#brooklynbeat

✤ - for my muse to wake yours from a nightmare

Once upon a time, it would have been rare for Pietro to fall asleep in someone’s bed after a night of fun. He’d always tried to sneak out before it got too late, to avoid forming any attachments. It was just easier that way. Lately, though, he’d found himself waking up in Felicia’s bed more and more often, not waking until early afternoon sunlight streamed through the window.

He probably would have done just that tonight, too -- Pietro had never been good at waking up before the sun was high in the sky -- but something woke him sooner. He was a light sleeper (a necessity that came with growing up the way he had), and when Felicia began shifting and squirming in the bed next to him, his eyes snapped open fairly quickly.

(He didn’t let himself think about how waking up in her bed was so familiar to him now that he no longer needed that moment to orient himself upon regaining consciousness.)

There was a whimper from the bed next to him, quiet and frightened. He recognized the tone of it. Pietro knew a nightmare when he saw it.

“Cat?” He touched her shoulder gently. She flinched away from his hand, whatever was plaguing her dreams causing her to mistake the friendly touch for something else. “Cat, wake up. It’s me.” She squirmed, shifting away from him. “Felicia.”

Her eyes snapped open suddenly, wide and vacant. She wasn’t entirely awake yet, wasn’t entirely there. “Get away from me,” she snapped, though there was more fear than anger in her tone. Pietro shifted away, holding up his hands.

“Cat, it’s me. It’s Pietro. I’m not that forgettable, am I?” He kept his tone light, attempting to comfort her. Slowly, recognition spread across her face, smoothing out the fear and grief. He saw her pull a mask over her features, forcing her expression to neutral, uncaring.

“Morning already?” she asked weakly, and Pietro scooted back over to her and put an arm around her shoulder. She rested her head on his shoulder, and he ran a hand through her hair gently.

“Barely,” he replied, glancing to the clock. 3:30 in the morning. “I think you can use a few more hours of sleep, no?” She nodded against him, going quiet. For a moment, she was silent, and Pietro thought she’d gone back to sleep. 

A moment later, her voice proved him wrong.

“Don’t leave me. Please.” Her voice was quiet, barely above a whisper. It was the most vulnerable he’d ever heard her, and he wasn’t quite sure what the ache in his chest meant.

        Decked out in his full crossbones outfit, Brock jumps into the fray of the fight. Not really jumping in per say, just making enough to make his presence known to his favorite puppy dog hero. “Awe cap, I thought we had something special between us. I’m supposed to be the only one who gets’s to kick your ass.” 

24. A final text

💛 for jessica’s honest opinion of claire:

“Listen up assholes!” Jessica  yells to the bar around her. Claire is cringing, burying her face in her hands, but Jessica points at her anyway. “Claire Goddamn Motherfucking Temple is a gift from the fucking gods, okay?” She’s stupid drunk, and the rest of the bar is staring at her, but she doesn’t care. She needs to say this. (Okay, maybe the four shots in a row were a bad idea, but what’s done is done.) 

She wheels around back to Claire, has to steady herself by grabbing the other woman’s shoulders. It’s not hard for her to drag her out of her chair and pull her into a rough hug. “I love you, okay,” she whispers, burying her face in Claire’s scrubs. “I never say that,” she says, holding the other woman tightly. “But I do. You’re the goddamn hero, Claire, better than any of the caped assholes running around.” She doesn’t say better than me, that much is goddamn clear. “Never change,” she says, pulling away finally. She grabs the last shot, throws it back, then holds out her hand. “Dance with me, asshole.”

dear steve,

fuck you.

☠: my muse’s reaction to being told that your muse is missing, and presumed dead

FAMOUS THIEF BLACK CAT MISSING AFTER LATEST HEIST. 

The headline screamed at him from the paper, and it seemed to repeat over and over in his head. Missing, missing, missing. 

It might be unrelated, he thought; Felicia lived a dangerous life, and perhaps it had caught up to her. But the more he looked at it, the more he remembered her name printed in bold letters in HYDRA’s files, the more he saw her picture on a hit list for the crime of being associated with him.

He pulled on his tennis shoes, heartbeat pounding in his ear. “She might be okay,” Wanda said quietly from behind him. “Maybe she just needed to leave town or something. Maybe the police were getting close or --”

“It’s been a week, сестра,” he interrupted quietly. “She would have called.” He didn’t know why he was so certain about that, but he was. Felicia would have called him. She would have told him she was okay. She would have.

“You don’t have to,” Wanda insisted, and he guessed she was right. Felicia wasn’t his responsibility, not really. They weren’t dating, they just slept together sometimes.

(Except somehow, sometimes had turned into every night and he had a key to her apartment and FRIDAY recognized her when she came over and he missed her when she wasn’t around and now she was gone and he felt desolate.)

“I do,” he replied quietly. It wasn’t true until he said it, but as soon as the words left his mouth, it was. He had to do this, had to find her, had to bring her home. Whatever that meant, however he did it, he had to. “I’ll be back soon,” he added, because suddenly he realized that he needed to do this and he needed to do it alone. “I’ll be okay. I promise.”