⌗ OOO ──── ⵓ THUNDERBOLTS* HEADCANONS
╰⪼ what it feels like to be loved by a thunderbolt
(a partner headcanon, gn!reader)
— ❝characters;; bob reynolds, yelena belova, bucky barnes, tony masters (comic!taskmaster version), antonia dreykov (mcu!taskmaster version), john walker, ava starr, alexei shostakov❞
(you love a man who flinches at door creaks and forgets his own name some nights)
⋆｡°✩ 𝑩𝒐𝒃 𝑹𝒆𝒚𝒏𝒐𝒍𝒅𝒔 ✩°｡⋆
Loving Bob is learning to decipher the silences. He won't always tell you when the voices are too loud or when the walls breathe too close, but you'll know. You always do. You learn to read the way his fingers twitch, the way he pulls his sleeves over his hands like armor.
His humor is dry, weird, and mistimed—but it’s always for you. He cracks awkward one-liners in the middle of making the bed or while brushing his teeth, and they always make you laugh, not because they’re funny, but because they’re his.
He doesn’t believe he deserves you. He asks if you’re sure—so many times it becomes a lullaby between kisses. You kiss the question away each time. You say yes like it’s scripture.
On the days the meth memories pull him down into shaking, glass-eyed quiet, you sit beside him in stillness. No fixing. Just presence. He says your touch is the only thing that doesn't burn.
He says “thank you” too much, like love is a kindness extended rather than something he has the right to hold. You hold his face between your hands and say his name like a vow. You say it over and over. Until he believes he’s real.
⋆｡°✩ 𝒀𝒆𝒍𝒆𝒏𝒂 𝑩𝒆𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒂 ✩°｡⋆
(she loves like a knife under a pillow: protective, hidden, and always close)
Being with Yelena is being constantly teased, constantly protected, constantly held at arm’s length—and yet, somehow, always in her heart. She calls you ridiculous names and makes fun of your walk, but she'll kill anyone who makes you cry.
She pretends not to like cuddling but always ends up tangled around you like ivy, legs and arms everywhere, face pressed to your back like it anchors her to the world.
She teaches you how to throw a knife "just in case." You never get it quite right, and she rolls her eyes dramatically before adjusting your fingers with a softness she thinks you don’t notice.
You patch her up after missions. She pretends she’s fine, but lets you wipe the blood anyway. She doesn’t flinch anymore when your fingers brush her ribs.
She tells you she loves you in moments where death feels close. In the silence before a breach. In the back of a moving car. She says it like a warning. You say it back like a promise.
⋆｡°✩ 𝑩𝒖𝒄𝒌𝒚 𝑩𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒆𝒔 ✩°｡⋆
(he calls you sunshine, even when the clouds live behind your teeth)
With Bucky, love is slow-burning, like the first thaw after a cruel winter. He doesn’t trust easily—but you are different. You are gentle. He forgets how to flinch when you're near.
He listens. Really listens. Like you're saying something holy. Like your words stitch something back together inside him.
When he sleeps, he clings. And you let him. The vibranium arm is colder than the rest of him, but it cradles you with such care you almost forget what it’s made for.
He doesn’t always have the words, so he brings you coffee just the way you like it. Fixes the broken hinge on your drawer. Learns your favorite song on an old guitar he won’t admit he can play.
Some nights, the nightmares are too much. He wakes up screaming. You wipe the sweat from his temples and remind him: he is not what they made. He is yours.
⋆｡°✩ 𝑻𝒐𝒏𝒚 𝑴𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒔 ✩°｡⋆
(you fell for the man who remembers everything but how to be loved)
Tony’s love is jagged-edged. He's not romantic, not traditionally gentle. But he watches. Learns. Adapts. He notices the smallest things—how you like your toast, how you furrow your brow when reading—and stores it like data worth killing for.
He hates sleeping. Memories swarm too fast. But with you? He sleeps. Not deeply, not always well—but you in his bed means fewer knives under the pillow.
He's protective in a feral kind of way. The minute someone wrongs you, he doesn’t threaten them—he studies them. Tracks them. They disappear from your life. He never confesses how or why.
You make him laugh. A real laugh. The kind that surprises both of you. You tease him for it and he grumbles, but the corners of his mouth twitch when he thinks you’re not looking.
He has trouble saying "I love you," but he’ll spar with you for hours just to feel your skin against his, just to hear your breath. It’s the closest thing to prayer he knows.
⋆｡°✩ 𝑨𝒏𝒕𝒐𝒏𝒊𝒂 𝑫𝒓𝒆𝒚𝒌𝒐𝒗 ✩°｡⋆
(she speaks in silence; you learn her language in patience)
Loving Antonia is like tending a wild animal that’s forgotten what soft hands feel like. She watches you like a mirror she doesn’t trust. But over time, you see it: the way her shoulders drop when you enter a room. The way she breathes easier when your hand brushes hers.
She rarely speaks, but when she does—low and quiet and spare—it’s only to you. She says your name like it’s the only one she remembers from the wreckage of her life.
She touches like she’s still learning how. Gloved fingers brushing your cheek. A thumb smoothing your collarbone. She doesn’t know how to hold you like a lover, so she holds you like a mission—steady, thorough, unwavering.
You patch up her armor with duct tape and affection. She lets you. She sits between your knees on the floor as you adjust the plates on her back, and when your fingers linger too long, she leans into them.
She doesn’t dream. Or if she does, they’re not kind. But she’ll rest her head on your lap and listen to your voice—reading, humming, rambling. You speak her to sleep. She tells you it’s the only place her mind stays quiet.
⋆｡°✩ 𝑱𝒐𝒉𝒏 𝑾𝒂𝒍𝒌𝒆𝒓 ✩°｡⋆
(loving him is like loving a storm that doesn’t know where to go)
Being with John is like being loved by a man still trying to prove he deserves breath. He says sorry more than necessary. He says "I’ve got this" when he absolutely does not.
He protects you with the desperation of a man who’s failed before. Even a paper cut on your finger makes him flinch. He’s not used to soft things surviving near him.
He tries too hard. Too many gifts, too many apologies. But it’s not performative—it’s panic. He’s never been someone’s favorite before. He doesn’t know what to do with the fact that he’s yours.
You hold his face when the guilt gets too loud. You press your forehead to his and remind him: he's not Captain America anymore. He’s just John. And that’s enough.
His laugh is rough and rare, but when you make him laugh, really laugh, it’s like the sun finally cracked through the storm. You chase that sound every day.
⋆｡°✩ 𝑨𝒗𝒂 𝑺𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒓 ✩°｡⋆
(you don’t tame her, you just hold space for her to rest)
Ava loves in flashes. She doesn’t mean to disappear, but she does. Sometimes for hours. Sometimes for days. She always comes back, eyes glassy, hands shaking. You don’t ask questions. You just open your arms.
She doesn’t like to be touched when she’s vibrating out of her skin, but she’ll let you hover—fingers barely grazing hers, your breath a tether. She says it helps. You believe her.
She doesn’t do romance traditionally, but you once caught her fixing the hem of your coat when she thought you were asleep. She’d die before admitting it.
You once asked her if she loved you. She said, “I don’t know what that word means anymore. But I’d tear the world apart for you.” You take that as your answer.
She’s not good with soft. But she tries. She reads the books you leave out. Listens to your favorite song on repeat. Brings you stolen coffee because she can’t stand in line that long without phasing through the floor. It’s love. In her language.
⋆｡°✩ 𝑨𝒍𝒆𝒙𝒆𝒊 𝑺𝒉𝒐𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒌𝒐𝒗 ✩°｡⋆
(he’s loud, embarrassing, and you’ve never felt safer in your life)
Loving Alexei means enduring endless stories of glory days that may or may not have happened, while he flexes in the mirror and asks if you think he’s still got it (he does. you tell him. constantly. he preens).
He cooks badly but with great enthusiasm. He brings you meals that are half-burnt and proudly proclaims them as “just like motherland.” You pretend to gag. He kisses your forehead with a big greasy hand.
He’s a bear of a man with the emotional vulnerability of a drunk poet. He cries at dog commercials and once cried harder when you called him “home.”
He writes you letters. Actual pen-to-paper letters. The handwriting is atrocious and they always end with “your red guardian forever,” followed by increasingly dramatic signatures.
He is loyal in a way that is terrifying. Someone looks at you wrong? He’s already standing up. Someone hurts you? He’s planning a funeral. You’re the most precious thing he’s ever been trusted with—and he’s never letting go.