Elegant Mess 100

My drunk ass had actually walked home without them, pounded on my apartment door, gotten let in by my rightfully-disgruntled roommate, and proceeded to pass out on the couch.  Apparently I puked in the toilet before passing out.  I do not remember this part.

The next morning, I schlepped back to the frat house.  I stood there, right in front of the front door.  This was a novel experience for me.  I’d never been at a frat house in broad daylight before.

A boy, presumably, of the house, asked me what I was doing. 

“I lost my keys in here last night,” I called back.  “I was seeing if I could go in and look for them?”

He opened the door and gestured for me to come in.

“Go wherever you want.”

I’d never seen a frat house post-party before.  Wandering up the stairs and through the halls, I was surrounded by hungover and still-drunk frat boys stumbling around in their socks and sandals and gym shorts, seeking out food and showers like moths to a porch light.  A few of them threw puzzled glances my way.  I’m sure they thought I was some post-bacchanalia hallucination.

I entered one room where a boy was drunkenly watching some Old Yeller-esque movie on a tiny TV in the corner of his room from his bed.

“Do you like dog movies?” he asked, voice all mumbly from grogginess and also from the fact that his face was squished against his pillow and half-buried by his blanket.

I told him I did.

He mumbled again, pleased, and asked what I was doing.  I told him I was looking for my keys.

“Sorry, I haven’t seen any keys around here.”

I didn’t doubt him.

Twenty minutes had passed.  I’d searched just about every bedroom and nuclear-waste-dump-site of a bathroom in that house.  I’d given up on ever finding my keys and was prepared to beg my roommates’ forgiveness and get a new set copied.

As I stood there in the hallway, silently bewailing my predicament, a particularly-burly frat boy approached me.

“You need help with something?”

“I lost my keys here last night and I can’t find them, I’ve looked everywhere.”

“What do they look like?  I’ll put it into the group chat.”  He was already pulling out his phone.

No one ever checks a group chat, I thought, but what the hell.  It was worth a shot.  “Um, it’s just a ring of keys.  The keychain is a pink plastic cat, though, like yea big.  Like bright pink, you can’t miss it.”

He nodded, presumably typing this description faithfully into the group chat.

“Alright, I sent the message out.  Good luck.”

And with that, he turned and left.

A few moments later, I heard a distant thundering.  It was coming from upstairs, and it was getting louder and louder.  One assumes that how I felt in that moment was how Simba felt seeing the wildebeest stampede through the ravine as a horde of large young men all thundered down the stairs, making a beeling for me.

“Someone tell the girl!” One of them shouted, faceless in the mob.  “Girl!  Hey, GIRL!!!  We found your keys, girl!!!”

They circled around me.  I hadn’t felt that small since I was maybe eleven years old.  One of them split himself off from the crowd.

“Are these -” he pulled out a ring of keys from his pocket, “your keys?”

And lo, there was the distinctive bright millennial pink cat keychain dangling off the ring.

“Yes,” I whispered.  “Oh my god, yes.”

“EYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!”

The cheer went up.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader  Word count: 2,489 Warnings: none, unless you can’t stomach fluff Summary: Someone’s been leaving a mess for you to find in the morning. But the day of reckoning approaches. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY @kat-lives!!!!! THIS IS FOR YOU, MY DARLING SWEET STUPENDOUS FRIEND!! LOVE YOUR GUTS AND EVERYTHING ELSE OK!!

The first time it happens, you don’t think much of it.

Head cook you are, yes - but you aren’t the only one that uses the state-of-the-art, team kitchen on the 41st floor of Avengers Tower. Without exclusive rights, you can’t put the kibosh on people coming in and rummaging through your meticulously organized ingredients, dishes, and appliances. And the mess wasn’t so bad - the burned cookies in the garbage are worse than the dirty dishes by a long shot - so you had shrugged it off.

Then it was spilled flour on the ground, egg shells in the garbage disposal, and the disappearance of an expensive chocolate bar from Switzerland. Well, the last infraction could have been anyone, not just the mysterious midnight cook.

But all of these mysterious occurrences are the reason that you’re more alert than usual as you take the elevator up to the kitchen at 4 a.m. Fate is going to bring you into contact with the perp. Thanks to a corporate breakfast Stark had planned for 9 a.m.

The lights in the kitchen are on. You’re in luck.

… despite Loki’s love for dramatic entrances…

… when he really felt the need to talk to his brother he’d sneak up behind him quietly, patiently, taking his time, waiting for Thor to notice him, making his presence known only through whispered prayers…

… or silent reflections. 

Notice his expression and posture in the mirror: hesitant, worried, thoughtful, apologetic. He doesn’t know what Thor’s reaction is going to be because all he ever wanted was his approval, and at the same time he feels sorry for his brother’s injury. His concern can be seen in his eyes but instead his words come out encouraging.

Although it’s been said many times, many ways … Merry Christmas to you.

A Tasertricks Winter exchange 

Isn’t that what it means to be a hero? To keep trying to save people, even from themselves? 

… and result!

I’ve only ever been good at one thing. I did that thing for bad. I do that thing for good. There’s nothing I’m afraid of, save that one thing… That someone might take the good away. If you take that away, I don’t know what I will do. I don’t know who I will become.