summary: an inadvertently broken heart and a girls' night in can only lead to one thing: you drunkenly confronting the very man who broke your heart in the first place - aka your best friend, bucky barnes pairing: bucky barnes x female reader word count: 3253
warnings: angst, alcohol consumption, reader gets drunk with friends, pet names, sad bucky, sad reader, drunk confessions, swearing, misunderstandings, reader gets sick (vomit), fluff, kinda friends to lovers (??)
《《《《 ♡ 》》》》
The music flowed through the living room around you, quiet enough to not overpower the conversations you were having with your friends, but loud enough for you to know what you were swaying in your seat to.
It had been a while since you had a girls' night, though you were all but forced into this one; it was made clear by Nat that your presence was not an option - you were the only reason you were all gathered here now, each of you at least a bottle or two in.
At first you resisted. You wanted nothing more than to wallow alone in your room, watching trash TV and crying over cheesy scenes. It wasn't that you didn't love the company you had right now, you just wanted other company. You wanted the same company you had every day for the last year. The same company that became your only solace ever since it took a literal bullet for you without thought just to keep you safe. The same company that read your favourite books so you had someone to talk to about them. The same company that sat with you and watched all your favourite shows so they could get a better glimpse of who you are and what you like. The same company you thought you were finally getting somewhere with.
It felt like you got hit by a truck when the words "You know Bucky's been dating?" nonchalantly left Sam's mouth one day while you were having lunch. You didn't want to know more about it. You didn't want to know who they were, how the two met, or what they did for a living. You didn't want to be told anything other than the fact Sam was joking, that what you thought you had with Bucky really was real and not just in your head. Sam never said anything close to that, though.
Bucky never brought up the dates to you, and you almost felt that was even worse than if he did. Why did he not want to tell you? Were you really not as close as you thought? Did he not trust you enough to tell you such a thing? Your thoughts continuously spiraled over the next few days, stealing away your self confidence and the air from your lungs. Nothing was the same anymore. You thought you knew where you stood with Bucky. You thought it all meant something. All the stares from across the room, the lingering touches, the 'just because' gifts, the movie nights, the sleepovers, all of it. But it meant nothing. You read it all wrong. And now it's been two weeks since you were able to look at him long enough for you to even say hi to him, let alone have a conversation with him.
Bucky noticed the shift the moment it happened; when you slid ever so slightly away from him when he tried to hold you in his arms like he did every movie night. He noticed when the smile stopped reaching your eyes. He noticed when you stopped showing up for dinners with the gang every night. He noticed when you couldn't hold his gaze anymore. He noticed that you two just weren't the same, and it killed him. It killed him because he didn't know what he did, and he tried everything under the sun to get things back to the way they were, but nothing worked.
Everyone noticed when his demeanor changed. His fuse was shorter, his temper was stronger. He spent even more time in the training room, pummeling and destroying bag after bag until his knuckles were bloody; letting himself heal overnight only to do it all again the next day. He shamelessly threw a dining chair into a wall when Tony made a joke about how you must have smartened up and finally got sick of him, and his expression was so murderous that a Code White was called, effectively resulting in him being locked down in his room for a full 24 hours - he ended up staying in there even after the lockdown was over. The only reason he started leaving the confines of his room was to spend time with his best girl, and he didn't have that anymore.
All your friends were sick of it. They didn't know what was going on, and you both refused to talk about it. No one could even mention the others' name to either of you anymore without fear of having the nearest object thrown at their head.
So plans were formed, and you now sat on the couch with a glass in your hand as you mindlessly swayed to whatever song was currently playing.
"Who is in charge of this music? It is awful!" Yelena stated from her spot on the floor, taking yet another shot.
"I picked it," you crooned, stilling your movements as you looked at her. "It's completely free of attachments to you-know-who."
A cohesive muttering came from all the women before you, and Yelena cleared her throat. "It is not bad," she corrected with a grimace, taking pity on you.
"Are you drunk enough to tell us what happened now?" Nat asked, raising an eyebrow at you.
Downing the rest of your glass, you looked at her with a thoughtful expression for a minute. "No," you concluded, filling your glass again.
"Okay, this is torture. Time for a drinking game!" Wanda exclaimed, standing from her chair. "Everyone take a mustache and tape it to the TV. We're putting on a trash show and drinking whenever it lines up with someone."
You beamed with excitement, ready to both watch crappy TV and get drunk - gods know you needed at least one night to forget about Bucky.
And forget you did. You can't remember the last time you were this far gone, the last time you had this much fun. The drinking game was very successful; it even got Yelena and Nat a little tipsy, which was not easy to do. No one said anything when you went a little harder than everyone else, when you drank a little more, taking shots when you weren't technically supposed to. You haven't smiled like this in weeks, and they weren't going to take that away from you.
Your giggles carried on down the hallway, the echoes of your voice, of your laughter, music to everyone's ears - having gone so long now without hearing it. It captured someone's attention, socked feet being dragged towards the sound before even knowing what was happening, a seat being taken in the kitchen just to be that much closer, eyes gazing across at you, a face with such an amorous expression it would have made anyone who saw it sick.
You audibly gasped as you caught sight of him, your eyes meeting his for the briefest of seconds before he looked away, contemplating whether he should go back to his room or not.
"Oh, my god. Why is he here?" you asked the girls, unable to take your eyes off of him.
"Why is who here?" Kate asked, following your gaze. "Him? What are you talking about he-"
"We don't know!" Nat chimed in, sending a warning glare to Kate that you were too distracted to see.
"Why don't you go talk to him and find out?" Wanda suggested, quickly catching on to Nat's motive.
You shook your head vehemently, making yourself momentarily dizzy. "Noooo. He broke my heart, Wan. What would I even say?" you replied with a whine, sinking into the couch as you lifted the glass to your lips again.
She shared a look with Nat, two looks that said 'fuck, maybe we shouldn't let her do this' and 'what the hell does she mean by that?' You couldn't decipher either, though. The blood was rushing in your ears as you stared across the room again, torn between going to confront this beautiful, asshole of a man and staying in the comfort of the living room.
Before you could really think it through - and in your state, it's not like you really could anyway - you abruptly stood from the couch, taking a few seconds to steady yourself on your feet.
"Fuck him," you muttered to yourself, vaguely aware of the girls trying to get your attention as you marched across the floor.
His head snapped up when he heard you coming, his enhanced hearing paired with the fact you weren't exactly in a graceful state didn't give you the advantage of sneaking up on him.
"Hi, doll," he said once you approached him.
Had you been in a more collected frame of mind, you probably would have noticed how quiet his voice was, how strained it was from the fact he was holding his breath in the hopes the two of you would go back to normal. You would have noticed the pain, the hurt, the confusion, and the hope dancing around in his eyes; making the blue that used to be your favourite colour now dull and stormy.
You didn't notice, though. All you noticed was the burning pain in your heart that was supposed to be gone after all those drinks, but just one look at the man before you brought everything back.
"You can't call me that anymore," you declared, shaking your head so much it made the room spin even more. "You gotta keep that name reserved now," you added bitterly.
"Reserved?" Bucky asked, his brow knit together in confusion. "For who?"
You scoffed, walking forward to close the distance that was left between you and the table he sat at. A few steps in and you lost your footing, but before you could even stumble Bucky was already out of his seat. His hands were on your arms in an instant, the feeling of hot and cold both burning your skin in a familiar way. The tenderness of his touch and the yearning you felt for it after all this time was almost too much to bear; your mind was spinning. Spinning from alcohol. Spinning from heartache. Spinning from anger. Spinning, spinning, spinning.
"Let go of me!" you exclaimed angrily, shrugging yourself out of his grasp. "I don't think your little lover would want you touchin' me."
Bucky could only stand there, blinking in surprise with his hands still outstretched. "My what?" he asked, his hands slowly falling back to his sides. "My lover?" he repeated.
"Yeah, your lover - or… whatever the hell you want to call them. Sam told me, because you didn't," you told him indignantly.
"I- what? Sam told you? Sam told you what?" he asked, more confused than ever.
"That you're dating someone!" you yelled, the anguish clear in your voice.
Bucky sighed and ran his hands over his face in exasperation before resting them on his hips, his lips pursed as he collected his thoughts. "What the fuck are you talking about?" he finally asked, trying to put the pieces together in his head.
"Didn't expect me to know, did you?" you spat furiously.
"I don't- sweetheart, what the hell is going on?" he asked softly, trying his best to remain patient. You were finally talking to him again, and it's definitely not the way he imagined but he'd be damned if he was going to let you slip through his fingers again.
"No!" you said forcefully. "I'm not your sweetheart. She is. Whoever she is."
"There is no ‘she’," Bucky told you calmly, trying his hardest to make sense of what was going on.
"Okay, then he is!" you replied in defeat, finally throwing yourself down on the chair beside you.
"What? No, that's not-" he tried to answer you, but you quickly cut him off.
"Why didn’t you want to tell me?" you asked quietly, your voice cracking.
“Because… I’m not dating anyone,” he replied slowly, more of a question than a statement.
“Just stop lying!” you yelled, hands slamming onto the table. “Please, I can’t take you lying to me anymore, okay? You’ve been lying to me all year,” you added in desperation, your eyes starting to glisten with tears.
“All year?” he asked, his voice quiet and shaky as he slid into the seat across from you.
You could only nod your head, bottom lip trembling as the first tears started to fall down your cheeks. Bucky started burning from the inside out, wanting nothing more than to wrap you in his arms and kiss the tears away- but he couldn’t. So he stayed where he was, swallowing thickly as he willed himself not to start crying with you.
“I never lied to you, you know that,” he said carefully.
“You did, because this whole time you-... I really thought-... you made me think-” you couldn’t get the words out, falling silent as you tried to collect yourself.
Bucky instinctively reached his hands across the table to you before he caught himself, pulling them back and setting them on his lap. "What did I make you think?"
"That you trusted me. That we meant something to each other," you explained softly, swallowing back more tears. "I thought you loved me back," you added, your voice so quiet it would have been inaudible to anyone other than him.
"What?" Bucky breathed out, the air being stolen from his lungs with those last six words that spilled from your trembling lips.
"I know you heard me."
"Okay- now is not the time for this conversation," he sighed, running his hands over his face.
You sat in silence for a moment, looking at him with such an recognizable expression Bucky felt like he was looking at a completely different person. "Figures," you muttered before shoving your chair back and standing up.
"What are you doing?" Bucky asked, half out of his seat as he watched to make sure you were steady on your feet.
Without another word to him, you turned and carefully started to make your way out of the kitchen and towards your bedroom.
"Don't you dare walk away from me!" Bucky called from behind you, quickly on your heels. "No, you're not allowed to leave me like this again."
"You left me first!" you yelled back, placing your hand on the wall to keep your balance as you walked a little faster.
"I never left you once!" he argued, still hot on your trail.
You scoffed, shoving open the door to your room and trying to slam it in his face; the attempt was unsurprisingly futile. "Stop following me, you said you don't want to talk."
"No, I said this isn't the time for this conversation," he huffed, shoving his way into your room and closing the door behind him.
"Why? You don't want to admit what you did?" you asked, stumbling your way to sit on the bed.
"For fucks sake, I didn't even do anything!" he defended with exasperation, leaning against the door.
"Yes you did," you argued, attempting to take off your sweater.
"I'm telling you, I didn't," he told you, trying his best to not let out a laugh as he watched you struggle to lift the sweater over your head.
"You did!" you yelled, voice muffled by the fabric. "You lied, and you kept secrets, and you - god, can you fucking help me?!" you asked with a huff, interrupting your own rant.
Bucky suppressed his laugh as he stepped forward, kneeling down in front of you. "Alright, alright. Stop fuckin' squirmin'," he muttered.
You stilled, muttering a few choice words under your breath that did not go unnoticed by him. Grasping the hem of your sweater, he carefully lifted it up and over your head to reveal your disheveled, pouting face.
"There's my girl," he whispered softly, delicately brushing back your mussed hair.
"I'm not-" you started to argue, before he quickly cut you off.
"Yes. You. Are," he said firmly, enunciating each word.
"But Sam-"
"Is an idiot," he insisted, cutting you off again. "He tried to set me up with someone but I never went. When he asked me about it, I told him we were gonna go out again so he'd stop fucking bugging me about it. I lied, sweetheart. I was never dating anyone."
"You- there was no one?" you asked quietly.
"There was no one else," he told you, his thumbs brushing away stray tears you didn't even know were falling.
Before you could ask him what that meant, your room started spinning once more and your mouth felt like cotton and your stomach felt like it was making its way up your throat.
"I don't feel so good," you mumbled, staring at him with wide eyes for a moment before rushing to your bathroom, barely making it on time.
Bucky was at your side in the blink of an eye, holding back your hair as you let loose the contents of your girls' night, his hand ghosting up and down your back. He sat patiently with you, muttering comforting words between each second of you getting sick as you gasped for air and sobbed, occasionally wiping your face with tissues.
"Better?" he asked after a few minutes, his hands never leaving you.
You could only nod in response, shifting away from him to rest against the bathtub as you closed your eyes.
Bucky immediately fell into his old habits, wasting no time in taking care of you. The only thing that destroyed him more than not having you in his life lately was watching you practically wither away, unable to do a damn thing about it.
"Drink, sweet girl," he told you, caressing your cheek in an attempt to rouse you before handing you the water you had no idea he even retrieved.
You blinked up at him, taking a moment to process what was going on before taking the glass from him. As you drank he gathered up a washcloth, running it under cold water before kneeling before you once more.
"C'mere," he whispered, taking your chin in one hand to hold you in place as he gently wiped your face. Your eyes closed once more, sighing in content as the cold water eased the burning under your skin.
"I love you," you found yourself telling him. Your voice was a delicate whisper, but the words were so heavy you felt like they echoed off the tiles surrounding you anyway.
Bucky stayed quiet, but you refused to open your eyes and look at him. Looking at him would make this moment real, so as long as you kept your eyes closed, you could pretend none of this ever happened.
"Let's get you to bed," he finally said, causing your world to implode once more.
Completely defeated, you allowed him to lift you from the floor.
Not having the energy to fight him anymore, you cooperated as he helped you into some sleep clothes.
Wanting to just hide away forever, you let him tuck you under the covers, pressing a kiss to your forehead before he slid in beside you, wanting to be there in case you got sick again.
The room was engulfed by silence for so long it almost felt like it was suffocating you, but just before your whirling mind finally succumbed to the allure of sleep you heard Bucky's gentle voice speaking out to you.
"Sleep this off, angel. Because when I explain to you how in love with you I am, I want to make damn sure you can remember what I say."
This website will never cease to amaze me
the angels at Dean: you fucked up a perfectly good angel look at him he’s got feelings
“but godstiel was evil!”
why?! cause he killed corrupt people?! homophobes?? bad politicians!? that just sounds like girlbossing to me 🙄
Summary: When you risk your own life to save Matt's, he gets (very) angry with you.
Pairing: Matt x fem!reader
Warnings: Sex trafficking, use of swearing, violence, misogyny, descriptions of blood
The sheets were abnormally cold.
Half-asleep, you stretched your legs out, searching for the warmth that was Matt. Sometimes he rolled over away from you in his sleep, and then you'd have to shift yourself and your pillow closer to him unless you wanted to shiver all night. But he wasn't there. Blearily you checked your phone and squinted as you turned the brightness down as far as it could go.
It was almost three in the morning, and while Matt was nearly always home at this time, it wasn't impossible for him to still be out. What jarred you was the text notification that you had from him:
On my way back now.
It was his way of giving you peace of mind; you insisted that he always text you when he was on his way home so that you'd know something was wrong if he was out late and there was no text.
But the text you had received tonight was sent an hour ago, and Matt should have returned long before now. Still, this didn't lead to a nefarious conclusion for certain, because if he couldn't sleep you'd find him reading over a case in the living room sometimes, the lighting nonexistent save for the neon swirls emanating from the billboard. Or, other times, he'd be on the roof, wearing a sweatshirt and just listening to the city.
Sleepily you climbed out of bed and pulled on your flannel pajama bottoms. You were wearing Matt's tee shirt and it smelled like clean laundry detergent. You almost hoped he was on the roof tonight; you wouldn't mind sitting up there with him and looking out over the city. When you came into the living room to find it empty, you made your way up to the roof, slowly waking up as you ascended the stairs.
But the roof was empty, and only then did your stomach plummet. He wasn't back. He never made it back, even though he'd said he was on his way. Dread twisted inside of you; even if something innocent had delayed him, he would have texted you a second update, letting you know that he wasn't actually going to be back soon. You tried calling but it went straight to voicemail. Calling the police was out of the question; Matt would never forgive you if his identity was compromised.
Not that his identity would matter much if he was dead.
Where had he gone tonight? He'd mentioned to you over dinner that he was going to be investigating a sex trafficking circle... but where? DeWitt Park? But that felt wrong to you — no, that was where he had been the night before. It might have been the water. That sounded familiar.
42nd Street, Matt had mentioned. Or had it been 52nd? Or it was 46th. Each number sounded equally likely. But there was no time to waste, so you landed on 42nd just because that was the first address you had thought of and it was closer to Matt's apartment. You slipped on your sneakers and a light jacket, and then slipped out the door into the night.
It was much colder out than you were expecting. How on earth did Matt come out here, all year, wearing nothing but a hard suit? You scrunched your arms around yourself as you hurried down the sidewalk, praying that none of the criminals Matt took down regularly saw you, alone, in the street. The only saving grace was that you were still wearing the baggy flannel pajama bottoms and Matt's tee, so you weren't exactly dressed as though you were going to a gala; still, you found yourself glancing over your shoulder every minute or so. A siren shrieked in the distance, and you flinched as the echo of a man shouting in the alleyway resounded next to you, hurrying past as quickly as you could.
Out of desperation, you pulled out your phone and tried calling Matt's burner again, but to your shock, there was a fuzzy sound on the other end as the call was picked up.
"Hello?" you demanded. "Where are you?"
"I think a more appropriate question would be who are you?"
The voice on the other end was not Matt's, and you froze in your tracks. "Why do you have this phone?" you asked, choosing your words carefully for fear of giving away Matt's identity. Had you said his name when the call first went through? You already couldn't remember.
"Well, we're not going to get anywhere just asking questions, are we?" the voice responded. "I'm Hugh, by the way. And you are...?"
"Coming to bust whatever operation you have going on," you said, trying to channel that cool confidence that you'd seen the Avengers use in clips online you'd watched of them (in your defense, who didn't watch recordings of the Avengers in action and wonder what they would do in their position?). "So I'd recommend listening carefully. That phone doesn't belong to you. Unless you release its owner now, you will seriously regret it. I mean it, dude." You were shaking as you spoke, not from anger but from fear, and felt immensely lucky that this wasn't a face-to-face conversation you were having.
The voice on the other end tutted. "You're out of your mind if you think you have any chance of even getting in here, girl. Now stop calling this number and let me and my men get on with our business."
"Wrong answer. See, I'm an Avenger." You created the fabrication as you spoke, saying whatever popped into your head first. "They call me Thorn. Ever heard of me?"
"There's no fucking Avenger called Thorn."
"Yeah, keep telling yourself that. You haven't heard of me because anyone that's ever encountered me hasn't lived to tell the tale. There's a reason they call me Thorn, Hugh."
In the background you could faintly hear a familiar voice, and your heart jumped into your throat as you realized it was Matt. You couldn't hear what he was saying, but he sounded pissed.
And if you could slightly hear him, then there was no doubt that he could hear you.
"Listen up, douchebag dude. Yeah, I'm talking to you, dumb donkey," you said, a bit more loudly, desperately hoping that Matt would understand you were directing your words to him. Double D, Matt, get it? "I'll be there in — uh — eighteen hours, so this is your warning. Shout if you want me to call the cops, and we'll make this nice and easy. Right now. Shout if you want me to call the cops and I'll be dialing 911 as soon as you want."
There was a pause on the other end as Hugh likely interpreted the campiness of your threat. More important was the dead silence in the background; Matt had stopped speaking entirely.
Damn it. You'd been hoping that he'd let you call the cops; it would have made things easier. "Alrighty, then. Feel my wrath in... awhile."
In reality you were only one minute out from the wharf, but the last thing you wanted was for them to jack up their security right before you got there.
There was a warehouse right next to the wharf, by a rundown parking lot where three black cars were parked. Though its windows were broken and the exterior decrepit, you could see a few lights on inside the warehouse. Two tall men stood inside, next to a small door on the wall adjacent to the entrance, as though guarding it. Bingo.
The next step was actually getting in. It was unnerving that Matt did this sort of thing every single night because you didn't even know where to start, except for sneak in find Matt save Matt run. Only then did you realize you'd only brought your phone and nothing else, not even the butter knife that had been right out on the counter next to you when you'd left the apartment. You cursed your own stupidity and searched yourself for anything that you could use as a weapon, but unless the men in there were scared of pajamas, you were going in empty-handed.
Your identity would be an issue, too. Fortunately, you found an old crumpled face mask in your pajama pocket; it would have to do.
"Um, okay," you whispered, pulling the face mask up to your nose. "Matt, not sure if you're within range to hear me right now, but I'm outside the warehouse. And I'm going to make a diversion, uh... somehow." You looked around you for inspiration and your eyes landed on a fist-sized rock sitting in the crumbling pavement of the lot. Rudimentary, but effective. It only took a massive hoist that nearly pulled a muscle in your arm to sling the rock through the window of the black car nearest to you — hopefully that's one of theirs and not someone else's — and gape, open-mouthed, as the window shattered like an eggshell. Immediately the car alarm began to wail, and you dashed off in the other direction, your sneakers slapping the pavement of the lot.
The sound of the warehouse door opening and closing as the men exited to investigate nearly gave you a heart attack and you rounded the corner of the warehouse just in time. You didn't dare use the front entrance, for fear that they would see you, let alone hear the sound of the door, so you vaulted through the broken window and only sustained a small cut to the side of your arm and the bottom of your palm.
If Matt wasn't in this small room, then you didn't know what your next move would be, but you just about passed out with relief when you flung open the door and saw Matt, still in his suit and chained up to a post in the room. All of the adrenaline felt as though it were rushing to your head and you had to restrain every fiber in your being from simply running to him and hugging him.
"We probably only have a minute or so," you reported. Your eyes fell on a desk that was unnecessarily large, but would be a good block for the door, at least until Matt could be freed. "Well — two minutes if I could just move this stupid desk in front of the door—" You gritted your teeth and shoved the offending furniture as hard as you could. It budged only slightly, and scraped loudly as it slowly shifted to block the entrance. "Nice. Maybe three minutes." You turned to Matt, hands on hips. "How'd I do?"
It wasn't as though you were expecting him to be smiling or anything — obviously you'd be in a bad mood if you'd been kidnapped, too. But the look on the lower half of his jaw was so tense that you didn't even want to know what the upper half looked like. "Key is on the wall," he said shortly. "Hurry, they're already coming back."
"Hurry is my middle name. Actually, it's Lightning McQueen," you told him, grabbing the keys and kneeling to unlock the chains. Matt's body was warm and you could practically feel the heat radiating off of him through the suit. You fought another irrational urge to just grab his hand and squeeze it, and focused on grappling with the lock. It was one of those keychains that had five or six keys on it, and if not for the dire situation, you would have laughed at how comically cliched this was.
Already the men were pounding at the door. You looked up nervously, seeing it shake and shift forward a centimeter.
"Y/N, you have to move fast," Matt said, his voice somehow even more firm, and it was the startling note of austerity that you never usually received from him that cleared the trembling in your hands. Blood was streaking down your arm, you noticed, and you wiped it away, uncomfortably aware that Matt probably could smell it the moment you got cut.
There was another bang and this time, the door slid open six more inches.
"Shit!" you yelped, digging the fifth key into the lock. It still wasn't a fit, and it didn't help that there was now a face sticking through the crack, red and bellowing.
"You bitch!" he yelled. "When we get in here, I'm gonna tear you apart!"
Focus, focus, focus. You squeezed the last key in, but didn't have time to turn it; the man in the front finally kicked his way in. Like a flash he was on top of you, shoving your back into the wall. "Hey, bitch. Thought you could sneak in here like this?"
I did sneak in here like this. You forewent the comeback, feeling that it wouldn't be very tactful. "I — I just—"
The other man entered. Immediately you knew that he was Hugh; his disposition was that of a leader and he was much calmer than the red-faced man. "She'll do well, actually," he observed. "I know of a few people who would pay for her."
You swallowed hard, averting your eyes. "I'm warning you again. Unless you... unless you want to die by a thousand thorns poking through your eyeballs and throat, then you'd be wise to not provoke me—"
"Thorn," Hugh snorted. "Can't believe I trusted you for a minute, there." His eyes trailed down your tee shirt and pajama bottoms. "I'll call the boss. He'll know what—"
Thwack. There was a sickening crack as Matt kicked Hugh in the head with an admiral flip through the air, and within a matter of seconds the man pinning you to the wall dropped too. Sagging with relief, you nearly fell into Matt's arms, letting his strength absorb the fear that you hadn't even realized was electric in every single one of your nerves, holding at him like he was a lifeline—
"We need to go, now."
"But... they're knocked out, right?"
Matt's mouth twisted. "There's more of them. They'll be showing up in a truck within a couple minutes. That's how I got taken down — there were too many of them." He grabbed your arm and hurried you forward, running at a speed that you could hardly keep up with if he hadn' t been half-dragging you. Together, you left the warehouse and continued down the street, staying at the same pace with Matt staying utterly silent the whole way. By the time he finally slowed — apparently judging the area to be safe — you were so out of breath that it was embarrassing, and you tried to stifle the air that you were gasping for to no avail. Certain that he'd make fun of you, or at least thank you for going into that stupid warehouse, you didn't speak either, but still he didn't engage in any conversation. Never had you felt so uncomfortable next to him as you did during the entire walk back to the apartment.
The sun was beginning to rise when you entered the apartment. Exhaustion tugged at your eyes, but you forced yourself to stay as awake as you could. Matt peeled off his helmet, and his hair stuck up at every angle as he paced into the kitchen, still wearing the rest of his suit.
"So," you said finally, trying to smile at him. "How'd you like my alias? Thorn is kind of cool, right? Maybe I'll even sketch out a costume—"
"Y/N. Not now."
You wet your lips as Matt leaned forward onto the counter, his head hanging towards the floor. "I don't understand. Why are you mad at me?"
"Why am I mad at you?" His head lifted, and for the first time since the evening before you got a full look at his face, incredulous and perturbed. "You risked your life tonight, wearing nothing but pajamas and a tee shirt."
"Well, next time I'll be sure to change into my strapless dress first," you deadpanned. "Look. I panicked, I tried my best. And we're both here and okay, right?"
"It was dumb luck, Y/N. Dumb luck that I was able to twist the key and dumb luck that you didn't get sex trafficked or shot right where you stood. Never again will you ever do that, do you hear me?" he said, lifting a finger and pointing it at you, and it was that motion alone that put you over the edge.
"Don't act as though you can tell me what to do," you said, stung. "It was my choice and I chose to save you. I knew the risks, I—"
"You knew the risks? That's why you came prepared with something for self defense, right?" His tone switched to that of mockery.
"Maybe if you let me come with you more often, then I'd've been prepared, and I would've brought a knife with me."
"Let you come with me? Do you not understand the danger out there, on the street? It's not a game, Y/N. I don't go out there for fun at night. If you think that it would be okay for me to just take you out there, where you could get injured or worse—"
"That's not fair, Matt."
"It wouldn't be very fair if tonight you died because of me. How do you think I would feel if something had happened to you?"
"And what if something happened to you?" you shouted. "You think I'd live merrily here, knowing that you got hurt and I didn't do anything to try to save you? Of course I had to do something."
"I never said that you had to just sit here! Come on, Y/N, you had a hundred other options to choose from, and all you could think of was calling the police? My phone was here — you could have called Luke, or Danny, or Jessica — hell, even Frank would've picked up the phone and helped out, but—"
"Oh, so it's okay for Jessica to help you, but not me," you said, seething. "You'd be fine if it was her running in there to save you, but you don't trust me enough to—"
"It has nothing to do with trust, don't be ridiculous. Jessica's got powers, you don't. Don't make this into something else."
"I'm not! I'm just saying, if you're going to bring up a whole laundry list of other people you'd rather have seen than me, then you might as well just go hang out with them and not me — sorry I don't have super strength, super hearing, or a glowing fist, or — I don't know, an unbridled yearning to kill people—"
"You're missing the point!" Matt's voice had risen to a shout as well, and it was alarming as it was infuriating. He stepped forward, hands clenched in the gloves of the suit. You could see traces of blood on the outside and hoped it wasn't his. "Everything you did was reckless and there was nothing I could do to stop you. That's why I'm pissed, Y/N, because you made poor decision after poor decision, and I couldn't be there to stop you!"
"Don't you dare call it a poor decision."
In response, Matt slapped the top of the table and spun around, spine rigid and back tense.
You ran your hands through your hair. Tears were welling, unbidden, in the corners of your eyes, and you wiped aggressively at them. "I don't even know what to say to you right now, Matt. I wish you could see things my way. I wish you could acknowledge that I tried, and thank me, and not make me feel like shit for doing what I thought was right."
He didn't answer. You ignored the headache that was beginning to drum in the back of your head and went into the bathroom. Angrily you turned on the hot water and lathered soap in your hands, entirely forgetting about the massive cut on your palm — it was buried in enough sticky, dark blood clots that you couldn't even see it — and cried out when the water rushed into the open cut. It stung red-hot, burning enough that the tears came back into your eyes and you didn't even notice Matt was at your side until his hand rested gently on your forearm.
"Can I help?" he asked, and you nodded, the tears spilling uncontrollably now. Gently he cleaned out the cut on both your palm and arm, and bandaged them up with dextrous fingers well-practiced in first aid. After he finished, he wordlessly left the bathroom, either to give you space or because he needed space himself. You didn't say anything either and opted to get into the shower, unable to bear the taut air between you.
You'd make up. You knew you would. Because that was the source of the argument, wasn't it — that you cared about one another too much? But for now, with Matt's stoic silence, you had never felt colder inside, and you let the tears fall in the shower as they mingled with residual blood from your hands.
he's the worst man alive he's the love of my life he's covered in blood he's weird about god and he's a lot, he's not perfect, but most importantly he's bisexual
Cillian Murphy for GQ México (2022)
So I really want a scene of one of the Flerkittens (white with blue eyes) to be wandering around the street meowing and then we see boots coming up to it and two hands reach out and then you see it.
The metal arm.
It picks up the kitten and walks off, maybe if you're feeling really fancy maybe a few lines of quiet "hey, hey, it's okay Sweetheart" or something like that and then BOOM we have Alpine in the MCU
Then cut to Thunderbolts and Bucky still has no idea that Al is a Flerken until they're in a fight and she gets attacked and Bucky is terrified they're gonna hurt his cat and then Alpine just gobbles them up and then like Yelena is like "JAMES BARNES WHAT THE FUCK"... Cut to Bucky looking equal parts horrified and impressed and just picks up Alpine and goes "uh...good girl?"
Frank Castle deserves to be treated right dammit
i cant do this anymore guys. it’s the same fucking face