles, walking the stairs up to the boy. Now the only light was coming out from the opened up door. - "You know this ain't no place for you or your brother, come on." - You mumbled, waiting for him to stand up and walk the stairs up. When you closed the door, you immediately locked it too, pushing the key into your back pocket. - "Are you hungry? Huh?" - You offered the boy your hand, leading him into the kitchen. The kid furrowed and shook its head. - "Not even for a piece of cake? I highly doubt that you had some lunch." - The guilty face of the boy told you everything you needed to know. He hadn't seen a piece of food the whole day, just as you suspected.

"Are you mad at me, mommy?" - His quiet voice asked. For a moment, you smiled unbelievably as you kissed the boy's forehead. Then you smoothed his small cheek and shook your head. Normally, you'd be grumpy about everyone in the household being incapable of having lunch. They've been probably too busy with doing something else; this was pretty normal - once you were off the radar, the boys forgot to eat something.

"We'll call this day a lazy one, how does that sound, buddy? It was a weird one nonetheless." - You asked and kissed the boy's forehead again as you helped him climb on the countertop, which you also normally did only when you were cooking, so both the boys would know how not to starve. - "I didn't know you can play as aunt Ellie can, mommy." - The boy wondered as you pulled the cake out of the oven, putting it next to the boy. You didn't answer him, just smiled into the distance.

You didn't play a lot anymore. If was too reminiscent of the time you've spent in the hellhole and honestly, you didn't have the nerves to keep up with it. - "Will you play something for us?" - Henry persisted on the topic of guitar, not letting you take a breath. With a stiffened smile, you smoothed his hair, but you didn't answer his question - again.

"Hold the fortress, I'll go for the rest, deal?" - You asked silently as you already walked to the terrace, leaving Henry sitting on the countertop next to the cake. Just as you suspected, the rest of the boys was sitting there with their noses stuck in other wooden carvings. For a moment, you watched them before you coughed to make them realize they were being watched the whole time.

"Oh. Hey." - Joel leaned his back into the chair while Aiden, the other twin, just smiled at you and then turned his head back to the animal he was working on. - "We didn't want to interrupt you, so we decided to... Eh... Practice." - The man explained to you - but Henry, the hyperactive kid he was, wasn't able to sit in one place, running away in the middle of... Whatever his piece of wood was meant to represent and finding you inside the basement. Aiden, on the other hand, was able to spend hours sitting down, working on these small figurines. He loved this - this was probably one of the biggest connections Aiden had with his dad. But both your boys were awesome.

It went all downhill when you got back from Seattle. On your way out you buried Jesse and had a small ceremony for the boy. After that, you left the city once and for all. Dina was pregnant and needed medical attention. Tommy, at first, seemed to be cool with how the things played out in the end. Yet soon enough after you arrived back, it became apparent how fucked up that man was. Something, that happened in the city, went hand in hand the last branch of sanity inside Tommy's brain breaking into small pieces. Ellie and Dina decided to leave Jackson for the wellbeing of their family, now living just an hour on the horseback from the city. Yet on top of that, you realized rather soon how fucked up you were - sure, you knew that the pills Maria was giving you won't last until the end of the trip, but being pregnant, that was a whole new thing. Until you came to terms with the news, you were arguing with both Miller brothers, eventually setting down everything with Joel.

But Tommy? Where to start when talking about Tommy? He wasn't able to resolve the inner conflict no matter what. And as could be predicted, he blamed you and Joel for letting Abby go. Sometimes, when he was really in the mood, he tried to play this little pissing contest with Ellie. But as more time passed by, you were glad for what you've done even more than before. Mel and the baby needed someone to look after them - Dina would be fucked up without you just as Mel would be fucked up without them. And to be honest, there were even times when you wondered where are they now. If they're even alive at that point in time. At the same time, you knew you won't even get an answer to that question. Yet Tommy was obsessed with finding her since you were 'an incapable whore who let all of it slip between her fingers'.

That was what he yelled at you last week, the last time he was visiting you. And after that... You hadn't seen him. It was mainly because you walked him out of the house with a shotgun barrel pointing at the back of his head, yeah, but he had left Jackson later the very day on which you had the fight. Why would he stay? He and Maria were arguing all the time, she kicked him out multiple times and he called each of you some nasty names. The man didn't spare any of you - not even his older brother. Tommy didn't have a place in Jackson anymore, so he went after Abby.

Last, you heard about the man that he went to see Ellie that day, trying to get her down for the plan when he didn't succeed with you or at least Joel, but they told him basically the same thing. Now that you found some safe space you wanted to protect at any cost - and on top of that, you all had kids. There was no fucking way in hell you'd change that for a hunt on a person whom you already forgave. And most likely, Ellie felt the same way you did - if she wasn't, Dina was doing a hell of a good job keeping Ellie in one place.

"We'll be having some cake, so get your lovely bottom into the dining hall." - You whispered, reminding your son to clean those nasty hands before getting to the table. But Joel knew you wanted to talk to him before pretending that everything's a-ok again. - "Any news on Tommy? Sightings? Notes? Anything?" - Quietly, you went through the various pieces of art they had on the table, smiling at each one of them. Joel was making another horse as it seemed, while Aiden created something similar to a squirrel, you assumed.

"No, I hadn't heard about him since last week... But listen. He's gonna be 'kay. I know my brother." - The man took his glassed down. The smile on his face was unhappy, strange, and almost painful. There was no wonder about that. - "I'm just sad that I walked him out with a shotgun in my hands. I wish for Tommy just... You know... He could talk to us." - "Don't be crazy, Millers don't work like that." - Joel joked around with you, but it was partially serious as the man kissed your knuckles, sighing deeply.

Once, Joel fucked up the family relationships with his brother. And for more than ten years, it was bugging him off on the back of his head. Slowly, through patience and a lot of awkward moments, they somehow repaired the broken relationship - just like Joel did with Ellie. They now had a relationship which was not based on lies, but on truth. Yet since they started to be brothers again, Joel and Tommy, the man knew it didn't feel like Tommy to just... Drop off the radar just like that, without letting anyone know where he's going. Especially after getting crazier each passing day. Joel hoped that his baby brother can take care of himself. He hoped Tommy's safe.

"Did you hear the news already? About the Fireflies?" - You asked quietly, yawning for a bit. The man knew how crazy your nights could get after Seattle - there was even a time when neither of you could do the whole relationship thing, when you just closed off inside your home, trying to find the balance inside you. So instead of discussing the news, Joel hugged your thighs and smoothed your lower back while his head rested on your belly. - "You've had another one of these dreams, huh?" - Joel asked quietly, humming at the feeling of your fingers between his hair. There was nothing that you could say to Joel. He already heard every single one of them and given they were playing in your head on a constant loop, it was rare to actually have any nightmare. - "Wanna talk 'bout that, girl?" - He asked, but you were already stepping aside so you could feed the hungry small animals you had in your kitchen.

The boys, surprisingly, didn't eat the cake already. While Henry was still sitting on the countertop, Aiden was toying around with the gramophone in the living room. This boy of yours was interested in music and when there was free time, Joel and the boys were working on their own guitars. The old-timer already knew how to make one, since he finished yours in the summer after Seattle happened. Once the boys would get older, he planned on learning them how to play. So it was normal to see the boy toying around with the pieces of vinyl and the gramophone. - "Can I play some music, please?" - The boy asked after some time of pretending that he was reading the names of the songs. - "Of course, play us something." - You agreed while you let Henry slice the cake, making sure that the kid won't cut his fingers.

Just when Joel, dressed up only in a grey t-shirt this time, was about to sit down to the table, Aiden went to tug on his arm, leading him to the gramophone to get some help with the reading. And soon, you realized why. You had this one song you liked probably the most from your collection - it was given to you from Ellie and Dina last Christmas. And it met a lot to Ellie since according to her words, it was the first song she ever kissed someone she loved to.

The girl never talked about Riley that much, but both you and Dina knew that before the Jackson love escapades Ellie went through, there was another girl. And this was their song. Now, she was giving it to you because Dina and she found themselves a new album to listen to. - "Guys, you always know how to make me dance." - You commented with a small smile, hearing the first trumpets of Etta James' song. And to prove the point, you wiggled your bottom to the rhythm from preparing some coffee and tea. This made both the boys giggle. Henry, being as active as always, went to jump off from the countertop and almost killing himself in the process as he followed his brother to dance around the living room. Joel, when he assumed the two small guys were doing okay, stepped behind you and watched your hands preparing the drinks.

"I might never be okay, you know that? But I'm trying for you and these guys." - You asked suddenly, stopping everything you were doing at the moment just to look at him. There were still problems inside your head, as proven earlier that day. It wasn't any kind of PTSD exactly, but yes, the things you've done were about to haunt you. And the older Joel became, the more he seemed to think about the things he had done, and honestly, he was doing all he could for the community. Yet just as Etta was singing, the man smiled at you, pecking your cheek to see you grin. - "But I got you, babe." - The man answered and for a moment, you leaned your temple to his shoulder while watching the boys dancing around.

And yeah, you had each other no matter what. There were moments when you had disconnected, sure, but you always tried to find the way back. The kids were making you stay in the reality - and when there was something that tried to drag you down, it was them who made you get your shit together rather quickly. People from Jackson liked you in one way or another, it was a safe space for you.

As for what happened to Mel, Abby, Tommy, or Lev... You never got to know. And maybe, it was for the better. Maybe, after all, it was all worth it in the end.

FIN

Author's last notes regarding the story: It was hard to end this one, it was fairly tricky. And I'm not talking about this chapter. I'm talking about the chapters before it. The characters were going through... Not even a rollercoaster of emotions, but through a repeating cycle of knowing that they're doing something very bad, but they needed to prove themselves they're in the right.

To be honest, this reasoning that needed to be done often ended up in kind of a loop that was exhausting for me to write and it mustve been very hard for you to navigate through it. And I realize that. I am so glad that I'm finished with this since the whole story made me feel uneasy at times, especially when I look over at the Seattle chapters. It's ended like this because it gives you an idea of what the characters are up to after the story ends, but it's vague enough to leave you in the dark and to let your imagination work on how you want the story to end.

Thank you for sticking around with me, I will be looking forward to seeing you in another of my fics. Bye.

#joel miller x reader #joel miller imagine #joel miller #joel miller x y/n #the last of us #the last of us imagine #the last of us part two #the last of us part 2 #ellie x dina #ellie williams #ellie williams the last of us #ellie the last of us #dina the last of us #tommy the last of us #tommy miller the last of us #maria miller #maria the last of us

24 notes · View notes

crysj88 · 3 years

Text

Phylax Avengers x oc Prologue

Phylax: Ancient Greek. Watcher, protector, sentinel, guardian.

Bennett Lancaster grew up in her small hometown with her head full of stories of heroes, from the latest action flick to the oldest of Greek myths. Going into private security and moving away from her small hometown, she knew would bring her adventures. She never imagined that it would put her in the middle of the next generation of heroes. (Rating Teen.)

Tony x oc (platonic), Natasha x oc (slowburn)

Word count: 4212

Chapter warnings: cheating, child death, blood, injury

Mrs. Bethany Lancaster watched her four older children as they ran out of the house. Nora would watch the three little ones and it would give her some peace and quiet as long as the baby stayed asleep. Thirty solid minutes with no disasters was a small miracle. It gave her time to catch up on housework, which she had lacked since baby number five, Zach, arrived. She checked on the three month old before turning back to the chores at hand.

She had the most recent pile of laundry folded and stacked the only thing left was matching the socks. That was when she heard the scream.

“Momma!” Beth looked up to see her 6 year old daughter, Bennett racing towards the house. Her face red and there were obvious tear tracks. Panic. That was what was in her daughter’s face. She ran to the yard meeting her half way. The girl was crying so hard that understanding her words was near impossible. “Fitzy, Fitzy. Momma...Fitzy.” Beth scooped the crying girl in her arms and headed farther into the open fields. “Nora, Leo,” she called for her two oldest children.

Bennett buried her head in her mother’s shoulder. “Fitzy.”

Bethany’s heart raced as she ran towards the distant call returned by her 15-year-old daughter. “Momma. Help it’s Fitz.”

The sight that met Bethany Lancaster’s eyes was one that every mother fears. A small body lay in the creek, blood soaked through his short blonde hair. His face pale and lips blue. Bethany handed the crying Bennett to Nora and knelt by the boy. “What happened?” She felt for a pulse and then listened for a breath but found neither.

“I don’t know. We were playing in the field. Fitz wanted a turn with the kite but Leo had it. The next thing I remember we were here and Fitz was like this.” The older girl took deep breaths trying to calm herself to take care of her sister.

Bethany began the process of CPR knowing it was no use. She sent Leo to the house to call 911. Blood slid down the creek bed as she tried to pump life back into her young son.

“Fitzy!” Bennett cried, kicking Nora sharply in the leg so the older girl would drop her. As soon as she hit the ground the girl scrambled to her twin brother. “Fitzy, wake up,” her tears dripped to his cheeks, “Fitzy!”

When the ambulance arrived it was too late. Bennett cried in her mother’s arms pleading for her brother to get up. Nora had returned to the house shortly after Leo and was caring for Zachary.

Bennett’s mother clung tightly to the girl. Small bloody handprints appeared on the fabric of her shirt as the girl fought to reach her brother as the coroner zipped the body bag. Fitz’s face disappearing from their view. The small girl went weak in her mother’s arms. Sobs wracked her body as she cried. Her brother’s name came out as only a whimper. Bethany Lancaster allowed her first tear then holding her daughter as her son was taken away.

Frost coated the ground of the small park closest to Stark tower. Normally Bennett would take her bike out of town to a small nature trail nearby, today there wasn’t time. The steady pounding of her sneakers hitting the pavement was Bennett's sole focus. After a nightmare an early morning run was soothing. The cold morning air brushed against her face, turning her cheeks and nose rosy. Her breath froze in the air in front of her. 18 years had passed since that day and she still felt the loss. If she managed to outrun her memories during the light of day, they always caught back up to her in her sleep.

Back at Stark Tower again Bennett made her way to the gym. She pushed her short hair back out of her face, and made her way to the heavy bag. The bag buckled under the weight of her first few punches. The rough leather grated against her knuckles as she tried to bleed out the last of her nightmare.

For a year and a half Bennett had held a job in security at Stark Industries, as Tony Stark’s personal bodyguard. She had been with Pepper through every second of the incident in Afghanistan. She had helped Tony weather the introduction of Ironman and subsequent fall out.

Tony was the first big job Bennett had in her field of choice. She had applied for numerous other positions at companies around the city but was passed over because she was too young or inexperienced. Today marked her 24th birthday.

She was qualified for the job. Top of her class at the academy, marksmanship was in the top 5%, hand to hand combat top 3%, surveillance and observation top 7%. The problem came in because she didn’t look 24. She didn’t even look 20 most days. On a really good day the blonde could pass for 21 but most days about 16 or 17. Resembling a teenager was not exactly intimidating. The clothes Pepper bought, and Tony paid for, helped. Pepper insisted though, that this was an asset. It made it easier for her to fade into the background. Unassuming and nonthreatening. So when she selected Bennett’s work attire, it was professional but always carried a young, carefree air to it. Usually in the form of colored Converse, lightly distressed jeans, or a graphic tee under her button down or jacket.

Tabloids had been fun the first couple months after she was noticed. According to those reporters Bennett was Tony Stark's love child from his wild youth. The papers had new stories released every week. "Birth mothers" were lining up to back their stories. There were a few similarities between Bennett and Tony. Skin tone, brown eyes, although his were a darker brown than hers, and a few other overlapping "roguish features", to quote Tony. But past that nothing. The women claiming to be her mother, ranged from hispanic to Irish, from waitresses to swimsuit models. Each story was more ridiculous than the last. Simple math would disprove every one of the women, they were all too young. As would Bennett’s nearly platinum blonde hair. Seriously not one paper thought to find a blonde.

Quick punch combos rocked the bag on it's chains. The bag caved around her heel as she sunk a kick in. The bag was inviting. Granting a release. The anger and fear. The nightmares, the memories. A release for all of it. Bennett poured them all into the bag where they would stay buried in the sand contained in the canvas. She worked the bag over and over, punch after punch, blow after blow. The combinations becoming more deadly as she worked.

Tony entered the room watching the girl work and the bag rocked on it’s chains. He watched not wanting to interrupt her. Her fist slammed hard into the bag and he winced. She seemed to deflate holding on to the bag. Letting out an exhausted breath she whispered, "Happy birthday, Fitz"

He gave her another moment heart breaking slightly at the sight. Opening the door and shutting it again Tony approached her as if he had just gotten there. "As my bodyguard, are you not supposed to be aware of your surroundings? I mean if I can sneak in on you anyone can." He crossed the room towards her. "You gonna talk about it this time?"

"I am supposed to be aware of threats, I would hardly classify you as a threat," she walked over taking the bottle from his hand for a drink. The liquid had barely touched her tongue when she spit it out, gagging. "What on earth are you drinking?" She opened the bottle giving the substance a tentative sniff, it was thick and green.

"It's, uh, protein shake from one of those MMA magazines you get."

"Why is it green?" The blonde sniffed it again, wrinkling her nose at the smell.

“Kelp?” Tony took a moment to answer.

“Your answer to that shouldn’t be a question,” she quipped, handing the bottle back and turned to get water from the small fridge.

Tony nodded towards her hand, “you’re bleeding.”

She looked down examining the knuckles. Sure enough the skin was broken on the first two knuckles of each hand and the rest were smeared with blood. “It’s probably just a little scratch.”

He gave her a disbelieving look. “You never even let me look at the bag without wrapping my hands.”

“It’s fine, Boss. It looks worse than it is,” she shrugged it off. “Go grab your mouthpiece and meet me on the mats.” Bennett headed into the locker room to grab her mouthpiece and take care of her hands. She knew better, but the rough material of the bag had felt good. Pain always brought relief. Physical pain was manageable.

Turning the water on she waited the few seconds it would take for it to heat. She ran her hands under the water scrubbing them clean. The water diluted the blood. Bennett squeezed her eyes shut as her nightmare rushed back. The onslaught of images making her slightly nauseous. Wiping her hands dry the skin looked new. It had knit itself back perfectly. That’s why it had escaped her notice, something small like that was less bothersome than a mosquito bite. There is no telling how many times the skin had broken for them to bleed that much. In the most extreme case so far her healing factor was effective enough to heal 12 gunshot wounds simultaneously. So a busted knuckle from the heavy bag was something she wasn’t worried about.

Wrapping her knuckles she returned to the gym, mouthpiece in hand. Many things are socially acceptable now. Many things the government has legalized. They tolerated Ironman. There were rumors of Captain America being found. Talk of other survivors of genetic experiments. Negotiations for the rights of Inhumans. One thing that had not been changed, that had not been legalized, had not been repealed. The Mutant Registration Act.

Mutation was still seen as an abomination, an affront to nature. Mutants were closely monitored if they managed not to be thrown in jail. To date only three mutants from the registration had not been incarcerated for any length of time, and only because their mutations were purely cosmetic. Horns and tails posed no real threat to humanity's safety. It would be safe to say Tony didn't know about her abilities. No one knew, not even her parents. She intended to keep it that way. She pulled on her fingerless gloves and headed back into the gym.

Ground fighting was the order of the day. After reviewing some of the pins and chokes they had worked on they began to grapple.

Round 1: 2 minutes, submission, guillotine, Bennett.

Round 2: 45 seconds, submission, arm bar, Bennett

Round 3: 3 minutes, submission, Darce choke, Bennett.

It continued for seven rounds. Some of the rounds could have been shorter but Bennett liked to play a bit. The third round for instance had taken so much time because Bennett wanted to win with the Darce choke. Other times she just drug the fight out to make Tony work harder. Tony got close a few times. After each round the blonde showed him how to lock in the choke to prevent escape.

Training with Tony was a good warm up for the day and Bennett truly loved teaching him. He didn't really need it. He had the suit. Hand to hand combat was kinda obsolete against that.

"Okay," he coughed, tapping the mat to signal Bennett to let go. "I'm done. Besides we have a full day." He stretched to work out the kinks in his spine from the fights.

Bennett pulled up the schedule on her phone, the Stark tech projecting the application off the screen for her. "We have 30 minutes to clean up, eat, and get to the board meeting."

He nodded drinking from the bottle of green goo. "Thanks, kid. Next time I am going to win one." She chuckled, pulling her gloves off before heading back upstairs to change.

The meeting seemed to drag on and on. No matter how many of these things she sat through Bennett never could find it in herself to follow along. The phone buzzed in her pocket. A new text.

Tony: kid, watch this.

A few seconds passed and one of the board members grew noticeably irritated before he swatted the air. Upon closer inspection Bennett could see a small black object darting around the man’s head. Bennett would have simply assumed it to be a fly except for the small red light blinking from it. Almost indiscernible.

Tony flicked his fingers across his phone and the small object darted at the man again. It was a drone. The man grew more distracted by the second. Bennett and Tony bit back their laughter.

“Tony,” Pepper snapped, “do you have anything to contribute?”

“Uh,...no I think you covered it rather eloquently,” he tapped his screen once more before shoving the phone back in his pocket. Bennett watched the drone zip away probably to some charging dock across the building.

“If no one has any new business I think we can adjourn,” Pepper dismissed the board members with a smile. As the last man stepped out she turned a glare toward the two. Focusing on Tony she spoke “do you think this is a game, I am trying to run a company here, your company. You could at least pretend to care.”

Pepper dragged Bennett and Tony upstairs. If Tony kept this up he would run the company into the ground. He needed to take his responsibilities seriously. Happy met them in the kitchen where lunch was being served. JARVIS with the help of a bot or two had prepared a salad with grilled chicken.

Bennett inwardly groaned kelp shakes and now salad. Tony was on a health kick, which meant it was time to stock up on junk food.

Pepper excused herself when she received a call from one of the overseas investors during lunch leaving Tony, Bennett, and Happy alone for a moment. "Tonight's the night, right? Are you sure you wanna do this kid?" Tony leaned back in his seat trying to make his voice sound casual.

Bennett’s face lit in a smile. "I think so. Emily and I have been together for two years. Our lives fit together seamlessly. We have talked out our plans for the future together. Almost never fight." She chuckled lightly. "Everyone says that proposing is nerve wracking. But I thought it all through and planned it out. Honestly I'm not nervous at all. We fit too well together. She's gonna say yes." Bennett took the small box from her pocket examining the ring.

Tony held out his hand and she passed the box over. Tony nodded his approval before handing the ring to Happy.

"Not a bad choice, kid. You want me to drive you tonight. I could get the limo."

Bennett tucked the ring back in her pocket. "No I got it. Gonna take one of Tony’s cars and pick her up, take her to her favorite restaurant. That I can pass off as birthday privileges. Limo would be a bit over the top. Might tip her off."

"Public proposal? At the restaurant? Pretty gutsy." Tony quipped.

"No, she wouldn't want that kind of attention" Bennett shook her head, "a walk in the park after, to a spot I know she loves. I'll ask her there." Bennett could see it all in her mind from the bench by the lake to the smile on Emily’s face. Tonight was going to change everything. Tonight would be the start of a new life, a better life.

Happy's phone buzzed. "Sorry, Pepper needs me to pick up someone at the airport. If I don't make it back in time, good luck, kid." He smiled before running out the door.

"Benn are you really sure about this? Not a doubt in your mind that Emily is the one?" Tony wore a serious expression. "You're young. Not many people find their soulmate at 24."

“I didn’t,” Bennett smirked, ”we met when I was 22."

Tony's expression grew more serious if possible."Benn. This is a big decision. I don't want to see you heartbroken if things don't work down the road. Just make sure you have thought this through. Does Emily really make you happy?"

The blonde gave his words careful consideration before replying. "I think so. I mean we've had rocky places sure. Everyone does, but I think she makes me happy."

Tony locked his gaze with hers "marriage is a lifetime thing."

"Who are you and what have you done with Tony?" He didn't even smirk at the attempted joke. Bennett let out a deep sigh "I know it's a lifetime thing. I am prepared to sacrifice a lifetime if she needs me to.” She let the silence hang for a few seconds before allowing a smirk to slide in place, “Pepper is gone for the day and Happy is out so...Smash bros showdown." Tony didn't move immediately but the corner of his lips turned up. " Come on, Boss. It will get my mind off things."

He gave a sigh before a genuine smile spread across his features. "Alright, best of 75. If I win I get your bike for a week if you win you can use my suit."

"No safety mode?" Bennett cocked one brow in question.

"Weapons hot." He held out his hand which she in turn took shaking it.

"Deal."

Several hours later Pepper walked into the common area to Tony's shouts of victory and Bennett’s groans of defeat. "The bike is mine for the week." He crowed.

"Yeah, yeah," She scowled at the tv screen “you can use the Harley or the Honda this week.”

“No I get the Ducati,” he insisted.

“The original deal said you get my bike for a week not which one. You should be more specific next time, I have seven.” She smirked.

"Well, well." They both jumped at the new voice spinning to see Pepper standing in the doorway. "I see you two got a lot done today."

"It was bonding time, really." Tony explained.

Bennett shot a cheeky grin towards the older woman shrugging, "while the cat's away…"

"Obviously." A soft smile played on her lips even as she tried to hide it. "Bennett, don't you have to be somewhere in an hour?"

She tapped the screen on her phone, her Ducati lit up in the background as she checked the time. "Crap. Yeah thanks Pep." Jumping up from the couch the girl pressed a kiss to Pepper’s cheek before heading to the doorway.

"Are you both coming back tonight? I have a few things saved for the occasion. Wanted to celebrate a little with you, both of you.” Tony explained.

“More than likely. But Tony: no party! If you guys want to say “hi” and stuff fine, but no extras. No party.” Bennett set the rules for Tony’s “celebration”.

"Alright. Be safe and have fun tonight" Tony wrapped her in a tight hug. "Good luck, kid."

“Thanks, boss." Pepper pulled the girl in for one more hug as she rushed to her room.

Bennett pulled up to Emily’s apartment at 6:30 sharp. Knocking at the door she rocked back on her heels as she waited for Emily to answer, a bouquet of roses in hand.

“Bennett!” Emily opened the door with a broad smile. She leaned forward pulling the blonde into a kiss. “Those for me?” She asked, pulling away for a second.

“Who else would they be for?” Bennett pecked her lips again.

She took the roses, “I’ll just put these in water right quick,” she slipped inside pushing the door closed before Benn could follow. Seconds later she came back out, “ready to go?” Her smile was bright as she took Bennett’s hand, heading to the car.

Bennett opened her door for her, before climbing in the driver's seat. They drove and talked, laughing occasionally. The blonde couldn’t keep the smile off her face.

The night started at an art gallery. Emily led Bennett through the gallery pointing out her favorite pieces. They talked over the exhibits as they went. Emily gushed over a large metal sculpture in the middle of the museum. She rattled on talking about lines and angles to convey the artist’s meaning. Benn nodded along and agreed when she was asked what she thought. Her only real thought about the piece though was the welds were crap.

Bennett lagged a bit behind as they came across an exhibit of statues from Greece. Athena, Artemis, and Apollo were displayed alongside sculptures of gorgons, minotaurs, and chimaeras. Emily tugged her along to finish up the last few exhibits.

When they pulled up to the restaurant Bennett quickly hopped out of the car, rushing around the front of the car to open Emily’s door. Bennett held out a hand and Emily took it. Her hand resting in the blonde’s made Benn feel as if Emily trusted her with her whole world. It was a responsibility the young bodyguard was happy to take on.

“This really isn’t necessary, Bennie,” she tucked her hand around Bennett’s arm, “but thank you.”

Dinner was slightly more expensive than she had originally planned but for tonight it would be worth it. Next stop was the nature park. They walked through the park under the stars hand in hand. The little box bounced in her pocket as they neared the spot.

Bennett took in the night sky. North star was straight ahead. Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. A story of jealousy. Zeus’ wife Hera was jealous of Callisto after Zeus fell in love with her. So Hera changed her into a bear. Callisto was hunted for years. Zeus and Callisto had a son named Arcas. When he grew Arcas became a great hunter, he was moments away from unknowingly killing his mother but Zeus interfered. Sending them into the sky creating the two constellations.

“Bennie,” Emily pulled her from her thoughts. “Bennie babe, what is it about them that you find so fascinating?” She gestured towards the heavens.

“Everything. The stories, history, science…”

Smiling Emily pulled her girlfriend around to face her. She beamed at the blonde, “you always have your head in the clouds, aren’t there more interesting things down here on the ground.” She pulled Bennett in close for a kiss, wrapping her arms around her neck deepening the kiss.

Bennett pulled away after a moment, leading Emily further into the park.

Bennett steeled herself. “Em, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Of course. I wanted to talk to you about something too,” she followed happily.

“You go ahead,” Bennett said, “what did you want to talk about?”

“No, no, go ahead, it can wait,” she threaded her fingers through Bennett’s.

“Well,” they came to the spot by the edge of the lake. Taking a deep breath Bennett began her speech “Emily, we have been together for two years now. You helped me adapt to New York, out of the security of my college campus. New York is quite a bit bigger than I am used to,” a grin spread across Bennett’s face, one side slightly higher than the other. Lopsided.

Emily placed her hand on Bennett’s cheek leveling out her smile “Yeah, your little “no where” Texas is a bit tiny. Population of what, 23?”

“That wasn’t the population, that was the size of my graduating class,” Bennett gave her an indignant look. “Give me some credit.” Emily laughed. “I couldn’t have made it this far without you, and I don’t want to spend any of my future without you by my side. So Emily, will you marry me?” Bennett pulled the ring from her pocket and waited for her answer.

Bennett parked the car in the garage, killing the engine. She walked in the living area to see Tony, Pepper, and Happy all waiting. Champagne on ice. She let out a long sigh, there was no way to avoid them.

Tony was grinning from ear to ear when she entered, “hey kid, how did it go?” He looked over her shoulder. “Where’s Emily?”

The girl plastered a smile on her face. “I...not as planned.” she ran her hand through her hair, brushing her bangs behind her ear only for them to fall back in her face, too short to stay tucked.

“What do you mean?” Pepper was concerned.

“Turns out we...don’t want exactly the same things. Her future and mine... there’s this other girl, Madison. Emily has been with her for most of our relationship.” They were all dumb struck. She pulled the box from her pocket, setting it on the coffee table in front of the couch. “Guess I will have to figure out the return policy for that in the morning.” She gave the others a half hearted smile. “I think I am going to bed. Good night.” Apparently Tony was right, no one finds their soulmate at 24.

AN: won’t leave many of these. First I don’t own Marvel or their characters just Benn and her story.

Second give me any feedback or ideas you have on this story. Any critic is welcome. It is a slowburn as far as the romance aspect goes but it will get there and there is plenty of other stuff in the meantime.

Hope you enjoyed this introduction to Bennett and my story. Ch1 should be up in a week.

#Black Widow #The Avengers #Tony Stark #natasha romanov #Ironman #OFC

1 note · View note

aahsokaatano · 4 years

Note

ITALY????

Y’all I spent one whole week in Italy in 2017 and it was one of the most bizarre fucking weeks of my life

let’s break it down from the beginning

[under a read more for length]

So, fall of 2017 I was studying abroad in London. One of the classes I was taking was specifically for study abroad students, designed to get us engaging in the culture of London or whatever i dont really remember the class itself but my god do i remember the people i met in it

two in particular were these girls, also American. We shall call them Molly and Ally. They had quickly made friends with each other, and after one of the class trips into London, i was friendly with them as well. The “reading week” or fall break was coming up, and they mentioned that they were going to Italy and asked if I wanted to go. I had booked a short tour to Dover, but thought “oh my god Italy???? Fuck yes!” and so I bought my plane tickets then asked them where they had booked hotel rooms so that I could add myself to their itinerary

“Oh,” Molly said, “we haven’t, don’t worry about it”

Me, a seasoned traveler “?????? uh”

I bugged them about this for at LEAST a week and finally, about THREE DAYS from when we were supposed to leave, I just went ahead and booked an assortment of hostels and airbnbs for us in all the cities they wanted to go to and told them to pay me back later

they actually admitted afterwards that that had been a smart move on my part which like????? no SHIT its a smart move to have a plan where you’re gonna sleep every night while in a foreign country. god.

So, lets go through this day by day

Day 1 - London to Milan

we flew from London to Milan in the evening, getting there pretty late at night. and it was only once we were actually IN Italy that I learned that 1) none of us spoke Italian and 2) despite having grown up in two areas with large Hispanic populations, neither Molly or Ally spoke a lick of Spanish, which is close enough to Italian that you can kind of limp through a conversation of one if you know the other.

so, somehow, I ended up being our Italian translator for the week, armed with nothing but a translator website, a handful of Italian music terms, and the ability to roll my r’s fairly well for a white person. Literally, i figured out where the bus stop was outside of the airport because I saw the word “fermata” painted on the pavement and I knew that meant “long pause” in sheet music terms so I hazarded a guess it meant stop or similar in regular Italian

(sidenote I almost got in a fight with some random Italian dude on the bus because Molly was going on about how excited she was to try the pizza and I told her it wasn’t going to be the same because “the pizza you’re used to is an American invention” and he turned around and started going on about the tradition of pizza in Italy and I was like I just mean that American pizza is different from real Italian pizza i did not mean to offend i’m sorry!!!!!! anyways)

the bus dropped us in a square in the middle of Milan and we got out and i’m lookin at my airbnb app trying to figure out where we need to go and i said “okay we need to get a cab” and Molly and Ally are arguing about something and this RANDOM ASS DUDE walks up to us and is like “you need taxi?” and i said yes to he leads us back to his REGULAR ASS CAR, NOT A TAXI and tells us to get in, and for some unknown fucking reason I do and Molly and Ally follow me and shut up real fast because this is sketchy as fuck but the guy did take us to the airbnb without murdering us so thats a win i guess

The airbnb by the way was more like a mini hostel - it was this apartment where pretty much every room except the bathroom had been converted into a bedroom and so probably not entirely legal but whatever. whatever.

Day 2 - Milan to Venice

i woke up early the next morning and went to take a shower at the bathroom at the end of the hall and found out that the lights didn’t work. Whatever, I’m mostly blind without my glasses anyways so i just showered in the dark, no biggie

we had an early bus to catch from Milan to Venice, so we headed out to the bus station. I’ll be honest, I do not remember how we got there. I think we walked, because I ended up with a coffee at some point so I probably got it from some cafe on the way? But idk. I was so tired.

We get on the bus, I found two empty seats far away from Molly and Ally, and immediately stretched out and fell asleep.

Ally woke me a little later and said “c’mon, we’re here!”

I was confused as all hell because it had not been nearly long enough for us to get all the way to Venice, but I got off the bus and was greeted by Molly stretching her arms out and proclaiming “Welcome to Venice!” underneath a sign that said we were at the Verona bus station.

They did not believe me when I said Verona and Venice were two different places. “Venice has canals, Verona is where Romeo & Juliet is set. There are no canals in R&J, they’re two different places!” I literally had to pull out my phone, go to google maps, and zoom out until they could see that Venice was still several hours away before they believed me.

The bus driver almost didn’t let us back on but I was able to show him on the tickets that our end destination was, in fact, Venice.

Venice itself was pretty neat. We got to go on a gondola ride and I ate an entire pizza by myself at dinner lmao.

Day 3 - Venice to Florence

we took a train from Venice to Florence the next morning, and that’s when I discovered that Italian train stations have lovely little cafes with AMAZING coffee and really good pastries. The other two didn’t drink coffee but like, their loss. it was fantastic.

Florence was great, we found a little shop that sold really yummy gelato for only 1 Euro a scoop - Geletaria La Carraia. If you ever end up in Florence, definitely check it out!

We wandered around for a while, took a lot of pictures. There was some famous church that was undergoing some renovations, but as we walked up to it Molly gasped and said “I’ve climbed that in Assassin’s Creed!” which was pretty funny.

We went to a museum that had made a bunch of models of some of Leonardo DaVinci’s inventions. We went to an art museum and stumbled across Michaelangelo’s David on accident, so that was the big “wtf” moment of the day. Also that night Molly decided to buy a bottle of wine to take home to a friend of her’s back in America, but realized after buying it that her backpack wasn’t big enough to cart it around for the rest of the week so I ended up carrying an entire fucking bottle of wine for the rest of the trip because I was the only one smart enough to bring a proper backpacking backpack and not just my school bag.

Also the hostel we were in had actual skeleton keys for their rooms and actual goddamn keyholes that one could clearly see through so i left the key in the lock all night AND hung my sweatshirt from the door handle so that no one could peek in at us

Day 4 - Florence to Pisa

once again, I woke up early, went into the bathroom attached to our room (the hostel had had a cancellation and so we ended up in a private room instead of a dorm style) and discovered that the lights didn’t work so I had a second shower in the dark

we took another train from Florence to Pisa, and there we ran into our only bit of bad weather

What’s the big draw in Pisa? The Leaning Tower, right?

What was the only day it rained, non-fucking-stop, the entire time we were in Italy? THE DAY WE WERE IN PISA

I got so soaked that I actually bought a new sweatshirt because the one I was wearing was DRIPPING

anyways, after we had taken several dumb touristy pictures and grabbed an early dinner at a nearby restaurant, we decided to head over to the room I had booked. The cheapest place I could find was a tiny cabin at a campground nearby. According to the map on my phone, it was a short walk away.

A solid hour later, we finally trudged up to the main office of the campground, shivering and soaked, and got the keys to our cabin. We set our stuff down, and Ally and Molly decided to go back out to the grocery store we had passed coming in. I waved them off and went to take a shower in the bathroom with fully functioning lights! hooray!

Day 5 - Pisa to Rome

another morning, another train station with excellent coffee. We got into Rome and, at this point, we were all so tired from travelling that I was finally able to take charge. up until this point, Molly had been railroading us, even sort of bullying Ally in the process, but now she was exhausted and I, through a combination of practice in functioning while dead on my feet, lots of travel experience, and Mom Friend Instincts, took the reins. We got to Rome and I said “we’re going to the church with the big hole in the roof (its a thing, look it up) and then we’re going to eat.... at this place around the corner and then we’re going to to go our hostel and check in”

they didn’t argue, and that’s a true testament to how fucking tired the two of them were, especially Molly, because she would argue about anything and everything given half a chance. We also went to the military museum that day, mostly because it was free and also air conditioned

(also while looking through my pictures of this trip i just discovered that i still have the picture i took of the Rome hostel FAQ page that had by the front desk, which i now remember i did because it had the wifi password on it and we weren’t in our room for 30 seconds before one of the other two asked what the wifi password was so, once again, i show that i am a very good traveler/travelling buddy)

Day 6 - Rome

so we had the next full day in Rome, and we got up early to get in line for the Vatican. I wanted to be there by 7am, Molly was like “it doesn’t even open until 9!” and we compromised at 8 and it was STILL an enormous line so i was like “see? this is why i wanted to get here early”

Oh, but before we went to the Vatican, i took a shower. IN. THE. DARK. BECAUSE ALL OF ITALY EXCEPT FOR PISA DECIDED THAT I DIDN’T DESERVE TO HAVE A SHOWER WHERE I DIDN’T HAVE TO FUMBLE AROUND BLINDLY LIKE AN ASSHOLE

ALSO on the way to the Vatican, I asked if the two of them had their passports. Ally said yes. Molly said yes, why?

And I had to then explain to Molly, a 20 year old RELIGIOUS STUDIES MAJOR, who was RAISED CATHOLIC and who had FAMILY IN THE CLERGY, that the Vatican, THE CENTER OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, is it’s own country.

she, again, did not believe me until i pulled it up on google for her

turned out that we didn’t need our passports stamped to enter the Vatican but still! still!!!!!

so it turned out that whatever day we were there on, the Sistine Chapel isn’t open that day, so we just walked through the cathedral and then headed out to the Colosseum and the ruins of the Senate behind it, both of which were very cool

Day 7 - Rome to Milan to London

we got up even EARLIER on our last day, I took another shower in the dark, and we rushed over to the Vatican, speedwalked through most of the museum, and finally got into the Sistine Chapel, which was absolutely breathtaking. Then we hauled ass back to the train station to catch our train back to Milan.

At this point in the trip, I was so fucking done with the two of them, but especially Molly. Ally was sweet and naive, but she was also willing to listen to new information. Molly was just a stubborn ass with a mean streak a mile wide and I was COMPLETELY done associating with her.

Luckily, since I had booked my flights separately, while we had flown into Milan on the same plane, I had a completely different flight back to London - to a different airport, even. They were going back to London City, but I was heading to London Gatwick. Both planes were set to depart around the same time, from two gates that were next to each other though, so i couldn’t really escape them until - uh oh! My flight was delayed.

Molly and Ally were fretting about it but i was like “it’s fine. it’s fine. I’ve been flying since i was literally 3 months old and I s o m e h o w know more Italian AND Spanish than the two of you combined, even though I would never say that I speak EITHER of those languages. Just go.”

The flight ended up being delayed like 5 hours due to mechanical issues. They finally just got another plane for us, and we finally took off from Milan. When we went over Paris, the captain, obviously feeling bad about the delay, made sure to tilt the plane in both directions so that everyone could see the Eiffel Tower lit up, it was really neat.

We finally got back to London at literally like 230 in the morning. The busses and some of the trains weren’t even running at that point - certainly not all the way out to the fancy little liberal arts college I was going to. I went up to some security guard at the airport and said “just tell me how close I can get to the University of Roehampton on the trains” and he told me to take the train to Black Friars so I got out there and there was a bus, but it was like 40 minutes out. It’s now pass 3am, I am exhausted after a long, weird week in Italy, I texted my dad and he said “just get an Uber i’ll pay for it”

The Uber driver was very nice and as soon as I got in he said “you look really cold! do you want the heat on?” i could have fucking kissed him. he was super nice. actually made sure that I was still texting my dad (i had mentioned it when I got in because I almost dropped my bag while trying to text and maneuver at the same time) every few minutes. offered to let me take and send a picture of him to my dad. otherwise didn’t really speak and just let the music play. I tipped him literally whatever was in my pocket at that time, i don’t remember how much it was, but it was at least 20% and probably more. Really great guy.

Random London Uber driver from 2017, you remain the best Uber driver and I love you

i finally crawled into my shitty little dorm bed at about 4am, exhausted and utterly bewildered by the past week

honestly??? I’m still bewildered by my week in Italy.

wtf even happened in all that mess.

#italy #venice #florence #rome #pisa #tales from the hill #chris #thebubbledragon

14 notes · View notes

themenof--marvel · 5 years

Text

For Those We’ve Lost (Chapter 2)

Summary: It’s been more than a decade since Tony Stark and his daughter have made eye contact, or any contact for that matter. With the ever-looming threat of disaster and loss haunting Tony, and with the new Avengers Headquarters completed, maybe there was a chance for him to find a sliver of happiness in his lost family. After living in the shadows for so long, will his estranged daughter be willing to reunite? Will she even have a choice when she’s thrown into the chaotic world of the Avengers? Perhaps they both stand to gain more from this overdue reunion.

Warnings: none

Chapter 1

The job Y/N got this time was pretty easy to accomplish. Just your usual cheating husband who needed to be caught. An hour or surveying camera footage and text conversations, and she had all she needed to prove the scumbag was up to no good. After she sent over the proof, the client deposited the funds into her account and she was off to face another challenge: the Avengers gathering.

The day passed slowly as Y/N kept trying to work herself up to leave the comfort of her apartment. There were so many stores nearby but the real fear came with the constant trying on of different dresses. She was never a dress or skirt person; the boarding school she was sent to tried their best to get her to stick to the main uniform but she never gave in. Two weeks into the semester and she was wearing pants every day to class. After a while, the teachers accepted it and let her continue. Y/N always secretly thought the teachers gave in because of her father’s donations to the school, but if it meant wearing pants, then she didn’t have time to care.

It was about 6PM when she finally emerged from her apartment and strolled through the streets looking for the nearest and most convenient clothing store. About a block away, she found an indie shop, where the pieces looked as though they were handmade by unknown designers. From the window, the patterns looked simple yet elegant. Y/N always preferred simple and comfortable over overdone and colourful. As she pushed open the door, a bell above her head rang out and a head popped up from the far end of the store.

“Good evening! How may I help?” a young Hispanic woman, about Y/N’s age appeared, adjusting her wide-rimmed glasses and flashing pearly whites.

“Hi,” Y/N muttered, casting a quick glance around the store. She found the dresses, but there was something peeking out from the far left of the store. As though drawn to it, her feet headed in that direction.

With the attendant behind her, she reached for the hanger holding a black and white striped pantsuit. The sleeves looked as though they stopped just short of the wrists.

“That’s a new item. I only just put it out earlier today.” The attendant stood to Y/N’s right and glanced encouragingly between the pantsuit and Y/N.

The suit looked casual enough for a party, yet reserved enough to not stand out in a crowd. She quickly estimated the size and fit and flicked the price tag at the top of the dress. It was well within her price range, especially for being in the city.

“It’s perfect. I’ll take it.”

The attendant smiled, nodded and guided Y/N to the back of the store to cash out.

As she stepped away from the store, she released a breath of relief; that entire confrontation lasted about 25 minutes, inclusive of walking to find the store.

Later that night, back at her apartment, she played around with various scenarios of how she would meet her father. She wondered if he’d be waiting at the front of the building for her or if she would meet him by chance in the crowd of the event.

As she thought, she sat on her single-bed with her back against the wall. She ran her fingers along the sleek back of a silver bangle. Looking down at the bangle, she always felt proud, remembering when it was made. Or rather, when she made it.

As much as she liked to think that she was different from the Stark legacy, there was always a desire to learn about technology and engineering. When she was at Cornell, she made friends with some engineering students who showed her the basics. Once she mixed their techniques and her software abilities, she knew just what she wanted to make: a portable yet hidden item to keep connected to everything and anything she wanted. As much as phones were portable, they could be easily tracked. Instead, she developed her own software to hack into just about anything she wanted with a mere thought. The software was embedded along the thin frame of the silver bangle, complete with sensors at the base that tapped into her nervous system. The sensors were the feature she cherished the most; once they connected to her biological system, she could control the bangle and the software with a mere thought.

Many a time has she spent hacking into a company’s security system while hidden away on the rooftop of the apartment building. With the bangle, she was able to get any sort of information wherever she was.

She was most grateful for the design at this particular moment, as it went surprisingly well with her pantsuit.

As Y/N moved to lay on her back, a text message rang in on her phone. She grasped the phone off the desk to her left and unlocked the screen.

“Ready for tomorrow, kid?” Happy’s message appeared.

She groaned internally, not wanting to think about the worst-case scenario. Even though her father seemed prepared to reunite, she wasn’t sure that she was. Throughout the past decade, she tried her best to rid her mind of her biological family, attempting to forget them as she was sure they forgot about her. Of all the times to reunite, her father chose the time when she no longer needed him. He was no longer a guardian or a benefactor; he was just an estranged relative who moved on with his life never looking back.

She replaced the phone on the desk and shut her eyes. What she needed most right now was sleep. One good night’s rest and she would be better equipped to deal with whatever came tomorrow.

#Avengers #avengers fanfiction #tony stark #stark!daughter #Stark Daughter #daughter!oc #oc #fanfiction #marvel fanfiction #marvel

132 notes · View notes

im-fairly-whitty · 5 years

Text

Caught in the Riptide – Riptide!Incredibles AU

I said this story was dead, but then I wrote another chapter for whatever reason and didn’t feel like it was fair not to post it for you guys. I suppose it’s more of an indefinite hiatus instead of completely dead.

[Chapter 1: The Offer] [Chapter 2: Old Friendships]

Chapter 3: Introductions

When Tony had called Agent Gibbons to tell him he wanted to join the Taskforce he hadn’t known what to expect, maybe showing up at a nearby police station to fill out some forms or something, but certainly not being escorted in an unmarked vehicle to an undisclosed location.

The car had seemed normal enough when it had pulled up outside of Tony’s house, but once he’d gotten in he’d realized that the interior was much roomier than it looked, with the middle row of seats facing the wrong way like a limo. As they’d driven the windows seemed to get darker and darker too, as if the tint was getting stronger, eventually keeping Tony from being able to tell where they were at all, no matter how hard he squinted through the glass.

“We’ll be at the base soon.” Agent Gibbons said, looking up from the device he was typing on as he sat across from him, some kind of slick portable computer that Tony had only seen the likes of in secret agent films, “You’ll want to have looked through your orientation packet before we arrive.” he said with a smile, nodding at the thick manila envelope he’d handed Tony at the beginning of the drive that Tony was still absently clutching to his chest.

“Oh sure, sorry.” Tony said with a nervous smile, looking up from the darkly tinted windows and getting a good look at the packet for the first time.

The thick manilla paper had a circular wave symbol stamped on the outside. Tony ripped the seal off the top and tipped the contents into his lap. A sheaf of papers, a lanyard with an ID card attached, several pamphlets, and a thin dark grey folded up jumpsuit. The last item to fall out was a black piece of flexible plastic with two holes...no, it was a mask.

Just like Supers always wore.

“You’ll want to get used to the mask.” Gibbons said, seeing him looking at it, “From now on your civilian identity will be under wraps, even during training. You’re to wear that mask at all times while on the base, don’t ever take it off, not even around the other recruits. While you’re working with other Taskforce members you’ll get to know and befriend them, which is fantastic, we want you all to be able to work with each other, but try to keep details like your name, address, and other personal details to yourself, alright?”

“Yes sir.” Tony said, nodding even though he wasn’t quite sure how you were supposed to be friends with someone if you didn’t even know their real names. He looked closer at the mask, which didn’t seem to have any strings... “How...?” he asked hesitantly, looking up.

“You just stick it on.” Gibbons said, not looking up from his tablet.

“Won’t it fall off?” Tony asked a little sheepishly. He tried to think but couldn't actually remember seeing any kinds of strings or straps on Supers’ masks in history books, he’d never really thought about it before.

“Trust me kid,” Gibbons said, tapping his screen, “Supers have been wearing cling masks for years, they’re old tech. I’ve never had one fall off my face, promise.”

“Wait, you’re a Super too?” Tony asked in surprise.

“Mask.” Gibbons said, looking up at him pointedly.

Tony obediently put it on, surprised to feel how secure it felt on his face, as if it were somehow sticky. He looked up and down, shaking his head side to side, but it stuck. He took it off easily, then put it back on. Well how about that.

He suspected the mask wasn’t going to be the only unexplainable thing he saw today.

“I used to be a Super,” Gibbons said, nodding in approval at Tony’s mask, “but I retired before Supers were outlawed. I saw things were getting out of control and I wanted to help in a bigger way than flying around stopping crooks, so I hung up my mask and got a job with the government. That’s how I’ve been able to help the Taskforce get started, I’ve got experience on both the Super and the Government side, which means I can bring them together.”

“That’s amazing,” Tony said, “what powers do you have?” he flinched a little at his own question. He might be on his way to be trained as a Super, but asking someone about their powers still felt dangerously taboo, like he was crossing a line, “I mean, if that’s okay to ask. Is that okay to ask?” he added hurriedly.

“Pyrokinesis.” Gibbons said, casually holding up his hand, which was now covered in flame.

The thin flickering orange and yellow light danced up and down the man’s skin with apparently no damage, even though Tony could feel the heat very clearly from where he sat.

“A cousin of your power actually, ability to manipulate fire at will, just like you can with water.” Gibbons said with a smile, curling his fingers into a fist of flame that blazed an intense blue before suddenly snuffing out, leaving a slightly singed smell in the air, “I just have to be much more careful with mine in enclosed spaces than you do.” he said with a chuckle, “Does mean I’ve never had so much as a sunburn before though, which is a perk.”

“I always burn really easy, I have to wear sweaters and sunscreen all the time.” Tony said, “That’s incredible.”

“I prefer ‘amazing’.” Gibbons said, looking back to his screen.

His device made a pinging noise and Gibbons smiled, “We’re here. Remember, keep your mask on, no real names, and keep your lanyard on. That’s how you’ll get in and out of all the doors in this place that you have clearance for. We run a pretty tight ship here so be sure to keep your wits about you.”

“What should I use as my name then?” Tony asked, slipping on his lanyard. His eyes got wide, “Do I get to choose my Super name?”

“No need,” Gibbons said, pointing to the lanyard’s card as Tony felt the car roll to a stop.

Tony flipped over the card, which had the same wave icon from the envelope printed on it, as well as the word RIPTIDE in all capital letters.

Agent Gibbons got out of the car, holding the door open for Tony as he stepped into the gravel yard of what looked like a high tech military base.

To his left were enormous metal hangers and warehouses, to his right a group of people in army camo jogged by in neat lines. Ahead of him was a cement path that looked freshly laid, leading to a brand new building that was all clean lines and impressive steel.

“Welcome to the Taskforce, Riptide.” Agent Gibbons said with a smile.

***

The kid was nervous, William could see that from the way he kept glancing around him as they entered the sleek new Taskforce training center, but Riptide also seemed to be intent on making a good impression, sticking right to his side and smiling at everyone they passed.

He really seemed like he was a good kid, which was perfect, William could use a kid like that. William would have normally had some other agent under him take care of a new recruit’s orientation, but Riptide was different. William had scouted the boy out himself and he had big plans for him.

“Pretty much all of your training will take place right here in this building.” William said, shepherding Riptide toward a door and demonstrating how to unlock it with a tap of his own lanyard, “We have state of the art classrooms, training facilities, and living arrangements for recruits who stay overnight during parts of their training, like how you’re staying the weekend. Everything you need will be provided to you which why you were told not to pack anything. If there’s something you need just ask any of the staff and they’ll arrange it for you.”

“That’s really kind of you.” Riptide said, staring as they passed a group of recruits, the masked teenagers in dark grey jumpsuits smiling and waving to him as they passed each other, “Say, am I supposed to be wearing jumpsuits like them? I got one in my packet right?” he asked as he waved back to them, then glanced down at his street clothes.

“You young people are our most valuable resource,” William said, “we’d be idiots not to treat you well. And yes, in the future you’ll wear your training uniform whenever you’re on the Taskforce campus. There’s special sensors woven into the fabric of each suit that will track your vital signs as well as readings from your power set that will help your trainers record your progress and help you reach your peak performance as you become more familiar with your powers.

“Today we’ll be meeting one of your coaches and then you’ll have a chance to change before having a meal with the rest of the recruits before your first round of training this evening. Which is why...” William led Riptide through another door into a huge room, the scent of chlorine washing over them, “we’re starting you in here.”

William had never been in the pool room, but the olympic sized monstrosity was every bit as bad as he’d expected. Riptide however lit up at the sight of all the water, an unconscious smile creeping onto his face as the kid stared at the crystal blue water eagerly.

“New kid!” came a cheery voice, and they both turned to see a slender hispanic woman with a whistle hanging around her neck walking toward them, “About time you showed up, been expecting you. Call me Coach Maralin.”

“Ton-” Riptide started to say as he walked over and shook her hand, but quickly caught himself, “I mean, Riptide. My name’s Riptide.”

“Power?” Coach Maralin asked.

“Aquakinesis.” Riptide said, standing up a little straighter.

“That’s right, Agent Gibbons has been making you out to be the next Splashdown.” Coach Maralin said, glancing over at where William was still standing near the doorway, as far away from the pool’s edge as possible, “The water won’t bite, Will.” she called with a smile.

William gave a dry smile, “I’m perfectly fine right here.” he called back, “I assume I’m safe to leave him in your care?”

“Sure thing.” Coach Maralin said cheerfully, walking Riptide to the edge of the pool and taking the papers and things he was still holding from the packet, “Now Riptide, we’ll get you all measured and tested tonight, but for now-”

William shivered as she unceremoniously shoved Riptide into the deep end of the pool, street clothes, shoes and all. And as a special training pool, suitable even for scuba training, that was a deep end that was a purely indecent twenty meters deep. Just the thought made William’s skin crawl.

Riptide’s head broke the surface of the water as he came back up, sputtering a little, but with a bright smile on his face, like he was actually enjoying it.

“There’s so much water!” Riptide cried excitedly, he dipped his face back into the water for a moment to look down, then looked back up, not even wiping at his eyes, “I’ve never seen a pool this deep, it’s amazing!”

“Can you breathe underwater?” Coach Maralin called.

“I...I don’t know, I’ve never tried.” Riptide said, sounding curious.

“We’ll save that for tonight then.” Coach Maralin said, making a note on her clipboard and pulling out a stopwatch, “For now I want you to get out of that pool without touching the walls or the edge. You’re only allowed to use your power and the water to get out.”

“Oh gosh, I don’t think I can do that.” Riptide said, sounding a little nervous as he looked around, “I can only move a little bit of water before I get tired and-”

“Less chat, more water. Timer starts now.” Coach Maralin called, clicking her stopwatch.

William waited for another minute, watching Riptide at first tread water in confusion, then get a determined look as he started swooping his arms through the water, moving much more than a normal person could possibly splash. It wasn’t anywhere near to what would be required to launch himself out of the pool, but the kid was clearly ready to thrash around until he figured out how to obey the coach’s command.

That was all that William needed to see.

He ducked out of the pool room and back into the hallway, able to breathe a little easier away from the cloying scent of chlorine. Let Riptide handle playing in water, after all, he’d need all the training her could get before his public debut, and he had a long way still to go if he was going to be ready.

***

Tony had been trapped in the pool for an entire hour before Coach Maralin had let him struggle up the side ladder like a normal person, leaving him trembling with exhaustion.

He’d known that launching himself out of the pool was beyond his ability, but had given his all while trying anyway, seeing that Coach wasn’t going to take no for an answer, only shouting him sharp encouragement the one time he’d tried to ask to stop. He loved swimming, being surrounded by water always made him feel electrified with energy, but today had shown him exactly how useless he was without training.

After half an hour in the pool he’d started letting himself sink under the surface just to try and feel the water in a way he never had before, knowing that if he could just figure out how to grab the energy in the water just right he could tell it how to do exactly like he wanted. If he could just learn how to speak to it.

But for now he might as well have been trying to speak Chinese for all the good it did him, when he was finally allowed to climb out of the pool he’d glared back down at the water rippling innocently beside him.

He knew he could figure it out. He hadn’t expected joining the Taskforce to be easy, and if this was what he had to figure out how to do in order to be the best Super and example possible for the Taskforce, then that’s exactly what he’d do.

But...not at this exact moment...

Tony ached all over as he tapped his lanyard card against the door he’d been pointed to, sighing in relief when the mechanical sliding door opened to reveal the bustling cafeteria. More than a dozen recruits scattered around the tables with their trays of food, even some of the staff eating at other tables.

Despite being exhausted (he hadn’t even had the energy to dry off before changing into his jumpsuit, having to use a towel the old fashioned way) Tony felt a buzz of nervousness as he headed to the buffet counter, taking a tray and loading it up with food as he glanced around the cafeteria

“Hey, new guy.”

Tony looked over as an African America girl elbowed him. She looked about his age and was wearing the same jumpsuit and mask that he was.

“First day right?” she asked, scooping some macaroni and cheese onto her tray as she blew some of her hair, of which she had a lot, out of her face.

“Uh, yeah, is it that obvious?” Tony asked with a small laugh.

“I know you’re a new face, the masks aren’t that good.” she said, rolling her eyes, “But no, we saw you in your normal clothes earlier. You can come sit with us if you want.”

“Sure, that’d be great!” Tony said, a little unsure, but following her over to one of the small tables where there were already three other kids. One huge boy who looked like he was barely able to fit in his seat despite looking only fifteen or sixteen, and two thirteen or fourteen year old looking asain kids who looked like they could be twin brother and sister.

They waved as Tony followed the girl over, but Tony hesitated to see there was only one open seat at the table.

“I could grab another chair?” Tony asked, looking around.

“No need,” the girl said, walking over to where the asain boy was sitting, looming over him with her tray, “Ollie, move it, you’re hogging chairs.”

“Aw come on, just make him pull up a chair.” Ollie said, huffing dramatically, “We don’t want to move.”

Ollie’s sister rolled her eyes and reached out to grab his wrist, and suddenly his seat was empty.

Tony blinked, not at all sure what had just happened. One moment there had been two siblings in two chairs, and now there was only one kid in one chair, and unless Tony was very mistaken they were a brand new sibling, looking just like the other two. They had a messier version of the sister’s pigtails and the brother’s bangs, and Tony couldn’t quite say whether they were a boy or a girl...

“We only need one chair.” the kid said, eating a cookie of their tray as if nothing particularly interesting had just happened, “We’re Double Vision, what’s your name?”

“I...Uh, Riptide.” Tony said, trying and failing not to stare as he sat down in the empty seat.

“Thanks DV.” said the girl who had brought him over, sitting down too, “My name’s Aura, and you’d better get ahold of yourself Riptide. If you’re gonna be staring at everyone new like that it’s gonna be a long day.”

“Sorry, I just, I’ve never seen anything like that.” Tony said, blushing a little and scratching the back of his head, “I’ve never really been around other people with powers before, I think it’s really cool, but well, what was that?”

“We’re twins!” Double Vision said brightly, taking another cookie off of Aura’s tray, ignoring her glare, “At least, we think we’re twins, no one really knows. We’re Ollie and Allie sometimes too.” As they mentioned the two names Double Vision’s appearance changed to look like the boy and then the girl again before settling back at the inbetween version.

“Built in back-up and disguises.” said the huge boy sitting on the other side of Double Vision through a mouthful of chicken, “Not to mention the telepathy.”

“Yeah, well, back up isn’t always so great when you’re both small.” Double Vision said, smacking the huge boy’s arm, “You don’t need back up when you can knock down a whole building by yourself. We wish we could do that.”

“Are you...super strong?” Tony guessed, starting to eat his roll instead of continuing to sneak glances at Double Vision.

The boy chuckled, his laugh actually making the table vibrate beneath their trays. Even though Tony didn’t think it was that loud he could still feel the noise in his bones.

“Nah, my name’s Reverb, I do sound waves.” Reverb said, taking a bite out of one of the three hamburgers on his two trays, “I’m just big, I’ve only got normal person strength for my size. I knock stuff down by yelling instead, it’s way more fun that way anyway.”

“And what do you do?” Tony asked, turning to Aura, excited despite his exhaustion.

“I’d show you but it’s too bright in here.” Aura said, taking a drink of her orange juice, “Yall’d go blind or else I’d get in trouble from blowing out the lights.”

“She makes energy!” Double Vision said excitedly.

“More like types of light.” Aura said coolly, “All colors, all frequencies, all brightnesses. If a lightbulb can do it so can I.”

“Show him the purple light trick.” Reverb said, scooting a napkin across the table toward her.

“I’m not making blacklight in the cafeteria.” Aura said, ignoring the napkin.

“Pleaaaaaaase?” said Double Vision, splitting back into Allie and Ollie, presumably to maximize their pleading as they both balanced on half of their chair.

“Do it. Do it.” Reverb chanted, pounding his fists on the table, making all their trays jump.

“Will you guys shut up?” Aura hissed, but she let out a growly sigh and hovered her hand over the napkin on the table. The dark brown skin of her hand took on a muted purple white glow, and the white napkin underneath glowed a vivid bright white-blue color.

The others cheered and clapped as Aura rolled her eyes and scrunched up the napkin, tucking it under her tray. She looked over at Tony, “And lemme guess, you’ve got something to do with water, right Riptide?”

“Can you talk to fish?” Reverb asked, leaning hard enough on the table to make it creak.

“I have hydrokinesis.” Tony said, taking an overly aware sip from his glass of water, “I can move water with my mind.”

“Do it. Do it.” Reverb said, taking up his table banging chant again, Allie and Ollie joining him as Aura glared at them.

“I would, but I’m super tired right now.” Tony said quickly, moving to set his glass back on the table but thinking better of it as the trays kept jumping from the other’s banging, “It would just spill everywhere, I’m really not that good at it yet, I’ve never really practiced with it before now.”

“Booo.” Reverb said, giving Tony a thumbs down before starting into another hamburger, “You’d better catch up then Rippy, Aura and I’ve already got a few months head start on you. But yeah, they’ll keep you tired around here with how hard they work us, that’s for sure.”

“We’ve been practicing for years.” Allie said proudly, taking a handful of fries off one of Reverb’s trays, “Ever since we were kids.”

“How did you keep a power like yours secret from your parents?” Tony asked, looking over at them curiously, “My parents figured out I had powers when I was still a kid, I threw a tantrum and blew all the water pipes in the house.”

His parents had never exactly made him feel bad about having powers, but they’d never really talked about it either. It had just felt like an unspoken secret between them when he’d been growing up.

“Don’t got any parents.” Ollie said, taking fries from his sister, “We grew up with the NSA, that’s why we get to practice all the time.”

“That’s also why they get to use their real names, even if they’re not supposed to.” Aura said a little dryly, she glanced over at Tony, “Not a lot of parents want to deal with a super kid, let alone not knowing if they’ve got one child or two. You’d be surprised how many super kids end up left at police stations or in dumpsters. Those stories never quite make it to the news, but over half the recruits here were abandoned when they were still babies.”

Tony swallowed, glancing around the cafeteria again. That boy had horns, another had bright purple skin, a girl over there had wings and a scaly tail if he wasn’t mistaken. Were those the kids that had been abandoned at birth? Their parents too overwhelmed by a child who was obviously a Super when they lived in a society that had outlawed them?

Who had raised kids like Allie and Ollie then? Government agents like Mr. Gibbons?

“That’s why the Taskforce is going to fix stuff.” Ollie said, leaning in to his sister until they became Double Vision again, “That way Supers can do whatever they want! We’ll even be able to go to the beach!”

“You know, Supers are legal again.” Tony said, he knew that for sure after the research he’d been doing after Mr. Gibbons’ first visit, “You can go to the beach whenever you want, even if you’re using your powers.”

“Well, the Taskforce is what’s going to keep it that way.” Aura said, ruffling Double Vision’s hair, “With our example and everyone on the registration program everyone will stay safe and follow the rules and we’ll never have to hide again.”

Tony nodded, then started focusing on his food as the others drifted into much less serious chatter and gossip. He’d known in an abstract kind of way why helping the Taskforce was important, but actually meeting other Supers had made it far more solid.

He’d never even realized how lucky he’d been growing up. There were real people with real lives that had been really hurt the last time Supers had messed things up by letting things out of control, and there was no way that his own generation could mess things up a second time. In the future Tony wanted there would never be another child abandoned by their frightened parents just because they were born with powers like he was.

But he wasn’t going to be able to help anyone if he couldn’t even get out of a pool by himself.

Tony started shoveling his food into his mouth faster.

“Slow down, the food ain't gonna run away.” Aura said, glancing over at him.

“I need to get back to training,” Tony said, wiping his mouth, “Like Reverb said, I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

-----------

(Credits: The Riptide AU was started by @edorazzi‘s lovely art. For this fic extra thanks goes to @mistrel-fox as well for brainstorming help.)

#riptide #incredibles #tony ridinger #pixar #wit writes #tony #my ocs #aura #reverb #double vision #Agent Gibbons #ya know what I think I'll keep picking at this #Tony's a good kid

24 notes · View notes

sugabiella · 5 years

Text

The Calm Before The Storm

Gender neutral reader x van der Linde gang

Not really any pairing except for the fact the reader is best friends with Javier. Also, the reader is hispanic/latinx, so there will be spanglish. (Translations at the bottom). Pure angst. omg I nearly died writing this.

Summary: Reader gets kidnapped by the Lemoyne Raiders on a supply run.

1,720 words

Hot, was the only thing I could think about as sweat dripped down my forehead. The weather today in Rhodes was at an all-time high. The sun rays were surely going to mark uneven tan lines. The only shade offered was in the general store, but I could only stay there for so long before heading back to camp. Hopping back onto the wagon, I sighed. I squint my eyes at Sean as I grumbled, “Why did Pearson send us for supplies in this damn heat? I feel like I’m goin’ to melt!”

Sean laughed as we headed back to camp, “Yer’ tellin’ me! I just hope we don’t run into them Lemoyne Raiders.”

Spoke too soon, I thought as we saw a group of men approaching the wagon. “Stay calm,” I whispered as we both discreetly put our hands on our gun holsters.

“Nine,” Sean whispered. We’re outnumbered.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” asked a boorish looking man.

“Looks like a greaser and a yankee to me,” another boasted, as they circled the wagon.

“We’re not looking for any trouble. Our mother, she’s sick,” I quickly lied. Stupid. What kind of lie was that?

“That’s a whole lot of supplies for one little ‘ole woman,” another proclaimed as he drawled his gun.

Mierda. I took the first shot as Sean quickly cracked the whips as they chased us. Whipping around I aimed my revolver at one of the gang members as we came to a stop. Eight. Quickly getting off, we hid behind the wagon for cover and started shooting. Sean on one side and I on the other. Bullets were blazing left and right as the others started falling one by one. Five. Blood splashed on my face as one of the horses had been killed.

Just as I was aiming and about to shoot, I had been attacked from behind. Being taken by surprise put a strain in the fight. Punch after punch, I slowly started getting weaker. I looked for Sean and saw that he had just killed the man who had attacked him. The five others left had stopped shooting and started closing in. We’re going to die.

“Run!” I screamed. Sean look conflicted and like he wanted to protest, but he obeyed. The last thing I saw was Sean cutting the ropes of the extra horse before I saw black.

*at camp, third person*

The sound of one pair of hooves came rushing in as Lenny – who was keeping watch at the time – yelled, “Who’s that?!”

“It’s me!” Sean announced. The speed at which he was coming in and the fact that he was alone panicked everyone. “They took them! They took Y/N!” he shouted.

“Who, boy?” Hosea questioned.

“Le-Lemoyne Raiders!” Sean sputtered.

Just as those two words left his mouth everyone started yelling and grabbing their guns. The fact that those racist bastards took their Y/N angered everyone, especially Javier. The only thing he could see was red. His best friend was just kidnapped.

“We need a plan,” began Dutch, “Charles, Arthur, Javier, mount up,” he ordered. The other members began protesting as the three started getting ready.

“No! If we all go, we run the risk of Y/N getting killed on sight,” Dutch interrupted. “Sean, I need you to show us where you last saw them and then head back to camp.” Just as Sean was about to protest Dutch explained that they need good heads right now. In which he understood, and then quickly rode back to where the supply wagon was left.

The ride there consisted of everyone questioning Sean about what led to this moment. To which he explained, but one question that everyone had, but no one asked was, how could you leave them? To say Sean felt horrible was an understatement. I should’ve stayed. I should’ve been at their side. What if they’re dead? Because of me. Because of me! Were the thoughts spiraling in his head. He was riddled with anxiety as they approached the last spot he saw Y/N.

The wagon could be seen from far, so they began riding faster. As they approached, they noticed that the wagon was destroyed, in flames. The supplies were long gone. Blood and dead bodies everywhere. “Charles, I need you to look for a trail,” ordered Dutch. How could Dutch be so calm? Sean thought. How could they all be so calm?

Charles quickly found a trail. At that moment, Sean was ordered to head back to camp. The rest of them had followed behind Charles as Dutch began thinking of a plan. As they rode further and further away from Clemens Point, panic struck in. What if they’re dead? Swarmed through everyone’s mind, but no one dared say it. They nearly lost the trail as they entered Bayou Nwa, but Y/N’s screams of pain led them straight to the Lemoyne Raider’s hideout. They got off their horses and left them in a hidden spot.

“What’s the plan, Dutch?” questioned Javier. He was mentally distraught, but he had to keep a clear mind as his friend was in grave danger.

“We have to take out the guards first. Silently, Y/N’s life is at stake,” another scream interrupting him, everyone winced, their knuckles turning white as they clenched their fists, “Charles and Javier, take the left. Arthur and I will go in from the right.”

*back to first person*

Darkness and the sound of laughter. Am I dead? I crane my neck around and soon realize that I was blindfolded and tied to a chair. I groaned as my head began to throb.

“Ah, look who’s awake,” a voice affirmed as the blindfold was ripped off me. Four walls, a roof, if you could call it that. Beer bottles everywhere. So wet, it feels like I’m breathing water. The sound of buzzing insects swarmed my ears. The Bayou, I thought as I saw the same man who called me a greaser earlier watching me with attentiveness.

“What do you want?” I hissed. This fight was getting old.

“Someone’s got a quick tongue,” he concluded. My question earned me a punch to face. The taste of copper filled my mouth. Looking away, I spit the blood out. “Got nothing else to say?” he taunted as he punched me once again. Laughing was heard from just outside that door. Mierda. ¿Cuántos hay? I look around for any kind of weapon when a metal rod in a fire pit caught my attention. Oh, no. He must’ve noticed my staring because he smirked. “Aren’t you a smart one,” he cooed in my face. I scrunched my face in disgust when his alcohol-induced breath filled my nostrils.

He proceeded towards the fire pit to grab the rod. He slowly walked back to where I was seated, taunting me as he waved the rod around. “Now what shall I do with this?” he asked. Now moving the rod around my body without touching me. The extreme temperature of the rod making me sweat. No puedo mostrar miedo. I flinched away as he brought it closer to my face, he laughed as he placed the rod on my face. I screamed in agony as my skin sizzled from the touch. The smell of burnt flesh filling my nostrils. The seconds felt like minutes, hours, days, this torment was going on forever.

He removed the rod and proceeded to compliment my “toughness.” I paid him no mind as the pain was suffocating me. He began to punch me once again. Blow after blow, I began to feel myself losing consciousness. Stay awake. I began looking for any sign of weapons and saw a machete behind his back.

As if he was getting bored with my unresponsiveness and grabbed the hot metal rod again. I kept eye contact with him as he was trying to decide where to hurt me next. He pointed the rod to my lower abdomen and pushed forward. Another scream exited my lungs as the rod was tearing through my flesh and into my stomach. He removed it and put the rod back. Just as I thought he was done he began to untie me. I couldn’t fight, I was limp. The agony had faded into a dull throb. He placed me on the ground and began unbuckling his pants and removing his weapons. A sense of panic and adrenaline kicked in as he started getting on top of me. I looked around, shit, shit, shit, I tried reaching for a nearby bottle, but it was so far away. A little more.

He noticed my reaching at the last second just as I smashed the bottle onto his head. The glass shattering over my face, cutting me. I swiftly grabbed his machete, mounted him and began smashing the blade into his face. I couldn’t stop. Some kind of frenzy took over me as tears began streaming down my face. I didn’t notice the door opening and four bodies rushing in as I was grabbed.

“Get the fuck off of me!” I shrieked. The unknown body was smothering me from behind as I lashed around, screaming.

“It’s me! Y/N! Soy yo,” someone pleaded as they fought with my thrashing around, “Es Javier.”

“He- he tried to,” I whimpered as I held onto Javier for dear life as he calmed my movements.

“Estas bien,” murmured Javier, “se acabo.” I was crying into Javier’s arms as he lifted me and left the room. The others had already called the horses over. Javier and Charles helped me onto Boaz. I looked around and saw the worry on their faces. I saw the bodies, I couldn’t count, the exhaustion was taking over. As we were leaving, I could hear voices, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying until I heard my name and felt a shake.

“Y/N,” Javier repeated, “Did you hear me? You have to stay awake.”

I couldn’t find myself being able to speak, so I hummed in response. Charles and Arthur rode behind us as Dutch rode in front. They all kept looking around to check if there were more of them or to see how I was doing. My grip on Javier’s waist was getting looser and looser as my vision began to darken. Next thing I knew I was falling onto the ground just before I lost consciousness.

Translations:

mierda – shit

no puedo mostrar miedo – can’t show fear

cuantos hay – how many are there

soy yo – it’s me

estas bien – you’re okay

se acabo – it’s over

#tw: violence #tw: kidnap #tw: death #tw: implied rape #red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 #my writing #reader x van Der Linde gang #gender neutral #van der linde gang #sean macguire #lenny summers #Hosea #dutch van der linde #javier escuella #Javier Escuella x reader #charles smith #arthur morgan #lemoyne raiders

14 notes · View notes

newstfionline · 6 years

Text

The Digital Gap Between Rich and Poor Kids Is Not What We Expected

By Nellie Bowles, NY Times, Oct. 26, 2018

The parents in Overland Park, Kan., were fed up. They wanted their children off screens, but they needed strength in numbers. First, because no one wants their kid to be the lone weird one without a phone. And second, because taking the phone away from a middle schooler is actually very, very tough.

“We start the meetings by saying, ‘This is hard, we’re in a new frontier, but who is going to help us?’” said Krista Boan, who is leading a Kansas City-based program called START, which stands for Stand Together And Rethink Technology. “We can’t call our moms about this one.”

For the last six months, at night in school libraries across Overland Park, a suburb of Kansas City, Mo., about 150 parents have been meeting to talk about one thing: how to get their kids off screens.

It wasn’t long ago that the worry was that rich students would have access to the internet earlier, gaining tech skills and creating a digital divide. Schools ask students to do homework online, while only about two-thirds of people in the U.S. have broadband internet service. But now, as Silicon Valley’s parents increasingly panic over the impact screens have on their children and move toward screen-free lifestyles, worries over a new digital divide are rising. It could happen that the children of poorer and middle-class parents will be raised by screens, while the children of Silicon Valley’s elite will be going back to wooden toys and the luxury of human interaction.

This is already playing out. Throwback play-based preschools are trending in affluent neighborhoods--but Utah has been rolling out a state-funded online-only preschool, now serving around ten thousand children. Organizers announced the screen-based preschool effort will expand in 2019 with a federal grant to Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Idaho and Montana.

Lower-income teens spend an average of eight hours and seven minutes a day using screens for entertainment, while higher income peers spend five hours and 42 minutes, according to research by Common Sense Media, a nonprofit media watchdog. (This study counted each screen separately, so a child texting on a phone and watching TV for one hour counted as two hours of screens being used.) Two studies that look at race have found that white children are exposed to screens significantly less than African-American and Hispanic children.

And parents say there is a growing technological divide between public and private schools even in the same community. While the private Waldorf School of the Peninsula, popular with Silicon Valley executives, eschews most screens, the nearby public Hillview Middle School advertises its 1:1 iPad program.

The psychologist Richard Freed, who wrote a book about the dangers of screen-time for kids and how to connect them back to real world experiences, divides his time between speaking before packed rooms in Silicon Valley and his clinical practice with low-income families in the far East Bay, where he is often the first one to tell parents that limiting screen-time might help with attention and behavior issues.

“I go from speaking to a group in Palo Alto who have read my book to Antioch, where I am the first person to mention any of these risks,” Dr. Freed said.

He worries especially about how the psychologists who work for these companies make the tools phenomenally addictive, as many are well-versed in the field of persuasive design (or how to influence human behavior through the screen). Examples: YouTube next video autoplays; the slot machine-like pleasure of refreshing Instagram for likes; Snapchat streaks.

“The digital divide was about access to technology, and now that everyone has access, the new digital divide is limiting access to technology,” said Chris Anderson, the former editor of Wired magazine.

Some parents, pediatricians and teachers around the country are pushing back.

“These companies lied to the schools, and they’re lying to the parents,” said Natasha Burgert, a pediatrician in Kansas City. “We’re all getting duped.”

“Our kids, my kids included, we are subjecting them to one of the biggest social experiments we have seen in a long time,” she said. “What happens to my daughter if she can’t communicate over dinner--how is she going to find a spouse? How is she going to interview for a job?”

“I have families now that go teetotal,” Dr. Burgert said. “They’re like, ‘That’s it, we’re done.’”

One of those families is the Brownsbergers, which had long banned smartphones but recently also banned the internet-connected television.

“We took it down, we took the TV off the wall, and I canceled cable,” said Rachael Brownsberger, 34, the mother of 11- and eight-year old boys. “As crazy as that sounds!”

#digital divide #screen time for kids

5 notes · View notes

introvertguide · 6 years

Text

12 Angry Men; AFI #87

The next film on the AFI list was the courtroom drama 12 Angry Men (1957). This was the directorial debut of Sidney Lumet and starred Henry Fonda. The film garnered nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. There was little chance for the film to win anything as it went up against The Bridge on the River Kwai, but the nominations are signs of critical acclaim. The AFI gave the film recognition as the 88th most thrilling, Henry Fonda as Juror 8 was 28th best hero, it was 42nd best cheering movie, and number 2 best courtroom drama. It didn’t get the box office recognition it deserved, but it is theorized that it was a black and white drama filmed in one room and that was not interesting to an audience that wanted Technicolor and Panavision. Apparently even the best of stories could not compete against vibrant color and cinematic landscapes.

Speaking of stories...SPOILER ALERT!

The story is very simple since almost the entire movie takes place inside a jury room during the deliberation of a murder trial. The very beginning has a judge explaining the idea of reasonable doubt, then he tells them that there is a mandatory death sentence that comes with a murder conviction. There are 12 jurors, all men, who argue about the guilt or innocence of the 18 year old who has been accused of murdering his father. There is a lot of evidence that would suggest the boy committed the murder and eleven of the jurors initially believe he did it. One juror, #8 played by Henry Fonda, doubts some of the evidence. This is exasperating to the others because they all want to go home but the one juror wants to talk out the details of the case before he agrees to send a boy off to die. The jurors discuss the different aspects of the case (murder weapon, witnesses, testimony) and many of the jurors start to doubt the certainty of guilt.

The accused is Hispanic and lives in the slums of New York. He had a fight with his father and was reported to have bought a switch blade and went back and killed his father even though the boy says he went to the movies. There were two witnesses that were nearby that claimed to have seen the boy at the scene of the murder, one saying she saw the boy commit the act. Juror 8 points out many flaws in the testimony and questions the interrogation of the accused. The crux of the story is that some of the jurors are convinced of the boy’s guilt, not based on evidence, but based on prejudices they have in their personal life. Some notable members of the jury are the foreman played by Martin Balsam, the very brash and biased Juror 3 played by Lee J Cobb, and the super racist Juror 10 played by Ed Bagley

It eventually becomes painfully obvious that there is not enough solid evidence to convict the boy of this crime and all of the jurors are able to move through their own issues and vote not guilty. The jurors all leave and go separate ways and that is the end of the movie.

The director, Sidney Lumet, had only directed television shows and off-Broadway plays before this film and the influence is apparent. The focus is on the acting and the story with very little reliance on props with the exception of a few small things (like a play). The film is very short and doesn’t really have the standard three act narrative, but more a situation with a resolve (like on TV). The movie was also extremely inexpensive (something like $350,000 which translates to about $3 million today) and completed very quickly (about three weeks). The only cinematography of note was the use of wide shots of the room and actors at the beginning of the film and the progression to tight close ups of individuals towards the end of the film. It was all very “small screen,” but that did not hurt the quality of the finished product.

There is something positive to be said in that I don’t hate this movie, which I actually should based on other movies in the genre and the topic and setting. I do not like courtrooms. It seems to be a place of drama and a place where seemingly reasonable people are on their worst behavior. As far as jury duty goes, the idea of being locked up with a bunch of pushy, over-opinionated blowhards and forced to discuss sensitive topics gives me anxiety. There is no real action, no explosions, no beautiful vistas. There is a complete lack of diversity in the room and the jurors. It is just a bunch of men arguing and sweating in the same room for 90 minutes. I should hate this film.

However, this story is so intriguing that it wins me over every time. I love the scrutiny of the evidence. I love that cool heads prevail in each argument. I love that even the most biased member of the group is made to see reason. I love how the camera work controls the intensity of the group. I love the examination of what it means to be certain beyond a reasonable doubt. The film is incredibly entertaining and it is rare that I go through a movie without checking the time at some point, but I always am surprised how quickly the time goes with this one.

There are a couple things to nitpick about the procedure. The murder weapon is given to the jurors to examine towards the beginning of the movie. I guess that could make sense, but the knife is given over without an evidence bag and no gloves are used. Everybody is just handling the murder weapon in a homicide case. To make things worse, Juror 8 has an almost identical switch blade knife to compare to the murder weapon. There is no way he would be able to get a knife into a courtroom, much less the jury room. Also, there are some sweeping conclusions made by the jurors that all people with nose indentations have glasses, all people with glasses are blind without them, all women are vain and don’t want to wear their glasses, and nobody wears glasses when they go to sleep. There was also fighting in the jury room. It seems like all of these things are grounds for a mistrial more than a not guilty verdict.

Maybe the most interesting aspect of this movie is how easy it is to copy. You only need some actors and a big room with a big table and chairs. Any kind of crime mystery could be put into this outline with only the clues present. If you can’t afford to create a scene or don’t have a location, just have the actors describe it or show a picture labeled “Exhibit A.” Anything that needs explanation need only be discussed on the guise of “clarification.” It is no wonder that this layout has been parodied or copied in dozens of TV episodes. It is the template for making a quick, cheap, easy episode while still relating a compelling story.

All-in-all, this movie is fascinating in that it looks at what is likely the least interesting aspect of the US court system and somehow makes it absorbing to watch. Sidney Lumet did a great job directing and the actors really exuded the claustrophobic feeling of a contentious jury room. The film has the intricacies of a detective story, the dramatic acting of a stage play, and the budget of a TV show. For all of this, I believe it deserves a spot (albeit a lower place) on the AFI list and I would most assuredly recommend it to anyone.

6 notes · View notes

dismuch47 · 6 years

Text

Roswell Sequel Series Outline

@anheiressofasoldier Hooooo boy, are you gonna regret saying that you would be willing to read my pitch. Mwhahahahaaaa! (but seriously, thanks. I’ve been meaning to write this out since it has been so vivid in my head, down to the song that they play at the end, leading to the credits of tasteful, retro animated graphics of tabasco sauce bottles, waitress uniforms, and flying saucers...)

So let’s see if I can keep this down, somewhat...

EDIT: HAH. So long. Forgive the typos. So late and I don’t want to read through all of this when I spent so much time writing it! Not done yet...

So we open in Roswell, shots of some of the old spots that bring nostalgic feels, but years have passed: the old highway/gas station, a football practice at Roswell high, the diner (and they’re still wearing the old uniform style), UFO center, through some neighborhoods until we get to a house. We vaguely recognize it, but it focuses on an older man at a few computers, and some gentle panning reveals law enforcement memorabilia until we close in on the man’s glasses and those pale blue, worn eyes. Why it’s our beloved Jim Valenti! And he’s typing away on some conspiracy message board with wacky avatars that convey that he’s probably conversing with younger persons. There is a message for him and someone wants to meet him, to get the answers he promised. He contemplates, is reluctant, but then responds to meet him in the place that they originally agreed upon, in two weeks. He sends the message, exhaling, maybe this is a mistake... but then he looks at a picture of Kyle, grinning that Valenti smile, winning ball in his hands. Jim nods to himself, it’s decided, and he gets up to get coffee...

That’s when men in black suits bust in through the door, armed. Jim drops his cup, hands up. He’s too far from his guns, says something smart-ass to distract them... while his hands charge and a blinding flash of light comes from them.

That’s right. Jim Valenti has mother effing powers!

The men stumble about, whilst Jim dashes to the computer screens, holding a hand over them to blast out the hard-drive with energy pulses. He picks up a handgun that was strapped beneath the desk and takes out two men before he is thrown against the wall. One of the MIB has his hand raised, a supernatural opponent. None of the other MIB look phased. Jim looks up, wincing in confusion. One of the MIB asks the attacker if they should relocate Jim to “the compound” with the “others.” But the leader decides that Jim is too old to withstand any of the rigorous testing... he’d only be dead weight. He raises his hand to finish Jim Valenti off...

And we see Jim’s gaze wander back to the picture of his son, as his assailant’s hand glows...

And cut to black with a flair of cliff-hanger: Cue Roswell theme song and Roswell graphics...as it morphs from Roswell to more recognizable location of midwest city, the coast, New York, China, India, London...all tainted with something extraterrestrial/galactic... promising more of the unknown at a broader scale.

And then we start up in Cleveland, Ohio, of all effing places.

(And now I’m going to get less detailed; just thought it was important to establish the mood and intrigue first ;) Oh, and I also have like NO final name decisions for a lot of these characters, so forgive the half-assedness with these names.)

The character that we will ride on the back of to get to the characters we know and love is a hispanic youth (mid teens), who is clearly living in poverty and trying to keep his nose clean. Let’s call him...Alex. (: I had too; to honor the original). Alex is special, because he has powers, And he is a co-mod on a message board that reaches out to others with abilities. The main mod, who has been very encouraging and helpful in avoiding attention while still developing the abilities, has finally okayed meeting up for the first time with Alex (It is... was... Jim ): The halfway point that they agree upon is Nashville in two weeks. Alex has no money, but he has to find out why he has these abilities. He was dying from a shoot-out when he was young, caught in the crossfire, he was healed... it’s too hazy a memory, and ever since then, powers. and he’s not the only one.

In real life, Alex has 1 friend who moved from New York, (let’s call him Nicky) who also has abilities and shares a similar origin story... only it was a terminal illness while living on the streets. In his dreams, however, he knows Yen...a Vietnamese-American girl who can dream walk into anyone’s dreams. They’ve never met face to face, but they have bonded. Online, however, Alex is aware of 37 users who claim to have similar experiences with “the healer”, whether they remember it or not. Descriptions vary, so they can’t nail who he/she is. Alex, Nicky, and Yen (in dreams), decide to go on an epic road trip to meet the board mod, who Alex is CONVINCED is the healer.

So we have couple episodes of teen-powered shennanigans, meeting Yen in person, meeting up with some of the other “healed” (they have their own hand signal and everything); some awesome... some fake. So they reach Nashville, in the spot... and mod never comes. Alex knows something is up; the mod never would have pulled this (father complex issues). They do some investigating, looking for clues and they find something left behind. A floppy disk... which none of them know what the eff to do with. And then, someone seeks them out. Let’s call him...Greg. Late teens, maybe early 20′s...knows everything about Alex and is able to convince Nicky and Yen that he’s legit. (but he’s totally not legit). And Alex is wary, because he always got the vibe that mod was... older? With a full grown kid. Some simple questioning, and he’s able to trip up Greg, who also doesn’t have powers.

Outted, Greg shows his true colors and summons the MIB and takes the three youths after a brief skirmish (they put up a good fight, but the MIB are so experienced with their powers), they are taken to “the Compound.” (dun dun dun). The Compound is basically a hold and experimentation facility for HUMANS with extraordinary abilities; the “healed.” Alex and crew think it’s the dark government... but it’s actually aliens; Antarians, cleaning up human anomalies left over from their failed hybrid units. And, get this: they call “Greg”...ZAN. Oh yes. Very “human” Greg is Max’s estranged son, who bounced around in the foster system, has nice shiny baby memories of being the son of a king and queen and loved... only to face a very cruel world that recognized him as nothing. He’s mostly an icon, being the son of two hybrids, but he’s though of being less by the Antarians because of his powerless genetics. He’s out to prove himself to the elitist species.

Alex, Nicky, and Yen are able to escape from the compound with some clever thinking, and rallying beaten down inmates...on of the eldest being a man who was experimented on for 3 years. Despite his once peaceful ways and dry humor, he’s now a mind-warper with mad-skillz: Kyle Valenti (oh yeah. He HATES that that is his ability; self-loathing galore). The gang picks up another female, let’s call her Roxie (cause she got no-where to go!) and Kyle decides, after seeing what’s on the floppy disk (his dad, explaining why he started the website; because it was for the terminal kids who would grow up to have abilities, just like everyone else Max healed... but more people from the outside, all over, were getting abilities as Max and pod squad were on the run. Kyle is moved, and he decides that if the 4 want to meet the one who changed them to gain closure, he would be their guide. He explains the events of Roswell and the pod squad: the teens are floored that they are wrapped up in Alien stuff.

The plan is to go connect with Isabelle Evans, but on the way, Kyle diverts the trip when he sees an advertisement...for the singer Maria Deluca touring nearby (yeah, bear with me, I promise it will pay off). Nicky and Roxie are just rabid fans for Deluca so they are totes okay with this distraction. Touching reunion between Maria and Kyle. And Maria fills him in on the three years he’s been gone:

War is coming to Earth. Kivar diverted political tensions to Earth with a very brutal and militant species. Like this specious tears through planets like a plague. Upset with Kivar, Antar sent emissaries to find one of the royal 4, from either set of hybrids, but only found Zan... who was eager to be found. With the promise of giving him powers, Zan was enlisted to track a hybrid down. He had a lead on Micheal Guerin, who seemed to be around the corner, during certain times in his life... but he was able to use Micheal to get to Max. Max thought that a reunion was to occur arranged by Brody...but he was thrown into a portal and beamed to an Antarian vessel. That was a year ago.

Deluca declines going with the group to their next stop, unable to see LIz in the state she is in, getting pulled back into it all, and on top of it all...Maria is now a single mom of an adopted toddler: a boy. He’s her whole world and there was no room for anything else. Kyle and gang bids her farewell and continue on.

I don’t know where Isabel is, but they arrive and she has a pretty nice house, job: picture of normalcy. But she’s a wreck... and she nearly falls to pieces when she sees Kyle after three years. Yes. They were a thing at one point; she she spent every night trying to connect to his mind and dream walk with him. She has a daughter, Cassie, who looks just like her mother and fully embraces her her alien heritage as a princess; she the worst. She gets to know Alex, Nikki, Yen and Roxie, and they are floored by her abilities... that she flaunts. (no, Kyle is not the father... and neither is Jesse: DUN DUN DUUUUUN)

After Kyle and Isabel have their well deserved moment, they decide that the kiddies can’t come along, because it’s WAR, so they are to stay at Isabel’s house. And not only that... but the Parker-Evans chldren (all 3 of them) are dropped off by SERENA, Liz’s work budy from the University Lab Research Team (WHO THE EFF IS SERENA???) Turns out Serena be cool, but she’s a human who doesn’t know about any of the alien stuff (but she’s like mad smart with theoretical science). So the adults leave to go on patrol, and the teens think this sucks, though the little Parker-Evans kids are happy to have new playmates. Cassie pipes up that she’s not going to stick around, since the eldest kiddo is 13 and can handle her younger siblings so she gonna go abuse her powers to go clubing. She coaxes Alex to go with her, Roxie is down... but Yen and Nicky decide to stay at the house to protect the kids. Yen isn’t so happy that Cassie appears to be sinking her claws into Alex.

Club shenanigans, but then Alex Guilts Cassie to give a crap about what is going on outside of her comfy life and she tags along with him and Roxie as they go to shadow after the adults. And what they find is is a Michael Guerin, Isabel Evans, and Liz Parker-Evans kicking some serious alien ass. They are trying to steal aboard a vessel to get access to the Antarian ship hovering over earth. Then this armored opponent appears and nearly smears Liz across the gravel, but Micheal and Isabel are able to hold him briefly, giving Liz and chance to get a clean shot... but she hesitates. She can’t do it... and the armored figure is about to break free. Things look dire for the three, so Alex and Roxie spring to action, getting in a good shot or two, but the figure retreats back to the ship in a beam of light. Liz, instead of thanking the teens, yells at them.

It had been Max. Stripped of his consciousness and replaced with the collective consciousness (see how I’m including some book stuffs???) of Antar: their memories of King Zan poured into the hybrid vessel, Max Evans. The idea was to have their reclaimed King challenge Kivar for the throne. But King Zan, a distorted version, as memories aren’t a replacement for a SOUL... and with the temperament of a human...straight up just kills Kivar. And leads Antar into a dark age. Wah-waaaaaah.

But there’s a problem: remember how Dupe Isabel made the comment that Max’s pod set are the defectives? Too human? Well, it’s true... and Max’s body, being too human, can’t handle the energies and massive power from the crystals that he’s wielding. (it’s all about the crystals, for Antarians: they bring people back from the the dead, serve as text messages, it’s great... oh, and some probably become huge ass weapons) So basically, Max’s body is dying from being too over-extended. It’s like a rubber band that can’t snap back into shape, but just get’s looser, and looser until it just TEARS.

Then of course we have to have an episode about how the main gang got to their current states: Liz and Max of course married right away, had their first kid a few years after Isabel had Cassie. Liz got an online education and worked her way up to a position at a research Lab, where she met Serena (WHO DAH EFF IS SERENA???) Meanwhile Max works a late third shift at a hospital, or rotates around, and heals the really desperate cases. Micheal is ever vigilant to protecting Isabel and Max/Liz’s families, being a hard as nails yet doting uncle.. but he’s kind of a bar fly, even though he can’t drink (he likes the ambience), but gets squirrelly whenever a Deluca Classic comes on the jukebox. He has regrets... many regrets. He wears down Max to give the kids a normal life, get a mortgage, enroll them in public school... cause they deserve the best life experience. Isabel had Cassie pretty early on...after Jessie...Isabel hit a low, especially when she facebook stalked him to find out he had moved on. So she goes out, grabs the nearest stranger, and... well...(but it’s kinda important WHO that person was... It was human-meat-puppet Kivar. Who’s never too far from his Valondra; he’s THE WORST) Meanwhile, Kyle bonds with Isabel during her pregnancy, provides for her, has a fling with her, but it is never fully realized because Isabel freaks and needs to have control over her life and her daughters, so he becomes a cool uncle to Cassie. He opens his own garage. Maintains highly secretive correspondence with his father, when he’s lured to meet up with his dad... which was never arranged by Jim. He was taken to “The Compound”. Max does get a house with a fence for his family, and just when they settled in, they get a visit from a mysterious boy: Ethan. And Ethan says “You’re my dad.”

But the thing is, Ethan doesn’t look anything like Max: it’s all Tess. The young man has a clear memory of his mother, that fits Tess’ description, and that she loved Zan. He’s a nice guy, sweet, but has had a slew of misfortune with abusive families. He grows on Micheal... in an annoying way. After a DNA test, at the insistence of Liz, they find that Ethan shares no DNA, and is certainly not human. And a simple alien connection reveals that this isn’t Tess’ son... but Ava’s...and Rath (WHA? EW! NO! But yusss. I’m not saying it’s a good match, but it happened) And Ava did love Zan, and wanted Ethan to find Max...because she wasn’t in a good situation and had to give up her son for his best chance (OUAT ALL OVER AGAIN) since Rath would probs chuck that full-blooded alien babe at Antar for brownie points. So Ethan is disappointed but willing to depart but Micheal is all “Stay with me, twerp. But get a job and help pay rent.” Ethan makes breakfast for his grumpy new big brother/dad everyday.

Feeling awful for her unwillingness to let Ethan in right away, Liz supports Max in tracking down his biological son. He’s afraid that the same fate fell on Zan Jr. Which, fyi, Zan lived a very average life... but he could REMEMBER the alien stuff, and his mother, and another world... so basically, he loathed his family and situation. So Micheal agrees to help track down Zan, because he’s become pretty good at that kind of thing, and reunites the two, with the help of Brody... and then... well... you know how that goes.

Okay. I have to stop for the night. UGH I’m almost thru. No, but this is GREAT, writing it down. Maybe finally this idea will be exercised from my brain permanently!

#roswell prequel idea #read at your own risk

12 notes · View notes

kdenbibi · 6 years

Text

Forgive, don’t forget

Bucky Barnes x Black!Reader

Request: “Could you do a bucky x black reader where she tries to get him up to date on the modern world and has to explain that the way poc’s are treated, especially blacks hasn’t changed?”

Summary: Bucky is a grumpy old man, but for good reason!!

Warnings: Racism, like one curse word, a hint of fluff ;D

Tag List: @chrisemi @mirajanestrauss1999

Authors note : I’m so sorry this took so long work has been trying to drain my soul , the devil trynna test me y’all lmao anyway I hope you like this!!! I’m sorry if its not what you wanted I tried my best :> Any who, Requests are open! -Admin A

Another cold day had come and gone, by the time I walked in my door the sun had long fallen, I had stepped inside my apartment expecting the traditional bear hug from my boyfriend I always got when I came home, but instead I was greeted with silence, after receiving no answer I began to tip toe in the rest of the way, alert, preparing myself for a robber or something awful, only to see the back of Buck’s head, his attention was entirely on on the television, that in and of itself was concerning, after all Bucky was from the 1940’s, him and modern technology just didn’t always end up well.If the silent greeting wasn’t clue enough the moment I saw him I could tell something was off, so I slowly walked over, tossing my bag on the nearby counter not really caring where it landed. “Hey baby?”

I spoke slowly coming up to his stone like form. I placed a tentative hand on his shoulder, pulling him from the screen. He finally turned away from what I now saw was the news, looking up at me from his seat on our couch, and if I wasn’t sure before I was now, something was definitely wrong. I shuffled around his body until I was sat next to him, out of instinct I reached for his hand, to my relief he returned the gesture, though he remained silent. I stared at the man before me, my brows creased in concern.

If you’re with someone long enough you get to know them better than yourself, and for me? Reading Bucky was as easy as breathing for me.

What gave him away most of the time was his eyes.

See, Bucky had these eyes, and yeah, they were beautiful, but what was really incredible about them was the stories they told, if he let you close enough, you could almost seethe stories, the pain, for a master assassin he was pretty bad about hiding the way he felt, but then again I always figured it was his own way of rebelling against what had been drilled into his head, he was always told to be a stone, an unmovable rock, but now that he had the freedom to be who he wanted, he was an open book.

To my dismay, at the moment he had that cold, unflinching anger resting in those baby blues. My worry increased ten fold, I’d only seen that look when he fell back down a few pegs, having lived the life he’s lived, there were always going to be slip ups, always moments where Bucky would slip away and the soldier would come back, moments where the life would fade from his eyes and things he thought too dark to show me would replace it, memories soaked deep with blood and pain, and even though these moments happened less and less as time went on, it didn’t make them any less horrifying to witness.

A breath I didn’t know I was holding released once he gave my hand two gentle squeezes, a signal this wasn’t an episode and he was still in control, my body instantly relaxed, I folded myself into his side, basking in the warmth that was Bucky, as I waited for him to open up.

Although he seemed relatively okay, he still hadn’t spoken, but I knew better than to rush him into it, so I took the chance to turn towards what had seemed to have gotten so far under his skin, Four figures, A black woman, a hispanic man and two white men sat at a long table discussing the very heavy, very unfortunate, topic of racism in America and how it mirrored the country’s dark past far too much for comfort.

I’d joined in mid debate but I could grasp the gist of that was happening, I’d grown accustomed to the uncomfortable, hot anger that came to me when i watched this kind of stuff, but to my surprise every person on the panel passionately disagreed with the nations handling of its ever growing racism and its inability to deal with it, all but one man.

”Now I’ll be clear here, as a God fearing American it is my right to say how i’m feeling and how i’m feeling is, you people are all too sensitive.” He went on, to the rest of the panels horror, to say how equality was the end of the world and to add the cherry on top of this shit show he ended up referring to the rest of his panel as, and i quote, “Colored loving pansy’s.”

yeah, he was the human embodiment of the feeling you get right before you throw up.

and the actual throw up.

I could only stomach a few minutes of hate speech spewing from his mouth, with a roll of my eyes I snatched the remote from my boyfriend’s hands and turned the channel, much to his dismay.

Yeah that’s enough bullshit for today.

“I was watching that.”

He finally spoke, his tone matched irritated expression.

“Yeah well I can tell you how it was gonna end."

I yawned leaning into the soft cushion, the weight of a hard days work finally seeped into my bones.

“Either he’d continue on with his little hate speech, or he’d get dragged to hell by the remaining three hair follicles hanging on his scalp for dear life.”

He shook his head sitting back into the faux leather cushions, a smirk just barly graced his handsome features.

The hand holding mine began to rub small circles into the back of my skin.

"You’d think I never left the 40’s with this shit happening as much as it is.” He scoffed still staring at the now black screen. I nodded into his shoulder, I knew how angry he could get with all the injustices in the world, after all he did fight in a war against people like this, so I could understand the irritation once seeing that the mindset hadn’t disappeared.

“So that’s what has you so upset?”

He shot me a half smile, his shoulders un-tensing as he brought our laced fingers to his lips. “Is it that obvious?” “Well I didn’t get my hug at the door so one could only assume.” He offered me an apologetic smile, before speaking up again. “I’ve been catching up, like you told me to and,” he sighed, the irritation flaring in his expression again.“-I’m angry.” I tossed my legs over his lap, his free hand subconsciously began to work it’s way over my outstretched limbs, a habit he had when his mind was running a mile a minute. “It’s pretty crap huh?” I leaned on my hand, watching his facial expressions closely. He gestured to the blank screen with a nudge of his head, a humorless laugh leaving his tight set lips. “This shit hasn’t stopped happening, I don’t know how it’s continued to go on but I-” the hand rubbing at my legs stopped as he spoke, his prosthetic fingers twitching as his anger rose. “I know what it’s like to live in a world that doesn’t want you, doesn’t appreciate you, but I’ll never know it like you do.” He looked hopeless, and I knew that feeling all too well, watch enough of that kinda crap and the world always look darker. I listened to him rant, a sympathetic smile on my face. “I’m angry because the world hasn’t changed at all, I’m angry because people like that can walk around freely but innocent, good hearted people get denied the chance of a decent life just because of what they look like-” he huffed cutting himself off. “I’m angry because it feels like all that fighting and death was for nothing, and like there isn’t a thing I can do to help.” I sighed removing my legs from his lap and folding them underneath me, grabbing both his hands I made him meet my eye. “I know how you feel baby- trust and believe I know, and I won’t lie to you it’s not easy, it is frustrating that the world hasn’t changed all that much but it is better than before, and it will keep getting better, because of people like you, people who acknowledge the problem, and want to do something about it.” My thumb traced patterns into the flesh of his cheek as i spoke.

“And because we’ve always made it though we may not all look alike or share the same blood but people who struggle and fall together get back up together just as easy."

He was silent a moment, and I could see the walls of anger he no doubt had been brooding in begin to crack.

"Aren’t you angry?”

“Of course I’m angry, I’m absolutely livid, but I’ve turned that anger into a source of power. People who look like me have always been at the short end of the stick, and let me tell you, acting through strength rather than anger is a hell'uva lot more helpful than letting that rage get the best of us.” He sat there, drinking in my words, so I continued.

“They don’t get our rage, they don’t get our pain, what they get is a calm grace, because in the end, people with hate in their hearts end up alone and angry, and they deserve nothing more than that.”

With a slow nod of his head I could visibly see the stress chipping off his shoulders the more time ticked on. I swooped up to steal a kiss from his unsuspecting lips.

"I meant what i said too, it really helps to have people like you in the world, not everyone is an evil bastard I promise, The world can be good, don’t lose faith too soon. “

He sighed staring down at me, arms wrapping their way around my waist, the butterfly’s he gave me went bonkers as his hands settled gently on my hips, his grip tight but not uncomfortable.

"I know it can be good, it gave me you after all.”

I made a face pushing myself away from the taller man.

"Ew, Buck that was corny!“ I whined, he pulled me back into his embrace,a soft laugh accompanying his action, and as gently as one could, he smashed my face back into his warm chest. I squirmed against his hold until he let me up, the smile was back in his eyes, just where it belonged. I smacked his arm for the dirty move before I leaned forward on my own, finally getting my end of the day hug. He tucked a stray curl away from my face, leaning down to press a warm, slow kiss into my lips.

"Sorry for that- I didn’t mean to get so worked up."

I laughed at his words, pecking his cheek before responding.

"Never apologize for being woke my man."

His goofy smile morphed into absolute confusion.

"What does me being awake have to do with any of this?”

I rolled my eyes at the both literal and figurative old man, rising from his lap with a laugh. “I’m serious!” He yelled at my retreating figure.

(Bonus)

Later that night, the universe blessed me with a moment I’ll treasure as long as I lived, and Buck would cringe at whenever I brought it up, as I woke from bed at a way too early time, I shuffled like a zombie to the fridge for some much needed water, I was surprised to see the soldier standing silently in our kitchen, the only reason I knew it was him was the bright blow light from his phone screen painting his face, I prepared my dry throat to call out to the man, who by the way had no type of business just chilling in our kitchen at 4 AM like that, and question him only to be interrupted by his harsh whisper.

“Siri, what does being woke mean?”

#bucky barnes #bucky x reader #bucky imagine #poc imagine #poc reader #poc x reader #poc reader insert #marvel #marvel imagine #marvel x reader #bucky x black reader #black reader #the winter solider imagine #the winter solider x reader #requested

292 notes · View notes