@lethalforce : ❛ 05. pacing the room with heavy steps. ❜ / from here & accepting.
this wasn't his first time around the block, and it certainly wasn't his first time in a room with someone who smelled of gunpowder, cordite, & old blood. frank castle was a big man, the sound of his boots against the cold floor echoing throughout the large warehouse. the same, steady heartbeat — concentration unwavering. ❛ you have a plan here, frank? or does pacing help you come up with one? ❜ the devil sneered.
❛ i'm just saying ... if we work together here, we can probably get something done a lot faster. ❜ he knew their methods were different, but as much as they morally collided, they were an effective team nonetheless.
@lethalforce : "I HAVE SOMETHING I NEED TO DO." [ACCEPTING]
GRACE DOES NOT OFTEN FEEL LIKE HER job offers any relevance that can be translated into the real world. staring at a computer screen in a dimly lit room for ten hours straight while sustaining herself on numerous mugs of thin coffee & granola bars is hardly a lifestyle that gave her any skills to survive anywhere outside of those four walls. or so she thought: for now she can sit & look at frank with a level of patience that is hard to execute for many others. though she does not know what he may be eluding to, studying his face brings more excitement still than endless strings of numbers & symbols that usually capture her attention. from the wide nose to the somewhat squinty eyes to the set lips, grace feels like she could sit here & wait for hours. at least the room is at least slightly better lit than her office usually is & the coffee holds the color of chocolate rather than watered down dirt. as far as she is concerned, this is a luxurious experience. "don't we all?" she asks, though that may have been a mistake for the words sound too loud in the otherwise muted environment. "though yours sounds more serious than mine, i'm just struggling to make dinner plans for a whole week."
❝ oh, my stars! i'm so sorry, frank! ❞ wanda looked down at the floor where he was, her eyes wide and her face showing how truly sorry she was, but a second later, her eyebrows were raised, and her arms were crossed. ❝ but, what the hell are you doing on the floor? ❞
* ⁺ ‧͙ ˚ . *⋆ @lethalforce 𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑠 ❛ a meme i lost ❜ ━━ 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑎𝑐𝑐𝑒𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔
@lethalforce said: " you know as well as i do that they don't change, red. " frank's words are dismissive. final. an end to matt's preaching about change and redemption. his shoulder clips the devil's own - hard enough to force him off balance - as he strides past. " don't get in my way again. "
"Yeah, that's not happening," Matt argued back, reaching to grab hold of Frank's arm to stop him. It's an argument they've had countless times before, and they're destined to always go around in circles. Neither of them will change their minds, so they fight over it. Over and over again. "You're not fixing anything either by just shooting everything that moves. You ever thought about playing it smart for once?"
dick had been tracking their movements for weeks — evidence, routes, buyers. he had prepared, planned, calculated risks. working alongside the punisher ( a phrase of which he uses loosely ) hadn’t been apart of any plans. nightwing wanted arrests. interrogations. names from quivering lips that led higher. @lethalforce wanted bodies. the vigilante doesn’t know who shot first, he just knows it escalated. caught suddenly in the middle of a firefight he didn’t want, but where walking away meant more dead. he didn’t have a choice in that regard. quickly relinquishing his attempt to wrestle weapon away from the other, dick took instead to weaving between gunfire, taking down shooters before the other could line them up. a sick kind of race — one he, eventually, placed dead last in, despite his best efforts. the noise has thinned to nothing behind him, the fight over just as quickly as it had started; all that remains is the roaring in his ears && rapid pounding of his heart. the smell of gunpowder lingers in the air, distant wail of sirens rising higher && higher through the dissipating veil of smoke.
nightwing forces himself onto one elbow, leaning weight back on a crate. a gauntlet presses ‘gainst own side && blue rubber comes away slick. kevlar had managed to absorb some of the blast, but not enough. it burns to breathe, each inhale is a ragged struggle. it scrapes on the way out, catching on something sharp && wrong. just his luck. dick manages to look up through the haze that's settled over the world. the punisher looms menacingly above, the severeness of his countenance hidden by harsh shadows. gaze falters, meeting instead the skull plastered ‘cross his torso. white scuffed && speckled with something else dark. he can guess what it is even in the dim light. the man forces himself to look away, sickness rising. guilt coating his mouth bloody. “ no. ” he spits as hands move closer, though voice remains ever so thin. blood drips from trembling lips, jaw tense as he attempts to grind his pain to dust between molars. he doesn’t want anything from this man, doesn’t want to owe him. the vigilante pushes to sit up straighter && immediately regrets it — movement sending a jagged spike lancing through his torso, bright enough to make vision freckle with black. he swallows the sound threatening to claw its way out. “ ‘m fine — don’t need … shit — just need to catch my breath. ”
freezing. our muses getting frisky in a cabin to keep warm. 🙂↕️
it's not claire's first rodeo in cold places, one of her very first encounters with bioterrorism, now so far in time, happened in antarctica - her leather jacket wouldn't do shit back then to keep her warm and truly, by working with terrasave now she'd like to think that she's gotten better at prepping for any kind of weather she might encounter.
wrong.
the cabin provided as a safe space while waiting for extraction is anything but safe, if the roof doesn't fall on their heads it'll already be a miracle enough. claire's dressed in layers, her terrasave issued winter jacket still on. frank on the other hand doesn't seem to be as fazed - he went outside to hunt, is going through the trouble of getting it cooked on the barely working stove. claire is no cook, her input would make things worse; so she stands by, watches carefully trying to figure out if she can get some warmth without catching fire.
but she's so goddamn cold.
when they finally eat, claire is so so glad food will probably make her feel better for a bit - the news coming from base that a storm is approaching though is quick to disturb that little comfort she had just found. spending the night in the cabin means sharing a bed, which in turn means picking a fight over who's chivalrous enough to sleep on the floor. "move your ass in this bed. now," she says eventually, and it's finality reflects in the fire in her eyes, head nodding just barely to the piece of furniture.
the tossing and turning is almost ridiculous, she's put all the blankets managed to find on the bed and it's still cold. this storm is going to be unforgivable, like many things in claire's life - so by 3am she's finally made peace with it, her hand reaching over the other side. "i'm cold," she says half muffled by the oiletof blankets, and god it sounds so stupid coming from a tough girl like her but. frank's arm eventually reaches to her, pulling her body closer with little effort. her head nods barely when he looks at her, his own body then shifting somewhat on top of her.
his hands are warmer than hers, claire notes when they sneak past her pullover to grab at both sides of her waist and keep her firm there. not like she has any intention to move, though her hands do wander underneath his shirt then, palms exploring muscles and scars on his back until the reach the hem of his pants. her hands move up again then, hips bucking into frank just enough when his face dips in the crook of her neck. it pulls a moan out of her lips, the warmth forming in her lower belly quickly spreading all over her body. so she grinds against his growing tent, the grip on her hips tightening - it's too cold to take her pants off, but now that they're here, claire doesn't really want to hold back.
"wait," she warns breathless, blown pupils staring in the dark as she finds enough space on the mattress to turn around. her ass pushes back, tentatively finding the way back to frank's groin as hands guide his to her hips again. "just pull them down halfway," must be such a sexy sight ... thank god it's dark, claire is not sure she could live up to the embarrassment of not wanting her clothes off. even at her big age. "please please please," a shiver runs down her spine, until finally frank's body hovers over hers again. "i'm so fucking cold ..." just put me through the mattress.
