To Topple A Giant - Masterlist

To Topple A Giant - Masterlist

Summary: When the opportunity arises to finally take down your own family after years of gaining their trust, you reach for it. And so does Steve, the man who represents a symbol of everything you hate. 

Pairing(s): Steve Rogers x (F) Reader || Avengers x Reader

Trope: Friends to Enemies to Lovers || Mob Fanfic

Total Word Count: 120,000 +

Based on the Song: The Archer by Taylor Swift 🏹 

This series is completed. 

Warnings: This story contains mature themes and discussions such as extreme canon violence, strong language, emotional angst, mentions of Infinity War/Endgame deaths and recoveries, sexual situations, and serious emotional/physical abuse. Please take these warnings seriously. Although roughly based on real people, any original character resemblance is coincidental. This is purely fanfiction.

Author’s Note: This is my second fully completed Marvel series. It’s an understatement to say I’m really proud of this one. I poured my heart and soul into trying to fix Steve’s Endgame arc, and I think I do him some justice. Thank you for following this story. Enjoy. 

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Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five 🌹

Chapter Six 🌹

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Finale

🌹 indicates smut

~

Can’t Pretend - Richie Tozier

word count: 13,840 warnings: swearing, sexual themes summary: richie and (y/n) share a dirty little secret, and it’s starting to get in the way of her relationship.  but it shouldn’t if it was just a fling, right? based on this song (a/n): about to hit 5.4k so I thought I’d celebrate by posting this ol’ thing :) I really like it I hope y'all do too :3

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Loki...

where you decide to stay

𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐑𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐱 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

Summary: It’s become a routine for you and the Captain to do this; go out, get drinks, and hookup when you’re on assignment together. You didn’t fall into bed with each other because you fell in love; you feel into bed with each other because Wilson doesn’t seem interested, Rogers holds his relationship with Romanoff too sacred for him to corrupt with sex, and you’re the only other option. You’re there. You’re easy. And yet…

Author's Note: This fic is for my 300 followers challenge, inspired by the song "All I've Ever Known" from the musical Hadestown. Title is from "That Could Be Enough" from Hamilton, because I'm a theatre kid and this is a theatre challenge. This fic is kinda different from anything I've ever written and it absolutely could not have happened without the help of @divine-mistake, who encouraged me every step of the way. Thank you for believing in me, Taylor.

Warning(s): angst with a happy ending, implied smut, mention of sex trafficking (in passing), light description of injury, mutual pining, submitting to the mortifying ordeal of being seen

Word Count: 3,571

( masterlist / ao3 )

You wake up in a cocoon of warmth. Not only are you nestled under five blankets, a quilt, and a heavy-duty comforter, you’ve also got a big muscular arm keeping you close to a big muscular chest. It’s a moment you wish you could stay in forever; quit your life of international vigilantism and just live in a breathless moment between sleep and waking.

You shake the thought from your mind, pushing yourself from the cocoon and into the cold winter morning of the St. Petersburg safe house. You begin to gather various clothing items and weapons from around the room. Steve's still asleep, the peaceful lull of his breathing drawing your heart back to bed like the tide. You consider joining him again.

You sigh, shaking your head.

Nothing gold can stay.

You walk to the front door and step outside.

It’s snowing in St. Petersburg. The wind whips at your face as you sneak down the alley away from Steve and the safehouse. You tuck your chin in towards your chest and flip the lapels of your coat up around your face.

This is the part that you’re used to: the leaving.

You’d done a lot of that in your life. You’d been essentially alone, after becoming a fugitive at fifteen. You’d hacked the CIA. That was until a year ago, when Captain America had tracked you down and asked if you’d be willing to help him win a fight. He was taking on half of the Avengers, and all the scientists and engineers were on the other team. You agreed. You improved some of their tech, got in trouble with the UN, and now you go on secret missions all over the world saving lives and falling into bed with Captain America.

Damn Rogers, with his bright blue eyes that can see a whole world beyond the one you’re in. He’s crazy. He makes you feel alive.

You feel a tug in your chest, knowing how long it will be until you see him again.

You bury it somewhere deep in the snow under your feet.

╳ ╳ ╳

The first time Steve sees you, the world stops short.

You’re at that empty airport in Germany, preparing to fight. He’d met you in the same way he’d met Lang, just a quick introduction before things become serious.

The whole group of you walk towards the edge of the parking lot, out into the light of day.

Steve looks down the line at his teammates, with their stoic and fierce expressions, and then there was you; stood at the end of the line, looking terrified.

Steve’s not one for love at first sight. He judges people on the content of their character, and could never love someone without really knowing them.

But he watches you, all that fear on your face rippling like he’d touched the surface of water and then settling and smoothing out into something more determined, and he thought “that’s the point”.

Then he turned forward and went to battle.

╳ ╳ ╳

You stumble through the door of the St.Petersburg safehouse around midnight, tipsy and in the middle of smudging your lipstick all over Steve’s face. You’re only a few steps in the doorway before you’re shedding clothes. You’re lucky the place is just a studio apartment. Otherwise, you wouldn’t make it to the bed.

It’s become a routine for you and the Captain to do this; go out, get drinks, and hookup when you’re on assignment together. You didn’t fall into bed with each other because you fell in love; you feel into bed with each other because Wilson doesn’t seem interested, Rogers holds his relationship with Romanoff too sacred for him to corrupt with sex, and you’re the only other option. You’re there. You’re easy.

And yet…

Steve Rogers touches you like you’re precious. He brings you to your climax and then clings to you like you’re the answer he’s been searching for. He traces gentle patterns into your bare hip in the aftermath, while your mind is occupied with exit strategies.

“You gonna be here when I wake up?” he whispers when he thinks you’re asleep.

No, you say to yourself. You live to disappoint.

╳ ╳ ╳

None of you take much with you, but Steve has a backpack. He calls it a “knapsack” and you laugh at him a little in your head every time. From what you’ve observed, it contains a few changes of clothes, a little notebook, a compass, a case full of pencils, and a sketchbook. You see him sketching in it all the time, although you never quite catch what he’s drawing.

But you wonder. And he leaves his backpack on the floor when he takes you to bed.

You wake up in the middle of the night. You’d had a bad dream, not a nightmare. (It’s not a nightmare if it doesn’t wake up your bedmate).

The backpack is sitting on the floor across the room, staring at you.

Staying quiet enough not to wake Captain America’s enhanced hearing is a challenge, especially when you’re rifling through his bag. But you feel the familiar leather of the sketchbook and you grab on for dear life, running on tiptoe over to the hotel room bathroom. You sit on the toilet seat and open up the book.

Steve is remarkably good. Some of the more basic sketches are familiar faces; Tony Stark and Clint Barton towards the start, Romanoff and Wilson, Wanda Maximoff, the guy with the metal arm you haven’t seen since Germany (Bucky; Steve’s best friend, your mind supplies). There are also some more cartoonish works, like one of a monkey in the Captain America suit balancing on a thin wire labelled “principles”, or a man sleeping on a bed made of icicles. There are a couple sketches of you; one of your back that must’ve been done one night while you were asleep, or your silhouette during some kind of battle that must’ve been done from memory.

Judging how often you saw Steve drawing you assumed he’d have to have sketched you at some point. It’s not surprising; you’re there. You linger on the silhouette for a moment before flipping the page.

The following page makes you gasp.

It’s you again, but unlike any of the others. In this one you’re smiling; head tilted over the one side, lips pursed from the effort of keeping in a full on laugh. Your expression looks fond. Your eyes twinkle.

You stand quickly, looking into the bathroom mirror. You smile. The smile makes you frown.

You have all the same features as the woman from the sketch; same hair and eyes and nose. But you can’t recreate that twinkle, or the fondness. It’s not an expression you can bring out of yourself, you realize. It’s an expression only he can.

You quickly shut the bathroom light, return the sketchbook to Steve’s backpack, and crawl back in bed.

╳ ╳ ╳

Steve’s leaning up against the wall of an alley somewhere, waiting for Sam to bring food back to the car. He can’t really show his face anywhere anymore, and a cowardly part of him is glad for that. He doesn’t think he can face the world as the guy who destroyed their protectors.

You stayed back to wait with him, though, and for that, he’s grateful. You don’t ask much of him, just stand there kicking rocks in your beat-up combat boots.

“Have I ever thanked you, for everything?”

Steve watches you ponder the laces of your boots. He thinks you’re trying to decide if he’s serious. He thinks he can tell what you’re feeling, sometimes, just by looking at you.

“I didn’t do anything, Rogers.”

“You decided to join my team,” he says. “You knew the UN was against us - that Tony was against us - and you still signed on. That’s pretty brave.”

You scoff, eyes trained on the pebbles you’re kicking at. Steve wishes you’d look at him.

“I’m serious.”

Your eyes flick up to his face and for one paralyzing moment, you’re looking straight at him.

“When you recruited me, you said that the battle might not end easily, or soon. You said this could turn into the fight of my life.”

There’s this awful expression on your face that Steve recognizes from his military days. It’s the face of a commanding officer writing to the families of a soldier who was killed in action.

“I wasn’t noble,” you say to his forehead. “I was hungry.”

╳ ╳ ╳

It’d be wrong to tell you you’re beautiful right then, but he thinks it.

╳ ╳ ╳

There’s dirt all over your body, seeping into your pores and your lungs and somehow, your heart. It’s suffocating, the unsettled air around the warehouse. You’re on your back in the middle of the ground. Your side burns, and without any examination you’re pretty sure it’s a knife wound. Fucking sex traffickers.

“Everyone alright?” You hear his voice from the comms in your ears. “Romanoff?”

“I’m alright and on my way to the jet.”

“Good. Wilson?”

“I got eyes on Romanoff, following her out.”

“Alright. Y/l/n?”

You try to sit up and tell Steve you’re alright at the same time, but all that comes out is a cry of pain at the gash across your ribs.

“Y/l/n?!” He yells into the comms.

You suck a breath through your teeth, biting back another scream and more tears. Your side burns, so much so that disembowelment seems like a better option than struggling your way back to the jet. Better to just throw the whole person away and start over.

Steve is calling for you over the comms, but it takes a second for your hearing to get back online.

“Y/l/n?!! Where are you? Y/n?!!”

“I’m here, Cap. It’s gonna - uh shit - take me a sec to get to you guys.”

“Don’t even think about it, I’ll come to you.”

You don’t know how long you’re sitting there, willing yourself to stand up but unable to move again without whimpering. You might’ve blacked out for a second. You do know the familiar clomp of Captain America’s boots, rushing over to your position on the warehouse floor.

There’s a moment where he just stands there, stunned and frankly quite useless, looking you over. He tilts his head at you, arms held out on either side, eyes raking over your weakened frame.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he says at last.

You chuckle through gritted teeth, and almost black out from the pain it sends to your ribs.

“I don’t really think that’s an option, Cap.”

He nods, looking a bit sheepish. As gently as he can manage, he eases you into his arms, taking extra care around your bloody rib cage. The whole affair takes about five minutes, but you manage to find a position in his arms.

The exhaustion overtakes you immediately. You know you need to stay awake, but your eyelids have a different agenda. They close every other second, heavy and getting increasingly hard to fight.

“Y/n, you still with me?” Steve asks, panic rising in his tone.

“Unfortunately,” you say, forcing your eyelids open just in time to catch Steve’s expression.

Damn him, he smiles at that. And damn you, you bare your bloody teeth and smile back.

╳ ╳ ╳

The problem with being international fugitives is that there’s really no safe place to go for medical care. You’re bleeding from your side, fading in and out of consciousness, and Steve’s just about done hearing why he can’t take you to a hospital.

“Steve,” Sam says, adopting his “I work at the VA” tone that Steve loathes. “Your face is plastered on every news channel in the world. The second you walk into a hospital, you’re gonna come out in handcuffs.”

“I can break handcuffs,” Steve reminds him.

Sam gives him a look.

“Super handcuffs.”

He stares Steve down for a moment, and maybe in another life where Steve isn’t as stubborn and hasn’t already disassembled Earth’s Mightiest Heroes for the sake of not being so alone, it’d work.

“Look, boys, we need to get her somewhere,” Natasha reminds them.

Right. They’re still standing outside a warehouse. You’re still bleeding out in Steve’s arms.

“There’s a safehouse we can go to in Budapest, I have a hospital grade first-aid kit there. Okay?”

Steve looks down at you, lying limp in his arms.

“Okay.”

╳ ╳ ╳

“He likes you, you know,” Sam Wilson says to you from the driver’s seat of the car, during a rare moment when it’s just the two of you.

“Who, Rogers?” you ask. “He likes you too, Wilson.”

Sam scoffs.

“You know damn well that’s not what I meant.”

He has you there.

Neither of you says a word the rest of the journey.

╳ ╳ ╳

Natasha sits next to Steve in the back of the quinjet on the way to Budapest.

“You’re in love with her,” she says. It’s not a question.

“Really, Romanoff?” Steve tries for venom, but he’s never been good at fighting, not for himself. He’s just tired.

She arches a brow at him.

“Are you denying it?”

Steve stares at his hands.

╳ ╳ ╳

Natasha knows a nurse who’s able to confirm you don’t have internal bleeding, stitch up the gash across your ribs, and be handsomely compensated for her discretion. You’re human and you almost bled to death, so it’s gonna take at least a few weeks to recover. Romanoff and Wilson take off on new assignments within the first couple days. Your Captain insists on staying for the duration of your recovery.

“Can I get you anything?”

He’s leaned against the doorpost of the only bedroom in the place - the bed’s a queen but he’s been taking the couch because he is irrevocably that guy - giving you his best impression of a concerned mother.

You smile a little at that. His brow furrows.

“What?”

“You make a good nurse,” you tell him.

“Yeah?” He walks over and sits himself down next to you on the bed.

“My mom was a nurse, and I spent a lot of time with ‘em. I used to get sick a lot, back in the day.”

“Well, I think you’d make your mother proud,” you say.

You meant them as a joke, but the words fall from your lips too softly.

There’s something painfully close about Steve right now. You’ve been naked in front of him in bed before, but you’ve never felt so exposed as you do at this moment, telling him his mom would be proud of him.

Steve seems to pick up on it is as well. He drops his gaze to his hands.

“You almost died,” he all but whispers.

You swallow.

“I did.”

He nods. His eyebrows knit together in that way they do when he’s preparing for a fight.

“Natasha thinks I’m in love with you -”

Natasha’s always right about people, you think.

“ - but I think you already knew that.”

Maybe Steve’s right about people too.

“Yeah,” you breathe. “I know.”

Your mind is blank. He’s looking at you, looking for a sign in you, the way he’d done in a thousand moments before this one, and you have no words.

“Right,” he coughs, nodding to himself. “Well, I’ll, ah, go then.”

He moves to stand from the bed, legs sliding across the bedding, feet hovering over the floor. You grab his hand.

“Damnit, Steve,” you say, and then you pull his face down towards yours and kiss him.

You kiss him, and it feels like climbing a tree as a child. It feels like sunlight on your face. It feels like all those things you never had; safety and warmth and arms that reach for you only to offer comfort.

Steve brings his arms up around you, and he feels like he’s holding the whole world. He has always been Atlas with the world on his shoulders. But now he’s discovering that when the world shifts from his shoulders to his arms and takes your shape, its weight is bearable. Its weight is glorious.

The kissing goes on for a while, slow and soft and achingly tender in that way he does things. You don’t realize you’re crying until Steve’s elated smile falls from his face.

“This isn’t easy for me,” you say. A confession, or maybe an apology.

“This,” you sigh, “emotions… thing.”

“What can I do to make this easier on you?” Steve whispers to you.

Your face heats. You bury your gaze in the smooth muscle of his chest.

You want to make a joke, something to diffuse the tension and remove that painfully earnest expression from his face. But you’ve got the human embodiment of afternoon sunlight and cookies fresh from the oven engulfing you in his protective embrace. But you just almost died, and you’re tired of begging him not to love you. But the best man in the world loves you despite how hard you tried to get him not to. The least you can give him is the truth.

“Say that you’ll hold me forever,” you say instead, and it sounds like a prayer as it leaves your lips. “Say that nothing’s gonna change. Say we’ll stay together and it’ll always be like this.”

Steve takes a gentle finger to your chin, lifting it so you’re looking directly into those baby blue eyes. His smile is teasing, but earnest and gentle.

You can see it in his eyes, a whole future for the both of you sketching itself out in his head. A better world that no one else can see.

“I’m gonna hold you forever. Nothing will ever change for us. As long as we stay together, it will always be like this.”

And damn, you, you believe him. Despite knowing that he couldn’t possibly make that promise, you believe him. You want to live in a world where you look like the woman from his sketches, and he wants to construct it. He looks at you like you’re the whole world wrapped up in his arms, and you believe him.

When you wake up the next morning, Steve’s asleep, an armed looped over your waist. You smile, pull him closer, and drift off to sleep again.

The wonderful people that own my heart❤️

Sleeping Habits - Richie Tozier

word count: 4860 warnings: swearing, some sexual innuendos, mentions of trauma summary: after the Pennywise incident of ‘89, (y/n) finds herself unable to sleep.  unless it’s in the arms of her best friend, richie tozier.  but of course feelings have to get in the way and make casual cuddling a bit difficult as they get older.

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