#dc#dc comics#batman#bruce wayne#tim drake#batfamily#dc fanart#batfam#dick grayson
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Small thank you @crypt1dcorv1dae for coming up with this with me lol
Alvida: Where is my cabin boy?
Buggy: Seriously, in what way is he usefull to you?
Alvida: He makes me laugh
Her hair is getting long.
She hadn’t even realized how long until Zoey had started running her fingers through jet black strands.
She should probably cut it.
Long hair is such a hassle anyway. She doesn’t know how Rumi does it.
Mira curls a bit around one long finger, remembering how a few years ago it would have been a brighter color, louder. Harder to ignore. An act of rebellion she’d been proud of at the time.
That hadn’t lasted long, had it.
Now here she was.
There’s a sting in her scalp as she pulls a little, squashing down that ember in her chest. Tightening her jaw. With a deep, shuddering breath she frees her hand, choosing to grip the sink instead.
Her phone chimes.
When she glances down at the screen she sees she has a video message from Zoey.
‘Saw this foxy lady and thought of you.’
Curiosity getting the better of her, she opens the video, and is greeted by the sight of a literal Artic fox sitting upright in the snow while a bunch of littler foxes skitter around her paws.
Mira can’t help it. A scoff that could be mistaken for a laugh escapes her.
‘Ha ha,’ she sends back.
The reply is almost immediate. ‘Ohh, I made you laugh!’
‘In your dreams.’
‘Every night!!’
Mira’s lips twitch up. ‘Weirdo.’
Where his blood drifts us apart
Adam x Reader
Lucifer & Reader: Friends.
Requested: Adam and the reader are husband and wife. She is Lucifer's friend from Paradise, who remained in contact with him even after his fall, but upon learning of the death of her beloved husband, their centuries-long friendship enters a difficult period.
—---
Sooooooo this is gonna have a lot of angst & A tragic ending as I had warned.
While there is a bit of fluff in there, this one is going to be a bit of a tear jerker.
This is your warning to the brick that's being thrown. Harshly.
Trigger warnings: Angst (Lots of it) Mentions of cannibism (sinners) Major character death (Adam) and Exterminations. (Basic Hazbin Hotel stuff.)
No happy ending.
—-
Bamboozled and shocked by the lack of bottom vader in the darthfett community
i will correct this in time…
Destructive
Summary: Takes place after Whole Cake Island on the way to Wano. Sanji and reader are *somewhat* established, but it is never explicitly mentioned. Reader has BPD (I also have bpd and am struggling right now so haha funny sanji fic instead of therapy) and blows up at sanji for abandoning reader. Reader is quite mean to Sanji. They kind of sort of make up in the end but not really yet, I am debating about a part two to this. This is very angsty. But there is also some comfort sprinkled in.
I DID use she her pronouns for the reader.
TW! BPD meltdown, blood, property damage, fighting, crying, so much angst, Explosive behavior from reader. Possibly could take some parts as potentially self harm, BUT it is not explicitly mentioned. Read this at your own risk.
2Kish words
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Sanji isn't sure what to do.
He's back on the Sunny with Luffy, Nami, Chopper, Brook, Carrot, and you, headed to meet up with the rest in the land of Wano. Everything still feels a little stiff, a little forced, but all in all, he's been welcomed back with open arms. It's been a few days, he thinks, and everyone seems glad that he's back.
Except for you.
Since his return, you haven't even given him the time of day. You haven't even so much as looked in his direction, and he can feel the chill coming off of you from anywhere on the ship.
To be fair, you're brisk with the others, too, but especially towards him, and he doesn't know how to fix it.
He could explain that he had done it to save you, but he knows that that explanation would fall on deaf ears. He could tell you that he didn't want to marry Pudding (despite her beauty), but he knows you would turn on your heel and walk away. He could apologize for everything, but would you even accept it?
Before he left, when he had slipped the note to Nami, he had given you a tender, meaningful look that you didn't quite know how to process. And when you and Luffy and Nami had caught up with him, in front of his brothers, and you had begged him to come home, oh he knows what he said to you was unforgivable. He knows he was unnecessarily cold and cruel, and if the look on your face told him anything, he knew you were more than hurt.
What is he supposed to do?
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Open RP - HYDRA Strange AU
Warning: Mention of (semi) extreme violence and trauma.
Freaks Like Us, part 2
Part 1
*Set in a 1930s AU
Inspired by HBO's Carnivale
TW: implied homophobia, mention of parental death, horrible parents
The sun was just beginning to sink towards the horizon when the circus arrived at its new locale. Hopper directed the horses and trucks: wagons circling off on the left side of the perimeter, trucks on the right. In the middle was a vast field of nothing that would soon be filled with booths and tents, and in the very center, the Ferris wheel. As soon as the vehicles stopped, bodies emerged, the hired hands quickly clambering up and untying ropes.
You and Steve poked your heads out of wagon twelve just in time to see Striker and Rumble being led away towards their makeshift paddock.
Eddie strode up to the wagon, giving Striker a pat on his haunch as he passed. “Welcome to your first official build as members of the Hawkins Traveling Circus! It’s a pain in the ass, but it’s a living.” He glanced at Steve. “You come with me. We’ll start you off easy, something like setting up the mess tent. No one really cares if it collapses.” His dark eyes flicked to you. “Y/N, you can go find Robin. She’ll–”
“I’m right here!”
The three of you looked up to find the blonde woman quickly approaching the caravan. She was the first person you’d ever seen who really did appear to have a spring in their step. “Come on, Y/N,” she said, grabbing your hand and pulling you down the few steps of your new home. “You can help me set up my booth.”
You and your brother shared a look before being led off to different areas of the emerging carnival.
“So,” Robin said as the two of you crossed the still nearly empty field. “What’s your story? You and your brother.”
You shrugged. “Not much to tell.”
“Y/N, we’re circus folk. All of us have a story.”
“What’s yours?” The words slipped out, not quite a barb, but a practiced retort, built from years of having to deal with a brother who knew all the right buttons to push.
“Ah,” Robin said, a twinkle in her eye. “Gotta pay the fee to see the show.” She was quiet, thoughtful. “I was raised in a normal family, with a handful of younger brothers and sisters. As the oldest, I was always in charge of watching them. By the time my third brother was born, I had memorized practically every storybook we owned. I would act them out with the kids’ toys, doing funny voices for hours on end.”
You smiled, imagining a younger Robin entertaining a swath of children. From the snippet you’d seen of her show last night, you didn’t doubt that she was the best storyteller a kid could ask for.
“I had a friend,” Robin continued, seemingly switching gears. “We grew up together; did everything together. She loved my stories as much as my siblings did. She’s actually the one who bought me my very first puppet, a little dancing dragon marionette. I loved that thing. I loved…” She swallowed, shook her head slightly. “Anyway. Money started to get tight at home, what with eight mouths to feed, so I started doing little puppet shows downtown, where there was the most foot traffic. I got a few coins, and then a few more, and soon, I was asked to do daily shows by the owner of the business I’d set up in front of. He said I was good for business and he liked watching my stories during his downtime.”
The two of you made your way over to a pile of boards and striped fabric, the pieces of Robin’s booth. She bent down and started picking up boards, slotting their carved edges together with practiced ease.
“Vickie… my friend… she would come to as many of my shows as she could. She even started giving me new ideas, new stories to tell. And she bought me new puppets, always waving away my offer to pay her back. But eventually, both my parents and hers began to feel that we were putting too much effort and money into ‘stupid little puppets’.” Robin sighed, the noise almost unheard. “My parents also started to think that I was spending too much time with Vickie, that there was something ‘untoward’ between us. They found…”
You glanced at the woman beside you.
“They found,” Robin began again. “Letters, notes Vickie had written to me. There was nothing wrong with them, but they talked about how much she cared for me, how she loved my passion for our puppet shows, how I was the most important person in her life. My parents shared them with her parents, and they found the letters I’d written to her. And they decided that we couldn’t be around each other anymore. Vickie’s parents shipped her off to an aunt three states away, and my parents…” The corner of Robin’s mouth twitched up in a sour smile. “They simply looked at me as if I were slime. So, a few days after Vickie left, I ran away from home, taking only the clothes on my back and my puppets. I hitched rides as much as I could, trying to make my way to Iowa, to her. The last ride I could get left me right at the border. I spent a few days wandering around on my own, no real idea of where I was or where I was going.”
Robin chuckled slightly, a shake of the head at the stupidity of her past self. “I didn’t even know what city Vickie’s aunt lived in. I guess I was just hoping I would feel her presence in whatever city as soon as I got there.” There was a touch of melancholy in her voice that told you she never found that city, never had that feeling of Vickie being close to her again.
“Anyway,” Robin said, forcing her voice to sound brighter. “I started performing shows again on random street corners, mostly to make myself smile. Hopper was walking by during one of them. He’d come to town to buy some materials for the circus. He watched the show for a bit and at the end asked if I wanted to join his circus, saying that he was looking for more child-friendly entertainment.” Robin shrugged, as if trying to push off the weight her story had pressed against the both of you. “And I’ve been here ever since.”
You were quiet for a few moments, letting the gravity, the layers of Robin’s tale settle. “And your puppet?” you asked quietly. “The one named after your… friend?”
The twinkle in Robin’s eye turned from sad to simply bittersweet. “Bought her with my first paycheck from Hopp. Named her Vickie, so that she’s always with me.” The girl swiped a hand under her eye and sniffed slightly. “Okay, Harrington, your turn.”
You looked out across the field, watching the carnival slowly taking shape, rising out of the dirt. “Steve and I were always… rambunctious kids. Drove our father insane, but our energy made our mother laugh. She’s the one who found an old rope and tied it between two trees– only a few inches above the ground– giving us our first tightrope when we were six. She also convinced our father to add a swing in one tree; we secretly raised it, little by little, and began to try to grab each other from the ground. Our mother loved watching us play out there, often giving us challenges: hang from the swing by just your left leg for thirty seconds, try to cross the rope with a finger touching your nose.”
The memory of those games with your mother warmed your heart, but also sent a stab of sadness through you. You wished you’d had more time with her.
“She died when we were ten. After that, our dad cut down the swing and tried to get us more involved in our studies. There was a little patch of woods just behind our house. Steve and I found a clearing there, and we set up the swing and tightrope there, again moving them higher and higher in increments.”
“Your dad didn’t know what you were doing?”
You shrugged. “He might’ve had suspicions, but he never said anything. Honestly, after our mother died, he did his best to throw himself into his work and ignore us; we really only saw each other at dinner.” You gave a wry chuckle. “He didn’t even say anything when I sat down at the table with my arm in a sling after Steve accidentally dropped me from a few feet up in the tree.”
Robin’s eyes glimmered with sadness, an understanding that parental ignorance was sometimes worse than outright refusal.
“When Steve and I were seventeen, left to our own devices one summer day, we heard rumors of a traveling circus that was passing through, and we snuck out to see it. They were a group from Chicago, and it was our first experience with actual carnies. The trapeze artists enthralled us, and Steve said we had to talk to them, if only to ask them for advice or tips. So, he dragged me over behind the tent, finding the acrobats and trapeze artists doing their end-of-show stretches and just… started blathering at them.”
You laughed at the memory– how earnest Steve had been, his eyes wide, his mouth running a mile a minute. The Chicago circus performers had watched with a bland sense of interest, but you’d seen a few of them start to smile the longer your brother talked. And when he’d mentioned that the two of you had been practicing your own routine, a few of them had started whispering among themselves.
One, a woman of maybe thirty, introduced herself as Marla and had offered to let the two of you try your hand on real setups, saying that the circus was always looking for new acts. You and Steve had shared a look, holding a conversation without words– were you actually going to do this? Was this a chance you’d been waiting for? What would your mother think if she could see you now?
Marla led the two of you into the tent. Someone closed the flaps behind you, sealing you in. You walked over to the setup, stopping just a few feet from it. You craned your neck, seeing just how high up the ropes and swings were. The ladders up to the tightrope were tall and narrow, practically disappearing into the shadows at the point of the tent. The net stretching below was at your shoulder and gave you a moment’s pause. But your brother’s excitement was infectious, and you found yourself nodding, wanting to try. You both stripped off your stiff outer layers, soon standing in nothing but your underclothes.
You watched Steve scurry up one ladder; when he stepped onto the platform, he reached out for the pole being held up to him by one of the acrobats. He took a deep breath. Even from your distance below him, you could see the rigid posture he held, the look of concentration in his eye. He took the first cautious step out onto the rope; minutes stretched out, your lungs feeling like they would burst as you anxiously held your breath. He made it about halfway before he wobbled, his footing slipping.
“Steve!”
“It’s okay,” Marla called up to him, her voice steady, a counterpoint to the rapid pounding of your blood roaring in your ears. “The net’s sturdy– you can drop if you need to! Just toss the pole to the side so you don’t impale yourself.”
Steve’s eyes met yours for a split second before following Marla’s instructions. Your heart was in your throat as you watched your brother plummet through the air, landing on the net with a slight ‘oof’. The net did its job, protecting him, cradling him. He turned to you, a huge grin on his face. “Bunny, you have to try that!”
Once you were assured that he was okay, Steve convinced you to climb the ladder with him. He watched from the platform as you settled yourself on the swing. His palms were warm on your back as he pushed you away, soaring higher than you ever had before. After a few moments, you grew more confident, legs kicking, putting more effort into keeping up the momentum. You hooked your knees around the bar, hanging upside down over the net. The next time you swung toward the platform, you held your hands out towards your brother, signalling you were ready for him. Steve prepared himself as you swung backward; the next time you neared, he reached out, his hands sliding into yours. The two of you swung through the air, the rush of wind more forceful than the breeze you’d been able to feel from your tree swing.
There was another swing hanging in the middle of the wide, open space.
“I’m going to try to reach it,” Steve said to you.
“Steve,”
“It’s fine, Bunny. The net is below. I’ll be okay.”
As you neared the next swing, you pushed your arms forward, your brother’s weight creating enough momentum for him to get closer. His hands left yours, and your eyes stayed pinned on him as you swung away. His fingers closed around the other bar, and he hung in the air, swaying slightly, like a human pendulum.
His laugh rang out through the tent. Steve twisted on the bar, looking back at you. “Y/N! Did you see that?!”
Your own laugh burst out of your chest, part relief, part enjoyment at the brilliance of your brother’s smile.
The swings slowed, stopped, and the two of you dropped onto the net, bouncing slightly. Steve clambered off first and held a hand out to you, helping you down onto solid ground.
“Well,” Marla said, approaching. “You two definitely have the chops for it. With a little training, you could be our best performers yet. You’re welcome to join us if you want.”
You and Steve looked at each other. Nothing was waiting for you at home– just silence and empty rooms. “I felt her, Steve,” you said quietly. “Up there, on the swing. I felt Mom. She… she was watching us.”
Steve didn’t laugh or scoff. He simply nodded, his mouth set. He looked up at Marla, holding a hand out to her. “We want in.”
The woman smiled as she shook his hand. “Glad to have you on board. Welcome to the circus. Literally.”
The two of you had run home, and each packed a bag with clothes and the few items you couldn’t live without: Steve grabbed an old adventure storybook, a well-loved favorite from childhood with an inscription on the inside cover in your mother’s delicate, spidery script; you grabbed the silver hairbrush. As the two of you left your childhood home once again, you looked back over your shoulder, committing the image to memory, knowing (hoping) that you would never return.
You cleared your throat, shaking the memory away. “So, we joined the Chicago group. They stayed in our town for another day, but our father never showed up to try to convince us not to go. We’d left him a note before we left, explaining that we were going with the circus, and he just… let us go.” You shrugged. “Which is probably for the best. We traveled with the circus, and Marla and her group trained us. Soon, we were adding flips and twists to our routines that we never would have dared in our backyard. Audiences loved us, and we practically became a headliner for the circus. It was… home, in a way that our house never had been.
“But,” you said with a sigh. “Then the Market crashed, and everything went to crap everywhere. The circus stayed afloat for a while, always managing to stay just in the black. Our paychecks, along with the rest of the performers’, went directly to keeping us fed and buying maintenance materials when needed. To cut other costs, we went back to Chicago and set up a more permanent base. But it just wasn’t enough after a while. The circus closed; the performers all went their separate ways, some trying to find other circuses who were hiring, some into other avenues, some…” You swallowed. “Into early graves.
“Steve and I stayed in the city for a while, trying to find anything to keep us going. We lived in a tent in a field with others who’d lost housing. He found occasional day jobs, payment of a few coins given at the end of each day. I found a few soup kitchens that would give me an extra piece of bread when I told them my brother was out working. It was awful, and eventually, both of us knew we had no other option. We rode the rails, getting us as close to home as we could. Once we got into Indiana, we had about a day’s walk until we made it to Hawkins. Our father was… less than thrilled to find us standing on his doorstep. But, out of familial duty, he let us in. He looked at us like we were dirt that had blown in over his freshly cleaned floors.”
“He wasn’t excited that his children were finally home after… months?”
“Years,” you corrected. “Almost three years. But no. He wasn’t.” The phone call you’d overheard your father make to your uncle still rang in your ears:
“They came back, as if I wanted them! The Chicago freak circuit closes, and they show back up here, thinking they can still call this place home? They expect me to be able to feed, clothe, and house them? With what money? Can’t they see that I’m barely keeping myself afloat?”
Steve, on the other hand, had overheard a more distressing conversation, whispers between your father and uncle in the drawing room: Steve would be sent to find work at some nearby (or perhaps far away) factory, while you were going to be given to the first eligible bachelor who could pay any sort of measly bride price. Less than a week after that plan was made, a trickle of men began to appear at the house, some young, many old– your father’s age (or older).
“Our father,” you said, voice heavy with bitterness. “Had… plans for the two of us. He was going to separate us and send us into situations he felt were ‘best’ for each of us. We knew we had to leave again; we began to form a plan, an escape. Originally, we were just going to hitchhike our way as far from our father as possible. We’d been about to leave when you all showed up.”
The arrival of the Hawkins Traveling Circus had been a godsend, a purely exceptional coincidence that it happened to return to its place of origin, perched in a field on the outskirts of Hawkins. On your way home from the grocery store, you and Steve had noticed an advertisement, a vibrantly colored poster standing out against the dingy whitewashed fence it was tacked to: Hawkins Traveling Circus. Back home for a limited engagement– 2 days only! Hurrying home, you and Steve put your measly haul in the proper cabinets before rushing back out. The two of you scoped out the carnival, noting that there were no trapeze artists– perhaps an opening for you? That night, you’d whispered a plan to each other and packed your bags once again; the next day, you would return to the carnival and hope that the owner would take pity on you.
“So, it’s lucky we showed up,” Robin said, as if reading your mind.
“You have no idea.”
“That’s what some people would call kismet.” The blonde woman looked around before dipping her head closer to your ear. “But you want to know a secret?”
“What?”
“Last week, El told Hopper we had to go to Hawkins. She’d had some sort of vision or dream and said that there was trouble there, that people were going to get hurt if we didn’t show up.”
You thought about your own nightmares you’d been suffering the past month: Steve, getting horribly injured in whatever factory he ended up in– limbs shattered, ripped apart by machinery; living in cramped factory-owned housing, never having access to clean water, clothes, or even food. You, moving into a new house that was infested with mold or rats, falling apart at the seams; a disgustingly old man scratching his yellowed fingernails over your skin, his rancid breath tickling your neck.
“Not to say that that was about you,” Robin said, with a waggle of her eyebrows. “Maybe it’s just a happy coincidence.” She finished hooking the last bit of fabric to the booth. “But for what it’s worth… I’m glad you two are here. I think you’ll fit in just fine.”
____________________________________________________________________________
Across the lot, Steve was manning the post digger, driving the device into the dusty ground where Eddie pointed. No sooner had the two stepped away from a freshly dug hole than one of the hired hands appeared, shoving a tent pole in. When the last hole was dug, the tool was taken from Steve’s hand, quick as a flash, disappearing a few yards away in the hands of one of the orphan boys Eddie had pointed out the night before.
“Not bad, Harrington,” the curly-haired man said. He nodded towards one of the trucks; the two made their way over and began to unload a mismatched collection of tables, chairs, and stools. The flap of canvas and the clang of metallic hooks sliding into place on the poles sounded as the mess tent slowly took form. “So, where’d you and your sister learn your stuff? The trapeze stuff, not your hole-digging technique, although that was inspired. Circus folk born and raised?”
Steve chuckled and ran a hand through his hair. “The furthest thing from it, honestly. Our dad owned the local hardware store.”
“No wonder your hole-digging skills are so sharp!”
“Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up.”
Eddie cocked his head to the side. “So, how did someone… or rather, two someones, from what I’m assuming was one of the more affluent families, end up figuring out how to launch each other from swings and walk on wires thinner than my finger?”
“Our mom. She said that Y/N and I were always tumbling and twisting around each other, even before we were born. So, once we had better control over our faculties, she put up a small tightrope in our backyard, just to see what we could do.”
“Your mother,” Eddie said incredulously. “Put up a tightrope in the backyard for her young children?”
“It was only a few inches off the ground… at first. Y/N and I started to raise it. We would spend hours challenging each other to make it further down the rope than the other.” He smiled at the memory. “Mom loved it. Dad… I’m not sure he was even aware of what we were doing.”
Eddie nodded. Parents who weren’t interested or around were a common theme among carnival people– that, and the overly interested and disapproving, overbearing ones.
Steve cleared his throat. “Our mom died when we were ten. Dad really pushed himself into his work. Y/N and I… we had each other. And the tightrope in the backyard. One day, when we were teenagers, a circus came to our town– not you guys. A unit from Chicago. Y/N and I went, mostly to get out of the too-quiet house. It was the first time we’d seen actual trapeze artists, and they were… amazing. The way they moved through the air, the poise they had on the tightrope.” Steve’s mouth lifted at the memory, like he was once again a seventeen-year-old, witnessing something magical for the first time. “I told Y/N that we had to go talk to them, although I had no idea what I was going to say. So, we found them behind their tent, and I just started talking at them about how amazing they were and how my sister and I had been practicing our own minor stunts in our backyard for years. The head acrobat, a woman named Marla, offered us an opportunity to try out their setup. I think mostly she was just taking pity on some overly chatty kid. But she led us into the tent and let us try out their stuff.”
“And Marla was blown away by your hidden talents?” Eddie asked, slightly teasing.
“Oh, absolutely not,” Steve answered with a slight laugh. “I fell almost immediately after stepping onto the tightrope. It was way higher than what I was used to. But Marla simply directed me, telling me it was okay to fall, that the net would catch me, just like it did all her troupe.” Steve remembered the look of abject terror in your eyes when he’d teetered on the wire. He would never admit it, even to this day, but he’d been just as afraid. “I somehow managed to convince my sister to climb up the ladder with me after that, and she got to try the swing. She was nervous at first, barely letting the bar move. But soon, she found her rhythm, her confidence. She even flipped herself upside down without any prompting from me.” He also remembered the slight tremor he’d felt in your hands when you’d pulled him off the platform, a small counterpoint to the grin on your face.
“When we dropped down and rolled our way off of the net, I was sure that Marla would simply pat us on the back and wave us on our way. But she offered us a job, told us we had what it took to be one of them.”
Eddie nodded once; the Harrington twins’ story was similar to others he’d heard. But he sensed there was more to this tale. “So, why aren’t you still with them?”
Steve shrugged, a motion that tried to appear nonchalant but told Eddie there was something deeper than he wanted to get into. “Market crashed; everything went to shit. Circuses became a luxury item, and no one wanted to spend their last earned dollar to see a reptile woman or watch some people flip around in the air.” He cleared his throat, scuffed the toe of his shoe against the dirt. “So, Y/N and I went home. Our dad wasn’t thrilled to find out he had to take care of us once again, but he gave us a place to stay.” His mouth flattened as he recalled the reason why the two of you fled your home once more. “When we saw your poster saying you guys were stopping in Hawkins, we knew we had to jump at the opportunity. It was… better. For everyone involved.”
“The poster didn’t say we were looking for acrobats,” Eddie pointed out. “So, you came out on what, a whim, a hope, a prayer that you could run away with the circus again?” The words weren’t unkind, simply questioning.
A small flare glinted in Steve’s eye; a flash of something dark crossed his face before he quickly schooled his expression and eased it back into friendly neutrality. “Anything was better than home. Our father had concocted a… plan for my sister. For me, too, which would’ve been terrible, but Y/N…” He shook his head slightly. “I had to do whatever I could to get her out. I told Hopper that while we were trapeze artists, we would do whatever was needed around here, even if it was just cleaning up after the horses.”
Eddie could feel the darkness weighing on the word ‘plan’. He wanted to ask what exactly that had entailed, but knew it wasn’t his place to go digging for more backstory than either you or your brother was willing to share. “Well… we’re glad to have you. And I, for one, am excited that Hopp brought you on as flyers, not just manure shovelers.”
The corner of Steve’s mouth twitched. “Me, too.”
“Harrington!”
The two young men turned to find Hopper striding towards them.
“Come with me,” he said. “I’ve had some of the guys pull the old wire setup out. I want you and your sister to look it over, make sure it’ll work for you, and tell them how you want it set up.” His eyes flicked between Steve and Eddie. “Where is your sister?”
“Buckley took her,” Eddie answered.
Hopper sighed, but there was no frustration behind it. “Of course she did. That girl’s always lookin’ to make a new friend.” He cocked his head back in the direction he came. “Let’s go. Hopefully we’ll find the two of them before she somehow ropes your sister into being her assistant.”
Steve and Hopper took off across the circus. Tents and booths had begun to pop up across the dusty field, transforming the area. The wheel was about half constructed as they passed; Argyle looked over and gave a lazy wave.
The two soon found Robin’s booth, the vibrant red velvet curtains closed, awaiting an audience to come sit before the small wooden stage and listen to whatever stories the puppeteer would spin. You looked up as your brother approached.
“Hopper wants us to look over the setup,” Steve said. “Make sure it’ll work.”
The two of you followed the older man to a tent on the far side of the circus; it was one of the few that was fully set up over here. He lifted one of the flaps and ushered the two of you inside.
The tent was dark, gloomier than the outside had been, lit with only a few lights. As your eyes adjusted, you began to see pieces you’d come to be familiar with in the Chicago circus scattered on the ground: platforms with flaky red paint; ladders in a similar shade. A long tightrope, less than half an inch thick, curled on the ground like a bigger (and less alive) version of one of Joyce’s snakes. A woven net, not nearly as wide as the one you’d used in Chicago, was stretched beside it.
Steve bent down and picked up a bar, about three feet long, with two ropes dangling from either end. There were two identical ones on the ground near his feet. He ran his hand over the smooth metal, the coarse rope, before holding it out to you. The swings were your area of expertise.
You took the hardware, letting your fingers run over the materials as your brother’s had. Your eyes could tell you if there were any areas of visible damage, but you wanted to feel the swing, learn its shape and structure by touch first. You could almost feel the vibrations from long-ago users coursing through it, a past trapeze artist reaching out from the shadows to you. It felt sturdy, safe. No trace of whatever the ‘incident’ the others had hinted at had been.
You looked up at your brother, finding him watching you. You nodded once; these would suffice.
Hopper had also been watching the wordless examination and exchange. He cleared his throat. “I know you said you prefer bars,” he said, nodding at the swing in your hand. “But we’ve also got these.” His foot nudged a metal ring, one in a series of eight.
Your heart leapt into your throat. Marla and the Chicago troupe had tried to get you to use rings, saying that you had the capabilities, the talent. But every time you’d tried, your fingers slipped from the metal, causing you to plummet into the net below. Nobody had been mad or upset; they understood that sometimes, a piece just didn’t work for a certain performer. But you still felt like a failure. The longer you stayed with the Chicago circus, the more intense that prickle of fear that raced down your spine at the sight of the rings became.
Steve noticed your blank expression, eyes wide with fright. “No, thanks,” he said, stepping slightly in front of the rings to block your line of vision. “Never got the hang of ‘em.”
Hopper nodded, not pushing. “Fair enough.” He turned and nodded towards a few of the hired hands who’d been standing silently in the shadows. “Okay, boys. I know it’s been a while since we’ve had this setup, but time to get back in the habit of it. You follow the twins’ instructions to the letter, you hear?”
A mumbled chorus of agreement sounded from the group as they stepped up among the scattered materials.
Hopper turned once more to you and Steve. “You tell them exactly how you want it– something doesn’t look right, you fix it. I don’t care how long it takes– it gets done right.” You and Steve nodded. “Anything else you two need?”
“Sand,” you said, looking at the dusty ground. “To go under everything.”
The older man didn’t question it. “Sand. Got it. I’ll send someone out to the nearest hardware store to grab some.” He pulled a tarnished pocket watch out. “Might have to wait ‘til morning.”
“A few pounds should do,” Steve said. “Enough to get a cushy layer for softer landings… just in case.”
Hopper nodded, his eyes trailing over the wire, the net. “Better safe than sorry.” There was something hauntingly deep in his eyes, the timbre of his voice. But he didn’t explain further; he simply snapped out of whatever brief reverie he’d started to get sucked into with a shake of his head. “Once everything’s up, I want you two to start practicing. We’ll hold off on having an audience in here tomorrow, but I’d like to start promoting you two the day after.”
CW: female!reader, fight in a couple, mention of Steve's death, mention of Rebecca, sad Bucky, past trauma, from angst to fluff?
~•°•☆•°•~
"You're not even trying!" You were pissed off right now. Like a lot, to the point where you are pacing around your shared bedroom with Bucky staring at you.
It's been about thirty minutes that Bucky and you are arguing and your starting to loose it. You just didn't understand him right now.
"I'm just asking you to come to the cinema with us! Seriously Bucky, what's the matter here?" You shout again but with an undertone of curiosity in your voice.
Bucky look up in your eyes and it hurts him to notice the worry in the frown of your eyebrows, "There's not matter, okay?" He sighs and rub his face, turning slightly away from you.
"So you just don't want to spend time with me, that's it," you reply harshly, with a hurt expression.
"That's not what it means doll, you don't understand," Bucky sighs and try to take a step closer to you. Though you take steps back refusing to lean in.
"And what should I understand Bucky? You've been gone on a mission for two months, you're back since a week and all you do is meeting Sam to prepare new missions. And now, you even refuse to spend few hours with me and our friends?" You yell at him, "You're right, I don't understand," you cross your arms in front of your chest, you're so upset you could cry.
Bucky put a hand on his hip and rub his forehead with the other, "That's not- you don't get it," he says with whar looks like a tired expression.
"Indeed," you point out with a cold demeanour.
"I'm not trying to hurt you doll!" He suddenly turns to you with a sincere expression.
"But that's what you do though!" You reply back, taking a step closer witha frown.
"I'm scared doll!" He shouts suddenly and your angry expression flatters, "I can't handle this and it makes me scared, okay?" He repeats with a quieter voice. He turns his back to you, his arms fold against his chest almost in a protective manner.
You bite your lips, the way that his voice slightly broke not going unoticed by you. You sigh by your nose, starting to feel slightly guilty for your behavior. You walk to him slowly and gently put your hand on his back, stroking it softly in a soothing manner.
"You can talk to me babe, I'm sorry. You can always talk to me," you say quietly with a soft voice tone. You want him to feel safe around you as much as you feel safe around him. But you just failed.
"I could handle loosing my mind, my arm, my self-control because Steve was here. But now he left me and... I just don't think I can handle it, so I try to keep myself occupied," he starts to explain, the plain pretty clear in his voice. You don't interruped him but you wrap you wrap your arms around him back, holding him warmly in your loving embrace.
"I didn't mean to hurt you doll, I'm just so weak since he left," you shush him and stroke his torso with your thumbs.
"I know Buck it's okay, you're not weak," you mumur with a soft voice, holding him closer and tighter. He puts his hands above yours on his torso.
"The cinema it's just... I didn't do that since 1942 doll," Bucky keep explaining, his tone no more harsh at all. Your expression softens even more as he turns to look at you. "Going to the movie theater, it was always with Steve or... Rebecca," you look up in his blue eyes and grab his hand gently in your. If Steve was a hard topic now, Bucky's little sister completly taboo most of time. You understand that he's really opening to you right now. Your thumb stroke the back of his calloused hand in a soothing manner.
"I don't wanna bring up bad memories or force you into anything baby. But maybe it's the right moment to try things again? You can't stop doing all the things you did in the forties," you tell him with a soft voice.
Bucky sighs one more time, squeezing your hand gently.
"I'm scared- I don't want to go and find out everything is different. It'll remind me of Steve and her but at the same time prooving me they're both gone for real..." he pass a hand on his face again and you can see his internal conflict mixed with this sadness in his eyes.
"It's okay baby," you say as you put your other hand on his cheek. "I know you're doing your best and you're doing great."
You try to catch his gaze and when his eyes meets yours you smile warmly. "What do you think about staying here instead and cuddling in front of a movie with Alpine?"
Bycky chuckles slightly, his eyes full of tender and love, "Sounds good to me doll," you got on your tip-toes and leave a small kiss on his lips. He squeezes your hand again and lean in for another kiss, deeper this time.
"I love you doll," he mumbles as he put his forehead against yours. Your smile widen, "I love you too Buck."
