#sintember 2023

When Steve first put you in his basement, you nearly scoffed at the cliché: prisoner in the basement, like he couldn’t be bothered to be even slightly more creative. That was a few days ago, you think. You really had no way of telling. You remember screaming and banging on the door—you can still see the faint lines your nails scrapped onto it—but you can’t remember when that was. At first you counted a day as the next time you woke up, but you gave up, not because it’s obviously wildly inaccurate, but because you lost count of that, too.

You were hungrier than comfortable, but by no means starving, so maybe in that way it couldn’t have been too long, right? Without change, there is no time, and there has been no change in the basement since… however long it’s been. You couldn’t even rule out it had been months, though evidently ridiculous as that was considering your relative physical health (or, at least, as far as you can tell, or as far as you’re willing to believe), your sense of trust is out of balance.

Steve had been your best friend, you trusted him most, you never for a split moment thought he would hurt you. Steve, who’d you known all your life, time, as well, you’d known all your life: if you couldn’t trust Steve, could you trust your sense of time? You didn’t realise how much people rely on time, even when they have nothing important to attend to; time is the one constant, hours pass whether you want them to or not: you have no constant now.

You sit on the mattress (stained with a little blood you assume must be your own) hugging your knees to your chest, staring straight ahead. You weren’t going mad, you hadn’t had any hallucinations, had you?

Down here, there had only been the sounds you made—your breathing, your screaming, your crying—but your ears prick at an unfamiliar noise. It’s not unfamiliar, really, just one you haven’t heard in a while. Metal, not a lot, shifting around…

A key in a lock!

You scramble to stand up just as Steve pushes open the door, and your eyes lock immediately. You can’t help but notice even now he still has that superhero stance, his posture, standing tall and strong; assuring to everyone else, intimidating to you. But you refuse to allow yourself to be intimidated.

Steve doesn’t say anything as he begins his decent down the stairs; he looks away, but you stay fixated on him. When he reaches the floor, he turns to you with a smile.

No thought, you just sprint.

You dart towards the steps, but he easily scoops you up, and you’re bent over his shoulder, screaming as you hit your fists against his toned back and kick your legs uselessly in the air.

Another sound you hear, it sounds familiar, sounds like words being formed by a noise different to the one you make when you speak. It’s so bizarre to hear Steve speaking, so bizarre to hear anyone speaking but yourself after all (?) this time of hearing the same melody. It’s so bizarre, in fact, that you don’t really even register it, what he’s saying, until you’re dropped onto the mattress on the floor, falling quite a way (relative to what you would be used to hopping into bed) with a shriek.

“I’ve been alone, too,” he says, towering over you, blocking the single light that illuminates the basement, the light that hasn’t once turned off since you were thrown down here, it hasn’t even flickered.

He suddenly drops to his knees, straddling you. This position feels familiar, too; his knees caging you as you writhe under him in distress; it feels like the second time, now. It is the second time. And the first time this happened it ended with you being literally thrown into his basement. What would he do when he was done this time?

“Look…” he gently raises your right hand to his eyes, examines it, and then tilts it to display your nails to you; they’re bitten down so bad you’re bleeding, or maybe you’re bleeding from clawing at the door, either way, they’re damaged, fairly badly, and you stare back at your own fingers in shock. How could you not have noticed this?

“When you’re alone,” he says, gently, softly laying your hand back down to your side, “You hurt yourself. That’s why you need to stay with me.”

Right! You were at his place, as usual, and as you were falling asleep when he started, started speaking about how you needed to stay with him, because you needed him. Though while he violated you, he spewed the opposite.

“I need you…” he grunted.

You shake your head to rid yourself of the thoughts, but that memory seems to be replaying in front of your very eyes, a huge wave of déjà vu crashing over you as Steve strokes the side of your face. You slap his hand away, and that loving gaze he’d been showering you in turns dark. You try to throw a punch to his jaw but he catches your wrists and gives you a disapproving look. It’s extremely frustrating this seems to be so easy for him.

With nothing else to do, you start kicking and screaming; you’re sure it won’t accomplish anything, but you refuse to just roll over and accept this, no. You twist and turn under him until, to your surprise, he raises himself just high enough for you to turn all the way over. Before you can comprehend your little freedom, he brings his knees back down to the back of your own, and though it’s evident he’s not using all his weight, it’s still enough to make you cry out.

He lets his knees fall to the sides and manages to restrict your movements enough to tug your shorts down.

You want to scream No! but after all this time, you’re not sure if your voice can work to form actual words; you’ve only been screaming and sobbing for days. Or hours? Since he left, you haven’t spoken since he left, and you’re not sure if you can now.

You hear him spit in his hand and his soft groans as he strokes himself, and you’re lucky you can’t see it. You try to claw at his legs as you feel him line up with your entrance but he manages to pull your wrists together and shove them into your back.

He enters you slowly and with a soft groan, tears springing to your eyes as you sob, incoherent; you’re sure you’d plead with him to stop if you could. He ignores you and thrusts deep, in and out; you’re sure his careful movements may have looked loving and respectful to someone on the outside, yet it was anything but, despite what he’d have you believe.

“I need you…”

Not again - You thought it was done, it was over. You survived, you moved on. And yet the horror continues.

Family is everything - For some, they would kill for. For others, love is what keeps them together.

You didn't need that, did you? - From limbs to food to people. Surely you can do without.

The other side - What lies in the mirror, another dimension, even after death?

Isolation - People are so vulnerable when they are left on their own.

Can't even trust yourself - Something is happening to you, and you aren't safe from what it's making you.

Liar, Liar - If we ourselves are to suffer deception, our hands are no longer tied.

Mourning - What lengths would you go to in your grief? How do you show love to the dead?

Tempest - A storm, chaos, upheaval.

No consequences - What would you do if you knew you could get away with anything?

Commitment - We bind ourselves to each other in strange ways.

Tradition - We've always done things this way….

Modernity - …..but maybe we shouldn't.

You weren't supposed to enjoy that… - Are they judging you? Really??

Consumption - Sating desires with oblivion.

The more, the merrier - Group work can be fun, I swear.

Bonus holes - Use your imagination ; )

Dichotomies - Opposites attract, and all that.

Something 'Wholesome' - Who doesn't like a little fluff in the midst of all this sinning? Or you could make it awful too.

Waiting for the fall - Are you watching your enemies with hungry eyes, or is it you teetering on the edge?

No such thing as home - Nowhere is safe, nowhere, there is nowhere to go.

A journey - You will not be the same at the end of the road.

Write what you know - Take something personal, make it monstrous.

Fate - It always happens this way, but does it have to?

This just says 'I can do what I want' - Have an idea that you think is just 'too much'? Consider this the devil on your shoulder. Show us how bad you can get.

Old wounds - Did they ever stop hurting?

Mob Mentality - It's easy to lose yourself in a crowd.

Devotion - What does your soul yearn for?

Secrets - Kept or uncovered, they can do damage either way.

For the 11th night in a row you startle awake with a gasp, heart hammering, body sweating so much you can’t go back to sleep without taking a shower. You had been having these strange dreams for nearly a year now, but the last month or two they had been so vivid they felt more real than life itself.

You drag yourself out of bed, trying to slow your breathing as you make your way to the bathroom. The worst part is you don’t even really remember these dreams, just that they leave you panicked and weak and sore all over, but particularly your breasts, between your thighs, and your neck; blame it on your lack of sex.

You flick on the light in the bathroom and turn to the mirror. You shriek and nearly jump back in shock at your reflection. Where your neck feels tender, there’s a purple bruise spreading across your skin. You try to smudge it off, hoping it was fucking paint or something, who cares, you were just hoping it wasn’t really a bruise… not a bruise like that. No matter how hard you wipe it, it doesn’t come off. It’s just a random bruise, you tell yourself, some people bruise easily, maybe you hurt yourself and didn’t notice. Yeah. Though, still, as you stand under the flow of boiling water, so hot you wonder how it hasn’t burnt your skin off, you scrub violently at the mark. It’s still there when you take another look in the mirror.

After barely getting any sleep last night, you’re exhausted in the morning as you made your way to the office. Whether or not you usually get coffee, you know you’d physically need it today, and so you take a quick detour to the café across the street. You’re happy to see the cheerful blue-eyed barista is working this morning, and happy the place is near empty; only a tall figure in front of you in the line and a pair of scattered young people bent over laptops with papers and highlighters cluttering the table. Finals, you think, noting the 10+ empty coffee cups littering their feet.

You wait patiently (though you’re exhausted) behind the man as he gives his order, and Roger the barista nods and hurries to make it. Was that even his name? You didn’t really know, he wasn’t in too often, you just spotted him by those bright blue eyes. Maybe it was Riley or Ringo or something.

The man in front of you is handed his drink, and when you turns around, your blood runs cold. You take a deep gasp and step backwards. You don’t even get a good look at him before his back is towards you and all you can do is stare at his disappearing silhouette. You’re shaking, and you don’t know why; you can’t at all recall his appearance besides pale skin and long, black hair, but still it’s like he flipped some kind of switch and adrenaline started pumping through every vein in your body.

“Ma’am?”

You turn at the voice back to the counter. It’s not the blue-eyed barista you’re met with: you see the same face, but with eyes pure black.

You stumble out of the coffee shop without getting the caffeine you need, because you can not stay in there a second longer. Maybe you don’t need the coffee; now you feel fully alert. You jump as strangers passes by as you make your way across the street and up to your desk, trembling so much you wonder if you’ll ever stop. Once you’re at your desk, though, you do feel a little better; you’re no longer shaking, but still, anyone that comes up to you scares the fuck out of you, you have many close calls with an entire fucking heart attack, you can swear it. A few people ask you throughout the day if you’re okay, if you need to go home, but you assure them you’re fine, and when you finally get off, you feel kind of good about yourself for sticking it through the day, but that feeling fades as the sun does.

It’s dark out when you hop out of your car and make your way up to your apartment, and it doesn’t help your anxiety that the lights have been flickering in the corridor of your floor for about a week now, and no one had bothered to fix it.

The lift opens and you step out into the passage with the lights having a seizure of their own, it seems. Dark, light, dark, light, you’re at least glad it’s consistent, but while on any other day this would have been an annoyance, today, it’s panic-inducing.

Your place is near the end of the corridor, quite far down, and while you want to run, something tells you your body can’t take having to increase your heart rate any further or you’ll drop dead in the middle of your sprint. And why should you run? You’re a little angry with yourself—it was just a weird dream, and it had you fucked up all day. Pathetic. Your irritation does little to drown out your fear, however. On and off the lights flick at rhythm, like they’re singing a song on a steady beat.

You’re a few steps in when the lights go out for one, two seconds too long, barely enough time for feat to build, but it does; you know you can’t trust yourself to discern reality from fiction, but you do. You start walking faster. You throw a look over your shoulder; in front of the elevator stands a tall silhouette, but breathing; an alive shadow. You gasp and spin around to face it. There’s nothing there. You turn back, walking faster and faster now, but still trying to refrain from running.

The lights flick off, flick on, there’s a shadow. Flick off, flick on, there’s a shadow. What can you do except run straight towards it? Your door is in that direction, you just need to get inside. Maybe it would have seemed insane to anyone on the outside—it felt insane to you—but you start running, full speed towards what you’re trying to escape. On and off the lights flick and the silhouette comes in and out of sight, unmoving, and deeply unsettling.

You don’t know how you get your door open so fast, but you do, not fumbling once with your keys despite your wrecked state. You slam the door closed behind you and lock it, firmly pressing your back against it as you begin to hyperventilate.

What the fuck.

Tears are streaming down your face and you swear your chest is caving in on itself. You grasp at the kitchen counter and heave yourself forwards, breaths coming in and out at lightning speed, yet you still don’t feel you’re getting enough oxygen, you don’t feel you’re getting any oxygen, for that matter. It feels like a hand is wrapped around your throat, asphyxiating you as you stumble around your living area.

A hand? And pulling?

You’re being led towards your bedroom by your neck, and though you want to say it’s the miracle of getting your feet to move again, no, there’s definitely something pulling, dragging you towards your room.

You claw at the doorway and dig your heels into the ground, but that barely deters whatever is acting upon you. You’re flung onto the bed, and hit the mattress with a force that feels way too familiar, though obviously this has never happened before; you’d never had a ghost drag you through your home, or maybe it was psychosis, but you’d never had a psychotic episode like this.

You prop yourself up onto your forearms and scan the room for a sign of anything. At this point, you’re hoping someone will pop out, to confirm you haven’t completely lost it. And you immediately regret that hope.

Out of seemingly thin air, a figure steps forward. You know it. Tall, every tall, and long black hair, pale skin, you saw him at the café, but that’s not where you know him from, you know him from something much more personal, something deeper; you barely know him in your conscious mind, but your subconscious recognises it all.

This is a dream! it strikes you, and you slightly calm down, knowing you’re going to wake up at any second now. Why aren’t you waking up? A man you’ve never seen before is still stalking towards you.

You scream and kick your feet as he reaches the foot of the bed, even though he hasn’t touched you yet. In a literal flash he grips your ankles and twists, prying your legs apart and pinning your feet on the bed. Still, you struggle against him. He removes his hands, and now in their place are glowing virescent ropes tying you down, your hands have been restrained too, each limb reaching towards a corner of the bed. You writhe, twisting and thrusting your hips, crying the whole time. Why aren’t you waking up? What the fuck is even happening?

But you know exactly what it is happening.

The dark-haired man snaps his fingers and you’re naked and exposed. Maintaining direct eye contact with you, calmly, despite your conniption, he slowly pushes two long fingers into his mouth and drags them out with a pop.

Wake up, wake up, wake up, you will yourself, wishing more than anything ever, and more than anyone ever could to just wake up!

He unbuckles his belt, still quiet (why hasn’t he said anything?) and staring you down. And suddenly, he pounces on you, diving to harshly suck on your neck, the spot that had been sore. You try to bring your hand down to push him away but are met with the unfriendly reminder you’re restrained. You cry out at the assault, his sucking and biting is near animalistic.

And someone, you call out a name, his name, “Loki!”

For the 11th night in a row you startle awake with a gasp, heart hammering, body sweating so much you can’t go back to sleep without taking a shower. You had been having these strange dreams for nearly a year now, but the last month or two they had been so vivid they felt more real than life itself.

You drag yourself out of bed, trying to slow your breathing as you make your way to the bathroom. The worst part is you don’t even really remember these dreams, just that they leave you panicked and weak and sore all over, but particularly your breasts, between your thighs, and your neck; blame it on your lack of sex.

You flick on the light in the bathroom and turn to the mirror. You shriek and nearly jump back in shock at your reflection. Where your neck feels tender, there’s a purple bruise spreading across your skin. You try to smudge it off, hoping it was fucking paint or something, who cares, you were just hoping it wasn’t really a bruise… not a bruise like that. No matter how hard you wipe it, it doesn’t come off. It’s just a random bruise, you tell yourself, some people bruise easily, maybe you hurt yourself and didn’t notice. Yeah. Though, still, as you stand under the flow of boiling water, so hot you wonder how it hasn’t burnt your skin off, you scrub violently at the mark. It’s still there when you take another look in the mirror.

The house rocks as you slam the door shut behind you, half the force coming from your worry and the other half by nature’s ire. You had really cut it close getting last minute supplies, and on the short drive back from the mall, you actually worried you’d cut it too close as your car was nearly thrown off the road. A hurricane was starting, bad, but not severe enough to warrant any measures too drastic. Still, you decided to play it safe—though one could argue that rule was broken when you were driving in the beginning of a storm.

You drop the shopping bag on the kitchen counter, no sign of Bucky. Usually he sits on one of the stools at the island waiting to rummage through whatever you had picked up for plums. Of course, you had.

“Bucky?” you call as you pop the fruit into the fridge. The rest was either canned or packets of goodies, which you stuffed into the kitchen cupboard before heading to the living room.

“Bucky?” you call again as the house rocks again, and maybe he didn’t hear you over the noise.

Maybe he was in the basement. You quickly jog back to the kitchen to grab a bag of chips and start your descent to the basement. A basement was really unnecessary for the life you and Bucky live, but this house, you had both fallen in love with at first sight (much like how you two first met) and purchased it together. It was practically empty; you thought it could at least be useful for storage, but you two didn’t have anything unneeded; it was either useful, and therefore in use, or not in the house. It was at least a safe place were something like a tornado to hit. You hadn’t been down in years, not since you first bought the place. Bucky went down there every two or three months to stop it being overrun by dust bunnies, but that was it.

Lately, Bucky had been having nightmares, more often than usual, and you always got the feeling he was trapped; trapped in his body that had done so much against his will, and it worried you when the storm warning was issued: he was trapped once again.

“Bucky?” you call as you open the door to the basement. It’s pitch black, so you assume he’s not down here, but to be sure, you flick on the lights. Staring back at you is your husband, seated perfectly still, facial expression stone, legs positioned and back straight in a way one is taught is perfect posture, with his palms resting on his knees.

“Hi, Buck,” you greet, smiling as you make your way down. He doesn’t smile back, doesn’t greet back, he remains a statue, only bright blue eyes following your movement. They’re not bright, they’re dark.

“You’re scaring me a bit,” you admit with a nervous laugh when you hold out the bag of chips to him and he makes no move to take them, doesn’t even look at them, gaze still boring straight into your soul. He’s always seen right through you, but now, it’s not an understanding he’s attempting to achieve, you can’t tell what it is. Intimidation?

“Bucky?”

“Who the hell is Bucky?”

You take a step back, physically unable to gasp despite your desire to as you feel your air flow cut off by his words, only able to throw a hand over your mouth. But… why would he? What happened? He can’t slip back unless someone says so, can he? This isn’t your husband. This is…

“Soldat?” you whisper, lowering your cupped hand from your mouth slightly so he can hear you. You think he missed it for a second due to your small voice, but he stands.

Of course Bucky is taller than you, but even if he wasn’t, this isn’t just a height different, he towers over you like the dark clouds tower over your home outside; he towers over you in demeanour alone; he could be kneeling right now but still, that stare would let you know your place immediately.

What do you do? Of course you want to help him, but this isn’t Bucky; what can you do? Even by the Lord’s greatest miracle, there was not a wisp of a chance you stood against the world’s deadliest assassin.

But why would he hurt you? You were absolutely no one special, no powers or access to anything to do with the Avengers, intel or otherwise. It didn’t make sense for him to attack you. But that absolutely was not a risk you were willing to take.

You’re trembling, shaking harsher than the winds rocking the trees, you feel like one of them, maybe; just a part of nature, pretty much inconspicuous, caught in a harsh tempest.

You throw the bag at him, turn, and run; there was no way in hell you could go outside, but maybe you could lock him in the basement. You practically fly up the stairs, and you swear he’s taunting you as he takes each step up slowly, but hitting the stairs with his steps more harshly than he otherwise would.

You slam the door shut, but despite his calm pace, he’s somehow made it to the top, and slams the door open, throwing you back. You groan as you scramble to stand and dash to the kitchen. What could you do? Get a knife? You would never hurt him, of course, never, but maybe you could scare him off? That was such a ridiculous thought you nearly roll your eyes, but you can’t; you need vision. And just as you have that thought.

The lights trip.

The winds beat against the window, but nowhere near as fast as your beating heart. You try to calm down as you duck into the cupboards under the sink, hoping to be able to hear him coming. His footsteps have stopped, but you know that by no means meant he had; he can be deadly silent, you know this. You strain to hear for the faintest sound of him, but you can barely hear the storm outside over your heavy breathing and blood thumping through your ears. You cup your hand over your mouth, and as much as you want to rock yourself back and forth as you hug your knees, you don’t dare risk any movement, already stressed out of your mind as your body works as always; every blood cell rushing through your veins is way too loud; he’ll hear it, he’ll hear you.

The storm rages, but the house remains dead, not even the regular creak of the pipes, it’s like your home is just as terrified of him and is hiding, making you feel exposed despite your claustrophobic situation.

How long can you wait here? It’s not safe, but neither is leaving. Maybe you can lock yourself in the basement instead, but you don’t know where the key is. Does the basement even lock from inside? There were no locks on any other door in the house considering it was just the two of you.

Either way, you’re fucked. You are so fucked. Beyond fucked.

You count to a hundred, but even time doesn’t calm your nerves, doesn’t do anything to stop your body from acting as if you’re in danger. And why should she?—you are.

One hundred, and you open the cupboard door quickly because you know it creaks. You can’t even consider your luck it stays quiet at the sight you’re met with: The Winter Soldier, crouched in front of your hiding place, dead gaze locked on you. It’s dark, and in any other circumstance, it would be too dark to make out such detail, but you see his face very clearly.

You briefly consider just closing the door again—maybe he’ll stay there—but you don’t have time to consider a next course of action when you’re suddenly roughly grasped by the elbow and yanked out of the cabinet. You shriek as your thrown onto the ground. Once again, you inelegantly manage to get yourself back to your feet, and you run again. He’s fucking with you at this point, because he could effortlessly have crushed you under his shoe right then and there. You don’t even think you’ll die directly by his hands; he’ll cause you a heart attack and that’s how he’ll kill you.

You know the Winter Soldier is the deadliest human force there is, but his ability to appear seemingly out of thin air when you have the hint of a hopeful thought to taunt you once again is borderline magic, it has to be. Your subconscious mind—let alone your conscious mind—can’t even get the thought of saving yourself going, stopped a few words, a few letters in, when you spin around to face him.

Lightning strikes and, right out of a horror film, illuminates him at the end of the corridor.

You stumble backwards into the basement and fumble around for a latch or something? You don’t even know this place well enough to know the basic things like how it locks, and if it does lock from the inside. Unfortunately, you don’t have the time to figure that out as once again the door is blown open and sends you tumbling down the stairs that feel like they’ll never end as you roll and bounce violently. You’re at least lucky the force didn’t send you literally flying into the opposite wall and break your spine, but you’re certain you’ve at least egregiously bruised a rib at the end of your fall—you refuse to believe it’s broken—dropping onto the bag of chips.

“Bucky,” you try, as you grasp at your ribs and watch him as he slowly and rhythmically descends the stairs, “Bucky, please.”

He’s here, at the bottom of the steps, looking down on you with a face so still you half expect it to remain that way forever, but it doesn’t; his expression adjusts ever so slightly; the corner of his lip barely — barely — twitches up, but you see it, he does it.

This isn’t The Winter Soldier, this is Bucky. This your husband.

He kicks you in the ribs, and if they weren’t broken before, they definitely are now, and there’s no way you can deny it. You want to pass out, you wish so badly to be knocked unconscious, have that heart attack you were anticipating, even die, just anything to end this sight: the sight of you husband consciously harming you.

✪

Read more here: Bucky Barnes Masterlist

If you liked this, try Can't even trust yourself.

You had lost Stephen and America, and you were now left in a crumbling world, a universe broken, with no way to get home. Based on the wrecked state of the world, you thought there wasn’t a Dr Strange here, that he had been defeated and his opponent left ruin. Though he wasn’t your Stephen, the thought still deeply upset you, that Stephen could be defeated, and maybe yours would be.

You push open the door of the Sanctum, you want to call out to him but you know there’s no point. The heavy door falls shut behind you. All the antiques and strange paintings and ornaments that once decorated the foyer have been shattered, some are deteriorating, and a dark mist floats through the cold temple, enveloping you, nearly strangling you, you feel.

Upstairs. You know you have to head to the Window of the Worlds.

You walk to the window, engraved with the Seal of Vishanti. It’s cracked, black lines not belong to the symbol run in all directions across the glass, that has a purple tint, nearly a faint violet glow. You want to touch it, when you hear your name whispered.

You spin, and there stands Stephen. Not your Stephen. This Stephen is… different: he looks older, streaks of grey paint his dark hair, with sunken eyes.

“Stephen!” you call, taking a step forward, “Or, Dr Strange, I need your help, please.”

“You’re here,” he murmurs, slowly walking towards you.

“I- I am,” you sputter, a little confused and off put by his trance-like demeanour, as his curious eyes never leave you, “I lost Stephen—my Stephen—and I need to get back.”

“I am your Stephen.” his voice is so low, so low you wouldn’t have heard it were you even a notch below the level of hyper-awareness he’s activated in you.

He steps into the light, and you gasp and take a step back. Visually, he’s not much different to the average person, but his eyes are dark, a familiar blue you once knew sealed up in an endless black; you can’t read them as he continues to walk towards you. You still.

He stops in front of you, and raises shaky hands to cup your face, his lips parted slightly as his foreign dark gaze analyses every inch of your face. His fingers are cold, ice cold, so cold they burn, like dry ice; you wince at the contact but he doesn’t seem to notice.

“No,” you whisper, “No, I’m not yours, and you’re not my…”

You raise your hands to gently grasp his wrists, and freeze when you see it. His fingertips are darkened, stained with a black so profound, so dangerous in sheer aura that you know what it’s from.

“Stephen?”

He’s been tampering with the Dark Hold, the book of sins so evil you barely know of it, just the name elicits chills; Stephen, your Stephen, barely discussed it, he never did until he found out about the Scarlet Witch’s use, and even still he said very little; you got the feeling that though his knowledge seemed limitless, he knew little here, and very deliberately he kept himself in the dark, because if he knew, he’d indulge.

And indulge he has, this sinister Stephen holding your face gently in his hands, as if these hands haven’t caused unfathomable destruction. You should have known—you knew—that Dr Strange could not be defeated. He wasn’t conquered, never could he be: he conquered.

“That’s me,” he smiles and reassures you. Though his eyes and fingers are stained, that boyish smile you know to be yours is the same as ever.

“What did you do?” is all you can muster in a shaky breath, a tear slipping down your cheek, he watches it fall.

“I did what was necessary, and you…” he strains his voice to prevent himself from choking on his words and he smooths a calloused finger over your skin, wiping away the single tear that had spilt, “You were gone.”

His eyes soften, and, despite the cold of his hands, they’re warm, his eyes, his body too, you notice, noting he’s much closer to you than you realised, and definitely too close for comfort. You don’t even know if you can call him insane, mad with power, and furthermore, you can’t tell what he meant by…

A cold hand snakes over your shoulder and his fingers grasps the back of your neck, pulling you towards him. When he kisses you, you stiffen, but, really, for barely a second, because his lips, they feel so familiar. This man is like your Stephen, you can feel it, but you see a different image; he’s like your Stephen if he had no self control, or even just a little less than he has now.

The thought hits you: you could never deny Stephen. Even if you could, say, by the grace of some higher power, even if you could walk away, Stephen always gets what he wants. There isn’t even a higher power you can turn to: there is no power higher than Stephen.

“You’ve come back to me.”

What can you even say? You’re sure he isn’t delusional, you’re sure he knows you’re not his, and you’re sure he doesn’t care. You nearly resign to your fate, but the thought burns you so hot you hurriedly blurt out,

“What happened to her?”

To you. Did he…?

He doesn’t answer, he stays gazing into your eyes, a sombre-looking but relieved smile on his face, like he’s reconciling the fact that he was wrong; he’s never wrong, but he never thought he would see you again. He simply repeats, “You’ve come back to me.”

“Stephen, no,” you state, firmly, yanking his hands off your face and holding his wrists down between you two. He seems mildly shocked, you’re sure he would have been able to overpower you if he you didn’t catch him slightly off guard. But no, you should know you could never be apart from him, whether you want to or not.

Magic ropes wrap around your wrists, tying a knot and pulling them close together, so tight you wouldn’t be surprised if they sliced your hands off. Stephen’s magic is golden, pure, this man—you don’t even want to call him Stephen—his magic is corrupt; purple, with black shadows swirling the violet pulses emitting from the shapes he draws.

You panic, forcing your head down to look at your bound wrists and then snapping your head back up to him. You open your mouth to speak, but all that comes out is a shrill little squeal as you’re lifted a few centimetres off the ground. The same purple and black vines wrap around your ankles, forcing them together.

You notice this is the first time you’ve been above him, floating just high enough for him to have to raise his chin to study you. You always thought this would give you some kind of dominance (fleeting and artificial as it may be), to be over him, but no, you never stood a fucking chance.

You barely struggle, afraid that if you shift around too much you’ll drop to the ground, so all you can do is be still as he circles you, examining you. Another thing; he doesn’t seem to just look at you, he studies you, like looking for flaws in a sculpture. What happens if he finds them?

“You know,” he finally speaks after several minutes of inspecting you, “All this…” he turns you towards the window. There’s a rift in the sky, with seemingly everything in it, everything in existence, it’s overwhelming, “I did for you, honey.”

He’s lying, he must be; though you can imagine yourself getting a little carried away now and then, in no universe could you ever see a version of yourself prepared to bring about mass destruction, the ends of literally infinite lives, no; you may be imperfect, but the collapse of an entire universe? He’s either lying or being intentionally ambiguous. Maybe he’s not lying, just misleading.

“You didn’t; you did it for her,” you half-lie; while it’s true he could only have done this for a different version of you, you doubt she would have authorised that, but you use her as sort of a scapegoat anyway.

He flicks his fingers and you spin to face him. He lowers you just enough so you’re at eye level, and despite your best efforts, you genuinely can not read his gaze; you can’t find any hint of what he may be feeling, it’s just a void, but it’s not, it’s not a void; you know there’s something there, something you’re missing.

You’re sure he’s going to say something, maybe continue his little game of pretending you’re his, but just as you anticipate the opening of his mouth, you violently spin again, this time towards the door, with a shriek. He walks in front you, and you follow behind, like you’re being pulled by a rope, like a dog on a leash who’s trying to play with something when the owner is fed up and wants to go home.

His bedroom door slams shut behind you and you’re lowered onto bed with a gentleness the human touch could never give, his magic softly laying you like you’re the most precious thing, and based on the look he’s giving you, you damn well might be.

Your soft rest hazes your mind for a moment, but you’re snapped back to the cold of the Sanctum when you feel him hover over you.

“I’ve missed you…” he whispers.

You don’t know when your pants came off, but you feel him run a practiced finger over your clothed slit. Oh, God, he feels exactly like your Stephen; the foreignness of his eyes and slight change in demeanour don’t seem to mean anything when he still feels exactly the same, it’s fucking with your mind.

You love your Stephen, more than anything, and you know this isn’t him. You try to push him off but when he slips a finger inside of you, you can’t help the shudder that vibrates through you.

Can I get Stockholm Syndrome so easy? you wonder to yourself, more berate yourself, as you try desperately to ignore the feeling of his fingers inside of you, moving in and out just the way you like, he knows what you like, he knows your body just the way Stephen does.

Because he is Stephen.

An hour you had been sitting on an uncomfortable barstool, slowly sipping on drinks. You don’t even know why you came, maybe you thought it would be fun, maybe you thought you’d meet someone; neither of those was the case.

You drop your head on your shoulder, face to the right at the stool that had been empty seconds ago, you could have sworn. You startle slightly at the sight, though you’re not unpleasantly surprised; a man with odd cerulean eyes, a sharp jawline and a debonair smirk has his head tilted your way.

“Did I scare you?”

He asks. It seems lighthearted, you know it is, but really deep in your stomach you feel a twist of some kind, barely, though, your senses hyper focused on how he’s making you feel with his hungry gaze. Hungry.

“A little,” you admit with a small smile, taking the last sip of your drink.

He lets out a breathy laugh and offers, “Can I buy you another?”

Steve, is his name, and for the rest of the night, he’s absolutely magnetic as he speaks, but you can barely comprehend what he’s saying, trying desperately to keep the conversation going when there’s just this burning between your legs. You shift uncomfortably, trying to get some form of friction, subtly. He had to have noticed.

You hadn’t even noticed how close he was until he brushes his fingers over your knee, just under the hem of your dress, and your sentence is cut off with a choked gasp; you can tell by the amused smirk on his face he’s having fun with this, but you can’t even find it in you to spew a witty remark when all you can think about is how good he would feel.

You shift once more a little closer to him, trying to get his hands to budge up a little further. He smooths his palms over the sides of your knees and up your thighs; hooking his fingers under your flesh, he rubs soothing circles with his thumbs.

“You’re burning up,” he notes, maybe more to himself than to you, yet steel blue eyes holding you hostage with that heated gaze; you swear his pupils have dilated.

You can’t respond, afraid if you open your mouth it’ll only be a pathetic whimper that comes out, but you don’t need to.

He changes his circular movements to the opposite direction. He leans in so close it scares you how little self control you’re working on right now.

“Let’s get out of here,” he says. Maybe that fact it didn’t even sound like a question should have you hearing faint alarm bells, but all you can hear is your own heartbeat and his low voice.

You’re nodding in earnest before he’s even finished his sentence, and soon you’re both rushing out the bar. You slide into the passenger seat of an expensive looking car you can’t care to name as you wonder how on earth you’re gonna control yourself on the drive.

You give him your address and soon he’s got you up against your bedroom wall, harsh breaths being exchanged between heated kisses as his hands roam your body.

He practically throws you onto the bed and you giggle, bouncing once before he’s pulled you by your ankles, legs hanging over the edge of the bed as he rests his head between your thighs.

He runs his palms over your thighs, admiring them like they’re perfectly sculpted.

“Fuck, you’re so soft…” he drawls as he presses kisses to your inner thighs, rubbing his cheeks across your supple flesh. He bites you and you jerk, hands flying to his hair and tugging, just trying to get his mouth to where it needs to be, you’re fucking soaked.

He runs his hands up and then down your sides and grips your hips harsh enough to leave half moon dents in your skin you’re sure you’ll see the marks of tomorrow, as he pulls your heat closer to him.

“I know you taste good…”

…

The next morning you wake up sore; an ache between your legs was to be expected, but this was a dull throbbing from the top of your right leg. You reach a hand down to feel it, but running your hand down you stop short, your fingers falling to a mattress—a mattress that had to have been thinner than yours—your leg ending much sooner than you expected, much soon that it should.

You gasp and sit up with much effort, throwing a thin white sheet off of you to get a look at your right thigh.

At the sound of a shifting chair your head snaps up; Steve is seated by a door, leaning forward towards you.

“You didn’t need that, did you?”