#start of thread;

     “It’s not my fault that you wear an outfit with cutaways on the sides,” she replies before leaning back in.

     Natasha sucks a hickey into Yelena’s side, pulling away with a grin. The pattern she’s going for has led her down from the other woman’s neck, around her breast, across her stomach, and now to her hip. Yelena is a work of art and Nat is grateful for her patience. After all, the blonde has been squirming for the better part of an hour under her attentions now — the hand slowly stroking up the insides of her thighs isn’t helping — but the design is almost done. 

     The redhead bites hard at the junction of the hip and leg, pulling back to see the bruise bloom, and then leaves two more across the top of the thigh, before settling her face in where her fingers had been before. The painful suction makes Yelena arch up, and as soon as the spot is sucked to a purplish-red, Natasha dives in to lick and engulf her lower lips. 

     They’ve failed, they tell him. They’ll try again. The next serum will work. It might be painful, just like this time, but it might also be their only hope. They need a symbol. They need someone to turn the tide...

     He’s tuned them out, partially. For the first time in his life, he can take complete lungfuls of air in. He can sit straight without his back aching. He can see clearly, far more than he’s ever been able to, for as long as he remembers. His hearing is still wonky, sure, and he’s probably still weak and malnourished, but he feels like he just won the lottery... or at least counteracted whatever shit genetic lottery he’d managed to get in the first place.

     They shuttle him off, allow him to return to his rooms with a promise that they’ll be in touch and see if they can make any improvements, but for now he can use his time as he pleases. He won’t be required to be back in the training circuit until the day after tomorrow, he’s earned that much.

     But when he returns to his room, everything has a faint unearthly glow, and the whole wall seems to shudder, going glassy, and then a man is falling through it. Steve moves to catch him instinctively.

     He’s just gotten out of class, and he knows he’s running late for a raid that his guild is planning, so he runs back towards his apartment. He dodges through the crowd quickly, even though he’s honestly kind of tired and not in the mood to game tonight for a change, because he doesn’t want to let his friends down. Even in little things like this, he tries to be dependable. 

     Therefore, he’s not really looking too closely at where he’s going, and when he turns the corner, he doesn’t manage to skid to a halt before crashing into someone. He tumbles, scraping up his hands in order to keep his backpack and therefore his laptop from hitting the pavement, and then looks up. 

meme: morning after starters

     Natasha looks fondly at the woman. She’d started pulling herself away from the bed, and hadn’t meant to wake Delanie, but it was routine that she woke up at this time, got her work done, worked out... but she supposed she could make an exception today. Del’s sleep-mussed hair and the pout on her face were simply too good to resist. She curled herself back in behind the other woman, pulling her close. 

     Clint has always been a sucker for touch. Not enough of it early on means that he craves every brush of hands, every hug, every gentle caress. He’s occasionally been in horrible relationships purely to sate that craving, but this... god, this is beyond his wildest imaginings. The hands in his hair make him drop his head back gracelessly, soft, half-lidded gaze directed at Steve. Still, this thing between them is new, a little unsure, and he can’t help but be curious why Steve is doing this. Heaven knows he’s the poster boy for altruism, but Clint doesn’t want the man to do anything for him if he’s not getting something out of it too.

     “Feels nice,” he murmurs. “What brought this on?”

     “Hair looked a little too neat, so...”

     Clint laughs, because that statement should definitely go the other way. His hair just naturally ends up like this, a spiky half-mess that still manages to look okay, while Steve’s perfect locks match his perfect face, and all of the sudden all the archer wants to do is kiss him senseless.

     Well, what’s stopping you, Barton? 

   Clint cocked his head to one side, watching the man across the park. His hand gestures were animated, irritated, and the archer made a beeline over because he could understand sign language frustration as well as the next deaf person. The person next to him was looking more and more withdrawn, and it didn’t bode well, especially when the guy the gestures were directed towards wasn’t budging.

     “He’s telling you to buzz off, kid,” he said to the teen who had clearly been harassing the two people, hoping that he wasn’t going to make things worse with this. “Get lost or I’ll kick your ass.” 

     “What the hell is it to you?” The teen spat, grabbing a rock and chucking it at Clint. He caught it of course, the the kid hissed and retreated. The other man, too, fed up with being annoyed when he’d been trying to relax at a park, headed the other direction without so much as a word of thanks. Clint sighed.