Rain was pattering gently against the window, the gentle whistle of wind easing in around the window frame that he meant to get around to replacing any time, now.
The bed was some kinda iron-framed rickety monstrosity that he’d found out in the barn, ‘cos Clint had burned his parents’ bed just as soon as he’d been able to hold an axe again. The patchwork quilt, though, had been one Gammy Francis had made, and he’d choked the washing machine to death on it.
Clint stretched, the springs of the bed clanking out a song that was almost familiar, dragged a little off-key by the additional weight on the poorly-stuffed mattress.
“So what are your thoughts on taking the day?” Clint asked, awkwardly casual but still uncertain enough to ask the ceiling instead of turning to look at his face. “We could ignore the whole responsibilities bullshit, stay in bed, maybe order some crappy pizza from the only place that’ll deliver here…”
There was silence. Silence but for the gentle pitched whistle, the soft patter, the creak of springs as Clint nervously shifted his weight.
“Or not,” he said, forcing his voice into a grin that his face didn’t have to bother with, since apparently no one was interested in looking. “Or we could just pretend that none of this ha- erk!”
A cool metal arm had snaked around his waist and yanked him back from where he’d been edging closer to the edge of the bed, tugging him back under the heavy, faded quilt and rolling him onto his back. Bucky braced himself over him, hair forming a curtain between them and the peeling wallpaper, and the lines between his brows were only formed of barely-awake confusion. They were undermined entirely by the tiny smile on his face.
“Counter-offer,” he said, his voice hoarse and warm in a way that Clint wanted to get familiar with. “We go downstairs, I cook you some eggs, and we curl up on the couch under this blanket while we wait for the functioning goddamn bed you’re gonna order. I keep sleeping on this fuckin’ thing, even my back’s gonna give out.”
“You’re staying, then?” Clint asked, hesitant, and Bucky rolled his eyes and collapsed onto him, burying his face in Clint’s neck and crushing him into the goddamn uncomfortable springs.
(For @lissadiane who wanted a sequel to the one where Clint misses his own wedding…)
“What’re their demands?”
Lainey span her seat around, pissed off beyond all measure that yet another asshole was trying to take over her job.
“Look,” she said, keeping a tight rein on her temper, ‘Cos when you were a woman in this profession you could only screw that up once. “If you’d just -“
She stopped, confused. Murder glare, sure; she hadn’t been expecting boutonnières.
“I’m sorry, miss,” an earnest-looking blond said, the ridiculous angle of his jaw somehow familiar. “Bucky’s -“
“Holy shit,” she said helplessly, “you’re Captain America!”
The brunet – who by process of elimination had to be the Winter Soldier, and boy was she glad she hadn’t ripped him a new one – tipped his head back and let out a long slow breath, visibly struggling to stay calm.
“Have you got communication with anyone in the bank?” He asked, his voice low and even.
“Yeah,” she said, “they’ve got an Avenger in there,” she winced, “which obviously you guys know. He was all John McClane for a while there.”
They both blinked at her blankly.
“Er. Hiding? In the vents. They caught him when he broke into some guy’s office and tried to look up the phone number for City Hall.” She smiled a little, friendly. “I mean, most people would’ve gone with the police, but -“
There was a crackling from the radio that stood on Lainey’s desk, and before she could grab it it was wrapped in metal fingers and yanked us to the Soldier’s mouth.
“Hey Lainey?”
“Try again,” he said, through gritted teeth.
“Aaw, Buck?” There was indistinct murmuring in the background, then, “yeah, okay, I’ll tell ‘em, just let me – Bucky, you mad?”
“The only reason I ain’t gonna kill you,” the Soldier said, “is ‘Cos I was anticipating a little longer ‘til ‘death do us part’.”
Hurray!!!! 😀😀 I’ll just have to keep requesting sequels to it, it’s my favourite.
* DOG SITTER * EXCELLENT REFERENCES * SUPER GREAT RATES *
* ENDLESS POCKET OF TREATS *
CALL 323-928-3646 AND ASK FOR STEVE
The notice has been pinned up on the board of Bucky’s local Starbucks for the past week. This morning, Bucky’s finally given up on life and called. He doesn’t like admitting that he can’t be in five places at once, but his new boss is a sociopathic nightmare with zero regard for either Bucky’s contracted hours, or his out of work commitments. After three days of trying and failing to explain to the Devil Incarnate that he has to go home in his lunchbreak, that he has a dog, damnit, and that Sarge might be the best boy ever, it’s not fair to leave him alone for so long, he’s bitten the bullet. ‘Ask for Steve’ picks up after three rings and promises to collect Sarge at seven am the next morning, so now Bucky is here, sat on the cold steps of his front porch, praying to god he’s not about to give his best friend up to some pet killing lunatic.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he pleads, scratching behind Sarge’s ears and trying not to melt at the sorrowful expression aimed up at him from soulful brown eyes. “It’s just for a few hours during the day. You’ll have a great time.” Sarge puts his head on Bucky’s knee and whines. Bucky’s never had a dog before and a year ago would never’ve believed it possible to be so completely wrapped around a fuzzy little paw. Sarge – technically his full name is Sargent Fuzzlefluff – came hand in paw with his ex; a spectacularly flighty son of a bitch, who’s traded Bucky for an older man, a mansion, and a strict no pets policy.
Sarge likes Bucky best, anyway. It works out for them.
“I’m sure Steve’s great,” Bucky says. He’s packed Sarge a little bag, full of his favorite treats, toys, and the red blanket he likes to snuggle up on when he naps. “You won’t even notice I’m gone.”
Sarge’s ears prick up as someone approaches. Bucky’s been imagining Steve as anything from a college kid to a soccer dad and is taken aback by the wall of muscle that jogs up to him, baseball hat pulled over his head and dark shades hiding his face, even so early in the morning.
“Hi,” brilliant white teeth smile with more enthusiasm than anyone has ever shown Bucky at seven am, “I’m Steve. You must be Bucky, right? And you’ve gotta be Sarge! Oh, you are the most handsome boy! Aren’t you? The most handsome!”
The megawatt smile diverts its attention from Bucky, to Sarge, who meets the praise with a cheerful bark and a furious wagging of tail.
Steve gets down on his knees, both hands held out for Sarge to sniff before they are mussing his fur and scratching behind his ears, and Bucky is glad, really glad, that Sarge likes him, because that means his full attention can be focused on the fact that ‘Ask for Steve’ is neither a college kid nor a soccer dad, and is, in fact, Steve fucking Rogers.
Captain America is gonna walk his dog.
Don’t worry guys, I already yelled at @boopifer to write the rest of it 😀
Merlin Emrys. The owner of a small book and coffee shop that he inherited from his uncle. Loves animals (has two cats) and enjoys walks in the forest. Thinks Arthur Pendragon is a prat who should find another bookshop but then again,,,that’s a nice arse.
Arthur Pendragon. CEO. Self entitled asshole. Smart, confident and knows what he wants. Boxes in his free time, wouldn’t know a book if it slapped him across the face (which it did, the first time he entered Merlin’s bookshop). Nobody really knows why he kept going back, but something must have worked considering that time Morgana found him making out with Merlin behind the shelves.
They’re speaking Russian again, just like they did all last semester. Steve had been just a little worried that he might not be able to eavesdrop anymore after winter break. But it seems their schedules still line up, and he finds them at their usual table in the dining hall at lunch. Dropping his backpack in an empty seat, he sets his tray nearby and starts peeling an orange.
Steve is in RUS 202 now, a whole semester of Petrov’s rapid speech and tough practical tests behind him. He also spent his break using everything from Duolingo to Pimsleur to stay on top of what he’d learned and advance further. Now, he can hold stilted conversations with Lyudmila at the market near his apartment. She smiles, pats his cheek, and cuts his slices of pitchye moloko extra large.
He has these two strangers to thank for that as well. The redhead who seems to be afraid to wear anything that’s an actual color and her friend (boyfriend? brother?) who always dresses like he was personally styled by the Queer Eye team, including his perfect dark hair and varying levels of always-neat-at-the-edges scruff. He’s at a level three today, short dark hair coating a jawline that could cut steel. Steve thinks he looks particularly good in blue, which is the color he seems to be wearing, a fitted cobalt button-down stretching over the muscles of his back.
Steve also thinks he looks good curling his gorgeous mouth around Russian words, but he’s not here to stare. Mostly.
He concentrates on listening instead, on how they fit their sentences together and the ways the structure differs from English. It takes him a second to translate, but he’s faster than he was back at the beginning of the fall semester. When he only got one in twenty words and was maybe sure they were talking about a barbecue they went to.
Then again, that first overheard conversation could’ve also been about a particularly spicy jar of salsa. Or a house fire.
“It wouldn’t kill you to say hello,” Red says in Russian, stealing a fry from Blue’s plate.
Summary: When a terrorist threatens to bomb the Mr United States pageant, FBI Special Agent Alexander Lightwood is chosen to go undercover. His partner, Jace Herondale, thinks he’s doing Alec a favour by choosing him, but Alec’s disgruntled. He considers the idea of a male beauty pageant – hell, any pageant – degrading.
As he progresses through the rounds, Alec struggles to fight a growing attraction to pageant consultant Magnus Bane, forms unlikely friendships with contestants, and learns that Mr United States is much more than just a beauty pageant.
But with limited time, can he uncover the person behind the threat before it’s too late?
theproblemwithstardust 