Themes: smut🍒(i rarely ever write full smut, only mention it maybe once or twice), fluff🍓, angst🌪️
Marvel
•Bucky x fem!reader ->Once yours, always yours🍓 Summary: you help Bucky get ready for an upcoming Gala to attend. Wordcount:1k
•Joaquin Torres x fem!reader->Forget me not<3🌪️🍓 Summary: Aftermath of Joaquin‘s near death experience and how you and him deal with it together. Wordcount:1.1k.
•Joaquin Torres x fem!reader-> Hold me please🌪️🍓 Summary: Aftermath of Joaquin‘s near death experience and how you and him deal with it together. Wordcount:1.1k. Pt.2
•Joaquin Torres x fem!reader->You in my arms 🍓 summary:You kiss Joaquin‘s scara as he sleeps Wordcount:2.3k
•Yelena Belova x fem!reader->Oh…🌪️🍓 Summary: You come home to Yelena drunk and bruised, both mentally and physically. Wordcount:1.4k.
•Yelena Belova x fem!reader-> I‘ll see you in a minute🍓🌪️ Summary: The Thunderbolts needed help with bringing Bob back to reality, so Bucky turned to one of his closest friend for help. Too bad that Yelena seems to absolutely hate your guts and despise the very idea of you breathing the same air in the same vicnicity as her because now you are all the Avengerz. Wordcount:12k.
DCU
•Jason Todd x fem!reader-> Liar,Liar. 🍓 Summary: Jason comes home from a mission with an injury that he hides from you. Wordcount: 1k
•Jason Todd x fem!reader-> Thinkin about you🍓🌪️ Summary:Jason just came home from a long mission but he can‘t seem to fucking find you in your apartment. Wordcount:2.1k
•Jason Todd x reader->reap what you sow🍓 Summary: You and Jason, although he wouldn't outright say it, are partners in crime. You work together and all's well until you get hurt because of him and he just can't seem to bite his tongue and count his blessings. Wordcount:2.4k
•Jason todd date night blurb->painting each other🍓
•Jason todd x fem!vigilante!reader->Ever since i lost my baby Summary: You broke your phone. Too bad you might‘ve met the love of your life and have no number to give him. But true love shall prevail, right? Oh and Red Hood is as annoying as ever. Wordcount:17k
Other
Atla
Zuko x fem!reader-> summary: After another battle Zuko tends to your wounds. 🍓. Wordcount: 1.3k
Summary: After the War both you and Bakugo got a good amount of scars and physical reminders of the hard ships you both endured. Now, years later, you still have to take care of them. Bakugo helps.
Warnings: non sexual nudity n‘ a lil kiss
Word count:1.2k
A/N: funfact this blog is now 3 yrs old and i can confidently say i have never had a acc whether its ff or just in general posting my content like my art that i didn‘t give up after 3 weeks. I have been writing on here for about a year now and im very proud of myself for acc pulling through with this. Never expected me to find my most sucess in writing fanfiction tho but im NOT complaining <3
also its my Birthdayyyyyyyyyyyy im 20 now :PPPPPPPP
The morning already started off stale.
When you woke up you were expecting some sunlight shining onto your body, warming it and maybe feeling a heavy arm slung around your waist holding you close to the body that holds the heart of the man you have loved for years. Instead you woke up drenched in sweat, cold with your blanket tossed to the floor, all alone and your scar on your back itching like crazy. Goddamn stupid Hero work.
Even though you, just like Bakugou, are a Hero, you finally managed to get one free day that you had hoped you would be able to spend with your husband, but as it seems god and everybody above the clouds decided to play a cruel joke on you. Staring out the big window near the side of your bed you wonder if sleeping for the rest of the day is a bad way to spend the your one off day. Before you can make a decision you hear the front door lock turning and your head snaps up towards the hallway.
Ok…so either someone is breaking in or your husband did actually remember to take a off day on your off day and just got up earlier than you and you do not need to curse out his entire family lineage for forgetting. Pulling your sluggish body from the bed you make your way towards the door. Just as you walk down the hall you see Bakugou entering with a white plastic bag slung around his scarred hand. “Whatcha‘ got there?“, your words came out more torpid than you expected as your eyes remain half-lidded encrusted with sleep.
“Good Morning to you too. Go clean your damn Face you are about to fall asleep standing.“
Bakugou kicked the apartment door shut with the heel of his boot and dropped the plastic bag onto the kitchen counter with a dull thud. The smell hit you immediately, coffee, greasy breakfast sandwiches, and something sweet underneath it all. You leaned against the hallway wall, rubbing tiredly at your eye. “You still didn’t answer me.”
He clicked his tongue. “Food. Use your brain.”
“Wow. Such romance. How ever did i survive without you?”, you muse.
“Shut up before I take it back to the goddamn store.”
Despite the sharpness in his voice, he was already moving around the kitchen and setting everything out with practiced ease. Two coffees. Your favorite breakfast sandwich. A small paper bag from the bakery down the street. You blinked.
“You got those custard things?” Bakugou avoided your stare as he ripped open a wrapper. “The old lady said they were fresh.”
A small smile tugged at your lips.
The silence that settled afterward wasn’t awkward. It rarely was with him anymore. Years ago silence between the two of you used to crackle with competition, irritation, unspoken feelings neither of you understood. Now it was softer. Familiar.
Still tired, you shuffled toward the counter and reached for your coffee, but halfway there your back twitched sharply.
The itch.
You hissed under your breath. Bakugou noticed instantly. His crimson eyes narrowed as he looked you up and down. “Scar again?”, his eyebrows scrunch in worry. You shrugged one shoulder, trying to play it off. “It’s annoying today.”
“That means you scratched at it again.”
“I didn’t. I can‘t even reach my fucking back ‘suki.”
“You literally bleed through your shirt when you do it.”
You rolled your eyes, but his expression didn’t change. He stepped closer, fingers already tugging at the hem of your sleep shirt. “Turn around.”
“Katsuki, I’m fine.”
“Didn’t ask about that.” Even after marriage, even after years, hearing concern from him still felt rare enough to treasure. With a quiet sigh, you turned around. The fabric lifted over your shoulders, cool air brushing against your skin. You heard him suck his teeth softly.
“Dumbass,” he muttered.
“What?”
“It’s irritated. The hell did you do to it?”
You twisted slightly to glance back, but his hand settled against your hip to keep you still. The touch was careful despite how rough his palms were now. Scars crossed nearly every inch of his hands from overusing his quirk during the war. Some nights they still cramped so badly he couldn’t close them properly.
You remembered holding those shaking hands in the hospital. Remembered the smell of antiseptic. The feeling of his heart not beating anymore beneath your cold hand. The unbearable fear that he wouldn’t wake up.
Your throat tightened.
Moving his head towards the couch you make your way to sit there as Bakugou disappeared briefly toward the bathroom before returning with the ointment both of you practically lived on these days. He popped the cap open with his teeth and squeezed some onto his fingers before he signaled you to take your shirt off.
The first touch against your scar made you flinch.
“Hold still.”
“It’s cold. Since when were your hands so damn cold?”
“Tch. Want me to get you a ice pack? Keep it up and i will get Icy-hot to freeze your back colder than the Antartica.” But he softened his movements anyway. The scar stretched across most of your upper back, ugly and uneven from where debris and fire had torn through skin during the final battle. Some days it barely bothered you. Other days it burned and itched like your body still remembered dying.
Bakugou traced ointment carefully over the raised skin, slower than necessary. You exhaled quietly. “You didn’t have to do that, you know. I do it myself when you aren‘t home.”
His hands paused.
“The agency can survive one fucking morning without me,” he said flatly.
“That’s not what I mean.”
Then, quieter this time, “Wanted to be here. With you. God forbid a husband ever misses his fuckin‘ wife.” Your chest ached harder than the scar ever could. You turned your head enough to catch sight of him. His face looked older now than the boy you met at UA. Sharper. Tired around the edges. A thin scar cut across his jaw, another disappearing beneath his shirt collar. Living proof that heroes never really walked away untouched.
Neither of you did. But his hand remained steady against your back. Steady against all the damage. Always your anchor. And for the first time since waking up, the morning didn’t feel stale anymore. A deep exhale left you before you turned your head back towards the front. Neither of you talked about the war much anymore. You didn’t have to. It lived in the scars, in the stiffness of old injuries, in the nights either of you woke from dreams too vivid.
But moments like this made surviving feel softer somehow. Easier and something you look forward to do with him.
After finishing up Katsuki tugged your shirt back down before pressing a brief kiss against the back of your neck.
“Next time it starts hurting,” he grumbled, “tell me before you sit there suffering like an idiot.”
You smiled faintly. “Okay.”
“And finish your damn food before it gets all soggy and shit and you start complainin’ about it.”
“You almost managed to be sweet and nice to me ‘suki. Almost.“, a grin broke out on your face as he rolled his eyes while he stood in front of you screwing the ointment cap back on. Leaning down towards your face his lips pouted out and you met him halfway to slot your lips between his. Your hands come up to hold his face as he turned his head to the side to further deepen the kiss before he pulled back.
Summary: Somehow during your last big trip with the Gaang you catched a fever. Now you are back at Zuko‘s palace as he is adamant in helping you recover there. In his bed. With him helping you.
Warning: making out/kissing, banter, reader is a little shit that loves to annoy Zuko, sexual tension but not full smut
Word count: 1.6k
A/n: might be one of my fav kissing scenes that i have ever written ngl also thank you sosososoososososoosos much to everybody leaving comments under my posts you guys do NOT know how much they mean to me im abt to print them all out and hang them on my wall as motivation tysmmmmmmm
(More Zuko here)
Masterlist
„You know Aang and the others could‘ve just flown me home on Appa, right?"
„It would have been too dangerous. Especially with your open wounds. Who knows what could have happened." his tone was serious but you could detect a small hint of humour in it. Your eyes dart up towards the ceiling. The thick red silk duvet you were under was doing wonders against the cold settling into your body, and the damp compress on your forehead helped soothe your pounding headache.
You had been hesitant at first to accompany Zuko back to his home simply because you didn't want him to waste time on you when he had an entire nation to run, but he had insisted that you join him. Now you find yourself tucked deep beneath his covers.
In his bed. In his room.
When he had well over a dozen guest rooms that you know for a fact were empty. His back was turned to you as he sat at the edge of the bed, just like he had been for the past few days.
‚,Zuko.‘‘ ,,Hm?‘‘ ,,Zukoooo‘‘ ,,What?‘‘ ,,Stop hovering over me‘‘ a beat of silence passes over you two.
,,You are the one that keeps calling me though…‘‘, he muttered. You rolled your eyes, but before you could respond, his gaze snapped back to you, sharp, searching. His eyes narrowed as they darted across your face and before you know it his hand flies to your forehead to remove the compress and feel your temperature.
,,You‘re still burning‘‘, worry evident in his voice.
,,‘m okay Zuko. I promise.‘‘ you murmured. ‚,Just need some sleep is all.‘‘ Even as you tried to comfort him you could tell he wasn‘t believing you at all. ,,What is it?”
“Nothing.”
“That didn’t sound like nothing.”
“It is nothing.”
He turns fully now, eyes squinting at you. You were sure that if he still had both of his eyebrows, they would be touching right now with how hard he was glaring at you. “You’re a terrible liar.”
You huff weakly. “And you’re a terrible host.”
That catches him off guard. “…What?”
“You’ve got, what, a dozen empty rooms?” you gesture vaguely. “And yet I’m stuck in yours. Not that im complaining.” There’s a pause. A very telling pause.
Zuko’s posture stiffens.
“I—That’s not—”
You raise a brow. Even in your current state, the grin that tugs at your lips is unmistakably teasing.
“Oh? Not what?”
He opens his mouth. Closes it.
“…It was closer,” he settles on, far too quickly. “Closer,” you repeat, unconvinced.
“Yes.”
“To what?”
Another pause.
,,…the air? Outside. Getting fresh air helps you get better.‘‘ You were sure he was trying to convince himself more than you. Before you could stop it, you burst out into laughter, all the while he was getting red and looking away.
,,Thank you, Zuko. For wanting to help me get better. Even if it is under somewhat weird circumstances.‘‘ He didn‘t answer but you knew what he was thinking about.
,,I will go fetch you more tea. I don‘t understand why this palace has so many servants, yet somehow not one was able to bring you a cup of tea...‘‘
,,I don‘t think they are lazy. I think they don‘t really know what’s happening in this room right now…with us‘‘, your smirk was so wide your cheeks began to ache. Zuko‘s eyes widened as he stared at you bewildered. ,,Wha-‘‘ Your finger finds his lips as you shush him. With this new silence between you two you could hear low shuffling behind the closed door and some whispers. His eyes widened before he turned towards the door and stalked over there. Standing up straight he opened the door to see about 5 different servants including his own royal advisor hunched infront of the door. All of them scrambled up into a line.
,,Fire Lord Zuko? Are you done in there?‘‘ one servant, poor soul, asked with his eyes flickering between Zuko and you on his bed. Although his back was turned to you you could tell he was flushed into a deep shade of red as he tried to remain composed.
,,She is sick.‘‘ The laugh you were trying so hard to contain once again escaped you in a bashful manner as you saw how the eyes of the servants and those of his advisor widened. Zuko turned back to you to give you somewhat of a glare but between the entire situation and him being flushed red you couldn‘t take him serious. A loud cough escaped Zuko as he turned and walked outside towards the rest of them while he closed the door behind him. Even though you couldn‘t exactly hear him anymore besides muffled noises you got the gist of what could be happening outside right now.
-
It didn‘t take long before Zuko came back with a servant trailing behind him holding a large trail of various tea leafs and other medicaments. With a flick of Zuko’s hand the servant scurried out and Zuko sat back on the edge of the bed side near where you laid. Your eyes dragged over his back. As he was pouring some of the medicaments into the tea your hand drifted along his back in slow strokes.
,,Lie down with me? Please‘‘, your voice wasn‘t above a mere whisper but he reacted as though you just screamed it into his ear.
,,Drink first.‘‘ The liquid was warm as you drank it, soothing the ache in your throat as you drank, which you were also very thankful for. The endless glasses of water that you were gulping down every two minutes weren‘t doing much anymore. As you gave Zuko back the teacup you flopped back onto the bed with a oof and extended your arm towards him. Turning your head to the side he was sitting at you smiled at him.
,,I won‘t bite. I promise.‘‘ With a sigh Zuko moved to lie down right next to you as you pulled your arm away from that side. Your eyes, now that he was mere inches away from you, trailed all over his face. First his left eye, then the scar on the right and before you could stop yourself your hand was softly touching it. Content with the touch your eyes went down to his lips. Your fingers following your gaze as they drag over his incredibly soft lips. Under different circumstances, you would’ve tormented him endlessly over how unfairly soft his lips were.
Before you could do anything else his hand came up to clasp around your wrist as he pecked your thumb that was trailing his bottom lip.
,,You‘ll get sick too y‘know‘‘ you murmured. Although you were actually concerned for his well-being you hoped to all the gods above that he wouldn‘t pull away. And he didn‘t. Instead a soft laugh escaped him as he pulled himself up onto his elbow with his hand cupping your cheek as he stared down onto you. His eyes flickering between your eyes as he leaned further down. His lips were so close you could feel the warmth of them followed with the occasional swipe of them on yours which made your entire body shiver with warmth. His long hair fell over both of you as though it was a veil meant to hide you away from the rest of the world. Just as your fingers were previously trailing all over his features, now his were doing the same on your face before stopping just above your cupid’s bow where his thumb dragged back and forth softly over it.
,,You are incredibly bothersome.‘‘. Before you could retaliate his lips pecked yours softly. Just as quickly as it came it went. That wouldn’t do. Both of your hands came up to cradle his face as you tilted your head slightly to force his lips to meet yours again in a longer, harder kiss. His teeth sank lightly into your bottom lip. A soft whimper escaped you at the bite before you kissed him harder. You could feel his warm hand drag from your face down under the sheets and under the robe you were wearing before it stopped at your bare waist.
,,Zuko‘‘ you mumbled against his lips as he only pulled apart for his bottom lip to seperate from yours while his top lip still hovered above your cupid’s bow.
,,You should- ‘‘
,,Fire Lord Zuko! You have recieved a le-oh‘‘
You suppose this can be continued on another day, where you aren‘t sick and no advisor of Zuko‘s will barge in.
Summary: In the aftermath of another big battle Zuko helps clean your wounds.
Warning: kissing, and a drizzle of angst, nudity but nothing explicit, sokka and Toph being little shits per usual
Wordcount: 1.3k
Masterlist
More zuko here
With your bare back facing him you couldn‘t exactly see what he was up to but you could guess he was carrying his deep etched frown on his face.
His warm hands worked wonders against the contrast of your cold, bare skin. You could hear him mumble something behind you for the past 20 minutes give or take.
,,Y‘know i can‘t really understand anything you are saying right?‘‘ Your words came out more slurred than you intended, the drowsiness pulling you toward a sleep you were barely fighting off.
,,I am not saying anything.‘‘
,,You are. Along the lines of: That wasn‘t honorable. You shouldn‘t have jumped infront of me. I can fight with honour‘‘ You mock his voice as you tease him, but with no answer from him you both fall back into silence again.
Your eyes dart around the camp you were stationed in to check on the others. Aang and Katara weren‘t fairing off any better than you two only with Aang in your place and Katara in Zuko‘s. Toph was busy throwing rocks at Sokka‘s head while he kept tinkering on his new ,super cool, super evolutionary non-bender bike‘, or whatever, and Momo and Appa were fast asleep.
A groan slipped out of you before you could surpress it when Zuko would brush across a particular harsh burn and you could hear him huff every time. Maybe jumping infront of him as he was being attacked was not your smartest decision you have ever made, but it was one you made anyway and now you were suffering multiple burns, scraps, and bruises that you are quite sure will scar. Not that you really minded. With a deep sigh you move to stand up as you hold your cloth infront of your chest to turn towards Zuko. Now facing him, you really took him in. A deep purple shadow bruised the skin beneath his left eye, and the scar on his right seemed a little more red than usual. His gaze refused to meet yours. How unbecoming of a Lord of an entire kingdom, you couldn’t help the grin that broke out on your face.
,,Zuko, look at me.”, you tried but his eyes kept staring towards the ground as his hands were rubbing the ointment that he was previously smearing on your back off. Letting your towel fall to your lap your hands find purchase on his face turning his face upward towards you. Moonlight cast a silver sheen across his features, making them sharper and softer, somehow, all at once.
You leaned forward a little towards him: ,,Tell me you wouldn’t have done the exact same for me, Zuko.”
‘‘That”s not the point.”
“But it is. And you know it. That’s why you are deflecting.” The last part came out as more of a whisper as you leaned even more towards him to place a gentle peck on his cupid’s bow, deliberately avoiding his lips.
“I know you are a big, powerful Fire Lord, Zuko but i am strong too. And if i hadn’t stepped in what would have happened to you? You can say what you want about me, but you were already down and bleeding. If you had taken that hit-“, before you could finish the rest of your sentence, his hand comes up to your jaw, firm but careful, and suddenly his lips are on yours. He tilts your head, deepening the kiss before you can even react. It isn’t gentle, not really. It’s desperate. Frustrated. Like something he’s been holding back for far too long finally spilling over. There’s heat in it, and something sharper beneath, fear, lingering and unspoken. Everything he won’t say, pressed into the non existing space between you. All things Zuko.
Zuko exhales softly against your lips, the tension in his shoulders easing just a fraction as the kiss shifts but still intense, still desperate, but no longer as sharp. His other hand finds your bare waist, careful of your injuries, yet unwilling to let you drift too far from him. Even as you pulled away to breathe even for just a second his lips follow yours as he pulls your face gently back towards him. You melt into his arms as though you were puty and when he finally pulls back, it’s only barely. His forehead rests against yours, breath uneven, eyes still closed like he’s afraid that if he looks at you, something will break.
“Wow.”
Zuko jerks back like he’s been burned. You blink, still a little dazed, before your head snaps toward the voice and you immediately remember your current state.
“…Oh.” Toph is sitting a few feet away, smirking. Sokka is also there. Very much looking.
“Okay-wow-yep, this is-this is a lot happening at once,” he says, aggressively not knowing where to look and somehow looking everywhere. You grab the towel from your lap at lightning speed, clutching it to your chest.
“Turn around!” you snap.
“I am turned around!” Sokka yelps, spinning in a full circle and somehow ending up facing you again. Katara groans, grabbing him by the collar and physically yanking him the other way. Before you could start yelling at Sokka for even glancing your way you feel something warm around your shoulders and hands moving to your front section. Your eyes dart back to Zuko who now stands before you as he ties his silky red robe around you fully covering you in his kingdoms insignia. His lips were still a bit red from your small make out session and he had a soft red hue covering his cheeks. For a moment, no one says anything.
“…That’s new.” Toph tilts her head, grin widening. Zuko straightens immediately, like that alone might restore what little dignity he has left. It doesn’t.
“Don’t,” he says flatly.
“I didn’t say anything,” Toph shoots back, far too pleased with herself. “But wow, your heartbeat is loud.” Zuko’s ears go red. Again. You press your lips together, very clearly trying not to laugh and failing. Sokka, who Katara is still holding hostage by the collar, leans sideways to peek again.
“So are we all just ignoring the fact that Fire Lord Fancy here just—”
“Sokka,” Katara warns.
“—kissed her,” he finishes anyway. “Because I feel like that’s a pretty big development for the group dynamic.”
“There is no group dynamic,” Zuko snaps.
Aang lowers his hands from his eyes, squinting cautiously. “Can I look now? Is it safe?”
“No,” Zuko says immediately.
“Yes,” you say at the same time.
Aang hesitates. “…I’m getting mixed signals.”
You snort softly, adjusting the robe around your shoulders. It’s warm now, too warm, honestly but it smells faintly like smoke and something distinctly him, and you don’t mind nearly as much as you probably should.
Your fingers brush the fabric, then glance back up at Zuko.
“Nice robe,” you murmur, just loud enough for him to hear. His gaze flickers to you, then away just as fast. “You needed it.”
“Mm.” Your grin turns teasing. “Very noble of you.”
He narrows his eyes slightly. “Don’t start.”
Toph lets out a quiet, delighted laugh. “Oh, she’s definitely starting.”
Sokka finally breaks free from Katara’s grip, immediately pointing between the two of you. “Okay but seriously, since when is this a thing?”
“It’s not a thing,” Zuko says again, a little too quickly.
You raise a brow.
He pauses.
“…It’s not-” he tries again, weaker this time.
Your smile widens.
“Wow,” Sokka says, looking between you both. “That’s rough, buddy.”
Summary: Spending a soft morning basking in the sunset in the pool with Jason just admiring him. Lord knows that man needed a break away from Gotham.
Wordcount: 1,3K
A/N: y‘all IM BACK sorry for the long break it‘s uni guys it‘s ok tho we are back and stronger thn eva and also i figured out how to add songs LMAO. And as per usual a fluffy Jason fic w a Frank Ocean title if you want to, listen to the song while reading :).
Masterlist
English is not my first language so be aware when reading
toodles!
Behind your eyelids you feel the warmth of the sun gliding cross your soft skin. A warm arm around your waist makes it that much harder for you to turn around and away from the burning sun. Slowly you blinked your eyes open as you fought away the last remnants of bliss clinging to your heavy eyelids as you turn in his arms. His eyes shun green with a hint of blue due to the water‘s reflection in them and you realize you missed him too much. These past few weeks you have been spending too much time alone. One of the main reasons why you even forced him to be out here with you.
He presses a lazy kiss to your forehead, his thumb tracing slow, absent-minded circles against your hip like it’s the most natural thing in the world. You hum at the contact, tucking yourself closer to him, nose brushing his collarbone. He smells like pool chlor and that faint, comforting hint of coffee that hasn‘t left him since you guys arrived at the vacation house.
“You’re smiling,” he murmurs, voice rough with sleep. You did force him out to the pool at 2. a.m just to watch the sunset with him after an entire day of just lazying about.
“Am I not allowed to?” you ask, eyes still half-lidded.
He snorts softly. “Didn’t say that. Just-” His hand tightens a little, protective without even trying. “Means you’re actually relaxed. That’s nice‘s all.”
You tilt your head back to look at him properly. The sun catches in his lashes, turns his eyes lighter than usual, softer. No helmet. No jacket. No walls. Just Jason, hair a mess, scars on his face barely visible in the morning glow. You remind yourself to thank Bruce for letting you guys stay in his Vacation house as your eyes flitted over Jason. You loved this Version of him. This relaxed, carefree jason. His freckles have gone a shade or two darker as he has been more out in the sun these past few days than he has in the last 20-something years in Gotham and you find yourself carefully trailing your fingertips over them. His eyebrows raise in a silent question.
,,Y‘know jay…you are so pretty‘‘, your voice far more quiet than you anticipated but you welcomed the soft tone.
Jason’s jaw tightens just slightly, a flicker of something unreadable passing through his eyes, then he leans down and presses his lips to yours. It’s not a kiss meant to rush to anything, it lingers, a quiet promise. He rests his forehead against yours, letting the silence stretch comfortably between you.
The pool is warm from the sun, but your body still trembles a little under the heat of him next to you. You can hear birds calling somewhere far above, the faint hum of the city completely absent, replaced by the gentle ripple of water around the two of you. For once, there are no alarms, no missions, no gunfire, no loud sirens alarming the citizens of Gotham to evacuate because batman and the Joker got into a ,,lovers quarrel‘‘, as Dick likes to say. Just this.
“I think…” you start, voice barely above a whisper, “I could stay like this forever.”
He chuckles softly, and it’s low, almost shy, a sound you rarely hear from him. “You’d get bored eventually. Or maybe I’d snore too much in my seep, and you’d hate me.” You nudge him lightly with your shoulder. “I doubt it. I could never hate you. I think I’d just… keep looking at you. Forever.”
Jason tilts his head, eyes narrowing slightly as if sizing up whether you’re teasing him. “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” you say, smiling. You run your fingers through the water, watching the sun scatter off the ripples, but your gaze keeps drifting back to him. There’s a softness there, in his relaxed posture, the way his hair sticks in messy little spikes from the water. Lord knows that man needed a break from Gotham. He lets out a long breath, leaning back just enough to rest his arms along the pool’s edge. The sunlight catches the curve of his shoulders, the slight scars along his arms, and you can’t help but trace the outline with your eyes, memorizing this version of him. Just Jason Todd, alive and whole in the sun.
“You stare too much. Think you got a staring Problem baby,” he mutters after a beat, but you know there’s no bite to it. You shrug innocently. “I admire. There’s a difference.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he says, shaking his head. “I don’t know why you’re so obsessed with me sometimes.”
“I’m not obsessed,” you tease. “I just… notice things. Little things.”
Like the tiny crease between his eyebrows when he’s thinking. The way his lips curl up when he’s amused. The faint freckles that have darkened in the sun. The way his green-blue eyes catch the light differently in the pool. The way the J scar on his check has faded more and more thanks to your creams you force him to apply. You wonder if he even realizes how much those small things affect you, how much they pull at something soft in your chest that usually doesn’t get a day off.
Jason seems to sense your gaze lingering because he slowly leans toward you again, just enough that your noses almost touch. “Little things, huh?” he murmurs. “I could say the same about you.”
You feel heat rise to your cheeks but don’t look away. “Then maybe we’re even,” you whisper.
A comfortable silence falls, broken only by the gentle lap of water around you. He wraps an arm tighter around your waist, pulling you slightly closer. You rest your chin against his shoulder, letting your eyes close again for a moment, savoring the sun and the warmth and the rare stillness.
“Promise me something?” Jason says suddenly, voice low.
“Anything,” you answer immediately.
“Promise we’ll do this more often,” he says. “Sun, water, no Gotham. Just… us. No fighting, no missions, no B‘. Just… peace.”
You smile against his skin. “I promise. We’ll do this whenever we can.‘‘
He presses a quick kiss to your temple, then another at the curve of your jaw. “Good,” he murmurs. “Good.”
Minutes pass, hours maybe, and you don’t even notice. You float there in the pool, wrapped around him, wrapped around the water, watching the sun climb higher, scattering diamonds across the water’s surface. You let your fingers trail along his chest, memorizing the warmth, the soft dips of muscles, the familiar comfort of him.
summary: you had a few resolutions for your move back to gotham. fight crime, piss bruce off, and maybe try not dying in the process of avenging the memory of your best friend, jason todd. your plans get disrupted when a new vigilante, by the name of red hood, decides to make your life living hell by refusing to leave you alone and forcing you to be his partner in crime. what a jackass.
pairing: jason todd x reader
tw/content: childhood best friends to enemies?/forced partners to lovers, angst with happy ending, grief, yearning, hurt/comfort, kissing, hidden identities, past trauma references, language, mentions of violence/blood/gunshot injury/near-death.
“I don’t do partners.”
Red Hood has been finding you. Too easily. Not even a week since you’ve been back, since he cornered you in an alleyway where you had been snooping on information from a few loud-mouthed gangsters on the new tells of how crime hides its tracks, like rememorising a reconstructed street—when a stranger with a red helmet pressed a gun to your side.
“Careless.” He had remarked then, and the worst part was that he was right. You made sure to hide your footsteps since, the way Bruce used to teach you before you cut him off. Yet, that bastardly metallic helmet always found its way invading your sight, his leather-gloved hands somehow holding you in place.
Now, he’s offering to be what—partners in crime—like you’ve gone stupid just because you’ve been away for a few years? He’s been tracking you, but that didn’t mean you didn’t do your own digging on him since that first encounter.
He’s a lone wolf, a backstabber. He blackmailed Black Mask into a corner and snatched his territory like child's play, leaving the former rotting for his crimes. He spits threats as a conversation starter and isn’t afraid to use violence to back his barking teeth, and his objectives? Inconclusive.
You tell yourself there’s nothing he can get out of you, nothing that you haven’t wiped clean from your trails that he could use. For all he knows, you’re a newbie. A good for nothing.
“Even if it has to do with Jason Todd?”
Your blade is on him in an instant.
It digs into the material shielding his neck, but whether you could actually do it—turn your front into actual bloodshed, you don't know. You force your trembling fingers to stabilise the sharp edge of your blade, barely feeling anything other than your heartbeat hammering through your ribcage.
“How do you know that name?” Your voice comes out louder than intended, vulnerability pitched in all the ways you could not control.
“We all have our secrets.” He twists your old words against you, something you had uttered to him days ago, and not even his moderator can hide the mocking sneer in his voice.
“Willing to die for it?” You grit.
“Already have.” He remarks. Your brows furrow in confusion, and your lapse in focus is enough for him to twist your arm, slamming you against the wall and pinning you with your blade still clenched in your hand, but now out of reach.
“It’ll be in your best interest if we work together.” He squeezes your wrist tighter, jamming your palm from dropping the blade into your teeth. It’s like he knows your every move, and counters it before you can even think of doing it.
It should only reinforce how much of a danger he is, with his skills in combat to disarm you as quickly as he did—but there’s a familiarity in the steps that makes your head spin.
“Nothing good comes out of provoking the Bat alone.” He warns. “What you’ve been doing? You seriously think he wouldn’t notice?”
You scoff. “You don’t know him.”
“Don’t I?” He laughs coldly. “Don't make the mistake of assuming your past with Bruce guarantees you a soft spot, sweetheart."
Your entire body freezes. Nothing would have ever prepared you to hear Bruce's name. To know that he knows the old man's identity and yours—you've severely underestimated him. Jason’s name still repeats like a helpless mantra in the back of your mind, twisted into a robotic slick from the modulator.
He leans in, and even with that stupid helmet on, you can feel his pleasure thrumming at your silence. "Midnight tomorrow, Miller Harbour. I wouldn’t advise you to be late, partner.”
Miller Harbour reeks of strong salt and sewage. Your nose wrinkles, the sour smell somehow reaching your nose even from afar. The murky water barely reflects the intrusive lights that shine on the containers that surround you like a rusted maze.
He never told you how'd you find him, so clearly—your 'partnership' solely depends on his unyielding ability to find you no matter which part you were in the city.
You hear him before you see him, and that's only because he didn't bother hiding. He's on the phone, talking in low hushes, his modulator crackling as he approaches you, one hand shoved into the pocket of his leather jacket.
His casual demeanour pisses you off, like he can't even be bothered to arm his hand because you're no threat.
He stops in front of you, phone still raised to where his ear would be. "It's either your intel is right, or your wife finds a bullet in her head tonight." He says right before he ends the call.
Your eyes widen, disgust rippling through your features. "You'd do that?"
Stuffing the phone into his pocket, he carries himself easily despite your tone. "Would it make you feel better if I said I wouldn't?" He mocks.
Your eyes narrow. "I wouldn't believe you."
"How clever." He drawls, his hand beckoning you to follow. "And isn't it hypocritical of you to ask when you had a blade pressed against my neck yesterday?"
Your lips part, conflict jamming your response. He doesn't need to know that you wouldn't have done it, that you lack the guts. It'd only give him a greater advantage over you. He paces on without bothering to hear your response, and you huff, jogging to catch up with him. "What are we doing?"
"There's leaks of Scarecrow's shipment leaving at midnight. Unless you want the entire city on his fear toxin, we're infiltrating before it even gets close to the water supply."
"Sure you don't want it for yourself?" You accuse.
"Not my style." He remarks. "Prefer to deal with my enemies without all the screaming, it gets in the way of the job."
“What is your motive then? Something to prove to yourself?” Even your doubt echoes in your question, obviously expecting him to mock you, toss another vague statement that only proves the power imbalance between the two of you—but he doesn’t.
“Just cleaning up the streets.” He answers briskly. “Permanently.”
The word lingers like a point of difference, a kick at the other caped crusader.
“Have a problem with the Bat?” You dig.
“Don’t you?” There’s a wicked accusation in his voice, and when his helmet shifts to look at you, you feel pressure. An unspoken demand to state which side you stand on.
“What I think about the Bat is none of your concern.” It’s a small win, knowing he doesn’t know everything about you—relief that the fear of him being able to read your mind dampens a little at his question.
He's silent, long enough that you begin to wonder if your answer was the one he expected, or didn’t.
"What does this even have to do with Jason Todd?" You couldn't connect Scarecrow's antics to have anything to do with Jason, much less requiring your help. You couldn't even best him in a one-on-one, much less work alongside him.
He scoffs. "Nothing about tonight has to do with a dead boy buried twelve feet under."
Your frustration ticks, even more so at his brush-off over the mention of Jason. He was the one that used Jason's name against you, and now he's acting as if it didn't matter? Before you can push further, he replaces his focus with a sudden movement—two trucks leaving through the entrance point at the lower levels of the harbour, and his entire demeanour shifts.
“You take the one on the right, I’ll take the one on the left. Stop the truck before it leaves the harbour."
He's gone before you can ask any more questions, his silhouette disappearing down the ledge onto the truck’s roof. You curse, jumping down after him and landing on the second truck. The metal skids against your palms but you steady yourself, gripping onto the raised edge.
The driver's clearly heard the sound of your weight smashing against the truck, evident from the shouting below, and not a second after—bullets ripple through the roof. You curse, one hand letting go so you could move to the side, avoiding the bullets.
Your body topples to the side, and you slam against the driver's door, making direct eye contact with a straw mask. You've got to be kidding, they even bother with the same get-up?
Gritting your teeth, you lift yourself up halfway, and your boots slam against the glass. It shatters from the impact, and you fall roughly into the driver's seat. It's a mess of elbows, and the fumbling of your blade from your holster as you use the back-end, knocking it into the driver's skull.
His head lolls to the side, but you don't have time to think—grabbing onto the wheel and turning it sharply before the truck crashes into a container. Kicking his feet off the pedal, you slam onto the brakes.
The truck's wheels skid to a halt, and you instinctively squeeze your eyes shut when the truck slams into the container. You heave out a breath, shaking slightly as you open your eyes to a mostly in-tact truck, aside from the dent visible in the side of the door. You did it. You actually did it.
A knock at the window makes you flinch, and you snap your neck to see Red Hood waiting outside the door, hands over his hips—impatience brimming in his form. Your fury sparks in your gut again, but you clamp your lips shut as you unbuckle the driver, unlocking the door on the other side, and shoving the driver out.
He falls onto the ground with a loud thump, still unconscious as Hood hoists him up easily, dragging him over to where the other driver was and dropping him.
By the time you managed to shimmy your way out of the truck, Hood's already got a gun pressed over the forehead of the first driver, who looks worse for wear than the other, with sweat pooled at his forehead, blood running down his nose.
"Wait!" It tears out of you, afraid.
A flash of Bruce’s eyes crystalises in your mind, a perfect vision of his morals weighing down on you. Your fingers wrap around his gun, forcing it away. "What are you doing?" You snap.
"My job, sweetheart." He mocks.
"There's no need to—" Kill them. You can barely get it out, and you switch your words. "You haven't even gotten your information, what's the use in putting a bullet through their heads when you don't know where the shipment's supposed to go? You'd just delay Scarecrow's plan, not stop it."
"Oh, and let me guess." His voice hardens. " Once we put these two in jail, they'll break out—rush back to Scarecrow and help out in murdering innocent civilians. Is that your amazing idea?"
You hesitate, and for a moment, you feel like Bruce and—this conversation only makes you ill.
“You don’t have time to hesitate.” His voice grows in impatience, frustration clear over your incompetence. “They’re dirt on the streets, and it’s either you clean it up, or you’ll find someone’s face on the news—someone’s kid murdered, because you couldn’t pull the damn trigger!”
You can’t stop the flinch at his raised voice, even as your own glare hardens. “Then what makes you different from them? Deciding who gets to live and die?”
His cold laugh echoes through the night air. “It doesn’t. I just have the guts to admit that it takes that sacrifice to make the streets safer, to save another life.”
“By deciding to kill another.” You bite back.
“Yeah, cause keeping murderers alive worked out so well before.” He scoffs.
You freeze, cold anger taking over your panic. He didn't need to say who he was taking a dig at, it was enough from the mocking tone in his voice. "Fuck you, Hood."
"Yeah, I'm terrified." He says dryly, tucking his gun back into his holster. "Cause clearly, you're a real big threat, aren't you?"
You're tempted to launch yourself at him, hit him—anything to get him to shut up.
“You should take some time off the field if you think being soft around here works.” He mocks, two hands coming down to drag the two men by their collars. Walking over to the truck he's parked, he tosses them into the back seat. “Come find me when you come around.”
You’re ready to snap, tell him you wanted nothing to do with him in the first place, that he’s deranged for thinking you’d even want to find him and let yourself be dragged into his mess—but he tosses something your way and you instinctively catch it. Opening your palm, it’s a burner phone, identical to the one you saw him use when you arrived at the harbour.
When you look up, he’s gone. Left alone in the streets with shaking adrenaline tremoring through your hands, even if you don't know whether he'll follow through with what he said, the image still makes you feel sick.
Hood disappears from your life for two weeks. Enough for you to dare to try and fall asleep without the image of the two drivers appearing when you shut your eyes. To not smell the harbour, and hear the sound of his mocking tone when he dangled your morals in front of you like life and death is so easily decided.
Tonight's not one of those nights where you think sleep will come find you easily.
Your body's conditioned to almost wait—like he's bound to appear any minute even though he's never visited you at your apartment before. The burner phone is shoved somewhere in your wardrobe so you won't have to see it, even when you instinctively check to see if he's left any messages or missed calls when the thoughts get too loud at night.
You're starting to believe he's actually given up on you, seeing you as a weakling in his eyes. It shouldn't bother you, give you any feeling other than relief that he's potentially out of your life. Yet, somewhere deep inside, the guilt pools at the thought that if it came down to it, you might do the same thing as Bruce. Not pull the trigger, and someone ends up dead.
Like Jason.
A knock rams against your window. It's loud, measured with that same familiar brute force you've come to expect from the only person who'd find you at this hour.
You shouldn't have kicked off your sheets, or rush to the window where your oddly-sized sofa was pushed against. You unlock the window, pushing it up to meet the sight of the helmet that haunts your nightmares.
For a moment, he just stays there, bent over on your fire escape like he's in intense pain. Then, he snaps. "You going to move aside?"
“I thought you said I’d be the one to come find you.” You mock. You shouldn’t, not when he’s clearly pissed with a gun in his hand, but your nerves don’t trigger automatically at the sight of him. He doesn’t scare you, even though he should.
His other hand is gripping his side, blood soaking his glove when he hisses out through gritted teeth. “Toss me attitude later. Emergency kit now.”
You don’t question on how even though he’s known you for such a short time, he's desperate enough to come find your window. You don’t let yourself think about how he’s probably alone in this city, just like you, and bears that weight and who knows what other baggage that’s clearly twisted him into this displaced superiority complex.
You grab your kit, rushing back to see him laying against your brick wall, still near the window, and you hear the shifts of his delayed breathing, like he’s trying to still himself as much as possible to prevent further blood loss.
“An expert in bleeding out?” You taunt, laying the kit beside him as you automatically grab for the alcohol and cloth to clean the wound.
“Should’ve seen the other guy.” He tosses back, teeth clenched through his stubbornness.
It’s almost paradoxical, seeing the Red Hood so strangely human in the dim lighting of your apartment, bleeding out on your wooden floorboards and making jokes. Almost enough to make you forget why you’re pissed to see him, almost.
“How’d you find my apartment?” A silent question echoes your words through the tense atmosphere. How’d you find me every time?
“Tracker in the burner phone.” He answers casually as he pulls up his shirt, one hand outstretched for the alcohol—clearly expecting to do it himself. Not like anything illegal on that extent would phase him.
“And the other times?” You ignore his outstretched hand, dabbing the alcohol on the cloth. To prove that you're capable of something, you don't know. Your stubbornness had always only been rivalled by those worse than you. “Three.. two..”
Your count doesn't finish before you press the cloth onto his wound, and he hisses, a string of curses filling the room. “Every damn time.” He groans.
Your brows furrow, but maybe he’s talking about the pain. It’d be impossible for him to know you trick your counts.
“Like I said before.” He huffs as he adjusts to the sting of the alcohol. “I know your tells.”
“I hide them.” You bristle, offended as you grab for the needle, stringing the thread through.
His laugh echoes harshly against the brick walls, finding your words funny. “Not well enough.”
Your lips purse in displeasure, but he’s obviously right if he’s able to find you so easily. “Just because you can find me doesn’t mean it gives you permission to barge in.”
“Then why let me in?” He challenges.
You pause, hands losing the knot around the eye of the needle and you inhale sharply, trying again. “This is going to hurt.” You warn, one hand placed on his torso to keep him steady.
“You won’t believe how many people say that to me.” He jokes, seemingly amused. He's more talkative when he's injured.
“Given your charming personality, I can’t imagine why.” You mutter dryly.
When the needle point digs into his skin, he goes silent, fists clenching against the window sill. You don’t ask any more questions—you just get it over as quickly as you can.
He doesn’t leave immediately like you expect him to when you’re done. Instead, he lingers—a still statue near the window while you wash your blood-soaked hands. If it weren’t for the controlled breaths that prickled in frequency across the room, you would’ve thought he had passed out from exhaustion.
When you think you’ve let your hands run under the water long enough for it to be obvious you’re avoiding the elephant in the room, you force yourself back to the window and crouch to his eye level. His helmet tilts, analysing you—waiting.
You sigh. “Listen. If we’re really going to be partners, we need to set rules.”
He inhales, settling his head back on the wall, gazing at your ceiling. “Finally came to terms with it then? What crime-fighting actually is.”
“Only on the terms that you treat me as an equal. Not your lackey.” You frown, still recalling the way he tossed orders to you without asking for input.
You expect him to poke fun, mock you for your request. Yet, he doesn’t. He stares at the ceiling, before he grunts. “Alright.”
Your shoulders loosen in tension, and you settle in sitting properly across him, your elbows resting on your knees as you watch him.
"And you have to tell me why you mentioned Jason Todd." You weren't going down in this mess with him without a fight, not when Jason's name still haunts you through the echo of his moderator.
He laughs dryly. "Haven't catch on? It's not only him—don't you realise? He wasn't the Bat's only failure. The countless murders in the streets, left unpunished, forgotten without a mention in the news because it's expected that they'd have to pay the sacrifice of no one stepping up to do what's needed."
"And you're that person?" The pieces of his motive begin to click together—that he imagines himself as the one destined to wash out the rot in the city, all done by staining his hands with blood.
"Shouldn't only be me." His invitation lays there, and the understanding dawns on you on why he'd pick you. There are far more efficient fighters, cleverer than you and maybe even him. Yet, you sense a familiar bitterness in him you recognise in yourself—that same, quiet rage that drowns him, and chains him to this city.
It's a sinking ship, his mission—but maybe he thinks you'll see it too. Why it's worth trying.
“I know you’ll never tell me your full story.” You say. “But at least tell me what you’re aiming at, what we’re doing.”
He finally looks at you, and you feel it then, that same confidence of a dying man with nothing to lose that settles in his bones. “We’re rebuilding Gotham.”
Red Hood proves to be more brain than brawn, a paradox to your initial impression when he had a gun jammed to the side of your ribs. You knew he was clever, but as you worked side by side, watching first-hand how quickly his mind works is.. fascinating.
He’s been trained, to see not only a few steps ahead, but several. To have contingency plans, to have distrust built into his very veins, and to have his body move before he thinks.
Through his lens, Gotham looks worse than its ever been through your blurred memory. The corruption that simmers below every business, every front plastered on with fake smiles, and the blood that has dried on the steps to build empires.
Worse than that, you begin to see him in a different light too.
He's a brute, that lingers after every walk home from patrol, only leaving when you lock your door and windows.
He tosses you random weapons of a caliber much higher than you'd ever be able to afford, ones you highly suspect he stole or had manufactured for you, because he rarely uses blades in opt for his guns.
He grunts that you're too weak for crime-fighting, then drags you to a stall that sells food to even the most suspicious of individuals, owned by an old man that doesn't blink when Hood hands him cash and gives him plastic bags filled with boxed meals.
Sometimes, during your patrols together, he takes the longer routes from above, stopping on the rooftops of skyscrapers where Gotham shines in its rare beauty, where the lights blend together into its own sea of stars.
“So, why come back?” He asks once, crouched beside you as he eyes for any signs of crime in the Fashion District.
You pretend you don't understand. “To Gotham?”
He nods imperceptibly.
“Rent’s cheaper.” You shrug.
He huffs, amusement crackling even through his modulator. “Now that’s a load of bull.”
You snort, legs dangling over the ledge. Looking down at the city, where the bottom panes of the skyscrapers look more like specks of light than actual windows—you think back on the first day you arrived. So lost, so hungry to feel something again.
“How did you find out about Jason?” You ask instead.
His breath hitches faintly, just for the shortest second. If it had been a few weeks ago, you wouldn't have caught it. “I keep track of all the Bat’s failures.” He answers vaguely.
Your brows furrow. “Jason’s death was documented as a political incident.” Even the words sounded like a disgrace on your tongue. "There was no connections to the Bat."
He scoffs. “There’s nothing he can hide from me.”
“Bruce.” You mutter. “How do you know him?”
“That’s—” His head snaps to where sirens pass by Grant Park. His entire body language shifts, nothing phases him when he’s in work mode. “—for another time.”
He never continued that story. Bruce was a sensitive topic to him, and you could only assume he must’ve been bested by the Bat before, though the mystery of how he knows Bruce's well-hidden identity is another matter.
Instead, he tells you other stories. Of mountains up in the North, where he was trained before he crawled back to Gotham. Of how he had taken all of Black Mask’s physical cash when he took over his territory, but settled on a cheap apartment in the more dangerous parts of Crime Alley because it made it easier for him to hear the sirens.
When the occurrences of him finding himself back in your apartment start to blur into mere days in between, showing up injured from his own self-patrols that you didn’t follow, you let him stay. Small human choices, that you could only hope wouldn’t doom you—tie you to him and his downward spiral.
You begin to tell him stories too.
“Jason is—was my best friend.” You start.
His gaze flicks to you. It’s been two hours since he barged in through your window, one hour and forty-five minutes since you patched him up. He’s been on your couch since, gazing at your ceiling, watching headlights pass by your window, casting shadows of the window bars he installed for you. (“Don’t want to find my partner dead because of some shit windows.” He commented then when he showed up with boxes of equipment.)
“Is this the partner development where we start trauma dumping on each other?” He muses. “I‘m afraid it’ll have to be one-sided because I’m not sharing.”
You hit his shoulder, and he lets out a mock gasp of hurt. “You listening or not?” You scoff.
He settles, neck turned to focus on you. “I’m listening.”
You swallow, averting your gaze. “We were both stupid kids who had the misfortune of being born in Crime Alley. Typical Gotham luck.”
“He was so small then.” It was bittersweet, thinking of Jason's stunted height, how he had nothing much to eat—only inhaling cigarette smoke and finding leftovers to stall the hunger. “Stealing about anything he could so he’d have something to eat. I wasn’t much better, and it added on to his burden—trying to steal enough so we could both survive."
“Idiot went on about how he saw some fancy car, reckoned he’d earn us months worth of food just from the tires alone.” You laugh, but it sounds broken, tired. “Turns out it was the fucking Batmobile.”
“What an idiot.” He comments.
“Yeah.” Your eyes glaze over, and you blink quickly, clearing the moisture. “He was right though. When the Bat took us in—well, more the Bat wanted him and he demanded we were a package deal—we had more food than we could have ever dreamed of.”
“Then, the training started.” You recall, fists clenching. “I wasn’t as fast or strong, so he mostly taught me the ropes for self-defense, but Jason? He was good. Better than good, you’d think he was born for it. Had dreams of doing more, and the Bat saw that.”
“So—" Hood's voice drawls. "—he became the Bat’s next pawn.”
You shook your head. “They couldn’t have had more different dreams. Bruce—the Bat never lived on the streets. He knew of crime, he saw it happen. He didn’t live it.”
“He could only ever see it from the outside. He kept it that way, putting people in jail over and over again, not knowing—or refusing to see that the system was already broken from the inside.”
“He never had the guts.” He scoffs.
“Yeah, but Jason did.” You mutter. “He always did. Too much of it, and I guess you know how the rest of the story goes.”
“Went and got himself killed.” He finishes.
You hesitate, feeling your heart palpitating against your rib cage before you couldn't stand it any longer. “And I wasn’t there.”
When you turn to look at him, it feels like tearing open a healing wound. You feel the wetness pool at your lashes, threatening to fall. “What kind of shitty person lounges around in a billionaire’s mansion while their best friend was dying alone, scared? Calling for someone to save him?”
Whatever his viper tongue was made of, he gave you none of it. He watches, waits as you blink, looking away harshly when the tears start to fall.
He doesn’t speak, and you think he’s out of words when you feel his hand on your jaw. He grips it gently, forcing you to turn your head back to look at him. His gloves are off, had been since he came in, and the warmth of his fingers, the rough, scarred edges make him feel real.
“It’s not your fault.” His voice takes a stern hold over you, only reinforced by his grip.
You shake your head, but he holds you steady. His thumb comes up to wipe away a tear stain. “What could you have done?” He challenges. “You said it yourself. You barely knew self-defense, much less going against the bastard that killed him. You would’ve just gotten yourself killed.”
“Is it selfish?” You ask. “That I wanted to? That I’d prefer if I had been there? Knowing I wouldn’t be able to change his death.”
He’s silent, and you can only hear the soft cracks in his modulator from his breathing.
“When you had nothing but each other, of course you’d be selfish.” He answers. “Doesn’t mean it’s wrong just because others tell you it is.”
Somehow, he gets it. Gets you better than Bruce had when the two of you fought after it had happened. He’s a stranger, but you foolishly think he might mean more than that.
You swallow, and his head tilts slightly, watching the motion.
"Do you think he might've known?" Your voice trembles. "That I was thinking of him even in his last moments. That his memory still hasn't faded from this world because I would never let that happen?"
His hand still on your face, an anchor grounding you when it shouldn't give you that comforting weight—falters, but he doesn't let go. "You read like an open book." He says. "Your heart's easy to spot. If I could see that, then he would've known what he'd mattered to you. He would've thought of you in his last moments, and fought his best to get back to you."
In the cracks of everything that’s wrong with this, it feels oddly comforting to let him see you. To fall deeper into the unknown, to hope that laying your wounds right in the open doesn't trigger him to bite. Tears fall at the edges, and you don't blink this time—don't try to hide it.
"Why did you come back?" He asks again.
You look at him, seeing your own broken reflection reflected in his helmet. "Maybe I wanted to feel something again. To be selfish."
You feel his fingers tighten imperceptibly, a slight twitch at your words. His body leans almost instinctively, closer to you, shifting the weight of the moment—drumming a rush of blood through your veins in anticipation, and there’s a brief moment where you think he might actually take that damn helmet off, when a siren echoes from the outside. The moment shatters, and his hand freezes.
In a blink, he drops his hand as if the touch of your skin burnt him, and stands abruptly from the couch. “I have to go.” He rushes it out through his teeth, tugging at his jacket and grabbing his grappling gun.
You stare, feeling your heart go numb. Of course. You’re a fool, laying yourself vulnerable like that. Careless, just like he said when he first met you.
”Right.” You mutter weakly.
He looks back at you, hesitating. Whatever he thought, it wasn’t worth knowing because he was out of your window before you could even say goodbye.
The next visit, you feel his distance.
He doesn't toss you a lame joke, call you that dreaded, mocking 'sweetheart' you've come to expect, and maybe detest less over time. No, he's cold—professional.
"Penguin's set a trap." Straight to the point, it shouldn't gut you as much as it did. "We'll use Plan B." He continues on. "Come in from the third floor, it'll give us the advantage since he's barred the entrance and rooftop. He clearly expects us to choose the highest floor, so that's where he'll have the most of his henchman."
You nod briskly, your own guard built back up at the sight of his. "Anything else?"
He looks at you, and your question sours with every passing second of silence, like a plea for him to address the screaming issue laying underneath. "No." He breaks eye contact first, getting on his bike. "Let's not waste any more time."
You don't remember when Plan B obviously turned out to be the wrong choice. Only the adrenaline rush of actually making it out of this death trap kept your feet moving, hands fumbling for every door in the hopes that one would open and get the both of you out of gunfire range.
One finally works, and the door nearly topples with how both you and Hood's weight slams into it. He locks the door, but when you look around the room, there's no other exit. You'll have to go back out the way you came, which means running into all those henchmen.
“What the hell was that, Hood?” You snarl, barely able to see him through the dark, confined space. “I thought being partners meant giving a basic level of trust.”
He’s pacing, not even listening to a word you're saying, fury coiling his tense form as he strikes each step with a lack of precision that he always has, staggering, impulsive—angry. It was a complete shit-show, all because he didn’t let you take the shot at Penguin.
”Hood!” Finally, he stops.
“Trust.” He mutters, a deranged crack in his voice when he turns to you. “Was that what it was when you refused to listen to me when I told you to bail?”
“No, you thought I was tricking you.” A cold anger slithers its way into every accusation used against you, cornering you as he threads his heavy steps closer to you. “You thought I was making you leave so I could bargain with Penguin, force him to do my bidding, steal more territory for myself.”
“Tell me, partner.” He mocks. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
You grit your teeth, looking away from him. “You’ve given me no reason to trust you.” Every time you’ve given a piece of yourself to him, extended your vulnerability—he’s never given anything back.
“I saved your life.”
“Because there’s something you need from me.” You snap. “From the start, you knew who I was and my connections to the Bat. You used Jason's name to lure me into working for you. You have some twisted game you’re playing that I’m a fucking pawn in!”
“You think that’s what this is?” He growls, gripping you by your collar. Your hands come up to push his fingers off, but he only leans in closer till you can hear the heavy breathing beneath his helmet, the frustration radiating off of him.
“If I wanted you for your connections to Bruce.” He laughs coldly. “I would’ve strung you up a building from the first day to get him where I needed him.”
“I don’t need you.” He snarls, letting go of your collar, making you stumble in your step. “I have other ways of getting to the Bat that doesn’t require the trouble I get from you.”
”Then why make me your partner?”
He’s silent, even as you hear his modulator crack with every breath. He can’t answer you.
“I don’t know what you want from me.” You continue on, refusing to let him ice you out. “You don’t need me. Yet, you insist on digging your way into my life like you want to be in it. You can’t fool me.”
“You don’t linger in the home of someone you don’t need, long after the bleeding has stopped.” You accuse, stepping closer to him. “You don’t save someone you don’t need at the expense of the mission.”
Your fist comes up to dig into his chest, cementing your words with every push. “You let me in. That’s why you’re angry, and that’s why you keep me close even when you know you shouldn’t.”
Heavy breathing echoes through the abandoned room, only the slight cracks of his modulator distorting the tension stretched between. You see his fists clench, and you have half a mind to back off, realise it’s dangerous to provoke him when you still have no idea what he’s truly capable of, when you feel something shift.
His body stills, and even through the helmet, you feel his gaze pinned on you.
“Close your eyes.” He orders.
Your brows furrow.
“Just do it.” He snaps, impatient.
You close your eyes, brows clenched together—in fear, anticipation, and something you don’t dare name. Darkness envelops you and you hear the faint sound of a click. His hand comes up to cover your eyes, a safety measure.
“Still can’t trust me, huh?” You mock.
“Shut up.” His voice breaks, raw and un-filtered.
The sound of his voice breaks through all your defenses, leaving you paralysed—realisation kicking in that he’s taken off his helmet only when his lips crash into yours.
Hood's taken off his helmet.. and he’s kissing you.
You shouldn't let him, but none of your rational thoughts ever made sense when it came to him. He dug himself into your life, and somewhere through it all, you found yourself wanting him to show up. Again and again.
You kiss him back, and that only fuels him further, his lips claiming you as he grips the back your head with one hand, man-handling you in a way that empties your mind of anything but his touch.
There's a banging of doors, voices echoing louder and closer—and you hear his grunt of frustration when he pulls back, fingers still over your eyes as he grabs for his helmet. You hear a click, and when you open your eyes, your vision clears back onto his helmet.
"Did you just—" You stammer.
"And I really want to do it again." He breathes out, gaze still locked onto you. "Let's get the hell out of here. Together. We'll figure out Penguin's schemes when we're not in the center of his traps."
You nod hurriedly, almost in a daze, forcing yourself to snap out of it when he grabs for your hand, pulling you along to the exit.
When the door shoves open, all hell breaks loose.
There's firing of guns, and Hood practically uses himself as a shield as he pulls you behind him, running with one hand holding yours as fast as he can, past the firearms and henchman, towards where a window was at the end of the hallway. Plan E or F, you recall vaguely, but it definitely involved jumping out of a high window.
Your eyes flick behind—and you see it then, the new weapon Penguin's gotten a hold of, that has clearly pierced through tanks thicker than Hood's helmet, aimed at his back, right where his heart would be. The shot fires, and you don't think.
Pushing him to the side, the side of your stomach ripples in pain, and you scream. The blow sends you toppling to the ground. The pain is enough to make your vision flash white. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.
Before you can process how bad the injury was, Hood's already gripping your fallen body, hoisting you into his arms. You grip onto his neck, eyes fluttering as he runs, colliding your body painfully against his hard chest plate when he crashes through the window.
You hear a crack, and your vision topples to the side when your head lolls and you see his helmet, cracked in the center. He curses, voice modulator distorted as one of his hands comes up quickly to detach the helmet. He shifts you up to avoid seeing his vulnerable face, and you see his helmet topple to the pavement as he runs, lost with the shattered glass.
Your head is pressed into the crook of his neck, preventing you from seeing what he looked like. Still, you can feel the press of his tousled hair against your cheek, the texture of it against your weakening fingers.
For a moment, in your delusion, it reminds you of when you used to caress Jason’s hair on the nights where he couldn’t sleep after a bad patrol or a fight with Bruce. You mumble something, incoherent syllables but it forms itself like a comforting mantra, muttering Jason’s name in a whisper.
You doubt he’d hear it, but you feel him tense against your body, the rigid push of his muscles as he passes another obstacle, nudging you closer to him in his movement.
”Stay awake, bird.” He orders, his real voice barking harshly against your skin. It’s rough, weathered from exhaustion and pain.
“Don’t-“ Your eyelids clamp shut from exhaustion, or blood loss—you can’t differentiate the nauseous pressure enveloping your senses, but you manage to get your words out. “Don’t call me that.”
It sounds strange on his tongue, like it came to him so easily, the same way it used to for Jason. The line keeps blurring, and you don't know why Hood reminds you of him. Maybe it's because of your love for Jason, bleeding into whatever you felt for Hood—it all clicks and fades together as your thoughts grow more sparse, the feeling of the cold sweat against your temple taking your attention instead.
“Hey—” His voice breaks when he calls you by your real name, softer than you’ve ever heard it. You like it, the deep, uneven edges that was muffled by the modulator, wishing you could listen to it over and over. “Don’t you die on me. You can’t. I won’t allow it.”
“Why?” You mutter, the word falling off your tongue loosely. “You said you didn’t need me, remember? You could find a better partner. One that doesn’t-”
You cough, feeling a splutter of iron cover the back of your teeth. You feel the frantic shake of his head, and you dig closer into the crook of his neck, finding comfort in his scent.
“I don’t want another partner.” His voice begs, uncontrollably raw. “Do you seriously think I can ever consider anyone else—it's always been you. I need you—so please.”
"Tell me I'm an idiot." He demands. "Fight with me. Just—don't you dare close your eyes."
His pleas grow more desperate when your eyelids fall shut but eventually, even his voice and the sound of his boots slamming into the ground fades—till nothing from the world reaches you.
"Hey, bird."
Jason's always been a blur in your dreams, and this one is no different. The green in his eyes are hazy, your faded memory obscuring the once clear spark he used to have.
"Hey, Jay." You can't bring yourself to look at him. Not when having to face him meant seeing his youthful face, trapped in the confinements of time, distilled and frozen while your own features are sunken, age and stress wearing out your own expression.
"You really out-did yourself this time, huh?" He mutters, glancing at your blood-soaked hands.
"Thought I'd give your method an approach." You joke, smile growing wry. "Still think it's more a 'you' thing than me. This vigilante work is tiring."
"I can tell." His voice echoes. "You look tired."
Your smile fades, and you don't dare look up from your hands, folded over your knees. "I'm sorry, Jay."
"What for?"
"I don't know." Your shoulders sag, feeling like you're forgetting something important. "I just miss you. I feel like I'm dragging your memory down with me when I should let you rest."
"You know you'd never drag me down, bird." He says, one hand coming around your shoulder, pulling you into his embrace. "I'm always here for you."
"Yeah?" Your voice cracks. "I miss my partner. The one who always knew what to say when things get scary. I—I think I'm really coming to see you this time."
"You've got a long way to go." He says knowingly. "You have a partner who's looking out for you."
Your brows furrow. "Hood." You realise.
He nods, and you feel his chin brush your shoulder. "You promised me you'd do whatever it takes to survive, remember?"
Right, that silly pinky promise made over stale sandwiches near the dumpsters in Crime Alley, before Bruce—when the world seemed much smaller and the tomorrow's mattered.
You swallow. "What if I'm not ready to do that? If it means letting you go?"
He laughs, reassuring even in his faint memory. "I'm not going anywhere. Just stay on the living side, bird. I'll protect you. Anywhere you go."
When your heavy eyelids force themselves open, a hazy vision of your apartment ceiling greets you. Your side greets you second with a painful soreness and a slight itch, making you hiss through your teeth when you sober up through the pain. “Hood?” You call out, hating how desperate you sound.
There’s no sound for a moment, and you’re terrified that you won’t be able to lift yourself out from bed to assess the damage done to your own body, when you hear the sound of boots thumping against the floorboards.
The door slams open and—Jason comes through.
Not Hood. Jason.
“Holy shit. I’m dead.” You gasp, even as your wound screams for you to not raise your voice. “I’m definitely dead—Jason.”
An intense amount of relief surges through his expression at the sight of you awake, but it quickly wipes off when you try to lift yourself from the bed.
“Stay down.” He orders, pushing your shoulders back down onto the pillows.
One of your hands reach out to grab onto his fingers, staring at him unblinkingly. You’ve never dreamt of him this clearly.
“I must be dead.” You repeat. “Or else you wouldn’t be here.”
“You’re alive.” He reassures you, his expression growing serious. “No thanks to yourself. What kind of idiot jumps in front of a gun?”
Your brows furrow. “But why—where’s Hood?”
He’s silent for a few seconds. “I thought—you called my name. When I was carrying you.”
You stare at him. At his face that’s lost its youth, bearing more scars than you remember. You replay the deeper timbre in his voice, how it differs to the cracks he used to have.
He’s right. You are an idiot.
“You’re Hood.” You whisper, and the fact only cements itself deeper at his expression paling.
“I thought you knew.” He says, pulling away slightly. “You called out to me. I thought you saw my face—that it was over.”
“You’re alive.” Your voice raises, almost hysterical. “You’ve been beside me this entire time, and you hid.”
He flinches at your accusation, but there’s nothing he can say to defend that. His eyes grow cold, and he looks away. “You’re wrong.”
“Jason.” You should feel happy that he’s alive but the disbelief that your best friend hid himself from you, let you believe he was truly gone carried a new sense of betrayal. “I mourned. You sat beside me and watched as I cried over you, the guilt I felt—and you said nothing. You let me believe you were gone while you re-entered my life as if it didn’t matter.”
“Because it’s the truth!” He snaps. “Your Jason is gone.”
You freeze, staring at him. “What?”
“He died under the rubble, when the bomb went off.” Jason continues. “His heart stopped. When I was reborn, I was barely myself. My mind was split and re-pieced together and nothing—nothing existed except for the feeling of death in every part of my body.”
”When I finally managed to remember who I was, what happened to me—” He rasps. “I crawled back to Gotham and found Bruce got a shiny, new replacement. And the Joker? Alive.”
“I buried everything in the past where it belonged.” He spits. “I started out as I always had, with nothing. I promised myself that at the very least, if Bruce had failed me—I wouldn't repeat his mistakes. I'd make the sacrifices he never dared to do."
Realisation settles like a slow poison. “So you erased it all, including me.”
You can barely process it, the thought of him nearly letting you believe he was dead for the rest of your life, while he remained in Gotham with a new identity, leaving you clueless.
His jaw clenches, and he looks away. “I was relieved when I heard you had left Gotham. I didn’t need distractions—to see your disappointment when you realised you’d never truly get me back.”
"Then why?" You move again, but he's near you in a flash, hands pushing you back down again before you hurt yourself. It kills you that he clearly still cares. "Why did you find me in that alleyway? Why did you force yourself back into my life if you didn't want to be near me?"
His eyes flicker, and for a moment—you see that fierce, little boy you knew. The one who was afraid you'd go hungry, who refused to rip his grip away from your wrist when he had forced Bruce to take you too. "You were careless." He utters, an echo into the past where he had run into you for the first time as Red Hood. When you had wondered why a stranger, a vigilante you'd never met before sounded so pissed about your skills.
"There was no one to tell you that. Bruce wouldn't be able to save you—not when he couldn't even protect me. You decided to come back, and take on crime like you knew how it worked, and I couldn't-"
You watch, wait as he struggles with his words. "I won't be like Bruce." He answers, a hardened resolve taking over as he looks at you with a vehement expression. "Never. I'd die before I let you fall to the same fate."
There it was. His deepest fear, still selflessly putting himself in danger even though he couldn't see it. Not being able to pull away even when he should, carrying that same beating heart under the new walls he's built. He was still your Jason, but if he wanted to believe it differently, you'd play along.
"So, you're not my Jason." You agree.
There's a flicker of relief, and hurt too that pools in his gaze. As if he wanted you to say it, but wasn't prepare to hear it from you.
"You're a jerk now, who decides what's best for other people." You continue on. "That has horrible fashion taste because a faceless helmet is obviously the best way to intimidate people."
He bristles. "Worked on you just fine."
Your fingers find his across the sheets, and he falls silent.
"So whether you're the Hood, or a new Jason." You pause. "What if I say I want you either way?"
His breathing stops. It's like you found that festering wound inside of him, and tore it straight out of his chest.
"That's what you're afraid of, isn't it?" You challenge. "That I'd be repulsed by you, and say I want nothing to do with you anymore. So you came back into my life—hiding behind a mask, thinking I would never figure it out. That you could have me without ruining my memories about you."
He swallows, averting your gaze—but you were having none of that. Not when you finally have him again.
"Look at me." You demand.
He inhales, lashes fluttering close as he prepares himself before looking at you openly. Broken. That's what you see first, your vision of him completely disheveled, with no armour, no biting remarks to protect him.
Yet, looking at him, you only saw the same boy you loved before he was torn out of your life. The same man you fell in love with all over again. Your Jason, the one you always ran back to no matter what.
"You're never allowed to leave me again." You start, your voice almost breaking. "I won't lose you, whichever version of you, I want it all. I don't care what you think, because you're mine and I'm yours so you can't leave-"
His expression hardens, and before you can think—fear that he'll pull away—he leans in and kisses you. It's rough, unsteady, but your hands wrap around him and pull him closer. You couldn't dare to let him go ever again.
"I'm not leaving." He rasps against your lips. "Not when I felt your blood on my hands, when I nearly lost you."
You shudder, a soft nod at his words as he kisses you again, softer but with a new form of desperation, and a hidden, quiet plea that you truly mean your words.
You pull away, stopping for breath when your wound starts to ache, hands coming up to lift your shirt, assessing the damage. It's heavily bandaged over a large part of your side, which should've hurt worse than it feels right now. "How—my emergency kit wouldn't fix an injury like this." You point out.
His expression darkens, and he sighs, looking at your wound with guilt swarming his pupils. "I contacted Bruce."
Your head snaps up. "You did what?"
He nods, his lips settling into a thin line. "I wasn't losing you. Not to something stupid like my pride. If I had to get down on my knees to the old man, I'd do it in a heartbeat."
"Jason." Your shock renders you incapable of doing anything else. Your eyes soften, and your hand lets the fabric go, letting your shirt hide the wound. "Thank you."
"You should be yelling at me." He muses, a heartbreaking expression displayed on his face. "I've been a shit partner. Put you in danger's way, and I couldn't even get you out unscathed."
"Hey." You stop him. "I told you that I—I hated myself for not being there, when the Joker killed you. I'd rather be with you in danger's way than anywhere else. I won’t go through that again. Even if it kills me.”
His expression falters, and he sighs, leaning in with his forehead pressed against yours. "Survival skills of a newborn. You're the worst partner I've ever had, bird."
Your lips quirk up. "Yeah, but you wouldn't want anybody else."
"Damn right." He shifts, placing a kiss over your nose. "Don't know what I was thinking, hiding from you like a coward. Not when I could have this instead."
"Between the two of us, I always felt you took the 'idiot' title more." You tease. “I’m still pissed you said you didn’t need me, you jerk. Tell me you regret it. Beg for my forgiveness—I might consider letting you off if you do it nicely.”
He rolls his eyes, a smile caught between his teeth before his gaze shifts again to your lips, swallowing. “You’re right. I’m the jerk, and the bastard that needs you more than air.” He murmurs, eyes flickering back up to you—and his gaze nearly consumes you whole. "I regret being a horrible liar, but I've always been your idiot, haven't I?"
Your lips quirk up into a smile. "Damn right."
At the echo of his words right back at him, his lips seal over yours again, a resolute sigh rumbling through his throat, and you think that finally—your partner has come back to you.
reblogs and comments are always appreciated! let me know your thoughts <333
Do you guys know that tiktok trend where the girlfriend and the boyfriend draw each other without the other seeing it? Yeah that but imagine with Jason Todd? Can't stop thinking about it because i just know he doesn't have a single creative bone is his body but he just loves you so much.
Imagine setting everything up on the table, so giddy and so happy to finally be able to spend a day with your sweet boyfriend finally free from all his Red Hood responsibilities.
Imagine how the first few minutes are spent laughing and joking around before you prompt Jason with a quick kiss on his scarred lips to actually start on his drawing. Soft music plays in the background, though neither of you are focused on it.
Imagine being so into your painting, flicking your eyes up to get a clear view of where his scars lie on his face, trying to draw every single one, only to see him staring at you with such a longing look in his eyes. He looks in love.
Imagine laughing at him when you ask if there’s something on your face and he jolts. Can you blame him? He hasn’t seen you in a few days, and you look just perfect in that godawful light from the cheap Gotham apartment lamp he never bothered to replace. You are perfect, and he has no idea how the fuck he’s supposed to capture that on a stupid canvas.
Imagine falling into silence for more or less an hour before you tell him you’re done, a big smile on your face because you’re proud. You captured all of his beauty onto a tiny canvas.
Imagine him looking absolutely devastated when he turns your canvas around and he sees himself so detailed, accurate, and, to his disbelief, handsome. He almost throws his own canvas out the window before you quickly jump up to grab it. You succeed, much to his demise.
You turn the canvas around, and as much as you try to stay serious, you can’t. One of your eyes is an entirely different color than the other, and for some reason, it’s directly on your forehead? Your mouth is completely lopsided, and he definitely went overboard with the hair color.
“I told you it sucked,” you can practically hear his scrunched eyebrows and small, almost invisible pout as you belly laugh with the canvas still clutched in your hand.
Even after you collect yourself and plant many kisses on his face reassuring him that yes, you MAY look like SpongeBob after he entered Sandy’s home without water but you still appreciate him for trying. You always appreciate him for trying.
Summary:You and Jason, although he wouldn‘t outright say it, are partners in crime. You work together and all‘s well until you get hurt because of him and he just can‘t seem to bite his tongue and count his blessings
Word count: 2.4k
Warning: kissing, love confessions, reader is hurt, blood, gore, lowk enemies to lovers?
Didn‘t proof read this i just finished my exams today and i just HAD TO GET THIS OUT OF MY SYSTEM.
masterlist
toodles!
English is not my native Language, please be aware!
Gotham's night air always smelled like rain, gunpowder, and unresolved trauma.
You pressed your back against the rough brick of the warehouse wall, your breath coming in sharp, uneven gasps. The ache in your side flared again, and you didn’t have to look to know it was blood slicking through your gloved fingers. Not fatal. Probably. But it hurt like hell.
“I told you to wait,” Jason hissed through the comms. “No,” you bit out, wincing. “You grunted. There's a difference.”
Jason vaulted the ledge two stories above you, his silhouette framed by the orange glow of fire blooming behind him—one of the crates had gone up in the scuffle. He landed with a heavy thud beside you, the red of his helmet reflecting the flickering chaos around you.
He didn’t say anything for a second. Just crouched, one gloved hand going to your wound without permission.
You slapped it away, teeth gritted. “Don’t touch me unless you’ve got morphine or a new spleen.” “Jesus,” he muttered. “Why the hell didn’t you stick to the plan?” „I did. It sucked. So i made it even better.“ you smirked. He remained silent only looking around the small valley you had dragged yourself to. ,,Your apartment ain‘t ‘round here. I need to take you to mine and patch you up.‘‘ „Im fine Hercules. I can walk myself home.“, you grunt as you lean yourself into the wall to try and stand up. Your attempts seem entirely fruitless as you sat back down on the dirty stone floor beneath you. A deep sigh leaves you as you look up at him. He was still crouched before you. Jason watched you slump back against the wall, the cocky defiance still flickering in your eyes even as your body betrayed you. The fire in the warehouse crackled louder now, licking higher into the Gotham night, casting long shadows that danced across his helmet.
He exhaled slowly through his nose. “Yeah, you’re definitely fine,” he said flatly. “You’re bleeding through your sarcasm, just FYI.” „Did you just say FYI?“ “Do you ever shut up?“ You rolled your eyes, wincing as your side throbbed again. “Just give me a second. My spleen’s just rebooting.” “Shut up,” he muttered, pulling out a (most likely rotten) field wrap and tearing it open. “And stay still.”
You were too tired to argue now. The adrenaline had dipped enough for the pain to feel real again, raw and biting. So you let him press the poorley made bandage onto the wound, let him tie the wrap around your side with steady, practiced fingers.
“That‘s gonna help keep you stable as we drive to mine” he said, voice lower now, but close and real. “Drive there? Are you insane Red? Im going to fly off you idiot” “No, you won‘t. I will hold onto you and stop fucking whining when i am trying to save your fucking life.“, and that shuts you up. You blinked up at him, breathing hard.
For a moment he didn’t say anything. Just tightened the wrap until you hissed, and he looked away. “... I don’t like watching you bleed because of me.”
Your throat tightened, and not from the pain. “Jason, this isn’t ballet. It’s Gotham. Everyone bleeds.” “Not you. It shouldn‘t be you.” he said, too fast, then immediately looked like he regretted it.
The silence that followed felt too heavy. Too raw.
You tried to smirk through it. “Well, too late. You gonna cry, or drive me home like a hero in a bad romance novel written by Colleen hoover?” Home. You hadn‘t even realised when it slipped out of your mouth. You hoped he hadn‘t either.
He stood, then leaned down and, without warning, scooped you up into his arms. Your protests of regarding your side was muffled by the shock and the heat radiating off him, the smell of leather, smoke, and him.
“Guess I’ll just do both,” he muttered, turning and walking into the smoke-heavy alley like it was nothing. Like you were nothing. You didn’t say anything, not for a while. But eventually, when his pace slowed just enough to make it easier on you, you said softly, “It wasn’t your fault.”
He didn’t answer.
But his grip on you got just a little tighter.
The way to his motorcycle took you a while, which in hindsight if you hadn‘t been so preoccupied with your pain you would have scolded him for. Who leaves their own getaway half a damn city away from the crime? Dumbass.
Softly he sat you on it sideways before grabbing your ankle and trying, albeit miserabely failing, to mind your side. A loud groan leaves you as your wound felt like it was tearing itself open inside of you.
Jason didn’t speak much as he drove- probably too focused on not launching you into traffic, but you knew better. He was brooding. That special kind of Red Hood brooding that felt like Gotham itself was pressing down on him.
You leaned into his back, pain simmering in your side, every bump in the road a reminder that your ribcage had lost the will to live. Still, the warmth of his body, the steady growl of the engine, the way he kept one hand tight around your thigh—it grounded you. Anchored you.
You hated that it made you feel safe.
By the time you reached his apartment, you were shaking, whether from blood loss or proximity, you weren’t sure.
Jason cut the engine and swung his leg off before turning to help you. You tried to resist, stubborn to the end, but your legs buckled the moment your boots hit pavement. His arms were around you again in an instant.
"Yeah. Totally fine," he muttered. "Shut up. I’m just… conserving energy." "You're leaking. Not solar powering."
He kicked the door open with his boot like he’d done it a thousand times, carrying you over the threshold like some tragic, pissed-off newlywed. The apartment was dark, cluttered, and smelled faintly of gun oil and old coffee. Homey.
He set you down on the edge of the bed, only bed, you noticed and immediately dropped to his knees in front of you. His helmet long abandoned by his side.
“Shirt off,” he ordered. You arched a brow. “Jason. At least buy me dinner.” He didn’t smile. Not even a twitch. Just looked up at you, eyes unreadable. “You’re bleeding through your bandages. I need to see how bad it is and patch it up properly.”
You sighed, but lifted your shirt with shaky fingers. The wrap was already soaked through, sticking to your skin like wet paper. He cursed under his breath. There it was. That face. Blood-smeared, jaw clenched, eyes dark with something that looked too much like guilt. The same way he always looked at you when he didn‘t think you were watching him. You always were.
He worked fast, silent now. Pulled off the soaked bandages, cleaned the wound with something that burned like the devil, and started stitching you up with steady, sure hands.
“I’ve gotten worse,” you muttered, mostly to yourself. Jason didn’t look up. “Yeah, well… I’ve lost worse.”
You froze. Not because of the needle. Because of him. "Jason—"
“Don’t,” he said quietly. “Don’t act like it doesn’t matter. Like you don’t matter.” That shut you up. Again.
The silence between you stretched, heavy with everything unsaid. When he finally finished, he stood, backing away like being close to you might set him on fire.
“Lie back. You need rest.” You glanced around. “Where? You don’t exactly have a guest bedroom.” He hesitated. “You take the bed. I’ll take the couch.” You stared at him. “You sleep on that thing, you’re gonna need spinal surgery.” “I’m fine ‘n i have been dead before, remember?”
“You’ll be grumpy fine. Just—” You sighed, wincing as you shifted. “Just lie down. The bed’s big enough. I won’t bite.” His eyes flicked to yours. Something passed between you like a electryfying spark, like something warm and dangerous and unspoken.
“I don’t trust you not to bite.” You smirked. “Well, then don’t get too close, Red.” He crawled in anyway. Didn’t say another word. Just layed down there beside you, facing the ceiling, arms folded on his stomach. For a while, neither of you said anything.
Then, softly:
“You scared the hell out of me.” You turned your head. His voice sounded hollow in the dark.
“You’re not supposed to die on me,” he continued. “That’s… not the deal.” You reached out slow, gentle but pulled quickly back. “I didn’t.” His hands unfolded and laid still at his sides, so close to your trembling hand just inches away. “Why do you always throw yourself head first into danger? What if i wasn‘t there? What if i won‘t be next time?“, his voice came out a whisper at his last sentence.
By now your head has turned to the side and you took a breath in to just look at him. His crooked nose from being broken far too many times to count, all his scars on his face, some fading, some newly forming, and the light freckles that he had that only come out in the summer even in Gotham‘s deranged weather forecast. Even now as all of them are caked or covered in blood he looked perfect to you in every which way. You turned your head back towards the ceiling. “I am not your responsability, red. Nor will i ever be.“, you say softly. “You are my partner. Partners have each others backs-Partners save each other.“
You could hear the way his breath changed though like it was caught somewhere in the back of his throat, like he wanted to argue. Like he had a thousand things to say and none of them would come out clean. His body shifted, and the mattress dipped as he turned toward you, one hand pressing lightly against the comforter between you, the other hesitating in the space between reaching and retreating.
You didn’t look at him. Couldn’t. Not yet.
“I don’t think you get it,” he said finally, voice rougher now, low and scraping the bottom of his chest like it hurt to say. “I don’t want you to be a responsibility either. I just…” His fingers brushed your arm, then stopped. “I want you to make it out. I want you to live.” You turned then, slow and careful, because even that movement pulled at your stitches. But the pain dulled in the background, overwhelmed by the sharp ache that pressed against your ribs from somewhere else entirely.
Jason was on his side now. Close.
Too close.
His hand hovered near your face like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to touch you. Like maybe if he did, you’d vanish in smoke and blood and all the things he couldn’t fix.
You reached up first. Just barely with your fingers curled into the edge of his jaw, blood crusted on your knuckles, shaking a little. “You want me to live?” you whispered, barely able to hear yourself over the thudding in your chest.
Jason didn’t answer with words, but he nodded.
He leaned in slowly, so painfully slow it felt like time itself was holding its breath, and pressed his lips to yours in a kiss that wasn’t rough or rushed or reckless. It was reverent.
He kissed you like he’d been dying to, like he wasn’t sure he’d ever get the chance again. One hand slid under your jaw, cradling your face like you were the most fragile thing he’d ever held.
And then you felt the shift, subtle at first. The way his body moved above yours, the heat of him hovering just above you gently, and carefully. His forearms braced on either side of your head, caging you in, but not trapping you. His shaking hands cupped your face ever so gently as his thumbs ran over each cheek. Solid. Steady. Everything the world never was. Your hands rushed to his biceps.
He kissed you again. And again. Soft. Slower this time. Not desperate, not hungry, but like he needed to memorize every part of you. Like he was tracing the map of your face with his mouth. His lips ghosted over your cheekbone, the bridge of your nose, your brow, your temple. Kisses so gentle you could barely feel them, but they sank into your skin like promises anyway. Your heart stuttered at each.
You felt his breath as he hovered there, felt the tremble in his arms even as he held himself above you. His forehead came to rest against yours, and when he finally spoke again, it was barely a breath.
“Never run off without telling me again. You got it?”
“I promise,” you murmured, eyes fluttering closed, the heat of him, the weight of the moment, the exhaustion finally catching up to you. His thumb brushed across your cheek. You opened your eyes and saw it: the storm behind his.
The fear.
The love.
The guilt.
You reached up again, one hand at the back of his neck, fingers threading through the hair there. “I promise,” you repeated, firmer now. “I’m here. I’m here, Jay.”
He kissed you once more, longer this time a press of mouths that felt like the closing of a wound and then he pulled back just enough to look at you fully.
“Yeah,” he said quietly, almost to himself. “You are.”
And then, finally, he laid beside you again but this time he didn’t pull away. This time, he pulled you into his arms, tucked your head under his chin, and stayed. For the first time in a long time, neither of you had to say anything else.
summary: As much as you try to convince yourself you only see her as a teammate, your heart dissagrees
Warning: kissing(yes finally ik but u gotta work for it), making out, john being john, lots of angst and i mean LOTS of angst, arguing obvii, reader thinks that yelena is ashamed of her(but is she tho?🤔🤔🤔), they both srsly need a hug, and i do too, but they do actually get a hug from each other! I dont.
Word count: 6k
A/N: ITS FINALLY ALL YOURS-also got my period in uni so had to skip lowk dying in this heat n all i can think about is yelena also a huge thanks to everybody who read i'll see you in a minute the love for that story was exploding i wasnt planning on a second part (they gen always flop) but since it was so well loved i decided to make one. This can be read as a second part but also entirely as a stand alone:]ll once again thank you so much for all the love that fic took weeks to write so im super glad it did well! I hope this one does too:)0(
part 1: I'll see you in a minute
[If anybody wants a song to listen to while reading, i recommend Suzanne by RAYE(heavily inspired this entire fic actually), and obvs bad religion by Frank ocean :))]
alright enjoy and toodles!
Masterlist
Thunderbolts spoilers, Blackwidow spoilers
Head upside down, you felt a blaring headache form underneath your skull. You were sure that if John charged at you one more time, you would deliberately rip his shield off him and throw it at his dick.
"Walker. Back off," you groaned as you leapt back to your feet on the training mat. "You already tired? We just started, and I thought you wanted me to train with you?" His smug smirk made you want to double down on your previous promise to yourself.
Not bothered to argue back with him, you walked towards your towel, draped it on your shoulder, and walked out as Walker kept yelling behind you about needing to train and that it would help you be "less tight", whatever that meant.
On your way to the bathroom, you spotted Yelena's door slightly ajar. Over the past few weeks, you had been trying-and although partially, miserably failing-befriending her. You and Yelena never really saw eye to eye, so the sudden will to actually try to communicate with her had been interesting, to say the least. It wasn’t just your own efforts, but hers as well. After you danced with her at the gala you had attended, things started to simmer down between you two, the tension subsiding and even almost disappearing. Now, when you passed her in the kitchen, she didn't outright glare at you or even yell at you to leave.
No. Instead, she made space. Space for you to be next to her. Exist next to her. To just be next to her. And you would be damned if that didn’t make your heart start beating faster against your ribcage as if it was trying to rip itself out of your cold, lone cage that you kept it in and leap into her warm, soft hands awaiting. So, you kept attempting to push onto her. Your hand knocked on her door before you could even think to stop yourself.
"Lena?" Your voice was a mere ocean away as you stepped through the door. She wasn't here. Your eyes scanned her room, and you noticed that you had never really been in here before. All those nights when she had nightmares, she came crawling to you. Not begging you to come to her. You saw some pictures, some trinkets that you were sure belonged to Natasha.
"What are you doing?" Her rough accent cut you off. You turned to her as you gave her a quick once-over.
"Just wanted to ask if you wanted Chinese. Nobody wants to cook and I’m hungry." A beat. Two.
"No, I want Thai."
"We had Thai yesterday. And the day before that and even—"
"Okay, okay. I get it. Then Chinese. But only from that one corner shop next to the store you always get those cookies from."
"Of course, ma’am. Any other wishes?"
"Yes, get out of my room." You fake a pout as you trudged out of her room and past her. Her fingers grazed yours on your way out, and it felt like she electrified you herself. Once you were out of her sight, you let out a deep sigh. You quickly found your way to your room and grabbed your spare clothes before dashing to the bathroom. John had worked you out as if you were leading the next alien war against damn Thanos yourself. The cold water felt good on your warmed skin as it hit your back and fell in droplets down your bare body. It took you about an entire hour to will yourself to leave the shower, and you hoped Bucky had gotten the message you sent earlier to buy the food because you were truly starving by now. Once dressed, you quickly found your way to the kitchen, where everybody was already surrounding the island and grabbing each personal share of the food. The last one remaining was presumably yours, so you grabbed it and plopped down onto the couch right next to Bob, who was already half his body into his food. You let out a small laugh as your eyes flitted over him. He raised his wide eyes at you, like a deer caught in the headlights of an approaching car.
"Taste good, Bobby?" you muttered as you dug into your own dish.
He let out half a hum before deflating from his defensive pose and shoving more into his mouth. Seems like you weren’t the only hungry one. You felt the couch dip down next to you, and you gave a side glance to who it was—Walker, of course. You let out a groan and rolled your eyes as he smirked at you.
"Damn near about to eat the fork too. I tired you out this much? Damn, and we were only getting started."
"Shut up, Walker."
Your voice synced with another from Bob’s side. It was her voice. John's face fell into a frown before ignoring you both and eating. The rest of the night felt nice, soft and quiet, a strong contrast to how your lives are normally. Chaotic, quick-paced, and too much for you to handle most times. You liked this. A lot. Especially since the tension between you and Yelena had calmed down a lot, so now this-your group-felt like a quirky, self-made family filled with a bunch of society rejects. Placing your food bowl down, you stood up.
"Alright guys, I will call it a night. I am done."
You got a few mumbles as good night, and as you left the common area, your eyes caught hers. Deep eyes staring at you, not even relenting for a second. Sometimes you have to ask yourself, is it hate that she looks at you with, or is it maybe fondness?
Now, as you lay alone in your bed, all your tiredness seems to have vanished. Your eyes are trained on your ceiling, on which you trail the four corners of your walls. Head leaned to the side, you saw the time read sharp and bright: 3:44 a.m. Everybody should be asleep by now.
You gather enough motivation to get up. Some time ago, as you trailed around the large tower, you found a way to enter the heliport without setting every alarm known to mankind off. Sometimes you just laid down on the port and stared up at the sky as the cold wind bit at your even colder flesh. Just like tonight. Restless nights tend to follow you around these past few days. Half your brain urges you to do what she did. Go to her room, make her hold you as she whispers her own incantations into your skin that will lull you to sleep, but no, instead, you just laid here and waited until the sun started to rise.
Today though, destiny seemed to have a different ending planned for you. You heard the door open and your eyes immediately snapped to the side to see who was bothering you. If it was John, you couldn't promise yourself that you wouldn't throw him off the edge of the port. To your surprise, and partial dismay, you saw her. In all of her very sleepy, very tired glory, basically dragging herself towards you. You didn’t stand up, you didn’t sit upwards, you just continued laying there staring up at her while she stared back at you. Now in front of you, her slippers stopped just a few centimeters in front of your face.
Wordlessly, she sat down.
"What are you doing?" you muttered.
"I was looking for you. You weren’t in your room. I know you can’t sleep anymore-I see your eyebags, very dark." Her fingers pointed at her own eyebags to highlight it.
"The whole emo look doesn’t suit you. More Bob’s style." That got a small smile out of you as you turned your head back to the other side, away from her. You heard her moving next to you again and before you knew it, you felt her warm hand in yours. Your head snapped up to face her, but she was already looking at you. Her eyes flitted down to your lips before her eyebrows furrowed. You squeezed her hand to reassure her. I know what you feel. You hoped it got through to her. You had meant to make her feel safe, to make her feel okay with wanting to overstep that line you two had created since the first day she entered your damn room at 2 a.m. just to have you hold her through her nightmare. It was okay to stop hating you. But she never seemed to want to take that dance with you.
Truth be told, you never really hated her. To you it was more of a defense mechanism in reaction to her ruthless and cold nature towards you. She let out a deep sigh before turning her head straight again and looking up towards the sky. You part your lips before muttering, "The stars are pretty." You nodded along to your own words.
"Yeah, I guess they are." she muttered. Reluctantly, you let go of her hand. Tonight wasn’t going to be the night she will take that dance with you either.
"Why are you here, Yelena?"
"I told you, I was looking for you. Are you hard of hearing now?" A small laugh left her lips.
"No, Yelena, I mean why here with me today."
There was a pregnant pause before she parted her lips to say something.
"I missed you."
You contemplated if you had accidentally overheard her and were now just conjuring up some things. Wouldn't be the first time.
"Excuse me?"
"I missed you. You won’t let me in your room anymore and it isn’t the same when the entire group is around. You are distant and always elsewhere." Now that caught your attention. You snapped upwards and turned back to look down at her.
"What? How the hell am I the distant one? You ignore me half of the time I try to talk to you and when you don’t, you either yell at me or give me one of those sassy comebacks I didn’t fucking ask for. That is not fair, Yelena. After weeks and days of this bullshit we are doing only now are you okay with me being even in the same room as you. How the hell do you expect me to be normal around you when you yourself aren’t? God, I don’t even understand you or the way you think most of the time. Am I supposed to read your fucking mind?"
Each word leaving your lips felt like one less stone you carried on your own back. Before she could even think of an answer, you whipped up to your feet, muttered a solemn, "Good night, Yelena," and whisked yourself to your own bedroom where you locked your door as a last safety measure.
This was how it always went with you two. You made up, started arguing again, made up, and repeated the whole cycle over and over again. It was getting damn tiresome, so you relied on your own secret technique that you definitely did not try before. Ignore her. This time around though, you would give her exactly what she wanted from you. Big smiles when you were with the group, a small wave when you walked past her, a small brush of your hands with hers—but never anything more.
And it went, contrary to what you had previously believed, pretty damn well because she backed off as well. And you started to enjoy it a little too much. Right now, you were at a club, and it was a miracle that Alexei didn’t drag everybody into a strip club for his birthday instead. Both he and John were dead drunk, raging and dancing around on the dance floor as you sat back at the booth with Bob. You weren’t exactly sure where Ava had scurried off to, all you knew was that Yelena wasn’t here and neither was Bucky. You did give the latter one a pass since he technically can’t get drunk, so being here would just be a waste of his time that could have been spent in bed with Alpine, which you knew for a fact was exactly what he was doing right now. You saw him once because he left his door slightly open. You laughed your ass off at him and since then, he made sure to lock his doors.
You were on about your third drink of the evening and a little tipsy but still far more stable than the two men tearing the dance floor apart.
"Bobbbbbb," you whined out the last syllable of his name as you looked towards him with a crooked smile.
"Dance with me?"
Now, Bob, unlike you, had tucked himself away into the corner of the booth and hadn’t touched a single damn drink since you entered. You saw how anxious he was getting and it hurt your heart a little, so you offered up your hand for him to take and dance with you. It took a beat but he placed his hand into yours and let you pull him towards you.
The night was spent with lots of laughter and smiles and she was fully and entirely forgotten.
Too bad that destiny seemed to want something in return for that semi-soft moment you had with her days ago because soon after your dance with Bob, some man came stumbling in and bumped Bob almost to the floor. He grabbed his collar and started roughhousing him around. Bob, in all his anxious glory, only held onto the man’s hand that was gripping his shirt to try and stabilize himself, but you could see how he started to tremble.
"Get your fucking hands off him, you turd!" you blared out over the loud music as you grabbed the man’s arm to try and pull him back to no avail. So instead, you did what you were trained for. You grabbed the hulky man by his hair and punched him in the face. He stumbled back into other bystanders, and you quickly grabbed Bob as John and Alexei came dashing over and left the club with him in tandem. The rest of the hour was spent trying to calm Bob down in a crammed Uber that John had called for all of you. Even back at the tower, he wouldn’t calm down but it didn’t matter how hard you tried.
From one side, you understood why. The man that had touched him looked a tad bit too much like his father, or at least you assumed from that small segment you had seen of his dad in his own shame room before John pummeled him to the ground.
"Bob?" your hand held his trembling one.
"I need you to calm down, Bob. Can you try to? You are safe here." Your thumb rubbed back and forth on his knuckles as you heard the door open and Yelena emerged from it. She quickly rushed towards you as she sat down next to you. Maybe it was the warmth she was exuding or maybe you were just plain blind, but before you realized, cold dull tendrils wrapped around your arms and midsection. As your eyes widened and your lips parted to call out for Bob to stop, everything around you turned black.
"Not again. Bob, damnit, not again!" you yelled out to nobody as you looked around.
A few rapid blinks and a deep sense of despair later, you found yourself….at the gala? Your eyebrows furrowed. It was the gala from months ago when you had danced with Yelena after another one of your brutal arguments. But you weren’t ashamed of being with her, so why were you here? Looking around, you saw Yelena- not the one dressed in that perfectly fitting dress, no, you saw the very same Yelena with messy hair, an old t-shirt that she stole from your closet a while back, and baggy pants on. And she looked extremely out of place. Your eyes met as you made your way towards her. And only once you got closer to her did it dawn on you.
This wasn’t your shame room.
This was hers.
And that stopped you dead in your tracks. It was her shame room. It was hers. Hers. Hers. Your face fell void of all emotions as you started to back away from her. Even when she called out your name in that sickly sweet tone that you would only hear in your dreams.
"Bob!" you yelled out.
"Bob, I know you can hear me. You can control this, control these rooms. You can get us out." You kept chanting similar words until the room around you fell black again. You felt her hand grasp onto your wrist as your head snapped towards her. You ripped your hand from her grasp as if it burned. Your eyes wide as you stared at her all the while the room materialized back into the common room behind you. „Don‘t fucking touch me.“ you spit out. The world felt distant, like you were wearing someone else's skin, walking someone else's path.
Yelena was beside you. Silent. Stiff.
You didn’t look at her anymore.
Couldn’t.
You wanted to scream, maybe throw up. Maybe run until your lungs gave out. Anything to get away from what you saw. From what you felt. From her.
She was ashamed.
Ashamed of you. Of being with you. Of that night you had dared to remember as something soft. Something good. The night you danced with her, thinking foolishly that the walls between you were crumbling, when really she was already rebuilding them behind your back, brick by fucking brick.
“Say something.”, her voice hoarse. You feel your shoulders drop in dull grief. Your eyes are trained on bob now. He somehow looked the most compossed out of the three of you given the circumstances. His hands were wringed together as he stared at you both with wide eyes. Moving towards him you helped guide him upwards snd into his room. Lord knows this man needs a good sleep more than any of you.
——
You haven't spoken to her in two days.
The silence isn't deliberate, not in the usual way you weaponize it, but this time it feels different. It’s not cold. It’s not loud. It just exists. A quiet, aching distance that stretches between you like a wire pulled too tight. You don’t avoid her, not actively. But you don't look at her either. You haven’t since the shame room collapsed around the both of you.
Not after what you saw.
Not after what she didn’t say.
Tonight, you're in the training room alone. Again. The others have all turned in or maybe they’re pretending to, to avoid the unspoken tension hanging thick between the walls of this tower. The mat beneath you is cold. You’ve run drills for nearly an hour with sweat clinging to the back of your neck, tank top damp and sticking to your spine as your evidence. But it doesn’t help. Your muscles ache, but it’s not the satisfying kind. It’s not the kind that quiets the screaming in your head.
You slam your fist into the padded dummy again. And again. And again. You don’t even realize you’re crying until the mat beneath your feets starts to darken with tears.
This is stupid. This is all so fucking stupid.
You spin and sit hard on the floor, pulling your knees up to your chest, your forehead resting there for a moment longer than you want to admit. You were panting hard now as you felt your heart ached. You don’t want to do this. Not again. Not with her. Maybe you were a fool to think it meant something different to her.
“Didn't know punching dummys was a midnight hobby now.”
You don’t need to look up to recognize the voice. You stay still, face hidden in your knees.
“Go away, barnes.”
“Easy there. Just came to grab my towel.” He walks across the mat, movements slower than usual. He stops halfway to the banks.
“...You good?”
You laugh. It's hollow. “Do I look good?”
“You look like you went twelve rounds with a deflatable dummy and still lost.”
He doesn’t leave. Instead, he lowers himself down across from you, legs crossed, towel forgotten. You peek up just enough to see him watching you. And for once, his smugness is gone. Replaced by something quieter. Something resembling concern.
“Want me to beat someone up for you?” he offers after a pause. “Name them. I’ve got time.”
You huff. A small exhale, barely enough to be called a laugh. “Unless you can beat up memories, I don’t think you can help.”
“I can try,” he says, then adds, “Look... I don’t know what’s going on between you and her. None of my business. But I know that look.”
“What look?”
“The one where you want to climb out of your own skin just so you don’t have to feel anymore.”That shuts you up. You stare at him for a long beat. And he stares back.
“Anyway,” he stands, brushing invisible dust off his pants, “If you want to keep punching shit, I’ll leave you to it.”
You think about asking him to stay. Not because you want him specifically- but because the idea of going back to being alone with your thoughts feels... unbearable.
But you don’t ask.
You watch him leave instead, the door sliding closed behind him with a soft hiss that sounds too much like goodbye.
You found yourself on the roof again the very same night. The heliport was silent. The sky blanketed with clouds that glowed faintly from the city lights below. You sat in your usual spot back against the cold metal floor. You hated how easily you fell back into this. You hated how, even after everything, this space still reminded you of her. There was a quiet creak behind you. You didn’t even flinch.
You knew the sound of her steps. “I figured,” Yelena said quietly, “if I couldn’t sleep, maybe you couldn’t either.”
You said nothing. She didn’t move closer. She didn’t sit beside you. Just stood there, a few paces away. Like she was waiting for a signal. Permission.
“You haven’t talked to me in days,” she murmured. “I deserved that.”
You stayed silent. Not because you didn’t have anything to say, but rather because you didn’t know how to say any of it without breaking in half. “I didn’t mean for you to see that,” she added. You let out a bitter, hollow laugh. “You didn’t want me to see how ashamed you were of me?”
Yelena’s breath caught. “That’s not fair.”
“No,” you snapped, still on the floor, facing her. “You’re right. It’s not. Nothing about this is fair.” “I’m not ashamed of you.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” you spat, voice rising. “You kept me in the dark for months, Yelena. Then I see your shame room and I’m there. Me. Dancing with you. Laughing with you. You looked like you wanted to claw your own memory out.” Her mouth opened, but no sound came.
You pushed further. “Why was I in there, Yelena? Why was that memory one of your worst?” She looked down. That silence, that fucking silence- it hurt more than anything.
“Say something,” you said, barely above a whisper. “Anything. I can’t keep guessing with you.” Her fingers flexed at her sides, as if each word of yours peeled a new layer of skin from her bones.
“I wasn’t ashamed of you,” she said finally, voice low. “I was ashamed of myself.” You blinked. But the rage kept pulsing behind your ribs, thick and unrelenting.
“That’s not better,” you bit out. “That doesn’t make it better, Yelena. You don’t get to rewrite the story like that just because it hurts.” She took a step forward, carefully, like you might snap if she moved too fast. “I didn’t-I don‘t want to feel this.”
You scoffed, turning away to look back up at the sky. “Feel what?”
“The want. The way I—" she stopped herself, jaw tightening, nostrils flaring with the breath she wouldn’t let out. „The way i need you.“ Yelena sat then-didn’t wait for permission. Crossed her legs beside you, her shoulder close but not touching.
“The way I wanted it to be real,” she said, and it broke in the middle like something brittle and starved. “And the way I knew it couldn’t be.”
That silenced you.
Not because it fixed anything, but because it sounded like the truth. Not clean, not tidy. But real. For once Your voice cracked on the next question. “Why couldn’t it?”
Yelena laughed. A bitter thing. Not at you, but at herself. “Because you don’t get to have things like that when you’re like me.” You didn’t mean to reach for her, but you did. Hand landing lightly over hers. This time, she didn’t flinch. Her fingers didn’t retreat.
You echoed ,“Yelena, you are-fuck-do you even hear yourself? Do you think I haven’t done things I hate? That I don’t look in the mirror sometimes and want to punch it out of the wall?” She looked at you then. Really looked. No walls. No witty retorts. Just her, and all the damage she’d been holding inside her chest for years.
“You’re not broken,” you said softly, gripping her hand tighter. “You’re scared. So am I. But that doesn’t mean we can’t try.” She didn’t say anything for a while. The sky above seemed to hold its breath for her. For you.
Finally, she said, “I’m tired of trying-of loosing. I lost her. I can‘t-I don‘t want to loose you too. I can‘t.“ “You won’t,” you murmured. “I can handle things. We can start here. Us. We will both fight for each other.”
Yelena’s eyes searched yours. Long and slow, as if looking for the catch.
“I hurt you,” she said.
You nodded. “Yeah.”
“I’ll probably do it again.”
“I know.“
“I’m not easy.”
“Who said i was?”
Her hand lifted then, brushing against your cheek like it might vanish if she pushed too hard. You leaned into it. “I was terrified of how much I wanted you that night,” she admitted. “Still am.” “I was terrified you didn’t,” you whispered.
“I never hated you.“. A sigh left your parted lips before a crocked smile replaced it. „Sure didn‘t seem like it.“ you joke as she rolls he eyes and pushes you away from her with no real strength behind it. „You are so annoying. Do you know that?“. Now she smiled at you too. “Do we start over now?” she asked, voice small.
You smiled. “No. We keep going.”
—
The tower had returned to its usual rhythm: chaos, caffeine, and the occasional broken appliance courtesy of Alexei. Bob had begun to level out again. Ava started terrorizing John with glitter bombs for no reason anyone could determine. Even Bucky was in suspiciously good spirits though that might have had something to do with whatever secret Alpine was hoarding under his bed.
You and Yelena, meanwhile, weren’t hiding anymore.
It wasn’t loud, or overly affectionate. It was just natural. You sat next to her during movie nights. Her fingers brushed yours during briefings. She started stealing your jackets again, even though she had her own closet full of options. And you let her. You liked that she did.
There was healing happening in small, invisible stitches.
And on one particular morning, after a mission that had gone smoother than expected, you found her in the kitchen in one of your hoodies, nursing a mug of coffee and flipping through the paper like a grumpy grandpa.
“You always read the newspaper?” you asked, still drowsy from the four hours of sleep you got.
“Only the good bits,” she deadpanned.
“Of course.”
You moved toward the fridge, and her eyes followed you over the rim of her mug. “How was the mission?” she asked suddenly. You turned. “It was okay. Great, actually, nothing went wrong for once. Can you believe that?”
“I can‘t. Are you sure Walker didn‘t blow something up?” You blinked. “He definetly did. But not everything is perfect is it?”
Yelena set the mug down, the faint clink of ceramic against granite louder than it needed to be in the quiet of the kitchen.
You leaned against the fridge, carton of orange juice in hand, watching her with soft amusement. The hoodie she wore was one of your older ones-faded black with a bleach stain on the sleeve and a frayed hem. It looked better on her than it ever had on you. “I like the sports section,” she muttered, flipping the page like she hadn’t been at it for half a hour. “They let the columnists swear now. America is finally embracing chaos.”
You grinned. “You should write for them.”
“I should be syndicated,” she deadpanned, but her mouth curved into the faintest smile. You poured yourself some juice and sat across from her at the kitchen island, letting the silence fill in the spaces between words. It wasn’t uncomfortable, just soft. Familiar.
There was a comfort in not having to say much.
Yelena sipped her coffee again, then lowered the mug and looked at you for real this time. “You didn’t get hurt yesterday, right?” You shook your head. “Couple scrapes. Nothing that left a mark.” „Did you get them looked at?“ „‚course. Otherwise how dare i show myself infront of you? You would vindicate me if i didn‘t get them looked over the second i stepped out of the jet.“, you joked.
She stared for a moment too long. You could see the flicker of worry behind her eyes, and something else. Something quieter. Maybe guilt. Maybe fear. “I hate that I wasn’t there,” she said finally, voice barely above a whisper.
You reached across the table, brushing your fingers over hers-not quite holding, not quite letting go. “I don’t.” You said. “I like knowing you weren’t in danger for once. Selfishly, maybe. But still.” Her hand turned, palm up, and your fingers settled into hers with a soft inevitability. The world didn’t stop, but it slowed down just enough. “You have this tendency to dive head first into chaos for no appereant reason, remember?“ “I don‘t do it all the time you know.“ she mumbled. „Just the other day you threw yourself off of a skyscraper. For the third time this week too!“ she laughed and your heart fluttered a little. A small grin broke out as you watched her throw her head back in laughter. „You are a hypocrite. Remember when you went into a mission all on your own and were surrounded by half the population of New York? Exactly. You“ she pointed her finger at you, “don‘t get to lecture me on being foolish.“. You rolled your eyes as you finished your glass and got up. You felt her eyes following you around the kitchen.“You are an idiot.“, you said as you walked out of the kitchen. She didn‘t follow you, and although you should feel a little sad you were relieved. These past few days have been, to say the least, too much too fast for you. It was finally settling down the tension you had with Yelena-you were finally normal around each other, and you simply weren‘t used to that. Not that you wanted it to go back to how it was with you two constantly at each other’s throats for one or another reason, but you just sometimes needed a bit of breathing room. Now though you started to seek her out as well at nights to the point where John even joked about you two basically moving into the same room with each other. She didn‘t laugh, no, she just stared at you and in that same night asked you if you would. If you would just stay in her room, always lay together and hold each other if she asked. And your answer came in form of silence because you just didn‘t know. That Night you acted as though you fell asleep so she just sighed and never spoke about it again. God, you wanted it. You wanted her. Especially now that everything has settled but it was just too scary. You were scared that she would just start to pull away because she didn‘t realize before that this was too much- you were scared that you would do the same. Your steps were heavy as you made your way towards your room.
The day settled into stillness.
You didn’t see Yelena again until much later, well past sunset, when the tower had gone quiet and the usual chaos of mission debriefs and tech repairs had slowed into a lull. You were holed up in your room, sprawled across your bed with the lights dimmed, flipping through some half-finished mission notes. Your body ached from the mission, scrapes and bruises still stinging faintly, but your mind? It was louder than ever.
Lena🐻. You coming over?
You sigh as you look at your phone. Are you coming over? Your usual answer would be a delighted yes send way too quickly to seem nonchalant, but right now you were between cross roads. If you did go you wondered if perhaps your yearning will finally overcome you and force you to actually act on what you have been dreaming about- or if you would just settle with laying next to her all the while she held onto you. Your phone lays on the bed, dark and silent now. You coming over? The message awaited a reply. You stared at the screen. The clock on the nightstand blinked—8:42 PM. Past sunset, the tower was quiet, warmed only by the faint hum of distant generators and the occasional whisper of corridor lights.
You pushed her door open quietly. A wash of candlelight greeted you-warm but soft. You slipped inside. She was kneeling, a blanket spread with precision across her small rug, dozens of candles flickering around the room's perimeter. Her room was variously decorated with your things now too. Small trinkets from missions outside of the state, posters, gifts you got her and more. The scene swallowed you whole not in a romantic or cliché way, but deliberate and real.
She looked up. The familiar strength in her gaze softened, folded inward. A fragile curve brushed her lips. “Hey,” she said, low. No bravado. No armor. Rough with her accent. You closed the door behind you, your feet whispering against the carpet. The hoodie slipped over your head, sleeves swallowing your fingers. You said, “Hi” You looked at the blanket. The candles warmed the shadows. “It looks nice.”
“Does it?,” she replied. Her voice held something unspoken—relief? Hope?
You moved onto the blanket. The candle glow warmed your neck. You felt weight in your chest, a pleasant tightness. A long sigh escapes you as you relaxed. She sat beside you. Space in between. Enough to be courteous, or cautious. Maybe both.
“I thought,” she began, turning her head toward the window, shadows and street lights dancing behind her. “You needed it quiet tonight. Y’know. Feel Safe and nice.” You nodded, gently brushing the folds of the blanket with your hand. You heart jumped at her confession“I did. Thank you Lena.”, you smiled up at her.
Her gaze held yours. She swallowed. You felt a current between you like static in the air. Your chest throbbed. You couldn’t look away. But you didn’t move first- not yet. Just watched the flame in her eyes. Slowly she moved to lay down now next to you. On her back her eyes were trained onto her own ceiling. Her lips curve into that faint half-smile you love. “I think i like this a lot more than freezing on the heliport with you.“, she mumbled. “What? You don‘t like freezing half to death just to spend some time with little ol‘ me? Wow. I am hurt, truly.“, you lips broke into a huge grin as you turned your head to face her. You let out a fake gasp of hurt as she laughed at you. Your laughter died down after a few minutes as she just stared at you.
Her fingertips grazed your skin. You exhaled. “I want this,” you said, your words barely there but solid as stone. “I want you here with me anywhere.” She blinked. The flame in her eyes flared. She sank closer. The ambient glow shifted across her cheekbones, the curve of her jaw.
You turned your body until you were on your side facing her. Her hand brushed yours, and the scent, smoke and something sweet filled your senses. The silence deepened. Your hand hovered near her waist. You swallowed, heart thumping. And pain blossomed in your throat. You didn’t want to break this. At all.
You allowed your hand to fall, landing lightly just above her hip, on her side. Fabric of hoodie and soft shirt. Everything was delicate. You waited for her to pull away. She didn’t. She didn’t lean in. She breathed. The candlelight hinted at the curiosity in her eyes. Your hand found her, brushed fingers deftly across her knuckles. Her skin responded. You felt warmth creep through her fingertips.
You exhaled. “Hi,” you murmured. She looked at you in the candlelight. Her lips shook, but she smiled. Just a bit. Shut and shy.
You leaned forward, stopping just short of her face. She leaned forward too. You both paused. The world bent inward. Your breath mingled. A tender magnetism pulled you together.
Then finally, gently, soberingly, you touched. Lips met lips. Soft, exploratory. Echoed pulses inside you and it felt like fireworks were going off just short of behind you.
She responded. Everything that had been unspoken flared between you. Neither rushed, both careful. Careful as lovers who knew heartbreak well. Her arms moved around you as you she moved ontop of you. Both cradled your neck. Skin against skin. Your arm slid down her back, holding her while the other rushed into the back of her hair and grasp onto it. You kissed her deeper. Long. Unhurried.
What unfolded next you’ll carry forever- her pulse against your chest, the shape of her cheek in candlelight, the gentle hiss of your breaths merging.
She pulled back slightly. Lips brushing. A beat passed before she opened up her mouth again. “Do you think Natasha would be happy for me?” she whispered into the space between you. You kissed her again. Softer now. “I think she would love this for us. For you to actually be happy for once.” She smiled at you. You thumb across her cheek. Then closed the gap again.
The night pressed in. But inside, warmth built like sunrays breaking through ice. You lay back together. The blanket cushioned you. She curled against you. Arms wrapped around your middle. Her cheek pressed soft into your ribcage. You could feel each breath she took through her t-shirt.
Your heart pounded. You felt hers too, beneath your palm. For a long while, you stayed still. Just breathing together. Being.
You didn’t speak. You didn’t need to. She shifted and whispered into your shirt: “I feel like I’m home.” You smiled, closing your eyes. Your cheek pressed into her hair. “Me too.”
Summary:Jason just came home from a long mission and he just can‘t seem to fucking find you in your apartment.
Warning: panic attacks, kissing yk the usual
Wordcount: 2.1k
A/N: had to pump something out since ill see you in a minute is taking a little backseat also april dont use Frank Ocean songs as your title challenge GO all aside guys i have 100 followers thats insane!!the other day i was just celebrating having 20??? Now100????TYSM:^^
Aight Toodles!
Masterlist
ENGLISH IS NOT MY NATIVE LANGUAGE BE AWARE!
Jason kicked the door shut behind him, the weight of two weeks undercover in Narrows scum clinging to his shoulders like a second skin.
He was still in his tactical gear, boots scuffed, knuckles split, lip blood red and raw from him biting it too much and helmet hanging from his fingertips. All he wanted was a goddamn shower and to find you curled up on the couch, half-asleep in one of his old shirts, perhaps waiting on him even when he clearly told you he didn‘t know when he would return with something playing low on the TV that you weren’t really watching.
But the apartment was silent. Still. Too still. He frowned.
“Baby?” he called, his voice hoarse. Nothing. Not even the sound of you rustling around in the tiny-ass kitchen that barely had space for both your bodies when he pressed you against the counter. “You here?”
No answer.
He dropped the helmet onto the couch with a dull thud, scanning the living room- small, lived-in, your touch on everything. Blanket thrown over the armrest. Mug on the coffee table. One of your socks under the edge of the couch. The place looked like you'd just stepped out for a second. But his gut told him otherwise.
Jason moved fast when he was worried. But now in your way-too-small apartment he was bumping into the walls. Bootsteps heavy as he checked the bedroom, the bathroom, the closet you both swore you'd clean out last week. Nothing. No bag missing. No note. No message on his phone, not that he’d had service the last two days. "Goddammit..." he muttered, raking a hand through his hair. The apartment barely fit him on a good day — hell, it barely fit both of you, and that was half the charm. But now it just felt... empty. Wrong. Where the fuck were you? He felt his heart start to race and his breaths start to leave him in short, quick, strong breaths that hurt. Before he could start ripping the walls off of your apartment because maybe-just maybe-you were hiding underneath them as a prank a new thought entered his messed up brain. Maybe joker got to you. Maybe Joker got to….you. And he swore to whatever entity above if joker got his hands on you he would tear Gotham from limb to limb until there were ashes left in place of this godforsaken city. His shaking hands fiddled with his phone to try and call Dick. Dick was still on patrol around the area maybe he could go out and search for you as Jason gets every weapon known and unknown to mankind to torture any of Joker‘s goons for information because any other explanation wouldn‘t make sense to him.
He has you. He has you. He has you.
And maybe you were already dead.
His phone fell from his trembling hands as he tried to pick it up again but his heart was beating too fast his hands were shaking too much snd they were too sweaty and everything just fucking hurt and why the fuck weren‘t you here? On his knees now his hands found his hair as he digged into the strands.
„Jay?“
His head snapped over his shoulder towards the door and there you stood. Key in hand and your eyebrows furrowed and not a fucking worry in sight about perhaps being captured by the Joker. If Jason couldn‘t breathe before right now he certainly couldn‘t.
His eyes glossed over and he parted his lips to speak but before he could even think of saying anything you quickly close the door behind you, mindful not to actually slam it shut, and stalk towards him as you land on your knees before him. His face contores into a small grimace as your knees scrape against the rough hard wood floor you had. Your nimble hands cradle his face and he can see your mouth moving but he can’t hear anything. His ears are ringing and everything around him was going in and out of focus. All he could actually focus on was you. Your thumbs brushed over the stubble on his jaw as you tried to get him to look at you- really look at you.
“Jay. Jay, baby? Baby, breathe. It‘s Okay.” Your voice cut through the white noise like a lifeline, soft but urgent and in a whisper, your fingers slipping into his hair replacing his rough ones that pulled at the strands just to ground him.
His lips trembled. You were warm. Solid. Alive. And he was going to throw up.
Jason surged forward, his arms wrapping around you so tight it knocked the air out of your lungs, but you didn’t care and you were quite sure that he didn‘t either. You held him just as tightly, if not more. He buried his face in your shoulder and breathed. In. Out. In again. It was messy, shaky, and uneven, but the scent of you was familiar, grounding and enough to make the world tilt back into focus. Slowly.
"I thought-" His voice cracked. “I thought he had you.”
You felt it then- the wet heat of tears hitting your skin. He had cried in front of you before. Many nights where his nightmares were just too real for him to bear alone. He would softly wake you up and you would hold him as he silently wept into you and you never judged him. Not him or his past. You closed your eyes and pressed your lips to his temple.
“I just went outside for a second,” you whispered. “We were out of coffee. You always want coffee when you get back from a job. I wanted to get you some but i forgot my wallet. Kinda glad i did right now“ a soft chuckle escapes you.
Jason shook his head against you, still holding on like letting go might undo you, might unmake you and all the fragile peace you brought into his chaos. “Didn’t see a message. Nothing. Place was too quiet. I-I thought…”
“I know.” You combed your fingers through his hair again, slow and soothing, like you’d done on the nights the nightmares were too loud. “You’ve been out there too long. Everything feels wrong when you come back.” You place your chin ontop of his head as you keep ranking through the back of his hair.
“It wasn’t just that,” he choked out. “I felt it. That...in my chest. The panic. I couldn’t breathe. You weren’t here. I thought it was like that time. I thought-fuck, I don’t even know what I thought, just that it was happening again. I was there again with him..”
In that warehouse.
With death.
You tightened your grip around him.
“I’m not going anywhere, Jay,” you said. “You hear me? You could raze Gotham to the ground looking for me, and I’d still come home to you.” He laughed then, but it was hollow, cracked down the middle, his forehead pressing hard against the crook of your neck. “Don’t say that. You shouldn’t have to come home to this.”
You didn’t say anything for a beat. Just held him. Let him collapse without shame. Because you knew better than anyone that Jason Peter Todd was the strongest man known. But even steel buckles under enough pressure.
Eventually, you pulled back, hands moving to cup his face again. His eyes were bloodshot. His skin, pale. His lip, cracked. He looked wrecked. Destroyed. “C’mon,” you murmured gently. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
He shook his head in a frenzy. “I don’t want to move.”
“We don’t have to go far,” you promised. “Just the bathroom. I’ll draw you a bath. And we can sit. That’s it. Just sit me and you.”
You guided him up slowly, carefully, mindful of how unsteady he was on his feet, when you realised you wouldn‘t get another answer out of him. His grip never left you — one hand tangled in the fabric of your hoodie, the other on your waist. Like if he let go, the floor might open up and swallow him whole and he would be back there.
In the bathroom, you flicked the lights on and turned the faucet. The water hissed into the tub, and the steam quickly filled the room. Jason stood behind you, leaning against the sink. You turned and reached for the hem of his suit. Only now did you realize that he still had it on.
He flinched.
“Hey.” Your voice was soft, coaxing. “It’s me.” Jason closed his eyes. Breathed in again.
Bruises, fresh and healing, littered his torso like a road map of violence. The jagged scar near his ribs, the one that never fully faded, was red around the edges. You didn’t ask if he’d reopened it. You already knew. He had this tendency when he got anxious that he would just sit and scratch away at all of his scars as if it would make them dissapear. He didn’t speak, not for a long while, until your fingers ghosted too gently over one of the deeper cuts.
“I thought I lost you,” he murmured, eyes distant, fixed on the tile.
“You didn’t,” you said. “You won’t.”
“You say that like it’s a guarantee.”
You met his gaze. “You’re not the only one who fights to hold on, Jason. I may not be out there on rooftops or in back alleys, but I fight every day to be here. With you. You think I’d let some clown-faced asshole take that away from me? Take you away from me? I wasn‘t there the first time and i won‘t let it happen a second time.”
He let out a shaky breath, “I love you.”
The words didn’t tumble from him often. Not because he didn’t feel them, but because he felt them too much. Too deeply. Like they were fragile, and precious, and terrifying all at once.
You stepped closer and pressed your forehead to his.
“I love you too,” you whispered. “Now get in that tub before your muscles lock up like last time.” He groaned. “Don’t remind me.”
You helped him in and sat nearby, cross-legged on the bathroom floor. The bathwater lapped gently at the porcelain as Jason let himself sink deeper, the tension in his shoulders finally starting to bleed away.
A long silence stretched between you.
Then,
“You really went for coffee?”
You smiled. “Yeah. And those snacks you like.”
He blinked. “The spicy cheese ones?” You nodded. Jason tilted his head back and let out something between a sigh and a laugh. “I really do love you.” “You better. I’m the one who’s gonna be dealing with the tub drain full of your blood and war grime.”
He huffed. “Romantic.”
“Always.”
Afterward, wrapped in a towel and wearing the old hoodie of his you’d swiped years ago, Jason slumped onto the bed. You curled up beside him, throwing the blanket over both your legs.
Your head rested on his shoulder, and his arm wound around your waist, hand brushing against your side absently, like he still needed to reassure himself you were real. That you were there.
“I hate what this city does to me,” he said quietly.
You looked up. Jason frowned.
“How it makes you feel, Jay. How it makes you scared. That’s not weakness. That’s love. That’s being human.”
He was quiet again for a moment. “I couldn‘t stand living without you here. I think i would have gone mad.“ You shifted in his hold.
His eyes met yours.
“You don‘t have to worry about that.,” you said. “You came home, Jay. To me. And i will always be there for you..”
He leaned down and kissed you then. Soft. Barely there. But it lingered.
“Don’t ever disappear on me again,” he said against your lips. You pulled back just enough to smirk. “Only if you promise not to assume I’ve been Joker-napped every time I step out.”
Jason exhaled slowly, the ghost of a smile on his face. “Can’t promise that.”
“I’ll settle for a text next time you’re off-grid.” “I’ll try,” he said. And for Jason Todd, try meant more than most people’s swear.
You both layed there for a long while, tangled in each other and the quiet aftermath of panic. And while the city outside still breathed with crime and chaos, in this tiny, too-small apartment, with your heartbeat steady against his side, Jason felt maybe for the first time in weeks that he wasn’t losing everything.
That maybe, just maybe, he was allowed to have something.
warning: lots n lots n lots of kisses, and mentions of some insecurities on Joaquin's part
Wordcount: 2.5k
summary: You kiss Joaquin's scars as he sleeps.
A/n:something cute something nice something also entirely self indulgent be i couldnt stop thinking about it after his crash he would 100% have scars tagt he was insecure about n just imagine kissing them all uhhhhh yes please me and the other 5 joaquin fans woulddddd
Oh also there is a aecond part of i'll see you in a minute in the works:p
Toodles
Masterlist
English is not my first language please be aware!
He had been released from the hospital a few weeks ago. According to Sam, he wasn’t allowed on any type of mission or even to get information about said missions. No, what he had to do was lie down and rest. Did he do either? Mostly no, but still, you managed.
At times, you’d find him training, either in the gym or in his room, and you would always scold him endlessly for it. He had just gotten out of the hospital why the hell was he so eager to send himself right back? You knew his physical therapist was just as against his intense training as you were, and still, he refused to listen. To you, or to anybody else, for that matter. At some point, you decided to just give up, not fully, but you did ease up on him after some time, because you realized what this was. He wasn’t outright trying to be annoying or undo his recovery. He was trying to get back a sense of normalcy in his life after not being able to do anything for so long. And maybe you’d been a little selfish not to notice that sooner.
Right now, you were rummaging around the kitchen, looking for something to snack on. After about five minutes, you found nothing, so you gave up and went to search for Joaquin. Maybe he had a secret stash of sweets or snacks somewhere near him. Pushing his (your) bedroom door open, you spotted him—shirtless and in shorts, sprawled out in a full starfish pose across the bed. His chest was slowly rising and falling, indicating that he was in a deep slumber. Softly trudging in, mindful not to wake him up, you settled down next to him. On your side, with your hand propping up your head, you admired him—his sharp nose, his long eyelashes, his lush black curls and slowly your eyes began to drift. Not in a perverted sense, but rather in a quiet, homely one.
Your eyes found countless scars littered all over his torso, with one huge scar stretched across his chest the very same area where they’d laid him down open on the surgical table. You remembered the scene as if it were unfolding before your eyes all over again. How cold he looked. How gone he was. All you could do was stare. You didn’t know if your grief should start, or if he would pull through. All you knew was fear. Paralyzing fear. Your eyes darted back to his face. Before you knew it, you let out a small, shaky sigh possibly out of relief, of just having him here, in your arms.
You placed your hand lazily on his chest, then stroked your thumb over his skin. Your thumb traced each small and large scar you could find with his chest bare in front of you. He was still soundly asleep, but by now, his eyebrows had started to furrow, perhaps he was having a troubled dream, or maybe he could feel what you were doing.
You knew Joaquin. All his training and all of his avoidance when it came to talking about that mission stemmed from his insecurities. He was scared that that was the end of his superhero life and he was ashamed of it. When he had come back to his senses after the coma, you had yelled at him. There’d been little to no bite in it, but still you’d warned him. You told him how stupid and how selfish it was of him to ignore Sam’s orders and just dive headfirst, quite literally, into danger.
He hadn’t seemed like he cared. All he did was stare at you and mumble that you should stop talking and just kiss him already. You smile at the memory, pulling your bottom lip between your teeth. Your eyes linger on the scar in the middle of his chest. Before you could stop yourself, you leaned forward and placed one soft kiss on one of the smaller scars. Your eyes flitted up to check if he had woken, but he was still in deep sleep. So instead, your lips found purchase on another scar. And another. And another. Each one that was longer earned several kisses peppered along its length. When you reached his neck, your kisses slowed, became more sincere. Thanks to his fall, he’d gotten a large burn scar along the side of his neck.
The last one remaining free from your soft attack was the biggest one, the one across his chest.
You let out a sigh before your index finger gently grazed down the length of it. You leaned your head forward and pressed one long, slightly wet kiss, because you’d wet your lips beforehand onto the edge of the scar. Shifting carefully, you moved your legs to straddle both of his, mindful not to put any actual pressure on him. Once again, you admired him. It didn’t matter how mad or how sad you were at Joaquin—his beauty, to you, was still ravishing. Sometimes, you just wanted to stuff him in your pocket and never let anyone see him again. Only you. But alas, you couldn’t. And you were sure that if Joaquin knew how you felt, he’d tease you about it until the very last day of your life together.
Your lips found purchase at the beginning of his scar, and slowly but surely, you drew kisses along the entire length of it.
“Baby,” his voice cut through the silence, rough and still thick with sleep. You felt his hand gently running through your hair. “Morning, baby,” you smiled, pulling yourself up toward him, your lips hovering just shy of his. Your smile grew into a full-blown grin you couldn’t hide, even if you tried.
Through the window to your right, the sun was shining through, casting a golden light that illuminated Joaquin’s features just perfectly. “You look perfect,” you muttered, finally closing the distance to plant your lips on his.
He let out a soft sigh, both of his hands cradling the sides of your face as he kissed you back. Slowly, he pulled himself upright with you still against him, lips not parting even once. Even as you pulled away slightly, he quickly leaned in again, shaking his head at the loss of your mouth on his. Ever the romantic. Muffled against his lips, you called his name. “Joaquin.”
“Hmmm?” he hummed, still chasing the kiss. Finally, his lips parted from yours. “What were you doing?” “Nothing,” you replied, though your smile gave you away completely. His eyebrows raised in fake mockery. “I felt you, you know.” “Mmhmm, so?” you teased. “Can’t I admire my beautiful boyfriend?” Your eyes flickered across his face before you leaned in to plant more kisses on his neck. Your arms wrapped around his shoulders while his hands found your waist, settling there with a soft grip.
His skin was warm beneath your lips, comforting and familiar and yet, somehow, still addictive. You couldn’t stop. Not that you ever wanted to.
But then you felt him squirm beneath you, and reluctantly, you slowly pulled away, glancing around the room in search of your phone. “You already distracted? You just woke me up in the best way possible, baby—what the hell you looking for?” His lips land against yours again before you can even answer.
You hum into the kiss, your hand curling into the soft, messy curls at the back of his head. You kissed him back with the same kind of care, the kind that told him he was safe here, that every scar, every part of him, was loved.
“I was gonna take a picture,” you whispered as he pulled away just slightly, his nose brushing yours.
“A picture?”, he tilts his head slightly eyes finding yours.
You nod, sheepishly. “You looked really pretty in the light. And I wanted to remember this moment.”
A soft pink spread across Joaquin’s cheeks, something that always made your chest squeeze. He was good at pretending to be cocky, but at the core, he was so tender, so humble, it broke your heart a little every time.
“Next time,” he mumbled, burying his face in your neck. “Right now I just want you close.” You smile and shift slightly to the side, letting him pull you back onto the bed beneath you, arms wrapping around your waist like he was scared you might vanish if he let go. Arms cup your ribs. “I mean it,” you say into his hair. “You’re beautiful, Joaquin. All of you.“, you see his eyes dart to the side, his eyebrows furrowing in an unspoken question. Even the scars? „These scars“, your hands trails one softly „They’re not ugly. They’re proof you made it home. To me. And that you didn’t give up.” He exhales deeply against your skin, and it feels like something loosens in him. Like your words reached the part of him that still worried he wasn’t enough—not strong enough, not good enough, not whole enough to be someone’s hero anymore. Or more importantly your hero.
“I was scared,” he admits quietly. “When I woke up… and you just weren‘t there. I couldn‘t feel anything i could barely even see anything. Sam just looked at me which such…guilt. I thought surely you left me snd that was why you weren‘t there.“
You pull back just enough to cup his face between your hands, thumbs brushing along his cheekbones. “Never,” you whisper. “God, Joaquin, I could never leave you. You think any of that matters to me? You being here, you being alive, that’s all I care about. Can‘t say though that i wasn‘t mad at you for being reckless. Me and Sam talked shit about you for hours”, a small chuckle left you. „Wowww...even in a state of half-death you still find it in yourself to torture me. Ouch“ he fakes a pout that you just couldn’t resist. Your lips find his again, this time slower, deeper. The kind of kiss that said stay, that said heal, that said you’re mine and I’m yours and we’ll figure it out together.
When you pull away, he’s smiling through a shaky breath.
“I don’t deserve you,” he whispers.
You roll your eyes fondly. “Don’t start with that. You think I kissed your entire body just for fun?”
“Maybe a little for fun.”
You grin and lightly smack his chest. He catches your wrist, then intertwines your fingers with his. For a few moments, the silence is the only thing that speaks—soft, warm, comfortable.
“I missed this,” he says after a while. “Not just lying in bed. I missed you.” “You were right here the whole time, dummy.”, you let out a soft sigh. “I’m glad you’re back, my love.”
“I love you,” he says, barely above a whisper.
You smile against his skin, letting the words settle like sunlight across your chest.
“I love you more.”
“You always have to win,” he murmurs, already starting to doze off again, smile still lingering on his lips.
You press one last kiss to the center of his chest, right along the scar and let yourself relax in his arms. The world could wait. For now, all that mattered was this—his heartbeat, your breath syncing with his, and the silent promise you made every time you kissed a scar: I see you. I love you. You’re still mine.
And this time, you knew he finally believed it too.
Summary: The Thunderbolts needed help with bringing Bob back to reality, so Bucky turned to one of his closest friend for help. Too bad that Yelena seems to absolutely hate your guts and despise the very idea of you breathing the same air in the same vicnicity as her because now you are all the Avengerz.
Word Count: 10k (oops i went overboard)
Warning: enemies to lovers, angst, panic attacks(yelena), eventual mention of smut(kept short n sweet), almost kissing, wounds, fighting yk the usual, miscommunication cuz thats lowk my fav trope n lotssss of yearning and almosts, also lowk bucky x reader but only for one single scene so
!THUNDERBOLTS SPOILERS AHEAD AS WELL AS BLACKWIDOW SPOILERS!
Continuation:Unrequited love
A/N: saw a post saying they needed an enemies to lovers slowburn yelena fic and i knew i just HAD to write this be i have been meaning to make a longer fic so i went overboard i am SO sorry but it just had to come out one way or anotheeTwT anyways REACHED 50 FOLLOWERS THANKYOU SO MUCH!!!! This means a lot to me you have no idea bc like damn 50 ppl like what i write thats crazy omgomg This took weeks to write so i hope it wont flop too bad, all likes comments and reblogs are more than apreciated!!iterally!!!you guys have no idea how much actually. Also, today is my birthday!!! Happy birthday to me this shall be my gift go you guys:))
Alright toodles:>
Masterlist
!English is not my native language!
If someone had told you a week ago that you'd be sharing a shaggy, run-down Uber car with the Thunderbolts, you'd have laughed, rolled your eyes, and gone back to your warm bed. But here you were—strapped in between John Walker and Ghost, watching the streets blur past the window, and pretending Yelena Belova wasn't glaring holes through your skull from across the damn runway of a car.
Bucky owed you. Big time.
When Bucky had barged in a few hours prior into your little apartment, you were lounging on your couch, half asleep, half awake, with a shirt that you barely managed to get on before you collapsed out of exhaustion, with a thin blanket on you which quite literally almost flew off because of his aggressive: “Get up right now!” followed with his harsh tug on your blanket. “What the actual fuck, Barnes?” —half of your sentence came out slurred because you were still somewhat in another world as Bucky kept spewing nonsense at you. Something regarding someone named Bob, John Walker, and some others you had never heard of, but what got your eyes opening was the mention of her name.
Yelena Belova.
It was no secret to anybody that knew the both of you that you absolutely hated each other. You couldn't pinpoint when exactly it happened, but at a certain point in time you noticed how rude she was to you—and only to you. Not to Bucky, not to whoever tried to kill her, and not even to the little kid that called her a boy and tried to throw his car toy at her head because he found her that scary. “If Yelena is involved, I don't think that Bob is going to be your biggest issue that needs fixing, Barnes. Go collect some other deeply traumatized hero to go play Avengers with.” “Yeah, no. You know that Sam won't talk to me anymore, and I don't know any others so... get the hell up. I will be downstairs. Red car. You got 2 minutes.” Didn't even let you open your mouth before he scurried downstairs to his supposedly red car. A troubled sigh left you as you ranked up the motivation to sit upright on your bed. Your head falling onto your hands as you rubbed your face to try and get yourself to wake up a little more. You hoped that whoever this Bob is wouldn't put up too much of a fight.
———
You stole a glance at her.
Your own mistake, really.
Her eyes locked with yours like she was mentally calculating exactly how many bones she could break before Bucky noticed. You gave her the world's most insincere smile, and she just shifted her eyes back to the window behind John with a dramatic sigh, like even acknowledging your existence was exhausting. Ghost nudged you with her elbow, smirking. "She's been glaring at you since we picked you up. What did you do to her?" "I don't know," you muttered. "Breathe too loudly, maybe?" “No, you breathing in general is pissing me off.” “You looking at me in general is pissing me off.” "Why are you even here? You couldn't even throw a ball back to a child that was in front of you. How exactly are you meant to help with Bob?" Each word of hers deepened her snarl. “That was one fucking time, Blondie.” “More than enough.” “Alright, you—” as you stood up to leap towards her, a taco-shaped shield was placed in front of you and you felt Bucky holding you back. “What the fuck is this?" your eyes were trained on the taco shield as you looked back at John. "What the fuck did you do?” "It was Bob..." your mouth hung open. “Bob? A Bob did this.” “Don’t act like you are any better than John. If it were you against Bob, you would have been that shield.” Yelena's deep accent cut through, and if it weren’t for Bucky pulling you to sit in front of him instead of her, you would have jumped her out of the damn car. “All right, that is enough of you two. I brought you here so that you can help, not make everything worse, and I don't want to hear another word from you or from Yelena until we arrive.” Bucky's eyes stayed trained on you during his whole little speech as you leaned back into your seat and tilted your head back. Your eyes closed out of pure fatigue, and before you knew it, you were already out.
_____
Fighting a Bob-shaped black void that was currently shadowing people left and right definitely wasn't on your fight-a-Bob to-do list. You were running around trying to prevent people from either being squashed by parts of buildings falling or being sent into the void by Bo—the Sentry?—no—the Void? You lost count of who Bob decided to be. Placing a little girl down onto the floor, your eyes snapped towards the group as you heard Alexei scream out Yelena's name. She was just a few feet away from you, standing directly in front of the void. “The hell are you doing?" you screamed out. You quickened your steps towards her as you saw her take a deep breath in before turning towards you with a cold but yet relaxed expression on her face. Furrowing your eyebrows in an unspoken question, you tried to reach her. Before you were able to drag her back by her arm, she let herself fall into the void, and your eyes widened. What the fuck just happened? You stumbled back away from the consuming void and from Yelena's shadow on the floor towards the group before turning to them to see Bucky and John pulling a wailing Alexei back. Just like before in the car, they all started arguing and panicking on what to do next, but your eyes were trained on the void. Blurring out their arguments, you slowly walked towards the consuming shadow and let it consume you as well.
—————
Flopping down on your crowded couch, you let out a loud groan as you pressed an ice pack onto your knee. Your head leaned on the back of the couch as you glanced at a very fidgety Bob next to you. “Have to give it to you, Bob. Extremely underestimated you. You practically handed our asses to us on a gold platter.” His eyes looked at you with such guilt, you almost pulled him into a hug. “No hard feelings,” you smiled at him. On the other side of you sat John and Alexei, and somewhere behind you, wandering around looking for something to eat, were Ava and Bucky. Yelena, although definitely in your apartment, was nowhere to be seen. Most likely in the bathroom.
After the whole fight with the Void, the group was too tired to wander back to their homes, so you just volunteered the idea that everybody crash at yours. It wasn't that far away from the crime scenes anyways, and it didn’t bother you all that much. Especially since Valentina is forcing you still to live in the New-Avengers-Old-Avengers watchtower that she has been rebuilding. As much as you hate her, you couldn't contain your excitement for the idea of living in such a huge space. Even if it was with these dorks and Yelena—God, your mind is all over the place and she still hasn't made an appearance. Your eyebrows furrow as you glance at the bathroom door. “Anybody know where Yelena is?”
Silence.
You looked over at John and Alexei, who were both out cold, and then at Bob, who just looked guilt-ridden toward the bathroom door. “She locked herself in the second we entered.” You stood up, and his eyes followed your movement. “Get some sleep, Bob. I know today was a lot for you—for all of us. I don’t even know where Ava and Bucky ran off to.” You softly smiled at him and turned toward the bathroom door as he settled down on the couch.
In front of it, you hesitated. What exactly were you even trying to do? Ever since she looked at you before entering the void, you couldn't shake a deep sense of guilt off of you. Although she looked at you with those same hate-filled eyes, you still saw it. She wasn’t sure what the void would do. She was ready to risk dying.
Your eyes locked onto the bathroom handle, and you slowly raised your hand to try and open the door. No luck—it only rattled. “Blondie? You in there?” Not a sound could be heard. You raised your fist to knock at the door. “Go away,” she muttered, accent thick with exhaustion and something else. “I am busy.” “Busy sulking?” “Busy not murdering you,” she corrected. “It’s self-care.” Although you usually would have sent her a sharp quip back, you still felt off. “You sure you’re good? Is—” “I told you I am fine. I do not need your sympathy.”
A beat of silence before you spoke up. “What was that today, Yelena?” By now your forehead was leaning against the door. The cold soothed your blaring headache. She didn’t answer, and instead you just heard a soft thud onto the floor. “Yelena?” Your only answer were soft mumbles and mutters from her that you could barely even hear. “Is everyth— Let me in, Yelena.” You cut yourself off after hearing multiple things fall to the floor. It sounded like she was hurling herself across the bathroom trying to get away. A loud sigh left you as you looked over to the group and realized they were all still deep asleep.
She wouldn’t talk to you, and you knew she wouldn’t let you in. “I’m just trying to help. You are not okay, Yelena. I saw the way you looked at him—at it. I mean—damn—you even had me worrying there and I don’t even—” You were cut off when your bathroom door rattled open slightly. The soft yellow light bled into the hallway in a small sliver.
Pushing the door further open, you saw her.
On the floor, still in her blood-soaked dirty suit, and even her face still had the dirt and rubble from the fight, and yet—yet she still raised her head to look at you with such a deep dislike in her eyes you wondered if maybe you were just conjuring all of this up because your mind was so overwhelmed today. Half-lidded blue eyes started to wander about anywhere but you, and her chest started heaving—that’s when you realized.
She was having a panic attack.
Her hand started rubbing over her heart, and the other one was grabbing onto your sink so hard her knuckles turned white. You quickly looked around to see if someone had awoken to the sound, but nobody did. You quickly pushed yourself into the bathroom and closed the door behind you to lock it before dropping down onto your knees in front of her.
Her head fell back onto the cold wall as her eyes closed, and she looked severely in pain—like something or someone was currently punching her over and over again. “Yelena? What’s going on?”
Your voice came out in such a soft manner that you even shocked yourself slightly. Your eyes wandered and flittered around her face as you took in her state. A coat of sweat started to form on her skin as her hair clung to her face. Her eyes snapped open and she looked at you and only you. “It hurts,” she breathed out. Her voice barely came out as a cry of a whisper, followed with a small sob.
You didn’t know what to do, but panicking about that would just make everything worse, so you focused on her. “What hurts? Do you need me to get anything? Maybe I should get Bob—hold on—”
As you went to stand up, you felt a heavy hand grab onto your wrist and you looked immediately at her. She shook her head but still avoided your eyes, but you knew what she was trying to tell you. Don’t leave me alone. An exasperated sigh left you as you crawled back to her level—now closer than you previously were. Your wrist still in her hand, and she had started to tighten her grip, seemingly looking for something to ground her. Slowly, your other hand raised toward her face but quickly stopped in the act when you saw her flinch away.
Hysterically, she started shaking her head again and muttered things in Russian that you couldn’t keep up with. Slowly, you started to piece together some words like “I’m sorry,” “please don’t hurt her,” and “Natasha.” You knew her sister’s death had greatly affected her—you just never assumed it was this bad to the point of her hallucinating. As she started trembling, her other free hand still rubbed away at her heart, but it started to look so painful you were sure the skin underneath was burning red. So you quickly grabbed her hand and held it still. “You are hurting yourself. That won’t help you. I need you to calm down, okay? Can you do that?”
Your words seemed to enter one ear and leave out the other as her eyebrows pinched together in pain. “Do you trust me?” you asked—not really expecting an answer—but to your surprise, you received a curt nod from her after a beat of silence.
Letting go of her hand and pulling away from her hold on you, your hand found the back of her head and you pulled her into you. Resting your chin on the top of her head, your free hand found comfort on her arm where your thumb rubbed softly at the suit-covered skin as if to soothe her—perhaps also a little yourself.
It took some time, but eventually she stopped shaking in your hold and instead clutched onto your shirt. You hadn’t stopped muttering soft words to help encourage her to calm down, and now she was so still you worried she might have cried herself to her own death.
You tried pulling away, but she only gripped onto your shirt tighter, so you only lowered your head. Hers was barely held up with eyes half-closed, lips red and swollen, littered with cuts and furrowed eyebrows. Her eyes fluttered between yours, and it took you a moment to realize just how close to her you were.
You could feel her ragged breath, noses so close they were brushing against each other, and still the light tremble in her hands. “Are you better now?” you whispered. “We need to get you out of your clothes and maybe into a bed—or the couch if John and Alexei haven’t taken the entire thing over.”
Still no answer, but it wasn’t like you had expected her to give you one. Not in her current state, at least.
Pulling out of her hold and leaving the bathroom turned out to be the most difficult task the entire day had given you. She had eventually pulled away from you - actually, she even pushed you away from her—but her untreated wounds seemed to have festered and worsened, as she could barely stand up. So you held her upright.
You helped her get to your room and laid her down onto your clean bed. You gave her some shirt you found lying around in your closet that you weren’t even entirely sure was yours, with some jeggings. Her wounds were treated by herself, but you didn’t leave the room when she did it. Not in your good conscience, you couldn’t.
She returned to her cold state she previously always sported around, and you knew what this meant—she would act like none of this had happened. And maybe a part of you had hoped for that as well, because at the end of the day, you hated her and she hated you—right?
Now you were both laying on your bed with you on your back and her on her side with her back facing you. Your head turned to her side as your eyes wandered over her silhouette before turning back to the ceiling.
You were just glad this hell of a day was finally coming to an end. As you closed your eyes, you could have sworn you heard a hoarse “Thank you” come from her side before everything faded to black.
—————
Over the span of the next few days, she went back to how she was before—cold, mean, and just plain petty. The only difference now was that she was crueler, and even though you knew you shouldn't say anything, you couldn’t help but confide in Bucky. Bucky, who was currently standing in front of you in a fighting stance, ready to knock you on your ass—all the while looking extremely confused. “So, wait. You hugged her?” “Held her just close to me.” “Hugged her. Helped her calm down after a panic attack, and she didn’t even let you leave afterwards—and now she’s ignoring you?” “Ignoring me would have been mercy. No. She’s just a plain bitch to me now. At least before she would shut up when she realized I’d had enough. Now it’s just jab after jab after jab.” You let out a sigh. “Punch your feelings out.” Your arms dropped, and you tilted your head to look at him with a "The fuck are you saying?" facial expression. “Come on. It helps. I promise. Do it as hard as you—”
You cut him off by moving toward him steadily, one jab to his side, the next to his shoulder which he blocked with his metal arm. He got a strong punch to your ribcage, and you stumbled back in faux pain. As he strutted closer to you to apologize, you quickly grabbed his arm and twisted it around to throw him on the floor. He caught your arm and pulled you down with him just underneath you, with you sat on his lap, both breathing heavily.
“You’ve gotten rusty, old man,” you let out with a smirk. “Haha. You’re just as out of breath as me. Don’t get cocky now.”
He pulled himself up with you still in his lap, one hand finding purchase on your side to stabilize you. His eyes locked on yours, and a beat of silence followed. Just now, you realized how close he was to you, much like Yelena was earlier this week—but this time, you didn’t feel the way she made you feel.
As you opened your mouth to say something, anything really, you heard a loud clap followed by a thick Russian accent screaming:
“Only real American heroes are able to fight and love! Bucky Barnes, you are phenomenal! America’s big hero, everybody!”
You rolled your eyes as you spotted not only Alexei but John and—worse of all—Yelena, who looked about six seconds away from murdering you. You tumbled off of Bucky, who still hadn’t stopped staring at you, paying no mind to the rest of the gang just behind him, arguing about what “professionals” should and shouldn’t do in their training room.
Taking off your hand bandages, you placed them down on the floor and quickly grabbed your towel, trekking out of the room and into the bathroom to shower… whatever that was off.
After your shower and after you retreated back to your own room, you laid down on your warm bed. Arm above your eyes, you were close to falling asleep before someone almost ripped the damn hinges off your door with how hard they were knocking.
“One fucking second,” you muttered as you forced yourself to get up.
Maybe it was Bob and he’d lost control again. Maybe Bucky finally caved in and stuck John's head into the trashcan and now can’t get him out. Or maybe…
Maybe it was just Yelena in front of you, looking extremely disheveled, like she had just woken up to the worst news of her entire life.
“Can I help you?” Your voice came out more hostile than you intended, but you really weren’t in the mood for her bullshit right now.
“I can’t fucking sleep,” she said, her accent thick with exhaustion. It was similar to how it sounded just a few days ago. She shoved her way into your room and sat down on your bed.
“Okay, so make yourself at home, I guess. You ignore me all week and now all of the sudden you can’t—” “Do you ever stop talking?” “No.”
A sigh left your parted lips. “Are you staying here tonight?”
She didn’t say anything, but you already understood her: Yes, I will. And I will sleep in your bed with you.
Laying yourself down on your side of the bed, you patted the empty space beside you. “Might as well get comfy.”
Slowly but surely, she made her way to lay down next to you. Your eyes trailed her profile, and it hurt how pretty she was. Slowly, she turned her head toward you, and once again, there was barely any space left between you two. Her eyes trailed down to your lips, where they stayed—laser focused.
“Lena?” Her eyes snapped up. They were wide and feral, like she was looking—hunting—for something inside of you that only she was aware of.
You closed your eyes and took a deep breath in. “Get some sleep. Or try to, at least. It’s late.” Caving in, your body relaxed and once again you were on the brink of falling asleep—but to her, it must have seemed like you were already dead to the world.
A warmth spread over your face as you slowly felt her hand cup your cheek. Thumb brushing over the apple of your cheek, your nose slope, and your cupid’s bow with feather-light touches that could almost be described as nonexistent. Almost.
You heard her mutter something in Russian before her hand fell, and you felt a deep sense of disappointment grow inside of you. Still, you didn’t open your eyes to look at her. Instead, you turned your back to her and fell asleep—because this, whatever this was, was entirely wrong.
She’s meant to hate you not come into your room at 2 a.m. just to touch and feel you exist beside her. Yet you crave this. You need this just as bad, if not worse than her.
By morning, you had assumed she was already gone, but when you opened your eyes, you were greeted by tousled platinum blonde hair all over your face. Blowing it away, your hand moved to push it all down and you felt her. Looking down, you could see how she had practically become one with you. Head heavy on your chest, one hand holding yours, the other cradling your cheek. Her breathing remained soft, unbothered, so your hand found the back of her neck and began to softly caress her. You couldn’t understand what any of this meant or what she was doing, but you weren’t going to tell her to stop.
No you wanted her to continue. And she did.
For two more weeks, on and off, she would come barging into your room and just lay there. Not one single word was uttered, but you knew—she had a nightmare, so she came to you for comfort. However, during the day, she was still the same cruel, heartless girl you had known for years. Most days, you assumed her coming over was a new form of sleep paralysis that you had developed, because she truly showed you no difference.
Although you may have not noticed any change, Bucky sure did.
He saw the longing glances she gave you when you looked away. Her furrowed eyebrows toward John when he took a quick jab at you for something she would have said much worse to. Or when Alexei went to wrap his arm around you, he saw her flinch—as if he had done it to her and not you.
He tried ignoring it, because at the end of the day, this was your life and your relationships—but when Alexei and John caught on, he knew it was just a matter of time before something excessive happened.
But for now, you were sent away on a solo mission that Valentina had conjured up as good press work. Normally, you would’ve complained and even yelled at her, but you just really needed a break from everybody back at the tower. Especially her.
The mission wasn’t supposed to be that hard: get in, destroy the lab, and get out. It was supposed to be empty—because that’s what that witch Valentina told you.
But obviously, it wasn’t.
No, right now a 6-foot-something man had you in a chokehold, while another man had taken all of your knives with him.
Wherever you were rendered your powers entirely useless—you assumed the walls were coated with something to stop superheroes from interfering.
Your nails dug into his arm and you felt a small puddle of blood forming underneath. Eyes feeling like they were about to pop out of your head, your hand reached to his face, digging your nails in before dragging them down to his eyes.
He let out a loud groan before pushing you off of him, and you fell to the floor, heaving.
Your hand went to your neck in an attempt to comfort yourself before you turned and saw him dragging his feet toward you. In front of you, about two feet away, lay your weapon but you couldn’t tell anymore if there were any bullets left. Your brain was too scrambled from the lack of oxygen.
So instead, you leapt forward and grabbed it. On your back, you aimed the gun toward his head as he started sprinting toward you, and shot him square between the eyes.
When you heard him fall with a loud thud to the floor, your head dropped onto the hard, blood-covered concrete beneath you.
Your head was spinning, something somewhere on your body burned, and you felt your own blood pooling beneath your clothes.
Still—you had to get up. The mission wasn’t done. You knew somewhere along the hallways were many more men. Your phone was discarded in your bag at the roof of the building, meant to be picked up after the mission, but dying seemed like a more likely possibility than ever seeing your stupid phone again.
“Damn you, Valentina. You fucking bitch,” you muttered as you lifted yourself up with shaky arms.
Your legs wobbled beneath you and you almost fell face-flat. Looking down at the gun in your hand—you had about three more bullets left. You hoped it was enough.
You tracked your way down the hall and set all the timers for the bombs. You were almost out of the door when it ripped open and about five or six way-too-muscular men came barging in.
More footsteps emerged from behind you, and by then, you had started to make peace with the fact that you were most likely going to die in less than two minutes.
A loud sigh escaped you as you leaned against the wall for support, eyes closed.
Before anyone could do anything, the windows shattered. You dropped to the floor to avoid the shards.
One by one, the men dropped.
With wide eyes, you looked outside the broken window and saw Bucky—just on top of the next building, rifle in hand.
Relief washed over you as your body collapsed in on itself and you fainted.
Before everything went black, you heard her. Screaming your name with such anxiety and worry you second-guessed whether it was real or not. Warm, shaky hands engulfed your face, her thumb stroking your cheek.
By the time your eyes opened again, you were half-blinded by harsh white lights.
Turning your head to the side, you realized you were in a hospital room. Outside your door, you heard chatter and murmurs. You caught Alexei’s pungent Russian accent and Bob’s nervous stuttering—which made you smile a little… before grimacing. Your entire body hurt. There wasn’t a single point that wasn’t burning or bruised. Looking around more, you saw flowers, gifts, food, and balloons that read: “Congrats! It’s a boy.”
You heard the door handle rattle, and soon enough, almost all of the team pushed through the door. Bob was the first to notice you had regained consciousness.
“Hey... Hey! Guys! Look!” he pointed frantically as they all fell silent, just staring at you. A small smile found your lips as you opened your mouth to speak—but nothing came out. Bucky quickly rushed out to call for a doctor while the rest surrounded you. All but her.
She was nowhere to be seen. And a deep sense of disappointment befell you.
Had she cared so little about you? You swore it was her holding your face as you bled out. Her whispering into your skin as you were driven to the hospital. Her holding your hand. Even in your half-dead state, you felt the pressure.
It was always her.
So why wasn’t she here now?
Before you could help yourself, your heart monitor began to speed up. “Whoa—hey, hey, are you good? Damn, where the hell is Bucky?” John asked, placing his hand on your arm to comfort you.
Soon enough, Bucky followed with the doctor. He checked your vitals, declaring them stable for now before quickly leaving the room, still glancing at the papers in his hands.
The team stayed a while until all cleared—but Bucky. He was left looking at you with extreme pity.
“What? What did I do?” “You want to know how she’s been doing?” You didn’t answer right away, instead opting to stare at the ceiling.
“Why does she hate me, Buck? I didn’t even do anything…”
The second part came out as a hurtful whisper as your eyes found his.
“I don’t think she hates you. Matter of fact, she was the one who felt something was wrong with your mission. Claimed you usually send a cat sticker in the group chat to announce you were done but you didn’t this time. So she demanded we check on you. When we found you, she was shaking. She wouldn’t talk to anybody for days after. Even when she went on missions, nobody knew or heard.”
“…So why isn’t she here now?”
“She always is. During the night, she would sneak out to sit with you.” His eyes dart to his watch on his wrist. “Should be about time actually. I should get going. Play nice with her. She has had it rough.” He stood up and made it to his door before stopping just before opening it. “I’m glad you are okay.” As reluctant as you were, you did want to believe him about Yelena, but it was just so hard and confusing with her. Before your thoughts could spiral any further, your hospital door opened again. Eyes snapping towards the door, you saw her in all of her glory—messy blonde hair with makeup smudged and many, many bruises littered all around her. She was breathing heavily.
“You are awake,” she muttered out in a thick, exhausted Russian accent. “Yeah, I guess so.”
She moved before you could blink; all of a sudden, her arms were around you, careful not to hurt you any more but just tight enough to let you know she was scared.
Your hand finds her head, and you brush her hair a little. Pulling away from you, her arms stayed near you.
“You are stupid. Dumb. An idiot.” You knew she meant to insult you yet you didn’t focus on that.
No, you focused on how red her eyes looked and how deep her eyebags ran, how her lips were turned into a frown, and how she was barely holding herself together. You didn’t say anything; you simply pulled her in by her forearm.
“Stop talking and just lay with me. You need rest more than me.”
With that, she laid herself down around you, mindful of all the bits and bobs attached to you. Her head, just like before, found purchase on your chest before you and her passed out in tandem.
It took you all of two weeks before you were finally allowed to return to the Avengers Tower. Yelena had been the first to come from the team to help bring your stuff back. Slowly but surely, you began recovering, and before you all knew it, you were all okay again.
The only problem was that none of them would let you on a mission. Not even Valentina her goddamn self.
When you asked Bucky, he told you that you needed more rest and going out on missions alone in your current state was unwise and possibly very dangerous. You tried going in teams with John or Ava, but again they simply brushed you off.
“I just don’t understand. I am fine, I have recovered—even my damn bruises are gone—why can’t I just be sent on another mission?” You voiced out your concern to Bob most days because, just like you, he would always stay back on missions, so you just grew to talk his ear off.
“I mean, they just want to be nice? They don’t want you to hurt yourself again. Give them some time—I am sure they will come around. Besides, being alone in the tower isn’t so bad? Is it?...”
The last part came out more as a question to himself than to you, but you let it be. Turning your head to look at him, you let out a small chuckle.
“I still don’t quite understand the whole thing with Yelena. One day she latches herself onto me, the next she looks like she would want to kill me, and every time I try to talk about it, nothing comes out of her. I am getting tired of her stupid game.”
“Maybe corner her?”
“Corner her? How?”
“Like in the bathroom all those weeks ago? Or something?” He seemed so unsure of what he was saying that for a second, you had to stifle a small laugh as a smile broke out on your face.
“Want food, Bob? I’m sure we still got something left?” He nods and you get up to get both of you some food. You should at least consider yourself happy that Bob would still be around—and not just you and the endless voices of despair and shame catching up to you.
In a few days, there would be a huge gala event that the entire team needed to attend, so your plan was to go there, meet with Valentina, and force her to give you a new mission—it shouldn’t be that hard anyway. You were sure that Bucky and the others have just been taking your missions for themselves before you get a chance to even see them without Valentina’s consent or knowledge.
Looking around the kitchen isle, you found little to no actual snacks for you and Bob. Some apples, some bananas.
Turning around to the cupboards, you purse your lips in thought. Where the hell did Alexei and John hide their sweets? You know very well they do—you just need to find where. Soon enough, you found Alexei’s stash on the top of the cupboards—damn tall super soldiers. Even on your tiptoes, you couldn’t reach the mile-high top, so you looked around for a chair to stand on.
Dragging one from the seating table, you quickly grabbed the first thing that came to hand, which were some salt and vinegar chips—you weren’t too sure if Bob would like them, but they had to do for now.
Placing the chair back to its place, you quickly walked back to Bob on the couch who looked immensely immersed in whatever rom-com he put on when you left.
Once on the couch, you ripped open the bag and held it open to him.
“Couldn’t find anything else. Hope you like what I served you.”
Bob simply smiled at you before pulling a few chips out of the bag. One hour into the movie and you heard the elevator door ding open. Tossing your head back to look at the couch, you smiled at them. They looked rough.
“You fight Thanos himself, or why do you guys look like hell in human form?” You fight back a grin as John stumbled over his feet and nearly took Alexei with him.
Your eyes quickly divert to Yelena, who quite arguably looked the worst out of all of them. Your eyebrows furrow in an unasked question. Are you okay? You knew the answer, but still. You don’t like seeing her like this—so weak—so empty?
You thought you made progress with her after the whole hospital situation, and even though she has severely eased up on the backtalk (although you weren’t too sure it was because you guys were becoming friends or if she just saw you as too weak to handle them currently), she still wasn’t the nicest to you considering what was happening at night with the both of you.
You even started to leave your bedroom door open when you went to sleep because you just knew she would come and wouldn’t want to possibly wake you by opening your creaking door.
You always tried to make everything easier for her, and you don’t even know why.
All you knew was that sometimes you would wake up in the middle of the night to find her next to you. You would stare, and you would whisper everything you wanted to tell her—how you felt about her, how you want her to feel about you, and more. You would trace the slope of her button nose and brush your finger to her lips just to have a small sense of what it could feel like—her lips on you. Not just on your own lips, but everywhere. You wanted to feel her everywhere, for her to be everything and it was starting to become harder and harder to ignore outside of the vulnerable moments you shared in your bed.
It wasn’t fair how she was able to laugh so freely with Ava, hug Bob so easily when he needed it, look at them with joy and love and not hate and shame. Were you that bad of an option? Did she find it embarrassing to go to Bob for help so she found you as a plan B because she knew you wouldn’t say anything?
God, everything about her just hurt. It hurt how badly you wanted her, and it hurt how obvious it was she would never want you.
Shaking your head rid of those thoughts, you stood up from your place at the couch next to Bob and bid him goodnight before disappearing into your room. Your eyes find your door handle. If she was that embarrassed to be around you, maybe you should just help her stop—maybe it would even help you to stop feeling for her.
So, you locked your bedroom door and made your way to bed. Too lazy to get up and do anything, you were out in just a few minutes and were only awoken by the soft rattle of your bedroom door.
At first, you had been scared maybe someone was trying to get in, but you quickly got to your senses and realized who it was.
Closing your eyes, you turned onto your side and tried to fall asleep again, only succeeding after the rattling of the door handle had finally stopped. A sigh of relief left you.
Maybe this was exactly what you needed. A break from her.
Days passed by and you stopped seeing her and ultimately stopped thinking about her—unless you count the fact that you still sleep on only one side of your bed because you still think she will come.
She won’t.
But she doesn’t seem any better off without you. Her eyebags lay heavy beneath her crystal green eyes that look so dull, so lifeless it scares you almost.
Now you were standing in your room preparing yourself for that gala that was in less than an hour. Your hair wasn’t done yet, and you also didn’t even want to think about doing it because then you might actively tear the entire tower apart from frustration.
Instead, you opted to simply wear your dress and finish applying your makeup for now.
You heard a rough knock on your door before you let out a, “It’s open!”
Turning your back to the door, you fumble through your makeup bag to look for that specific lipstick shade that you knew you had somewhere in here. Or was it in the bathroom?
“You look good.” Her thick accent makes you freeze mid-motion.
You turn to look at her—really look at her.
She has a blue dress on that fit the colour of her eyes so perfectly. That blonde hair of hers only adding to the effects of the dress and her makeup—simple but nonetheless there—and her lips. They looked so red—so full and plump.
You couldn’t stop staring.
“What do you want, Lena?” You couldn’t shake the nickname no matter how mad she made you.
At first she said nothing, simply opting to stare at you instead—top to bottom, where her eyes lingered on the curves of your body and of your neck. She stepped closer, but you were still all together confused on why she was even here and what she even wanted from you.
“Yelena?” You voiced out.
“Hm?” “What are you doing?” “You have been keeping me out. Why?” Her eyes flitted between yours.
Your heart raced and you were starting to sweat. Profusely so. A deep sigh escaped you as you tried to look at her in a stern way. “You ignore me all day, crawl to my bed at night and hold me—which, yes, I am awake when you do it because I can’t fucking sleep next to you without thinking about you. How does that work? I think about you and I miss you, yet you are laying right next to me knowing by morning you will act like I am a dead man walking. Yelena, it fucking hurts.”
By the end, you were a mere breath away from her. You felt her ragged breath, you saw every small micro-expression she was giving you, and it was ruthless how unbothered she seemed by all of this. Your shaky hands go to cradle her face, and in a small whisper you mutter out, “Why?”
Her eyes dropped down to your lips and they remained there—staring and awaiting. Pulling her in closer, your lips parted just above hers. Would it be so bad? To just go in? You felt them brushing slightly against yours as your eyes snapped up to hers, asking an unspoken question. Out of pure hesitation, you started to pull back, but it didn’t get very far before she pulled you back in by your arms. Her lips consumed yours, and all of your worries and all of your doubts flashed away, and it was only her in your mind. Pulling you with her, you stumbled at the foot of the bed and sat down on it, her between your legs now, holding onto your face as your hands dropped to her waist.
She hasn’t left your lips even for a small breath—
A loud knock pulled you out of your fantasy, and you found yourself back hunched over your makeup bag, lipstick in hand.
Had you been fucking hallucinating that?
Looking around and then back to the mirror, you realize you look normal—nothing out of place, no smudged makeup from her tight grip on your face or anything and you felt like ransacking your entire bedroom because of it.
You missed her badly, and even that small glint of her from her open bedroom door, getting ready with Ava in tow, was enough to send you over the edge and start imagining her. It was certainly not the first time you daydreamed—or dreamed in general—of her. During the nights when she laid next to you, you would often dream about how she would feel bare on you. Her lips trailing down a path of lust and neediness down on you.
How you would feel just wrapped all around her.
Your door opened, and you saw John standing there. His eyes did you a quick run-over before smirking at you.
“Don’t say anything weird, John. What do you want?” “Car’s out waiting, everybody else is done. Had to come get you—are you finished?”
Quickly grabbing your purse and stuffing your lipstick that you finally found in, you rush out behind John.
Once in the car, you sat opposite of Yelena, who was running her eyes up and down. Your eyes met hers, and how you wished you could read her mind in this moment.
Was she judging you? Or was she admiring you?
The car ride took a dreadful 20 minutes of Alexei screaming with John about how excited they are. Everybody else was dead silent save for a few chuckles here and there when Alexei did something stupid or someone threw a jab at John.
The Gala itself was beautifully ornamented. An orchestra to the sides playing soft background music, chatter all around, and most importantly a bar in which you could drink away Yelena—or at least try to.
After about two glasses and a handful of very annoying rich people coming to congratulate you on being a part of the new Avengers, you started to feel lightheaded.
Your eyes scanned the crowd and there you saw her. Bathed in the moonlight that shone through the big window behind her, peeking out from the velvet red curtains covering them.
It shone on her in a way that angels would shine should they step foot on earth.
Her eyes skitted to yours from across the hallway. You didn’t know how long you both stood there, watching each other. Could’ve been seconds, could’ve been forever. The music faded behind you like you were submerged underwater, the chatter turning into a dull hum in your ears. Nothing existed but her—Yelena, haloed in that goddamn moonlight like some kind of sick miracle sent to test you again.
She tilted her head just the slightest bit. You knew that look. You’d spent nights memorizing every tick of her face, every twitch of her brow, every small furrow that meant something more. This one said she was thinking too loud inside her head, same as you were. Maybe you were dreaming again. Maybe she was still a ghost haunting your bed when the lights went out.
But when she started walking toward you, slow and unsure like the floor might cave in with each step, you knew this wasn’t a dream. You knew because your heart started racing again. Loud. Relentless. Stupid.
She stopped just inches in front of you, eyes scanning your face like she was making sure you were real, too.
“You locked your door.”
You didn’t expect that to be the first thing she said, “Yeah,” you replied, voice quieter than you meant it to be. “I needed to make it stop.”
She looked down at her hands for a second. Then back up, those stormy blue eyes all cracked and tired and too honest. “I know,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
You blinked hard, trying not to lose it in the middle of some overpriced ballroom in front of the entire team. “Why are you here, Yelena?”
Her lips pressed together, and for a second you thought she’d walk away again.
“Because we were both invited to the Gala tonight?” She chuckled dryly.
Your hands trembled where they clutched at your now empty glass, torn between touching her and pushing her away.
“You can’t keep crawling into my bed if you’re not willing to stay in the morning, Yelena.”
“I know,” she whispered. “But you also need to know that i am scared.“
You didn’t trust her. Not completely. Not yet. But when she reached for your hand and your fingers slipped together like they belonged there—like maybe this was the one thing the world didn’t plan to ruin—you let her hold on.
The orchestra shifted into something softer, something gentler. She gave your hand the smallest squeeze.
“Dance with me?” she asked.
And even though your legs felt like they might give out and your chest was still tight with the weight of everything unsaid—you nodded.
You stepped onto the floor together, slow and unsure. Her arms wrapped around you, and yours found their way home to her waist. Neither of you really knew the steps, but it didn’t matter. For the first time in a long time, it didn’t matter. Because she was here. In the light. In your arms. Not just when the door was closed and the world asleep.
Warning: angst, mentions of Yelena's alcohol problem obv, a lilll fluff !!SPOILERS FOR THUNDERBOLTS!
Summary: You come home to Yelena drunk and bruised, both mentally and physically.
Word count: 1,409
A/N:just recently watched Thunderbolts and i just HAD to write for her! There are such few fics for her so this is my contribution:) This is based off of the scene where she falls into the void and sees herself drunk in the bathroom:p also i slmost have 50 followers?????? This is incredibly huge to me thank you so much!!!!!!!
Masterlist
!English is not my native language!
The second your key turned and the door creaked open, you got hit with a strong, pungent smell.
As you pushed the door further open, your eyes wandered around to see your apartment almost fully thrashed. Glass shards all over the floor, blood drops here and there, clothes discarded, and several—too many—empty alcohol bottles, including your more expensive ones you had originally saved for a special occasion you and Yelena could drink together.
Granted, you hadn’t been home in a week due to a mission, but you most certainly did not leave your home in this state.
“Yelena?” your voice came out far more hoarse than you initially intended it to be. You opened your bedroom door to find nobody. Your eyebrows furrowed as your steps started to speed up in search of Yelena. Had she come here after a nasty mission that Valentina gave her? Maybe you were too late and she was bleeding out somewhere? Maybe she’s d—you didn’t even have time to finish the thought before your eyes landed on Yelena sunken on the bathroom floor, leaning against your tub with an empty bottle in her hand.
Your eyes scanned her, and you noticed multiple bruises and cuts that were far too deep to be left uncared for. As you squatted in front of her, you tightly closed your eyes and ran a hand over your face. Maybe if you tried hard enough, you’d wake up from this horrific dream and enjoy coming back home to bask in the warmth of your safe, happy, and definitely-not-drunk girlfriend.
When she had picked up this habit, you had no idea. At some point, you started to return home to her drunk more and more, and every single time you tried to talk to her, she would either blatantly ignore you or start yelling at you in Russian. And although you didn’t understand the words, you could still tell they were extremely vulgar. You tried to help her—many, many times—but she just wouldn’t let you. What was the point of living together and being together if she wouldn’t even let you help her? For God’s sake, she wouldn’t even let you clean a cut on her finger the other fucking week.
When you two first got together, it was just after she had lost Natasha. She found refuge in you and your warmth. You held her during the nights, comforted her when she cried after a nightmare, or when something reminded her of her past. You did everything you could—and you still would—so where did it all go wrong? What had you done that made her spiral so quickly?
Your hand, still slightly shaking from the anxiety you previously felt, brushed a strand of hair off her forehead. Before you could pull back, her hand darted up and harshly grabbed your wrist. She tumbled herself over you with the bottle raised in her other hand, ready to strike down—
“Yelena…” you said, voice harsh and warning as your other hand darted up to stop the bottle from crashing down on you. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” your voice rose with every word.
Her mouth fell open, eyes skidding from one of yours to the other. She remained so still, you could’ve sworn the Statue of Liberty seemed more alive. Her hand holding the bottle dropped immediately to the ground, chucking it away from you as she scrambled off. Mid-motion, she tumbled over herself, grabbing her shoulder where you now saw blood seeping through what looked like a two-week-old hoodie that she definitely hadn’t washed.
A small groan escaped her as she threw her head to the side, avoiding your gaze completely. By then, you were leaning back on your elbows. Your eyes drifted to the ceiling and a deep exhale left your lungs. You stood up to grab the first aid kit. “Where are you going? Are you leaving alrea—I’m sorry, I didn’t—” “No, Yelena, I’m not leaving. I’m getting the damn first aid kit. You almost have a full Santa Claus outfit with how fast your blood is seeping through your clothes.”
After that, she once again fell fully silent.
You managed to drag her to your bed, which surprisingly remained fully intact—as if she’d never even laid a finger on it. You slowly helped her out of her dirty clothes and into clean pajamas before sitting behind her to tend to her shoulder injury. It looked nearly fully infected, and you let out a sharp exhale of disbelief.
“Yelena, what the hell have you been doing since I was gone? Did you even touch this wound at all with, like, anything?” Your tone was sharp, and although you didn’t mean to sound harsh, it came out that way regardless.
Silence. Nothing. You weren’t even sure if she was still awake. You let out a sigh and placed the gauze down. Your forehead dropped onto the back of her neck as your arms wrapped around her waist.
“Yelena? Please talk to me…” you whispered into her skin, peppering small kisses along her neck and back. She raised her head and turned to look at you—and now, up close, you could truly see her. The deep purple eye bags under her bloodshot eyes, the downturn of her lips into a trembling C-shape. She looked like she was about to break into a million pieces… or cry.
Your hand went to cradle the side of her face, your thumb gently wiping away the tears on her cheek. “I know, baby… I know,” you whispered, nodding with the words.
She moved to turn fully toward you, ignoring the stinging in her shoulder as she buried herself in your warmth. You felt her trembling beneath your fingertips even before your arms wrapped around her—one hand on her head, the other around her waist, mindful of her wounds. “I just… I can’t stop this feeling an—and I don’t know—I don’t know what to do.” She took sobbing breaths between each few words, but you understood her. You always did, and she knew that.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated into the skin of your neck, thick with her accent, slipping into Russian phrases your brain couldn’t translate.Your hand scratched gently at her scalp to calm her. You couldn’t say for sure if it helped, but you kept doing it anyway.
You had recently convinced her to cut her hair short, and although now wasn’t the moment, you absolutely loved it. You had made sure she knew how much when she came home after cutting it.
It took some time, but finally, she stopped trembling. She simply moved fully on top of you as you held her. Maybe if you held her tight enough, she’d be able to feel your love—feel your warmth in your heart—and take it for herself.
You let out a sigh near her head, opening your mouth to speak, but no words came. Frustrated, you nibbled at your lip and lowered your head to meet hers, placing a lingering kiss on her forehead. You began rocking the both of you side to side slightly to help her calm down. Then you felt her raising her head to look at you. Her bloodshot eyes met yours as you looked over her face—the tear-streaked cheeks, the overly red lips from crying and biting them, the runny red nose.
Your eyebrows furrowed. She was barely holding herself together.
You hated this. You hated seeing her so disheveled, so out of your reach even when she was right there in your arms.
“Yelena…” you whispered, gently running your thumb under her eyes to catch the tears.
Summary: You start to wonder if what you two had is truly salvagaeble.
Word count: 1.4k
Warnings: Arguments, tending injuries
A/N: The second part of Hold me, Please! Many people asked for another part so here it is. I hope you enjoyed it as much as you did Pt.1! And Thank you so much for all the support i loved all your messages!!:))))
!English is not my native Language!
It took some time before you had actually calmed down after your fight. You had stormed off to your apartment after the argument with Joaquin, crashed on the couch, and whined as your body screamed at you in excruciating pain to finally just shut down.
After five minutes of lying down, you were already out cold.
By the time you woke up, the sun was already out and birds had started to chirp. You looked around to find your phone, but it was discarded on the table near your door, and your body was just begging you to stay in one place—maybe you’d magically piece yourself back together. A deep sigh escaped you as you tilted your head back and—damn it. Damn you, Joaquin, and your stupid-ass hero complex.
You turned to look at your phone before grabbing the arm of the couch to pull yourself up. You let out a grunt as you stood up slowly. Once you were on your feet, the pain from yesterday came back tenfold. It felt like someone had run you over with a damn truck—and then reversed back over you. You exhaled through your nose and tried to take a few steps toward your phone. It took a pathetically long time to reach a phone that was only a few feet away, but at least you made it without collapsing. You tried to turn it on, but nothing happened. Battery must be dead. “Shit,” you muttered. How exhausted had you been after that fight?
You looked around your living room, trying to find a charger. It took a full ten minutes to find one and plug your phone in. Then you moved slowly toward the bathroom. Maybe a shower would help calm your body down a little. Besides, your bandages had been completely soaked through with blood, and you needed to change them.
You turned on the water and filled the tub with a decent temperature before stripping off your clothes and lying down in the water. By the time you finished your shower—which took over an hour because you simply couldn’t move any faster—the once-clear water had turned murky and bright red.
You put on a pair of panties and a baggy t-shirt you had most likely stolen from Joaquin’s closet. Sitting down on the toilet lid, you grabbed your first aid kit and pulled your shirt up. Since the mission, your hand hadn’t stopped shaking uncontrollably, and it was starting to annoy you—you couldn’t even hold your phone without nearly dropping it. So maybe pulling a needle near your skin wasn’t your wisest choice. But did you have any other?
Quite frankly, no. And you definitely weren’t calling Joaquin to come do it for you. You bit down on your shirt to hold it up. One hand pulled your skin taut while the other—slightly more stable—held the needle. You inhaled deeply before attempting to pierce your skin. But the needle fell out of your hand and onto the bathroom floor because of an abrupt phone call you seemed to be getting.
You looked over to your phone on the sink and saw that it was Sam. You leaned over and grabbed it.
“You planning on sending me on another mission, Wilson?” your tone came out far more annoyed than you intended.
“Can you come home?” a voice far different from Sam’s replied, and you immediately recognized it as Joaquin’s.
“Baby, please, I am so, so—” You didn’t let him finish. You hung up and placed your now-muted phone face down on the sink to avoid seeing any more calls. You picked the needle back up from the floor before tossing it into the trash behind you and reaching for a new one from the first aid kit. You let out a deep sigh and quickly realized this entire attempt was pointless. You slapped a bandage on your skin before standing up.
You really needed something to eat.
An hour—maybe two—later, you finally managed to make yourself a small meal. Just as you sat down, your doorbell rang.
“Motherfucking bastard,” you cursed, making your way to the door. It rang two or three more times.
“Give me a fucking second!”
You opened the door only to see Joaquin standing in front of you, heavily out of breath, hair tousled, clothes disheveled.
“Listen to me, please,” he pleaded. As you went to close the door, he stuck his foot between the gap and let himself in. You rolled your eyes and gestured for him to close the door behind him.
“Okay then. Let’s hear it, Joaquin. What’s the master excuse and apology you came up with?”
“Baby, baby please. I’m sorry. I know it was too much, and of course you didn’t plan this at all, and I’m just—I don’t—listen, I can’t even—”
He kept stumbling over his sentences, the more he realized none of it was registering in your mind.
You blinked, and suddenly he was in front of you, squatting down slowly to be at eye level. The table with your food was behind him, most likely digging into his back. That couldn’t be comfortable, especially since you knew he had a wound there from his own mission.
You sighed as he kept babbling, then grabbed his hand and pulled him onto the couch next to you. Yes, you were mad at him, but that didn’t mean you wanted him in more pain. You felt one of his hands cradle the side of your face, pushing your hair back before weaving into it. You turned to look at him.
“I am so sorry. I never wanted to yell at you. I don’t even know why I said what I did—I don’t even remember. It’s just… you were there. I held you in the morning. I kissed you. You were warm and so happy and so just… you. And the next second, there was blood everywhere and you were— you were so cold.” His voice broke toward the end, coming out as a whisper. You saw how hard he was trying to hold himself together.
“Oh… baby,” you mumbled as you threw yourself into his arms. He immediately hugged you back—one arm tight around your waist, the other at the back of your head. His face was buried in the crook of your neck as he whispered “I’m sorry” into your skin over and over.
Your feelings, just like his, were all over the place. You didn’t know whether to still be mad at him or feel empathy because, at the end of the day, you felt that same grief and fear when Sam had called you from the hospital to say Joaquin was there. Your shaky hand cradled his face as you pulled slightly away from him. You let out a sigh before placing a longing kiss on his lips. Neither of you pulled away until you started to feel suffocated. Even then, he chased after your lips, kissing you again and again until you had to place your hand on his mouth to stop him.
“I can’t breathe anymore, Joaquin,” you said, slightly out of breath.
He pressed his forehead to yours.
“Can you forgive me? I’m so sorry. I’ll never say anything like that ever again, *mi amor.* I promise.”
“I’m still mad at you, Joaquin. And I need you to know that what you said hurt me—it wasn’t fair to me at all. Do you understand?”
He said nothing, only nodded against your forehead.
Summary: Jason comes home from a mission with an injury that he hides from you.
Warning: blood, gore, injuries, nudity but non-sexual(showering together), spicy kiss
Word count: 1k
A/N: im in the process of the second part of Hold me, please:)) Thank you for the 20 followers this is huge to me!! I will open comms after some time as a Thank you!💗💗
My mother language is not english so please be aware!
You are sitting on your couch watching some TV show that you had accidentally clicked on and got way too engrossed in the storyline when you hear a rattling sound coming from the bedroom.
You lean over the back of the couch, eyes narrowing as you peek through the open bedroom door. Lo and behold, on the floor, you see Red Hood with his mask off next to his head as he breathes heavily. Your eyebrows furrow as you realize he is not getting up any time soon, and you slowly stand up. You put your snacks down carefully on the table in front of you so as not to startle Jason. He seems vaguely unaware that you are here. In front of the bedroom, you knock softly before pushing the door open. Jason's head snaps toward you, and you notice how wild his eyes are.
"Everything okay, love?" you softly ask as you crouch down next to him, your hand slowly cradling his cheek as if to test the waters before your thumb runs over the prominent J scar on it. He lets out a sigh that he seems to have been holding back before moving to lean into your hand.
"’M fine, baby. Patrol was a little much, but it’s all good."
"Are you sure? Get up, love, let me check on you to make sure." You move to lay one hand beneath his head to help him up, but he refuses to get up. "No, baby, you don’t need to. I’m just tired. I think I just need a shower. Can you please make me one?"
He places a kiss on your soft lips before he pulls himself up. You let out a heavy sigh before you move to the bathroom to turn on the shower to a decent temperature, adding bath salts to help him scrub off all the dirt better. You hear the door behind you open and you turn to him. His suit is still on, and you furrow your brows.
"Why haven’t you taken anything off? Hold on, let me—" You move to pull his shirt up, but he grasps your hands to stop you.
"Baby, I just need a second, yeah? Just a quick shower." He moves past you to put his hand in the water to test the temperature.
"Oh, okay. I’ll be outside making you some food. I’m sure you are hungry." You leave as you realize you will not be getting any answer, and he was waiting on you to leave. A mere ten minutes later, you hear a strong thud vibrating the pan in your hand that you hastily place back down. You quickly rush out toward the bathroom and try to open the door, only to realize it was locked. You knock harshly on the door.
…
"Jason? Jason, are you okay? Open the door!"
The door rattles with the strength you pull the doorknob with, but before you can tear the entire door off its hinges, it opens with a squeak. You burst inside and see Jason on the floor with his hand clutching his thigh. There is blood slightly seeping through the cracks of his fingers, and you inhale a sharp breath.
"Jason, I told you to let me check on you! What exactly was your fucking plan here? Man it out? Maybe some unicorn will come and magically make your wound disappear before I—"
"Can you just please get the first aid kit? My fucking leg hurts, baby," he interrupts you. get up without another word and scramble to find the first aid kit. In the moment, you hadn’t even truly realized that Jason was fully naked, staring at you with wide, bare eyes. You lower to sit on the edge of the tub as you help raise his knee up slightly. It took you a good 30 minutes of cleaning all the oozed blood from his skin to then stitch the deep gash closed. After you were done, you again went over the wound with some disinfectant that Jason had stolen from the hospital. He had brought it with him since there was no alcohol in it and it wouldn’t add any unnecessary pain to his already deep wounds. You put everything back into the box or the garbage can if it can't be used anymore, leave a quick kiss on his forehead before standing up to leave the bathroom.
However, before you can even take one step out, a large and warm hand grasps onto your wrist and pulls you backwards with no strong force behind it so as to not have you fall.
"Can you stay, baby? Can you shower me? I can’t move, my leg’s fuckin’ killing me," he says, placing a kiss on your wrist and trailing up your arm.
You let out a sigh and pull your hand away as you take your shirt off, followed by your pants and underwear. You step one foot into the tub and then soak the rest of your body into it. The tub on its own was vaguely huge, but Jason has become the size of two gym-obsessed men fused together, and you with him just makes it seem like a container surrounded by only him.
You turn to grab the faucet and the shampoo bottle, which you pour on his head. One hand massages the shampoo into his hair, the other one rinses it out with the water. Your hand carefully runs down his damp skin as you clean off any dirt and blood that may have caked on his body from the mission. You let out a sigh as your hand cradles his face and he leans into it. You lean in to give him a quick kiss, but he follows you, deepening it into something raw and lingering.
“I love you,” he murmurs into the space between your lips.
Pairing: Joaquin x semi!avenger!reader (not really an avenger but reader does fight and is in a fight scene here)
Warnings: a looooooot of angst, brief fight scenes, some fluff, at the begining, open ending (bc i might make a part 2 if someone is interested), brutal injuries, gore, and also reader is not doing well mentally with Joaquins last mission
Word count: 2k
Summary: You get hurt on a mission that was supposed to be Joaquin‘s. Arguments start, words are said that cannot be taken back. What ever to do now?
A/N: I think my next few posts will be joaquin based but i will def throw in some jason todd fics! Also thank you so much for all the love Forget me Not got! All likes, reblogs and comments are highly appreciated and i have seen all!:)) As a thank you have a waaaaayyy longer Joaquin Fanfic. I hope you enjoy it<3
Pt.2
You feel him long before you see him.
A small smile grows onto your face as his goatee scratches and tickles your neck while he places kisses along your jaw. You had forced Joaquin a few weeks ago to let his beard grow in because you found him more attractive with it, and although he was reluctant at first—because he didn’t want Sam making fun of him—he very quickly learned that it indeed made you way more attracted to him. You open your eyes and turn around in his arms so that your face is pressed against his chest, one of your hands cradling the back of his neck.
"You smell really good, Joaquin," you murmur, placing a kiss on his Adam’s apple. You feel him shudder around you. “I was wearing that new cologne you got me yesterday,” he replies, his voice still thick with sleep. “Seems like it stuck.“
A low hum leaves you as you feel yourself slipping back into sleep.
"No, baby. We need to get up. It's late, and I gotta go meet Sam and Bucky." "Do you have a new mission? You just got out of the hospital, Joaquin. I don’t want you out there for at least two more weeks.". You sit up in bed, your back meeting the headboard. Joaquin leans on his side, propping himself up with one hand as he looks up at you with a goofy, shit-eating grin, chuckling.
"No, not a mission. Just a quick debrief of their last mission, and they wanted me to surveil an attack. I won’t engage at all, and I will be far, far, far away from any danger. I promise.". Every "far" is followed by a soft kiss on your chest, just above your heart.
You let out a sharp sigh and look away. Ever since his brush with death, you’ve been anxious, doting on him, taking care of him—you don’t want him out there anymore. You knew who he was, and you knew all the dangers that came with his job. You yourself would help them out here and there on their missions, but you would never call yourself an Avenger, a hero, or anything of the sort. And you certainly had never experienced such grave injuries before.
They had to restart his heart. He was gone. His heart—the one that holds so much love and so much joy—had stopped, and—
"Stop that." "I'm not doing anything." "You’re thinking too much about this. I won’t be near any danger, and after this, I won’t be asked to do anything for a month." He pulls himself from under the covers and makes his way to the bathroom, leaving you no room to start an argument.
As you stand up to get yourself something to eat, your phone begins to ring. It’s Sam. You pick up on the third ring.
"Hey, Sam." "Where are you? Is Joaquin with you?" You furrow your brows in worry at his tone. "No, he's in the bathroom. It's just me. What happened, Sam?" "We need you for a mission, but Joaquin can’t know." "Is it the mission that he’s surveilling? How exactly do you want him not to know, Sam?" "It’s a ruse." "A ruse? Am I your jack-in-the-box? Sam, just because Joaquin is on a break doesn’t mean you can go searching for others to just throw themselves headfirst into—" "I’m not asking."
"…Excuse me?"
"It is either you or Joaquin. And I wouldn’t have asked if this wasn’t absolutely necessary. Figure it out." Before you can even formulate a sentence in your head, he has already hung up.
A minute later, you receive a text from Sam—coordinates, most likely where the mission is supposed to take place.
You exhale deeply through your nose before moving to the kitchen. Breakfast is bland, unsatisfying. A little while later, Joaquin steps out of the shower, fresh and clean, already dressed. He grabs some fruit, kisses the top of your head, and bids you goodbye.
For a few minutes after Joaquin‘s departure, you stare at the kitchen wall. No sound, no movement, just the weight of your own heavy breathing. The more you think about Sam and his mission, the more you feel yourself stress. Your left ear starts ringing heavily as your head starta to sway. The harsh ringing of your phone yanks you out, and you quickly pick it up.
"I’ll be there in ten, Sam."
"Does Joaquin know? He just arrived and seems a bit skittish."
"No, I didn’t tell him anything, Sam. Can you keep an eye on him? At least until I’m in?"
"You got it. And thank you, for doing this."
———
It was supposed to be quick.
In and out. Grab the damn papers, throw anybody down who tried to get them, and get out before you get caught. And don’t kill anybody. That was what Sam and Bucky had told you.
Sam had even given you a headset to stay connected to Bucky as he stayed behind with Joaquin to surveil you and keep him off the radar. About five minutes in, your headset was crushed when one of the workers in the facility tried to bash your head into the wall. Small shards and sharp pieces of the headset pierced the side of your head, leaving behind a deep cut just beneath your eye. Your ear was ringing again, and you could practically feel Sam start to panic.
It took you two elongated hours before you finally saw the front door cleared. You had been stabbed in your abdomen, and your hand—although pierced to bits as well—pressed onto your wound as best as you could. The other hand grasped the papers tightly in case anybody tried to rip them out again.
But as you made your way to the door, your legs gave out from just beneath you and— Damn it.
Everything went black.
Damn Sam and this stupid superhero bullshit.
…
You hear frantic voices, someone yelling for help. Two warm hands cradle your face, thumbs rubbing slow, soothing circles against your cheeks. "Mi cielo my sky, don’t do this here. Please, please, please. I’m sorry. I know it hurts. Baby, don’t you love me? You can’t leave me alone, please, baby."
That was all you had gotten before your body blacked out again.
---
The next time your body wakes again, your eyes open first. A bright, strong white light almost blinds you with its intensity, and it does nothing to help the blaring headache pounding away at your skull. As you move your head to the side, you spot Joaquin. He looks tired—eyebags under his eyes more prominent, his beard unkempt and grown thicker than the last time you saw him. His hand holds tightly onto yours. You try to speak, to move, to give him any sign that you’re awake, but you’re far too exhausted. Instead, you just hope he realizes it on his own.
The door swings open, and Sam and Bucky enter. Sam holds a large bouquet of flowers in his hands, while Bucky—who doesn’t look much better than you imagine you do—just stands idly by.
"How ya doin’, kid?" Sam places the flowers on the nightstand next to your bed. You let out a sigh and open your mouth to try and speak, but before you get the chance, Joaquin already startled awake.
"How long has she been awake? Why didn’t you wake me? Do you need the doctor? Hold on, let me—". He moves to press the call button, but Sam is quicker.
No one says anything after that. Joaquin simply sits to the side as the doctor checks on you, glaring between you and Sam. You already know—once the doctor, Sam, and Bucky leave—you’re in for a long argument. And it's ironic, considering you had just been in his position less than a week ago. It takes an excruciating hour before Sam and Bucky finally decide to leave.
All the while, Joaquin hasn’t muttered a single word. Sam apologizes, and Bucky tries to start a conversation, but he doesn’t get far once he realizes that nobody is responding to him.
In all honesty, you don’t want them to leave. You don’t want to start an argument with Joaquin when your body is still half-alive, still clawing its way out of the grasp of death. However, much to your surprise, five minutes after Sam and Bucky leave, Joaquin stands up as well.
"Where are you going?" Your voice comes out dull and scratchy from disuse.
"I’m going home. I’ll come back tomorrow."
"Joaquin—". He leaves.
You exhale a deep sigh, turning your head to stare at the wall beside you.
——
It takes you two weeks to be cleared to return home. And in those fourteen days, Joaquin comes to visit you only four times—each visit shorter than the last. You try to talk to him, try to get him to explain why he’s this upset when he himself does this nearly every day, but the only responses you get are a sigh, a roll of his eyes, or a very short, "I have to go." You quickly learn to leave it be. When the time comes, he does come to pick you up, driving you both home in complete silence.
The second you step through your front door, his entire demeanor shifts.
"Was this what you wanted from the start?" His voice is sharp and rough as he whips around to face you. His narrowed eyes glare at you with a pointed stare, his breath coming out heavy.
"What? Joaquin, what are you—"
"Did you want this to happen? Go on a mission, get yourself hurt, just to teach me a lesson? I just got out of the fucking hospital, and not even a week later, you’re in there. Are you out of your mind? Taking on a mission like that all on your own? No backup, nothing, and I wasn’t even informed that you were there! You all lied to me. You can’t even fucking fight. You’re not even a fucking Avenger. What the fuck is wrong with you?", his voice grows significantly louder with every word that tumbles out of his mouth, but all you can focus on is the last sentence.
What.
The.
Fuck.
Is.
Wrong.
With.
You?
"Are you out of your fucking mind, Joaquin? I took care of you for four fucking weeks—day in and day out! I got you food, I got you everything you wanted, and this is what I fucking get? I took the fucking mission so you wouldn’t have gotten hurt again, and you can’t even look at me. Are you fucking kidding me?"
"No, you don’t get to—".
You don’t let him finish.
You turn around, storming toward the door, and slam it shut behind you.
