does like the idea of pregnancy genuinely terrify anyone else? Like maybe it’s just me but like the idea of literally having a human in me is kinda terrifying and gross and whenever I see those x reader fanfics with breeding kinks or like pregnancy tropes i genuinely feel like throwing up. Like does anyone else feel this way or is it me cuz I feel like I’m just immature for finding it disgusting ☹️🔫💔🥀. NO OFFENCE to the writers and ppl that read that bc I know pregnancy and stuff is some beautiful thing and like if ur into that shit that’s cool.
x fem reader ୨୧ ִ ࣪ ⋆ dean winchester taking the strap like a good boy
character featured. dean winchester.ᐟ + sub.ᐟ dean
rating: mature.ᐟ
The smirk, the swagger, the leather jacket, the “I’m fine” that means absolutely nothing. He’s spent his whole life being the strong one, the protector, the one who takes care of everyone else. So when you take charge? When you put him down?
He short-circuits. Immediately.
requesting rules. masterlist.
Dean doesn’t do vulnerable. Dean does jokes and deflection and sex as a weapon. But with you.. the second you say “tonight, you’re going to let me fuck you,” his whole facade cracks. He laughs first. Nervous. A little too loud. “Yeah, right. That’s funny.”
Then he sees your face. Sees that you’re not joking.
His throat works. Adam’s apple bobbing. His hands find his own thighs, gripping hard. “You- wait. For real?”
You don’t answer. You just start unbuckling his belt.
And Dean lets you. That’s the thing. He could stop this. He’s stronger than you. But he doesn’t. His hips lift off the bed so you can pull his jeans down. His arms go over his head without being told. He’s already panting.
“This is so fucked up..” he whispers, but he’s half-hard. “You’re gonna make me into a- a bitch or sumthin'...”
“That's kind of the plan.” you say. “Now shut up and turn over.”
He does. God, he does. Dean Winchester, on his hands and knees, ass in the air, face burning red. He can’t look at you. He buries his forehead in his crossed arms and mumbles, “I hate you. I hate this.”
But his hips are already rocking. Small, involuntary circles. Seeking.
“sure you do, Deanie.”
When you grab his hips hard enough to leave fingerprints, he groans. Deep. Guttural. “Fuck. Yeah. Hold m'down. Don’ let me move. I’ll be bad. I’ll be so fucking bad. You have to make me.”
He talks constantly. Dean cannot shut up when he’s turned inside out like this. Sam whines and begs and cries. Dean runs his mouth like a fucking porn star, and it’s the hottest, stupidest thing you’ve ever heard.
You lube him up—two fingers, then three—and he chokes on a groan. His hips push back onto your fingers like a starving thing. “More. More, more, more. Give me another. I can take four. I want four. Stretch me open. Make me a mess.”
He’s dripping precum onto the sheets in thick, sticky strings. He reaches back with one hand and tries to help you finger himself. You slap his hand away.
He whines. Dean Winchester whines. “fuuuuckkk, jus' gimme anotherrrr.”
When you finally line up the toy he pushes back onto it before you can even thrust. Impales himself in one desperate, reckless movement.
“Oh fuck-”
His voice cracks, his arms give out. He collapses to his elbows, face in the sheets, ass still up, and he’s grinding back onto you. You grab a fistful of his short hair and yank his head back. He moans like a whore. His back arches harder, presenting himself to you like it’s the only thing he knows how to do. You set a brutal pace: hard, fast and mean, and Dean meets every thrust with a slap of his hips, no shame, no hesitation. He’s fucking himself back on you so hard the headboard is banging against the wall.
“Harder-” he gasps. “Fucking destroy me. I want to limp tomorrow. I want everyone to know.”
He’s just a man. Loud, wrecked, and greedy.
“Oh fuck- oh fuck- yeah, yeah, yeah, just like that, don’t stop, don’t you fucking stop, holy shit-”
His mouth is running nonstop. Dirty, broken, desperate nonsense. “You like that? You like fucking your boyfriend’s tight little ass? God, you’re so deep, you’re so deep- faster, come on, fuck me faster, I can take it, I’m not fucking made of glass-”
You, suprisingly, listen to his demands and speed up the pace to his heart's content.
“That’s my girl,” he pants, grinning through the sweat and the tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. “That’s my fucking girl. Look at you. Look at what you do to me. I’m such a mess. I’m such a fucking mess for you—”
He reaches back with one hand and spreads his own cheek wider. Wider. For you. Just to give you a better angle. Because Dean Winchester in doggy style isn’t just submissive—he’s an exhibitionist about it. He wants you to see every inch of how pathetic he is. He wants you to know that he’s yours.
“Harder,” he gasps. “Harder, harder, fuck- break me, I don’t care, I want to feel this tomorrow, I want to sit in the Impala and wince every time I hit a bump and remember-”
His cock is leaking onto the sheets, untouched, and he’s so close you can see it in the way his thighs shake. But he doesn’t ask to come. He doesn’t even think about it. All he wants is more. More thrusts. More depth. More of you.
“Tell me I’m yours-" he moans, and for the first time, his voice cracks. “Tell me I’m your good little slut. Tell me or I’m gonna fucking lose it-”
You lean down, lips to his ear, and you whisper exactly what he needs to hear. It makes him choke on a breath that turns into a sob once and then come so hard his vision whites out. His mouth falls open, eyes wide, as he spills all over the comforter in thick, pulsing ropes.
And when he comes back to himself, ten seconds later, he just laughs. A breathless, wrecked, happy laugh. He doesn’t move from his position. He just looks over his shoulder at you with those fucked-out green eyes and grins.
“So,” he says, voice hoarse. “Same time tomorrow?”
❝ 𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 ❞ S.S ( xmen 2000s )
pairing scott summers x fem! reader 🪽.
synopsis 𖥧 "extra, extra, read all about it. scott is in his feelings and he can't get out of it".
content 𖥧 fem/afab reader, reader is implied to have some sort of energy-reading/telekinetic/telepathic mutant abbility, jean and scott are not married in this au.
💬 : I LOVE THIS SONG ALRIGHT AND IT JUST FITS HIM SO MUCH UGHHHHHH I LOVE HIMMM
The first thing Scott Summers became aware of was warmth.
Not the artificial warmth of a heating vent or the distant warmth of morning light through curtains—but living warmth. The kind that breathed. The kind that had a heartbeat. The kind that was currently pressed against his entire front, soft and pliant and perfect.
The second thing he became aware of was that he could not move.
Not because he was restrained (though, given some of the things the two of you had gotten up to last night, that wasn't entirely outside the realm of possibility) but because your arms were wrapped around him like you were afraid he might disappear. Your face was tucked into the curve of his neck, your breath warm against his collarbone, your legs tangled with his under the rumpled sheets.
And his arms, his own arms, were wrapped around you just as tightly. His hands splayed across your bare back, fingers tracing idle patterns on your skin without his conscious input, like his body had decided it was going to keep touching you whether his brain approved or not.
His brain, for the record, approved wholeheartedly.
Last night had been a lot.
Last night, you had done things to him that he was still struggling to process. Had said things to him that made his face burn just thinking about them.
Her love is in your head, his brain supplied, unhelpfully. Her love is in your head and it's never leaving and you are so, so fucked.
Scott swallowed.
He was in love with you.
He'd known it, probably, for years. Had felt it growing like a vine through his chest, winding around his ribs, making a home in the spaces between his organs. But he'd been able to ignore it, mostly. Had been able to tell himself that what you had was just physical, just convenient, just two friends who happened to enjoy each other's bodies.
Last night had destroyed that lie completely.
Because last night, somewhere between the third orgasm and the fourth, between the way you'd whispered his name like a prayer and the way you'd held him like he was something precious, Scott had realized the truth.
He didn't just want your body. He wanted your everything. Your mornings and your evenings, your laughter and your tears, your stupid arguments about which historical period had the best fashion and your insistence on leaving your books scattered across every available surface. He wanted to wake up next to you every day for the rest of his life. He wanted to grow old with you, wanted to bicker about whose turn it was to do the dishes, wanted to hold your hand in the dark when the nightmares came.
He wanted to marry you, for fuck's sake. Wanted to stand in front of everyone they knew and promise to love you until he died. Wanted to wear a ring that meant he was yours in a way that everyone could see.
And he couldn't tell you any of it.
Because what if you didn't feel the same way? What if this: the sex, the friendship, the easy intimacy, was enough for you? What if you didn't want more? What if telling you how he felt ruined everything they had, made it weird, made you pull away?
The third thing he became aware of was that his left ear felt wrong.
He shifted slightly, just enough to lift his head from the pillow, just enough to glance at the nightstand where he'd placed his jewelry the night before. His watch was there. His chain was there. His-
His earrings were not there.
Scott froze.
He remembered taking them off. He remembered. You'd been kissing down his neck, your teeth scraping against his pulse point, and he'd fumbled with the tiny silver hoops, nearly dropping them twice because his hands were shaking—because you made his hands shake, had been making his hands shake for years, in ways that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the overwhelming, terrifying, absolutely inconvenient fact that he was in love with you.
He'd set them on the nightstand. He was sure he'd set them on the nightstand.
But they weren't there now. Just the watch. Just the chain. Just a dusting of morning light across the dark wood and the ghost of where his earrings should have been.
Shit.
Scott's heart rate picked up. Not because the earrings were expensive, because they weren't, not really, just a pair of silver hoops he'd bought at a street fair years ago and worn ever since out of habit. Not because they were sentimental, though they were, just a little, because he'd bought them the day he'd moved into the mansion full-time, a small act of rebellion against the institution that had raised him, a tiny piece of jewelry that said I am my own person.
No, his heart was racing because you had them. Or rather, because they were somewhere in your bed—in your sheets, tangled up with your blankets, lost somewhere in the warm, rumpled nest the two of you had spent the night destroying.
And he couldn't tell you.
He couldn't.
Because telling you would mean admitting he'd been careless. Would mean interrupting the perfect, peaceful quiet of this morning, this rare morning, where neither of you had anywhere to be for at least another hour, where the children were still asleep or at least not yet causing chaos, where the world outside this room felt very far away and very unimportant.
Telling you would mean talking, and talking would mean breaking the spell, and breaking the spell would mean facing the fact that he was going to have to leave this bed eventually. Leave you. Go downstairs and switch his red quartz glasses for his mission visor and be the leader and pretend that he hadn't spent the night falling apart in your arms, pretending that he hadn't whispered things in the dark that he would never dare say in the light.
I need you. I've always needed you. I don't know how to be without you.
He hadn't meant to say it. The words had just… come out, pushed past his defenses by the way you'd looked at him with all that heat and tenderness and something he was afraid to name, by the way you'd touched him, like he was something precious, something worth handling with care.
And you'd heard him. Of course you'd heard him. You'd paused, your hand stilling on his chest, and looked down at him with those eyes that saw everything, and-
And you hadn't said it back.
You hadn't needed to. You'd just smiled, soft and knowing, and leaned down to kiss him, and whatever he'd been about to say and whatever confession had been building in his chest had dissolved into the press of your lips and the sweep of your tongue and the overwhelming rightness of having you against him.
He'd lost more than his earrings in this bed. He'd lost his heart. Left it somewhere between your pillow and your thigh, and now he couldn't find it, couldn't get it back, didn't even want it back because it belonged to you now and always would.
So you think of what to say, then save it for another day.
He'd been saving it for another day for years. Had composed a thousand speeches in his head, a million different ways to tell you that he loved you, that he'd always loved you, that you were the best thing that had ever happened to him. And every time, he'd chickened out. Every time, he'd told himself not yet and soon and maybe tomorrow.
'Cause you just never had the heart, the voice in his brain said, and Scott wanted to punch himself. Now they just drift further apart.
But you weren't drifting apart. Were you? You were here, in his arms. His arms, not Logan's, not anyone else's. And you were warm and real and his, at least for this moment, at least until the sun rose higher and reality intruded and you both had to pretend that this was just sex, just friends, just something to do.
Scott's throat tightened.
But now it was morning. Now the light was creeping through the curtains, painting gold stripes across your bare shoulders. Now his earrings were lost somewhere in your sheets, and he was going to have to find them eventually, and eventually meant moving, and moving meant leaving, and leaving meant-
Extra, extra, read all about it, his brain supplied helpfully, in a voice that sounded annoyingly like Logan's. Scott's in his feelings and he can't get out of it.
He groaned softly, pressing his face into your hair.
"You're thinking too loud," you murmured against his neck, your voice thick with sleep.
"Sorry."
"Don't be sorry. Just stop."
He huffed a laugh, his chest vibrating with it, and felt you smile against his skin.
"Can't," he admitted. "It's a medical condition. Chronic overthinking. Terminal, probably."
"Terminal?" You shifted, tilting your head back to look at him. Your eyes were still half-closed, your lashes casting shadows on your cheeks, your lips swollen from kissing. You looked wrecked in the best possible way, and Scott's heart did something complicated and painful in his chest. "Should I be saying goodbye?"
"Don't you dare." He tightened his arms around you, pulling you impossibly closer. "I'm not dying. I'm just… thinking."
"Dangerous habit."
"So I've been told."
You hummed, low and satisfied, and let your eyes fall closed again. Your fingers traced lazy patterns on his chest: circles and spirals and something that might have been words, if he'd had the presence of mind to decipher them.
"What were you thinking about?" you asked, your voice soft and curious.
You, he thought. Always you. Only you. I was thinking about how I never want to leave this bed. I was thinking about how I lost my earrings somewhere in your sheets and I can't bring myself to care. I was thinking about last night, about the sounds you made, the things you said, the way you looked at me like I was something worth wanting. I was thinking about how I'm in love with you and I don't know how to tell you and I'm terrified that if I do, everything will change.
"Noth'n important.." he mumbled instead.
You opened one eye, fixing him with a look that said you didn't believe him for a second.
"Liar."
"Guilty."
You poked his chest. "Tell me."
"It's stupid."
"I like stupid."
"You like me," he corrected, and immediately wanted to shove the words back into his mouth. That was too close. Too real.
But you just smiled that soft, devastating smile that made his knees weak even when he was lying down, and said, "Same thing."
And so you lay there for a while longer, tangled together in the warm hollow of your bed. The clock on your nightstand ticked toward 7:30 with relentless determination, and Scott knew, he knew, that he should start thinking about getting up. There were children to teach. Lessons to plan. A whole school to help run, and he was the deputy headmaster, for God's sake, he couldn't just not show up because he was too busy cuddling with-
With what? his brain whispered. With his friend? With his fuck buddy? With the woman he'd been sleeping with for years but haven't had the courage to tell he's in love with (yet)?
He pushed the thought away, burying his face in your hair instead. You smelled like sleep and sex and something else, something that was just you, warm and familiar and home in a way that made his chest ache.
"You're doing it again," you murmured.
"Doin' what, exactly?"
"Thinking."
"SoI'm not allowed to think, now?"
"Not when it makes you make that face."
"What face?"
"That face." You pulled back just enough to look at him, reaching up to trace the furrow between his brows. "The 'Scott is spiraling' face. The 'Scott is about to say something self-deprecating' face. The 'Scott is going to ruin a perfectly good morning by being in his own head' face."
Scott caught your hand, pressing a kiss to your palm. "That's very specific."
"I've had a lot of practice." Your fingers curled around his, holding on. "Talk to me. Please."
He wanted to. God, he wanted to. He wanted to tell you everything: about the earrings, about the way his heart had nearly stopped when he'd realized they were lost somewhere in your sheets, about how that was stupid because they were just earrings and he could buy new ones, about how it wasn't really about the earrings at all.
It was about this. About you. About the way he never wanted to leave this bed, never wanted to stop holding you, never wanted to go back to the real world where he was Scott Summers, leader of the X-Men, and you were just his friend who sometimes let him into her bed.
"I lost my earrings," he said finally, because it was the easiest truth, because it wasn't the real truth but it was close enough, because he had to say something or he was going to burst.
Your eyebrows went up. "Your earrings?"
"The ones I always wear. The silver ones." He gestured vaguely toward the nightstand. "I put them there last night, but they're not there now. They must have… I don't know. Fallen off. Gotten lost in the sheets."
You turned your head, scanning the nightstand, then the floor, then the tangled mess of blankets around you. "We can find them."
"I know."
"So why do you look like someone cancelled your favorite TV show?"
Scott huffed a laugh despite himself. "I don't have a favorite TV show."
"Evasion noted." You propped yourself up on one elbow, looking down at him with an expression that was equal parts amusement and concern. "Scott. Talk to me."
He looked up at you—at the way the morning light caught the curve of your cheek, the way your hair fell across your shoulder, the way your lips were still slightly pink from kissing—and felt something crack open in his chest.
"I don't want to get up," he admitted, and his voice came out rougher than he'd intended, needier. "I know I have to. I know there are kids to teach and a school to run and a million things I should be doing. But I don't want to. I want to stay here. With you. In this bed. Forever."
Your expression softened. "Forever's a long time."
"I know."
"We'd run out of snacks."
"I'd go get more."
"You'd have to get up to get them."
"Then I'd come right back."
You were quiet for a moment, your thumb tracing absent patterns on his chest. When you spoke again, your voice was gentle. "What are you really scared of, Scott?"
You, he thought. Losing you. This ending. Waking up one day and realizing I've spent years pretending I don't love you when I've loved you since I was seventeen years old and you smiled at me for the first time and I forgot how to breathe.
"I don't know," he lied.
Your eyes searched his face, looking for something. He didn't know if you found it, but after a long moment, you nodded and lowered yourself back down, curling against his side with your head on his chest.
"Okay," you said softly. "Then we'll stay a little longer."
Scott's arms tightened around you. His heart, that traitorous, hopeful, terrified heart, pounded against his ribs like it was trying to escape.
"Thank you," he whispered.
You pressed a kiss to his collarbone. "Always."
He found the first earring at 7:42, when Scott shifted to reach for his phone and felt something cold press against his thigh.
He froze. "Don't move."
"What—"
"There's something in the sheets. I think it's-" He reached down carefully, fingers searching through the tangled fabric, and closed around a small metal hoop. "Got it."
He held it up triumphantly. The silver caught the light, glinting like a tiny promise.
You laughed that bright, musical sound that made his stomach flip every single time. "One down, one to go."
"I'm a detective," Scott said, deadpan. "I solve crimes."
"Detective Summers, how do you plead?"
"Guilty of being too good at my job."
You snorted, shoving his shoulder. "Unbelievable."
You searched for the second earring together, patting down the sheets like you were looking for buried treasure. It was silly and ridiculous and domestic in a way that made Scott's chest ache with want. He wanted more mornings like this. Wanted to wake up next to you every day, wanted to hunt for lost jewelry and make bad jokes and watch the sunlight paint gold stripes across your skin.
He wanted you.
The second earring turned up at 7:51, wedged between the headboard and the mattress. You found it, your fingers closing around the tiny hoop with a triumphant cry.
"Found it!" You held it up like a trophy, grinning so wide your eyes crinkled at the corners. "I'm the champion."
"You're definitely something," Scott said, and his voice came out softer than he'd intended, warmer, full of all the things he couldn't say.
Your grin faded slightly, replaced by something more thoughtful. More knowing.
"Scott," you said, and his name on your lips sounded like a question and a statement all at once.
"Yeah?"
You opened your mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
And then you just shook your head, slipping the earring into his palm and closing his fingers around it.
"Nothing," you said, but your voice was strange, tight, like you were holding something back. "Just… I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you stayed."
Scott looked down at your hands, his fingers curled around the earring, yours curled around his, and felt the words building in his throat. The real words. The ones he'd been swallowing for years.
I love you. I've always loved you. I don't know how to be without you, and I don't want to learn.
But the clock read 7:53, and somewhere downstairs, he could hear the distant sounds of the mansion waking up. Footsteps in the hallway. The clatter of dishes in the kitchen. The muffled shouts of children who were definitely not supposed to be shouting this early.
Reality, creeping back in.
"I should-" he started.
"I know," you said.
You didn't let go of his hand.
He didn't let go of yours.
For one long, suspended moment, the two of you just looked at each other, your eyes searching his, his heart in his throat, the morning light warm on your skin.
Say it, something in him screamed. Say it now. Tell her. You'll never have a better moment than this.
He said your name, and his voice was rough, raw, scraped clean of all the defenses he'd built over the years.
"Yeah?"
I love you. I love you. I love you.
"I—"
Say it. Say it. SAY IT.
"I'll see you at breakfast," he finished, and the words tasted like ash in his mouth.
Your expression flickered with something that might have been disappointment, or maybe relief, or maybe something else entirely, something he couldn't read, and then you smiled, soft and understanding, and squeezed his hand.
"Okay," you said. "Breakfast."
He pulled away. Got dressed. Found his shoes. Paused at the door to look back at you, still curled up in the sheets, still watching him with those eyes that saw too much.
"Scott?" you called, as his hand touched the doorknob.
"Yeah?"
Your smile turned mischievous. "Your earrings are on backwards."
He turned to look at the mirror. They were.
He laughed a real laugh, surprised out of him, and shook his head, and left your room with his heart full to bursting and his hands shaking and the taste of your name on his tongue.
He felf as if he'd left something important in this bed. Something he couldn't get back. Something he didn't want to get back.
His heart. His hope. His entire future, tangled up in your sheets.
Good, he thought, let it be that way, let her have it.
Breakfast was chaos, because breakfast at the Xavier Institute was always chaos.
The kids swarmed the kitchen like locusts, grabbing cereal and toast and fruit with the single-minded intensity of teenagers who had slept through their alarms and were now running late for class. Bobby was trying to freeze Jubilee's orange juice. Rogue was glaring at him over her coffee mug. Kitty phased through the counter to grab the last bagel, and John set his toast on fire by accident, and somewhere in the middle of it all, Scott stood by the window with his coffee and his backwards earrings and his aching, overflowing heart.
He watched you come in ten minutes later, hair still slightly damp from the shower, wearing that sweater he liked, the soft gray one that made your eyes look darker, that made him want to pull you close and never let go.
You caught his eye across the room. Smiled.
He smiled back, and it felt like coming home.
He found them, eventually. The words he'd been too scared to say.
Not all at once—not in some grand, cinematic confession that played out against a dramatic soundtrack. They came to him in pieces, in quiet moments, in the spaces between heartbeats.
He found them when you fell asleep on his shoulder during a movie night, your breathing soft and even, your hand warm in his.
He found them when you laughed at one of his terrible jokes, your whole face lighting up like sunrise.
He found them when you looked at him, really looked at him, and he realized that maybe, just maybe, you already knew.
Extra, extra, read all about it, he thought, and this time the words felt like a promise.
Scott's in love, and he's finally ready to say it.
He just needed to find the right moment.
And maybe—just maybe—he wouldn't have to wait much longer.
teen! reader crying and only calming down with them !!
🏷 @mavixgirl , @luna-kait
📎 men featured : logan howlett, worst wolverine, wade wilson, origins! wade wilson, remy lebeau, eddie brock (& venom!!), steve rogers, tony stark, peter parker, thor odinson, peter quill, rocket raccoon.
LOGAN HOWLETT !!
The finder is Scott Summers. He has a look of profound, almost smug, satisfaction on his face. He finds Logan in the garage, shirtless, welding something that is definitely not the motorcycle he’s supposed to be fixing.
“Logan. It’s your… kid.”
The welding torch cuts off with a hiss. Logan doesn’t turn around. “She’s not my kid, Summers.”
“Well, your ‘not-kid’ is in her room, crying her eyes out. Jean’s been in there for twenty minutes. Rogue tried. Even Charles took a crack at it. Nothing’s working. Storm said she keeps asking for… well, the ‘guy who smells like beer and anger.’”
Logan finally turns, his expression a thundercloud that could rival Thor. He snatches a flannel shirt from a hook, pulling it on over his bare chest with a growl. “You tell anyone about this, and I’ll use your visor as a hockey puck.”
He storms through the mansion, Scott having to jog to keep up. The sound of muffled, hiccupping sobs hits him before he even reaches the door. He throws it open without knocking. Jean is on the bed, looking exhausted. You’re curled in a ball, shoulders shaking.
“Alright, out,” Logan grunts, jerking his head at Jean. She gives him a look that’s half-grateful, half-warning, and slips past him.
Logan stands there, a man who has fought unkillable mutants and adamantium-poisoning, utterly paralyzed by the sight of a crying teenager. He shoves his hands deep into his pockets. “Hey. Kid.”
You don’t move. A fresh wave of sobs wracks your body.
He sighs, a sound that seems to come from the very marrow of his bones. He sits on the edge of the bed, the springs groaning under his weight. “C’mere.”
You uncurl just enough to launch yourself at him, burying your face in the flannel. He’s stiff as a board for a solid three seconds, his arms hovering in the air like he’s forgotten what they’re for. Then, with another, deeper sigh, one arm comes around you. His big, metal-infused hand lands awkwardly on your back, patting it with the same force he’d use to knock out a Sentinel.
“There,” he mutters, the word a low rumble in his chest. “It’s fine. Whatever it is, it’s fine. I’ll go break its kneecaps later.”
Your sobs begin to quiet, your breathing syncing with the steady, adamantium-laced heartbeat under your ear.
Scott, who has been peering through the crack in the door, is immediately caught by Logan’s glare. The door slams shut on its own, ripped from its hinges by a single, extended claw. Scott barely ducks in time.
Logan looks down at you, now just sniffling. He uses his other hand to roughly—but with a terrifying gentleness—push a strand of hair from your face. “You’re a pain in my ass, you know that?” he grumbles.
You just nod against his chest. He’s already planning the kneecap-breaking.
WORST WOLVERINE !!
The finder is, of course, Deadpool. He bursts into the shitty, cockroach-infested apartment that Logan has been crashing in, wearing his full suit but with the mask pulled up over his nose so he can eat a gas station burrito.
“Daddy! Daddy! We have a code red! Code red! The small, emotionally volatile one is leaking from the ocular cavities!”
Logan, slumped on a couch that has seen better centuries, doesn’t even look up from the bottle of whiskey in his hand. “Which one?” Because it could either be the dog, the kid, or Laura.
“The one that calls me the fun dad, which is objectively true, but apparently, when the world is ending, she requires the services of the grumpy, feral, stabby one! my words, not hers. She’s in the bathroom. It’s a whole thing. I tried singing ‘Careless Whisper’ on my kazoo. No dice. It made it worse.”
Logan grunts, sets the bottle down, and stands up. He’s wearing a stained wifebeater and jeans. He walks to the bathroom, Deadpool trailing behind him like a very annoying, red-suited duckling. The door is locked. He can hear you on the other side, your breath hitching in that awful way.
He doesn’t knock. He just raps his knuckles on the door once. “Open up.”
A strangled, watery “Go away” comes from inside.
He looks at Deadpool. Deadpool gives him an enthusiastic thumbs-up and whispers, “This is your moment, Pops. I believe in you.”
Logan’s eye twitches. He takes a breath, a real one, and his voice comes out completely different. It’s not a growl. It’s… a command, but a soft one. A voice that’s used to being obeyed because it promises safety. “Kid. Open the damn door.”
There’s a click. The door cracks open. Your face is blotchy, eyes red-rimmed. Logan pushes the door open wider, fills the doorway with his broad, scarred frame. He doesn’t say anything else. He just opens his arms a little, a minimal gesture, but one that’s clear.
You stumble into him, your face pressing against his chest, soaking the wifebeater with tears. He wraps his arms around you, one hand coming up to cup the back of your head. He doesn’t pat. He just holds.
“There,” he mutters into your hair, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that vibrates through your whole body. “I got ya.”
From down the hall, Deadpool’s voice echoes, muffled but clear. “And I got it on camera! This is going straight to the group chat! The one without him! Oh, wait, he’s in that one. Never mind. I’m framing it!”
Logan’s claws snikt out. He doesn’t let go of you, but one set of knuckles scrapes against the doorframe. “Wade…”
WADE WILSON !!
“Hey, Motor Mouth. Your girl is in the kitchen, crying into a box of your fancy organic mac and cheese.”
Wade pauses from painting his nails, a cotton ball between his toes, at the sound of Blind Al's voice. “Define fancy. The one with the powdered cheese from the real Dutch cows, or the one that’s shaped like superheroes?”
“It smells like the ones shaped like little Wolverines. She’s been at it for ten minutes.”
Wade is on his feet in a flash, leaving a trail of blue polish on the floor. “Okay, okay, crisis mode. Is she sad-crying or angry-crying? Or was it the ‘my God, that’s the third time this week the universe has reminded me that I have a history essay due and I haven’t started it’ cry?”
“I don’t know, I’m blind, you ass.”
He bounds into the kitchen. You’re sitting on the counter, a box of Wolverine-shaped macaroni clutched to your chest, your face a mess of tears and snot. The TV is playing a cooking show.
“Alright, alright, clear the room! Professional parent coming through!”
Wade slides to a stop in front of you, leaning his forearms on the counter on either side of you, boxing you in. “Okay, chit-chat time. What’s the damage? Did someone say your art project looked like a potato? Because potatoes are delicious and versatile and frankly, a noble artistic subject. Did the guy from the coffee shop give you the wrong milk again? Because I will go full John Wick on his lactose-intolerant ass.”
You just shake your head, a fresh sob escaping.
His mask’s eye holes go wide. “Oh, no. It’s the big one. The existential dread one. The one where you remember we’re all just meat sacks hurtling through the void.” He straightens up. “Okay, new plan. Operation: Cuddle Puddle.”
He scoops you off the counter, box of mac and cheese and all, and carries you over to the living room until he collapses into the worn armchair in the corner, pulling you onto his lap. All wiry limbs and the smell of gunpowder and cheap cologne.
“There we go. Breathe with me. In through the nose… and out through the mouth. And… do you want me to do the thing? The thing that always makes you laugh?”
You shake your head, burying your face in his neck.
“Too bad. I’m doing the thing.” He clears his throat and launches into a pitch-perfect impression of a very, very very British Logan. “I’m the best there is at what I do, bub, and what I do is… is… have you seen my reading glasses? I can’t find my reading glasses and I’m very, very upset about it.”
A wet, choked giggle escapes you, followed by another sob, and then another giggle. He starts rubbing your back in slow circles, his voice dropping to a softer, less manic register. “There she is. My little chaos gremlin. You know you’re stuck with me, right? For all the sad times and the weird times and the ‘I accidentally bought 400 bottles of lube on the dark web’ times. That’s a promise.”
Your breathing evens out, the tears finally stopping. You just hold onto him, the box of mac and cheese crushed between you. He hums a tuneless, comforting melody, his chin resting on the top of your head.
From the hallway, Blind Al calls out, “Is it over?”
“Yeah, Al,” Wade says, not looking up from you. “It’s over.”
“Good. You owe me twenty bucks. I said you’d be in there for less than four minutes.”
ORIGINS! WADE WILSON !!
The finder is Fred Dukes, aka The Blob. He finds Wade at the seedy bar next to the motel the whole team was staying at, nursing a whiskey, his handsome face lit by the neon sign for “Pabst Blue Ribbon.” He’s wearing a leather jacket and looking like he just stepped out of a low-budget, high-action music video.
“Yo, Wilson. Your kid’s at the apartment. She’s crying. Like, real crying. Not the ‘I stubbed my toe’ crying. The ‘someone broke my heart’ kind.”
Wade’s head snaps up, his easy-going, charming demeanor vanishing in an instant. His hand tightens around the glass. “Who?”
“I don’t know, man, some guy named Kyle? Or Kevin? I was busy with a sandwich.”
Wade slaps a bill on the counter, enough to cover his tab and then some. He’s already moving, his long legs eating up the distance to the door. Fred has to hustle to keep up. “You want me to come? I could eat him if it’s a Kevin problem.”
“I got it, Fred.” Wade’s voice is clipped. He’s not the unkillable, scarred man he’s destined to become in another life. He’s just a man. A very, very dangerous man with a lot of swords and a sudden, burning need to find a person named Kevin.
He makes it to the room in record time. He unlocks the door, stepping inside. You’re on the couch, curled up, a photo of you and some kid with bad hair on the floor. Your shoulders are shaking.
Wade doesn’t say a word. He just walks over, sits on the coffee table in front of you, and gently, so gently, takes your hands, pulling them away from your face.
“Hey,” he says, his voice smooth as silk, a stark contrast to the coiled tension in his jaw. “Look at me.”
You do, your eyes swimming. “He- he said I was too much. That I’m… a lot.”
Wade’s expression doesn’t change. He even smiles, a slow, devastatingly handsome smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “A lot. That’s what he said?”
You nod, a fresh tear rolling down your cheek.
He uses his thumb to wipe it away, then tilts your chin up. “Okay. Here’s the thing about that. Being a lot is a good thing. It means you’re interesting. It means you’re worth knowing. It means you’re not boring, like, say…” he glances at the photo on the floor, “this Kevin-looking-ass-motherfucker.”
A watery laugh escapes you.
“That guy?” Wade continues, nodding toward the photo. “He’s not a lot. He’s a little. A little boring, a little basic, a little bit of a coward for saying that to you. You want to know what I do to people who say things like that to the people I care about?”
“Wade…”
“I’m just asking a hypothetical. Do you want me to key his parents' car? Just a little key? Maybe a smiley face?”
“No,” you say, but you’re laughing more now.
He pulls you into a hug, holding you against his chest. He smells like whiskey, leather, and something clean. “Good, because I was going to do it anyway. But I’ll make it a small smiley face. On the passenger side. Low-impact. Now, come on. I think we have some Rocky Road in the freezer. We’re gonna eat the whole thing, then we’re gonna watch Die Hard, and then we’re gonna figure out which of Fred’s shirts has the least amount of food stains on it for you to sleep in.”
You melt into him, the last of the tension leaving your body. He holds you for a long moment, his chin resting on your head, his eyes fixed on the photo of the kid. A thoughtful, predatory look crosses his handsome features.
Tomorrow, Kevin’s parents's car is going to have a very artistic, but very permanent, smiley face keyed into the driver’s side door. Wade decided ‘passenger side’ was too generous.
REMY LEBEAU !!
The Xavier mansion was usually a place of controlled chaos. But the chaos that found Remy in the greenhouse, where he was ‘tending to his cards’ (read: shuffling them obsessively), was of a more distressing nature. Rogue, her face uncharacteristically soft, pushed through the humidity and the hanging plants.
“Sugah,” she says, her Southern drawl tinged with worry. “It’s the girl. She’s in her room. Wouldn’t tell me what’s wrong, but she’s been cryin’ for the better part of an hour. She asked for ya.”
The cards in his hand still. His easy smile, the one he wore like a second skin, flickers. “For me, cherie? Surely, she’d be better with Professor Xavier, or Jean, or…”
“She asked for ya,” Rogue repeats, cutting him off. “By name. So stop shufflin’ and get movin’.”
He didn’t need to be told twice. The cards were pocketed, the charming demeanor replaced by a focused intensity. He makes his way through the mansion, bypassing the elevators for the stairs, taking them two at a time. He wasn’t known for being serious. He was known for being the joker, the flirt, the one who never let anything get to him. But this is different.
He knocks on your door, a soft rap of knuckles on wood. “Ma petite? It’s Remy. I hear you’re having a bad day, non?”
A sniffle from inside. Then, a shaky, “Go away.”
He leans his forehead against the door, closing his eyes. “I cannot do that, cher. Rogue, she told me y'asked for Remy. So now I am here. And Remy LeBeau, he is like a bad penny. He always turns up. So you gonna let me in, or am I gonna have to pick dis lock? Because I will. And it will be very loud, and everyone will know.”
There is a long pause. Then, the sound of the door unlocking. He pushes it open slowly.
You are sitting on the floor, your back against your bed, your knees drawn up. Your face is a wreck—red, splotchy, tear-streaked. You look up at him, and your lower lip trembles violently. “I don’ wanna talk 'bout it.”
“Good,” he says, closing the door and sliding down to sit on the floor opposite you. He crosses his legs, mirroring your posture. “Because talking is overrated. Remy, he is a man of action. So. What do we do? We can sit here. We can play cards. We can plot de downfall of whoever made you cry. I’m good at dat last one. Very good.”
You let out a choked, watery laugh. “You don’t even know what happened.”
He shrugs, a graceful, Gallic movement. “Does not matter. They made my petite cry. Dat is all the information I need.” He pulls a deck of cards from his coat, his fingers moving with a practiced, hypnotic fluidity. “In the meantime, let me show you something. A trick my maman taught me.”
He begins to shuffle, but it was more than shuffling. The cards dance between his fingers, fanning out, cascading, forming a tower in his palm, then a bridge, then a perfect circle. His movements are a blur of red and black, a mesmerizing distraction.
“When I was a boy,” he says, his voice low and soothing, the Cajun accent thicker than usual, “I would get sad. Homesick. Lonely. My maman, she would sit with me and do dis. She’d make de cards dance, and she’d say, ‘Remy, look. Even the smallest thing, a simple card, can be beautiful. Can be something more. You, too, are something more.’”
The cards suddenly burst into a shower of pink kinetic energy, floating in the air between you like glowing, spinning leaves before he catches them and tucks them back into the deck. He looks at you, his dark eyes serious.
“So. You tell Remy when you are ready. Or you don’t tell him. Dat is your choice.” He holds out the deck. “But for now? We play. What is your game? Go Fish? War? Poker? Remy can teach you how to cheat. Very important life skill.”
You look at his outstretched hand, then up at his face. The playful mask is gone, replaced by a sincere, open kindness that is more disarming than any flirtatious smile.
You take the cards. And then, instead of pulling away, you lean forward and wrap your arms around him. He stiffens for a second, surprised, then his arms come around you, one hand rubbing your back in slow, soothing circles.
“Chère,” he murmurs against your hair. “It’s alright. I got you.”
You don't play cards for a long time. You just sit there, on the floor, your face buried in his shoulder, his coat smelling of old spice and cardstock and something warm. He hums a low, Cajun tune, a lullaby his mother used to sing, the words soft and unfamiliar.
When you finally pull back, your tears had stopped. You look at the deck of cards still in your hand.
“Can you really teach me to cheat at poker?” you ask, your voice a little hoarse but steady.
He grins, a flash of the old Remy returning. “Mais oui, ma petite. But you have to promise me one thing.”
“What?”
His grin softening into a real smile. “That you only use your powers for good. Or for making a profit off of Scott Summers. He has a terrible poker face. It is almost too easy.”
You laugh. A real laugh, if a bit watery. He takes the deck from you, shuffling it one-handed.
“Now,” he says, his eyes twinkling. “Lesson one. De art of the distraction.”
He holds up a card, and with a flick of his wrist, it bursts into pink sparks, reforming into the Ace of Spades in his other hand. You watch, mesmerized, the last of the sadness in your chest replaced by something warm and safe. He might flirt with everyone, he might be a thief and a rogue, but right now, in this moment, he is just yours.
EDDIE BROCK ( & VENOM ) !!
Mrs. Chen calls Eddie’s cell phone. He’s in the middle of a “interview” (i.e., trying to get a good photo of a politician leaving a massage parlor) when it rings.
“Eddie! Your little one is here. She is crying. Big tears. Very loud. My customers, they are scared.”
Eddie’s head snaps up. “What do you mean she’s crying? Is she hurt?”
“No, no hurt. She just comes in, sits in the corner, and cries. She asks for you. And the other one.”
“The other one?” Eddie says, confused. Then a voice, low and guttural, echoes in his head.
"The loud one. The symbiote. She asked for us, Eddie. She is ours. Go to her."
“I’m on my way, Mrs. Chen. Don’t let anyone bother her.”
Eddie runs the six blocks to the convenience store, his heart pounding. He bursts through the door to find you sitting on the floor behind the magazine rack, your knees drawn up, sobbing into your hoodie. Mrs. Chen is standing guard with a broom.
“Hey, hey, kid,” Eddie says, dropping to his knees in front of you. “What’s going on? What happened?”
You look up, your face a mess. “I got in a fight with my friend. A big one. And I said some things I didn’t mean, and she said some things, and now she’s not talking to me, and I ruined everything.”
Eddie winces. He’s not great at this. He’s not great at most things. But before he can fumble his way through a response, he feels the familiar, cold shift in his spine.
"Let us talk to her, Eddie. You are bad at this."
"We’re not doing the head-thing in front of Mrs. Chen. She’ll freak out."
"She will not. She has seen worse. We have eaten a man in here."
A tendril of black ooze snakes out of Eddie’s shoulder, forming a small, vaguely head-shaped blob that hovers near your face. You don’t even flinch. You’ve seen this before.
“We do not like this,” Venom’s voice rumbles, not in Eddie’s head, but out loud, a low, guttural vibration. “The friend. She is bad. She made you leak. We will find her. We will eat her.”
A startled laugh escapes you, watery but genuine. “No, Venom. You can’t eat my friend.”
“We can. We are very hungry. And she is bad.”
“She’s not bad. I was bad too.”
Venom’s head-blob tilts, as if considering this. “You are not bad. You are ours. You are good. The friend is… acceptable. For now. But if she makes you leak again…” A row of very sharp, very large teeth appears in the blob.
You laugh again, a real laugh this time, and Eddie finally lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He reaches out and pulls you into a hug, and Venom recedes slightly, just enough to let him.
“Friends fight, kid,” Eddie says, his voice gruff against your hair. “It happens. It doesn’t mean it’s over. It just means you gotta go talk to her. Apologize for the things you said. See if she’ll apologize for hers.”
“What if she doesn’t?”
“Then she’s not a very good friend. And then maybe we let Venom have a little snack. Just a finger.”
“A pinky. The smallest one.”
You’re laughing now, the tears finally stopping. You pull back, wiping your face with your sleeve. “Okay. Okay, I’ll go talk to her.”
“Good. But first,” Eddie says, standing up and pulling you to your feet. “You need chocolate. And Mrs. Chen has the good stuff. The dark chocolate. It’s scientifically proven to make you feel better.”
“We also require chocolate. All of it.”
Mrs. Chen sighs from behind the counter, but she’s already reaching for the top shelf.
STEVE ROGERS !!
Natasha finds Steve in the gym, punching a heavy bag with a level of precision that borders on the obsessive. He’s in a grey t-shirt, sweat beading on his forehead.
“Captain. We have a situation.”
He doesn’t stop punching. “What kind?”
“The small, emotional, and entirely unresponsive to my attempts at logic kind. Your girl is in the common room, crying. I offered her a way to subtly ruin the life of whoever did this to her. She said she ‘just wants Steve.’”
The punching bag stops mid-swing. Steve turns, his face a mask of immediate, focused concern. “Who did what?”
“That’s the thing. From what I could gather, it was a group project. The rest of her team took credit for her work. She’s more hurt than angry. Hence, the crying. Hence, the need for the resident moral compass.”
Steve is already grabbing a towel, wiping his face. “Where is she now?”
“Common room. Sam’s with her. He’s trying the ‘funny uncle’ approach. It’s not going great.”
Steve walks into the common room to find Sam Wilson sitting on the coffee table, doing an elaborate hand gesture. “…and then the bird just looks at me, right, and I swear it said ‘buckets.’ I don’t know why. It was just… ‘buckets.’”
You’re curled on the couch, a blanket around your shoulders, tears still silently streaming down your face. You don’t even look at Sam. You’re just staring at the wall.
“Sam,” Steve says quietly.
Sam looks up, sees Steve’s expression, and immediately stands up. “Yeah. I’ll… go make some coffee. The non-burnt kind this time.” He gives your shoulder a gentle squeeze and exits.
Steve doesn’t say anything for a moment. He just sits down on the couch next to you, close enough that his warmth radiates over to you. He doesn’t touch you, not yet. He’s learned that sometimes that’s too much.
“I hear someone wasn’t being a good teammate,” he says, his voice low and steady. It’s the voice he uses to calm down panicking civilians, to give orders in a firefight. It’s the voice of a man who has seen the worst of humanity and still believes in the best.
You look at him, your chin wobbling. “They took my work. All of it. I did the whole project, and they just… presented it. And the teacher believed them.”
Steve’s jaw tightens almost imperceptibly. “That’s not right.”
“I know,” you whisper, a fresh tear escaping. “But I don’t know what to do.”
He finally moves, his arm coming around your shoulders, pulling you into his side. It’s a solid, immovable presence. “Yes, you do. You tell the truth. You go to the teacher, you go to the principal, you go to the superintendent if you have to. And you don’t let anyone make you feel small for standing up for what’s right.”
“What if they don’t believe me?”
He tilts your chin up, his blue eyes unwavering. “Then I’ll go with you. And I can be very persuasive.” A tiny hint of a smile touches his lips. “I’ve had some practice.”
You lean into him, the knot in your chest finally beginning to loosen. He pulls the blanket tighter around you, his hand rubbing slow, soothing circles on your arm.
“I’m proud of you,” he says after a long moment.
You look up, confused. “For what? I’ve just been crying.”
“For doing the work. For caring. For feeling this. That’s not weakness. That’s what makes you strong. Don’t let anyone take that from you.”
You bury your face in his shoulder, letting his solid, unwavering presence wash over you. Sam appears in the doorway with two mugs of coffee, takes one look, and silently backs away, a smile on his face. He’ll bring the coffee in later.
TONY STARK !!
“Boss.”
“Not now, Happy. I’m recalibrating the repulsor efficiency curve. It’s a delicate process that requires-“
“It’s about the kid.”
The music cuts off. The holograms flicker and die. Tony spins on his stool, eyes wide. “Is she okay? Is she hurt? Did someone at that fancy school say something? I knew it. I knew I should have just bought the school. I can buy a school. I have bought schools. I bought MIT once, just for a weekend.”
“She’s fine. She’s in her room. She’s just… crying. Pepper’s with her. She’s been at it for a while. She keeps asking for you.”
Tony is already walking, leaving the lab without a backward glance. He’s stripped off his arc reactor casing and is down to a black t-shirt. “What do you mean, just crying? People don’t ‘just cry.’ There’s a reason. Did we run out of that kombucha she likes? I’ll call the CEO. I’ll buy the company.”
He reaches your door, not even bothering to knock, just walking in. Pepper is sitting on the edge of your bed, looking helpless as you sob into a pillow.
Tony takes one look and his entire demeanor shifts. The manic energy drains away, replaced by something focused and surprisingly soft. “Hey, Pep. I got this.”
Pepper gives him a look that’s pure relief and kisses your head before slipping out.
Tony doesn’t sit on the bed. He sits on the floor, leaning back against the side of it, so his head is level with yours where you’re lying. He picks up your hand, the one dangling over the edge, and starts messing with your fingers.
“Okay. So. I’m getting mixed signals here. Is it a world-ending crisis, or a ‘Becky from chem class’ crisis? Because I have solutions for both. For the first one, I have a giant suit of armor. For the second one, I have a satellite that can make sure Becky from chem class never gets a decent Wi-Fi signal again.”
You peek at him from over the pillow, your face a mess. “She said my project was derivative.”
Tony gasps, a hand flying to his chest in mock horror. “Derivative? Derivative? That’s the most serious charge one can level in a STEM field. Did she use that word? ‘Derivative’? She sounds like a pretentious little goblin who peaked in seventh-grade science fair with a baking soda volcano.”
You laugh, a small, hiccupping sound.
“Here’s the thing,” he says, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Your project wasn’t derivative. It was innovative. You know why? Because I read it. Because I’m a genius, and I said so. And my word is the only one that matters. Now, are you done? Because FRIDAY’s been monitoring your stress levels and they’re dangerously high. We need to bring them down. Ice cream or a trip to the garage to blow something up? Those are the only two options. I won’t accept ‘neither.’”
You sit up, wiping your eyes. “Ice cream.”
“Excellent choice. But we’re getting the fancy stuff. The kind that costs more than Happy’s monthly salary. And on the way, we’re going to come up with at least three ways to passive-aggressively undermine Becky’s next project. Nothing illegal. Just deeply, deeply annoying.”
You slide off the bed, and he stands up, slinging an arm around your shoulders. It’s loose, casual, but it’s also the most secure thing you’ve felt all day. He steers you out of the room, already talking a mile a minute about the molecular gastronomy ice cream parlor he’s going to have flown in from Japan.
Pepper, watching from the hallway, just shakes her head and smiles.
THOR ODINSON !!
The finder is Bruce Banner. He finds Thor in the communal kitchen, attempting to make toast with Mjolnir. It’s not going well.
“Thor. Hey. Can I talk to you for a sec?”
“Of course, friend Banner! I am merely—hark! The bread, it is most defiant! It refuses to brown!” He slams the hammer down again, and the toaster sparks.
“Okay, that’s… that’s fine. Listen, it’s about the kid. Your… ward.”
Thor’s whole demeanor changes. The good-natured, thunderous confusion vanishes. He sets Mjolnir down with a gentle thud. “What has befallen her? Is she injured? Has some foul beast beset her?”
“No, nothing like that. She’s just… in her room. She’s very upset. Natasha tried talking to her, but she said she just kept asking for you.”
Thor is already striding toward the living quarters, his cape billowing dramatically despite the lack of wind. Bruce has to practically run to keep up. Thor pauses outside your door, a look of genuine concern on his face.
“Has she eaten? Perhaps a feast would-“
“Thor. Just… go in.”
He opens the door. You’re sitting on the windowsill, looking out at the city, your back to the door. You’re not sobbing, but silent tears are rolling down your cheeks. Your shoulders are hunched.
“Little one,” Thor says, his voice a low, gentle rumble that seems to fill the room.
You turn, and the moment you see him, your face crumples. “I failed my history test. I studied so hard, but I just- I couldn’t-“
“A test?” Thor says, crossing the room in two strides. He kneels in front of you, his massive hands coming to rest on your knees. “This is the source of your sorrow? A mere trial of memorization?”
“It’s not mere! It’s important! And now my GPA is-“
He cuts you off by pulling you into a hug so encompassing that you disappear into his chest. He smells like ozone, rain, and the faint sweetness of mead. He holds you like you’re something infinitely precious.
“In Asgard,” he says, his voice vibrating through you, “we had trials of worth. They were not of parchment and ink, but of courage and might. To fail one was to learn the measure of your foe, to find a new path to victory. This… this is but a pebble on your path. A tiny, insignificant pebble.”
You sniffle against his tunic. “It doesn’t feel insignificant.”
“I know,” he says, pulling back to look at you, his blue eyes filled with a warmth that could chase away any storm. “But I will tell you a secret. I, the Prince of Asgard, the God of Thunder, once failed a test of strategy so spectacularly that my father, Odin, declared me a ‘bullheaded oaf who would not know a tactical retreat if it bit him in the—’ well, he said a word that is not fit for your ears.”
A shocked laugh bursts out of you. “No way.”
“By the Norns, it is true. And yet, I stand here today. So too shall you. Now,” he says, wiping the tears from your face with the pad of his thumb, a gesture so tender it seems impossible from hands that wield a storm. “I believe this calls for a celebration of your bravery in the face of adversity. We shall go to Midgard’s finest establishment for frozen dairy treats. And I shall regale you with tales of my most spectacular failures. They are many, and they are glorious.”
He scoops you up effortlessly, setting you on his hip as if you weigh nothing, and carries you out of the room, already launching into a story about a goat, a jar of honey, and a very unfortunate incident involving Loki’s bedchamber.
Bruce just shakes his head, a small smile on his face, as the sound of your laughter echoes down the hall.
ROCKET RACCOON !!
The finder is Nebula. She finds Rocket in the ship’s engine room, elbows deep in a mess of wires, grumbling to himself.
“The small, fur-covered one. Your progeny is malfunctioning.”
Rocket’s head pops out from under the console, his ears flattening. “What are you talking about? I don’t have a progeny. What am I, a lab experiment with a breeding program?”
“The small human female. The one who follows you. She is in her quarters. She is leaking saline from her optical sensors. I attempted to provide a solution. I offered to sever the vocal cords of the male who caused the malfunction. She said, and I quote, ‘I just want Rocket.’”
Rocket is already scrambling out from under the console, grabbing a rag to wipe grease off his paws. “Why didn’t you lead with that? Which male? Who do I gotta threaten?”
“Unknown. She would not provide the designation. She is being illogical.”
Rocket scurries through the Milano, his small claws clicking on the metal floors. He reaches your door- it’s the one with a crudely drawn picture of a raccoon taped to it, with the words “Rocket’s Human” written underneath. He doesn’t knock. He just hits the panel, and it slides open.
You’re on your bunk, curled up, your face buried in a pillow. And you’re crying, your shoulders shaking.
He hops up onto the bunk, his movements surprisingly quiet for someone so often loud and abrasive. He stands there for a moment, looking at you, his tiny brow furrowed.
“Hey,” he says, his voice a low growl. “Knock it off.”
You just cry harder.
He sighs, a sound of profound, long-suffering exasperation. He climbs onto your chest, his small body a warm, solid weight. He pokes your cheek with a claw-tipped finger. “I said knock it off. You’re gonna short-circuit something. These ships aren’t built for this much salt water.”
You peek out from the pillow, your eyes red-rimmed. “Quill said I couldn’t come on the next mission. He said I’m too young and not combat-ready and a liability. He said I’d just get in the way.”
Rocket’s ears flatten against his head. His eyes narrow to slits. “He said what now?”
“He said it’s for my own safety. But it’s not fair. I can help. I want to help.”
Rocket’s initial, blazing fury at Quill is quickly replaced by a different kind of fire. He sits up on your chest, his small paw pressing against your sternum.
“Listen to me,” he says, his voice deadly serious. “Quill’s an idiot. A grade-A, moron, has-been of a planet. Do you know what the first thing he said when we went to save the galaxy the first time? He said ‘I’m not doing it.’ He said ‘I’m out.’ He tried to bail. And he was a grown man. A grown, idiot man.”
He leans in closer, his whiskers brushing your chin. “Being brave isn’t about not being scared. It’s about doing the thing even when you are scared. And you, you’re braver than Quill on his best day. You’re braver than all of us.”
You sniffle. “Really?”
“Really. So here’s what we’re gonna do. You’re gonna stop leaking, because it’s gross and it’s getting in my fur. Then, you and me, we’re gonna go have a little chat with Captain Pedestrian. And by ‘chat,’ I mean I’m gonna threaten to reconfigure his helmet to play nothing but country music every time he puts it on. And you’re gonna stand there and look disappointed in him.”
A smile cracks through your tears. “That’s… that’s pretty good.”
“I’m a genius, what can I say?” He climbs up to your shoulder, his small body a familiar, comforting weight. “Now, come on. Let’s go make Quill regret every decision he’s ever made.”
As you walk out of the room, he gives your ear a small, gentle cuff. “And for the record? I’d take you on a mission over Quill any day. You at least know how to follow orders. Sometimes.”
You reach up and scratch behind his ears, the way he likes. He leans into it, a low, rattling purr escaping his chest before he catches himself and glares at you. “Don’t tell anyone about that.”
PETER QUILL !!
Peter is in the cockpit of the Milano, trying to teach himself a dance routine from a bootleg copy of Footloose on a cracked data pad, when Drax appears.
“Quill.”
Peter doesn’t stop his admittedly impressive jazz hands. “Busy, Drax. The final dance-off of the movie requires total precision. I’m like, two parsecs away from nailing the Kevin Bacon slide.”
“The small one is in distress.”
Peter’s hands freeze mid-jazz. He spins around. “What? Gamora’s with her! She’s the responsible one!”
“Gamora has attempted to offer a solution. She suggested the small one compartmentalized her emotions and viewed the source of her pain as a tactical problem. The small one then threw a pillow at her and requested you by your… Star-Lord… name.”
Peter is already moving, shoving the data pad into Drax’s hands. “Hold this. Do not watch it. The ending will make you cry.”
“I do not cry,” Drax says, already hitting play.
Peter finds you in the common area, sitting on the floor with your back against the couch. Gamora is standing nearby, looking vaguely offended by the pillow currently resting at her feet. Your face is blotchy, your eyes red, but the sobs have subsided to hiccups.
“Alright, alright,” Peter says, sliding to a stop in front of you, his helmet forming around his head for dramatic effect before retracting. “What’s the damage? Did Gamora use a big word you didn’t understand? Did Rocket short-sell your sock collection again?”
You shake your head, your lip wobbling. “I miss my mom”
Peter’s entire face softens. He knows about moms. He knows about that particular brand of homesickness that hits you out of nowhere, days later.
He drops to the floor in front of you, sitting cross-legged, his knees almost touching yours. “That’s… well, that's understandable, kid.”
“It's stupid” you whisper, shrugging defensively. “I know, I just- I'm here traveling through space which is literally the dream of a lot of people and I'm all.. i don't know..”
Peter reaches out, taking your hands in his. “Hey. Look at me.”
You do.
“I’m gonna tell you a secret. The mix tape my mom made me? The one with ‘Come and Get Your Love’ on it? It’s not just a bunch of songs. It’s her. It’s her way of being there. Of telling me she loved me. Even when she wasn't.. physically here, anymore.”
He squeezes your hands. “It's not stupid to miss your mom, she's the one who's taken care of you for all your life, it's difficult to just.. randomly switch to only seeing her through a screen.”
You launch yourself at him, wrapping your arms around his neck. He catches you, one arm around your back, the other cradling your head.
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “It's okay.”
From the doorway, Gamora watches, her stern expression softening. She turns to leave, bumping into Drax, who has tears streaming down his face.
“The human child’s emotional outpouring has triggered a sympathetic response,” Drax says, his voice thick. “The Kevin Bacon slide was most moving.”
Peter looks up, sees them both, and rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t let go of you. “You guys are the worst.”
You laugh against his shoulder, the sound muffled but real. He grins, holding you tighter, and starts humming a song you don’t recognize. You know, without a doubt, that it’s one from his mother’s tape.
“Metallica?” You say, laughing as Dean covers your eyes, hiding the cassette tape he just put in the Impala.
“No, sweetheart, now you own me a kiss.” He says, moving his hand from your eyes to your cheek. “Hey, that’s not fair! You didn’t even play the tape for more than a minute!” You say, laughing even more as you push his hand away.
“Fine, fine, close your eyes again.” He says, shaking his head as he digs through his box of cassettes, pulling out a Black Sabbath cassette. He knew you would get this one; of course he did.
He puts it in, making sure your eyes are closed as the song starts. “Do you know it yet?” He says, smirking as he watches you think.
“Black Sabbath?” You say, moving your hands away from your eyes. “Wrong again.” he says, pulling the cassette out fast, trying to hide it from you.
“You’re such a liar!” You say, laughing as you try and grab the cassette from him.
“Alright, fine!” he says, pulling the cassette from his jacket, showing you that you were correct and it was Black Sabbath.
“I just wanted a kiss, sweetheart.” he says, making a sad face at you while trying to hide his smirk. “Should have just asked.” You say, leaning over your seat, pulling him into a kiss.
:This is just a little something something for you guys
could i just request randomly pulling up the shirt of
(im wanting the little blurbs thag you do that are just *chefs kiss* with like peter p, steve, tony, venom, etc etc)
just to look at their abs, lit the only reason.
totally oki if not have a great day :)
marvel men in.. !!
their gf loves their abs !!
🏷 @mavixgirl , @luna-kait
📎 men featured : logan howlett, worst wolverine, wade wilson, origins! wade wilson, remy lebeau, kurt wagner, eddie brock (& venom!!), steve rogers, tony stark, peter parker, thor odinson, johnny storm, peter quill.
LOGAN HOWLETT
You’re mid-argument. Something about him leaving his dog tags on the nightstand again, something about the smell of cigar smoke clinging to your favorite sweater. He’s doing the thing where he just growls instead of using words, arms crossed over his broad chest, looking like a man carved from angry marble.
You are trying to be mad. You really are.
But then your eyes drift down. To the hem of his worn, grey henley. To the way it’s riding up just a fraction of an inch above the waist of his jeans.
“and you never listen, and you just—Logan, hold still.”
He stops mid-snarl. “What?”
You don’t answer. You just walk forward, grab the damp, frayed cotton, and yank it straight up to his collarbone.
Silence.
For a full three seconds, he just stares down at you. Then at your hands on his shirt. Then at your face, which is currently doing a very poor job of hiding the fact that you are openly ogling the geography of his abdomen. The map of scars. The ridges of muscle that look like they were carved by a very angry, very horny god.
“…The hell you doin’?” he finally asks, voice dropping an octave.
“Checking for injuries,” you lie, voice barely a squeak.
He catches your chin with two fingers, tilts your face up. His eyes are unreadable, but the corner of his mouth twitches. “Bub. I heal.”
“Then I’m checking for… symmetry.”
He stares at you for another long, agonizing moment. Then he sighs, the kind of sigh that carries the weight of a century of suffering. He gently pulls his shirt down, but not before you catch the faintest hint of a blush creeping up his neck.
“You’re a menace,” he mutters, turning back to the argument. But now he’s holding his coffee mug a little lower. And the next time he crosses his arms, he makes sure the shirt rides up just a little more. For the sake of symmetry.
WORST WOLVERINE
You find him on the couch. It’s 2 PM. He’s wearing nothing but a pair of Wade’s hot pink sweatpants (they were the only clean ones), a stained white tank top that has seen better centuries, and an expression of profound, feral exhaustion. Dogpool is licking his own foot on the floor. Blind Al is somewhere in the kitchen, loudly trying to microwave a fork.
You are supposed to be bringing him a beer. You do bring him the beer. But as you lean over to set it on the coffee table, your gaze snags on the hem of that tank top.
It’s already barely there. But you want more.
So you do it. You just grab the thin, greasy fabric and hoist it up to his armpits.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. Just stares at you with those dead, tired eyes. His torso is a mess—a spectacular, horrifying, fascinating mess. Hair, scars, the memory of a thousand deaths. You could count his ribs if you wanted to, but you’re too busy looking at the way the muscles in his obliques twitch.
“…You done?” he asks, voice like gravel being dragged over broken glass.
“No,” you whisper.
He sighs. It’s the sigh of a man who has seen the multiverse crumble and found that this (his girlfriend ogling his post-apocalyptic abs) is the final indignity.
“You’re as bad as the red one.”
“I’m worse,” you admit, not letting go of the shirt.
WADE WILSON
You don’t even get to pull the shirt up. You barely reach for it.
One second your fingers are brushing the hem of his faded, chimichanga-stained t-shirt. The next, he has exploded out of it. The shirt is in tatters on the floor. He is standing in the middle of the living room, arms spread wide, wearing nothing but a pair of unicorn-print boxers and a triumphant grin.
“BABY! Why didn’t you SAY so?!” he bellows, striking a bodybuilder pose. “These bad boys have been DYING for a curtain call! Say hello to the lads! Upper management! The twins! The abdominal ambassadors!”
You blink. “I was just going to-”
“Shhhh.” He presses a finger to your lips. “No talking. Only looking. Feast your eyes, my little goblin. Feast upon the glistening, scar-riddled, perfectly-healed-from-forty-seven-stab-wounds terrain of TRUE LOVE.”
He then proceeds to do a full, unironic, unhinged strip tease to Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” on his phone speaker. He flexes. He points at each individual ab (he counts nine, there are four). He makes the muscle dance. He asks you if you want to “leave a tip in the tip jar” while gesturing vaguely below the belt.
By the end of it, you are crying with laughter, curled up on the floor. He takes this as a win, scoops you up, and carries you to the bedroom, whispering, “I knew my degenerative muscle disorder would pay off one day.”
You never did get to pull the shirt up. You didn’t need to. He pre-emptively detonated it.
ORIGINS! WADE WILSON
This Wade is smooth. Dangerously smooth. You two are sparring (lightly) when you trip him—not hard—and he lets you pin him just to see what you’ll do.
You lift his shirt.
He doesn’t flinch. He grins. “Checking for wounds, or checking for weapons?”
“weapons,” you say, eyes on the perfect V-line.
“Plot twist,” he murmurs, voice dropping an octave. “the only weapon I’m hiding is right—"
You slap your hand over his mouth. “Finish that sentence and I’m leaving.”
He shuts up and lets you look. He even does a little half-crunch so the lighting shifts. But the second your fingers drift too low, he catches your hand, kisses your knuckles, and flips you effortlessly.
Now he’s on top. His shirt is still up. “Your turn to show me something.”
“I don’t have abs like that.”
“Did I say abs?” He grins, all teeth. “I said ‘something.’”
REMY LEBEAU
You’re sitting on his lap in a booth at some dimly lit New Orleans bar. He’s in the middle of a truly insufferable poker story. You’re bored. So you lift his shirt.
He doesn’t stop talking. He just smirks.
“—and den de man, he say, ‘Gambit, you cheat,’ and I say, ‘Monsieur, I never cheat at cards. Only at love.’ Ah, chère, you likin’ what you see, non?”
You nod, transfixed. His skin is warm. There’s a fine trail of hair below his navel.
He finally looks down, still smirking, and flicks a playing card from his sleeve. He tucks it under his own shirt, right above his hip bone. “Find dat one, and you get a prize.”
You spend the next hour with your hand up his shirt, searching for a card that keeps changing positions via kinetic energy. The bar loves it. He loves it. By the end, you’ve forgotten the card entirely and are just holding his waist.
He kisses your forehead. “You cute when you focused.”
“You’re impossible.”
“Oui.” He pulls his shirt down. Then up again. Then down. Then up. “But you ain’t complainin’.”
KURT WAGNER
You are both in the X-Mansion’s library. It’s late. Rain is pattering against the windows. Kurt is reading a battered copy of The Three Musketeers in German, his tail curled contentedly around your ankle. He’s wearing a soft, black long-sleeved shirt that fits him like a second skin.
You’re not reading. You’re watching the way the fabric pulls across his shoulders. The way his biceps flex every time he turns a page. The way his tail flicks.
You lose the battle.
You lean over, grab the hem of his shirt, and yank it up to his chin.
He yelps. Actually yelps. The book goes flying. He bamfs—teleports—out of your grasp and reappears on the other side of the room, clinging to the ceiling like a startled cat, his shirt still bunched up around his neck, his golden eyes wide.
“Mein Gott!” he gasps, a flush spreading across his blue-furred cheeks. “What-why- schatz!”
You are laughing so hard you can’t breathe. He’s still on the ceiling, tail lashing, looking like a very confused, very sexy gargoyle. His abdomen is a work of art. Lean, powerful, dusted with the same velvety blue fur as the rest of him.
“I just wanted to see,” you wheeze.
He drops down from the ceiling in a puff of sulfur, landing in front of you with his shirt still askew. He looks at you, really looks at you, and his embarrassment melts into something softer. Something warmer.
“You could have asked,” he says, his accent thickening. He takes your hand and presses it to his stomach, right over his navel. The fur is incredibly soft. “You never have to steal what is already yours.”
EDDIE BROCK (& VENOM!)
You come home to find Eddie in the kitchen, hunched over a tub of tater tots, looking like a man who has made several poor life choices. He’s wearing a faded Newsies sweatshirt (don’t ask) and sweatpants.
You don’t even say hello. You just walk up, grab the hem of the sweatshirt, and hoist it up.
Eddie freezes, a tater tot halfway to his mouth. His stomach is… well. It’s not a six-pack. It’s a soft, solid, eat-a-whole-pizza-and-still-look-good kind of stomach. A little hair. A little scar from that time he got impaled by a symbiote hater. It’s perfect.
Before either of you can speak, a black tendril shoots out of Eddie’s chest and gently pushes the sweatshirt back down.
“No,” Venom’s voice growls, low and possessive. “Ours. Only WE get to look.”
“Venom, dude, they’re my girlfriend,” Eddie says, still not moving.
“Then WE will look at HER. Not at US.”
Another tendril wraps around you, and before you know it, your shirt is being torn off of you by a very insistent alien goo monster. Eddie chokes on his tater tot. You shriek.
“Better,” Venom rumbles, apparently satisfied with the view. “Now we are even. We will keep the sweatshirt down. You will keep YOUR shirt up. This is the new rule.”
Eddie buries his face in his hands. “This is not the new rule.”
“VOTE.” One tendril raises Eddie’s hand. Another raises an invisible one for Venom. “Two against one. New rule passes.”
You are now sitting on the couch on your bra, eating tater tots, while Eddie pretends to not be staring. You consider this an absolute win.
STEVE ROGERS
You’re in the kitchen of the Avengers Tower. Steve is making breakfast: pancakes from scratch, because of course he is. He’s wearing a soft, cream-colored henley and an apron that says “Kiss the Cook.” You have never wanted to kiss a cook more in your entire life.
He flips a pancake. His forearm flexes. The henley strains across his back.
You crack.
You walk up behind him, wrap your arms around his waist, and yank his shirt up.
He doesn’t react violently. He’s Steve. He just freezes, pancake flipper in hand, and looks down at your hands splayed across his bare stomach. His body is a monument. A tribute to the pinnacle of human (superhuman) achievement. Every muscle is defined, even after years of retirement. There’s a light dusting of blond hair below his navel. You could cry.
“Sweetheart,” he says, his voice that low, patient, dangerous captain’s voice. “What are you doing?”
“Admiring American history,” you whisper.
He turns off the stove. Slowly. Deliberately.
“We are in a common area. With cameras. That Tony definitely watches.”
“I wanted to see your abs.”
He opens his mouth. Closes it. Rubs the back of his neck. “You… you see them every day. When I change.”
“Not up close.”
He looks left. Right. Then, very quickly, he lifts his own shirt for exactly 1.7 seconds—then drops it. “There. Satisfied?”
“No. That was a crime.”
“You know,” he says, and there’s a hint of a smile tugging at his perfect lips, “in my day, a lady would simply ask to see a gentleman’s torso.”
“In my day,” you retort, “we just took what we wanted.”
“If I let you look for five seconds, will you stop doing this in transited areas of the Tower?”
“Deal.”
He lifts his shirt. You stare. He counts down from five out loud, but he goes slower on the “two.” And when he says “one,” he doesn’t let go.
You end up with your hands on his waist, him holding his own shirt up like a gentleman, for nearly a minute. Sam walks in. Sam walks back out.
Steve buries his face in your hair. “I am never going to hear the end of this.”
“Worth it.”
TONY STARK
You are in his workshop. He’s under a car (one of his classic convertibles) wearing a grease-stained band t-shirt and jeans that hang low on his hips. DUM-E is handing him wrenches. He is muttering about torque ratios.
You crouch down, slide a hand under the car to grab at the plank he's laying on and tug it out, and before he can say “Friday, what the hell,” you grab his shirt and yank it up to his neck.
Tony blinks. He’s on his back, covered in grease, and his girlfriend is now straddling his thighs, staring at his stomach like it’s the last slice of pizza on earth.
“...Okay,” he says slowly. “I’ve been in a lot of situations. Hostage situations. Space situations. That one time in Budapest with a goat. This is… new.”
“Shut up, Tony.”
“I’m not complaining!” He holds up his greasy hands in surrender. “I’m just saying, most people buy me a drink first. You went straight for the home run. I respect it. I’m a little scared, but I respect it.”
You run your fingers down the middle. He shivers. Actually shivers.
“Friday,” he whispers, “cancel my three o’clock.”
“You don’t have a three o’clock, boss.”
“Then cancel my existence. I’m busy.”
He pulls you down on top of him, shirt still up, and kisses you until you taste like motor oil and twenty-year-old guilt. When you finally come up for air, he’s grinning like the man who has everything, and just found out he gets to keep it.
PETER PARKER
He is hanging upside down from the ceiling. Because he’s Peter Parker, and he cannot just sit on a couch like a normal person. He’s wearing a ratty old t-shirt that says “I ❤️ NY” and has a small hole in the armpit.
You walk under him. He grins, upside-down, all big brown eyes and messy hair. “Hey, my lov—”
You grab his shirt. You pull it up (or is it down?).
It slides down all the way to his chin, revealing his entire torso. And oh no. Oh no. He’s lean. He’s wiry. He’s got that swimmer’s build, all long muscle and narrow hips, and a faint trail of dark hair that makes you want to do things that would make your Catholic grandmother faint.
He tries to flip off the ceiling, but he’s so flustered he miscalculates and falls directly on top of you. You both crash to the floor in a tangle of limbs. His shirt is now down. He is now on top of you. He is very warm.
“I- you—why- my abs?!” he squeaks, his voice cracking like he’s fifteen again. “You wanted to see my- I have- they’re not even- they’re just-muscles!”
“Nice muscles,” you say, reaching up to poke one.
He makes a sound like a deflating balloon. “Oh my God. Oh my God, you’re touching them.”
“That’s generally what happens, yeah.”
He buries his face in your shoulder, ears burning red. But he doesn’t pull his shirt down. And he doesn’t get off you. And after a minute, you feel him mumble into your neck: “…do you want to see the back too?”
You have never loved anyone more.
THOR ODINSON
You are in New Asgard. Thor is on the couch, wearing a flannel shirt (sleeves rolled up, of course), eating a bowl of popcorn the size of your head. He’s in his “comfortable” era, softer around the edges, happier, more him.
You climb into his lap, because you fit there now. He grins, that big, golden, sunshine-in-human-form grin. “Hello, my love! Would you like some popcorn? I have also procured-"
You grab his flannel. You pull it open. Buttons fly everywhere. The shirt hangs off his shoulders, revealing his broad, glorious chest. He’s not as cut as he used to be. There’s a softness there now, a layer of warmth over the godly muscle. It is, objectively, the most attractive thing you have ever seen.
Thor freezes, a piece of popcorn halfway to his mouth. Then he looks down at his exposed torso, then at you, then back at his torso.
“…Did you just… de-shirt me?”
“Button-de-shirted you,” you correct. “And yes.”
He considers this for a moment. Then he puts the popcorn down, leans back slightly, and spreads his arms wide on the back on the couch. His smile turns slow, warm, and devastating.
“You know,” he says, his voice dropping to that low, register-rattling rumble, “on Asgard, it is customary to ask before one disrobes a prince.”
“On Midgard,” you reply, “we do what we want.”
He laughs a full, booming laugh that shakes the couch, and pulls you against his bare chest. He is so warm. So soft. So impossibly huge.
“Then by all means,” he murmurs against your hair, “take what you want, little mortal.”
You stay there for hours. The popcorn gets cold. Neither of you moves.
JOHNNY STORM
You are in the middle of a fight. A real one. He forgot your anniversary. You are screaming. He is deflecting. The Human Torch is currently being verbally immolated by his very angry girlfriend.
“and you said you would remember this time, Johnny, you promised!"
“Babe, I’m sorry, I was fighting a Mole Man—”
“THERE IS ALWAYS A MOLE MAN!”
You are so angry. So furious. Your blood is boiling. And then your eyes drop to his waist. He’s wearing his Fantastic Four uniform, the blue and black one, and the top is slightly untucked from his bottoms.
You grab it. You yank it up.
Johnny stops mid-sentence. His abs are obscene. A perfect, chiseled, airbrushed-by-the-gods six-pack that looks like it was designed in a lab specifically to make you forget why you were mad.
You stare.
He stares at you staring.
“…Are we still fighting?” he asks cautiously.
“I don’t know,” you whisper. “I forgot.”
His cocky grin returns. Slow. Smug. Infuriating. “So my abs just… saved the day?”
“Don’t push it.”
“I’m not pushing anything. You’re the one who pulled up my shirt in the middle of a screaming match.”
You drop the shirt. It falls back down. You immediately pull it back up again.
He throws his head back and laughs, bright and loud and Johnny. “Oh, you’ve got it bad, sweetheart.”
“Shut up and take off the rest of the suit.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
PETER QUILL
You are on the Benatar. In space. There’s a nebula outside the window. It’s very romantic. Peter is trying to impress you by playing Come and Get Your Love on his Zune and doing a stupid little dance.
He’s wearing his iconic red leather jacket, a grey t-shirt underneath, and that stupid, gorgeous, annoyingly charming smirk.
You walk up to him. He thinks you’re going to dance with him. He holds out his hand.
Instead, you grab his t-shirt and yank it straight up to his chin.
The music stops. Peter looks down. There’s a faint line of hair from his navel down. He’s suddenly blushing all the way to his ears.
“…Okay,” he says slowly. “I was not expecting that.”
“What were you expecting?”
“I dunno. A slow dance? A compliment about my eyes for once? Not-not a surprise shirt-ectomy!”
You run a finger down his sternum. He shivers violently.
“Dude,” he whispers. “My nipples are out.”
“I’m aware.”
He looks at you. You look at him. The nebula glows purple outside the window. The song is still playing, forgotten.
“…You wanna see the rest?” he asks, his voice cracking slightly.
˚˖𓍢ִ໋❀ With his nose always stuck in a book.
˚˖𓍢ִ໋❀ Dreams of a better life away from the family buisness.
˚˖𓍢ִ໋❀ Seems to finds himself kidnapped constantly (and often bounded).
˚˖𓍢ִ໋❀ Would totally fall in love with anyone that gifted him a giant library.
˚˖𓍢ִ໋❀ Monsterfucker.
Dean Winchester as… Mulan.
BE A MAN
➶⊹ ࣪ ˖ Has to bring honor to the family.
➶⊹ ࣪ ˖ Daddy’s perfect little soldier.
➶⊹ ࣪ ˖ Forced to “be a man” ever since he was a child in order to protect those he loves.
➶⊹ ࣪ ˖ “Help me not to make a fool of me / And to not uproot my family tree / Keep my father standing tall.”
➶⊹ ࣪ ˖ Bisexual icon.
⋆˚࿔ HERO VERSION:
Sam Winchester as… Milo Thatch.
YOU'RE NOT ALONE, YOU'LL FIND YOUR HOME
𓇼⋆ 。˚ Awkward bookworm.
𓇼⋆ 。˚ Always the odd one out, spends his life searching for his place in the world.
𓇼⋆ 。˚ Very smart, but also a total idiot.
𓇼⋆ 。˚ Empathetic, understanding, openminded.
𓇼⋆ 。˚ Falls for the supernatural girl.
Dean Winchester as… Flynn Rider.
ON AN ISLAND THAT I OWN / TANNED AND RESTED AND ALONE / SURROUNDED BY ENORMOUS PILES OF MONEY
˖.𖤓 ݁٠࣪˖˚⋆ Charming, reckless, witty.
˖.𖤓 ݁٠࣪˖˚⋆ Lawless rascal who’s actually just a softie in disguise.
˖.𖤓 ݁٠࣪˖˚⋆ Honorable bastard.
˖.𖤓 ݁٠࣪˖˚⋆ “Here comes the smolder.”
˖.𖤓 ݁٠࣪˖˚⋆ Would cry if they got his nose wrong in his wanted posters.
NOTES: I really love making modboards omg. my brain has been fucking dry and dusty lately, so I decided to have a bit of fun and make these. hope you like them, tell me if you agree or if you'd assign each brother a different character, and let me know if you'd like me to do another one with disney villains. anyway, love you!
summary ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ when a hunt goes wrong and you take the hit meant for dean, your brothers have to hold you together in every way that matters.
pairing ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ sam + dean winchester x little-sister!reader ( f )
wordcount ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ 4872 genre ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ hurt / comfort with soft ending
warnings ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ canon-typical violence, graphic injury, blood loss, stitches, near-death experience, protective older brothers, post-hunt patch-up, soft ending.
notes ˚˖𓍢ִ໋ ִ❀໋ i'll confess to one thing... i usually don't enjoy writing sibling!winchester. i don't know why. maybe i just don't see the appeal. maybe i just want dean to look at reader ( aka me ) with heart eyes!! 😳 but this request honestly changed it so much for me. it took me a while to get to the final result, but god damn, it might my favorite piece this month. so thank you for requesting, my lovely v. i appreciate you sm 🩷
˚˖𓍢ִ໋ ִ request your fanfic ❀໋ consider supporting my work .ᐟ
dean says it twice before you even get out of the car. “you stay where we can see you.”
the first time, you roll your eyes and pretend to check the magazine in your gun even though you already checked it three times in the motel room and once more in the backseat because sam kept doing that quiet, worried thing with his mouth.
the second time, you look up from the silver blade tucked inside your jacket and give dean the most unimpressed stare you can manage. “yeah, dean, i was actually planning to wander off alone into the creepy abandoned textile mill with the blood-drinking monster. thanks for catching that.”
sam shuts the trunk with a low metallic thud, glancing between you and dean as if he’s already exhausted by the argument that hasn’t even formed. “he’s saying it because last time you said you were ‘just checking something’, you ended up in a crawlspace with a ghost.”
“that ghost had answers.”
“that ghost threw a wrench at your head,” dean snaps.
“and missed,” you glare, because you’re a winchester, unfortunately, and sometimes survival has less to do with sense and more to do with being unbearable at the right moment.
dean points at you, the gesture sharp in the cold spill of the impala’s trunk light. “not the point.”
but even as he growls it, there’s something different in the way he looks at you tonight. not less protective. dean’s protectiveness sits under his skin, more part of his personality than sarcasm. still, tonight, he’s letting you stand between him and sam with a gun in your hand, a knife under your jacket, and the case file zipped inside your bag because this is your case. the thought warms you in a small, stupid place you try not to show.
you’d been the one who noticed the missing-person reports clustered around old factory roads, the one who caught that everybody found had been drained but not torn apart, the one who connected the witness statements about the pale man in the mechanic’s jacket. dean called it a vampire at first. sam leaned toward rougarou. you found the old lore entry in bobby’s scanned journal pages, the one about a vetala variant that fed slower, cleaner, almost surgical, usually solitary and territorial.
sam double-checked every source. dean grumbled for two hours about ‘off-brand bloodsuckers’. but they listened. they followed your lead. and now you’re here, boots crunching over gravel wet from an afternoon storm, the air cold enough to bite at your knuckles.
you don’t say how much it matters. that would make it too easy for them to take apart.
“all right,” sam says, pulling the flashlight from his jacket pocket. “we clear the main floor first. victim was last seen near the loading bay. if your theory’s right, it’ll have a nest somewhere dry and dark.”
“my theory is right,” you say.
dean gives you a sideways look. “that confidence better come with a return policy.”
“you’re literally confident with no evidence every day of your life.”
“yeah, but i’m charming.”
sam’s mouth twitches.
you hate that it makes you happy. you hate that being trusted by them feels less like being handed a weapon and more like being handed a place at the table. your brothers love you. you know that. they love you so hard it has bruised every corner of your life. but love and trust aren’t the same thing, and winchester love has a way of locking doors from the inside. tonight, for once, they let you pick the lock.
inside, the mill is a long-boned corpse of a building, all rusted railings, broken windows, and old machinery huddled beneath plastic tarps. rainwater drips through holes in the roof, steady and uneven, tapping against metal beams and puddles in the concrete. your flashlight catches strips of old safety tape, faded signs, a smashed vending machine with warped candy wrappers still trapped behind cloudy glass.
“cozy,” dean mutters.
“you say that about every murder building.”
“because murder buildings keep having terrible decor.”
you bite back a smile and move carefully along the wall, watching the dust, the drag marks, the faint wet smear that isn’t water near the base of a staircase. sam sees it at the same time you do. he crouches, touches two fingers close to it without actually dipping into the blood, then looks up at you.
you nod toward the hall on the left. “loading bay.”
dean’s face changes. not much, just that slight tightening in his jaw, that older-brother switch flipping from banter to business. he steps ahead by instinct. you step with him from sheer stubbornness. for a second, his eyes cut to you. you know that look. it means don’t. you stare back. it means try me.
sam exhales behind you. “both of you, focus.”
the thing is in the loading bay, just where you thought it would be. it drops from the upper beams with a wet, ugly hiss, pale limbs bending wrong, mouth peeling open too wide around teeth stained dark at the edges.
dean fires first. the shot cracks through the hollow space and sends a flock of pigeons bursting from the rafters. sam moves left, clean and fast, silver flashing in his hand. you take right, heart kicking hard enough to make your ribs feel crowded, and for one bright second, everything works exactly the way it should.
you’re scared. obviously, you’re scared. fear’s not the opposite of courage; dean taught you that by accident every time he gripped the steering wheel too tight and still drove toward the thing everyone else ran from. your hands shake once, then steady. you remember the lore. you remember the weak point. you remember the pattern of its attacks.
the monster lunges for sam.
“sam!” you shout, firing into its shoulder.
it shrieks, twists, and dean’s already there. his knife buries under its ribs, one hard upward shove, and the creature spasms against him. its nails scrape down his jacket. he grimaces, drives the blade deeper, and it drops—ugly, knees folding, body hitting the concrete with a sound that turns your stomach.
silence crashes down after it. for a few seconds, nobody moves.
then dean looks at you, breath coming hard, blood speckled across one cheek. “your theory was right.”
you grin before you can stop yourself. “say it again.”
“don’t push it.”
“no, no, i need the full sentence. maybe with eye contact.”
sam straightens, still watching the body. “it was a clean ID. good work.”
that lands softer than you expect. heavier, too. you look at sam and feel your teasing loosen into something awkward and warm. “thanks.”
dean wipes his knife on the creature’s jacket. “yeah, yeah. gold star. everybody happy? let’s torch ugly here and get gone before this place collapses on us.”
you should’ve left then.
that’s the part you’ll think about later, again and again, when the pain has teeth and sleep comes in broken pieces. you should’ve left. the hunt’s done. the monster’s dead. the three of you are alive, damp, tired, and okay.
sam turns toward the exit first. dean bends to grab the duffel with the lighter fluid and salt. you take one step back, looking over the body, already building the story in your head: how dean will pretend he solved the case by ‘superior instinct’, how sam will argue for research credit, how you’ll demand diner pie as tribute for being correct.
then something moves behind dean. not the dead thing. above him. your brain catches pieces, not the whole. the scrape of claws on metal. the shift of shadow along the beam. sam’s flashlight swinging up too late. another pale shape unfolding from the dark with a mouth already open and one arm drawn back.
dean doesn’t see it.
you do.
there’s no time to say his name properly. no time to think through angles or weapons or whether you’re being brave or stupid. your body makes the choice before your mind catches up, and maybe that’s the most winchester thing about you.
you slam into dean’s side with both hands. he stumbles hard, swearing, the duffel dropping from his grip.
the second creature comes down where he was standing.
the pain is immediate, bright, wrong. at first, you don’t understand it. there’s impact, then heat, then a tearing pressure across your side that knocks the breath clean out of you. the floor jumps up. your knees hit concrete. something inside you seems to tilt out of place.
sam yells your name.
dean yells it louder.
you look down because some dumb, childish part of you needs proof, and proof is there under your hand, slick and dark, spreading too fast through torn fabric. the creature’s claw has opened you from the lower ribs down toward your hip, deep enough that your fingers come away red before you can decide whether to press or pull away.
oh. that’s all you can think.
the monster screams again, but it sounds far off now, dragged underwater. sam moves past you in a blur of long limbs and fury, not calm anymore, not careful. dean’s suddenly in front of you, then beside you, then on his knees, his hands catching your shoulders before you can fold all the way down.
“hey, hey, hey. look at me. look at me.”
you try. his face refuses to stay still. the world flickers around the edges, gray chewing at the lights.
“dean—” you say, but your voice is thin and surprised, which scares you more than the pain.
“nope. don’t do that.” he rips his overshirt open so hard one button snaps and skitters across the floor. “don’t use that little voice on me. you’re fine.”
you want to point out that this is a very obvious lie. you want to say something clever because that’s what you do when dean gets scared. you make him mad so he has somewhere to put it. but the words don’t line up. your thoughts have turned slippery. every breath pulls fire through your side, and there’s so much blood.
dean wads the shirt and presses it hard to the wound.
the sound you make is ugly.
“i know,” he says instantly, face twisting. “i know, baby. i’m sorry. i gotta, okay? i gotta stop the bleeding.”
baby. he only calls you that when he forgets you aren’t six anymore.
behind him, there’s a crash, a snarl cut short, sam’s grunt of pain, then the wet punch of a blade sinking. the second monster hits the ground. for one strange second, you feel guilty that you can’t turn your head to check if sam’s okay.
sam appears anyway, breath ragged, hair falling into his face, knife dripping black-red onto the concrete. “how bad?”
dean doesn’t answer fast enough.
sam sees the blood and goes pale in a way you’ve never seen on a hunt. his hand hovers over you, useless for half a heartbeat, then he drops beside dean and starts pulling supplies from the duffel with shaking efficiency. gauze. bandage roll. tape.
“we need to move,” sam says. his voice cracks insignificantly on the last word, but you hear it. “dean, we can’t fix this here.”
“i know that,” dean snaps.
you blink up at the ceiling. one of the lights is broken. it hums and flickers and makes everything look chopped into pieces. “did we get both?”
sam looks at you as if the question hurts him personally. “yeah. we got both.”
“good.” you swallow, but your mouth is dry. “my case.”
dean lets out something that isn’t a laugh, not even close. “yeah, congratulations. your prize is me kicking your ass when you stop bleeding.”
“mean,” your brain orders your lips to smile, but all you actually manage is a crooked twitch.
“you haven’t seen mean.” his hand presses harder. “stay with me and i’ll show you.”
sam’s jacket goes over you. then his hands are under your knees and behind your shoulders, and dean shifts to keep pressure while they lift.
the world breaks open.
you do scream then, or maybe you only think you do. the sound tears your throat raw either way. dean curses, sam says sorry over and over, and you hate them a little for moving you, then love them for not stopping, because stopping means dying on a dirty factory floor beside a dead thing with too many teeth, and you’ve always privately hoped your death would be more dramatic than that. more meaningful. less damp.
your boots drag once. dean barks at sam to watch the door. sam barks back that he has it. their voices keep knocking against each other above you, familiar and frantic, and you hold onto the rhythm because the rest of you feels unstitched.
outside, the cold hits your face so sharply that you gasp.
“there she is,” dean says. “keep those eyes open.”
you do. for maybe two seconds.
the path to the car stretches forever. gravel crunches. rain starts again, light and mean, spotting sam’s jacket across your chest. you can see the impala ahead, black and shining under the thin moon, and for some ridiculous reason you think about how dean’s going to be pissed if you bleed all over the backseat.
“sorry,” you mumble.
“for what?” sam asks, breathless.
“car.”
dean makes a sound near your ear. “are you apologizing to the car right now?”
he opens the back door with one hand while sam lowers you in. it’s clumsy. awful. dean slides in after you without hesitation, dragging you half across his lap, one hand jammed against your side. sam takes the driver’s seat. even through the fog, you understand what that means. dean lets sam drive when the world’s ending or when he’s too broken to pretend his hands belong on the wheel.
the engine roars to life. gravel spits under the tires. your head lolls against dean’s shoulder, and he catches your chin with two fingers, forcing your face up. “nuh-uh. you don’t sleep.”
words tumble from your lips that don’t sound like anything at all. bossy, is what you wanted to muster out.
“you think you get to throw yourself in front of me and then take a nap? that’s rude as hell.”
sam’s eyes flash in the rearview mirror. “dean.”
“what? she likes it when i’m mean.”
you’d smile again, now. the muscles don’t move.
the road sways. streetlights smear gold through the rain-streaked windows. dean keeps talking, each sentence sharper than the last, rough enough that someone else might think he’s angry at you. you know better. dean’s fear has always worn anger as a jacket because anger has pockets. anger can carry a knife. fear just stands there empty-handed.
“you still owe me twenty bucks from that pool game in omaha,” he says. “and don’t think i forgot. you die on me, i’m collecting from your stash.”
sam takes a corner too fast. your stomach rolls. pain flares white, and for a second there’s no car, no rain, no dean. only your body begging to stop.
“sam,” dean barks, suddenly not mean at all.
“i’m going as fast as i can.”
“go faster.”
“i am!”
the motel is only eight minutes away. maybe ten. it feels longer than every year you’ve been alive.
you listen to dean’s heartbeat because your ear is against his chest now. it pounds too fast. too human. too scared. his hand is warm and wet where it holds you together, and you wonder if he can feel you slipping under his palm.
“dean,” you manage.
“yeah, i’m here.”
“you okay?”
his breath catches.
then his face comes down close to yours, his cheek rough against your temple for one second, and his voice turns wrecked and furious. “you don’t ask me that right now. you hear me? you do not get to ask me that.”
you want to say you pushed him because he’s your brother. because he would’ve done it for you. because sam would’ve done it for either of you. because this family is a series of bodies stepping in front of other bodies, and you learned the choreography before you were old enough to know there was another way to love someone. instead, your eyes close.
dean says your name. sam says it too.
then everything goes quiet.
when you wake, the first thing you notice is the ceiling. not the pain. not at first. just the ceiling with its ugly popcorn texture and the brown water stain shaped vaguely, stupidly. the motel room is dark except for the blue-gray light leaking around the curtains and the dim yellow lamp near the bathroom. rain taps the window in thin little clicks. your mouth tastes awful. copper and stale air. your body feels too heavy. then the pain arrives.
it comes slowly, not the bright slash from before, but a deep, pulsing misery that wraps around your side and digs in with every breath. your fingers twitch against the blanket. the movement is tiny, but it’s enough. dean wakes instantly.
he’s on the floor beside the bed, back against the mattress, one knee bent, gun loose in his hand. his head snaps up so fast you wonder if he ever really slept. his face is rough with exhaustion, eyes red, hair flattened on one side. there’s blood under his fingernails. your blood.
“hey,” he says, and the word falls apart in the middle.
you try to answer. nothing comes out.
he reaches for the glass on the nightstand, then hesitates as if terrified moving too fast will break you. “water. small sip.”
he helps lift your head. the water is warm and tastes faintly of paper cup, and it’s the best thing you’ve ever had. you swallow twice before he pulls it away.
“don’t chug it,” he mutters. “you’ll puke, and i’m not ready for that.”
your mouth moves before sound shows up. “coward.”
dean freezes. then his face crumples for half a second, so quick you might miss it if you weren’t looking right at him. he laughs once under his breath, no joy in it yet. just relief. “there she is.”
across the room, sam’s asleep in a crooked wooden chair, his long body folded badly, head hanging forward at an angle that guarantees a brutal neck ache. one hand still rests on an open first-aid kit on the table. the other is curled around his phone, screen dark. he looks younger in sleep, but not peaceful. never peaceful. his brows are drawn together, his mouth tight, as if worry followed him under.
dean follows your gaze and softens despite himself. “he’s okay. got clipped, nothing bad. he passed out about forty minutes ago. wouldn’t lie down because he’s an idiot.”
“family trait.”
“yeah, apparently.”
you shift again, trying to understand your body, and pain flashes hot enough to make your vision spot. dean’s on his knees in a second, hand hovering over your shoulder, not touching until he knows where it will hurt less.
“don’t move.”
“what happened?”
his jaw flexes. he looks toward your bandaged side, and you follow the glance despite the dread.
your shirt is gone, replaced with one of dean’s old black tees cut open along the side. thick bandages wrap your middle, bulky and clean now, though rusty red has already started to bloom through one layer. beneath that, you can feel the pull of stitches, tight and ugly.
“we patched you up,” dean says.
“hospital?”
“too far. too many questions. wound missed the worst stuff by a miracle.” his voice goes flat at the edges. “sam cleaned it. i stitched.”
you blink at him. “you?”
his eyes don’t quite meet yours. “yeah.”
your throat tightens in a way that has nothing to do with thirst. “dean…”
“don’t start.”
“is it bad?”
“the stitching? yeah. objectively terrible.” he swallows. “scar’s gonna be nasty.”
sam wakes with a sharp inhale before you can say anything. the chair creaks violently under him, and he looks around with wild eyes until he sees you awake. then he’s up too fast, nearly knocking the first-aid kit off the table.
“hey. hey, don’t—” dean starts.
sam ignores him, coming to the other side of the bed and crouching so he can see your face. “how do you feel?”
“amazing,” you whisper. “thinking of taking up jogging.”
sam’s mouth trembles. he presses it into a line, nods as if accepting this medical information with great seriousness. “okay. terrible, then.”
“neck?”
“what?”
“your neck. the chair looks mean.”
for some reason, that breaks him worse than anything else. his eyes go bright, and he looks down, one hand covering his mouth for a second. when he looks back up, he is holding himself together with visible effort. “you almost died,” he manages.
the room goes still. dean looks away. you know it already. you felt it in the car, in the way the dark came for you, soft and patient. but hearing sam say it makes the truth land in the room with all three of you. not as a possibility. as a fact with wet hair and bloody hands.
“but i didn’t,” you say.
“that’s not the point,” dean snaps, too fast.
your eyes move to him. there’s the lecture. the anger he’s been sharpening because terror is too blunt to use. dean gets to his feet, then seems to realize pacing will make him look frantic, so he stops beside the bed and crosses his arms instead.
“what the hell were you thinking?”
sam exhales. “dean—”
“no, don’t dean me. she shoved me out of the way.”
“because there was a monster above you,” you say, voice thin.
“yeah, i got that part.”
“then maybe say thank you.”
his eyes flash. “thank you? you want a thank you? fine. thank you for taking a claw to the gut. thank you for bleeding out in the back of my car. thank you for scaring ten years off my life. that work for you?”
you flinch. dean’s loud all the time. but you flinch because underneath it, he sounds young. not your older brother. not cocky, leather-jacket, classic-rock pain in your ass. child young. the kind of young he must’ve been the first time your dad handed him a gun and told him you and sam were his job.
your eyes burn.
dean sees it and looks immediately miserable, which almost makes it worse. “i’m sorry,” he says, voice dropping. “i’m not—i don’t mean…”
“you mean it,” you say quietly.
he rubs a hand over his mouth. “yeah. i mean it. i mean… what the hell, kid?”
sam sits carefully on the edge of the other bed, facing you, hands clasped between his knees. “you saved dean’s life.”
dean makes a sharp sound.
“you did,” sam says, not looking away from you. “and we know why you did it. nobody’s saying you should’ve stood there and watched him get hurt.”
“i’m saying,” dean cuts in, “that i’m supposed to be the one taking hits for you.”
“that’s not a rule.”
“yes, it is.”
the answer is so immediate, so certain, that it knocks the breath out of you.
sam’s expression folds with pain. he reaches for your hand, fingers closing around yours, warm and careful. “you’re our little sister.”
“i’m a hunter too.”
“i know,” sam says. “we know. tonight proved that.”
“then don’t say it like i’m not allowed to choose.”
“you are,” he says, and that gentleness hurts because he means it. “but we’re allowed to hate that choice. we’re allowed to be scared.”
dean lets out a bitter laugh. “scared doesn’t cover it.”
your eyes fill before you can stop them. you’re too tired to swallow it back, too sore to turn your face away with any dignity. the tears slip hot into your hairline, and dean’s anger vanishes so fast it leaves him looking hollow.
“hey,” he says, softer. “no, don’t. you’ll pull something.”
sam squeezes your hand.
“i didn’t want him to die,” you say, and it’s the stupidest, smallest explanation, barely anything, but it’s all you have. “i just saw it and moved. i didn’t think.”
dean sits on the edge of the bed, careful not to jostle you. his shoulders slump. “i know.”
“i’m not sorry.”
his eyes close.
“i’m sorry you got scared,” you add, voice shaking now. “i’m sorry about the blood and the car and the crappy scar. i’m sorry sam had to drive because that means we’re all traumatized forever.”
sam huffs out a laugh that sounds dangerously close to a sob.
“but i’m not sorry i pushed you.”
dean opens his eyes. for once, he has no fast answer. no insult. no joke with teeth. just that look he usually buries under bad attitude.
the tears keep coming, quiet and embarrassing. you aren’t even crying neatly. your chin wobbles, your breathing stutters, and every shaky inhale pulls at the stitches until pain glows beneath the bandages. sam reaches up to wipe your cheek with his thumb, and that makes it worse for some reason. dean looks at you for one more second before his face breaks open with helpless affection and fear.
“come here,” you whisper.
both of them freeze.
“what?”
“hug,” you say, because you might die of humiliation if they deny it. “teary hug. now.”
they move slowly. sam climbs onto the bed first, careful around the wounded side, one arm sliding behind your shoulders with the lightest pressure possible. dean takes the other side, awkward as hell, one knee on the mattress, one hand braced near your hip so he doesn’t lean on you.
it’s barely a hug at first. then sam presses his face into your hair. dean’s hand curls around the back of your head. and suddenly it’s real.
you cry harder, silently, because making noise hurts too much. sam murmurs nonsense into your hair, low and broken, telling you you’re okay, you’re here, they’ve got you. dean says nothing for a while. he just holds on, his thumb moving once against your temple as if checking that you’re still warm.
“you ever do that again,” he says eventually, voice rough, “i’m grounding you.”
you sniff. “i’m an adult.”
“don’t care.”
“can’t ground a hunter.”
“watch me.”
you close your eyes, tucked between them, pain and relief tangled so tightly you can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. you’re still scared. you thought waking up would end it, but your body remembers the floor, the blood, dean’s hands pressing hard enough to hurt, sam’s voice cracking when he said your name… you’re safe now, or as safe as a winchester gets.
later, there are fresh bandages. painkillers from a bottle with someone else’s name on it. sam reheats soup in the motel microwave and pretends not to hover while you take four whole bites under threat of dean ‘airplaning the spoon’ like the world’s worst nurse. dean changes his shirt but not before you catch him scrubbing your blood off his hands in the sink for too long.
for the next few hours, they become unbearable in opposite directions. sam keeps track of your fever, your pulse, your pain level, and the timing of every pill with the grim focus of a medical student. dean pretends he isn’t fussing while absolutely fussing, adjusting the blanket with a scowl, cutting your food into smaller pieces, putting a trash can near the bed in case you get sick, then acting offended when you call him sweet.
“i’m not sweet.”
“you tucked me in.”
“you were shivering.”
“sweet.”
“drugged. you’re drugged and confused.”
“sweetheart, even.”
sam makes a strangled noise into his coffee.
dean points at him. “laugh and you’re the one getting stabbed next.”
but he does not leave the bed for long. neither of them does. sam eventually stretches out on the other mattress, one arm flung over his eyes, but his hand stays near the space between the beds. dean returns to the floor because apparently that’s where he has decided he lives now, back against your mattress, head tilted just enough that you can see the exhaustion pulling at him.
the rain lets up near dawn.
you drift in and out, carried by painkillers and the soft scrape of sam turning pages in a book he isn’t really reading. every time you wake, one of them notices. every time you shift, one of them tells you not to. it makes something tender ache under your ribs, somewhere away from the wound. because being loved by them is heavy. too heavy sometimes. it pins you down, wraps you up, steals the room from your lungs. but it’s also dean sleeping on the floor because he wants to be the first thing danger has to climb over. it’s sam ruining his neck in a motel chair because looking away feels worse than pain. it’s mean jokes in the backseat, shaking stitches, soup from a microwave, and two brothers pretending they aren’t hovering while hovering severely.
you let them fuss. just this once.
outside, morning settles over the motel in thin gold strips, and for a while, nobody asks you to be brave.
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