you got your passion, you got your pride

sabs // she/her // BLM // 🍉

[sambvcks]

eddie munson x reader (stranger things)

standalones

of first, second, third, fourth meetings | on ao3

the four times it feels like meeting eddie munson for the first time. loosely inspired by ‘when harry met sally’

wanting was enough (for me it was enough) | on ao3

eddie munson was not used to being someone’s first choice

bucky barnes x reader (marvel)

multichapter

crawl home to her | masterlist | on ao3

neighbors! au. bucky isn’t as receptive to this new life of his as everyone had hoped. he’s cold, sharp tongued, and closed off. except to the tenant across the hallway who always wear pajamas and bakes a dozen too many of his favorite cookies.

standalones

redefined | on ao3

just because those ten words no longer wreak havoc on his mind does not mean they are gone. just redefined. 

bruce wayne x reader (2022!batman)

standalones

i can go anywhere i want (just not home) | on ao3

six months of silence from your on-again, off-again vigilante patient comes to an end

[ join my taglist! ]

[oscarcito]

RED CARD!!

[1-16]

x

[piastriprincess]

someone to hold me down ³  ⸻  lando  norris  x  reader  .

featuring  lando  norris  ,  love  island  au  (post  villa)  ,  established  relationship word  count 9.3k author’s  note  SURPRISE  BITCH  …  i  bet  you  thought  you’d  seen  the  last  of  me  !!  it’s  been  a  minute  and  i  am  so  sorry,  honestly  this  whole  law  school  thing  got  HANDS  !!!  but  it’s  valentine’s  day  weekend aka  theeeee  holiday  of  love  and  we  got  ln1  on  track  this  week  and  so  i  simply  HAVE  to  deliver  !!!  this  is  the  only  epilogue  you  will  get  for  now,  sorry  —  as  much  as  i  love  these  divas  (and  i  DO)  i  have  so  many  other  projects  i’m  excited  about  and  i  hope  you’ll  stick  around  for  them  <3  and  of  course  you  can  always  come  chat  in  my  inbox,  i’ve  been  loving  writing  out  little  hcs  about  love  island  landoyn  for  you  all  and  will  keep  doing  it  as  long  as  you  ask  me  questions  !  requests are always open too. as  always,  let  me  know  what  you  think,  title  is  once  again  from  came  here  for  love  by  sigala  !!

You rap on the door in your familiar rhythm, one long tap, then two short. 

He’s probably asleep, and you didn’t text before you came over, but you keep going — once, twice, three times. Because even if it’s past midnight and you’re both technically responsible adults with regular sleep schedules, you know Lando will always answer the door when it’s you that’s knocking. 

“Hold on — shit,” you can hear him mumble from inside, half-asleep and fumbling through his flat, which hopefully unlike yours does not currently resemble an Olympic-size swimming pool. “M’coming, okay, just —”

The door swings open, and his expression eases as soon as he sees you shivering in your pajamas on his welcome mat, carrying the world’s soggiest overnight bag. “Hi,” he breathes, expression melting into the ridiculously soft smile that he always seems to reserve just for you.

“Hi,” you sniffle, wiping at your eyes with the back of your hand.

He blinks, face shifting into concern almost immediately. “C’mere,” he mumbles, tugging you over the threshold and into a tight hug despite the fact that you’re basically a human sponge, already soaking through his t-shirt and dripping all over his fancy hardwood floors. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“Mrs. Davies’ washing machine exploded,” you mumble into his chest. He’s still warm from sleep, and you let yourself breathe in his clean, boyish scent, relaxing into his embrace. “Directly through my ceiling. My bedroom basically became Niagara Falls on top of me.”

“Baby,” he hums, rubbing your back soothingly. “That’s terrible.”

You pull back just slightly, giving him a once-over, and he barely manages to school his grin into an appropriately concerned expression in time. “Lando. Why do you sound so happy about my housing crisis?”

“I’m not happy,” he protests, corners of his mouth twitching upwards. “I’m devastated. Really.”

You raise an eyebrow, poking him on the cheek. “Tell that to your dimples.”

“Oi. They’re empathetic dimples. I’m being very emotionally supportive, actually,” he insists, stepping back for just long enough to toe the door shut behind you and push your overnight bag away from the growing puddle beneath you. “C’mon, let’s get you warm.”

Twenty minutes later, you’re clean and considerably less waterlogged, padding back into the living room with a cloud of shower steam trailing behind you. You’ve got a whole drawer of clothes in Lando’s dresser already, but in need of comfort, you’d reached past all your own neatly folded things for his Quadrant hoodie — one from an ancient drop, gone soft from a hundred washes and smelling exactly like him. 

Lando’s already on the sofa when you emerge, twin mugs steaming away on the coffee table in front of him. He pats the cushion beside him and you curl up automatically, leaning into him and tucking your feet under his thigh the way you always do. “Right,” he says, tugging you closer, arm slung over your shoulders. “Tell me everything.”

So you do. You tell him about waking up to a drip on your nose and then what sounded like a freight train crashing into your flat, the sudsy water pouring through the plaster and drenching everything you own, Mrs. Davies staring down at you through the hole in your ceiling, hysterical because her washer had been making a funny noise for weeks and the landlord hadn’t bothered to fix it. 

“And then, I swear to god, Lan, I called him and he said I should just ‘mop it up’ and he’d ‘come take a look when he has time,’” you say, air-quoting so emphatically that your tea threatens to slosh over the rim of your mug. “I was literally standing in at least an inch of water, my flat looks like Atlantis, and he wanted me to mop it up.”

“Are you joking?” Lando mutters, jaw tightening. “You need to call him back right now and — actually, no, give me his number, I’ll call him.”

“Babe.”

“No, I’m serious,” he insists, raking a hand through his curls. “That’s completely unacceptable. You could’ve been hurt and your flat’s unlivable and he’s acting like you’ve spilled a glass of water or something. Give me your phone, I’ll tell him exactly what I think of his shit customer service —”

You place a hand on his chest to stop him, affecting a breathy damsel-in-distress tone. “My hero.”

“Thanks,” he beams, and you just manage to hold in a snort before his eyes narrow, registering your tone. “You’re taking the piss, aren’t you?”

“Little bit.”

He huffs, but he’s grinning, thumb rubbing slow circles on your shoulder. “I really would’ve fought him for you. Just so you know.”

“I know,” you say softly, pressing a soft kiss to his jaw before you sag against him with a sigh. “I know it’s stupid, but I really loved that flat.”

His arm tightens around your shoulders, like he’s trying to hold you together. “I know, baby.”

“I mean, it was shit,” you say, because if you don’t complain you might start crying again. “It was kind of falling apart, and the radiators made that horrible clanking noise in the middle of the night, and my neighbors were always stealing my packages, but it was mine.” You shift on the cushions, taking a sip of tea before you rest your head against his shoulder. “I moved in there before all this. Before the villa and the tabloids and the people filming me on the Tube. It was the one piece left of my normal life, and now it’s just gone.”

Lando hums softly against your hair, fingers tracing invisible patterns on your arm. “What d’you think you’re going to do?”

You sigh, cradling your mug in your hands. “Dunno. Have to break my lease and find somewhere new, I guess. Or the building manager said they’d put me up in a hotel, but it’s going to take months to fix, and that sounds sort of grim, staying in some sad anonymous room that whole time. I mean, can you imagine? The tabloids will have a field day with that: Love Island star homeless, living out of Premier Inn.”

“Or you could just move in.”

Your laugh spills out before you can stop it. “Very funny.”

“I’m not joking,” Lando shrugs, slow and easy and unbothered, and you nearly choke on your tea.

“Think about it,” he continues, like he’s warming to his own idea. “You’re here practically all the time anyway. You’ve got a drawer, you’ve got a toothbrush, your makeup is slowly taking over my bathroom counters. My Netflix algorithm keeps recommending trashy reality shows because you put them on in the background while you work from home. My mum called last week and asked to talk to you before she even said hello to me because she just, like, assumed you’d be here. Logistically, it’s kind of stupid you don’t live here already.”

Your face scrunches, even as your heart swoops in your chest. “Lan, that’s a really big step.” 

“It is,” he agrees immediately, looking at you like he’s been standing at the top of that particular hypothetical staircase for months, just waiting for you to hand him a box. “And I want to take it with you.”

“What if I’m annoying to live with?” you mumble, fiddling with the cuffs of his hoodie. “Things are so good with us. What if I move in and you, like, wake up one day and realize you hate living with me and it ruins everything?”

He snorts, squeezing your shoulder. “Baby. We basically already lived together in a villa with eight other people and a gajillion cameras, remember? There’s no secret nightmare version of you that’s going to surprise me. I know you take ages to get ready and leave about seventeen hair ties in every room you go in. I know you hog the covers so my feet are always cold. I know you cry at sappy commercials when you’re stressed out. I know all of it, and I still want you here.” He pauses, and when he speaks again his voice is softer. “I always want you here. Why not make it official?”

You look at him — hair a mess, t-shirt wrinkled, but eyes soft — and something familiar flickers in your chest, the same warmth you’ve felt ever since the first time he smiled at you under the Mallorcan sun. 

“You don’t have to decide right now,” he says gently, catching your hand and lacing your fingers together. “Just… think about it, at least.”

So you do. You think about sleeping in a bed that smells like someone else’s perfume, about tabloid cameras tracking you traipsing in and out of a dodgy hotel every night, about another year of a new place that has you in it and not him. You think about mint tea in a big mug every morning, about the way his doorman calls you Mrs. Norris and you’ve stopped bothering to correct him, about how nothing has ever felt more like home than sitting wrapped up in a blanket with this stupid perfect boy in his stupid perfect flat. 

“Okay,” you say, trying to keep your voice level even though you can feel the smile threatening to split your face in half. “Thought about it. I’m in.”

He blinks, as if he expected at least three more rounds of overthinking out of you, and then his entire face lights up like you’ve just told him Christmas came early. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” you confirm, and then he’s surging forward to kiss you, thumbs smoothing over your cheekbones. Both of you are smiling too hard for it to be any good, but neither of you seem to care.

“Right, okay,” he says when you break apart, tone all business even through his megawatt grin. “I’ll move my streaming setup to the spare room so you’ll have space for your desk, and I saw these organizers for the drawers so we can split them all in half, and I’ve been thinking we could turn the corner by the window into a little reading nook for you, because the light’s really good there in the afternoons, and —”

“Lando Norris,” you interrupt delightedly, poking him in the side, “how long have you been plotting to get me to move in with you?”

He pauses and rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “Plotting is a strong word. But I may have some bigger bookshelves saved in my Amazon cart already.”

You shake your head, laughing. “Unbelievable.”

“What?” he shrugs, eyes crinkling at the corners from the force of his smile. “I like to be prepared. Knew you’d move in eventually.”

“Oh, did you now?” you say, grinning back despite yourself.

“Yup,” he replies, popping the p. “You’re obsessed with me.”

You grab the pillow behind you, swinging it playfully at his shoulder. “You’re lucky you’re cute.”

“I’m lucky,” he corrects, leaning over and pressing a kiss to your damp hair. “Full stop.”

As it turns out, moving is not a huge romantic gesture; it’s really more like a thousand tiny inconveniences dressed up as one big, life-altering decision.

The whole thing happens in a week, mostly by necessity — your ceiling’s crumbling more by the day, and you can’t camp out at Lando’s indefinitely without the rest of your things. So you throw yourself into it with the slightly deranged energy of someone who has no Plan B: insurance paperwork and lease negotiations and daily trips back to the wreckage of your old life, hoping the state of the flat hasn’t gotten worse since your last visit and getting disappointed when it inevitably has. 

Lando’s right beside you every day, rolling up his sleeves and getting stuck in without you even asking him to. Cataloguing takes ages — every piece of furniture, every appliance, every sad waterlogged item in your entire flat itemized and coded into a spreadsheet for the benefit of some anonymous insurance adjuster. He does the heavy lifting without complaint, hauling trash bag after trash bag of items down to the dumpster while you take pictures of your water-stained bed frame and your laptop, damaged beyond repair. After your landlord dodges your calls for the third day in a row, he insists on coming with you to the meeting you’ve set up, even though you tell him at least seven times that you can handle it yourself.

“I’m just coming for emotional support,” he shrugs, lacing up his trainers, but he practically drags you along the entire walk to the leasing office, hand tight around yours. 

When you get there, your landlord — a ruddy-faced man named Keith who’s legitimately never responded to an email within 72 hours — is already sitting at the table, looking deeply inconvenienced by having to actually do his job. He starts in on a spiel about how if you try to leave early, the procedures say that you’ll owe two months’ penalty and forfeit your security deposit, and you’re gearing up for ninety minutes of back-and-forth when Lando leans forward in his chair. 

“Sorry,” he says, smiling with the sort of preternatural calm that you’ve only seen once, standing in between you and Carlos on the villa lawn. “Are these the same procedures that told you to ignore a tenant’s calls for days while she had to sleep across town because her flat’s not structurally sound? We just wanted to clarify before we make a complaint to her MP.”

Keith releases you from the lease within the hour. Lando holds the door for you on the way out, waving goodbye to him like they’ve just had a lovely chat.

“That,” you say, the second the door swings shut behind you and you’re back on the pavement, “was genuinely the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”

The transformation is instantaneous. The steely, unshakeable man who just stared down your landlord without breaking a sweat goes boyishly pink from his neck to the tips of his ears, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “Stop it. I barely did anything.”

“I’m serious, Lan,” you grin. “He looked like he was going to cry.”

“Well, I didn’t like the way he was talking to you,” he mumbles, ducking his head bashfully. “He was being a prick.”

“A massive prick,” you agree, looping your arm through his. “And you were very sexy about it. My big scary boyfriend, taking on the establishment. Keith didn’t stand a chance.”

He finally looks at you, a sheepish, lopsided grin breaking across his face like he can’t quite help it, and he knocks his shoulder into yours as you round the corner. “Right, well, your big scary boyfriend needs a scone before we go back to the flat,” he says, steering you towards the bakery he loves on the end of your street. “That was genuinely very stressful. Defending your honor really takes it out of a man.”

On the last day you can call yourself a tenant, you drag yourself out of Lando’s bed at a frankly ungodly hour to pick up the moving van at a dodgy garage in Islington. By the time you’ve gotten back to your flat and hauled the first round of flattened boxes up the stairs, the sun’s barely up but your boyfriend is already there, stationed in the kitchen with packing supplies and a massive tea in hand.

“Hi,” he says, holding the tea out to you. “Where should I start?”

Something loosens in your chest at the sight of him — not just that he’s here, but that he’s here first, like he set an alarm specifically so you wouldn’t have to do the hard parts of today alone. “You didn’t have to come this early,” you say, even though you’re so grateful he did that your voice wobbles a little on the last word.

He shrugs easily, already pulling open the first cupboard, but you can tell he’s pleased. “Couldn’t sleep once you left. Figured I might as well be productive about it.”

Lando’s good at packing, but he’s better at making the terrible bits bearable. He stays in the kitchen for hours, wrapping your plates and utensils and teacups carefully in packing paper, labeling each box with his horribly messy handwriting. He’s got music blaring from his phone, the playlist you’ve been curating together for months, one of those Spotify blend things that you did after the villa that’s since ballooned into four hundred songs that make no sense together unless you’re the two people who added them. You watch him taping up boxes, singing along off-key to something you put on there as a joke somewhere around your six-month anniversary, and for a moment, it doesn’t feel like you’re taking apart your life — it just feels like hanging out with your favorite person. Which, you suppose, is kind of the whole point.

“Keep or bin?” he asks you from the kitchen, holding up a handpainted glass that reads It’s Wine O’Clock in neon pink block letters. 

“Gift from Gem, it’s gotta stay,” you reply, barely even looking up from where you’re sorting throw pillows into piles of salvageable and completely and totally ruined. 

“Right, back of the cabinet it is and we pull it out when her and George come round,” he says, wrapping it up with a flourish. “Kitchen’s officially done, then. Want me to help in here?”

You exhale, picking your way through the ruins of the living room until you reach him, pressing a lingering kiss to the corner of his mouth. “That would be perfect, babe, thanks. I’m about to pack up the books in my room, but you could start with the console table over there?”

“‘Course,” he says affably, beaming down at you. “Whatever you need.”

His helpful energy lasts about seventeen seconds. “Oh my god,” he blurts from behind you while you stuff the wrecked pillows into a trash bag. “What the hell is this?”

When you turn, you see him holding a ceramic frog, about eight inches tall in a deeply unfortunate shade of chartreuse, with bulging eyes and a wide, unhinged grin that makes it look like it’s just heard a secret it’s very excited to tell. One of its front legs is extended outward in a kind of jaunty wave, and someone — you genuinely cannot remember if it was you or one of your girls after a bottle of the good prosecco from Waitrose — has balanced a tiny pair of novelty sunglasses on its face, which have stayed there ever since.

“Oh,” you beam. “That’s Gerald.”

“You’ve named him?” Lando says incredulously, holding it at arm’s length like it’s going to come alive and bite him. 

“Of course I have,” you say fondly. “He’s family. Been with me for ages. He was a housewarming gift.”

“From who? Someone who hates you?”

“Stop it,” you say, scandalized. “You’ll hurt his feelings.”

He shakes his head, eyes wide. “Look at him. He’s haunted. I think his eyes are following me.”  He tilts the frog left, then right, then holds it up next to his own face for comparison. “See? He’s looking at me right now. He’s planning something.”

“Planning for his new home,” you say sweetly, batting your eyelashes. “I thought he would look nice on the windowsill in your living room.”

“There’s not unlimited room in the flat,” he tries, but you know if you pout even the tiniest bit he’ll cave, and he knows it too. “Fine,” he sighs, wrapping Gerald carefully in bubble wrap with the resignation of a man who knows when he’s lost. “But when he comes alive at 3 AM and starts whispering to us in our sleep, I want it on record that I tried to warn you.”

“Noted,” you say, keeping your voice as neutral as possible, because if you laugh right now he will never let it go. You only let yourself smile when you head into the bedroom to start on the last of the shelves. Most of the books survived: the shelf was high up enough that the water didn’t reach, and you pull them down one by one, checking each spine and allowing yourself a small sigh of relief when you find each one dry. 

Then your fingers close around something tucked behind the books and everything goes sideways.

It’s the photo album your mum put together for you when you first moved to London, thick cream pages and a linen cover that used to be a deep blue and has now faded to the shade of a summer sky. You think, at first, that it’s fine, like everything else on the shelf, too high for the water to touch. But the album was wedged against the wall, and the wall was wet, and when you open the cover you can see immediately that the album is not fine at all. The pages are soaked, fusing together in thick, pulpy clumps. You peel apart one page as carefully as you can, and a photo of you and your nan at the seaside comes away in two pieces, the image smeared beyond recognition.

You’re distantly aware that you’ve sunk down to the carpet, knees pressed into the damp. Carefully, stupidly hopeful, you try the next page, and your secondary school graduation photo peels apart with a wet, sickening tear, falling to pieces in your hands like tissue paper. You blink rapidly, staring at the ceiling and willing yourself to hold it together, because you’ve been so good all week — so practical, so adult about all of this — and you are not going to fall apart over a photo album on the last day. But your hands are shaking, and your eyes are burning, and you can feel everything you’ve held back over the week rising up in your chest like a tide.

“Baby, I’m starting to get genuinely concerned about your taste. Gerald was the first red flag but I cannot believe you actually bought and own a leopard print lava — hey,” Lando says, voice shifting on a dime into something panicked as the offending lamp falls out of his grasp in the doorway. He plops down on the wet rug with you without a second of hesitation. “Hey, hey, hey, what happened? You alright?” 

“I’m okay,” you manage after a deep, shaky breath, which is so obviously not true that you almost laugh through the tears swimming up to your waterline. “This isn’t, though.”

“Your pictures,” he says, heartbreakingly soft, fingers skimming across the wet paper. “Baby. I’m so sorry.”

“No, it’s okay,” you lie, throat tight, voice smaller than you mean it to be. “It’s fine. It’s stupid, I know it’s just stuff.”

“It’s not just stuff,” he interrupts firmly, wrapping his arm around you, hand steady on your waist. “It’s your life. It’s okay to be upset.”

He tucks you against his chest and presses a kiss to your hair, and the safety of it makes something in you give way. You cry in the ugly, shuddering way you’ve been holding back all week, shoulders heaving, face buried in the soft cotton of his t-shirt. He doesn’t tell you it’s okay or rush you through it, he just sits in your sadness with you, one hand rubbing slow, soothing circles on your back while the other cradles your head against his chest. 

“We can try to get some of these restored,” he says softly once your breathing has evened out and your sobs have quieted into slow hiccups. “There are people who do that. And even if we can’t fix them, you should keep them. There’s plenty of room.”

You sniffle. “Okay,” you say wetly, and he squeezes you just a little tighter before he lets you go. When you emerge from the bathroom after you’ve splashed your face with cold water, you find him in the living room, wrapping the album carefully in a towel. You watch as he carries it like that out to the van himself, tucked under his arm like it’s precious cargo, and you love him so fiercely in that moment that it makes your chest ache. 

By the time you’ve emptied the last drawer and taped up the last box and peeled the last sad Command strip off the wall, it doesn’t really look like your flat anymore. It looks like a shell of your old life. The light is streaming through the window in that bright, angled way that always made the living room look a bit nicer than it actually was, catching the wet warping of the hardwood floors and the marks on the walls where your pictures used to hang. 

You stand there and take it in, remembering the years here: years of figuring out who you were when no one was watching, of learning to be alone and not be lonely, of burning dinner and working late and drinking wine with your girls and crying on the bathroom floor and getting a call from a reality television producer that would change your whole life. You became who you are in this flat, and now you’re about to close the door on it for the last time. It’s strange how a place can still hold so much of you, even after you’ve emptied it out. 

“You alright?” Lando says gently, propping the box on his hip as he hovers in the doorway.

You swallow through the lump in your throat. “Yeah. Just — it’s the end of something, you know?”

He sets the box down on top of the last pile, reaching out and intertwining his fingers with yours. “End of one thing, but the start of another, yeah?”

You wipe your eyes with the back of your free hand, smiling despite yourself, because it’s true. Closing one door, opening a window — the cliché would feel insufferable if you weren’t so happy about it. “When did you get so wise?”

“Must be your influence,” he says, dropping a kiss to your temple. “I was fully an idiot before I met you.” 

A laugh hiccups out of you, watery and surprised, and this is the thing about Lando that nobody else seems to understand — not the producers, not the tabloids, not the fans who think they know your relationship from a highlight reel of its most dramatic moments. He always knows when to be soft and when to be silly, and more importantly, he knows that sometimes you need both at the exact same time.

He grins as soon as he hears your laughter, like making you happy was his goal for the day and he’s just gotten physical proof of achieving it. “C’mon,” he says, hoisting a box under his arm. “Let’s go home.”

The last few boxes barely fit in the boot, wedged between a laundry basket and a trash bag full of shoes Lando tried and failed to get you to downsize. You’re hip-checking the door shut for the third time, leaning your whole body weight against it and waiting for the telltale click, when you spot them: two girls standing across the street, their phones angled too purposefully to be subtle. Your stomach does its usual uneasy flip; after a year, you’re getting used to it, but you’ll never be entirely comfortable with the idea of people filming you living your normal life. 

Lando, on the other hand, handles it with the practiced ease of someone who’s had much more time in the public eye to build up his emotional calluses. “Alright?” he calls out cheerfully to them, like he’s greeting friends at the pub and not strangers documenting his Saturday afternoon for Twitter. “D’you want a photo?”

One of the girls gasps and goes red, nudging her friend, and they practically sprint across the road. Lando takes a selfie with each of them, asks their names, and listens to a full five minutes of gushing about how the two of you are their favorite Love Island couple ever while you wave shyly from behind the van and pretend to rearrange boxes that don’t have anywhere to move.

They leave eventually, buzzing, and you finally let yourself exhale. “That was nice,” Lando says, looking deeply pleased with himself as he shuts the trunk you’ve been struggling with in under ten seconds. 

“It’s been a year since our season aired,” you sigh, pulling out the keys and sliding into the driver’s seat, because your boyfriend has been permanently regulated to the passenger princess position after a deeply traumatizing incident involving a roundabout, a bollard, and what he still insists was a misleading road marking. “When is this all going to die down?” 

Lando settles in beside you, kicking his feet up onto the dashboard and reclining the seat before you’ve even pulled away from the curb. “When you stop being so fit and universally beloved,” he teases, poking your cheek. “So, never.”

“Yeah, yeah,” you grumble, rolling your eyes, but there’s a smile on your face as you pull onto the road and he queues up the music. 

You’re about half an hour into the drive, stuck in the kind of midday traffic that makes you question every life choice that led to you moving from west to east London, when Lando shoots bolt upright in the passenger seat. “Oh, you’re going to love this,” he announces, with a tone that suggests you will absolutely not love whatever is about to come out of his mouth. “We’re on Deuxmoi.”

“We are not,” you groan. 

“We are,” he replies, shoulders scrunching as he flashes you his phone screen. All you catch is a blur of text and a photo that’s unmistakably the two of you in front of your old building. “Think those girls might have been recording us.” He clears his throat, reading in a dramatic voice: “Spotted: Love Island couple packing boxes into a van - are they moving in together?”

“Wow, those gossip accounts don’t miss a trick, do they,” you reply dryly, switching lanes. 

“There’s a whole thread, actually,” he says with barely contained glee. For some reason, he adores the ridiculous rumors that people make up about the two of you. “Oh, someone’s saying you’re pregnant because they saw you in the kids section at Zara and you looked glowy.” He looks up, splaying a hand over his chest in faux-betrayal. “Baby. Why didn’t you tell me I was becoming a dad?”

You bite back a smile, eyes on the road. “Must’ve slipped my mind. Been a bit busy, with my ceiling exploding and everything.”

“That explains the crying,” he says, nodding solemnly, but his eyes sparkle with mischief. “Those pregnancy hormones.”

“I will leave you on the side of the road,” you snort, but the laughter is bubbling out of you before you can stop it.

He reaches across the center console, squeezing your thigh. “And deprive your fake child of a loving father?” he says dramatically. “Cruel.”

You shake your head, but you’re grinning, the entire earlier encounter distant as you merge onto the highway. It’s the thing he’s best at, taking the stuff that makes your skin crawl and making it small, silly, something you can laugh at together from the safety of the driver’s seat. The world outside can say whatever it wants. In here, it’s just the two of you; the sun is starting to peek through the clouds, and the playlist is shuffling into something soft and perfect, and Lando’s hand rests warmly on your thigh, and you think absentmindedly that closing one chapter doesn’t feel so scary when you like the next page this much.

Unpacking is significantly easier than packing, in large part because Lando basically lets you gut the place. Your mugs replace his, since his were all mismatched, hideously ugly freebies from various video sponsors. The teabags move from the pantry to a cute container you’d dragged along with you. The gaming headsets get banished from the living room to the spare room with only minimal pouting on his end. You’d expected more of a fight, but he mostly just watches you rearrange his flat with the soft, lovesick expression he gets sometimes when he thinks you aren’t looking, like he’d let you throw out every single thing he owns if it means you’ll really stay.

You’re picking through a drawer of kitchen utensils, trying to figure out why he owns seven near-identical spatulas, when your phone buzzes on the counter. “It’s Lily,” you say, leaning against the counter as you type. “Wants to know how the move is going.”

Lando peers up from the floor, surrounded by the wood slats of your brand-new, bigger bookshelves. “Tell her we’re crushing it and that I’m currently making IKEA my bitch.”

“Yeah,” you snort, snapping a photo and sending it back to your friend. “That’s why you’ve been stuck on step three for forty-five minutes.”

“Oi,” he defends, wadding up a ball of bubble wrap and lobbing it playfully at you. “You try reading instructions in Swedish.”

Lily texts back almost immediately, a laugh react on the photo, a string of crying emojis and then a longer message — Oscar’s booked a surprise weekend away for the two of them, but he’s being neurotic about the itinerary, making sure everything is perfect. Spontaneity isn’t exactly his strong suit but I love him anyway, she adds. 

Your eyes widen, stomach flipping as you read. “Hey, Lan?” you say carefully, eyes catching on the way his tongue pokes at the corner of his mouth as he tries to force two pieces together. “Lily just said Oscar’s taking her to the Cotswolds this weekend and he’s being, quote, ‘sooo stressy’ about the plans.”

Lando stiffens just slightly, pointedly not looking at you. “Sounds nice,” he says, voice pitching up the same way it always does when you’re about to catch him in a fib. “Fun. Good for them.”

You grin, delighted. Over the past year, you’ve had the distinct pleasure of discovering that your boyfriend is the world’s worst secret keeper. He blurted out every single one of your Christmas gifts in advance because he was too excited for you to open them. He spoiled a movie you’d been dying to see thirteen minutes in and then tried to lie his way back out of it, face going endearingly red the second he realized his mistake. He’d planned an elaborate surprise party for your birthday and then confessed the entire thing because you asked him if he wanted to grab dessert after dinner and he thought you’d figured the entire plan out. He’s a vault with no lock, a safe with the door hanging precariously off the hinges. “You know something.”

“I don’t know anything,” he says quickly, shaking his head, and the agonized expression on his face would be genuinely upsetting if it didn’t amuse you so much. “I famously know nothing. I’m stupid. Look at me. I can’t even build this bookshelf.”

You make your way around the counter, fixing him with a look he can’t avoid. “Lando. Is Oscar proposing this weekend?”

“No,” he mumbles, lips pressing together and cheeks going tomato-red, and you know you’ve got him.

“Try again.”

“Okay, fine, yes,” he bursts out, body sagging with relief like the confession has been physically extracted from him. “He’s doing it on the trip, but you cannot tell Lily, please, Osc’s been planning everything out for weeks and if she finds out —”

“My lips are sealed,” you wave your hand through the air dismissively, beaming. “Oh my god, I can’t believe they’re getting engaged. This is so exciting.”

“He’s absolutely going to kill me for telling you,” he mumbles, burying his face in his hands. “He was already mad you found out about the ring.”

You nudge his knee comfortingly with your foot. “I maintain that was Oscar’s fault for making you come with him to pick it out. He knows you’re constitutionally incapable of keeping things from me.”

“I kept it from you,” he mutters, pouting. “For a bit.”

You snort. “Babe. You kept it from me for approximately eight hours. You went that morning and I heard about it by dinner. Let’s not pretend you’re super-spy material.”

He groans, scrubbing a hand down his face, but there’s a grin peeking through, the excited conspiratorial one he gets whenever he’s involved in something he really shouldn’t be. “I know I shouldn’t say anything else, but the whole plan is perfect,” he admits. “She’s going to love it.”

You can’t help but mirror him, grinning in return at the thrill of having a shared secret with the person you love most. “I have no doubt.”

He glances at you worriedly. “She doesn’t suspect anything, does she?”

You re-read her message, eyebrows furrowing. “I don’t think so?” you say, shaking your head as you turn back to the boxes. “It seems like she thinks he’s just getting in a strop over the plans. But girls have a sixth sense about this stuff, you know.”

There’s a beat of silence. “Really?” Lando says, and if you were paying more attention you might clock how it’s almost too casual.

“Yeah,” you reply airily instead, pocketing your phone as you start unpacking your coffee mugs. “You boys think you’re being so subtle and then all of a sudden you’re asking questions about our ring size and whether we want to get our nails done this weekend. It’s totally transparent. We always know eventually.”

“Right,” he says, voice slightly strangled. “You always know.” 

“Relax,” you soothe, tearing through a piece of packing paper. “It’ll be fine. Any longer and she’d probably figure it out, but I think Oscar’s going to get in right under the wire.”

Lando’s suddenly become very interested in the Allen wrench, fiddling the little piece of metal between his fingers. “And how long would it be before she figured it out? Hypothetically. In case he doesn’t do it this weekend, I mean.”

You consider the question for a moment as you unwrap. “Dunno. Depends on the girl, I think. But the longer you sit on it, the more obvious it gets.”

“That — yeah. That makes sense,” he says, nodding with a frantic sort of energy. “Good to know.”

Your heart sinks, because he clearly still feels guilty for spilling the secret. The look on his face is almost queasy, knee bouncing nervously as he screws one board to another. But before you can reassure him anymore, your phone buzzes again in your pocket, another text from Lily about the trip, and the thought dissolves before you have time to really consider it. 

By the time evening rolls around, the flat looks marginally less like an overstuffed storage unit and more like a place where two people might plausibly live. There are still boxes practically stacked to the ceiling, bubble wrap stuck to the bottoms of your socks, and the sofa is buried underneath a mountain of packing paper, but you’ve finally managed to unearth a solid patch of floor in the living room just as Lando’s keys turn in the lock. 

“Honey, I’m home,” he announces, grinning ridiculously at you. His arms are full of plastic bags, the smell of Chinese food wafting in behind him as he kicks the door shut behind him.

“Thank god, I’m starving,” you say, scrambling to the kitchen to help him with the bags. As he unloads them onto the counter, you peer into one, practically overflowing with several containers. “Wow. Properly wining and dining me, aren’t you, Norris?”

He bumps his hip against yours, pressing warm into your side. “Only the best for my girl. You get the table cleared off?”

You raise your eyebrows. “Does it look like I got the table cleared off?”

He surveys the damage that is your living room, smile tugging at his heart-shaped mouth. “Fair point. Floor picnic it is.”

You carry the containers to the tiny area between the boxes, arranging them with careful precision: chow fun and rice, spring rolls and sweet and sour chicken, laid out like a five-star spread instead of takeaway from the shop down the block. At the last minute, you light the one candle you’d managed to find in your boxes, and the flickering light makes everything glow soft and golden.

“This actually looks proper cute,” Lando says softly, settling cross-legged as he hands you a plate. 

You poke him with a chopstick. “‘Course it does. I’m very domestic.”

He piles noodles onto his plate, raising an eyebrow at you. “Okay, calm down, Nigella. You literally nearly burned this place down making eggs the first time you slept over.”

“That was the stove’s fault,” you say primly, and it only takes a second before the two of you burst into giggles. He takes the opportunity while your guard is lowered to spear a piece of chicken directly off your plate.  

“You absolute mooch, get your own,” you gasp theatrically. “The container is right in front of you.”

Somehow his chewing just looks smug. “Tastes better when it’s yours,” he says, mouth full.

You narrow your eyes, and then dart forward to swipe one of his spring rolls, popping it in your mouth and grinning triumphantly.

“You’re a thief, you are,” he accuses, but his eyes are bright and warm. “Can’t believe I’m living with a hardened criminal.”

You shake your head as you swallow. “First of all, you started it, and second of all, not a thief,” you correct. “That’s just tax.”

“There’s a tax for living with me?” he deadpans, grinning. 

“Oh yeah. One spring roll per day, minimum,” you toss back. “Should’ve read the fine print, Norris. You’re stuck with me now.”

“I’ve created a monster,” he sighs, but the way he’s looking at you — soft and fond, smile glowing in the candlelight — makes you feel like he wouldn’t have it any other way.

You eat knees pressed together, trading containers back and forth the way you always do; a year in, you’re long past the point of actually staying on your own plates despite the near-constant banter about it. After a bit of food, your flagging energy’s revived, and you keep picking at the containers long after you’re full while Lando starts enthusiastically telling you about the woman in line at the Chinese place who recognized him and asked if you were as nice in person as you seemed on telly, until he pauses mid-sentence with a sheepish expression. 

“Shit. Almost forgot,” he grins, fishing a tiny, painstakingly wrapped parcel out of his pocket and tossing it to you. “Housewarming gift.”

You drop your chopsticks just in time to catch it, turning it over in your fingers. “You bought me a present for moving into your flat?”

“Our flat,” he corrects automatically as you slice neatly through the tape with your nail. 

Inside, tucked into tissue paper he’s definitely stolen from one of your Sephora orders, is a familiar silver key — your key to his flat, which he’s somehow managed to swipe from you in the chaos of the move. But when you look closer, there’s something new, too. A tiny enamel charm dangles off the keyring, a little house with hearts for windows.

“Lan,” you breathe out, chest going stupidly, embarrassingly tight. 

He takes your hand, flipping the keychain over, and there’s two engraved sets of coordinates on the back. “It’s the villa and here,” he says softly, almost shy. “Where we started and where we are now. I just — I dunno, I just wanted you to have something that said it was always going to be this. Like, maybe we took the long way round about it, but —” he huffs out a laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. “Think part of me always knew, even back then, that this was always where we’d end up.”

Your vision blurs a little, eyes stinging as your thumb traces over the tiny stamped numbers. Something in your throat feels too thick to speak, to force out anything that won’t sound completely and utterly wrecked, so you just stare down at the key in your palm like it’s the most priceless gift you’ve ever received.

“Too cheesy?” your boyfriend asks, wincing.

“Cheesiest thing I’ve ever seen,” you say finally, voice cracking somewhere around the middle of the sentence.

Relief loosens his features, a hopeful little smile lighting up his face. “You like it?”

“I love it,” you correct, because it doesn’t feel big enough otherwise, doesn’t capture even a fraction of the emotion you’re feeling. “I love you.” 

His whole face goes gooey at that, and before you can say anything else he’s reaching for you, hands settling on your waist as he hauls you into his lap. The momentum makes your knee catch against the edge of the takeaway containers, sending them spilling across the floor and your sweatpants. 

“Lan!” you try to sound scandalized as a spring roll bounces off your foot and goes skittering behind one of the towers of boxes. “The rug.”

“Don’t care,” he shrugs, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to your neck, seemingly completely unbothered by the chow fun staining his joggers. “We can buy a new one. I’ll buy every rug in London if it means I get to hold you right now.”

You giggle, fingers twisting into his curls. “Seems financially irresponsible.”

“You’re worth it,” he mumbles contentedly, breath warm against your skin. 

Maybe he’s right about all of this being inevitable, you think as he peppers kisses over every inch of you he can reach. Maybe from the moment he smiled at you that first day, this is where you were bound to end up — on the floor of a half-unpacked flat, covered in sweet and sour sauce and completely, disgustingly happy.

Getting ready for bed together isn’t new, exactly. You’ve slept over enough times over the past year that you have your side of the bed and he has his, and your skincare routine spills familiarly over approximately three-quarters of the bathroom counter while his solitary face wash makes peace with occupying one sad corner. But there’s something surreal and thrilling about the permanency of it this time: your toothbrush making a home next to his in the holder, your pajamas tucked neatly in a drawer, no overnight bag in sight. 

You’re washing your face as Lando brushes his teeth beside you, shoulders practically pressed together and elbows jostling for space like he’s incapable of being far away from you now that you’re here for good. He meets your eyes in the mirror, saying something around his toothbrush, which mostly just comes out as a string of garbled syllables and toothpaste foam. 

“Did you actually think that was going to work?” you say, laughing as you pat your skin dry. 

He ducks his head, spitting into the sink. “Wow. Thought my girlfriend was supposed to understand me better than anyone else,” he sighs faux-solemnly, and dodges away grinning when you swat at him with your washcloth. “I said, I finished the bookshelf.”

“You did not.”

“I did,” he says smugly, hooking his chin over your shoulder, arms snaking around your waist. “While you were in the shower. Go look.”

“I would,” you hum, leaning back into the familiar warmth of him. “But unfortunately, this really clingy guy is koala-bearing me right now, and I can’t possibly make my way to the living room.”

He nuzzles his face against your neck, completely unbothered by the sarcasm. “Not my fault you’re comfortable.”

You sigh fondly, one hand curling around his forearm. “I’ll inspect your handiwork tomorrow, yeah?” you say, fingers tracing lightly over his skin. “If it hasn’t fallen apart by then.”

“Zero faith in me,” he scoffs, and like clockwork there’s a small clatter from the vicinity of the living room. His eyes meet yours in the mirror, chagrined. “I’ll fix it tomorrow.”

“Great,” you agree cheerfully, uncapping your moisturizer and dabbing it over your cheeks. “Oh, actually, I meant to ask you earlier, what’s the fastest way to get to Chelsea from here? I’m supposed to be having brunch with the girls tomorrow morning because Gem’s in town, but I realized I don’t know how long it’ll take from our flat.”

Your boyfriend goes very, very still behind you, and when you twist around to look at him he’s steadfastly refusing to meet your eyes, face struck with an expression you can’t quite parse. 

“You okay?” you say, eyebrows knitting together.

He clears his throat, arms tightening slightly around you so you’re pressed tighter against him, chest to chest. “You — you called it our flat.”

You tilt your head, studying his face. “Well, yeah? It is our flat. What, have you got buyer’s remorse or something? Because we spent the entire day unpacking my stuff, so it’s a little too late to go back.”

“No,” he interrupts, finally gazing down at you, flush creeping up his neck. “No, nothing like that, obviously, just — say it again?”

You blink. “Our flat?”

“Fuck,” he breathes, those watercolor eyes you love so much flashing and then darkening. The flush deepens, spreads to the tips of his ears, and you’re starting to get it now, the improbable pieces all coming together into a finished puzzle.

“Lando Norris,” you say delightedly, setting your moisturizer down on the counter behind you. “Are you getting turned on by me calling this our flat?”

His ears go even pinker, eyes tracking over you in a way that makes your skin prickle. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?” You’re grinning now, high off the power of this information. “That’s what does it for you? Got a roommate fantasy?”

“It’s not a fantasy, it’s just —” he half-grumbles, though his hands are already sliding from your waist to your hips like they’ve got a mind of their own. “I dunno, I guess when you say it, it feels real.”

“Boxes unpacked,” you say gently, hand sliding up his bare chest, thumb grazing over his cheek. “Lease broken. It’s pretty real, babe.”

He swallows, and when he speaks again his voice has dropped into a register that makes something flip warm and liquid in the pit of your stomach. “Yeah, well, it’s pretty fucking hot when you say it.”

“Our flat,” you repeat, slowly and deliberately, and watch his gaze fall intently to your mouth. 

He makes a noise that sounds like it’s been punched out of him, and then his lips are on yours, hungry, almost feral in a way that steals the breath from your lungs. His hands tighten on your hips before he lifts you onto the counter in one fluid motion. You absolutely knock over your moisturizer and your butt is half in the sink and the back of your head bumps against the mirror and you can’t even be bothered to care, because your boyfriend is kissing you like he’ll die if he stops. You sigh happily, tangling your fingers into his curls, and when you slot your tongue against his, he tastes like mint toothpaste and the rest of your life.

“I’m going to go to brunch from our flat,” you breathe when you break apart for air, just to watch his pupils blow wider. To be honest, it’s starting to work a little bit for you too. “And then I’m going to come home to our flat. And I’m going to sleep in our bed.”

A wrecked, desperate little sound erupts from somewhere in the back of his throat that makes heat flood through your entire body, and then you’re kissing again with a kind of urgency you didn’t even know was possible as he presses ever closer to you, crowding himself between your thighs. You hook your legs around his waist on instinct, ankles locking at the small of his back, and he groans, hips rutting into yours.

“Bedroom,” he mumbles against your mouth, hands sliding under your shirt, mapping over the bare skin of your waist. “Can I —”

“Say it right,” you manage, barely pulling back enough to get the words out. 

He blinks, eyes glassy and face flushed, before the understanding breaks over his face like the first rays of sunlight in the morning. “Our bedroom,” he corrects, voice rough and low and aching, and hearing him this desperate is actually fucking dizzying. “Can I take you to our bedroom?”

“Yeah,” you breathe, grinning, and the word is barely out of your mouth before he’s lifting you up like it’s nothing, your arms looped around his neck and his hands braced firmly beneath your thighs as he connects your lips again. He kisses you all the way out, only stopping to hiss out a curse when his shoulder clips one of the wardrobe boxes scattered around the room.

“Smooth,” you breathe as he deposits you on the mattress.

He follows you down, grinning, and his smile is so bright, so happy that it’s almost hard to look directly at him. “Can you let me be romantic, please?” he retorts, nose brushing yours. “God forbid I want to snog my girl while I take her to bed.”

“Our bed,” you correct one last time, reaching up to push his curls off his forehead, and his expression shifts again, the happiness and the heat falling away into something raw, laid bare and achingly tender. 

He turns his head, pressing a kiss to the inside of your wrist. “Our life,” he whispers against your skin, and it ignites something white-hot in your chest. You pull him down fiercely to you, and then there’s no more talking for a long, long time. 

Much later, you lie in a tangled heap of limbs and kicked-off sheets, half-draped across him with your cheek pressed against his chest and his fingers carding through your hair. The flat is quiet now, just the hum of the city outside and the steady rhythm of his breathing.

“I can hear your heartbeat,” you murmur, mouthing a lazy kiss against his collarbone.

“Tends to happen when you’ve got your ear on someone’s chest,” he replies without missing a beat, not even opening his eyes. You pinch his side, and he yelps, tugging you closer. 

“Shut up, I’m having a moment,” you say sleepily, and you feel his laughter more than hear it, the slow rumble bubbling up from his very soul.

“Good one, I hope.”

You shift just enough to look at him, propping your chin on his chest. The glow of the streetlights paints him in soft gold, illuminating the tips of his eyelashes, the slope of his nose, and you think (not for the first time, but maybe the strongest) that you’d freeze this exact moment and live in it forever if the universe allowed it. 

“The best,” you say, voice unexpectedly soft, and tuck your head back into the crook of his neck. From this vantage point, your keychain glints from the bedside table, warm outside light catching brilliantly on the enamel. You stare at it for a moment, let your eyes trace over the coordinates until it feels like your heart is two sizes too big for your chest, chafing at your ribs. 

“Hey,” Lando whispers, somewhere above you in the darkness. When you tilt your head to face him, his eyes are impossibly tender.

“Yeah?” you whisper back, and he lets his arm trail down from your head to your hand, threading his fingers carefully into yours.  

“Welcome home.”

[sambvcks]

one of my fav series of all time, coming from someone who usually doesn’t like AUs, you found a way to make all of these people fit into this universe SO WELL. I come back to this story every few weeks and to see it be extended a bit more outside the villa was the best valentine’s we could ever ask for ❤️❤️❤️

[harrysfolklore]

LANDO FREAKING NORRIS???????

[eightyonefour]

McLarenF1: Back to work 👊

[httpspiastri]

Lando for British Vogue

©️ britishvogue instagram

[bloodonthehorns]

Doing the whole, 'oh, but everyone in f1 is a bad person' take is really fucking irritating when we're talking about one of drivers literally vacationing in fucking Israel right now while Palestinians being starved a few kilometres away

[argentinagp-deactivated20250803]

lando norris wins the british gp 2025

[sambvcks]

potentially coming out of my 2 year hiatus with these fic ideas that are keeping me up at night…

isn’t it just so pretty to think?

- friends to lovers, oscar

we’ll still have the summer after all

- summer fling to something more, lando

no one’s ever had me (not like you)

- unrequited? love, george

my rose-colored boy

- just dumped!reader, alex

i love you (it’s ruining my life)

- driver!reader, max

[sambvcks]

wanting was enough (for me it was enough), e.m. x reader

pairing: eddie munson x reader

summary: eddie munson is not used to being someone’s first choice

warnings: some cursing, self-isolation/hatred (by eddie), some talks of what transpired in s4, nightmares, talk of having children (not detailed)

word count: 1.2k

author’s note: sabs be inspired by something other than taylor swift challenge failed once again. this is for @elegantpaperoperatormaker​ ’s eyes only. yall can read it but it was written for them. also sorry if this doesn’t make any sense/has no plot, i have covid and im delusional :( 

[ read on ao3 | masterlist | inbox ]

You could not think of a better way to spend a summer than with Eddie Munson. The bonfire talks, the late-night listening sessions and movie marathons. He showed you every scar he had accumulated, pale skin even paler where monsters had sunk into flesh. You grew tanner under the Indiana sun, war torn freckles dotting faces and wrinkles settling into the corners of your eyes as you squinted during lakeside rendezvous.

Eddie would whip his wet hair at you, like an excitable dog, as you cut sandwiches on the diagonal and plated lukewarm slices of seedless watermelon.

It was easy, spending every waking moment with him. At one time, you’d thought you’d never get another one with him. So, you savor every second he has now. Scars and all. And it had started out friendly enough.

Simple acquaintances turned soldiers turned something else.  It was hard to remember when sleepovers turned into stolen glances, when glances turned into actions. Somewhere between burnt marshmallow smiles and silent comforts after nightmares he had made a move. Really, you both did. Desperate for something more than friendly touches you kissed beneath thin bedsheets, legs tangled and teeth knocking as you fought smiles and demons together.

Then, another shift.

As June turned to July, which then turned to August, Eddie grew cold with the weather. As you layered on heavy cardigans, he shrugged you away.

The once inviting smiles were reserved, there was a distance even as you huddled so close together. He did his best to hide it, still scratching nails against your scalp and pressing kisses wherever he could. But the nightmares were becoming more frequent, and he hid them – something he’d never done before. He found excuses, reasons to keep you at arm’s length. It was a challenge, with your lives so closely intertwined now, but he still managed to go days now without you.

All at once, you’d had enough.

“C’mon, Eds. The cold shoulder, it’s a dirty trick.”

He shrugs, occupying himself with scrubbing the last bit of food from the sink full of dishes.

“Is it-is it me? Did I do or say something? Are you, like, tired of me?”

“No! God, never. I could never be tired of you. Don’t even begin to think like that.”

“Then what’s going on? And none of that ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ shit.”

He heaved a heavy sigh, hand working at the flesh of his face. He looked exhausted, something he had attributed to the shift to autumn when you asked if he was getting enough sleep – not really an answer kind of answer.

“I just-” He hesitated, watching you fiddle with the frayed edge of his bedsheet. He thought of the countless nights you had tangled your legs in them, limbs thrashing as you recoiled from wiggling fingers digging at your sides. He thought of your neck, arched for his viewing pleasure as he pressed sloppy, open mouth kisses and blew cold air over wet skin, cackling at your echoing shrieks. “I know this won’t last.”

Your brow furrowed further, mouth falling into a deeper frown, and Eddie scrambled to piece together every waking nightmare he had hid from you.

“I made peace with the fact that you aren’t mine past August. That one day you’ll meet a guy worthy of everything you are, and I’ll just be some fun summer fling you had that led to that moment. I’ll only ever be a prefix to something better. And I’m okay with that as long as you end up happy.” He said, easy. Like he was reciting every word from practiced memory.

There wasn’t a sadness, either. There was a finality. Eddie Munson would never be someone’s first or final choice. To everyone in his life, he’s the kid that got dumped on their doorstep. Or who fell into an interdimensional hole with them. Or was forever stuck in their remedial math class.

Destined to live and die in Hawkins, Indiana.

“I mean, shit. I go back to high school this month. Dustin will probably graduate before I do. How pathetic can you get?”

But that’s not the Eddie you had met this summer.

Eddie is torn jeans and the same beat-up pair of trainers, He is cigarette smoke on a cold lakeside evening and the store brand coffee his uncle brews extra strong, always sipped from a different mug. He is every comfort you have ever felt, wrapped up in a single entity of warmth and flushed skin. His freckles are your faraway stars, and you are so grateful that you do not need a telescope to admire each one.

He is here. Right here. And sometimes you have to grab a fistful of his shirt or hook a finger into the chain of his jeans just to be sure. You weren’t used to beautiful things turning into constants. And Eddie Munson was the most beautiful thing you had ever seen.

He’d been the one to offer to hot wire your car in the rain, when you had no one to call. He’d used a portion of his earnings buying the name brand cat food for the strays that liked your trailer the best, hating that you looked so sad when you couldn’t shell together the money on your own.

“Eds, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Okay, harsh-”

“You think I’m not in this for the long run? Like I don’t fall asleep thinking about what our life is going to be like, what our kids will look like? This isn’t some summer fling. This is it, babe. There’s nothing better out there.”

Now, it was Eddie’s turn to look completely baffled. He falls into the bed next to you, mattress bouncing and sheets crinkling further. He eyes his room, the mess he lives in filled with smoke faded posters and wallpaper and wonders: someone’s choosing this?

Then, you. He’d been to hell and back with you and you’d still found some way to throw in a cringey one liner between swinging bats and reloading pistols. You’d laid shoulder to shoulder with him in that rickety boat and made him not forget what was happening but find some peace in it if it led you your hair falling beside his, fingers entangled. He’d be hunted ten times over if this was his ending, he decided.

“Kids, huh?”

“Oh, shut up. I change my mind.”

“No! No take backs, babe. I want little Eddie Jr. by next fall!” And he’s pushing you into the mattress, feeling dumb not for failing history again but for ever thinking of you as just another person that would leave him. Sure, he didn’t have the best track record in that category, but as he felt you completely give yourself up to his ministrations, he thought that maybe his luck was finally taking a turn.

And, if you really pressed him on the matter, he thought August was a lovely name for a little girl.

[sambvcks]

of first, second, third, fourth meetings, e.m. x reader

pairing: eddie munson x fem! reader

summary: The first time we met we hated each other. You didn’t hate me, I hated you. And the second time we met, you didn’t remember me. I did too, I remembered you. The third time we met, we became friends. We were friends for a long time. And then we weren’t. And then we fell in love. – When Harry Met Sally.

warnings: cursing (like a lot), holding not-so lifelong grudges, mention of stage fright, head-cannoning that eddie was kinda a jerk before he was given a proper thump in the head, so divergent from the actual events of season 4 it’s scary, celebration of Christmas (exchanging of gifts).

word count: 5.1k (HUH???)

author’s note: AKA Eddie Munson + RomCom tropes = Perfection. Eddie deserves to be happy. Season 4? Never heard of her. (no fix it fics in this house, we actively pretend it didnt happen)

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first meeting.

Looking back, it’s so silly to remember the things that seemed so important to the freshman version of yourself. One week, it was some science project that escaped your mind the second it was turned it. The next, it would be the new shoes your mom bought you – off brand and noticeably so. The other girls had real Converse, why did you have to settle for the Payless knockoffs? One particular week, it was talent show try outs.

You had been rehearsing your song day and night, much to your mom’s chagrin. Her overnight shifts only afforded a preciously small window for sleep, something you tried your very best to not disturb (you still did). You had even laid out your best outfit – a hand me down blouse and tweed skirt that you had tailored to fit a little shorter than your mom approved of.

The line of acts auditioning was slowly dwindling, leaving you and a gaggle of boys that looked like they had walked straight off of a Metallica poster to exist solely as every parent’s worst nightmare. They were each absentmindedly fiddling with their instruments, fine tuning and flipping drumsticks as they awaited their turn, contrasting heavily with your noticeably panicked state.

“Do you mind? I think you’re gonna leave a dent in the floor with all your pacing.” Grumbled their leader.

Eddie Munson.

Easily recognizable with his growing hair and the spattering of patches of bands you had never heard of across his jean vest. He was loud. Loud enough that even newly christened Hawkins High School freshmen like you knew his reputation and, more importantly, knew to avoid him if you had a good head on your shoulders. Which you liked to think you did.

Still, who were you to judge, with your barely elevated trailer park aesthetic, homemade lunches, and hair you cut yourself? Benefit of the doubt, you decided. Maybe Eddie Munson wasn’t the devil-worshipping cultist he had garnered the reputation of. Maybe he was just misunderstood, an outcast but a good guy.

“Sorry.” You mumbled, steadying yourself against a wall and hoping beyond hope that he would leave it at that. You could still feel his eyes, though, skirt across your fidgeting form.

“Nervous?”

As if it wasn’t obvious. Your nails had been chewed to the nub and the skirt you had altered was starting to fray at the edge from your constant fiddling with it.

“No need to be, the people running this thing have no idea what real music sounds like. We’ve tried every year, still no takers.” He gestured back to his group of misfits, who only seemed half interested in the conversation. “But you seem top 40. Let me guess…Madonna? Will they let you sing ‘Like a Virgin’ at a school talent show? We’re playing ‘Rainbow in the Dark’. Ever heard of it?”

This drew the attention of the other boys, who cackled like he had told some life-changing joke.

“I-I-” You tried, but Eddie was quicker.

“Jesus, if you’re this nervous before the audition, imagine you up there! Stage lights on you, no one there to save you. You’d just-” His hands wrapped around his own neck, tongue sticking out and eyes rolling back as he pretended to struggle for breath.

Oh, no. Eddie Munson wasn’t a misunderstood good guy. He was an asshole.

Before you could come up with some half-assed retort, the gym door was swinging open. The person ahead of you, Tammy Thompson, was walking out with her head held high. No doubt the teachers they had roped into running the talent show this year had given some sort of standing ovation and maybe even got down on their knees in praise. If they were feeling particularly frisky. Your name was called and you were ushered in so quickly your head spun.

“Good luck.” A teasing voice followed behind you.

You totally choked. Haunted by Eddie fucking Munson and the echoes of his band’s laughter, you were barely able to get two lines out without the air hitching in your lungs. The tears came next as you high tailed out of there without an explanation.

Munson and his friends were still loitering around, awaiting their turn. You wondered, briefly, if they were forced to the end of the auditions in hopes that they would just give up and spare everyone the trouble. You marched past them, eyes stinging and lip quivering as you spat out a single “fuck you” in their general direction.

When the list of acts was pinned to the bulletin board the next morning, you weren’t too surprised to not see your name amongst the ranks.

You did feel a little more than satisfied when Corroded Coffin wasn’t, either.

Within a week, the whole ordeal was forgotten with the announcement of a five page English paper on foreshadowing in Romeo and Juliet. Eddie Munson and his band of freaks were out of your mind, too. High school was funny like that.

second meeting.

Taking up an after-school job on top of your weekend babysitting/tutoring duties was a no brainer. The bills on your kitchen table continued to pile up and your mom’s hours kept getting cut shorter and shorter. She hadn’t explicitly asked you, but as soon as you turned sixteen you applied at the music store on Main Street without debate.

The owner, a lonely old man named Bill, had made plenty of conversation with you whenever you went in to rifle through the discount record section in the past. You had a pension for finding the diamond in the rough, the no name artists that were subjected to the back of the crates, something Bill respected about you. Even with zero experience, he happily hired you on the spot.

So, after band practice you would work a quick five-hour shift and zoom home to pour over homework until you made a half-assed midnight dinner before your mom had to leave for her night shift.

It wasn’t all bad. The bags accumulating under your eyes were minimized when Bill sold you his old, beat-up Volkswagen for a week’s pay. Way under value – even for the gas guzzling, unreliable hunk of junk, but Bill was something like the grandfather you never had. At least, you were the granddaughter he never had.

You were independent, no matter now little sleep you really got. And you got to chat all day about your one true love – music. You weren’t all top 40. You assisted old ladies in picking out records for their grandkids, helped couples looking for a copy of their favorite song, introduced new artists to unlikely fans.

Then, on an ordinary Tuesday, in he came.

Eddie Munson.

His car was almost as loud and worthy of the junkyard as yours was, so it was difficult to miss his impending arrival.

You hadn’t really thought about him since Freshman year, two years prior, willing yourself to forget one of your most embarrassing memories. It seemed it was just as easy for Eddie to forget, as he paraded in with an easy smile and a casual greeting. He perused the shelves for a few minutes, oblivious to the bubbling rage in your gut, which manifested as the harshest glare you could manage.

“Hey, uh-” He glanced down at your name badge, “Sorry to bother. You guys got the new Metallica yet? This is, like, the fourth place I’ve been to.”

His smile was almost charming. He was certainly easier to look at now, even with his still unruly hair and fading jean vest. So similar to that day three years ago that you almost felt fourteen again, shrinking under his unwavering stare. It was something you refused to admit even to yourself, how he never shrunk under pressure. He took the absolute vitriol spewed at him daily and dished it back just as easily. He had grown into his gangly limbs, jaw more defined and the hint of a tattoo peeking from under the collar of his shirt. If you hadn’t sworn to hate his living guts until the day one of you was put six feet under, you might even call him attractive.

But you weren’t fourteen anymore, and you certainly weren’t letting him get the last laugh this time.

“Sure, follow me.”

“Sweet. While I have you, any recommendations?”

“Broadening your horizons, Munson?”

He seems startled that you know him, as if he wasn’t solely responsible for a week’s worth of tear-stained fits of rest. If anything, he looked a little nervous that you did know him. Like you would turn on your heel and kick the troublemaker out. No Metallica, no service.

“Uh, sort of.” His head tilted as he followed closely behind your determined steps, craning for another glance at your face. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

“I go to Hawkins. How’s your second senior year treating you, by the way?”

Okay, maybe that was a low blow. But he started it, right? Either way, he seemed unphased by the question.

“Ah. It’s, uh, riveting. Really getting the most out of Mr. William’s Chem class the second time around. Might take it again just for the fun of it.”

You almost laugh, but you won’t give him the satisfaction.

“Here.” You pull the new Metallica from its display, the only copy available. “And my recommendation.” You hand over Rio’s Holy Diver, an album you were sure he had listened to backwards if the hand-stitched t-shirt adorning the back of his vest was any indicator. “It’s all great, but my personal favorite is ‘Rainbow in the Dark’. Ever heard of it?”

You watched, satisfied, as the wires in his brain began to piece this interaction together, firing faster than maybe they ever had before. His jaw fell, eyebrows shooting up beyond his shaggy bangs.

“I do know you! You’re-”

“The girl whose dreams of musical stardom you dashed in a single day. Finally, he remembers!”

“Jesus, it’s been, what? Two years?”

“Try three.” You snatched the cassette back, placing it delicately back on the shelf.

“Wow. You’ve, uh, changed a bit.”

Your nails, once a pristine Ballerina Slipper Pink were now a chipped charcoal black. The blouse and tailored skirt he had seen you in before was now replaced by a slightly too big ‘Bill’s Music’ t-shirt and jagged black jeans. You had found a bit of grunge and, if Eddie was pressed on the matter, he would admit that it looks good on you.

“Yeah, well. Someone stole away my dreams of fame, so I’ve fallen into a life of crime and rock and roll.” You maneuvered back to the register, hoping to end this interaction as quickly as it had started. If you were quick enough, Eddie Munson would be gone in a cloud of exhaust smoke from his shitty van in the next five minutes.

“I need to tell you, I still feel like an asshole about that.”

Oh. Oh shit. In all your fantasies about finally getting back at Eddie Munson – slashing his tires, stealing that stupid tin lunchbox he always carried around with him, maybe framing him for some crime – never did it include him actually feeling guilty. You had built him up in your mind as some soul-less villain, preying on the misfortunate.

“I talk a big game, but I still think about you running out crying. There’s no excuse, I’m just a natural dick, I guess.” He seemed almost shy, now. Haunted, even. Fingers fiddling with the edge of his coveted cassette. “I’m sorry.”

What were you to do? You could really stretch it out, let him feel that sinking gut feeling of guilt that would maybe match that fear you had felt on that stage three years ago. You could demand a public apology; he had no trouble making a fool out of himself if his lunchtime outburst were any indicator. But your mom had always taught you to be the bigger person.

“No big deal.” Sometimes you hated your mom and how her voice always rings in your head. “Already forgotten.”

His cassette was purchased, but not without him apologizing around another fifty times. He did disappear in a cloud of exhaust, his van puttering down the street and the faint tones of Metallica blasting through his window. His scent lingered, though, cheap cologne and cigarettes. You hated to think that you didn’t really mind it.

third meeting.

It was a little embarrassing, honestly. Cozying up to a group of freshman boys you had saved the world with was not on your senior year bucket list. Yet, you found yourself huddled around a corner table in the cafeteria, trying to map out the ins and outs of high school life to them.

Really, Robin was to blame. Robin - your talkative junior year Italian 3 desk mate - and your inexplicable hobby of linguistics which afforded you a basic understanding of the Russian alphabet were the two main culprits to this turn in your social life. Which then had you bunkered down in the Scoops Ahoy backroom attempting to translate a shady recording with Robin, Dustin, and Steve Harrington of all people.

And, sure, maybe the curly haired little weirdo had endeared you somehow. And you somehow found yourself promising Steve to watch over the kid after summer. Driving him around was the worst part – the gas alone was cleaning out a healthy chunk of your weekly paycheck. But his taste in music? You’d smother him before you allowed another Broadway soundtrack to crackle through your car speakers.

You remember the looks you got when you maneuvered the cafeteria as Dustin, Mike, and Lucas waved you over, the open mouth stares as the kids poured out of your Volkswagen on the first day back from Summer break. But fighting a Russian army and some multi-legged creature from another world created an unexplainable bond between the most unlikely of people and, honestly, would you even speak to any of these people after walking the stage at graduation anyway?

In return for your vast high school knowledge – which teachers to avoid, which bathrooms went unmonitored, which days they really needed to pack a lunch - the kids gave you a crash course on all things D&D, filling lunch periods with shitty cafeteria food and outlandish ideas for your blossoming character. They crafted an intricate narrative worthy of their high esteem for their sudden older-sister figure, picturing an elf, ethereal and full of curiosity and kindness.

You just wanted to smash things, but the boys promised the game went well beyond simple violence.

Then, a voice from a table over.

Eddie Munson.

He’d clocked the boys on the first day of school, looking lost and out of place in the hoard of cliques occupying each table. Then, you ushered them over like Galadriel to the lost, broken Fellowship and offered little pieces of yourself, of kindness and zero judgement. He was impressed, allowing you to seep into the recesses of his mind ever since he saw you rip off the sign some junior varsity football player stuck to Dustin’s back that said, ‘KICK THE FREAK!’. He watched, amazed, as you balled up the paper and chucked it in the general direction of laughter, hitting some linebacker square in the face.

Gone was the tear-stained girl running from the gym.

Recently, Eddie had found solace under gym bleachers during lunch, discussing upcoming band rehearsals and Hellfire Club meetings. But a weekend hangover actually had him craving the sorry excuse for cardboard that the school district called pizza, so they’d made the trek into the jungle of a cafeteria.

And there you were. Prettier than he remembered, but he was a stupid boy these past few years and anything beyond bootleg copies of Dio records and plans for upcoming campaigns did not have space in his mind. He’d scooped Henderson out of the bunch, much to your displeasure, and ushered your group over to his table with the promise of adventure beyond their wildest dreams.

The boys were easy. They were eager for any type of structure, particularly from an experienced Dungeon Master who seemed to have an ego of steel and a tongue of venom. You, with your faded t-shirts and your ‘Dungeons and Dragons for Beginners’ book loaned out from Mike’s vast collection felt like jumping out of a plane without a parachute. When Dustin noticed the distinct tension between his two new leaders, he voiced concern.

“We just go way back. Don’t worry. We’ll play nice.” You offered as explanation, seated as far away from Eddie as the small table could manage.

You kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. Daily, you wondered when the teasing quips or the taunts would pick up. After all, Eddie was always eager to voice any amount of displeasure. Often, it was other students or teachers who didn’t know how to do their job. Sometimes it was as simple as the sun shining too bright or his bangs not falling the way he favored. But never you. He never had a single negative word to send your way.

Instead, he was patient. He started teaching you the ins and outs of D&D, offering pointers and directions for your character to take. He told you which weapons were worth your time and even gave insight into upcoming battles he had planned, offering you the slightest edge.

Before long, you were hanging out without the kids – which seemed like an impossible task because at least one of them seemed to always be trailing behind one of you. But when you had a late-night shift at Bill’s or Eddie just felt like bugging you (a near daily occurrence), there he was. He helped stock shelves even though that was your main job description, he played his favorite songs over the store loudspeakers, much to the displeasure of the customers, and he was so fucking nice it was driving you up the wall.

“Hey, just so you know, I got my Tuesday night shift switched for Thursday. In case you felt like dropping in again and driving even more customers away.”

Eddie was stationed at the classical section, flipping through records to laugh at the artists’ powdered wigs and cherub cheeks.

“Oh yeah? Got a hot date?”

Your silence spoke wonders.

“Dear lord. Who?” He demanded. You shrugged, not ready for this conversation. “C’mon, don’t be embarrassed. If it makes you feel any better, nobody is good enough for my best friend.”

A term he had adopted when you first let him use your employee discount and had stuck since. Dustin pretended not to be jealous – and a little curious – the first time Eddie had said it in front of the whole group without a single note of sarcasm.

“So, you might as well just tell me.” He wasn’t really paying attention, deft fingers still flicking through a crate of records. You were perched on the register counter, watching the clock at the seconds ticked by endlessly. Sunday night shifts were rough in a town like Hawkins, where everyone was too tired after a hot church service to spend any of their hard-earned money.

“His name is Jake.”

“Ugh. I hate him already.”

“You only know his name!”

“That’s enough. Imagine being named Jake. Depressing.” Eddie finished one crate and moved on to the next. “Sounds like he sells insurance and cheats on his wife.”

“Jesus. It’s one date. A free, hot meal, at worst.”

“That’s what prostitutes say, babe.”

He was always like this. Argumentative and honestly a little annoying. But he was somehow your favorite person in the world because of and despite those things. Maybe you were those things too, and you flew to each other like moths to a flame. Kindred spirits, of sorts. You didn’t have a retort, so you resorted to throwing a coin at him from the Take-A-Penny, which he easily dodged.

“Fine. But when it turns out he’s trying to get you to join his cult, just say-”

“Sorry, I’m already in Eddie Munson’s?”

“Ha ha. Anyways, word of advice? Don’t do that thing you do.”

“Thing? I have a thing?”

“Oh yeah.” Eddie abandoned his crate, hoisting himself onto the counter next to you. His thigh pressed to yours, his hair brushing your shoulder as he silently offered his hand over. You fiddled with his rings, slipping one from his pointer and shoving it onto your thumb. “Your ordering thing. I find it so adorable and endearing but any normal person would probably just put you out of your misery.”

“Sorry if I like things a certain way.”

“Don’t apologize, babe. I like that about you. But it might not be first-date material, y’know?”

You huffed in annoyance but didn’t disagree.

“And if he’s a douche, I’ll plant some pot in his locker and get him expelled or something.”

-

Jake was a total douche.

He was nice, sure. At first. Held open doors, pulled out your chair. All the stuff you had seen in movies Robin made you rent to broaden your horizons. When the time for conversation came, though, it felt…off. There wasn’t that easy back and forth, the endearments and nicknames. It was fumbling for topics and finally settling on extra curriculars.

You’d sat through twenty minutes of him chattering on and on about the basketball team and something called man-defense, but he scoffed at the very mention of Dungeons and Dragons.

“Like that Munson guy? My dad said only Satanists play that shit.”

You politely excused yourself to the bathroom and bolted out of the staff exit before he could get another word out.

And when you appeared at Eddie’s front door, dressed up and visibly annoyed, he didn’t even make a comment. You knew the told you so was sitting on the tip of his tongue, so desperate to make an appearance it was nearly painful for him to hold it back. He just ushered you in, mixtape quickly slotted into his speaker system, and Dio’s ‘Rainbow in the Dark’ sounding off as the soundtrack to Eddie’s quiet comfort.

It was almost as if the date hadn’t happened in the first place, that you both knew you would end up here.

“Any deals tonight?” You asked, so accustomed to the knocks that would interrupt your quiet nights in. Eddie would disappear for no longer than a few minutes, leaving you to twiddle your thumbs on his bed until his return.

“Nah. Wanted to keep my schedule wide open for you.” He was sorting through his most recent supply, acting as if that wasn’t the nicest thing anyone had ever done for you.

You had years filled of missed holidays, forgotten birthdays. You didn’t blame your mom for her horrible boss or her proclivity to ignore the calendar. To think Eddie had pushed aside any other plans for when you would come running had something bubbling in your chest.

Eddie knew you would come. You knew you would end up there, like some sort of escape method. An escape back to Eddie Munson.

If only Freshman you could see you now.

fourth meeting.

Christmas was a notoriously solitary holiday for you. Luckily, this year’s holiday season had been filled to the brim with gifts for the kids on Christmas Eve and a little party at Steve’s place so the ‘adults’ could exchange gifts and just be relaxed for a bit – free from high school and work and otherworldly monsters.

Eddie had become such a fixture to your life, so easily attached to you that Steve didn’t even bat an eye when he ushered you both into the living room, eagerly accepting Eddie’s version of a Christmas present (a few joints to hand around). Even Nancy, with her big college plans and life scheduled down to the minute, let loose a bit and took a few overeager puffs followed by long bouts of coughing.

Steve and Robin pitched in for a new set of headphones for you, Nancy eagerly watched you unwrap some ungodly floral wrapping paper to unveil a cassette of some UK indie band she swore up and down you would love, something Jonathan had introduced her to.

You had been saving up for the past few months to get gifts deserving of each of your friends. You had spent endless hours obsessing over JC Penny mailers and gossip magazines that swore they knew the secret to buying the perfect gift during slow shifts at Bill’s.

Robin got a new pair of Converse and a pack of Sharpies so she could doodle to her hearts content. Steve got a new Walkman, since he had leant his old one to Dustin who swore up and down that he had returned it. You had even taken the time to get it engraved – Property of Steve Harrington, not Dustin! Nancy got a new journal for all her editorial notes, though you had filled the first page with a few polaroid’s of the group together.

As Steve, Robin, and Nancy got to work on properly defacing Robin’s new shoes, you felt a little nudge on your foot.

Eddie Munson.

Looking sheepish and nodding towards Steve’s kitchen. You followed behind him, hand patting at your back pocket to make sure his gift was properly secured. At least the other three had the decency to pretend to not be interested in whatever was developing.

“So I, uh, thought a lot about what to get you.”

“You didn’t have to get me anything, Eds.”

He rolled his eyes – his default facial expression when it came to you - and fished in his pocket for a second. A chain clinked as it dangled from his hand, offering it up for judgement.

“A guitar pick?”

“Not just any guitar pick, babe.” His fingers worked to unhook the latch. “Believe it or not, this is the very guitar pick I used when Corroded Coffin auditioned for that bogus talent show.” He latched the necklace around your neck as delicately as he could, hands lingering as he watched it fall to your collarbone. “The day we first met. The best day of my life.” He finally pulled away; eyes still glued to his guitar pick on your neck. “Y’know, besides the whole making you cry thing.”

“Eds, you absolute sap.”

“Yeah, yeah. Shut up about it.” He stepped back, and it felt like it was the first breath of air you had taken since walking into the kitchen. “Would’ve given you something worth more, like my soul or something. But you know that thing is long gone.”

“Well, my gifts no better.” You promised, fishing in your own pocket. “Here.”

His eyes scanned over the tickets you offered up.

“No way.”

“Yeah, they’re playing in Fort Wayne next month. We’ll probably die from altitude sickness from how high our seats are.” You shrugged. “But they’ll probably play ‘Rainbow in the Dark’, right?”

Eddie Munson, with his loudmouth and unwavering ability to find any situation hilarious was struggling to form a single coherent thought here. The way you looked with his pick around your neck certainly wasn’t helping either. His vision felt hazy, his ears were ringing in and all he could see was you. You, with your stupid optimism and endless music trivia. You, his best friend.

Was it normal to think about shoving your tongue down your best friend’s throat?

Eddie thought back to the last campaign you had barely concluded before Winter break. You and Dustin carried the party, right down to the wire. You were beaten up, barely ten hit points left between the two of you. Eddie had heavily pushed for a retreat. Orcus was one of the most powerful foes the party had faced to date and the odds were slim. Retreat, he had advised them. Retreat and live to fight another day.

Eddie didn’t think he could live another day without being able to kiss you.

No more retreating.

His hands were back around your neck, fingers curling into the newly placed chain. He didn’t even have time to steady himself before his lips were on yours. Aching, needy, desperate for something beyond best friends. Your tickets fluttered to the floor.

You returned in kind, hands gripping at the lapels of his stupid denim vest, the band patches scattered across the material much more familiar to you, now. Your back was pushed into Steve’s granite countertop painfully. You curled even further into Eddie, mouth eagerly opening for him as one hand traveled down your sternum, side, before settling at your waist.

A finger hooked into a loop in your jeans, pulling your hips flush to his.

You stepped on his sneakers in your eagerness to get closer, as close as you possibly could. He didn’t mind, hand weaving into your hair to tilt your head back, desperate both for a breath of air and a better view of his guitar pick disappearing beneath your blouse.

“How long?” You asked, wondering how many of those solitary nights camped on his bed, how many of those closing shifts spent thumbing through Beethoven’s classics, how many late-night campaigns could have been substituted for more of this.

“The whole time, I think.” He answered, nose nuzzling into the expanse of your neck. “You?”

“The same. I think.”

A boisterous laugh from the next room over burst your little bubble.

You were in Steve Harrington’s kitchen. It was Christmas night. Eddie Munson was sucking a hickey on the column of your throat like he’d drop dead if he didn’t accomplish his mission.

“I love you.” He pulled back, those doe-eyes finding yours. “You know that, right?”

There had been a time where the very thought of Eddie Munson brought tears to your eyes, memories of that botched audition had you seriously considering dabbling in witchcraft and fashioning a voodoo doll in his likeness. Now, it all felt so warm. Like his mixtape that was surely worn down to the bone with how often you flipped that thing, or his bedsheets tangled in your legs as you spent summer evenings watching him strum his acoustic guitar – the only one his uncle would tolerate at that late hour.

“I know. I love you too.”

It felt like meeting him all over again. This was not the Eddie that had made you cry outside the high school gym. You weren’t the girl who put your name on that audition sign-up sheet. You were just two strangers – deeply, desperately, foolishly destined to love each other until your last breath.

What a perfect introduction.

[sambvcks]

i can go anywhere i want (just not home), b.w. x reader

summary: six months of silence from your on-again, off-again vigilante patient comes to an end

warnings: mentions of blood, wounds/wound care, like one curse word, MINOR batman spoilers

word count: 1.3k-ish

author’s note: a little warmup. yes i am betraying my marvel roots...but when you cast rpatz in something expect me to devote my life to it. i promise there’s a little fluff here. also bruce wayne is a folklore stan. please send me batman requests im foaming at the mouth for him rn.

[ read on ao3 | masterlist | inbox | join my taglist! ]

Despite its dense population, Gotham was still a devastatingly lonely city.

The silence had started to settle deep into your bones, your empty apartment was second nature. 

Your eyes no longer lingered over shadows, waiting for his silhouette to step through. Instead, you followed the path of your work-torn shoes, counting the same familiar cracks in the sidewalk.

Six months of silence. Not even a goodbye.

It was almost easy to pretend he had never set foot in your world to begin with. As if he hadn’t lingered long after your supplies were cleaned up, hiding smiles he refused to admit tugged on his lips, but you saw all the same. But sometimes you swore his scent lingered on your decorative pillows, you thought you had caught a flash of him under street lamps or heard a clatter on your balcony that you swore must have been him.

Still, the Bat signal loomed overhead each night. He was out there, somewhere, no longer bleeding out on your spotted sofa, dark eyes watching expert fingers administer a row of neat stitches through knife-cut battle armor. Most nights it was hard to distinguish between the blood stains you collected from your night shift at Gotham General or from him.

The Batman.

If you allowed yourself to think about it, you could remember that last night he had come. No stitches necessary, but the gash along his chin was distraction enough. A rag soaked with antiseptic was pressed firmly to the point of his jaw, and he watched closely as you shifted ever nearer to him, comfortable. Much too comfortable.

“Let me guess, I should see the other guy?”

He must not have been in a joking mood that night, as his eyes just stayed fixed on you, unblinking. They trailed easily over the slop of your nose, the tip of your cupid’s bow, finally fixating on the swell of your lips. He imagined lifting a gloved hand up, slowly - he always wanted to go slowly when it came to you, savoring every millisecond you afforded only to him – and retracing the steps his eyes had traveled. Finally, he imagined a life where it was possible to do the same with his own lips. He would be fully exposed to you, cowl out of sight, face washed clean, and scars long healed over.

You, ever so perceptive, and knowing him maybe more than he really knew himself, sensed a percentage of these thought running selfishly through his mind. Inching ever closer, you gave everything you could over to him, offering all you had to give. For half a moment, you thought he might actually allow himself to be selfish.

He had pulled back suddenly, rag falling away and hands pushing yours away. He was gone in a flash of heavy boots across your floor and a swing of a tattered cape, never to return. -

You deposited your keys on the single hook by the front door, shoes toed off next. You quickly fell into the sofa, neck straining back for any support beyond your tired bones. You knew you had to get up, wash the grime and dirt and blood of the day away. You knew you had to start a load of laundry, maybe wash your hair, finally. You knew-

“Long shift?”

The gruff, familiar voice startled you to your feet. There he was, like he’d never left to begin with. His frame was bulkier now, the armor certainly upgraded, but it was certainly him. You instinctively moved to collect the supplies you had accumulated over the past few months. You managed to pocket a few suture kits for nights like these.

“Not tonight.” He stopped you in your tracks, gloved hand hooking into your elbow. “I’m…not here for that.”

“I’m surprised you’re here at all.” You swallowed, feeling so small as his broad frame consumed so much of the space you had promised yourself never to give up for him again.

“I shouldn’t be.” There it was. Like clockwork, it seemed to appear. The doubt, the guilt, consumed his every thought. The Batman, who gave everything he could, was unworthy of the smallest morsel himself, “New haircut?”

“Then why are you here?” You shook yourself from his grasp, hunting for towels to soak up the rain he had tracked in. Your eyes found the cracked window behind him. Even five floors up, it wasn’t safe to leave a window unlocked in this city. But the thought of him one day climbing through the threshold always had you second guessing finally latching the lock once and for all.

“Something happened tonight.” He shifted where he stood, shielding you from the window and all that may be looming on the other side. “The mayor was killed.”

Maybe you should be surprised. In any other town, a high-profile political figure being assassinated would have the place on lockdown. In Gotham, it was just any other afternoon.

“It…it made me think of you.”

“Well, you sure do know how to sweet-talk.” You muttered, pulling open a hallway closet door for your towels.

“Y/N.” Suddenly, there he was, shutting the door with a single push of his combat boot. “This…this isn’t easy for me. You have to know that.”

It was muddled thinking, definitely. The grief-stricken child perched on the corner of his twin-sized bed stared up at him and he could only picture you. He’d thought of the night he’d been shuffled from hospital to police precinct to bed and how he hadn’t felt anything truly close to happiness since before that day. Except with you.

“And what is this? Besides a drive through ER?” You forced the door back open, huffing as you gathered towels into your arms.

“The last time I was here I almost…”

That was enough to halt you in your tracks. The thing you had convinced yourself hadn’t happened at all, had all been in your head, was now being spoken into the still air of your dim hallway.

“I almost brought you into this.”

The walls you had spent the past six months meticulously laying down brick by brick were so easily torn down with a single admission from him. The slightest indication that maybe - just maybe - he felt some inkling to the ashy burn that had settled into your bones that first night you’d stumbled upon him in some alleyway only a block from the hospital had that fanned that fire evermore.

“I’m already in.”

He had some semblance of a speech prepared. Something about sacrifice and danger and fuck, he wished you would stop looking at him like that.

The Batman, with all his self-worrying and uncertainty, knew then he would do anything to keep you in that small pocket in his chest, nestled somewhere between his heart and his greed. Maybe you had always lived there, stitched into his open wounds and speckled along his bruises. Maybe he was finally done fighting it.

Wordlessly, he pushed aside the stack of towels collected in your arms, a gloved hand finding the crook of your neck. You strained to look up at him, your socks no match for his military boots. With one final, steadfast look, he was capturing your lips with his. It felt like the point of no return, like the final flourish of a signature on your contract with the devil. You had no idea where this would lead, but as he tilted your head further back, breathing you in as much as he could, you couldn’t find it in yourself to care.

He stayed close, nose pressing into your cheek as he accepted his – and maybe yours as well – newly sealed fate. He felt your lips curl up, then the small huff of your laugh, the first he had heard in six months.

“What?”

“I just…I don’t even know your name.”

“Bruce.” A flash of recognition shone in your eyes. “Call me Bruce.”

[sambvcks]

redefined, b.b. x reader

summary: just because those ten words no longer wreak havoc on his mind does not mean they are gone. just redefined.

warnings: mentions of food, blood, gunshot wound

word count: 3.7k....whoops

author’s note: first standalone! i’m also itching to work on a sam story next. the last episode still lives in my mind rent free and this is a reworking of that which diverges from civil war and we get one big happy avenging family that aren’t dead :)

[ read on ao3 | masterlist | inbox | join my taglist! ]

Longing

An Avenger.

The concept was still so foreign to Bucky, despite dozens of successful missions under his belt and a permanent residence in the tower. Still, every morning he sprung up in bed expecting to still be in some run-down apartment halfway across the world, on the run.

Instead, he would awake on a plush mattress that offered little back support. He would shuck on the first shirt his bleary eyes could see and pad into the hallway, the smell of fresh coffee overtaking his superhuman sense of smell. You would be perched at the kitchen counter, pouring over mission files stained with coffee rings that Tony would later complain about.

Steve and Sam would have already come through on their way to their morning run, the coffee pot running dangerously low. You’d already placed his favorite mug nearby, two packets of sugar emptied into the bottom. A routine.

Bucky didn’t think he’d ever have a routine again.

His hand would press against your shoulder in a familiar greeting as he passed, you’d grin up at him with sleepy eyes and a lazy smile before returning to your work. Your cereal sat forgotten beside you, the overly sweetened kid’s choice growing soggy.

It was a silent and comfortable interaction. Neither worked to fill the quiet or felt the need to. Even with Steve, there was always talking and planning and ‘what about this’. With you, it was so natural to just exist how he was in that moment. No excuses, no whispered apologies.

He pushed his back against the sink as he sipped at his coffee, eyes immediately settling on your distracted figure. Your pajamas were wrinkled, mouth formed into a perfect concentrated from as you hunched uncomfortably, hand scribbling furiously. He swallowed and decided you were the most beautiful person he had ever seen, especially with your coffee breath and fingernails chewed to nubs.

He wanted so desperately to move across the kitchen and press himself perfectly against you, to push aside your paperwork and demand your sole attention. His hand clenched into a fist as he longed to feel your soft, round cheeks in his hands, how warm you would feel against the cool metal of his left and how you’d nuzzle closer still.

He hadn’t heard the dragging footsteps of Steve and Sam returning from their run and didn’t even notice them until they were settled at the doorway, watching him watch you.

“Morning.” Steve grinned, all knowing. Bucky cleared his throat and refocused on his mug.

“Morning.” Bucky replied with a look that said ‘don’t say anything’.

Rusted

Bucky learned that if you weren’t cooped up in your room or camped out on the kitchen island, you were tucked away in Tony’s garage. On slow days where it seemed everyone was off in their own little world, Bucky would know to find you under the hood of one of Tony’s vintage cars, each kept in pristine condition, but you claimed that ‘there’s always something to work on’.

Bucky was never a car guy. His family was too poor to even think of ever owning his own car. He didn’t even have his own license and technically couldn’t legally ride his bike either. He found out quickly that being an Avenger meant the term legal could be bent a bit. So, he wasn’t a car guy. But the sight of you with streaks of grease across your face and your raggedy workshop clothes would have him buying one just to see you work on it.

You were notoriously protective of your little hideaway, the music loud and the sound of metal ringing as you fixed and fiddled with every little thing. Steve nearly got a wrench to the face when he tried to distract you from Tony’s antique Chevy.

Bucky was different, though. He was always different.

He would sit himself on a tall stool positioned next to one of Tony’s many rolling tool chests. You’d call out a tool and he’d rifle through the collection until he found what he thought was the right one and only slightly tease him when he’d emerge with the wrong one. Typically, you’d spend these afternoons in silence, the thumping of the heavy base of whatever crazy metal album you picked the only soundtrack to your work.

Sometimes, though, you’d play gentle rock music. Bucky would ask questions on what you were doing, how you learned to do all of this, why you did it when Tony worked on these cars enough for the both of you.

You’d fish your rag from your pocket, concentrating on scrubbing the grease from under your fingernails as you answered.

“I like using my hands. I like fixing things. For every car that Tony has in this garage, there are hundreds just like it sitting in junkyards gathering cobwebs and rust.” You looked up at him from under eyelashes and Bucky knew you were speaking about much more than just hunks of metal. “They’re worthy of love and care.”

You were talking about him, too.

Seventeen

Bucky didn’t think this superhero business would have so many parties. There seemed to be a celebration for everything. Galas, fundraisers, full on parades whenever Tony happened to wake up in a good mood.

At least this one is a holiday, he thought to himself as he nursed his third beer of the hour. Not that it did anything other than keep his hands occupied.

The year was coming to a close, and the top floor of the Avengers Tower was decked in golden confetti and banners to ensure no one forgot. The music was obnoxiously loud, and the lyrics made little sense, but everyone seemed to be having a good time mingling and even venturing to the dance floor.

No matter how many times Sam tried to drag him in with an invisible rope, Bucky was not going to dance. Well. Maybe he would if you asked.

The party had been in full swing for hours now, with only ten minutes until the ball a few blocks up finally dropped and he could sneak away to his room without a teasing ‘bedtime already, old timer?’ from Nat.

Still, the party raged on and he eyed the glass door to the balcony. He downed the last of his beer, brushing past enthusiastic partygoers with his shoulders hunched forward in some attempt to minimize the space he took up in the room that only seemed to be getting smaller. He caught Steve’s eye on the way out and plastered on a smile in response to his disappointed look.

He let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding as soon as the glass door slid closed behind him. His eyes closed as he leaned back against it, the chill of the December New York air blew his hair in every direction.

“Fancy meeting you here.” You were sat in the far corner, so well hidden he hadn’t even noticed you, though he had been on the lookout for you all night. “Tired of the festivities?”

“And Tony’s music.” He grumbled as he fell into the seat beside you.

“Been waiting for you for the past thirty minutes. Honestly, you made it a lot longer than I could’ve in there.”

You were waiting for him. You wanted him to be there, with you, tucked away from everyone else’s prying eyes. He wanted that, too. Sometimes he wanted it so much it scared him.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, doll. It’s not polite for a gentleman to make a girl wait.”

“Hmm, I think I’ll find it in myself to forgive you.” Your shoulder pressed against his, eyes focused on the smattering of buildings surrounding you. Identical parties were happening in each of them, you were sure. “Can you believe another year is gone?”

“I can’t believe I’m about to make it to 2017 and my back hasn’t given out yet.”

You laughed, loud and unabashedly in a way only Bucky could make you laugh. Head thrown back and eyes glittering from the city lights, Bucky wanted to spend every new year you would allow him to by your side, trying his best to make you laugh again.

“Well,” You stood to peer over the glass railing, Bucky close behind you. You could hear the drunken cries inside as the countdown begun. “I’m glad you did.”

“Me too.” Bucky offered his hand to you. You took it easily.

5, 4, 3…

He wanted nothing more than to pull you close, to finally press a kiss on the lips that had thrown teasing remarks at him during missions. To once and for all end this little dance you both loved so much. But you looked so perfect.

Bucky wasn’t ready to ruin that perfection with everything wrong with him quite yet.

“Happy 2017, Bucky.” You whispered as the fireworks started, but Bucky couldn’t pull his eyes from you.

“Happy 2017, doll.”

Daybreak

The mission had been long and grueling. The week-long stakeout turned into two and quickly turned into a month away. You can’t remember the last time you’d had a good night of sleep that wasn’t interrupted with Bucky’s hand on your shoulder, telling you it was your turn to keep watch.

It wasn’t a horrible mission, more of an exercise in patience and restraint than anything. Bucky’s stories kept you entertained enough, and he was a good partner. Which is why you were paired together more often than not.

Still, it was nice to finally collapse into your familiar bed, not even bothering to kick of shoes or take a much-needed shower. Your sleeping schedule was all out of whack and you tossed and turned, despite the exhaustion seeping through your bones.

After fifteen minutes, you finally huffed a sigh of defeat and stumbled back to your feet. You showered, which was a few good days overdue, and dressed in your largest, most comfortable pajamas.

You weren’t surprised to see Bucky up as well, sitting at the dining table with a mug of fresh coffee.

“Couldn’t sleep?” His foot kicked out the seat beside him as an invitation.

“Sleeps overrated, anyways.” You shrugged, slumping into the seat and pressing your face into the cool glass of the table.

“Sleep is good for you.” He insisted, reaching forward to brush aside the hair that had curtained over your face. “You deserve a good night’s rest.”

“So do you, Buck.”

He stayed silent for a while, just sipping at his coffee and stealing glances at you, face trained out the floor to ceiling windows. He really didn’t know what he deserved, anymore. Sure, he had made some semblance of peace with what the Winter Soldier had done with his body. He was better, that was certain.

Worthy of you and all your unwavering sweetness? He wasn’t so sure.

You idly chatted about nothing for hours, filling comfortable silence with talks of the mission and the food poisoning he had given you when he tried to make dinner two weeks in. You sat side by side until day broke the next morning, eyes squinting at the sun peeking over skyscrapers and finally finding the need to fall shut in rest.

“I guess I should say ‘good morning’ instead of ‘good night’.” You were the first to stand, shuffling towards the hallway that led to your bedroom.

“Good morning.” He answered as you padded away, deciding he would be just fine losing sleep every night if it meant he could watch the sunrise by your side.

Furnace

“Doesn’t Tony make enough money to keep this place at least habitable?” You grumbled as you fell into the couch beside Bucky.

“I’m fine.”

Bucky sat in his patent jeans and t-shirt, unphased by the temperature that practically had your teeth chattering. You were bundled in multiple layers, including one of the many sweatshirts he’d wear jogging on cold mornings and blankets you had stolen off his bed. Your glare from under your cocoon of warmth rivaled even his.

“I’m not a muscle-y super soldier-”

“You think I’m muscle-y?”

“-that runs so hot you’re basically a personal furnace.”

“Oh, so now I’m hot.”

“I would strangle you to death right now, but I’m about to lose my fingers to hypothermia.” You burrowed further into your smattering of blankets with a violent chill running down your spine. Bucky simply rolled his eyes and marked the spot in the book he had been reading before you stormed in.

“C’mere.”

He balled up a fistful of one of your blankets, tugging you even closer to him. You opened your arms to allow for direct contact, sighing contently as your face pressed into his shoulder and legs tangled with his. You sighed contently as you welcomed his warmth, shimmying as close as you could get.

“Better?”

“The best.”

Nine

“Do you ever think what your life would be like? If you’d gotten to go home?”

Even a year ago, this question would have turned Bucky into a brooding mess. He would have delved into every little moment he had missed, every plan that had been turned upside down when he fell from that train all those years ago. But he was better now, more contemplative. He wouldn’t drown in the idea of what could have been because he knows what it’s like to be on the other side.

“I like to think I would’ve gone to college.”

“Really?”

“You calling me dumb, doll?”

“No! You’re the smartest person I know. I’m just picturing you at college. Carrying textbooks and wooing all the dames.” You fell into him at the thought, a fake swoon overtaking your face.

“I’d be too busy studying for dames.”

“Studying what?”

“I always liked math. Maybe engineering or something. Wanted to be a teacher before the draft.” He shrugged like the information was no big deal, but to you it was everything.

“Professor Barnes. Kind of sexy.”

“Oh, shut up.” But his words held no malice. Instead, he was grinning that cheeky grin that pulled his cheeks into perfect rosy apples and his eyes crinkled in joy. “I wanted to have ten kids.”

“Ten?!”

“So we’d be a dozen. My own little army of mini-Buckys to take over the world. Couple sets of twins, maybe. Definitely as many girls as I could manage.”

Of course Bucky would be a girl-dad. Playing dress-up for fake tea parties and scaring off boys when they’d come ‘round for first dates. You could imagine how he’d learn how to take care of their hair and plait intricate braids when they asked. He would make breakfast for the whole bunch, kiss his wife goodbye before escorting them to the bus stop and taking off for a day of teaching classes. Bucky would be an amazing father.

An amazing husband, too.

“I think ten may be pushing it, Barnes.”

Bucky pictured it, too. A little more modern than maybe the image you conjured up. Teaching was replaced with small missions. The gaggle of kids were smaller, and he wouldn’t have to kiss his wife goodbye. You’d be in the car next to him, headed to the tower for your morning briefings together.

“I’ll settle for nine.”

Benign

If you were to ask any New Yorker what they think the Avengers do on Friday afternoons, they would probably say something like ‘kicking ass!’. None would get even close to what your actual routine looked like.

None would imagine The Winter Soldier lounging in a bathrobe, hair knotted into a bun at the top of his head as his fellow world-saving Avenger spread some green goop over his face. Chinese takeout boxes littered the living room coffee table, his feet were bubbling in warm foot spa.

“To keep your youthful complexion!” You had promised him. He didn’t comment on the obvious sound of your phone’s camera clicking.

He knew he must have looked completely ridiculous. But as you sunk into the couch next to him with identical spa treatments covering you, he couldn’t find it in himself to really care.

He never thought in a million years that he would have the chance of boring, completely benign afternoons. He thought he would be sidelined to violent missions for the rest of his life, to being thawed out like a microwave meal every time he was deemed useful. Sure, he felt a bit ridiculous when you reached over to adjust the slices of cucumber placed over his eyelids, but he also felt so relaxed.

As you settled even closer to him, head tilting to rest on his shoulder, he would happily take the teasing remarks from Sam when you showed him the pictures.

Homecoming

Peter wasn’t crazy about the idea of getting ready for his senior year homecoming dance at the tower. But Aunt May was upstate on vacation with Happy and he still didn’t know how to tie a tie.

“Oh, you look so handsome, Peter!” You gushed as your fingers worked on his tie. Bucky stood to the side, holding MJ’s corsage in a delicate plastic container. Peter had been careful to find the perfect color, with a little guidance from you. The white dahlias matched perfectly with Peter’s light green tie.

“Thanks, Ms. (Y/L/N).”

Peter, ever the polite kid.

“Be safe, kid. Have her home at a reasonable time and no wandering hands.” Bucky handed over the corsage with a supportive slap to Peter’s shoulder. He was quick to promise that he would follow all the rules before making a dash to the door, just as you were about to ask for pictures.

“Don’t wait up!” He called as the elevator dinged behind him.

“They grow up so fast.” You sniffled. “I didn’t even go to my homecoming dances.”

“Why not?”

“Nobody ever asked me.” You shrugged, collecting the other ties Peter had picked from and hanging them carefully over your arm. Tony didn’t have to know that Peter was taking one of his priceless Versace neckties to a homecoming dance.

“To be fair, I would’ve been scared shitless to ask you to a dance.” Bucky followed close behind. “And I fought a war.”

“That’s sweet, Buck.” You brushed him off as you retreated into Tony’s closet.

“No, really.” His hand caught your elbow. “I would’ve been the luckiest guy in town if I had you on my arm.”

You fell asleep that night imagining you and Bucky twirling around a dance hall without a care in the world.

One

Steve’s hand was firm against your shoulder, his tactical glove soaked and dripping with your blood. Your eyes were unfocused, head lulling every so often when the fight to keep it steady just seemed too difficult. Sam was at your other side, cracking jokes to try to keep your attention on him and not of the literal bullet lodged in your shoulder.

You were escorted from the jet in a flurry, doctor’s hands replacing Steve’s. You barely winced when you were administered painkillers and the ache begun to subside. Before you could blink, you were lifted onto a gurney in the medical bay and the clink of the bullet that had been dug from your flesh rang through the room as it clattered into a metal dish.

Bucky ran in just as the doctor finished maneuvering a long roll of gaze around your shoulder, scheduling a time for you to return to have it cleaned and reapplied again.

“What happened?” He brushed past the doctor without a second glance, eyes trained on your figure pressed against the sterile hospital bed. “Steve said-”

“It’s nothing. Steve likes to be dramatic.”

“-that you were shot!”

“Oh, well. Yeah, that happened.” You moved to sit up, your arm immediately giving out under the weight. Bucky moved even closer to help you, hand careful on your back like you were made of glass. “But just the one time.”

“As far as I’m concerned, one is too many.” He watched the gauze turn darker against your skin; your eyes screwed shut in pain as your knuckles turned white against the sheets. “And you’re never going on a mission without me again.”

Freight Car

“You’re free.”

He remembers those worlds so clearly, it’s like him and Ayo are still sat next to that crackling fire in Wakanda. He thought that had been it. He would never again worry about those ten phrases that erased Bucky Barnes and allowed a machine to emerge from his memory.

As he stole glances of you from the corner of his eye, shadowed by his unruly hair, he knew those words still very much existed in his mind.

They weren’t a means to an end, anymore. He didn’t have to grit his teeth and clench his fists to fight them off. They were new, now. He saw each of those words in you and realized just how important they are now they they’ve found a new meaning.

His love for you came easy.

One second, he was looking at his friend. She was looking back at him and he felt safe.

Your fingers brushed over his shoulder, where flesh turned to metal, and you looked away as though you hadn’t just made him fall in love with you with a single touch.

It took three years for Bucky to make a move. Another party, another escape plan to the balcony where you were waiting for him, like always. The last time you had found yourselves in that position, he had been too unsure. Too wary of what it would mean and if it was too soon.

Now, he didn’t care. He just wanted you and to be selfish and not think about consequences when he leaned forward and finally pressed his lips to yours.

You pulled back, but not far.

Something clicked.

Your love for him hit you like a freight car. Swooping in from nowhere but really, you should have felt the rattling of the tracks beneath your feet. You should have seen all the signs that you loved him and he loved you back. In stolen glances and easy afternoons, in hard missions and bloodshed. He was there, and he looked at you like that. Like everything his body had done was to finally make it to you in this moment.

He waited, patient. He had waited this long, what was another few seconds as the realization washed over your features?

“Oh.” Was your clever whisper.

“Yeah.” Bucky’s hands cradled your face, “Took you long enough.”

taglist: @bibliophilewednesday @teti-menchon0604​ @thiswasnevermylifefromtony​ @spid3rgwen​ @beautyandthebleh​ @victoriabaker112213​ @orthellqs @phasma-trash​

[sambvcks]

crawl home to her, b.b. x reader

chapter three // didn’t care much how long i lived

summary: bucky receives a lesson on modern music over cheap beers and freshly baked scones.

warnings: mentions of abuse, food, alcohol consumption, character death (sorry)

word count: 1.6k

author’s note: besties...how we feeling about today’s episode??? using this as a coping mechanism :)

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Your record collection was extensive and collecting an unhealthy layer of dust since you had inherited them from your grandmother. It didn’t take long to fish out a Best Of album from the vast shelves, handing over the sleeve to Bucky, who sat patiently on your forest green couch, as you fiddled with the turntable’s needle.

To busy himself, he read over the repertoire of songs listed on the back.

“Let’s Get It On?”

“Usually, a guy buys a girl dinner first, Bucky.” You took a cheeky swig of your beer with an eyebrow raise as he flushed at the insinuation. “We’ll start easy. If I Could Build My Whole World Around You. A criminally under-appreciated love song.”

A bouncy beat crackled through from the speakers as you settled into the couch beside him, tucking your legs beneath you. Today’s choice of pajama bottoms displayed little snowflakes across a navy background, despite the heat outside that still lingered into nighttime.

“I like it.” Bucky decided.

“Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell have so many amazing songs together. She might not sound like it on record, but she had a hard life. Abusive, cheating partners. Brain cancer that killed her young. Hard to know what anyone’s going through behind closed doors.”

I’d put so much love where there is sorrow, I’d put joy where there’s never been before.

“I really like it.”

Your apron still hung from your waist, the gentle tick of the kitchen timer in the shape of a grey cat sat by your side. A reminder of the scones you were whipping up when Bucky unexpectedly appeared on your doorstep. You didn’t question him or bring up the late hour. Simply ushered him in with a smile and a beer shoved into his gloved hand.

Bucky feels comfortable for the first time in a long time. Eyes focused, mind stagnant. Your perfume, woodsy and natural, lingers in the air and he has to take a long gulp of his drink just to occupy himself for just a second.

“I’m glad you like it. Though, I don’t know if I’ve ever met someone who doesn’t like Marvin Gaye. It’s like not liking Queen.”

“Queen?”

The timer rattled on the coffee table and the smell of vanilla and blueberries nipped at Bucky’s nose.

“Saved by the bell! I don’t have the time to berate you on not knowing about Queen.”

You bustled your way back into the kitchen, sliding oven mitts onto your hands as you inspected the oven with a professional certainty. The record out and into the next track as Bucky watched on, your shoulders swaying to the slow tempo. You were light on your feet as you plucked one tray from the heat and replaced it with another.

It was so easy for Bucky to imagine this world as his, with the soft swing of Motown as the soundtrack to your shared afternoons. In a different life, he would come home to your baking, ask how studying went as you swayed in the kitchen together. You would wash dishes next to one another, hips pressed close, and giggle when he would press his sudsy hands onto your cheeks. You would smear remnants of cake batter on his and he would let you feed him dessert from your fingers.

It wasn’t possible, he knew. Probably ever. You would be graduating school soon, off to be an important attorney and he would still just be your across the hallway neighbor who you sometimes shared desserts and pleasantries with. You would find out who he was eventually. Everyone did. You would leave. Everyone did.

You would simply be another in a long line of failed attempts by James Buchanan Barnes.

Still, he thought, we can have this one simple night. Where you don’t know who he is, and he can imagine that it lasts long after he retreats back to his apartment.

‘Heaven must have sent you from above.’ Crooned the lovesick singers on your record player.

As you returned to the living room with another beer and the promise of scones as soon as they cooled, Bucky could only think one thing.

He was definitely starting to like Marvin Gaye.

He was starting to like you, too.

When he returned back to his apartment, hours later with a pile of records you insisted he borrow in his arms and a belly full of blueberry scones, he fell into bed without a care in his mind. It was his first full night of sleep in ninety years.

-

Bucky started appearing on your doorstep more often.

Your number was now saved in his phone and was his most frequently used contact. You were his secret, though, something he didn’t even share with Dr. Raynor. No matter how many times she tried to get him to speak about his troubling lack of acquaintances.

You were the one thing in the world untouched by all the destruction waging a war between his ears, you were easy and simple and God, it had been a long time since anything had been simple. You didn’t mind that he was brooding and a little bit clueless, or his cheesy jokes and complaints about technology these days.

His record collection was quickly growing, though it was still nowhere near yours.

Most of all, he liked sitting in your apartment, at your kitchen counter or on that forest green sofa of yours. Sometimes, you would let him pick a record and tell him everything you could remember about it. Other times, you would read from your heavy law books and he’d pretend to understand the cases and terminology, head resting against the back of your couch, admiring how your brows would furrow in concentration. He’d tell you not to hunch over your book, but you’d insist you were fine, only to be complaining about your neck the next time he saw you.

“I wish I read more actual books, you know? It seems like all I know these days are case studies.”

The next visit he’d have a worn copy of one of his favorite books tucked under his arm. He’d read to you until you’d doze off to the stories of Bilbo Baggins and his team of dwarves, a blanket tucked up to your neck.

Every visit cemented yourself further and further into his identity, until his trips to the used bookstore down the block became weekly and his morning runs became longer as you pushed more and more baked goods his way. You’d kiss his cheek as you said your goodbyes, leaning against your doorframe as he disappeared into his apartment.

He was happy. Positively, unbelievably happy.

-

Two days before Bucky’s next scheduled visit, Steve died in his sleep.

Pneumonia, or something, Bucky didn’t really comprehend any of the newscast beyond the headline ‘CAPTAIN AMERICA DEAD’ flashing in bold letters across his television screen.

Sam called early that morning and Bucky just knew. He knew what was waiting for him on the other end of that call, so he shut his phone off and laid back on the hardwood floor of his living room, dead to the world.

He didn’t speak to anyone for a few days, not even bothering with his daily runs or grocery store trips. Your knocks at his door went unanswered, with no trace that you had even stood in the hallway waiting for him other than a batch of oatmeal raisin cookies on his doormat. The only appointment he kept was his therapy, where he stared out the window and counted down the minutes until he could leave. Each attempt on Dr. Raynor’s part to bring up Steve was shut down as quickly as it was brought up.

Finally, a week later, a pounding at the door woke him from a restless afternoon nap.

“Buck, I know you’re in there.”

Sam. Of course.

“These boxes are heavy, come on!”

Sam Wilson took up Bucky’s entire doorway with his broad shoulders, the boxes stacked in his arms taking up the rest. Bucky was quick to usher him in the door, eyeing yours across the hall. He knew one look at an Avenger on his stoop would finally connect the dots for you, and you’d never speak to the Winter Soldier again.

“Keep your voice down.” Bucky shoved the final box through the doorway before securing the lock in place.

Sam surveyed his barren living room, eyes flicking to the crumpled bedsheets gathered on the floor next to his sofa but didn’t linger for long.

“I was worried about you, man.”

It used to be ‘we’, but now it’s just Sam.

“Nothing to worry about.” Bucky pushed past him to his kitchen, collecting stray dishes he hadn’t bothered to move to the sink before then. He felt Sam’s careful gaze on him the entire time. He hated that. He hated how much Sam cared.

He mostly hated how much it reminded him of Steve.

“Found these boxes in Steve’s attic. Had your name on them so I thought you might want ‘em.”

Bucky swallowed hard, focused on scrubbing the dishes under water so hot it was turning the skin on his flesh hand a violent red.

“I know this is hard, Buck-”

The glass he had been rinsing shattered between his fingers and Sam took a step back as Bucky heaved in uneven breaths. There was a long silence between the two grieving men, neither able to fully understand the other. Sam would never feel Bucky’s ninety-year heartache, the abandonment and fear of the life ahead of him. Bucky would never understand the weight on Sam’s shoulders or his unease at the shield tucked under his bed at home.

“I just want to be alone.”

Sam could do nothing but respect his wish.

“Call if you need anything.” Were his departing words as he showed himself out.

Bucky got to work cleaning up the broken glass.

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[sambvcks]

crawl home to her, b.b. x reader

chapter two // the wrong i did

summary: bucky’s attachment to his across the hallway neighbor grows. he takes his bi-weekly trip upstate.

warnings: food, maybe a swear, mentions of killing but no details!

word count: 1.5k

author’s note: AHHHHH thank you so much for the love for the first chapter! i’m so excited to be writing again and for getting some positive responses :) next chapter we’re really gonna see some movements in the friendship department!

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On the nights where Bucky couldn’t find the will to stay asleep – which were plentiful – he took to sitting by his front door. He half pretended it was for his safety, being able to hear any footsteps coming down the hall. In reality, he only heard you.

Your feet padding around your apartment at all hours of the night, the clanging of pots and pans followed by a whispered ‘shhhh, people are sleeping!’ from you. You played slow music as you preheated your oven and mixed ingredients and set your timer, unaware of the atrocities the man across the hall had committed.

The same hand you had pushed oatmeal raisin cookies into had taken lives, pulled triggers, toppled governments.

Would you run, if you ever found out? Would you yell and scream if you realized some of the only solace he found in his days was to set a dining chair next to his front door and listen to you putter around your kitchen for a few hours?

He was dressed an hour early the next morning, gloved hand steady on the knob, waiting. Breath steady as he listened to you stumble through your living room, struggling into a pair of shoes, weighed down by a backpack ripping at the seams under the weight of textbooks. At the sound of your doorknob, he made his move.

“Oh! Morning, Bucky.” You stepped into the hall together.

“Morning.” He nodded. Casual. Good, stay casual. “Are those…pajama pants?”

“Never know when an opportunity for a nap will come along.” You shrugged, “Headed somewhere?”

“Uh, upstate. Visiting family for the day.”

Your brows knit together.

“Empty handed? Bucky, I thought you were well mannered!” For a moment, your hand settled on his arm in a gentle pat that told him stay right here.

You disappeared into your apartment, and Bucky watched you retreat into your tiny Manhattan kitchen. Dirty pans and utensils were still piled in the sink from the night before, your coffee table was covered in dense books flipped to different pages, probably the result of a study session cut short. You reappeared with a Tupperware container filled to the brim with golden, bakery sized muffins.

“Here. Not to brag but my muffins are basically the best in the world.”

“That’s really nice, but-”

“Just take the damn muffins, Bucky.” You playfully rolled your eyes, already setting down the hallway. End of discussion. “And I better get my Tupperware back!”

-

Every other weekend, Bucky rents a car and drives an hour and a half upstate to a small town. The houses are generously spaced out, the traffic is clear, and it’s almost deafly silent compared to the hustle and bustle that Manhattan has to offer.

No one, save for three people, knew Captain America himself owned a modest one story, two-bedroom house at the end of an unsuspecting cul-de-sac. Sam and Bucky used to visit together, swapping seats in the car halfway through the drive when they stopped at a gas station just outside the city to fill up the tank. Now, they come separately.

It’s easier this way. Sam had assured Bucky. Both of us there, it’s overwhelming for him.

Bucky wondered for a moment if him actually meant you.

Steve’s live-in nurse opened the door as always, the third and final person who knew this American hero resided there. She was nice enough, Steve said she was like the granddaughter he never had but Bucky still isn’t used to the thought of Steve Rogers spending his afternoons with a stranger, watching reruns of Jeopardy tucked under a thick-knit quilt. He offered over your batch of muffins wordlessly, his nurse gesturing down the hallway towards Steve’s bedroom.

The house had barely been touched since the 40s. The tacky wallpaper still intact, antique wooden furniture pushed against walls and adorned with framed pictures and lace table runners. Every time Bucky saw this place, he wanted to scream.

Scream at Steve for leaving him for this. Scream because their work wasn’t finished and he still needed his best friend and instead he had mandatory therapy sessions that didn’t work and his only friend – if he could call you that – was with a law student he had had two conversations with.

Most of all, he wanted to scream because he wasn’t in any of the picture frames.

Instead, like always, he wordlessly settled into the bedside chair as Steve’s nurse bustled in with plates and napkins and your muffins.

“James brought them, isn’t that nice?” She told Steve before disappearing back down the hallway.

“Muffins, huh? Does the James Barnes have a hobby I wasn’t aware of?”

“More like an overly-friendly neighbor.”

Bucky never talked about himself during these visits beyond ‘Dr. Raynor says I’m making progress’ or ‘I tried sushi, it’s pretty good’. This time, however, he was quick to detail his across the hallway neighbor who banged bots and pans in the late hours of the night, who always wore pajama bottoms no matter what time of day it was, and who made oatmeal raisin cookies as good as his moms.

“She cute?”

“Leave it to girl crazy Steve Rogers to ask if she’s cute.”

“That’s not a no.”

No, it wasn’t.

“She’s…nice.”

Steve knew better than to push Bucky on the topic. He knew the progress he was making – however minimal it may be – needed to come from him and not because Captain America told him to go for it. Instead, he decided a topic change was the best route forward.

“There’s something I want you to have.” Steve sat further up in bed, reaching for his bedside drawer. “Something to get you started, like I did.”

He offered forward a small red notebook, pages yellowed with time and wear, corners frayed, and the name Steven Rogers carved into the front cover with a ball point pen. Bucky flipped through a few pages, only a few filled in. Lists and doodles and addresses hastily scribbled then crossed out again, the handwriting identical to the chick scratch Bucky used to decipher to copy off of Steve’s math homework in high school.

“Thought you’d get better use out of it than I did.”

Bucky sat for thirty minutes flipping through the notebook as Steve dozed off beside him. It seemed Steve’s greatest desire was catching up on lost time. Most of the pages were filled with movies and shows that someone probably offhandedly mentioned to him. Steve got to move forward. They both knew Bucky wasn’t even close to being there yet.

His eyes flicked to Steve, grey and so tired and thought he’s had an entire life without you. He had a family and a house and he didn’t need you. All you have is a barren apartment and scrambled eggs for brains.

Bucky was halfway to the door when he heard a sharp intake of breath.

“B-Buck?” Steve’s hand shook as he reached out for him, voice groggy and eyes squinting. “I saw you fall. You’re dead.”

Captain American didn’t exist to Bucky in that moment. He was skinny Steve Rogers, a twenty-something kid who was too dumb to walk away from fights, too sweet for all the girls he tried to set him up with. The kid who lost his parents in one fell swoop and who lost his best friend soon after. Bucky may have had it hard, but Steve’s life wasn’t a party either.

The Winter Soldier didn’t exist to Steve in that second, he just saw his pal Bucky. Who went through books faster than he did girls, who wanted to spend his last night home at a science convention of all places. He wasn’t a killer and he sat on his metal arm, so desperately wanting Steve to remember him as just that. At least someone other than museum displays would.

“Well,” Bucky drawled, just like he used to, “Couldn’t let you get into any trouble without me, could I?” -

The drive home was silent. Bucky didn’t even bother turning up the radio. He was typically like this after a visit to Steve, which is why he was silently grateful Sam limited their interactions to every other week. This one felt different, though.

Like they were finally moving apart from each other, the fork in the road forcing them down two separate paths, never to see each other again.

Bucky briefly wondered if he would have made the same decision Steve had. Sure, he didn’t have a Peggy back home waiting for him. But he had his Ma and Rebecca was just starting middle school when he shipped off. What did he have now, anyways?

Every few minutes, his eyes would shift to that stupid fucking notebook sitting on the passenger side seat next to your empty Tupperware container.

For the first time, Bucky found himself at your door rather than you at his. Your surprise was evident as you peeked your head out, expecting to see Mr. Jimenez from down the hall asking about ingredients he had forgotten at the store.

“Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.” Specks of flour coated your skin, a dirtied apron tied tight around your waist. “To what do I owe the honor?”

He held up your empty container.

“Know anything about Marvin Gaye?”

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[sambvcks]

CRAWL HOME TO HER / BUCKY BARNES X READER

neighbors!au. bucky isn’t as receptive to this new life of his as everyone had hoped. he’s cold, sharp-tongued, and closed off. except to the tenant across the hallway from him, who always wears pajamas and bakes a dozen too many of his favorite cookies. titles taken from hozier’s ‘work song’. 

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part one - body’s working on empty

part two - the wrong i did

part three - didn’t care much how long i lived

part four - three days on drunken sin

part five - in the low lamp light

part six - toothaches

part seven - what my hands and my body’s done

part eight - heaven and hell

part nine - when my time comes around

part ten - lay me gently in the cold hard earth

part eleven - still have my baby

part twelve - my babe would have me

part thirteen - no grave can hold my body down

epilogue - crawl home to her