Kaveh Akbar, From "Wild Pear Tree"

Guard Dog vol.I

jason todd x fem!reader

aka don’t fuck with jason’s girlfriend

4 in 1 blurbs

vol. II

warnings: mildly creepy guys, standard protective bf methods

Jason’s good at shutting people up very quickly. You’d almost call it a talent.

He shuts you up with a kiss when you get stuck in a rant, or with a hug to calm your worried rambles.

And when you’re in an incorrigibly teasing mood, he’ll throw you over his shoulder and carry you back to your bedroom to really shut you up.

With other people though, he has…different methods.

You sit atop your kitchen counter, trading lazy kisses in between giggles with your boyfriend. He stands in front of you, hands massaging your thighs as he leans in for another. You happily oblige.

You break off the exchange to lay a series of sweet kisses on that spot under his jaw.

His head tilts back, letting out a groan so low you nearly miss it. “Sweetheart…” he warns.

“Sorry…” you resign with a sheepish smile.

A knock at the door bursts you out of your shared reverie. You press a kiss to his knuckles and hop down to start setting the table.

Jason gets the door, greeting the pizza guy with a nod as you shuffle around the kitchen. The delivery guy hands him a receipt, asking for a signature.

Jason uses the door as a surface to sign, giving the delivery guy an apt view into your apartment, where he sees you getting out plates in the kitchen. More noticeably, he sees you in your boyfriend's shirt, which rides up just a little bit when you stand up on your toes to reach the top cabinet. The lift of the shirt exposes the bottom of your underwear, though it falls back into place again just as quickly.

Now, lucky for this guy, Jason’s facing the door and does not see him checking you out in your own home. Unlucky for this guy, he has wildly misread the vibe of your relationship. Or at least your boyfriend.

“Man, how do you get anything done around here?” He jests.

Jason looks up at him, and the pizza man’s eyes tear away from your legs to meet his hard gaze. It does not take him long to realize his mistake.

“Try again.” Jason behests, arms crossed in front of him.

The pizza boy’s eyes go wide and he shakes his head, stuttering. “I—uh, I said have a good night.”

“Mhm.” He grumbles.

The pizza guy hands Jason the box with shaky hands and scuttles back down the hallway.

Thankfully, you didn’t seem to notice the exchange, but even so, your boyfriend still glowers down the hallway after him.

“Jay?”

His attention snaps back to you, demeanor changing instantly. “Yeah, baby?”

You’re sitting in your usual spot at the table, his chair empty and waiting just around the corner from you.

“Come sit.” You say, with eyes that might as well be hearts.

He gives a reassuring nod and kicks the door shut behind him.

You and Jason are sitting on the floor in his old room at the manor, your legs thrown over his. You lean up against his bed, asking him about posters on the walls and trinkets on the shelves.

His knee is propped up and your arm dangles across it, his hand in yours. He plays with your fingers and periodically leans forward to leave a kiss on them.

You’d just woken up less than an hour ago after spending the night post-gala, and it’s a peaceful, if not unusually quiet morning.

Dick shouts your name from another room, audibly booking it towards you. Yeah. That’s more like what Jason remembers.

He grumbles some annoyances, dropping his head against your intertwined hands.

Dick bursts into the room, clearly incredibly excited.

“What’s up, Dick?” You ask, calm as ever. Jason lets an unseen smile creep up, head still down.

Dick’s practically jumping up and down, “You gotta see the shit that Tim just found in the cave!” His face drops as he directs his gaze to Jason, “You’re not invited.”

“Thank God.”

Dick ignores him and grabs your wrist, yanking you up from the floor. This is one place where he differs from Jason—he’s not always quite so aware of his own strength.

His grip doesn’t hurt really, but it’s firm enough that you imagine there’ll be bruise marks there later.

“Hey.” Jason calls out, nodding his head to where Dick is holding your arm. “Ease up.”

Dick follows his gaze and immediately loosens his hold, apologizing to you before pulling you along once again (this time much more gentle).

You grin at Jason as he tugs you out the door, him returning it with an endeared smile as he watches you go.

Fuck he loves you.

Jason had a decent break from his night job for once, and was happy to let you drag him out to a bar for a little date. You’d been linked at the hip for most of the night, his hands maintaining their ever present home on your waist with yours rested on his thighs as you told him about your hectic day.

He’d usually prefer to stay in bed with you for as long as possible when he gets time off, but you’d looked so excited asking him to go out with you—he never stood a chance.

You look up into the mirror as you wash your hands, a strand of hair falling into your face as you do. You push it back behind your ear and smile to yourself, recalling the several times Jason had wordlessly done the same throughout the night as you rambled.

You make your way back to the bar, smile immediate on your face when you see your boyfriend. It gets replaced rather quickly though, when a man slides in front of you, cutting off your view of him.

“Hey there.”

You have to take a step back because of how close he decided to stand to you. He looks sober (enough) but wildly overconfident in whatevers about to happen.

"Let me buy you a drink, pretty thing."

Jason calls you pretty thing sometimes. It makes the blood rush to your cheeks and an inescapable smile creep up on your lips. When this guy says it, it makes you literally frown.

"Oh no, I'm okay, my—"

"You seem like a dirty martini kinda girl." He expertly ignores you, clearly trying and failing to make some kind of innuendo there.

Jason's sitting back against the bar, watching the interaction carefully. You still can’t see him, but he’s close and you can rest comfortable knowing he’s looking out for you.

With that reassurance, you don’t play this out quite as carefully as you would if you were alone.

"Look, I don't want a drink from you, thanks."

Apparently that was the wrong thing to say to him because his face contorts quickly to mock-disgust that you figure is really just embarrassment.

“Hey, don’t be a bitch just ‘cause—”

You try to sidestep around him, thoroughly done with this interaction, but he grabs your upper arm harshly, pulling you to an abrupt stop.

Jason stands up real quick, yanking the guy backwards by his collar before you can even process what's happening.

Now, you know that Jason is an objectively intimidating guy. There's not many people that will come face to face with that absolute unit of a man and still decide to keep on trying him. However, you tend to forget that when you're so used to your gentle giant that only ever speaks to you kindly and touches you softly.

But his intimidating status becomes very apparent when the guy spins around, looks up at Jason, and immediately takes four steps back. He actually almost bumps into you in the process, not doing anything to tame Jason’s acute distaste for this man.

"Listen to me—back the fuck off before you get hurt."

“She—”

“I don’t give a fuck. Leave.”

The guy hesitates.

“Now.” Jason adjusts his posture to stand at his staggering full height, clearly with no qualms about putting him back in his place.

That does it for him, the man stumbllng away with half-committed mumbles of “whatever” or “something something lame anyway.”

Jason watches him until he walks out the door, before turning back to you.

He delicately takes your upper arm in his hand, pulling your sleeve up to search for bruising. But as harshly as he had grabbed you, it didn’t have the time to cause a bruise before Jason intervened.

“What’d he say to you?” Jason asks, brow furrowed as he inspects your arm.

“Nothing very interesting.” He looks at you mildly.

You smile and comb his hair back from his forehead, “Don’t worry about him. I’m good.”

He lets your arm go, and exchanges it for holding the back of your head, planting a kiss on your forehead.

You take his other hand and guide him back to your seats.

“Besides,” You look over his shoulder and let out a little shocked gasp. “Guess who just walked in.”

He gives you a questioning look before his face slacks, eyes widening in realization.

“No…” And you smile so brightly it almost makes up for what's coming his way.

You redirect your smile over his shoulder and give a wave to the door. Jason swigs down the rest of his drink, hand finding your waist once again.

“Jaybird!”

Jason’s still exhausted from patrol last night but he’d insisted on going with you to the bar to meet your friends. You’d tried to convince him that it was okay to stay in and rest tonight, you’d be fine. But it was a losing battle.

You suspect it has something to do with him not liking when you go out in Gotham at night, especially when you’re drinking.

So he hangs out in the background of the buzz, with you sat in front of him, in between his legs.

You’re talking it up with Roy, who’s been making jokes about how Jason’s “moody ass” tricked you, “the ray of sunshine” into this relationship somehow.

You laugh, taking a sip of your drink. “Right, ‘cause you and Kori were in love at first sight.”

"Oh, fuck off." Roy jeers.

He doesn't say it with the cadence of a joke, but it is.

You know he's joking, he knows he's joking.

Jason, who very well may have been tuned out of the conversation up to that point, does not seem to know he's joking—or he doesn't care.

You don't need to look behind you to know that your boyfriend is in defensive mode, though the look of regret mixed with amusement on Roy's face gives a solid hint.

You hold your hand out to block Jason his path as he moves forward. He lets you stop him, though you're certain he could get past you without so much as blinking, no problem.

"Right. My bad, forgot your guard dog was here. Don't fuck off." Roy backtracks, hands up in front of him.

Jason just rolls his eyes, slouching back down. You reach behind you for his hand, giving it two squeezes. You know he’s tired, so much so that he almost punched his best friend for making a typical joke.

“Five more minutes, okay?” You say softly over your shoulder.

He nods at you blearily, and ducks his head down to rest on your back. You adjust your posture a little bit to make it more comfortable for him and continue on talking, his hand still in yours.

If he hadn’t fallen asleep so quickly, five minutes would’ve been five minutes, but instead it became something more like fifty.

He goes through patches where sleep isn’t always so welcoming, a phase he’s been in for the past couple of weeks. You’d been waking up to find the bed half empty, your boyfriend resigned to doing research on cases in an attempt to at least be productive while he’s awake.

You can’t protect him in the same ways that he protects you—you’re not a fighter or necessarily “intimidating.” But you can protect him like this, in these little ways. Letting him nap on you, making him close the case files and rest with you, holding his hand throughout the night so that when he inevitably has nightmares, he knows immediately that you’re still with him. That he’s safe.

So if he can get some much needed sleep while only costing you a stiff back tomorrow, you’ll happily take that deal as many times as he needs.

vol. II

cemeteries aren’t creepy they’re actually devoted to memory and rest and love and humanity

Did I ever tell you, I’ve got a thing for brunettes?

FLYNN RIDER - STEVE HARRINGTON

and yet again THE CRANE WIVES making music to perfectly fit the books that destroy me

This Is How You Lose The Time War, Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone // “Black Hole Fantasy”, The Crane Wives

reading My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry and there is no other way to describe that book than healing (and maybe crushing) but mostly healing

dear fredrik blackman please please never stop writing

Comic Bruce

you have invited strangers into your home, helen pevensie, mother of four.

without the blurred sight of joy and relief, it has become impossible to ignore. all the love inside you cannot keep you from seeing the truth. your children are strangers to you. the country has seen them grow taller, your youngest daughter’s hair much longer than you would have it all years past. their hands have more strength in them, their voices ring with an odd lilt and their eyes—it has become hard to look at them straight on, hasn’t it? your children have changed, helen, and as much as you knew they would grow a little in the time away from you, your children have become strangers.

your youngest sings songs you do not know in a language that makes your chest twist in odd ways. you watch her dance in floating steps, bare feet barely touching the dewy grass. when you try and make her wear her sister’s old shoes—growing out of her own faster than you think she ought to—, she looks at you as though you are the child instead of her. her fingers brush leaves with tenderness, and you swear your daughter’s gentle hum makes the drooping plant stand taller than before. you follow her eager leaps to her siblings, her enthusiasm the only thing you still recognise from before the country. yet, she laughs strangely, no longer the giggling girl she used to be but free in a way you have never seen. her smile can drop so fast now, her now-old eyes can turn distant and glassy, and her tears, now rarer, are always silent. it scares you to wonder what robbed her of the heaving sobs a child ought to make use of in the face of upset.

your other daughter—older than your youngest yet still at an age that she cannot be anything but a child—smiles with all the knowledge in the world sitting in the corner of her mouth. her voice is even, without all traces of the desperate importance her peers carry still, that she used to fill her siblings’ ears with at all hours of the day. she folds her hands in her lap with patience and soothes the ache of war in your mind before you even realise she has started speaking. you watch her curl her hair with careful, steady fingers and a straight back, her words a melody as she tells your eldest which move to make without so much a glance at the board off to her right. she reads still, and what a relief you find this sliver of normalcy, even if she’s started taking notes in a shorthand you couldn’t even think to decipher. even if you feel her slipping away, now more like one of the young, confident women in town than a child desperately wishing for a mother’s approval.

your younger son reads plenty as well these days, and it fills you with pride. he is quiet now, sitting still when you find him bent over a book in the armchair of his father. he looks at you with eyes too knowing for a petulant child on the cusp of puberty, and no longer beats his fists against the furniture when one of his siblings dares approach him. he has settled, you realise one evening when you walk into the living room and find him writing in a looping script you don’t recognise, so different from the scratched signature he carved into the doors of your pantry barely a year ago. he speaks sense to your youngest and eldest, respects their contributions without jest. you watch your two middle children pass a book back and forth, each a pen in hand and sheets of paper bridging the gap between them, his face opening up with a smile rather than a scowl. it freezes you mid-step to find such simple joy in him. remember when you sent them away, helen, and how long it had been since he allowed you to see a smile then?

your eldest doesn’t sleep anymore. none of your children care much for bedtimes these days, but at least sleep still finds them. it’s not restful, you know it from the startled yelps that fill the house each night, but they sleep. your eldest makes sure of it. you have not slept through a night since the war began, so it’s easy to discover the way he wanders the halls like a ghost, silent and persistent in a duty he carries with pride. each door is opened, your children soothed before you can even think to make your own way to their beds. his voice sounds deeper than it used to, deeper still than you think possible for a child his age and size. then again, you are never sure if the notches on his door frame are an accurate way to measure whatever it is that makes you feel like your eldest has grown beyond your reach. you watch him open doors, soothe your children, spend his nights in the kitchen, his hands wrapped around a cup of tea with a weariness not even the war should bring to him, not after all the effort you put into keeping him safe.

your children mostly talk to each other now, in a whispered privacy you cannot hope to be a part of. their arms no longer fit around your waist. your daughters are wilder—even your older one, as she carries herself like royalty, has grown teeth too sharp for polite society— and they no longer lean into your hands. your sons are broad-shouldered even before their shirts start being too small again, filling up space you never thought was up for taking. your eldest doesn’t sleep, your middle children take notes when politicians speak on the wireless and shake their heads as though they know better, and your youngest sings for hours in your garden.

who are your children now, helen pevensie, and who pried their childhood out of your shaking hands?

steve harrington likes to kiss you. on the forehead, on your nose, on your cheek. he does it absentmindedly when you’re lying against his chest at night , lips on your hairline while he’s thinking about what to have for breakfast tomorrow; purposefully when he’s driving and he brings your hand to his mouth to fix your knuckles with affection. he likes how you smile when he does it: sometimes wide and vibrant, with the corners of your eyes crinkling, laugh bright and blooming past your teeth; other times soft and bashful, timid and gentle, like a petal of silk , as if you’re still shy of his touch. there’s an intimacy that simply speaking his mind doesn’t give him— but moving his lips tenderly between the wings of your shoulder blades after you’ve stepped out of the shower, against your knee after he’s just tied your shoelaces; at the edge of your wrist when you reach across him to grab something, he can tell you things his words couldn’t. taking your face in his hands and being in awe of how you make his heart squeeze each time, planting himself firmly against your mouth and melting into you, content to stay like this for an eternity.

crystal clear

Steve has been keeping something from you but it's not what you expect | 1.2k, fluff, fem!reader, thank you to ace for encouraging me on this one! one of my fave headcanons is steve needing glasses, so here we are.

"Christ," Steve mutters, pacing around his room. He keeps picking up things and putting them down, running his hands through his hair. "Shit." You sit on his bed, waiting for him to tell you what's wrong.

"Baby," he says, reluctantly, "have you seen my glasses?" He's not looking at you as he says it, so he can't see your eyebrows shoot up.

"I'm sorry, your what?"

"Are your ears clogged or something?" he says lightly. As if he could stop you from asking questions.

"Steve," you say, getting off the bed and walking to where he stands searching his desk. "Your what?" He sighs and finally looks at you, wrinkling his nose.

"Don't be mean," he groans. "My glasses. I'm getting a headache, should put 'em on." He rubs a hand down his face and you can see the tension in his jaw.

"You are impossible," you chide. You brush your fingers over his temple as if you could take whatever pain he's feeling from him. "Let me help look. But you have to tell me what I'm looking for since I've never seen them before." You flick his nose gently. He rolls his eyes at you but smiles and leans down to press a quick kiss to your mouth.

"Brown leather case," he says. "Check the car, maybe? Keys are in my pocket." You dip your fingers into the back of his jeans, palm unnecessarily spread as you maintain eye contact. His cheek twitches and he fights a smirk as you make a show of digging for the keys before pulling them out and twirling them around your thumb.

"Handsy," Steve says. "Eyes on the prize, baby. Get it?"

"You're hilarious, Harrington," you deadpan before heading downstairs to his car. His pain can't be that bad if he's still making horrible puns, but you want to keep it that way. The BMW sits in the drive and you pull open the driver's side door and look around the interior. Scuff marks from your shoes, a soda stain from Dustin that you took the blame for, one of Robin's hair clips. You bend a little to get closer to the mats and that's when you see it: a brown leather case trapped under the passenger seat. You fish it out and pop it open to find a simple pair of silver wire frames, one lens thicker than the other. Steve often tells you that his brains have been so scrambled he could be on a diner menu, but you really didn't know it had affected his vision. Sometimes he gets headaches, sure, but usually he just calls you and you lie in the dark with him, stroking his hair.

"Found 'em!" you call as you go back into the house. "They were under the seat." Steve is leaning against the kitchen counter, clearly having decided you'd be successful.

"Should've known. I've been wearing them when I drive at night." He reaches for the case but you swat his hand away and step into his space. You remove the frames from the case carefully and reach up to perch them on his face. He holds very still, mouth turned up at the corner.

"Oh god," you say once they're on. Your palms rest on his chest. "Christ." Steve looks worried for a second, hands coming to rest on your hips, fingers a little tight over your shirt.

"What? What's wrong?"

"You are unbelievable," you scold, making sure to keep it light and teasing. "It's so unfair how glasses only make you look hotter."

Steve groans, throwing his head back and shaking it a little before laughing. His hands loosen and his thumbs sneak under your hem to rub warm circles on your bare skin.

"You think so?"

"Don't be modest, Steve. You have to know that this whole thing --" you wave your hand over him -- "is just..it's...I'm blushing just looking at you!"

"Okay, okay, I get it," he says. Despite his reputation and his history, Steve takes compliments like a kid taking cold medicine. He pulls one hand off of you to run it through his hair and you have to fight to keep an embarrassing noise in your throat, moving your fingers to his belt loops instead.

"What didn't you tell me about them?" you wonder out loud. You're not mad, you just want to understand.

"Honestly, I forgot," he shrugs, cheeks pink. "I swear. I've only had them a week and I keep losing them."

"Do you need to wear them all the time?"

"Yeah," he mumbles. His free hand comes back to toy with a strand of your hair. "I should. When I'm driving or at work or reading...not that I do much of that. But if I do it without them I'll get a headache." He sighs. "Been knocked around one time too many, I guess."

You frown at the reminder of Steve's pain, of all the things he's suffered through because he's brave and kind and good.

"We should get another pair so you have two, just in case. I'll carry one around." The pretty flush spreads down his cheeks to his neck.

"Really? You'd want to?"

"Course, Steve. Gotta keep that pretty head of yours good and healthy." You poke him on the forehead. The glasses make his eyes impossibly big, and they are warmer than usual, so mesmerizing you don't know how you're going to deal with this every day. He blows a raspberry at your staring before taking the frames off and setting them on the counter.

"Hey, you just said you need to wear those --" He presses one hand into the small of your back to bring you even closer before hovering his lips over yours. You always keep your eyes open as long as you can before Steve kisses you because every second you get to look at him feels special, feels like you have to savor it. But your lids flutter close as he slots his mouth over yours and that sound you tampered down before finally escapes. He smiles when he hears it, nose brushing yours as he makes sure to kiss you thoroughly. Perhaps too thoroughly for his parent's kitchen in the middle of the day, but you'd never complain. He releases you and you're a little dazed as he puts his glasses back on, looking entirely too pleased.

"Do things look different?" you ask before wincing at how stupid it sounds. It's his fault anyway -- your brain is fuzzy from his closeness, even still.

"A little," he replies. His smile is soft, lips pink and pupils blown. He brings his thumb up to brush across your own swollen lower lip. "Helps with this eye." He gestures to the one that's been blackened almost too many times to count.

"Do I look different?" This question is softer, a little more serious. He studies you for a second, tilting your head left then right, pretending to think on it. His gaze travels across your brow and down your cheeks, documenting every hair and freckle and mark as if he didn't already have them memorized.

"Nope," he says finally. "Always been able to see you clearly, baby." You flush to the tips of your ears, your chest a warm mess of fondness and love.

"Still pretty as ever, too," he adds. "Seriously, every day I look at you and think, how is this even allowed?" You wrinkle your nose at him before resting your head on his chest, his arms coming around you. He laughs, just happy to have this moment with you, and you can feel it, his heartbeat strong in your ear. I am so lucky, you think. Steve is thinking the same thing.

tags: @spideyboipete @sunlitide @gloryofroses19 @carpediem1219 @themarvelousbee

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