Better safe than close. A phrase Alleria repeated to herself so many times over their lost years that it has become some strange combination of vow and hymn.

"It's Karen," she says hopelessly in the middle of his doorway like he wouldn't know her a thousand other ways. The whiff of perfume on her, Viktor & Rolf Flowerbomb trapped underneath a thick smear of booze, or the sound of her shoes on the hard tile floor. She's drunk already; her breathing is faint and thready. Her face is too hot.

Luke's intentions toward his nephew have been misinterpreted, and maybe this is a mercy.

Author summary from thingswithwings:
T'Challa – King T'Challa of Wakanda, the Black Panther, Guy Who Dresses Up Like a Cat to Fight Crime or Possibly for Other Reasons, Who the Fuck Knows – T'Challa corners Sam during one of their visits to check in on Bucky and says, in a mild voice that should not sound as threatening as it does, "We need to talk."

"We do, huh," Sam says, looking him up and down. He's just a king and a superhero and a genius inventor and possibly the riche…

Beginning a life in Montreal.

What is love, listeners? What is it about the nature of love that makes the threat of harm so integral to its existence? If we were to pry open the human heart from its delicate cage and carefully carve into it with a scalpel, we would find no evidence of love.

Commanding that a thing be done is a damn sight different from witnessing it in person. Sometimes one needs to be reminded of this.

Carefully taking a pillow and placing it in his lap, Ted mumbles, “Think I outta be getting home, sleep this off.”

“Can’t do that either,” Higgins says, grimacing sympathetically. “You’ll have to, ah, burn it out.”

(In which Ted gets dosed with sex pollen, and Trent and Rebecca work together to help him through it.)

Cycles of love and loss and understanding.

None of this makes any sense, really. Jim's barely laid a hand on her, if he doesn't count the occasional hand-up over difficult terrain, or accidental (mostly accidental) groping when an explosion throws his bridge crew around, and Jim doesn't count that, because if he counted that he'd be at third base with Keenser by now.