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chicklette · 6 years

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@frostbitebakery wrecked me with her art. I made the story. The glory belongs to her.

Pt. 1 | Pt. 2

Part III (rated M for all the previous reasons):

When Bucky is twenty-seven, his mother cries a lot. She cries when Bucky gets promoted, when Becca gets pregnant, and when Becca has her bonding ceremony. She cries when George finally sells his half of the shop to his brother, and he makes good on a bonding-night promise to take her to Hawaii. (Even the air smells good there, she tells all their friends when they return.)

Mostly though, she cries because Bucky is always cold, and Bucky is deeply lonely, and Bucky lost his soulmate before he even got him. Bucky lost his soulmate before he ever knew to call another person home.

When Bucky is twenty-eight, he sits on his mother’s sofa with a new life in his hands. Becca is radiant in motherhood, in happiness. She shines like he always hoped she would, though the young years when she was painfully shy around everyone but him, the awkward years when she was coltish and tall, a face full of braces and dimples that rarely showed. Meeting Davy Proctor brought out every beautiful thing in Becca, and even though he desperately wishes he knew what it was like to shine like that, he doesn’t begrudge her even a bit of it.

Gabby smiles up at him, bright blue eyes and rosebud mouth. As six months old, she’s a snuggler more than anything, and has the endearing habit of pushing her hands up your shirt sleeves, and flexing them in time with her suckling. Bucky is utterly gone on her.

“Honey?” Winnie says, and Becca nods. Before Bucky can track what’s going on, his folks, Becca and Davy are all giving him earnest, heartbreaking looks.

“We wanted to talk to you, sweetheart,” Winnie says. “We’re worried.”

“I - you guys, I know.”

“I don’t think you do,” Becca says, and her smile is small, sad. “Buck, it feels like you haven’t smiled in a year.”

Bucky pushes a grin onto his face and even he notices how wrong it feels.

“I’m sorry,” he says, letting the smile fall. “I know, I just….” He stops because what is he supposed to say? He’s just sad.

“Son,” George says. “I know we don’t- can’t - understand. But with everything that’s happened, and everything we know -” He pauses and shrugs. “I just don’t think Steve would want you living this way.”

“I - I know. It’s just hard letting go,” Bucky says.

It’s true.

After his last dream of Steve, Bucky started having nightmares: Dreams where Bucky could have saved Steve, but didn’t.

He knows they don’t make any sense, but he also doesn’t know how to argue against his heart.

Becca’s face is solemn as she hands Bucky a small, white card. “Mr. Coulson gave this to us. He said that you should use it if you need it. He said that - you can be honest with her. She’s been...approved.”

Bucky takes the card and looks at it, before putting it in his back pocket. He doesn’t think he’ll call, but he knows he has to do something. He’s been ghosting through his life for too long now. Hell, he doesn’t know if he ever starting living it to begin with. Steve’s been a part of his life since he can remember.

He looks up at his family: His mother’s eyes are huge and wet, and his father is holding tight to his mother. Davy has his arms around Becca, and then he looks down to see Gabby watching him, eyes full of wonder before she breaks into a grin and coos.

“Alright,” he says, smiling down at his niece that he loves so much. “I’ll try.”

When Bucky is twenty-nine, he takes another leave of absence from work. He tries to resign outright, but his boss refuses, telling him to do what he needs to do, and that his job will be waiting when he returns.

Bucky travels to Europe. He sits in a pub that was rebuilt after the war, in the same corner that Steve sat in, once upon a Christmas eve. He goes to Azzano and hikes the forests surrounding what is now a war monument. When he gets there, he finds that the monument has been built around the rubble of the original building. He climbs a mountain in the Alps and fights his stomach souring when he looks down at the train tracks.

He sleeps in a tiny hotel room in London, on a narrow bed and presses his face to the sheets, the way Peggy did when Steve made love to her.

When he returns to New York, he haunts Brooklyn. He has a drink at a bar, buys a soda at what’s now a 7-11, and leaves a bouquet of flowers on a dead woman’s grave.

It takes a phone call to Coulson, and every ounce of strength he has left, but he visits Peggy Carter. He tells her that his family knew Steve back when. He listens to her stories and he tells her about Steve when he was young, and just what a little punk he was. He tells her that Steve loved her, very much. He thanks her for loving him back.

She dips in and out of lucidity, but when he’s leaving, she reaches out, grabs his wrist.

“Who are you really?” she asks. “Steve didn’t have any old family friends.”

Bucky colors but finds he can't look away.

“Oh,” she says, her brown eyes bright and clear. “Oh, my darling. After all of this time?”

Bucky nods, and can't fight the wetness that clings to his lashes.

Peggy squeezes his hand with what’s left of her frail strength. “He would have loved you.”

He stops trying to hide his tears.

When Bucky is thirty, he starts dating again. He pays for one of the good services, and fills out a questionaire that takes him almost two hours. When it asks how long he had with his soulmate, Bucky lies. Three weeks sounds so much better than “never.”

He’s matched with Darla from Kansas City. She cries twice over dinner, her wounds still too fresh. He’s matched with Michael from California, who is smart and pretty and intense, in ways that Bucky’s just not ready to handle. He’s matched with Jimmy, who is from Brooklyn, too, and they hit it it off just fine.

On their second date, Bucky notices a small tattoo just behind Jimmy’s ear: it’s the Captain America shield. Bucky’s not sure what to think, but when he asks, Jimmy talks about how Cap was the embodiment of everything that Jimmy was raised to believe was good and true and right with the world.

Bucky can’t argue.

Jimmy is kind, and sweet, and funny, but Jimmy is also fun. Bucky wasn’t expecting that.

They go ice skating in Central Park, and see bad 60’s sci-fi at the revival house on tenth. They go to parties hosted by Bucky’s friends, and Jimmy’s, and through it all, Bucky is surprised at how easy it is. Jimmy is direct and when he looks at Bucky, Bucky feels like he’s being seen.

When they have sex for the first time, Jimmy takes it easy and slow, letting Bucky take the lead until Bucky asks for more. When they’re done, Jimmy settles into Bucky’s arms, head on his chest, and whispers stories to make Bucky laugh. Bucky’s grateful, even as he feels sad, and wrong.

He pushes the feeling aside. He’s not the only one in the world without a soulmate.

When Bucky’s been dating Jimmy for about three months, he starts attending a grief and loss group meeting, led by a man named Sam.

Sam lost his soulmate while in the military, and now he tries to help others cope with the same. He and Bucky hit it off instantly, each razzing the other, but also allowing small kindnesses, like a cup of coffee, or an extra-long hug at the close of group. Bucky’s not sure if group is helping, but he goes nonetheless.

Around six months into their affair, Jimmy makes noises about wanting to move their relationship forward. Bucky isn’t aware that he’s holding back, but the way that the conversation blind-sides him makes it clear.

“I want to,” Bucky says. “I do.”

“I know,” Jimmy says, a chagrined smile on his face. “I almost think that makes it worse.”

“We could still-” Bucky starts, but Jimmy cups Bucky’s face in his hand, and the look on Jimmy’s face stops Bucky in his tracks.

“No,” Jimmy says. “We can’t.” Then he leans up and presses a small, soft kiss to the corner of Bucky’s mouth. “Take care of yourself, love,” Jimmy says, then turns and leaves.

When Bucky is thirty, he gets a tattoo. He searches designs and then researches artists, not willing to trust the work to just anyone.

He considers a shield, something like Jimmy’s, but feels like it’s too obvious. He thinks about their birthdays, of something that just says “Steve,” but none of them are the right fit.

On the cusp of sleep one night he recalls a vase he saw in the Brittish Museum. It was an image from the antiquities collection, Hercules and the Hydra. Bucky startles awake, suddenly certain and sure, that that is the right image. That is what is going to help him let go.

It doesn’t work.

When Bucky is thirty one, he and Sam are out for coffee, post-group.

“Are you happy?” Sam asks, and Bucky knows he can’t say yes.

“Man, what are you holding on for?” Sam’s eye are kind, but his voice is exasperated. “He’s gone, right?”

“Long gone,” Bucky says, a grimace on his face.

“Look,” Sam says. “I’m not here to tell you how to live your life. At some point, you’re going to have to decide whether this is what’s right, or what’s easy.”

“Sam, I know. I just -” At this, Bucky leans forward and speaks low, like he’s telling a secret. “It’s like I can still feel him. Do you get that, with Riley?”

Shaking his head, Sam says, “Nah. With Riley, it was like I felt it the moment he was gone. There was just this...space, where Riley used to be.”

Bucky sighs, and leans back in his chair. “Yeah, well,” he says, shrugging.

Sam sighs. “Alright. So you gonna help me run the Valentine’s social or what? ‘Cause I know your dumb ass doesn’t have a date.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “Yeah, why not?”

The conversation with Sam doesn’t sit well with Bucky, though. He turns it over and over in his mind. He sits with it through Valentine’s Day, through his birthday, Lent and Easter, and as the New York weather turns firmly toward spring, Bucky makes a decison. One way or another, it’s time to let Steve Rogers go.

When Bucky is thirty-one, he visits the archives, deep inside of SHIELD headquarters. His call to Phil Coulson has been plainative. He just needs to try to say goodbye. He thinks that maybe handling some of Steve’s things, reading some of his writings...something, anything. Something’s got to help.

It’s a cool afternoon when Bucky goes to the archives. He grabs his favorite red hoodie and his earphones for the subway. Coulson is there to greet Bucky, and he gives Bucky an all-access pass, a warm handshake, and a sad smile.

At first, the curator and Coulson hover.

After a bit though, they walk away and let Bucky have the room to himself. He sits at a table and reads through a tactical journal that Steve kept. He traces his fingertip over a picture that Steve drew, of a monkey in a uniform on a unicycle. Bucky remembers dreaming about that drawing, about Steve, being so angry and feeling so useless. He remembers the moment that Peggy Carter walked back into Steve’s life.

He touches one of Steve’s uniforms, and presses his face into the collar, breathing deep, but it doesn’t smell of anything but must.

He walks around the room, a veritable museum of one Steven Grant Rogers, before looking over some of the historical notes. His heart pangs when he sees that that someone has scratched out the “none” next to Soulmate: and put Bucky’s name there instead.

“Jesus, Steve,” Bucky whispers. “I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

He turns to leave, but his attention is caught by a bust of Captain America in the corner.

The bust looks to be made of marble. It’s captured Cap from about the ribs up, and seems to be life sized. Before Bucky can stop himself, he’s standing in front of it.

“I don’t understand,” Bucky says. “I don’t know why I can’t let you go, but you have to try to let me. It’s almost like I can feel you holding on, and I love you, but this - this hurts. Steve, it hurts.”

Bucky can feel his face heating and his lashes growing wet.

“You’re the only thing I ever wanted,” he says. “And watching you grow up, God, it was like -” and the he laughs, realizing what he’s about to say. “It was like you made for me. And maybe you were. But this is shitty. And it’s not fair. And I can’t keep loving your Goddamned ghost!.”

Closing his eyes, Bucky leans against the statue, feeling the cool marble against his forehead.

“I love you, Steve,” he says, and closes his eyes, letting the tears run in warm rivulets down his face. “I love you so much. But this - this has to be goodbye.”

Bucky rubs his nose against the statue, trying hard not to notice that even as marble, it’s a perfect fit. Groaning at himself, but unable to stop, he shifts and presses his lips against the statue’s, marble and flesh, hot and cold.

He holds there, reveling in the only kiss he’s ever going to share with his soulmate, before pushing away and heading for the door. He’s openly crying as he exits the building, mumbling something to the curator and ignoring Coulson’s shouts entirely.

Ducking down an alley, he comes to rest behind a dumpster, his back sliding down the brick wall before giving in and just...just crying. He cries for Steve, for himself, for the love they should have shared, but never did. He wonders if missing your soulmate can kill you, because he sure as hell isn’t living.

A stray cat sniffs at his shoe before curling in at his side, clinging to his warmth. It headbutts him once, twice, and Bucky is pulled out of his pityfest by the little purr, then chirrup it gives when he reaches his hand out to pet it.

“You’re a friendly thing,” he says, sniffling and trying to bring himself back under control. The cat, all black, peers up at him with great green eyes.

“Skinny,” he says. “You all alone?”

The cat headbutts him again, then rolls onto its side, paws flexing in the air as though it’s swimming.

“Yeah,” he says. “Okay.”

Bucky takes a few deep breaths and leans his head against the wall. The cat climbs onto his lap, then sniffs and paws at his pants pocket, where he has a granola bar stashed.

Curious, Bucky opens it and offers a bit to the cat.

Sniffing, the cat makes a slight chewing motion with it’s mouth, before leaning forward and wolfing it down in one go.

“Okay,” Bucky say. “Okay.” He abandons the rest of the bar to the cat, before pulling out his phone.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Sam?” Bucky says. “I think I could use some help.”

2300 miles away, the late spring sun shines hot, and the permafrost shifts.

Steve Rogers takes his first breath in almost seventy years.

...to be continued

a/n: next (final) chapter up just as soon as I can get it out of my head and into my laptop. BUT SOOON AND NO LATER THAN MON/TUES.

#chicklette writes things #soulmates au #shrunkyclunks au #stevexbucky #stucky #oh hai sam #i am such a jerk #sorrynotsorry #blame frostbitebakery #phil coulson is the real hero here

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steviebunny · 3 years

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Till' The End of Time

Chapter 8

Shield helicarrier, 2012

Back on the airship agent Fury paces back and forth before the glass containment cell, he glares at the annoyed god, "In case it's unclear if you try to escape if you so much as put a scratch on that glass- " he presses a knob on the side of a control panel, below the containment cell a large hole opens in the floor drawing air through the ship waiting for Loki to be dropped in '" it's 30,000 feet straight down, in a steel trap. Do you get how that works? Ant. Boot."

"It's an impressive cage. Not built, I think, for me."

"Built for something a lot stronger than you."

"Oh, I've heard."

Loki finishes and turns to look at the bulbous security camera, almost as if he could see those watching on the other side. "A mindless beast. That makes play he is still a man... How desperate are you, that you call on such lost creatures to defend you?

"How desperate am I? You threaten my world with war. You steal a force you can't hope to control. You talk about peace, and you kill because it's fun. You have made me very desperate, You might not be glad that you did."

"Ooh. It burns you to have come so close, To have the Tesseract, to have power, unlimited power. And for what? A warm light for all mankind to share. And then to be reminded what real power is.

"Well let me know if real power wants a magazine or something."

The heroes watch on in silence as Loki steps closer to the camera smirking at them all.

"He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Banner questions the room, not honestly looking for an answer.

"Loki's gonna drag this out. So Thor, what's his play?"

"He has an army called the Chitauri. They're not of Asgard, not any other world-known. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the Earth, in return, I suspect for the tesseract."

"An army, from outer space?"

"So he's building another portal, that's what he needs Erik Selvig for."

"Selvig?"

"He's an astrophysicist."

"He's a friend."

"Loki has him under some kind of spell, along with one of ours." Nat interrupted, not being able to help her mind drifting to Clint.

"I want to know why Loki let us take him, he's not leading an army from here."

"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki. That guy’s brain is a bag full go cats, you could smell crazy on him."

"Have a care how you speak, Loki is beyond reason but he is of Asgard. And he is my brother."

"He killed 80 people in two days."

"He's adopted."

"I think it's about the mechanics. Iridium what do they need iridium for?"

"It's a stabilizing agent."

The mates' heads all turn at the intrusion of Lottie's voice, she walked in with Phil and Tony, the pair making plans to fly him out and visit his cellist.

Tony sees Agent Coulson off as they enter the room taking his cue from Lenora "It means the portal won't collapse on itself like it did at SHIELD." He announced to the room, walking over the blonde god

"No hard feelings, Point Break. You've got a mean swing." He taps the Asgardian on the bicep with the back of his hand, Lenora rolls he eyes at the action-

"Tony leave the poor hunk alone."

He turns back to her, eyebrow raised questioningly "Hunk? Really- what am I, chopped liver?"

"My love, if we're being completely honest I'm sure you're well aware Rhodey is the hunk in this relationship of ours."

"Lottie." Natasha hisses out glaring at the woman.

"What? Nat, can you sit there and tell me I'm wrong?"

"Well...no."

"Oh my god" Tony whispers out, "What is this a coup?!"

"It also means the portal can open as wide and stay open as long as Loki wants," Lenora tells the rest of the room not giving her husband the satisfaction of responding, simply leaving him to pout.

Tony walks around to the bridge’s helm, eyes scanning. He points to the right-hand side "That man is playing Galaga!" To the shock of the agent in question, as he notices the avengers looking his way he changes tabs switching back to work, away from the game. "He thought we wouldn't notice. But we did."

Tony takes a hard drive out of his pocket as subtle as he can, raising his palm up to his eye covering it. "How does Fury even see these?" He questions pointedly at the screens.

"He turns."

"Sounds exhausting." Tony steps up to one of the screen displays lowering a few of the shown specs, "The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. The only major component he still needs is a power source of high-energy-density." He explains sticking in the USB scanner of his own design to the side of the electronic table. "Something to kick starts the cube."

"When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?"

"Last night. The packet, Selvig’s notes, the extraction theory papers. You do realize Lottie and I both went to M.I.T right?"

"So what kind of power source does Loki need?" Steve asks.

"He would need to heat the Cube to 120-million Kelvin, just to break through the Coulomb barrier."

"Unless Selvig figured out a way to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect."

"Well if he could do that, he could achieve heavy-ion fusion at any reactor on the planet."

"Finally someone who speaks English, where have you been all my life?" The comment makes Bruce smile up at the slightly taller man.

"Hey!" Nat and Lottie say synchronously.

"Sorry girls you know what I meant," Tony says placing his arm over Bruce's shoulder "it's good to meet you, Dr. Banner, your work on antielectron collisions is unparalleled. And I am also a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."

"God, why did I marry him." Lenora groans out burying her own head in Natasha’s neck.

"Because you love me."

"Sure let's go with that."

"Dr. Banner is only here to tract the cube. I was hoping you might join him."

"You should start with that stick of his, might be magical. But it works an awful lot like a hydra weapon."

"I don't know about that but It is powered by the cube. And I would like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying Monkey."

"Monkeys? I do not understand."

"I do! I understood that reference..." Steve exclaims with just a hint of awkwardness to his voice.

Lenora turns her head slightly to whisper in her wife's ear, "c'mon...they just keep getting cuter don't they?"

Nat smiles, nodding in agreement struggling to stop herself from laughing.

"Shall we play doctor?"

"The gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig’s reports of the tesseract but it's going to take weeks to process."

"If we bypass their mainframe and direct route to the Homer cluster, we can clock this at around 600 teraflops."

"Ha, all I packed was a toothbrush."

"You should come by Stark Tower sometime, top ten floors all R&D. You'd love it it's candy land."

Lenora perks her head up at Tony's suggestions- "I'll call Happy, have him set a room up."

"Thanks, but the last time I was in New York, I kind of broke Harlem."

"Well, I promise a stress-free environment. No tension, no surprises." Tony concluded his little lie by jabbing Bruce with a small electrical rod.

"Ow!"

Tony leans in to inspect shocked to find the doctor smiling at the action... He actually found it funny...wow.

"Nothing?" He questions the doctor at the lack of outburst ignoring the loud 'Hey' that comes from Rogers's mouth.

"Are you nuts?"

"Jury's out." "Most definitely." Both Stark's answer.

"You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret, Mellow jazz, bongo drums, a huge bag of weed?"

"Is everything a joke to you?"

"Funny things are."

"Threatening the safety of everyone in this ship isn't funny... No offense doc."

Lenora scoffs, wow the faith Steve must have in his mates is next to none- "Rogers, cool it. Bruce is fine. He was laughing, I'm sure he knows his own limits better than you do. But yeah... No offense."

"It's alright, I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn’t handle pointy things." The doctor explains.

"You're tiptoeing, big man. You need to strut."

"You all need to be focusing on the problem at hand."

"You think I'm not? Why did Fury call us in, why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us- know what, why haven't you ever stopped to ask why SHIELD has one of your mates chained like a rabid animal they've beaten into submission. Or how they got all of us in the first place? Isn't it a bit suspicious so many of us found each other at the hand of SHIELD's intervention?"

"Tony."

"No, Lottie- no. It's unfair, you know that and I know that. Over a year. I know. Over a year that Sheild has had her under their thumb, at their beck and call regardless of what she needs or wants. All for what? Some old bullshit law was written before even you were born? Really? It bugging you too isn't it Banner?"

"I..uh, I just want to finish my work here, and..."

"Doctor?"

Banner looks up at the taller man and sighs, taking off his glasses, "A warm light for all mankind. Loki's jab at Fury, about the cube."

"I heard it."

"Well, I think that was meant for you." He points to Tony. The engineer and his wife share a silent look, him having had seen her true powers back when she wasn't chained. Her powers inspired his own, he could have changed the color of the reactor long after he was taken captive, but it reminded him of his love, it matched her colors he wouldn't change that for the world and if Loki could really read minds he would know that.

Tony doesn't make his suspicion known by simply offering a bag of blueberries to Bruce

"Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower, it was still all over the news."

"Stark Tower? That big, ugly-" Lenora and Tony glared at the captain in silent disagreement "building in New York"

"It's powered by an arc reactor, a self-sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for, what, a year?"

"It's just the prototype. We're kinda the only name in clean energy right now. That's what he's getting at."

"So why didn't shield bring him in on the tesseract project? What are they doing in the energy business in the first place?"

Tony steps around Banner taking his phone from the back pocket of jeans, "I should probably look into that, once my description program finishes breaking into all of shields secure files."

"I'm sorry... did you say?"

Jarvis has been running it since I got the bridge, in a few hours I'll know every dirty secret shield has ever tried to hide. Blueberry? He asks the taller man extending the bag his way.

"Yet you're confused about why they didn't want you around."

"An intelligence organization that fears intelligence? Historically, not so awesome."

"I think Loki is trying to wind us up. This is a person who means to start a war, and if we don’t stay focused, that plan will succeed. We have ordered we should follow them"

"Heh. That's rich." The rest of the men in the room look at Lottie for her to elaborate. "We aren't soldiers captain. The only people here obligated to take any orders are you, the shield agents, and I. The rest here all have this little thing called free will. Yours you've seen to have given up, god only knows why- mine has been taken. But everyone else gets to decide where they stand based on their own wants and beliefs. You have no right, not at a soldier or as our mates to demand how we react to shields bullshit. You follow you're own goddamn orders and see where that gets you modern-day."

Lenora stands from her seat, the stool scrapes harshly against the lab's floor, as she marches out to find her wife, she’s not going to sit there and listen to Tony be berated, he can hold his own without her there to witness it.

Natasha rounds a corner to see her wife pacing back and forth,

"Hey."

"Oh, hi. I was just looking for you!"

"By walking in circles?"

"Well...no that came later"

"Alright, can you help me with something?" The short-haired woman asks.

"Yeah of course."

"Great, I need you to talk to Loki."

"Wait what."

Nat grabs her hand escorting her along the halls. The pair slowly make their way to the glass containment chamber where the Asgardian is being held. "Just talk to him, I need to get a better insight into his personality. Build a profile. But I need him to feel comfortable like he's I'm charge- has all the power even from the cage. He won't trust shield, I think he can trust you because you're not here by choice."

"Do you really think this could help?"

"Yes."

"Then, of course, I'll do it"

Loki walks around in his containment cell before suddenly coming to a stop. Smirk gracing his features "There are not many people who can sneak up on me." He says turning around completely to face Lottie who stands on the opposite side.

"But you figured I'd come."

"You despise this place."

"I do."

"Then why are you here?"

"It's not like I have much of a choice," she remarks tilting her head to the side, allowing her fingers to grace the collar- now on full display to Loki's eye line. "I need to know what you've done to agent Barton."

"I could say I've expanded his mind"

"And once you've won... What happens to his mind?"

"Is this sentiment, Mrs. Stark?"

"He matters greatly to someone I love."

"So you wage your own safety for what? A favor. Your world hangs in the balance, out of your control- and yet you risk it all."

"I... I- uh.' she sits down in front of the cage, " I've had a long and arduous relationship with shield. With the American government in general... I'm not exactly keen on you starting an all-out war, but if it so happens and shield is collateral damage I can't say I'd be too upset. So I'd rather know that Barton will be kept out of harm’s way for agent Romanoffs sake... She has too much pride to herself come and ask you. So I took it upon myself."

Loki leaned into the glass resting his hands on it looking down at the girl, before slamming his hands down on the glass forcing her to look up at him.

"I won't kill Barton not until I can grab and split his skull before your precious agent Romanoffs very eyes."

Lenora looks Loki in the eyes, doing her best to make them shake and take an obvious deep breath "You're... A-a monster."

"Oh no. You've brought the monster."

Lenora lets her face drop completely flaccid, but still staring into Loki's eyes, any semblance of sadness or fear once there, now completely gone. "So, Bruce. That's your play."

"What?"

"Like you said I was just doing a favor. You hear all that darling?!"

"Yup. Got it all" Natasha says coming out of hiding using her earpiece to contact and then running to the bridge.

"TONY!"

"LOTTIE!"

"Don't joke right now I ran, all the way here Nat had me talk to Loki."

"What Loki? Why?"

"She wanted to trick him into revealing his plans and it worked her wants Hulk. He's going to try and get Bruce to" she's cut off as agent Fury storms in.

"What are you doing Mr. Stark?"

"Uh, Kind of been wondering the same thing about you."

"You're supposed to be tracking the tesseract."

"We are, the models locked. And we're sweeping for the signature now. When we get a hit, we'll have the location within half a mile." Bruce cuts in.

"Yeah and then you get your cube back, no muss, no fuss... What is phase 2?"

Steve storms in holding an arm full of weapons, dropping them down on a metal lab table. "Phase two is shield uses the cube to make weapons. Sorry, the computer was moving a bit slow for me."

"Rogers, we gathered everything related to the tesseract. This does not mean we're making...'

"I'm sorry, Nick. What- were you lying?" Tony asks turning a screen of weapon plans re-routed from shield servers to face the dark-skinned man.

"I was the wrong director, the world hasn't changed a bit."

"Did you know about this?" Bruce asks Natasha as she escorts Thor into the room.

Her eyes widen looking at him "No. No of course not, I'm kept just in the dark as you are... All information that doesn't involve my current mission is withheld, ever since I found James, Lottie, and Tony. Shield knew I'd tell them if anything was a viable threat."

"Well, then I'd like to know why shield is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction."

"Because of him." Fury says pointing to Thor who looks around confused asking "Me?"

"Last year earth had a visitor from another planet, who has a grudge match that leveled a small town. we learned not only that we are not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned."

"My people want nothing but peace with your planet."

"But you're not the only people out there, are you? This was like nothing we've seen before it was just something we could've controlled like."

"Like what?" Steve ponders

"What he means to say is like mutants. He can't control the aliens like mutants he can't just give them ultimatums and chain them down into submission." Lottie says, "Right, please tell me. Am I wrong fury? You can't control big strong aliens with a little shock color like you can little girls right?"

"Your predicament has nothing to do with this situation."

"My predicament has everything to do with this situation!"

@nsfwsebbie @americasass81 @niffala @sunshinepower17

Masterlist

Chapter 9

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ficklefigments · 2 years

Text

okay ( possibly controversial ) opinions and random thoughts about civil war bc i can !! beware tony stark stans and actually just mcu stans in general possibly, bc ive been seeing stuff on my dash and i have ~thoughts~

- k, starting off with why no one READ the accords ?? maybe they did and we didn’t get to see a shot bc boring but pls marvel you could’ve flipped a five second shot to each character reading with a facial reaction. but also like individual stances pls, not just pick a side, lowkey not that realistic

- also we will be getting into agents of shield knowledge here, some people don’t consider it canon, i do, go pull your head out of feige’s asshole <3 ( lovingly, jokingky she said )

- in agents of shield, it required every person/being that had a genetic mutation that led to them being powered ( basically anyone who couldn’t take away their powers then get them back like peter parker getting bit by the spider, he can’t get un-bit ) to be registered with the government, tracked by the government, monitored, surveillance, the whole sha bang. some heroes, that’s not a problem for ex, the ones that wear a suit and can take it on and off. but the ones that have it in their blood and body ? they are forced into this. this is why i was kinda iffy with tony on this, not everyone is the same kind of superhero and what may apply to someone does naturally apply to another. like bro, you can stop, some ppl can’t.

- but also they were required to submit both their secret superhero identities and real identities for reg. it is incredibly dangerous for the world to know exactly who a powered individual is, there was an organization called the watchdogs in agents of shield that was hellbent on eliminating a breed of powered people called in humans and this information was leaked from the government, leading to the loss of many lives. like there were nationwide blackouts and purges to kill in humans with the information that was leaked, it obvi wasn’t safe.

- tony stark blackmails peter parker into fighting for him, a 15 year old kid, by threatening to reveal his new and somewhat unstable secret identity to aunt may. what the fuck. we all saw that right ?

- i’m uncomfortable with how wanda was the scapegoat for lagos, other people fueled this accident, it wasn’t just her. the news just kept going on and on ?? like i feel like ppl took advantage of the fact she’s powered and used that for anti propaganda

- stop. bashing. sharon. carter. yeah it’s a little weird she kissed the same guy as her aunt, but who fucking cares? steve knew peggy for a few yrs, she was supposed to move on, at this point, she doesn’t own him.

- tony only gets involved with “taking responsibility for our actions” when this american kid dies. he heard a sad story and he’s ready to just go 180 ?? sir. so many ppl died in nyc, why now, what did you do the.

- THE RAFT. the prison for super villains ? yeah let’s just stick half the avengers in there.

- WANDAS SHOCK COLLAR. BAD. BAD. BAD. INHUMANE. TORTURE.

- tony exposed clint’s family to the government. y’know the secret family ? emphasis on secret !

-im not your #1 steve rogers stan or anything but yes my initial reaction was to be on team cap bc i consider myself to have somewhat of a moral code and like if u can help someone !! then !! help !! i was totally with him on this even tho i believe they need some kind of nick fury / phil coulson ( who’s honestly technically still alive and able to do the job ) to babysit them. i didn’t like how everyone was fine being told when they can and can’t help, they’re heroes because of their natural instinct to help ppl :((

-i want it addressed at some point how bucky felt about being the one who made howard kick the bucket. idk if they were close or anything but like ?? they both worked with steve on the same team and war kinda brings ppl together, so like how did he feel watching himself kill one of his friends from his life when everything was easier ? unwillingly severing another tie to bucky barnes and releasing the winter soldier

pls remember these r just my opinions !! you do not have to agree/disagree or even read these, i just needed to get a few thoughts out and this is what we have rn

#ca:cw #civil war mcu #captain america civil war #steve rogers #tony stark #bucky barmes #clint barton #agents of shield #sokivia accords #wanda maximoff #peter parker #sharon carter #natasha romanoff #i will DIE on the hill that agents of shield is canon okay it was beautiful #the character development was so much more than a mcu movie #aos is just like the second cousin twice removed now but i want it back !!#if you’ve seen it tell me if you shipped staticquake i need to know

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just-dreaming-marvel · 3 years

Text

It’s Always Been You ~ 143

OUT OF TIME MASTERLIST

IT’S ALWAYS BEEN YOU MASTERLIST

< previous chapter

Word Count: 3,600ish

Summary: Surprisingly, more secrets come out. A final plan is formed.

Notes: Please read the ending note. You must read Out Of Time in order to understand this. The chapter numbers continue from Out Of Time. (gifs aren’t mine)

“She’s not the only one whose kept secrets, Steve,” Natasha said, once Y/N was clearly gone. “We all have.”

“This is different,” Steve argued, mad. “This has to do with half the universe turning into dust and the man who did it. She should have told us so that we could have—“

“Done what, Steve?!” Tony retorted. “Spent the past five years planning and waiting for something to happen?! That’s not a way to live! I know that because I’ve lived that! I’ve tried to do that!” Tony took a deep breath, trying to calm himself as he backed away from everyone. “I may be the only one who feels this way, but I wouldn’t change the last five years. Yes, I miss people terribly and feel the guilt of what happened constantly. But I finally have the family I’ve always longed for. I have a daughter who is my whole world, and a wife who fights for what she loves.”

“Her telling us everything wouldn’t have changed when Scott came back or when I put the pieces together about time travel,” Tony continued. “Keeping that a secret didn’t change anything.”

“Tony’s right,” Clint spoke up. “It wouldn’t have changed anything.”

Tony and Clint nodded at each other. Tony knew it had to be hard for Clint to admit that, especially since he had lost his whole family. Steve clenched his jaw, frustrated.

“Steve,” Natasha called calmly, “have you ever thought about how many times you get angry at Y/N for keeping things from you?”

“I don’t understand what that has to do with anything,” Steve said.

“You freak and turn around and blame everything on her. Maybe she doesn’t tell you things because she knows that you won’t react in the best way. And you doubt her, so much.”

“How is this now about me?”

“I’m sorry, isn’t everything?” Tony retorted. The two men glared at each other in silence for a moment, the tension getting thick. “I’m going to go check on my wife.”

~~~

“Hey Pepper,” Y/N greeted, video calling her friend.

“Hey Y/N,” Pepper replied.

“Is Morgan up?”

“I’m sorry, I put her to bed already.”

“That’s okay.”

“Is something wrong though? You seem a little down.”

“I just… can you poke me in there for a second? I just need to see her.”

“Of course.” Pepper began heading to Morgan’s room. “She really misses you guys.”

“We miss her too.”

Pepper quietly opened Morgan’s door and reached her hand in so that Y/N could see the little girl on the phone. Morgan was sound asleep, clinging onto the Iron Man stuffy that Tony had bought her. Y/N’s eyes slowly filled with tears as she longed to hold her child.

“Thank you, Pep,” Y/N said softly.

“Of course,” the woman replied.

“Tell her we’ll call her tomorrow. And that we love her.”

“Y/N, what’s up?”

“This is all just getting more real. And I don’t want something to happen with Morgan knowing her parents love her.”

“Nothing’s going to happen. You and Tony are going to be fine.”

Y/N gave her friend a tight lipped smile, clearly not believable. “Thanks for taking care of her for us, Pep. Good night.”

Y/N sighed after hanging up, leaning back against the headboard. She closed her eyes and sucked in her lips. She had never missed her abilities more in the last five years, then at this very moment. She wished she could simply portal herself home, to hold her child. But Y/N couldn’t, and she knew she needed to stay at the compound and finish out the mission. No matter the cost.

“Are you okay?” Tony’s voice was quiet as he leaned in the doorway, worried eyes raking over his wife.

“I’m fine,” she answered, not bothering to open her eyes.

Tony sighed before he walked over and sat himself on the bed. He made sure he wasn’t touching her, not wanting to press. “I let Steve have it after you left. It wasn’t right for him to do that. Red even had my back.” Y/N didn’t respond. “Honey… I’m sorry.” He set a comforting hand on her leg. “I know that I’ve pushed you in the past for not saying anything. But I’m beginning to see the weight that the Stones have placed on you. I’m so sorry.”

“He will never understand,” Y/N breathed out quietly. “He hasn’t been able to since he came out of the ice… I lived 5 years with believing he was dead. I changed in that time and he has never been able to accept that… but doesn’t make it hurt any less. He’s still my twin…” Y/N finally opened her eyes and met Tony’s. She reached out and took his hand from her leg. “Thank you,” she whispered. “For standing with me.”

“I made vows to do so. I never intend on breaking them.”

She pulled him closer to her. She wrapped herself around him, earning a light chuckle.

“Can we stay like this the rest of the night?” She whispered.

“Of course,” Tony answered, kissing her hairline. “We can stay like this as long as you like.”

~~~

In the morning, the couple ate breakfast in bed before venturing out to face the rest of the group. Everyone was seemingly trying to act normal, but Steve. Every time he glanced Y/N’s way, it was harsh. Cold and unforgiving. Tony kept himself at Y/N’s side as the group began going over the Tesseract.

“Our first major run in with the Tesseract, or Space Stone, was back in the 40’s,” Steve explained. He was standing in front of everyone, pictures, videos and information were playing on the screens behind him. “HYDRA’s then leader, Red Skull, was using it to create mass energy weapons. Y/N and I were on Red Skull’s plane when it took off to bomb major cities around the world.” Steve looked at Y/N. “Would you like to tell the rest of it?”

She pursed her lips, trying to keep her emotions in check. “Sure.” She stood up and went to the front of the room. “As Steve said, we were in the ship. I was trying to get to the controls and the Tesseract, when it could knocked loose. It portaled Red Skull away. I…” Y/N paused with a sigh. She hadn’t recounted this story since she woke up. “I grabbed the cube as it fell, burning my hand. Dropping it, it burned a hole in the floor causing both myself and the cube to fall. I grabbed onto it as a fell…” Y/N looked down at her scarred hand, rubbing it nervously. “Howard Stark later found it in his search for Steve and I.”

“After that, it was in SHIELD’s hands,” Y/N continued. “And, from what Carol has added to the record, a scientist who was trying to save the Skrull species. From their Fury began tests on it and began making weapons of his own. That’s how the Battle of New York started… Being control by the Mind Stone himself, Loki came and took the Tesseract. He used it to open a giant portal, letting the Chitauri army through.”

More video footage began being played of that day behind her. The all watched, with those who were there remembering the day like it was yesterday.

“How long did you fight these guys?” Rocket asked.

“About, uh, two or three hours,” Natasha responded. She looked at Tony who nodded along in agreement.

“The Chitauri are the suckiest army in the galaxy. Why didn’t you just blow up the mothership?”

“We didn’t know that was a thing,” Steve said.

“You didn’t know that was a thing?” Rocket laughed. Tony stood up from his seat, shaver in hand. (He was shaving as he was listening.) He went up behind Rocket and shaved some of his hair on top of his head. “Everyone knows— Hey!”

“There we go,” Tony said. “All better.”

“Tony was the one to send the missile up through the portal, successfully destroying the mother ship,” Y/N explained. “I closed the portal.” She looked at Tony, who met her eyes. “Luckily, we all came out of it alive.”

“Not all of us,” Clint commented. “We lost a good one that day. Phil Coulson.”

“Yeah… about that… Fury actually brought him back to life.”

“What?!” Natasha, Clint, Thor, and Steve exclaimed. The four quickly noticed at Bruce and Tony weren’t phased.

“Did you two know about this?” Natasha asked.

“Yes,” Bruce answered, “but only because it was vital. We were helping Skye—“

“Daisy,” Tony and Y/N corrected together.

“—and Y/N with their new found powers. Phil was a big part in that.”

“Those missions… that base you would talk about… SHIELD suddenly resurfacing,” Steve mumbled, putting the pieces together. “You leaving to save your Team… You kept SHIELD and Coulson alive, right under our noses.”

“Again, I was only doing what was right,” Y/N defended herself. “We saved the world countless more times than anyone even realized, including the other heroes in this room…. Coulson’s team is the reason we found Loki’s scepter. And in Sokovia, the helicarrier Fury brought was from Coulson. He had found it and patched it back together.”

“Sif,” Thor whispered. “She was so very vague about the two times she was down here.”

“She was keeping the secret. If people knew that Coulson was alive, it would have changed the game.”

“How did he survive?” Natasha asked.

“It was called the TAHITI Program. Fury directed Coulson to head it. It was meant for a fall of an Avenger. To bring them back if anything were to happen in battle. After years of trials, it was disbanded. The side affects were awful… but then Coulson died. And Fury couldn’t accept that.”

“Who else knew?” Steve asked.

“Besides Fury, Tony, Bruce, Sif, and myself, Maria Hill, our SHIELD teams, and many government officials worldwide. Including President Ellis.”

Steve scoffed. “All the secrets,” he muttered, shaking his head. “This is getting ridiculous.”

“Where is Phil now?” Natasha asked. “Did he survive?”

“He died right before the Blip,” Y/N answered. “Complications from the TAHITI Program and other things that had happened… Please don’t be angry. I understand that it seems like I’ve kept some big things from everyone. But you have to try and understand it from my point of view.”

Everyone was silent, not knowing what to say. Y/N stood in the front of the room, preparing for the attack on her. But it never came. Steve stormed out and the others from the original team followed, including Tony and Bruce. Y/N closed her eyes, trying to keep herself calm.

“I know that I’m new here and don’t know much,” Scott said, standing up to go to Y/N. “But I know that you have a good heart. And that you were only trying to protect everyone.”

She looked at him with a tight-lipped smile. “Thank you, Scott.”

~~~

“It’s just one thing after another with her!” Steve exclaimed. “Is everything a lie? It’s like I don’t even know who she is anymore!”

“Steve, I think we need to stay calm and look at this from her said,” Natasha said. “She has been trying to protect everyone, except herself. The whole time she was going from fight to fight without much of a break.”

“It’s true,” Tony agreed. “I personally witnessed the wear and tear it did to her.”

“When she got shot after SHIELD fell, was that because of Coulson?” Steve asked, marching up to Tony.

“It wasn’t because of Coulson. It was because someone on her team ended up being HYDRA.”

Steve ran a hand down her face. “I don’t know where the lies stop and the truth begins.”

“She never actually lied to you,” Natasha brought up. “She told you what she could and kept the rest to herself. To protect everyone.”

“She still should have told us about Coulson,” Clint spoke up. “He was important to all of us.”

“Coulson and Fury specifically instructed her that the team not know,” Tony explained. “She actually got in trouble for telling me and Bruce.”

“But again we had to know,” Bruce said. “Y/N and Skye—“

“Daisy.”

“—had suddenly gained powers. If anyone was going to be able to help them, it was going to be us.”

“I need some time to think,” Steve said, walking away.

“We really shouldn’t be focusing on this right now,” Bruce sighed, shaking his head. “We should be focusing on the Stones. What Y/N kept from us is not the priority.”

“As long as she tells us any other information that could be of use to us,” Natasha said.

“She will,” Tony promised.

“I can’t imagine she’s taking this well,” Clint mentioned.

“She’s not really showing very much, trying to keep it all in. But I don’t blame her. Steve’s been going after her since he got out of the ice.”

“It’s hurting both of them,” Natasha said. “It’s like they want it to be how is was before the ice. Yet, they both have changed.”

“I don’t think Steve’s willing to see it the most,” Bruce added. “It’s going to tear them apart when we need them to work together the most right now.”

“Together, they can be one of the best teams.”

Tony sighed. “Let’s finish getting the information on the Stones. Then we can worry about the rest of it.”

~~~

They all gathered back together to go over more about the Stones. They finished all the new on the Tesseract and Space Stone before moving to the Mind Stone. It was hard to talk about that one, since Vision was a big part of it.

“Where’s Vision now?” Scott asked.

“We brought him back to the Compound, but the Accords and his own will forced us to give his body to an organization called SWORD,” Natasha explained. “They were forced to dismantle him because of the Accords.”

“We were too late in getting him to Wakanda,” Bruce explained. “So there was no way to bring him back without the Stone.”

“Hopefully that the only permanent casualty we take from all this,” Tony commented, bringing Y/N closer to his side.

“That wasn’t the only life lost,” Nebula said. “My sister, Gamora, she died too.”

They took on the Soul Stone next. There was very little information on it besides what Y/N and Nebula knew.

“Thanos found the Soul Stone on Vormir,” Nebula explained.

“What is Vormir?” Natasha asked, taking notes.

“A dominion of death, at the very center of Celestial existence. It’s where… Thanos murdered my sister.”

Everyone sat there awkwardly, and saddened. Not knowing what to say or do.

“Not it,” Scott said, breaking the awkward silence.

“Y/N,” Steve called, in this stern Captain voice. “Do you know anything about the Soul Stone that could possibly help us?”

“I know that it is a very power Stone in its own right. With it I was able to conjure the spiritual representation of those who are dead.”

“What?” A few gasped. Tony reached over and grabbed her hand.

“I saw…” She paused, swallowing her emotions down. “I saw my unborn son, AJ, my parents, and Phil Coulson.”

“Our parents?” Steve questioned. Y/N responded with a simple nod. “How could you not tell me?”

“At the time we weren’t talking, and it never came up later.”

“I can’t—“

“Guys,” Natasha stood up in the middle, placing herself between the siblings. “Stop fighting. We have something bigger we need to focus on, and if you can’t see that you both can leave.”

“I’m not the one with the problem,” Steve growled.

Holding the tip of her tongue between her teeth, she silently watched Steve. She was trying to put her thoughts together when Tony decided to speak up.

“Seriously, Rogers, cut the bullshit,” Tony said. “I get you’re probably hurt that she never told you anything. But that doesn’t give you the right to make her your personal emotional punching bag. Crap happened and she didn’t tell you, but she’s telling you now.”

“You know…” Y/N began slowly. “I miss the days when it was you, Bucky, and I against the world. Just like you do. The days you trusted me and didn’t doubt me, no matter what… you blame this all on me, Steve? Fine! But communication is a two way street. Just remember that. I’m not the only one that’s kept secrets. Like the one about Howard and Bucky.” That left Steve silent. “I’ll be in the other room, trying to put a plan together if anyone needs me.” She left.

“Go work out some energy, Steve,” Natasha suggested. “We’ll take it from here.”

~~~

Tony found Y/N laying on a table with FRIDAY talking to her about the Time Stone.

“Mute,” Tony ordered, coming into the room.

“If you’re here to talk about Steve, I’m not listening,” Y/N responded, looking at the ceiling.

“I figured. That’s why I came to join you and help.” Tony leaned over Y/N and gently kissed her.

“Uh, guys,” Bruce broke in before the couple could get heated. They turned to see Bruce and Nat standing in the doorway. “We just came to see if you needed any help. Everyone else needed a break.”

“Help would be great,” Y/N responded.

Tony crawled up onto the table, sitting by Y/N, while Y/N sat up. Bruce and Nat came in further and the four of them began going through everything they knew about the Time Stone and trying to form the most logical plan to collect the Stones. After of few hours of nothing coming together, Tony and Y/N were back laying on the table. Bruce was laying on the floor with Natasha leaned up against him.

“That Time Stone guy…” Natasha began again.

“Doctor Strange,” Bruce corrected.

“Yeah, what kind of doctor was he?”

“Ear-nose-throat meets rabbit from a hat,” Tony answered, spinning his glasses in one hand while rubbing his eyes.

“Something neuro,” Y/N clarified.

“Nice place in the village, though,” Bruce added.

“Yeah,” Tony agreed. “Sullivan Street.”

“Hmmm… Bleecker.”

“Wait, he lived in New York?” Natasha wondered.

“No. He lived in Toronto,” Tony scoffed. “Were you even paying attention?”

“Guys, if you pick the right year, there are three Stones in New York.”

Bruce sat up in surprise saying, “Shut the front door.”

~~~

The team was quickly gathered and Y/N explained the best points for them to go.

“Okay, we will retrieve the Soul and Power Stones in space 2014; the Reality Stone on Asgard in 2013; and the Space, Mind, and Time Stones in New York City in 2012,” she told them, pulling the information up on the screens.

“Now all we need are to assign the teams,” Tony stated.

“I’ve sketched out a plan and would like to get everyone’s opinions.”

They all glanced Steve’s way, waiting for the Captain to say something. He simply glared, arms crossed over his chest.

“Shoot,” Clint encouraged, when Steve didn’t speak up.

“So, due to certain knowledge of events, I believe that we need to try and stick to our own timelines, even though it could be dangerous,” Y/N explained. “We know our own timelines best. Where to avoid, where the Stones would be found, all that jazz. With that in mind, I was thinking Thor would go to Asgard, Rocket and Nebula would go to space, and the rest of us would go to New York.”

“The teams need to be evened out,” Steve spoke up, not impressed.

“I was just getting to that. I was going to see if anyone was going to volunteer to retrieve any of the Stones. I believe we need at least two people on each mission. And remember, the space mission is actually two separate missions.”

“I’ll go with Thor,” Rocket offered. “I think I could probably help the best there.”

“Thank you Rocket.”

“I can go with Nebula,” Rhodey said. “I’m not familiar with any of the spots, so I might as well.” Y/N nodded in agreement, making a note of it.”

“I should stay in 2012,” Tony said. “Being back in the Tower, I might have to break into JARVIS.”

“Agreed,” Y/N.

“I’ll stay in 2012 as well,” Steve said. “I also think Scott could be a good asset with us as well.”

“Sounds great,” Scott nodded along.

“Bruce, I was thinking that you and I could go and speak to the Ancient One and get the Time Stone,” Y/N suggested. “I have a feeling it will take some convincing to take the Stone from her.”

“Okay,” Bruce agreed.

“That leaves Clint and Natasha. Since you guys are a good team, how do you feel about hitting up Vormir for the Soul Stone?”

The two looked at each other and nodded, before looking back at Y/N.

“We can do that,” Clint said.

“Awesome,” Y/N responded. “Now we just need specifics for each mission. Break off into teams and use the information to create a specific plan.”

Everyone split off and created plans for their team. Coming back together, each plan was explained.

“Alright,” Steve claimed the attention once the final plan was laid out, “we have a plan. Six Stones, three teams. One shot. Take the night to get things together and rest, we’ll meet up and head out in the morning.”

next chapter >

I know that this fighting and secrets thing is probably annoying, but I promise there is a point to it. Please be patient with me. Thank you.

I appreciate all likes, comments, asks, and reblogs! Thank you for all the positive support!

If you want to be added to the tag list, please dm me or send in an ask.

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166 notes · View notes

thepartyresponsible · 3 years

Note

For the wip ask (they all sound very interesting ngl it was hard to pick just one!) LostSteve

lost steve! yeah, so. what if shield defrosted captain america, and he broke out and just...kept running? what if they lost him? what if he ended up hiding out in tony’s tower, away from the fight for long enough to get his feet underneath him?

this fic is mostly about steve and tony finding each other first, so they can form the heart of the avengers, instead of the fault line that splits the team in half. here’s the first part of it.

—

There’s an alert from Nick Fury that Tony chooses to ignore, for the sake of his convenience and Fury’s ongoing character growth. JARVIS announces its arrival and then diligently reminds Tony about the message twice before Tony tells him to mute it until morning.

“If it’s really that important,” he says, “they’ll just send someone to break in anyway.”

Which is why, on some level, he’s not at all surprised to find a man sitting on a couch in his penthouse twenty-seven hours later. He will admit to being caught somewhat off-guard by the specifics of the situation, though, because Steve Rogers has been dead for longer than Tony’s been alive.

“Zombie?” Tony asks. “Hallucination? Oh, clone? Are you a clone?”

Steve Rogers looks at him the way people look at wax sculptures. Like he’s interested in the details of the creation in front of him, but doesn’t believe for a second that what he’s looking at is real. “Mr. Stark,” he says, politely. His voice is deeper than Tony would’ve guessed.

“Robot,” Tony theorizes. “Sexbot? Updated Trojan Horse? If I let you inside me, are you gonna--”

The man’s brow furrows, and his mouth twists down, and his eyes are too sad for circuitry. No one would code that kind of grief.

Tony pauses for a moment, rocks forward onto the balls of his feet and then back onto his heels. He studies this intruder carefully. Someone sent him a Steve Rogers lookalike in a white t-shirt and stained khakis. He’s hale and healthy, built like a god, but his feet are bare and dirty.

Bloody, too. There are bloody footprints on the carpet.

“Wait,” Tony says. “Wait. Who the hell are you?”

There’s a long beat of silence. The man on his couch just stares at him, eyes tracing over Tony’s face, his shoulders, looking at him like he’s starving for something. He’s quiet and small, somehow, in a way that doesn’t relate at all to the amount of space his body takes up.

And then he stands, light and graceful on his bloody feet. His jaw tightens, and his shoulders pull up, and he’s an American Hero, suddenly and decisively, like he’s made some kind of choice about it.

“Mr. Stark,” he says, again, “I’m Captain America.”

And he is, Tony thinks. The same way that he’s Iron Man. Because once you put on that kind of armor, whatever else you used to be is irrelevant.

—

He’s Captain America, and he’s back from the dead. SHIELD had him and lost him, and Nick Fury wants Tony to go looking for him. That’s the message he left with JARVIS over a day ago. And Tony can’t imagine he was the first name on their list, which means Steve Rogers has been alone in the wrong century for an unknown but considerable amount of time.

“Hey,” he says, calling out from where he’s slouched against the kitchen island, watching Captain America dutifully eat through every scrap of leftovers Tony had in the fridge. “How long have you been here?”

“I was born here,” he says, through a mouthful of fried rice that he hides behind a napkin. He chews, swallows, and jabs his fork over Tony’s shoulder. “In Brooklyn.”

Tony knew that. Of course he knew that. He memorized everything about Steve Rogers back when he thought he could become enough like him to make Howard consider him worthwhile. “No, I mean,” he says, waving his hands, “in this century. How long have you been--- Jesus. I dunno. Awake? Aware? Unfrosted flakes?”

Steve blinks at him. He stares for a second and then ducks his head, stirs his fork through the open takeout box in front of him. “Spent a couple days,” he says. “Looking around.”

Looking around. Steve Rogers, unwitting time-traveler, barefoot in New York. What had he been looking for? Why did he come here?

“Why didn’t you get any shoes?” Tony asks, instead of any of the more complicated questions.

Steve tucks his feet under his chair. He washed them half an hour or so back, walking uneasily into the bathroom Tony showed him and then locking the door behind him, like he thought Tony was some kind of pervert who would bodyslam through the door to catch a glimpse of him sudsing up his bare ankles.

“Didn’t have any money,” he says, surprisingly mulish about it.

“You couldn’t smash and grab a pair of Sketchers?” Tony shakes his head. “If you get lockjaw, you’re gonna have to tell Fury you caught it from somewhere else. Fuck’s sake, when was your last tetanus booster? 1943?”

He shrugs. He doesn’t seem concerned. He’s busy eating his way through enough calories to keep your average winter-starved grizzly happy.

It’s hungry work, coming back from the dead. Tony remembers the unholy things he would’ve done for a cheeseburger.

“Didn’t have any money,” he repeats, scraping his fork around the sides of the takeout box, diligent and serious, like it’s the very last scrap of food he’ll ever get.

Tony clears his throat, hip-checks the counter to heave himself to standing. “I’ll get you some cash.”

—

There’s a weird moment, when Tony gives him the money. It’s just a few hundred dollars. He’s not Tony’s problem, not his project raised from the dead, but he still doesn’t want to give Steve Rogers the means to get himself truly lost in a world he doesn’t know.

Five hundred dollars will get him some food and somewhere to sleep for a few days, but it won’t get him far enough out of SHIELD’s orbit to get himself in trouble.

He looks up when Tony gets close. There’s a well-worn wariness in his eyes. He watches him the way a dog from a bad home might watch him through the bars of the shelter’s kennel. Resigned instead of hopeful, like he knows how this goes, like he knows he can survive it.

“Here,” Tony says. He leaves the money two chairs away from him, within easy grabbing distance. “And I have shoes your size, if you want to borrow them.”

“I don’t need that,” Rogers says, pointing at the money.

Tony lets his mouth tip up sideways, smirks like this is the part of the whole situation he finds truly unbelievable. “You’re going to come into my house,” he says, “uninvited, unannounced, and then you’re going to refuse to accept my hospitality? Rogers, what would your mother think?”

There’s a stall point in Roger’s stare, like watching a bird fly into a window. There’s a moment, right around the word mother, when those blue eyes blank out, and Tony’s just staring into empty space.

“She didn’t,” he says, and it’s fascinating. He’s stitching himself up right here at Tony’s dining table. Tony can practically see it happening, vertebrae stacking up, pulling him taunt like a needle tugging on a thread. “She never liked charity.”

Tony is familiar with pride. He has something of an overabundance himself, although he comes by it honestly. He knows hurt pride hates an audience, so he looks away.

“I imagine she hated the idea of you starving, too,” Tony says. “Probably worked very hard to make sure that didn’t happen. Going to waste all her work now, Rogers? Seems ungrateful.”

He’s half-taunting by the end of it. He’s not sure why. He finds weak points like a magnet finds iron. Sometimes he doesn’t even know what he’s pulling on until after he’s accidentally ripped out someone’s heart. It’s not one of the traits he’s proud of, but, like his pride, he knows where it came from.

Rogers glares at him, but he hooks the next takeout container over anyway.

“I’ll get those shoes,” Tony says. JARVIS has already measured; Rhodey left some boots that should fit.

Steve doesn’t say anything, but, when Tony comes back, the money is gone, and so is he.

—

Tony doesn’t tell Fury a damn thing. If Fury lost a national icon, that’s his problem. And anyway, Tony’s still not completely convinced that the blonde who materialized in his penthouse was actually Steve Rogers and not some kind of really confused, really well-built homeless man. Or a stripper.

Tony’s never actually met a stripper who showed up in khakis, refused to disrobe, and then ate ten pounds of takeout before silently disappearing, but he’d be willing to pay another five hundred dollars for a repeat performance.

He figures out how the maybe-Steve got into his penthouse. He upgrades the security, but he tells JARVIS to let him in if he ever comes back. He’s not sure what he’s hoping for, but he’s too curious to lock him out.

—

There’s a bit of nothing that kicks off in New York, some Hammer tech that goes haywire. Tony puts it down like the cheap knockoff that it is, but he gets stuck in debrief with Phil Coulson afterwards, because he’s not quite quick enough to abandon the scene after the fight’s over. In his defense, he was holding a car above a partially-trapped bicyclist, and Coulson caught him before the EMTs could finish disentangling her.

He makes it back to the Tower after an hour of mostly-wasted time. Steve Rogers is sitting at his dining table. Tony bites back the ludicrous urge to “honey, I’m home!” him.

“Hey,” he says instead, as he steps in from the balcony, stripped down to the skintight suit he wears under the armor. He didn’t expect company. “You get something to eat?”

Steve seems somehow offended by the question. “I didn’t break in here and steal anything,” he says.

“Okay,” Tony says, moving past him. “Well, that’s a gold star and an empty stomach for you, Rogers. We’re all very proud.”

“It’s not my food,” Steve tells him. If he had hackles, they’d be raised. Tony wants to pat him on the head, but only because he’s always had a sort of neurotic tendency to see how hard people bite before he decides whether to trust them.

“Yeah, and a twenty-dollar grocery bill is really gonna break me,” Tony says. He takes a smoothie out of the freezer. “You want pizza? I’m gonna order pizza.”

Steve stares at him for a long moment before he shrugs. “I could eat,” he says.

“Great,” Tony says. He has JARVIS order three pizzas, because he wants at least half of one for himself, and Steve Rogers is a human garbage disposal.

Steve takes a shower while they’re waiting. He asks first, which Tony supposes is the polite thing to do, and he takes his backpack with him, like he’s worried Tony’s going to steal his wallet.

“You know,” Tony says, when Steve remerges, wearing another knockout set of some grandpa’s Goodwill khakis and button-down shirt, “you keep showing up like this, and it’s gonna get harder for me to lie to Fury about having no idea where you are.”

Steve flips open a pizza box and carefully selects a slice. His hair is wet and neatly combed back from his face. He’s handsome from a distance but damn near devastating at close range. Tony takes another bite of pizza, hopes it’ll help swallow back the urge to sink a few grand into war bonds.

“Fury’s the guy with the eyepatch?” Steve doesn’t settle into a seat. He takes his pizza and wanders over to the window, stares out at the skyline.

“Yeah, that’s him,” Tony says.

Steve makes a face. Tony can see it, dulled and faded, in the reflection on the glass. “He’s persistent,” he says, slowly. Not like it’s a compliment.

“Yeah,” Tony says, again, “that’s him.”

Steve doesn’t say anything else. Tony finishes his slice of pizza, eats another one. There’s an ache in his right shoulder from being wrenched around by Hammer’s ridiculous creation, and he should be icing it, but he doesn’t want to. Not with Steve Rogers here.

He’s never liked looking human in front of an audience. His problem has always been that he couldn’t figure out how to stop. At least, not until he built his armor.

Steve comes back when he’s out of pizza. He’s catlike in his wariness, in the way he seems pissed at Tony for daring to exist in his proximity.

“That fight,” he says, apropos of approximately nothing at all. “Earlier.”

“Oh,” Tony says, rising out of his chair and moving toward the bar, giving Steve the room to loom over the pizza like he’s defending his kill. “You see that on the news?”

“Saw it on the street,” Steve says. “Heard the screams.”

Heard the screams and came running. So he’s still in the hero business. Fury will be happy to hear it.

“You’re gonna get yourself killed,” Steve tells him. He sounds angry about it. At Tony, not the situation. “Where’s your backup?”

“Backup,” Tony repeats. “Cap, c’mon. Read a newspaper. I work alone.”

Steve Rogers looks up from his pizza perusal just long enough to roll his eyes. It should feel like a slap across the face, and maybe it does. However it feels, Tony likes it. Wants more of it. There’s always been something grounding in being dismissed, like Tony’s never known where he stands until someone shows him how he doesn’t measure up.

“Is that supposed to be impressive?” Steve asks. “Men who work alone die alone, Stark. And they’re not very effective when they do.”

Tony knows he’s meant to be offended. He is, probably. But he couldn’t bite back his smile for anything. “I think I liked you better when you called me ‘Mr. Stark.’”

“Seems to me,” Steve says, “you want everyone to call you Iron Man these days.”

“Oh Captain, my Captain,” Tony says, “surely they had that line about glass houses in the ‘40’s?”

Steve frowns at him. “I never asked anyone to call me Captain America.”

“And yet,” Tony says, tipping a bottle of whiskey his direction, “that’s how to introduced yourself to me.”

Steve gives him a look like he thinks Tony’s being deliberately obtuse. “That’s who I am,” he says.

Tony rolls his eyes and flips a tumbler right side up. “But when I start using a stage name,” he says, “suddenly I’m a narcissistic asshole who doesn’t--”

“Do you think,” Steve says, looming up suddenly, shifting gears like something mechanical, going battle-ready with more decisiveness than a faceplate clicking down, “that anybody spent years, spent—I don’t know. Millions of dollars? Do you think anybody did that for Steve Rogers?”

Tony’s caught wrong-footed. He did it again. Drilled until he found the nerve, cut until he broke the skin.

“I think you don’t get one without the other,” Tony says, trying now to soothe. But he’s not very good at it. His instincts don’t run this direction. His whole life, the only things he could ever repair were machines.

Steve shakes his head. He steps away from the pizza. He looks around, eyes zeroing in on his backpack.

“Stay here,” Tony says, sidling out from behind the bar, whiskey now in hand.

Steve straightens up like a cobra, like he’s going to spit venom in Tony’s face. Tony wants to put his mouth on him, which is probably only half because he’s always been hellbent on his own destruction. The other half is that Steve Rogers is beautiful like something made in a lab for aesthetics alone, carefully designed for universal appeal. Tony likes to tell himself he has a taste for the exclusive, but the reality has always been he wants exactly what everyone else does.

“You don’t want SHIELD to find you,” Tony says, “then stay here. Trust me, this is the last place they’d think to look.”

He’s not standing between Steve and the exit. He was careful about that. Whatever SHIELD might think about him, he doesn’t have a death wish. And also, when he’s thinking about it, he’s not usually deliberately an asshole. It’s just that, most of the time, he’s not thinking about it.

“Why should I trust you?” Steve asks.

Tony shrugs. Hell, he has no idea. “Why’d you come here? The first time. When SHIELD lost you, you came here. Why?”

“I went home,” Steve says, argumentative, all squared shoulders and tight jaw. “I went to Brooklyn. But it wasn’t there anymore. None of it was—I couldn’t find…”

He trails off, shakes his head, sharp and agitated, a horse bothered by a fly. It’s hard to look in his eyes. There’s something in them that Tony doesn’t want to see. It’s like watching a statue bleed.

“I heard there was still a Stark in New York,” Steve says. “I read about you. I thought maybe you’d--”

“You thought I’d be like Howard,” Tony finishes for him. “Sorry to disappoint.”

“I thought you’d be like me,” Steve says, which doesn’t make any sense at all.

“You,” Tony says. And then, a little helplessly, “What?”

Steve looks away. He shrugs, looks back. “I saw the suit,” he says. “On the news. I saw what it can do. I didn’t think--- things have advanced a lot. I didn’t understand. I thought Howard had…”

Tony squints at him. “You thought Howard did a Rebirth redux and tested it on his kid?”

“I thought a lot of things,” Steve says, snappy. “It was a very confusing couple of days.”

Tony can imagine that it was. “So you thought I was Rebirthed, and you wanted--”

“I didn’t want anything,” Steve says, and there’s that flash of exposed nerve again, that look like a sinkhole in the backs of his eyes. “That’s not the point.”

Tony takes a sip of his whiskey. It settles, warm and sweet, into his stomach.

I didn’t want anything.

I shouldn’t be alive, unless it’s for a reason.

Tony holds the tumbler out. Steve needs the warmth more than he does. “Here,” he says.

Steve takes it, seemingly on reflex. “I can’t get drunk,” he says.

“Well,” Tony says, circling back toward the bar, “not with that attitude.”

#writing #fic

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starkerforlife6969 · 4 years

Text

Starker - Gone

tw angst, mentions of drinking- but a happy ending.

It’s done.

It’s finished.

Tony realises it a little suddenly. Feels cold and hollow all over. Riddled.

Dusk has just gone, and the fresh darkness seeps in through the windows. The penthouse is empty. It’s just him and his perfect furniture and his state of the art, pioneering technology.

Peter’s gone.

Of course, he’s been gone for months now. Shuffled out, head held irritatingly high, face drawn tight, stuff in boxes, and stayed with his aunt.

Whatever, Tony thinks bitterly, the kid’s 300 million dollars better off, he’ll buy a nice beach house somewhere and Tony will never see him again.

Mr. Wobbles, the fucking awful cat, is gone too. He was Peter’s Tony had realised, even as he’d argued for it over the glass table.

“Yours!” Peter had screeched, making the lawyers on both sides wince. Making Tony smirk victoriously, finally, at having gotten a reaction. “I adopted him, Tony. Me. My name is on all the papers, you- you hate him! You never feed him, or play with him, or give him treats, Mr Wobbles is mine!”

“Tony,” Peggy Carter, his (very expensive) lawyer, had touched his arm and said quietly, “it’s a cat. Do you really want the responsibility?”

Tony had slunk back into the leather seat. Shrugged and looked away like he didn’t care if the cat lived or died.

He does care, is the thing.

He looks over to the kitchen, down by the side of the fridge, where the ceramic blue food bowl used to lie.

It’s bare now.

He remembers, as he loosens his tie, takes off his armour, how Peter had looked the first time with the kitten in his arms. Brown eyes glistening and lips so pink and stained with the strawberries from breakfast.

“Tony! Please, I promise, I’ll take care of him-”

“Sweetheart,” Tony had chuckled, dragging Peter in for a kiss, “it’s your home too. Have the little monster. You don’t need permission. It’s yours.” Peter had beamed, lifted Mr Wobbles up close to Tony’s face (the creature had tried to blind him) and said “He’s ours.”

Even now, the thought makes him smile. Crooked. Sad.

Hollow, again.

That’s how the penthouse feels.

Pepper’s done an excellent job. He hadn’t seen the pieces of Peter disappear one by one, he just left for one of the divorce hearings one morning, came back one afternoon, and it was as if Peter had never been there.

Gone are the pairs of beaten converse, even though Tony had bought him suede shoes, gone are the hoodies next to blazers on the coat hook. Gone are the fruits and vegetables for those disgusting smoothies he’d always insist Tony drink. Gone is the sugary cereal because the boy’s a walking paradox and gone is-

Peter.

Tony swallows hard. There’s a lump in his throat. The first tickle of grief in this whole, drawn out process.

Peter’s gone.

Mr Wobbles is gone.

***

He won’t turn on the lights. Won’t go to the bedroom.

What he does do, because Peter’s not here to give him those huge bambi eyes, is pour himself a glass of scotch.

Then another. Then some bourbon. Bitter. All the good stuff he hasn’t felt the need to touch in two years.

Two years with Peter.

On their second anniversary, he remembers Peter’s face- flushed pink, stammering, eyes darting around to take in every inch of the party. Streamers and friends and cake and a table almost buckling under the weight of the presents.

“Tony,” he’d hiccuped, curling into Tony’s chest, shy and excited, “it’s too much.”

Tony had kissed the top of his curls. Felt pride bursting over the seams. Happy to make Peter happy. He’d felt good. “No such thing, baby,” he’d promised.

He’d lied.

Instead, Tony drinks, toes off his shoes, and reaches for the box that his lawyer gave him.

Peggy’s a great lawyer. Expensive, but the one Pepper insisted on.

“I don’t need a lawyer-”

“Peter could claim 50% of SI, Tony. 50%, do you hear me?”

Peter could have, of course. But he didn’t. Tony knew he wouldn’t. Peter’s not the vindictive type. Even in the midst of heartbreak.

He reaches for the box. It’s full of transcripts of the divorce proceedings, there are memory sticks of the recordings.

It all had to be recorded, for some reason. The most high profile divorce of the century.

Tony winces as he thinks of the tabloids. Half of them smear Peter as a gold-digger, wrong wrong wrong, the other half say Tony was cheating, abusive, desperate to go back to his philandering playboy days. Those are wrong too.

But he guesses, Husband refuses to change doesn’t make that good of a headline.

His laptop glows with harsh brightness as he slides in the memory stick. He sits crossed-legged on the ground, muscles protesting, and he forgoes the glass and drinks from the bottle.

It’s not classy. His mom wouldn’t want-

“10% is too high.” Peggy says efficiently on the video, scanning through the contracts. Tony sits beside her, slouched, comfortable, sunglasses on. Pale blue suit. He looks bored. Like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

The real Tony knows better. Knows that those sunglasses were hiding blood shot eyes, eyes focused on-

Peter. Small. Tired. Straight-back, hands folded, in a crisp white shirt.

“We’re not asking for 10% of total assets,” Coulson says softly. “But Mr Parker has made significant contributions to the biochemistry division of SI and as such he is entitled to 3% of the division and a 2% shareholder stake in the company. His marriage to Tony justifies the other 5%.” Coulson looks up from the paper and at Peggy. His voice is gentle: “We’re within our right to go to 50%. We’re asking for 10%. 3% biochemistry, 7% of SI.”

Peggy meets Coulon’s eyes. She sighs. “7% total. 3% Biochemistry, 4% of SI.”

Coulson turns to look at Peter, who murmurs something. Coulson looks like he wants to argue further, but he doesn’t.

“Agreed.” He says.

Both lawyers write. Then they move on to the next thing.

Tony thinks about Coulson. Looks at him on the video. When Pepper had said she’d secured Peggy Carter, he’d nodded, then blinked.

“What about Phil?” He’d asked.

Pepper had kept her face carefully neutral. “He’s Peter’s lawyer.”

“Oh.” Tony had said.

He’d thought Phil was his friend. They’d known each other for years, after all, and then he chastises himself. Phil and Peter had become fast friends. Manning the barbecue out on the deck, laughing, fangirling over Captain America.

“Tony,” Phil had said, coming up to him at the end of it all. “Are you- are we, okay?”

“Yeah.” Tony had nodded. He didn’t have it in him to have another enemy. “I get it. He asked you first.”

“No, Tony.” Phil frowned, shaking his head. “He needed me more.”

What did that mean?

Tony thinks now, swirling the remnants of the bottle, watching the lawyers go back and forth and him and Peter not saying a word.

Why did Peter need Coulson? The divorce was Peter’s idea. Kid should’ve been happy.

The Peter on the screen turns to look out of the window. It’s raining. He’s framed with silver light.

He doesn’t look happy.

Tony tries to think harder. Mind whirring. Tries to think of things he’s long ignored.

Of the fighting.

Of Peter’s pinched face.

He thinks, with more shame, about the times he raised his voice. How he yelled. When Peter would try to pull him out of calculations, try to coax him into eating, try to talk him down from the edge of self-destruction. Tony remembers lashing out.

“You want me to give up being Iron Man? You’re out of your mind, Peter. You’re trying to change me.”

“I’m trying to save you-”

“It’s who I am!” Tony had roared, so loudly that Peter had jerked backwards: afraid. “You’re trying to get me to abandon who I am. Well, I won’t change that way. That’s me, baby, you either take it or leave it.”

He’d been so angry. So scared. At the thought of the red and gold being put to rest.

He’s Iron Man.

“Tony.” Peter had sniffled. “I love you so much. I...I don’t want you to get hurt, but it’s more than that. You’re older now. Sam is taking over from Steve, and...and I don’t think anyone would mind, people know how much you’ve done for us all, if you wanted to retire. There are other people to be heroes now, you can-”

“Peter.” Tony had whispered, hugging him. “I promise. I won’t get hurt.”

He’d been right. But it had been a band aid on a leaking roof.

He didn’t get hurt. He saved the day. Again and again and again and again.

And each time he was gone, Peter would be pelted with rain until he gave all together.

“I want a divorce.”

Cool glass table. Thick fountain pens. Lawyers. Mr Wobbles.

Divorce of the Century - Tony and Peter call it quits. Insider reveals all.

Iron Man = Iron Heart?

Caught in the Act : A Gold Digger’s Story.

Tony Stark: Playboy Extraordinaire.

***

The sun trickles in the next morning.

Tony has a hangover.

His laptop is still playing the footage.

He opens his eyes to Peter’s face, lit with gold, he hears Peggy agree to 300 million.

Peter should smile.

He just looks sad.

Tony reaches for his phone.

It rings 8 times. Tony can picture the man on the other end. Watching it ring. Watching his name. Debating.

He answers.

“Tony.”

“He never stopped loving me.”

“I know.” Steve says quietly, huffing air into the phone, “We all know.”

Tony’s pride has saved him. It also makes him blind.

Steve comes over. Awkward, a little hesitant.

Steve is another thing Peter won in the divorce. If anyone won. If anything can be won.

Peter got Mr Wobbles. Got Steve. Got Bucky, by extension. Got Sam.

Tony got Nat and Clint.

Bruce and Thor refused to pick sides.

But Steve’s here and Tony thinks brokenly maybe all isn’t lost

“He wants me to give up being Iron Man.” Tony croaks, as Steve casts his righteous blue gaze over the penthouse. Over the box of transcripts. Over the empty bottles. Over Tony. Over the video of Peter and Coulson and the end of love.

Steve nods. “You don’t want to give up Iron Man?”

Tony nods his head. Shakes it. Shrugs. Doesn’t know.

Steve presses his lips together. “Tony, Peter can’t breathe properly when you’re Iron Man. He can’t focus. Can’t function. He’s so scared for you. If you can’t function when you’re not Iron Man, this separation is for the best.”

It’s so cruel. Too honest and brutal to hear.

“But we love each other.” Tony insists.

Steve looks sad. “Sometimes that isn’t enough.”

Tony doesn’t go to shareholder meetings.

But it’s three days later. He can’t sleep in their bed. Keeps thinking he hears Peter’s laugh or Mr Wobbles’ plaintive meow.

So when he sees Peter on the list. When he realises Peter might come. Could come. Might be there, within touching distance-

He puts on his best three piece suit. A dark tie. Gets his hair done.

He walks in, and fake-smiles at a few, blustering old men happy to see him.

In the long, oak boardroom, he sees Peter.

He looks young. Really young for the room. 25. In a pinstripe suit that looks- tailored. Good. Good for him.

And on his hand is-is-

It’s his wedding ring.

As soon as Peter looks up, he meets Tony’s eyes, and then honey-brown dart down to his finger, and they jerk under the table.

Tony can’t move.

Peter’s wearing it. Still wearing it. Why- what does-

His own is back in the penthouse. Set next to the photograph of his mother. Another sign of failure.

But maybe- maybe not yet. Maybe it isn’t over till the opera lady sings.

He spends the whole meeting watching Peter, and he isn’t subtle about it either. The other shareholders clear their throats awkwardly.

Peter lets him look. Open and graceful. He lets Tony drink his fill.

It’s never been difficult to look at Peter, after all. He’s stupidly beautiful. Big eyes, long lashes, and that jaw-

Pepper kicks him under the table. Tony barely feels it.

He keeps looking. Keeps drinking. Peter’s skin, soft, freckled, the bow of his lips, how he smiles, so wide he might burst.

He waits till the end of the meeting. Everyone files out very quickly- bar Pepper who lingers, before sighing.

Then it’s just him and Peter.

He watches Peter steel himself. Take a breath. Fix the armour in place that Tony found so frustrating during the divorce. The armour that hides Peter away. Behind an expressionless face and a blank, polite smile.

Gone, is the open boy.

Peter’s preparing himself for battle and-

Peter needed me more. Coulson had said.

Tony remembers asking Peter to join the Biochemistry division. He remembers asking Peter to move in. He remembers the late nights of equations. The way the tower would pull his iron man suit off him and Peter would be there, curled up, waiting.

He thinks. He thinks about Peter’s Oscorp Industries offer to head their Bio-tech division- rejected. For Tony.

He thinks of Peter’s dream to live in the sprawling country, away from the city.

He thinks of how Peter loves late night walks, hand in hand, staring at the twinkling lights of buildings.

He thinks of how Peter told him he was scared that Tony would get hurt.

There’s something about change. All the things Peter’s given him. Given and given and given until there was nothing left to give.

Tony hasn’t changed. He’s softer, more loving, but that’s because- of Peter.

All Peter’s ever asked of him, ever truly asked of him, was to retire.

Tony licks his lips- his tongue’s so dry- and he whispers: “It’s who I am, Pete. I’m sorry.”

Peter closes his eyes for a long, long moment.

Then he opens them, and smiles sadly. “I know, Tony.” He whispers, fragile, “I know. If there were any other way- you’re the smartest man in the world. You’d have figured it out. I think this…” he gestures between them helplessly. “I think maybe this is the only way. I’m sorry too.”

Then he twists the ring off his finger and Tony stops him.

“Keep it,” he begs, “please.”

Peter nods, tears slipping down his cheeks, and he hurries away.

Tony stands there, chest clenching- in more agony than he’s ever been. His jaws ache. He wants to scream. To disappear.

He goes home.

He’s aggressively stripping wires and thinking. Thinking. Thinking.

He’s picturing life in five years.

Picturing waking up with even more aches and pains than he has now. Of stepping down, of giving the suit to a plucky MIT graduate who Tony can mentor.

He imagines getting in his car, driving to the outskirts of New York, the rich, sprawling greenery.

Of finding Peter’s home. Gorgeous. Stately. Framed with foxgloves.

He imagines walking up the steps, knocking on the door and there’s Peter.

Even more handsome. Relaxed. Happy. He’ll smile, Tony will get down on his knees, beg for him back and Peter-

Peter will look heart-broken.

“Tony,” he’ll say, “I didn’t spend five years waiting for you. Hoping you’d come to your senses. I didn’t put my life on pause for you. And you should never have expected me to. I moved on.”

And then someone else will say, “Petey, who’s at the door?”

And he’ll come out. Peter’s husband. He’ll be handsome and young and everything Peter deserves.

Tony has to set down his tools because his hands are trembling with anger over Peter’s non-existent future husband.

Is that what he’s expecting? Is he expecting Peter to wait? To wait until Tony’s done with being Iron Man? To put his life on hold indefinitely until Tony-

It makes him sick.

He won’t do that. Not to Peter, not ever.

Online, a tabloid article: Iron Man = Iron Heart catches his eye.

They’re trying to say he has a heart of stone, but what he thinks is-

Iron Heart is a good superhero name.

Riri is wickedly clever.

She has wide eyes when he arrives at her dorm. She recognises him, clearly. But she quickly starts talking over him, shows him the prototype suit she’s designed.

He’s already seen it in videos.

“This what you wanna do?” He says, eyes catching a photo of her and a girl kissing on the wall. “You wanna be a superhero?”

“More than anything.” She says, getting to her feet, 21 years old and ready to take on the world.

“I used to want it more than anything too.” Tony nods, and he feels warm. “I want something else more now.”

She cocks her head. Trying to gauge him.

He tries to go for casual. “My hus- ex-husba- my Peter- he’s great with bio-tech. Do you- he could help- upgrade- I-”

“Mr Stark,” Riri says, pulling up her socks, folding herself onto her desk chair. “What’s the point in saving the world if you never get to live in it? Life is finite.”

“You’re a good kid.” He manages. “We might make a hero of you yet.”

She grins.

He thinks she’ll be a forced to be reckoned with.

It’s not a beach house. Or a stately home in the expensive part of New York, it’s a townhouse in Brooklyn.

Beautiful, large, homey. Tony rings on the doorbell, fiddles with his collar, wonders if he should have brought flowers-

The door opens. Tony imagines it’ll be May, or maybe a Butler, or maybe a boyfriend-

It’s Peter. He’s in pyjamas. Old ones. Tony recognises them. Mr Wobbles is curled around his feet. He shivers in the cold air.

Tony opens his mouth but doesn’t know what to say. Peter looks up at him, half hidden behind the door, the one eye Tony can see is wide and amazed. Like he maybe didn’t think Tony would come back.

“I love you, Peter Stark.” He says, remembering how Peter’s fingers had shaken when they’d signed the final papers. “And I’d do anything for you. I found a- girl. She’s great, you’ll meet her, Iron Heart, I thought, just toying around, she’ll need help. A mentor, maybe. Dead parents, always seems to be the case. But I thought maybe you and me- we could, help- guide her, I don’t-”

Peter edges out a little more. Mr Wobbles shuffles back into the warmth.

“I thought-” Peter bites his lip. “I thought Iron Man was a part of you?”

“You’re a part of me, Peter.” Tony insists. He laughs. “I’m old. Stupid. Even Cap’n Ice realised what I’ve been trying to ignore...the world doesn’t need me anymore.”

Peter reaches out, takes Tony’s hand. “I need you.” He confesses quietly, smiling.

“And you are my world.” Tony realises aloud, tingling with glee.

***

Iron Man Retires.

Stark and Parker ReUnited.

Iron Heart Makes Debut

Three Times the Starks made us Swoon

Tony Stark to celebrate 10th Wedding Anniversary.

***

He wakes up years later.

He trips over Peter’s shoes. Mr Wobbles pounces on his vulnerable toes as he walks past the bed.

He walks past one of the guest bedrooms: can hear Riri snoring.

He walks down into the lab. It glows with blue light, and there, hunched over the Iron Heart suit is Peter. He’s methodically working out all the damage it took on Riri’s latest stint. The fright she’d given them both- falling into that lake-

He looks like Tony, Tony realises. Of course his husband does, the narcissist that he is.

“Hey Pete,” Tony murmurs, rubbing his eyes, coming closer and kissing Peter on the head. “It’s late.”

“Is it?” Peter hums around a yawn, “I was just finishing up…”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tony chuckles, “I’ve heard that one before. Used it a few times."

Peter grins at that; tired, happy. “I guess maybe you need to tire me out,” he says wickedly, spinning in the chair, legs spreading further apart.

“Mm,” Tony murmurs, leaning down, kissing him. “Extra large pizza?”

“Cheese in the crust.” Peter nods, and they kiss again. And again.

And again.

#starker #peter x tony #angst #happy ending #fluff #divorce #make up break up #break up make up #age difference #marriage au #iron heart #tony stark #soft tony stark #precious peter parker

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emcon-imagines · 3 years

Text

Finally Okay, Pt. 3

part 1, part 2

gif

characters: Wanda Maximoff x reader words: 2194 summary: reader and Wanda are close friends, one joining the Avengers and one going rogue after Sokovia. But after one terrible night, Wanda is forced to face the reality of your mission for revenge. a/n: ahhh fingers crossed please don’t let this flop lmao I worked real hard on this part and you can catch up if you haven’t read parts 1 + 2 yet!!! but anyways surprise and merry christmas!!!!! it’s like a little additional gift to you guys and the conclusion to this trilogy. tagging: @moonlit-imagines and @xxxtwilightaxelxxx, who both expressed interest in a part 3!

You sat with Wanda for a long time in containment, saying nothing, but her familiar presence calming you down enough that your stomach started to churn less and less, and the shaky, panicky feel began to dissipate into exhaustion.

“You still with me?” Wanda murmured as you laid into her, head resting against her shoulder. She squeezed your hand again, trying to get a read on where your mind was. “You seem better.”

You lifted your head up as the door opened, simultaneous with the mechanical beeping of it unlocking. Wanda seemed to sense you tense and she didn’t let go of your hand, even as you clenched hers harder.

“Y/N?” one of the SHIELD agents in the doorway asked. “We’re going to have you stop by the lab to get checked out one more time, and then someplace more permanent for you to sleep tonight.”

You looked at Wanda, uncertainty etched across your face, as you mouthed the word “lab?” with the fear unmistakable in your eyes.

“They’re gentle,” Wanda said. “They’re not going to hurt you. Probably just make sure...” she nodded at the bandage on your stomach. “Well, you really tore yourself up there,” she said, almost ruefully.

You considered her words and finally nodded, sliding off the cot and wincing at the muted stab in your side, still hugging the shawl over your shoulders, as if it could offer some sort of protection from the unknown. When you got to the door, the SHIELD agent waved over to Wanda, who had gotten up as well, but was still standing on the other side of the room.

“Coulson asked if you could stay with y/n,” the agent said. “It’s better than...” he trailed off, glancing down at you and then back at Wanda, who was glaring at him.

“Sedating them again?” Wanda asked. She stepped over. “That’s what HYDRA used to do. You scared them, working on them while they were asleep.”

“That wasn’t my call,” the agent said, quietly. “But... I’ll let Coulson know.”

“It won’t happen again,” Wanda said, and you weren’t sure if she was talking to you or the agent.

The journey to the lab was quick, though you couldn’t ignore the stares from other agents, and the way many of them stopped walking completely to let the five of you, the main agent accompanied by two others, pass. You tried to look braver than you felt, standing up straight, putting up the same mask of anger that had helped you survive for so many years with HYDRA, your eyes dark and your eyebrows furrowed, mouth in a hard slash.

It was clear that Wanda wasn’t comfortable around the agents either, perhaps she would have preferred Natasha or Clint be the liaison instead, but if she did feel that way, she didn’t say anything about it. She’s here, isn’t she? Not her hero friends. Wanda came.

There were only two people in the lab when you arrived, but it seemed busy enough for ten times that amount of people. Not like any of the labs you had seen before. It was well-kept, though lived-in, a mug of tea here, a sweatshirt tossed over a chair there. Work covered the lab benches; you could only begin to guess what SHIELD was working on.

“Hi,” the new woman said, and gestured to a medical station set up behind a glass partition. “You can sit right over there, I’m just finishing something up first.” The others agents stopped at the door, not going any further, and you stepped into the lab cautiously, as if breathing could break something.

“Fitz, where did you put my notes when you moved them?” the woman asked. “Was two tables not enough space?”

“I put them over there,” Fitz said, pointing to where you had been directed to sit.

“Oh.”

You said down on the edge of the cot just as the woman, who you realized must have fixed you up earlier, joined you, finding her notes. “Sorry about that,” she said. “We’re all over the place today, Fitz is trying to build a... well... never mind, that’s a whole other thing.” She pulled a tool off a shelf, something that looked like a gun and you flinched. “Mind if I take your temperature again?” she asked. “I want to see if it’s gone down at all.”

You relaxed and nodded, picking at the paper unrolled on the cot underneath you. She held the thermometer up to your head and read it when it beeped.

“Hmm. You’re still a bit warm. How are you feeling?”

“Y/N runs warm,” Wanda interrupted, and you looked over to see her leaning against one of the lab benches, her arms crossed. “Something to do with their powers. It’s why they’re always cold, too.”

“So, you radiate it all out?” Simmons asked. “And so it’s like you leave none for yourself?” She smiled a little as she put the thermometer away and scribbled a note down. “That’s neat.” She glanced back at you. “I mean, it’s just interesting is all.”

“Thanks.”

Simmons raised an eyebrow at Wanda, they talk?, before picking up her notes and writing something else down. “When was the last time you had a doctor’s appointment?” she asked. “I mean, a real one.”

“Um...” you glanced down at your feet. “Never?” You had managed to avoid doctor’s all these years, even the time you had the flu, or the time you nearly cut your own finger off trying to cook. Glancing at the nasty scar on your thumb, you began to think that maybe that was a mistake. From the other side of the room, you heard Wanda’s exasperated sigh.

“Right, okay,” Simmons said. “Well, I’m going to try to make this as painless as possible, as long as... well... you’re going to have to promise to help me out here. Have you eaten yet? I can send Fitz to the cafeteria to get you something to eat while we talk. What do you like?”

“I’m a bit occupied at the moment,” Fitz said from the other side of the lab, earning a hard look from Simmons, under which he finally relented. “Sorry, what do they like?”

Simmons kept her promise, which surprised you, and you kept yours, which maybe surprised you even more. She checked on your wounds and changed your bandages, tried to find out if anything else hurt that she had missed when you arrived, and only gave you one shot-- a flu shot-- of all things. And you finally ate, picking at the layers of the sandwich Fitz brought, eating one ingredient at a time, swatting Wanda’s hand away when she tried to steal one of the apple slices Fitz brought as well.

“You’re not going to share?” she asked, nudging you and giggling.

“No.”

“Brat,” she said, but she was still smiling. “After all this, you won’t even share one?” You saw red magic light up around her fingers and you clutched the bag of cut apples closer to you, knowing what she would try. “What if I--”

“Nope.”

Simmons’ exam ended shortly after that, and the SHIELD agents returned to escort you to your next destination, which the scientists had referred to holding. It was a stark white room, the walls made up of the same material your original containment cell had been made of, but this room was warmly lit, with a real bed, couches, a desk, and even a television screen. There were clean clothes laid out on the bed, grey sweatpants, socks, and a grey SHIELD sweatshirt, heavier than you expected. Warmer. There was a bathroom, too, already stocked with tiny soaps and shampoos, and you finally got to scrub the blood and soot off of yourself, turning the water as hot as possible and watching the grit run down the drain.

“Better?” Wanda asked, when you got out of the shower, examining the sweatshirt you had changed into. “You look better.”

You nodded, flopping onto the bed and staring up at the ceiling, just as the door opened again, and Wanda stood up from the couch to see who was there. “Hey, how are you?” Phil Coulson asked, stepping through the doorway, tablet in hand. You looked at Wanda, who gestured back to Coulson.

“He asked you, not me.”

“Tired,” you said. “Um... but all right.”

“I’ll take that as a good thing,” Phil said sitting down on the couch. He turned to Wanda. “Natasha dropped some things off for you if you want to grab them and clean up as well.”

You realized that Wanda still had blood, your blood, under her fingernails, and that she had been there the entire time you had. Did she not even leave this place once? When Wanda did step out, you sat on the edge of the bed, eying Coulson, still trying to figure him out. Is this someone I can trust?

“This won’t be too long,” he said. “I’m going to let you rest. I just wanted to talk with you a little more. Is that all right?” When you didn’t respond, he went ahead, glancing down at something on the tablet. “So, Simmons mentioned something in her notes here about your temperature readings. I’m assuming that has something to do with your abilities? Can you walk me though that?”

You paused, staring at your hands. “Um. They said I run hot. I heat things up with my hands... usually.... but sometimes without even touching them.”

“Is that how the fire started?” he asked softly, and you nodded.

“I didn’t want that to happen,” you said. “No one was supposed to be there.”

“I know you didn’t,” Coulson said, and you blinked, surprised. “Powers can be unpredictable. Scary, if you’re new to them, or if you were never trained.”

“I was trained to burn things,” you said. You remembered the trials, trial after trial, leaving you colder and weaker each time, unable to stop shivering, curled up against the glass wall of your cell, where a heat from the lab had warmed the glass enough for you to sleep.

“Wanda told me,” Coulson said. “I’m sorry for what you went through there.” He took another read through of his notes. “We’re going to bring someone else in to do a psych eval tomorrow morning. He’s one of the best, even helped our own. I think you’ll benefit from talking to him. And we’ll go from there. How does that sound?”

You nodded once, and Coulson stood back up, adjusting his suit as he looked around the room. “Get some rest for tonight. Simmons might be by a few times to check on you, and if you need anything in the meantime--” he pointed at a button under the screen “--call button is right there.” Just as he prepared to leave, the door unlocked and opened again, Wanda stepping back in, having cleaned up and changed herself, dropping a duffle bag by the door. She and Coulson nodded at each other as he left, the lights in the room dimming in his wake, something more suitable for sleeping.

You leaned back on the bed, sinking into the pillows, though the constant undercurrent of anxiety prevented you from relaxing completely. “Can you stay?” you mumbled, not daring to ask the question any louder, afraid of the answer. “Just until I fall asleep.”

“I’ll be here when you wake up, too,” Wanda said, crossing the room and sitting down on the other side of the bed. “Okay?” You had pulled her shawl over yourself again and she reached over to tuck it tighter around you, you pulling away for a moment.

Oh.

It was love. All of it, all around you, you realized, was love. Something you had been certain you didn’t deserve, especially in places when there was so little to go around, acts of kindness existing only in mercy.

Wanda paused, waiting for you, as your heart beat a little faster. It was too much, sometimes, overwhelming to think about, these people with so much love to give, relentless until you were ready to accept that perhaps you deserved some peace after all. Not despite your past, but because of it.

Finally, you laid back down on the bed, leaning into her, tucking yourself in close to her warmth, sighing as a burden was lifted off of you. “There you are,” Wanda said, her hand rubbing your back as she pulled you in closer, and this time, you didn’t feel like you had to escape. It was okay. You were okay.

“Thank you,” you whispered, shutting your eyes, already drifting off.

Wanda planted a kiss on your forehead and you smiled in response, the first smile she had seen in a long time from you. It was safe to sleep here. There was enough warmth to go around. Your head rested in the crook between her arm and her chest as she laid back as well, her hoping maybe you finally would sleep peacefully for the first time in a long time.

“I’ll be right here in the morning,” she repeated again, the last thing you heard before you finally rested, finally okay at last.

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stardust-walker · 3 years

Text

World on Fire: Chapter 2 {Loki x Sigyn)

Summary: Sigyn was supposed to have died almost 100 years ago. A peace mission to Migard gone wrong and she had never returned. Everyone had thought she was dead until Loki is shown someone who looks too familiar when he comes to Earth on a mission. Sharon Odell. Shannon Orwell. Sidney Orwell. No matter what name she goes by, it’s all the same. Now that Gods and heroes are real, there’s no use hiding who she really is anymore.

Masterlist

Chapter 2: Start a war

Sidney hated the fact that she was stuck without much of a choice. She had to trust SHIELD and that meant she had to trust Nick Fury with her life. A heavy sigh left her lips right as she heard a branch crack in the woods somewhere behind her. The blonde squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath. She couldn’t get turned around right now when she was so close to getting out of here.

Sidney’s eyes popped open as she heard a jet flying overhead. She was off again, but this time she didn’t even care. She pushed her way through the brush and branches before she stumbled into a clearing. As the wind whipped around her, she faced the woods. Those rogue agents could still be after her.

“Miss Orwell,” a voice shouted over the whir of the engine. She had been so in her own world, she hadn’t even heard them land behind her. A small smile appeared on her face as she turned and met the gaze of Phil Coulson. “How nice of you to join us,” Coulson called over the roar of the engines. Sidney stomped past him as the jet began to ascend again.

As the ramp began to close back up, they could just see the two SHIELD agents stumble out of the woods. “So those bastards were still following me,” Sidney grumbled as she shrugged off her leather jacket.

“Some branches in your hair,” Coulson smiled as he motioned towards the back of his own head.

Her eyes narrowed and a sarcastic remark was cut off by another voice.

“Anymore detours?” That voice.

Sidney turned quickly. Her jaw nearly dropped as she finally realized they weren’t the only passengers on the jet. She swallowed hard as Coulson stepped forward to make introductions. She could practically feel the excitement that radiated off of the older man. “Steve, this is Sidney Orwell. Sidney, this is-”

“Steve Rogers,” Sidney interrupted as she took a step forward and held out her hand. Steve stood and squeezed a little too tight as they shook hands. “Pleasure to meet you, Captain.” She smirked as she pulled her hand from his grasp and straightened out her green sweater. “I have to say, I’ve been dying to meet you since they thawed you out.”

“It’s a pleasure, ma’am. I wish the circumstances were better,” he smiled at her. She couldn’t help but notice how terribly sad he looked. “I knew an Orwell.” Sidney’s shoulder stiffened as Phil’s eyebrows shot up.

“Shannon,” Sidney stated after a few moments of silence. Her mind worked quickly. “My grandmother,” she answered Steve’s unspoken question. This seemed to comfort the man somewhat. The two of them were silent for a second.

“You mean to tell me that your grandmother knew Captain America and you held out on me?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be working right now, Philip?” Sidney responded in a cold voice. “Call me old-fashioned, but sometimes a girl would like to know who’s trying to kidnap her. Along with what they want with the Tesseract.”

“Hope you’re a quick study. There’s a final exam when we land,” Coulson dead-panned as he picked up a tablet off of the seat where Steve had been along with a folder. “This will tell you all that we’re working with so far.”

Sidney lowered herself onto the bench across from Steve as the two men moved closer to the cockpit to talk. She was grateful they weren’t closer when she opened the folder. It felt like all of the air left her lungs and she just couldn’t bring herself to breathe as she stared at the image that had clearly been printed from security footage. There was Selvig on the right and Barton on the left. They hadn’t been lying about agents being compromised that was for sure.

It was the man in the middle that had caught her attention. He looked tired and sickly, but it was him. The person who had tried to kidnap her was Loki. She could feel the whole charade starting to crumble down around her already.

Coulson had realized a few minutes before they landed that he needed to make sure Sidney knew exactly what she was getting into. She quickly recited a shortened version of the notes she’d read about the others. Banner was a genius who turned into a monster due to gamma radiation. Natasha was a former Soviet spy, current SHIELD spy. She had tried hard to repress any emotion in her voice when she stated all she knew was that Iron Man was a man with more money than God.

Steve had laughed at that one. “Sounds like something your grandmother would say about his father,” he shook his head as the small jet jolted.

Coulson clapped his hands together. “Alright, everyone out of the bus.”

Sidney rolled her eyes as she slapped her hand down on the folder one last time before she turned to stand up. Steve had his hand held out in front of her. “What a gentleman. This must be what it was like in the good old days,” she joked as she allowed him to help her to her feet. The blonde still felt far off in her own world as she shrugged her jacket on and followed the men out onto the deck.

The salty sea air relaxed her as she took a deep breath and allowed herself to get lost in the sensation of it for just a few seconds. The dampness in the air felt nice after being cooped up in a jet or running through the woods for most of the day.

It felt like home.

“Welcome back, Sidney,” a familiar voice called out.

A smile spread across her face as she reached out an clapped a hand on Natasha’s shoulder. “Don’t get too cozy, Romanoff. I don’t plan to make this a regular thing.”

Natasha rolled her eyes as she motioned for the two of them to follow her. “It was quite the buzz around here when they found you in the ice.” The red-head addressed Steve as Sidney continued to survey her new surroundings. “I thought Coulson was gonna swoon.”

Sidney snorted.

“Did he ask you to sign his Captain America training cards yet?”

“Natasha,” Sidney scolded jokingly. “Let’s not scare away out new friend.”

Natasha smirked at the blonde woman as Steve stepped forward to greet another new arrival.“Dr. Bruce Banner,” she interjected, “this is Dr. Sidney Orwell. Her family’s been with SHIELD since the beginning.”

“Very nice to meet you,” Banner waved at her as he smiled awkwardly. His hands tugged nervously at his jacket as he seemed to study her warily.

“It’s an honor to meet you, Dr. Banner. Your research is just absolutely incredible.”

“Sidney was brought on to help with the Tesseract…once we get a hand on it, anyway.” She didn’t miss how Steve seemed to tense up at every mention of the cube.

“I expect we’ll be spending a lot of time together then,” Sidney grinned. “Don’t worry, I pride myself on being a very calming person.”

Bruce let out a short laugh. Sidney couldn’t shake the feeling that things were going to go downhill very fast. She had heard of the Hulk. Everyone had after what happened in the Bronx, but the only thing she could do was try. As long as she did what SHIELD wanted her to do, she could go home.

Home.

Maybe she could even see—No. She wouldn’t even let herself think about that even as her heart beat a little faster and her stomach turned.

“It must be strange for you. All of this,” Bruce motioned around the deck. At least Bruce seemed like a nice person; she wasn’t too sure she wanted to meet the other guy yet.

“Well actually, all of this is kind of familiar.” Steve sighed.

“We might want to step inside for a minute. It’s gonna get a little hard to breathe.” Sidney didn’t miss the smirk on Natasha’s face as she turned to face her.

“God I hate planes,” Sidney whispered to herself as she jolted slightly when they rose up out of the ocean and into the sky.

The bridge of the plane was impressive that was for sure. If SHIELD was anything, they were efficient. Her stomach turned just a little bit as she spotted Nick Fury at the helm of everything.

“Gentlemen,” the older man called out as he turned around. “Sidney,” he nodded at her. The blonde responded with a sarcastic smile.

“Hello, Nicholas.” She patted the man on the shoulder as he passed her to greet Bruce.

“How long am I staying?”

“That’s exactly the question I had, doctor,” Sidney chimed in.

“Once we find the Tesseract, you’re in the wind,” Fury replied. Was that supposed to be reassuring?

Sidney narrowed her eyes slightly as Coulson spoke up from the lower deck. “We’re accessing every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet.”

Sidney suddenly became very aware of her own phone in her pocket. She would have to make a mental note to dump both of her phones when she was done with this place. Bastards.

“It’s still not going to find them in time,” Natasha sounded worried. That couldn’t be good.

“How many spectrometers do you have access to,” Bruce frowned.

“How many are there?” Fury raised an eyebrow.

Sidney pursed her lips as she watched Banner shrug off his jacket. “Call every lab you know. Tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof and calibrate them for gamma rays. I’ll figure out a tracking algorithm. Basic cluster recognition.”

“Dr. Banner, I’m impressed.” Sidney smiled as she nodded her head. She figured it went without saying that she would help him with that. “Do you have somewhere for us to work, Fury?” She crossed her arms in front of her chest.

“Agent Romanoff?” Fury called out. “Could you show Dr. Banner and Dr. Orwell to the laboratory?”

At least she trusted Natasha enough to follow her.

“So what’s your specialty?” She didn’t expect Bruce to be one for friendly conversation and if anything this proved her right. He was trying to be nice, she could tell. It seemed like he hadn’t had a normal conversation in years. Sidney knew what that felt like a little too well.

“Astrophysics,” she sighed. “Kind of runs in the family,” she smiled as she brushed her hair from her eyes.

The two of them were silent as Sidney began to busy herself. SHIELD’s technology was advanced past what the general population had access too but, thankfully, she had somewhat of a grasp on it. As her hands extended along the touch screen that hung in the middle of the room.

“Are you one of them?” Bruce spoke up suddenly. Sidney’s dark eyes narrowed as she surveyed the man.

Sidney hated to say it, but she’d been asked that question many times. Maybe not in the same context but still. “A spy? Oh no, Bruce. I’m far too much of a talker to make a good spy.” She laughed at her own poor excuse for a joke. “I’m more of a quiet observer if anything.”

“Sounds a little like a spy to me,” Banner retorted. Sidney let out a small peal laughter.

She dragged her fingers along the screen. All the humor disappeared from her expression as her face went pale. “What the hell,” she whispered as she tapped the screen again.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Sidney shook her head as she gulped.

“What the hell is that?” Bruce raised an eyebrow as he stepped closer.

Sidney shook her head. “Nothing! I…I was just trying to see what they had on Loki and Thor. I guess I just ended up in the wrong section or something.”

“Why Thor?” Bruce frowned in confusion.

Sidney crossed her arms over her chest as she stared at the image on the screen. “Because they’re brothers. Haven’t you heard the stories?” She wasn’t surprised to hear that Bruce lacked knowledge in the Norse mythology department.

“So if you were looking for them, why-”

He trailed off as Sidney swiped the image off the screen and hurried from the room. The text on the screen was still burned into her mind’s eye.

Alias: Sidney Orwell

Threat Level: Neutralized

There was no time to corner Fury as she intended to. No time for anything, in fact, as she stomped her way onto the bridge of the ship.

“We found him. 67% match. No…79% match!”

She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the image on the computer. He didn’t look quite as sick as he did in the photograph, but something still felt…off.

A chill went down her spine as Loki cast a brief glance at the security camera.

He knew they were watching him.

_________________

Hello friendos, here’s another chapter. I’m just out here tryin my best so feel free to give me any feedback. I really appreciate it! Let me know if you would want to be added to a taglist! Hope you continue to enjoy!

#loki x sigyn #marvel loki #loki #loki x reader #loki x oc #loki odinson #loki odinson fanfiction #loki odison x reader #loki laufeyson #loki laufeyson fanfiction #sigyn #bruce banner #steve rogers #natasha romanoff #u know what i love? bruce banner and sigyn being soft but very angry friends #being dramatic is a quality loki's wife needs prove me wrong #tom hiddleston

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themonkeycabal · 3 years

Text

WandaVision Ep 4 SPOILERS

Yes, spoilers,

Wherein I watch and say stuff that might or might not be worth reading.

After a little bit of a lackluster start, there was good story progress last week. An escalation of weird, which I appreciated. I'll probably have to relive it, because Disney doesn't want to let me skip the previously. Ever. Why are you the way you are, Disney?

Geraldine/Monica is made of whispery voices and swirling dust and such. Weird. She's sitting in a chair, sleeping, and apparently being reconstituted. She wakes to a hospital room but outside is chaos. Lots of yelling and people running about. There's like swirling dust or human confetti everywhere, and other people are being reconstituted left and right. Seems unusual. Not the sort of thing that normally happens in hospitals. Oh, are they being un-snapped? The great un-snappening. The un-snapapalooza. The fall of the snappocalypse. I'll stop. I guess we're in a flashback of sorts.

Dudes, Monica just like full on hip checked some dude into the boards. She didn't mean it, but, damn, that guy went flying. Nobody knows what's going on, it's madness. A doctor recognizes her and asks where she went and Monica's all "uh, what? I took a nap?" Napping and then snapping and then popping back into existence. Ain't that just the way? Oh, sad, her mom died while she was missing for five years. :(

Sentient Weapon Observation Response Division — please nobody expect me to remember that. They have a Cape Canaveral looking compound with multiple launch pads and a very large hanger smack in the middle. Gee how neat for them that they get to operate out in the open, Phil Coulson says (in my head) with a whole lot of sarcasm.

Oh, right, they called it the Blip. The Great Un-Blippening. That doesn't sound as good. What on earth with the massive monitors in the main lobby. Nobody likes watching the news that much. Monica is trying to brazenly walk through the front doors with a badge that doesn't work and wow, security guy is kind of a dick. Oh, she belongs there. Captain Monica Rambeau. Captain, good for her.

And now security dick is revealed to be even more dickish, since this is just after the Blip and she's trying to go back to work. Like, SWORD couldn't put out a memo "Be on the lookout for recently unblipped personnel. Don't be massive dicks to them when their security badges don't work, because of how they got blipped and all"? Also maybe a reorientation packet, or like a desk out front "Back from the Blip? Talk to Lt. Mandy Smith in HR about your reactivation options today!" I'm just spitballing here. I get it was chaotic, but that's no reason to let the unblipped get a rude welcome. It wasn't their fault Thanos was critically dumb.

Blip no longer sounds like a word.

Anyway, the acting director is fortunately there to meet her before she could drop her gloves and punch the security dick in the dick. Aww, Maria Rambeau is on the Wall of Valor, or whatever they call it at SWORD.

Things aren't going well at SWORD. The Blip put the hurt on the division. Their remaining astronaut trainees have chickened out. Oh, what if there was like crew up in orbit that got blipped and then when they unblipped five years later … yikes. Well, I'll allow the 'lost their nerve' may have a solid basis in horribleness that probably occurred around the Blip. I retract the 'chickened out' comment.

This is a very long walk-and-talk. Maria Rambeau built SWORD "from the ground up". Bless.

The Director has grounded Monica. Well, actually, her mom grounded her, making protocols in case vanished personnel one day returned. Lol. Though, I mean, I'd guess she'd know, what with Carol and all. "I know it's a raw deal, but there is one positive takeaway. She believed you'd come back." Awww

So, she's off to deal with some sort of missing persons case in New Jersey overseeing the loan of one of their drones for the FBI. I guess Wanda will be the missing person. Yep, she's off to Westview. Which has seen better days.

Hey! It's Agent Woo! I like you Agent Woo! Did I know he was in this? I don't remember. Randall Park's great. A happy surprise.

Hmm, he has a missing witness. So, not Wanda, then. Hmm again. Agent Woo contacted known associates, family, friends — none of them have ever heard of the witness. A mystery!

Oh and there's another wrinkle.

"Pardon me Sheriff, would you mind repeating your claim about Westview to my colleague here?"

"No such place," he says, standing next to the 'Welcome to Westview" sign.

Hmmm, puzzling. Jimmy Woo can't reach anybody listed as living in town. So, wait, the town doesn't exist, except it does, but, nobody thinks it does, so where did he get the phone records for residents? The phone company was just like "here's your records for the imaginary city of Westview, all 3,000+ residents that never existed, and yet we have the numbers and we're just not going to question that". Weird.

"So you can't reach anyone inside and everyone on the outside has some sort of selective amnesia?" That does seem to be the case, Monica. Super odd. Agent Woo is very sanguine about the whole thing. He dealt with Scott Lang, I guess after that everything else is like, 'meh'.

"Why haven't' you gone inside to investigate?" A fine question, Captain.

"Because it doesn't want me to." That's just creepy, Agent Woo. "You can feel it, too, can't you? Nobody's supposed to go in." I guess this is where the drone will come in handy. Oh, it's the little helicopter that Wanda found in the bushes in the second episode. I'm going to pretend that super advanced SWORD drones would totally look like cheap RC toy helicopters. I guess that's a disguise?

Monica wants to know why she and Agent Woo are aware that Westview exists and nobody else is. Does that mean the Sheriff was standing next to the Welcome to Westview sign and just did not see it at all? He was just hanging out in the middle of nowhere with a weirdly laconic FBI agent who kept asking about the town that very clearly wasn't just right behind them? That's a little more than amnesia.

Also, Agent Woo's hero was Elliot Ness. Of course it was.

Oh no, the drone vanished as it crossed the town line! There's an energy field around the town that looks like what happens when you push your fingers against an old monitor and get the weird pixelly rainbow. Agent Woo's all "please no touch" and Monica's all "yes, I think I'll stick my whole hand in there." And she got sucked in. Agent Woo's gotta be like "WHY DOESN'T ANYBODY EVER LISTEN TO ME?"

24 hours later. Darcy! Some sort of transport van. A trio of other suits in the back, plus Darcy. She tries to talk to one of the dudes and he's all "we're not supposed to talk to each other!" "Boy Scout leader, got it." Relax, uptight guy. Pfft, what sort of team is that? The rest give up their specialty. Aww, bless, she went into astrophysics. "We've got the full clown car." heh.

Boy Scout leader finally caving to peer pressure: "I'm a chemical engineer." Darcy: "No one cares." lol. Missed you, girlfriend!

And in 24 hours SWORD/FBI whoever have set up a little military camp. Oh a "response base". How banally euphemistic. There's like a whole bunch of agencies there, as well as Army and Air Force.

Dr. Lewis. Oh, I'm so proud. I bet Jane was over the moon. Saved from poli-sci!

Elsewhere another drone vanishes. Darcy darcys a lot at an uptight uniform who is breathing down her neck "make your assessment" and it's delightful. Darcy notices some high levels of cosmic background radiation and also something weird layered over the top of that. Hmm, she needs a tv. "An old one, like not flat." One with vacuum tubes, perhaps?

In another part of the camp, they send in a guy in a hazmat suit, down into the sewers, looking for Monica. I guess he'll be the beekeper Wanda tosses in ep 2. Jimmy Woo is not optimistic about that plan. He tells the SWORD Director all about it.

"Someone must really miss you back at Quantico." "No, sir, softball season is over." Lol.

All their high tech scanning is turning up nothing.

Uhoh, screaming. Oh, nevermind, it's the laughtrack. While everybody else was dicking around with the LIDAR, Darcy has tracked down the last tube tv in New Jersey and has tuned into the Wanda Dimension. Episode one is playing.

Darcy is understandably particularly baffled by Vision. "Look, I know it's been a crazy few years on this planet, but he's dead right? Not blipped. Dead." Poor Vision. Alas.

Director wants to know if the broadcast is realtime or a recording. Or what? Darcy's like "how tf should I know?"

Jimmy asks the good question "So you're saying the universe created a sitcom staring two Avengers?" "It's a working theory."

Now SWORD fans out! And collects every ye olde TV on the eastern seaboard. Who doesn't love a good sitcom, amiright? (Me. Me do not love sitcoms). The Director storms off to wherever for whatever reason. I don't know, don't care. Jimmy and Darcy are on the case.

Darcy is IDing the other "characters" in the sitcom, who appear to be real people with NJ driver's liscenses, while Jimmy is wondering why the force field is hexagonal. You've got me there. And now we're montaging.

Jimmy ponders the big board of 'characters' and Darcy drops her cup o' noodles when she spots Monica in the second episode. He and Darcy discuss and he's like "is it an alternate reality, time travel, some cockamamie social experiment?" Darcy's all "it's a sitcom." A pure mystery.

Darcy comes up with the idea to reach out to Wanda via the radio in her kitchen. "Next time she's washing dishes — which by my count happens about once an episode, barf." heh. She tech babbles some and I'm very proud.

A minion agent runs up with the latest intel from the most recent episode, it's a picture of the SWORD drone that looks more retro (frankly it looks better than the 'real world' one.) Hmmm, such a puzzler. Why did it change, they wonder.

Darcy Lewis and Jimmy Woo are a partnership I can totally get behind. Jimmy was the voice trying to reach Wanda. Darcy's watching the show while Jimmy's trying the radio thing. It's the second episode where Wanda's talking to Emma Caulfield and things go weird. Good. I'm glad they jumped us to the outside world by ep four. While I thought the first two eps were slow, I think maybe they'll work better once we can watch the whole thing at a go.

Dude is still crawling through the sewers. I completely forgot he was down there. And the field extends below ground and he just crawled through it and became a beekeeper, and his safety rope snapped and … became a jumprope?

And then Wanda wishes him to the cornfield. (I guess? We don't see what happens to him.)

SWORD is watching episode three.

"1950s, 1960s, and now 70s. Why does it keep switching time periods. It can't be purely for my enjoyment can it?" Guys, it's so good to see Darcy. "I can't believe Wanda and Vision are having a baby." No really, Jimmy and Darcy, BFFS 4EVAH! They're eating chips and watching the episode. Delightful. Just delightful.

"Twins. What a twist." Jimmy gives Darcy a look. "I'm invested!"

Monica mentions Ultron and Jimmy and Darcy are like "Whoa!".

They notice the screen sort of glitches and then Monica is gone and it's the end credits. Like when Bee guy vanished. Darcy and Jimmy are confused. "Someone is censoring the broadcast." Yeah, Wanda. She's gone to the scary place, friends.

Alarms go off and they run off. But, we go into Wanda World the aspect ratio changes from 4:3 to 16:9 and it's a new angle on when Wanda went all scary at Monica, demanding to know who she is. And then, of course, she gets kicked out of Wanda World.

"Wanda, I'm just your neighbor." "Then how could you know about Ultron?"

Wanda brings up the glowy hands of scary. "You are a stranger and an outsider and right now you are trespassing here. And I want you to leave." And then she zooms Monica out through the walls and fences and fields and that looked like it probably hurt.

Oh gross. Wanda turns around and sees Dead Vision. The big hole in his head and his face all, you know, dead looking. She looks away and then he's normal when she looks back. Well, now this has turned all sad, you guys. "We can go wherever we want." "No, we can't." Sad. Poor Wanda. The aspect ratio goes back to 4:3. I’m sure Editorial was like “oh god, again?”

"Don't worry darling, I have everything under control."

I don't think so, Wanda.

Good ep! My only real takeaway is that none of this is going to end particularly happily.

So … Darcy and Jimmy, BFFS 4EVAH!

#wandavision #wandavision spoilers #darcy lewis #jimmy woo #wandavision liveblog

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ryder616 · 3 years

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Rewatching All The Madame’s Men

Revolutions only need good dreamers who remember their dreams.

Or, in the case of a virtual reality run by an android who wants to be free, they only need secret agents who remember their true selves.

I’ve always wondered if at least part of the inspiration for the Framework arc came from the writers’ frustrations with the 2016 US presidential elections and its result.

It’s not just the numerous and very overt jabs - they’re not even pretending to be subtle - but the resolution: facts, as in the truth of the Patriot’s sacrifice and Hydra’s depravity, win over propaganda and the public “wakes up” and unites against the fascists. Wouldn’t it be nice if it was so straightforward in real life?

Take Your Daughter to Work Day:

At the beginning of the season Coulson was in a very similar place to Daisy, minus of course the PTSD and the death wish (that will come next season. Sort of?).

On a surface level, both were back to when the series started: she, on her own in her van, flouting laws and crusading. And he, a high-level agent again, leading his own team on a cool plane, picking up assignments he likes (for the most part).

Both chose this “regression” to protect the team in the wake of the Hive crisis: “I thought that separating myself from the team would help me protect it” Daisy will explain in a few episodes to a more receptive Fitz than the one who accused her of “turning her back” in 4x02, and Coulson has already said in 4x07 how stepping down from the directorship was the move that allowed everyone else to continue in S.H.I.E.L.D. and, presumably, to do so unhindered.

Both were forced back into their pre-Hive roles by circumstances: Daisy returned because of the Eli Morrow crisis and may have left again right after it if she had paid attention to land in a media-free area (🤭). And Phil only assumed his Shadow Director role because Mace’s qualifications were a lie.

So it’s very satisfying that in the same episode Daisy emerges from a new Terrigenesis fully healed with her powers again and Coulson fully finds himself, stepping up to lead the Resistance and inspiring the masses.

Tinker, Traitor, Soldier, Spy Redux:

When you get down to it, FW!Ward is basically doing exactly what real!Ward was doing until the Hydra’s attempted takeover (so before 1x17 and the subsequent murder spree): he is a spy, embedded in a rival organization for years, who is lying about himself to everyone there, including the woman he claims to love.

Except, of course, he’s doing it for a very different and, I think we can all agree, far better cause. Betraying S.H.I.E.L.D. made him a villain, betraying Hydra makes him a hero.

As an exercise in moral relativity and “Context Matters!”, FW!Ward is very effective. And he works as a foil for Fitzler, with the nurture vs nature argument that was seeded way back in season 1. Fitzler was raised by an overbearing, abusive father instead of his loving mother, while FW!Ward was “saved from himself” by a woman dedicated to the greater good (given it’s Hand, overbearing probably still applies 😁), instead of the self-serving, toxic asshole that Garrett was. And so here they are, on opposite paths again but in reverse.

As a “redemption” for real!Ward, however, assuming that was the intent - and it is debatable - I don’t think he works and Daisy’s line, that she now understands her Ward had good in him since the simulated one does, feels borderline disrespectful to her character, whose empathy and survivor’s guilt could probably be used for better things than forgiving remorseless abusers.

How does the obvious notion that Ward would have become a better human being if someone less awful than Garrett had offered him tutelage when he was a vulnerable, messed-up teen, redeem the adult who consistently chose to do ill, channelled his hurt into hurting others and never truly regretted it?

Will Fitz’s horror for what Fitzler did, and his better path in life, “redeem” the Doctor? Then why would FW!Ward’s dismay for his real world counterpart’s actions, and his different path in life, redeem real!Ward?

This “presumed redemption” angle is also further muddled by S7, when we are told (by Kora, in 7x11) that in a timeline where Garrett never “helps” him, Ward was going to be worse.

Stuff:

The Framework has its own Fox News stand-in. Naturally.

Unlike Afterlife’s crystals, the one used by May doesn’t contain any trace of the Diviner’s metal and is therefore completely harmless for humans. FW!Hydra did a better job growing the Terrigen and it’s also likely that post-Whitehall Jiaying considered the deadliness to humans a feature, rather than a bug, and never saw a reason to refine the process.

You’re looking better -- Yeah. Thanks for that. I guess Aida and the Darkhold agree with me that cuts, bruises and even scars should not be retained after Terrigenesis. Daisy’s real Terrigenesis worked differently - she still had the cut on her cheek after it - and she seems surprised here that her injuries are gone but in 2x16, during the acupuncture scene, there were no visible scars on her stomach where Quinn’s shots should have left their mark. 🤷‍♀️

No matter the circumstance, none of you can escape your true nature. [May], the Warrior. Mack, the Protector. And Fitz, well, he's a Romantic. -- And me, what, I don't make the list? You, my dear, are the Rebel with a Cause.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!!!!! 🥳👏🙌

The same parameters that limit me must also limit you. My primary directive requires me to protect these people. [...] If they become a direct threat to the Framework, then they no longer require protection. Can I just say that Radcliffe bungled the Laws of Robotics? Protecting human life is the FIRST law and everything else is supposed to be subordinate. This part is definitely not the Darkhold’s fault. Bad priorities!

Anyone else getting sick of this propaganda crap? It's like sipping poison. Little bit every day, you don't even notice till it kills you. How unsubtle of you, AoS. Good.

Still feeling the after-effects of the Terrigen. It's like a hangover made of bees. In S2 Daisy described her powers as a thousand bees inside [her] that she felt all the time. The technical aspects of the simulation remain impeccable.

What I don't get is how you can control your powers so quickly. A question I have about the humans powered up with the stolen Inhuman powers in S7 (other than Malick, who almost killed himself at first and, unlike the rest, had proper time to learn).

What kind of monsters would do this? -- Inhumans. The ever-present threat. Right. Inhumans are the monsters here...🙄

This woman, known by the alias "Skye," is a member of the Inhumans First movement. Her goal is to destabilize Hydra from within. We warn our audience that this Inhuman has the potential to cause mass destruction, and she has been known to target civilians. Aside for the “Inhumans First” membership, none of this is technically untrue. And yet...

Her name was Victoria Hand. She was the first person to tell me I could be a good man. Skye was the one who made me believe it. Skye. Who was working for Hydra. Willingly, apparently (why?). Honestly, I don’t think the writers thought the lives of the alt NPCs through, outside of the Ward & Fitz moral switcheroo.

This is quantum-energy manipulation. Darkhold tech. Aka the stuff with the magic boxes, Lucy the Ghost and Eli the Quantum Thief from 4A. When people hate on the Ghost Rider pod I get cranky, because it set up everything.

You can't blame yourself for their lies. Once you learned the truth, you fought back. As usual, May doesn’t hide from responsibility, even when the deck is fully stacked against her, but this is good advice that hopefully helped her. It sounds like Daisy was relating to her experience with her mom in S2, in which case this may indicate that she has forgiven herself for it... or that she’s much better at giving advice than following it.😄

[Aida] wants to circumvent her programming. Every step has been towards that goal. The Framework, Radcliffe, Fitz. We have to stop her. Aida wants to be free. By itself, that’s remarkable. And relatable. I think this is one of the reasons why she is such a great antagonist, one of the last, great villains of the show.

You believe me? -- Come on, girl. That's way too crazy a story to make up. Trip never, ever disappoints. 🤗

Don't you snap at me, boy. If I wanted you hysterical at every setback, I would have left you with your mother. According to the Declassified books, these scene with Alistair that highlights the perils of growing up without a female parental figure were shot, coincidentally, on International Women’s Day.

So the secret base is the base. Probably should've guessed that. 😂😂😂

Trip? That's the best news I've heard in weeks. Right?!

Clearly, I wasn't in on any plan, or I wouldn't still be in this bloody cell. I’m disappointed they left Radcliffe in the hands of the nazis, especially because him being him along May and Daisy during the escape would have been hilarious.

To save ourselves we need to save the world. Work, work, work,work... 😅

I'm just saying, if you need to shop for furniture, I'll take you. I know just the place. This is another unsubtle reference, I *think* to Bill O’Reilly and his sexual harassment scandal.

If you think you can force me, Sunil Bakshi, to go on air and slander Hydra, then you're delusional. I am the most trusted voice in journalism [Daisy quakes him into a wall] Just, uh, put it in the teleprompter, then. The unyielding hero Hydra deserves.... 🤣

Well, every relationship has its ups and downs. We'll get through it. I’m a bit unclear on how being a Hydra supporter is just some regular relationship hurdle to get over but I admire your optimism, Better!Ward.

Hydra doesn't think we're smart enough to know when we're being fed alternative facts to keep us afraid, to keep them in power. Unsubtler and unsubtler...(sic)

Now I'm choosing to stand up, to become a part of something bigger. I really do believe that together, we can accomplish anything. Because the truth is I'm not just a history teacher. My name is Phil Coulson and I'm an Agent of S. H. I. E. L. D. Did anyone not smile broadly at this? Like, I’m typing it and still smiling.

We have located the two agents threatening the Framework. They are aboard a S. H. I. E. L. D. jet. Once we get a lock on it, my men have orders to shoot it down. Ugh, going from Coulson’s speech to the Superior Bigot is almost as bad as going from Enoch’s goodbye to Nathaniel Malick. Curse all aggravating villains and their tag scenes.😝

#agents of s.h.i.e.l.d.#agents of shield #aosrewatch #aosrewatchs4 #phil coulson #melinda may #daisy johnson #grant ward #leo fitz #jemma simmons #aida #antoine triplett #alphonso mackenzie #anton ivanov #rewatchingaos #rewatchingaos4 #aos 4x19

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mystical-flute · 3 years

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Love Persevered

Also on AO3

It's not S.W.O.R.D that ends up with Vision's body, it's S.H.I.E.L.D, and a miracle happens when Wanda goes to collect his body.

Wanda Maximoff had heard of S.H.I.E.L.D. Of course she had - she had heard many, many things about them during her time with HYDRA. How evil they were, for standing in the way of greatness, of glory...

When she’d heard about the real S.H.I.E.L.D from Clint and Natasha, she was almost disappointed she never got the chance to work with them. Nick Fury and Phil Coulson sounded like better people than the monsters that had tortured her and Pietro and brainwashed them into doing their bidding.

She shuddered a little, striding into S.H.I.E.L.D’s headquarters. It was smaller than she would have anticipated an organization of its caliber being, but Wanda supposed, after all the damage that had been caused after the Blip and other issues leading up to it, she should be grateful the organization existed at all.

What she was worried about was why they were the ones that had Vision’s body. Yes, he had been listed on the Wall of Heroes, and she was very grateful for it, but why hadn’t he been buried? Why hadn’t he gotten what Tony Stark had?

It was up to her to give it to him.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m Wanda Maximoff. I’m here for Vision’s - I - I’m here for Vis - ” she’d tried to steal her nerves, tried to come to grips with what she was asking for, but the words just wouldn’t come out. “Please. I know he’s here.”

The woman behind the desk gave her a sad, understanding smile as she picked up the phone. “Director, Wanda Maximoff is here.” A pause. “Yes sir,” she put the phone back down and turned back to Wanda. “Director Mackenzie will be waiting for you on the third floor at the end of the hall. Just use those doors. Elevator is on your right.”

Wanda blinked in surprise. It would be that easy? Really? Normally with government agencies there was a host of red tape she needed to cut through. But maybe S.H.I.E.L.D understood she wasn’t here to fight, or even talk. She was just here to give Vision the goodbye he deserved.

“Thank you,” she managed to choke out, before rushing through the doors and up to the third floor as directed.

“Hello Miss Maximoff. I’m Director Alphonso Mackenzie. Welcome to S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Wanda, and thank you. Can I see him?”

“Of course, right this way.”

He pushed the door behind him open, allowing Wanda to step through into what she could only describe as a lab. On a table, covered in a white sheet, was what she assumed was Vision. However, she was more concerned with the people that were standing nearby, looking at records and computer screens.

“Who are they?” she heard herself ask sharply.

“Fitz,” the one woman said, pointing at the man next to her.

“Simmons,” the man said, pointing at the woman who had first spoken.

The second woman rolled her eyes, holding out her hand. “I’m Daisy.”

Wanda shook it suspiciously. “What were you doing with Vision?”

“We… were hoping to give you some options, Wanda,” Mack began. “S.H.I.E.L.D has been able to create androids called Life-Model Decoys, or LMD’s. They’re essentially reconstructions of people. Originally, they were intended to be used as shields to protect our agents, but there were a couple of extenuating circumstances.”

Wanda furrowed her brow. “And that means…?”

“We created decoys to… essentially resurrect the dead just… not in their original bodies,” Fitz said. “Jemma, Daisy, and I were making a map of Vision, in case you decided you wanted one of him.”

Wanda felt her heart stop. She must have been dreaming, right?

“You would… bring him back?” she choked out over the lump in her throat. God, she did not want to hope, but it was so, so tempting. “What - what’s the catch?”

“There is no catch,” Simmons answered this time. “I swear on my cottage in Perthshire.”

“Why do you want to help me?” Wanda had done so many terrible things to so many people. Why would a government organization want to help her now?

“Because S.H.I.E.L.D believes in helping people, and that no one should be alone. But at the end of the day, this decision is up to you,” Daisy said. “As his next of kin, this decision is yours alone.”

She could have him back.

Wanda had not dared to hope for such a thing. But she could have him back. These people - a group that Clint and Natasha trusted - were giving her a second chance she wasn’t sure she deserved.

Still, she looked suspiciously at the scientists in front of her. “Would he be the same Vision I fell in love with?” she asked.

“We can replicate his personality and his appearance, yes. He would no longer be considered a synthezoid, however. He would be an android. We’ve also never created an LMD of a synthezoid, so we don’t know for sure if he’d still have his powers, but… otherwise, he would act and look just the same as you knew him,” Fitz confirmed. “He will have all of his memories of you as well.”

Wanda was shaking now, and her knees buckled. If Mack hadn’t been right next to her, she knew she would have fully collapsed to the black tiles below her.

“Do it,” she gasped, nodding once. “Please. Bring him back to me.”

“It will take a few days,” Mack said, helping to steady her. “You’re welcome to stay here if you don’t have a hotel or anything else.”

The dam broke, tears racing down her cheeks. “Thank you. You don’t know how much this means to me.” She rubbed her eyes. “Can I have a minute alone with him before you start?”

“Of course.”

The scientists and director stepped out of the room, the door clicking shut softly behind them.

She rubbed her eye against the sleeve of her sweater again, swallowing back a wave of nausea as she peeled the sheet back.

He looked as she remembered. That was good. Part of her had been worried that any government agency would dissect Vision, or worse - try to turn him on their side, but it seemed S.H.I.E.L.D wasn’t like the others.

She was so glad he’d ended up in their hands.

“I’m sorry there wasn’t any other way…” she whispered, hovering a shaking hand over where the Mind Stone should have been. “I can’t feel - ”

Wait.

Wanda paused, frozen over Vision’s form.

She felt something. It was faint, so very, very faint, but it was there.

It was him.

“Vision?” her voice cracked. “Vision, can you hear me?”

If he could, he didn’t respond, but that little flicker of feeling meant that… maybe this body could be saved.

“Director!” she called.

Mack was in the room in a second. “Wanda? What’s the matter?”

“I - I think Vision is still alive.” It was a sentence she didn’t think she would say after the battle with Thanos.

“Tremors! Fitzsimmons! We may be on a resuscitation job instead of an LMD job!”

The scientists rushed into the room, their eyes wide as they rushed to the computer and monitors.

“My God,” Simmons murmured, turning to Wanda. “Did you… happen to use your magic at all while you were alone?”

Wanda swallowed thickly. “I… yeah, a little bit. It’s something I used to do with him.”

“We registered a trace amount of energy when we brought him in, but we couldn’t place where it came from. Only that it was partially found in space. That same energy was picked up by our computer when you were in here. You were the one to originally - ”

“Yes, I was,” Wanda interrupted, not wanting the word spoken. “What does that mean?”

“It means Simmons and I can repair Vision’s body, and you can repair his mind,” Fitz concluded. “Some of the more… mechanical pieces of him began to deteriorate over the last five years. I can upgrade that, but we’ll need your energy to… bring him back online.”

“I - I can’t - that’s not how - ”

“Wanda,” Daisy said firmly, and Wanda turned to her with wide eyes. “I know how you feel. You don’t feel strong enough, or powerful enough, right?”

Wanda nodded a little.

“My sister thought the same. She has powers too - so do I. She was asked to do something she never thought possible with her gifts.”

“What’s that?”

“Bring me back to life.”

Wanda thought the breath was knocked out of her as she stared at the agent in front of her. “You - you died too? And - and you were brought back?”

Daisy nodded. “My sister and I are known as Inhumans. Kora has energy manipulation. She managed to manipulate my life energy after I was - literally - floating in space without any protection. You said you felt a flicker of Vision?”

“Yes.”

“Then you need to focus on that feeling and fight like hell to bring him back.”

Wanda took a deep breath, all of it overwhelming. She’d thought she would be coming in here to claim VIsion’s corpse and take him to be buried. Now here she was… potentially bringing him back. Small as it was, she knew she couldn’t turn it down, so she nodded.

“Okay. I’m ready.”

“Fitz and I will begin the repairs right away,” Simmons said, giving Wanda a kind smile. “You can wait in the hallway. We’ll let you know when we’re ready for your powers.”

“I’ll wait with her,” Daisy offered, leading her back out into the hallway.

“I’ll leave you all too it. Call me if there’s an emergency,” Mack said. “It was nice to meet you, Wanda.”

Wanda nodded, sitting on a bench with Daisy. Was this what it was like when someone was in a hospital waiting room, waiting for news about their loved one’s surgery? That must have been what this felt like.

There was a comfortable silence between her and Daisy, as Daisy quietly tapped on her phone and the muffled sounds of machinery whirred behind the lab doors.

“What was it like?” she choked out, wanting an escape from the sounds.

Daisy looked at her in surprise. “What?”

“Your… dying. What was it like?”

“Oh.” Daisy paused, slipping her phone into her pocket before she leaned back on the bench. “Well… we were fighting this guy named Malick. He had inhuman powers like my sister and I, and he managed to pin me against this… energy thing. We planned for this. For my to - to sacrifice myself. So I managed to grab him, look him right in the eye, and just let out the strongest attack I could. The last thing I remember was everything exploding around me… and then it went dark. Empty… until Kora brought me back.”

“Is that what Vision’s feeling now? Empty?” she whispered. “Has he felt this for five years?”

“It’s hard to say. But I know you shouldn’t dwell on it, Wanda. Just focus on him. On your future.”

“Westview…” she said softly, a sad smile on her face. “Vision bought a plot of land. We were supposed to build a house there. ‘To grow old in’.”

Daisy smiled. “I think that sounds sweet. Hold on to that. Focus on that when you’re doing your magic, or whatever it is.”

Wanda nodded, her hands shaking. “I can’t believe it’s real. Now that I actually have time to think - I was afraid I was going to be alone forever. The other Avengers went home to their families but I - I don’t have anyone. I thought I was coming in here to retrieve a corpse… and now I might be walking out of here with the man I love.”

“You will be. Fitz and Simmons are the smartest people I know. They will work until their fingers fall off to bring Vision back to you.”

“She’s right about that. They’re the ones who brought me back.” This voice was new, and Wanda jumped slightly as she turned to it.

“A.C! I didn’t know you were coming in today. How was Miami?” Daisy asked.

“Humid. Wasn’t so easy on my circuitry,” the man replied, glancing over at Wanda. “You must be Wanda Maximoff. I’m Phil Coulson.”

She blinked, rising to her feet. “Clint and Natasha told me you were dead.”

“I am. Well - my body is. I’m an LMD. Did they explain to you what your option was with Vision?” Coulson asked.

“They did but… I think we can bring him back, just as he is. Your associates are repairing his body now.”

Coulson’s eyes widened. “Oh - well, that’s surprising. But good. We weren’t sure, which is why S.H.I.E.L.D offered you an LMD of him.”

“It’s very appreciated, Agent Coulson.” Wanda picked at the hem of her sleeve. “Do they know you’re alive?”

“Who?”

“Clint, Thor or Bruce. They were part of the original Avengers, right? Do they know about your… new form?”

Coulson hesitated. “No. I was kept in the shadows, and then it’s been a little nuts the last five years.”

She pressed her lips together. “I think you should tell them. I mean, the rules are being bent all over the place now, right? They would be happy to know your consciousness is still alive. Clint especially. He - he told me he still has regrets over what happened with Loki.”

A look of guilt crossed Coulson’s face. “I see. I’ll contact them, then. Thank you for letting me know. Do you mind if I wait with you and Daisy?”

She shook her head. “Maybe you can tell me about what Clint and Natasha were like when they worked here.”

Coulson laughed. “Oh, I have a few stories about that.”

It was hours later before Simmons poked her head out of the lab. “You can come in now, Wanda.”

Vision was still purple and lifeless, but his skull looked good as new. She could see the reinforcements that had been made to the non-organic parts of his body too, and smiled in relief.

Now came the tricky part.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Fitz said, a tablet in his hand.

Wanda nodded, stepping up to VIsion. She placed her hand over his head where the stone should have been and focused on everything she loved about him. About the future they’d tried to build. About the future they would build, when he came back to her.

“I can feel you, Vision,” she whispered. “Please… come back.”

She watched as the energy in her hand suddenly turned yellow - the Mind Stone! - and poured into Vision’s skull. The color began to return to him, and finally, those blue eyes opened.

“Wanda?” he asked.

“Vision?”

He sat up, holding his head. “What happened? Where’s Thanos? Are we still in Wakanda?”

“Thanos is gone. We’re safe now. We’re at S.H.I.E.L.D headquarters,” she explained.

“S.H.I.E.L.D. Yes, I recall stories about them.” He paused, data downloading in his mind. “Ah, yes, I see. And you took custody of my body because of my connection to the Avengers?”

“That’s correct. Agent Coulson here was one of the founding members of the Avengers initiative,” Daisy explained.

“And you died, but apparently returned as well. It is comforting to know I’m not the only person to return from death,” Vision said.

“Everything seems to be stable with you, Vision. How are you feeling?”

Vision hopped off the table, testing a few of his abilities quickly. “I feel brand new. Thank you Dr. Simmons.”

“Then I clear you for discharge,” Simmons smiled, holding out a card. “If you need anything, S.H.I.E.L.D will be at your call.”

Wanda leaned against Vision. “Thank you for being so kind… for doing all of this for me.”

“You’re welcome,” Daisy said. “Good luck in Westview.”

“I quite liked them,” Vision said as they got into her car. “Did you know Agent Coulson used to have hair?”

Wanda chuckled softly, switching the car on and pulling out onto the busy street. “It’s not hard to imagine. Human men go bald sometimes. I guess Coulson just got unlucky genes.”

“What do you suppose I would look like bald? As a human, I mean. I know I’m… quite bald in this form.” He patted his own head for emphasis.

“I don’t know. But I think we have all the time in the world to find out.”

Vision smiled. “Yes, we do. Westview awaits.”

They drove off into the sunset, and the promise of tomorrow.

#wandavision #agents of shield #wanda maximoff #vision #daisy johnson #leopold fitz #jemma simmons #alphonso mackenzie #phil coulson #fanfiction

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lovelyirony · 4 years

Note

❛ there is no heroism in war — there are simply things that need to be done. ❜ with tony and your choice of second person?

If there’s one thing that Tony learned from his father, it was that everyone will idolize the people in war who go too soon.

Every single Fourth of July, they visited the honorary headstone that was put up for Captain America. Howard waxes poetic about how strong and how brave this man was, and if he gets drunk (which is usually always a given) he talks to Tony about how much he wishes he had a son like good ole’ Steven Grant Rogers.

“Well, you first went wrong by agreeing to let Mama name me Anthony,” he says, because his words can be just like Howard’s.

He gets sent to his room for the remainder of that holiday, and watches fireworks that boom with impressive chemical reactions while overlooking the party that his parents host every single year.

His least favorite holiday is the Fourth of July. He lets people know it, says it in all the fluffy interviews, and he lets everyone think it’s because he can’t make fireworks himself, or that he hates his father’s patriotic legacy, and those are both true.

But not the real reason.

This continues for years. Tony is infamous for never celebrating the Fourth of July, especially after his parents’ deaths.

People speculate. Say it’s “too painful a day.”

Oh, it’s not. It’s far from painful. Tony simply just...doesn’t care about the day. He makes himself a nice drink, sits on his deck, and stares out at the ocean ahead of him. People ride on boats, there are fireworks going off all day, and he treats it like any other day.

And then he’s asked for an interview for a documentary on Captain America.

Everyone and their mother knew about Howard’s obsession; he wasn’t exactly quiet about it.

He says no.

“I don’t talk about him,” Tony says over the phone. “But good luck with your show.”

It makes it to the media. People accuse him of hating America, hating any symbol that represents America, and being a Communist.

“A billionaire being a Communist,” he muses the next time he’s out in public, and everyone’s microphones are shoved in his face. “I like that logic.”

Rhodey says that he is now on a watch-list.

“Aw, a late birthday present for me? You shouldn’t have,” Tony purrs. “How hard did you laugh, honey-pie?”

“For about ten minutes on and off after that meeting,” Rhodey says with a snort. “I’m just surprised they only have you on it now. Haven’t you threatened at least one government official before this?”

“I think my body count is ten as of last week,” Tony says.

“What’d you do last week?”

“Hm, you’ll find out about it soon enough.”

When he’s with Yinsen, he thinks that maybe he’ll be a hero. He’ll probably die and no one will ever find him, and then if he sees his father if there’s an afterlife, he’ll probably be proud of him.

Finally on the same level of Captain America.

But Tony thinks that maybe he’d like to see a Malibu sunset one more time. See Pepper groan as he ignores yet another set of paperwork, but smiles when he gets it done when her back is turned. Sit with Rhodey at a burger place and complain about everything in life.

So goddammit, he’s going to skip the whole hero shtick. Wasn’t his thing then, certainly not his thing now.

Yinsen looks at him with a smile.

“Ready to get out of here?”

“Yes, Tony. I think I am.”

It’s a cruel kind of joke, to be ready to get out of there and mean that your family is somewhere high up, open with open arms.

Tony grieves for a moment, but he only has one moment to spare before everything goes up in flames.

It’s enough of an explosion that Rhodey will know without a doubt it’s him. No one with any sort of military training would make that explosion, although Tony laughs as he soars into the sky and realizes that it looks similar to the unfortunate kitchen fire he started during their third year of college.

He just hopes they make it in time.

He creates Iron Man again. A better version, honestly...

At least, until the icing thing, which he was very stupid for overlooking, but he’s not going to blame himself too badly for it because he just created a suit that was made for flying.

He founds out that the man he viewed as more family than his own should never have been trusted, and he nearly dies on a couch that is honestly not that comfortable to begin with.

He decides people won’t know he’s Iron Man. He doesn’t want to give them that much satisfaction, that much more motivation to kill him.

He knows he’s not a hero. He also knows that if they knew about Iron Man, most people would probably scoff. Wonder how long this little fad for the rich guy would last.

Tony doesn’t want people to know he’s doing it, especially not the board.

When he announced that the weapons manufacturing department was shutting down, he knew that Obadiah wasn’t the only person in power who had the means to subvert things without being caught onto, at least for a few months.

Iron Man--if he wasn’t directly tied to Stark Industries--had a much better chance of destroying old weapon shipments.

He wasn’t expecting to become a hero. He also wasn’t expecting people to catch on, regardless of how much Rhodey and Pepper laughed at this at their Sunday dinners. (New thing that they’re trying out, Tony likes it a bit too much.)

Well, not everyone catches on.

Fortunately for him, SHIELD doesn’t. They want to know who Iron Man is, if they can sway him to work for them. Tony nearly laughs every single time they send a newbie agent to survey the property or have Agent Coulson visit about every month.

“You’ll have to be careful,” Agent says on one of his monthly routine visits. They never say what time he’s coming, which is why Jarvis has been given permission to go wherever he likes in their servers.

Jarvis pretends like he’s not as excited as a kid on a holiday.

“We’re just asking for a little transparency,” Agent asks, on one of his tirades.

“Will that be all, Agent?” Tony asks, entirely over this little interaction. He had really been banking on Fury sending in a new recruit, and Tony would get to scare them with his new loud-speaker he’d been working on...

“Well actually-”

“Tony, you should be on a first-name basis by now,” Pepper says, sweeping gracefully into the room. “Good afternoon Phil, good to see you again.”

“You as well, Ms. Potts. I hope your business dinner went smoothly?”

“It did.”

“I don’t like how friendly you two are,” Tony says, narrowing his eyes. “And Phil? You want me to call him Phil?”

“You could call me Phillip,” Agent suggests.

“Who are you, a member of the royal family?” Tony asks. “I hope not.”

“We’ll be in touch,” Agent says.

“Don’t be,” Tony says. “We’re fine here. Iron Man’s watching you.”

"Mind telling me where?” Phil asks lightly, knowing he will not be getting a serious answer of any sort.

“Well unfortunately, Iron Man signed a very extensive babysitting contract. All hush-hush, you know how NDA’s can be, darling.”

Agent sighs, and then leaves.

Pepper looks after him.

“You know, SHIELD could use someone like you.”

“They could use something,” Rhodey says with a snort. “They want the suit and leverage on top.”

“Exactly,” Tony agrees.

“So? Negotiate,” Pepper says with a shrug. “Make it work for you. You’ve done it before.”

“We’ll see,” Tony says, diving back into the circuits. “We’ll see.”

He does not see.

They tell him that Captain America got defrosted, and there Steve Rogers is in an ice block, at least until they can melt down the ice surrounding his feet.

Agent is, of course, over the moon.

“You could at least pretend to be professional,” Tony mutters, eyes not tearing away from the man in front of them. “Where are you going to put him?”

“Rehabilitation program through SHIELD.”

“And your plan for that?”

“On a need-to-know basis.”

“Oh, so it’ll go terribly. Wonderful.”

“It won’t go terribly,” Agent says. “There may be some hiccups, but that happens with everything. I’m sure Iron Man wasn’t picture-perfect when you found him.”

“Of course not, but he isn’t...he isn’t this,” Tony says, gesturing to the melting block of ice.

Phil turns back to look.

“I think your dad would be over the moon.”

“Best day since the fucking Fourth of July for him,” Tony says bitterly, turning away. “I gotta get going. Let me know if you need anything for him.”

“I think we have it handled, unless you want to send Iron Man over as a bodyguard.”

“Ha ha,” Tony says sarcastically. “How smart of you to offer. He’ll have to decline due to extenuating circumstances.”

Of course SHIELD bungles Steve Rogers. Terribly.

He doesn’t know which history-major-dropout they got to coordinate the room’s details or the details of his life in general, but they did a truly terrible job.

God, Tony only half-paid attention to his dad’s rants about the “good old days” and Rogers’ whole biography of life, and he could’ve done a better job while drunk.

But it’s not his job to fix, and he’s more focused on making sure that Iron Man stays busy, because if he doesn’t then SHIELD tends to think he’s bored. (And he is...don’t get him wrong. But not that bored.)

Aliens.

Fucking aliens.

They bring a man back from oblivion in immortality, and now they have aliens.

It’s one of those things where Tony just says “alright” and goes with it.

They want Iron Man aboard, and Tony asks where he’s wanted.

“Just Iron Man,” Coulson says, an apologetic smile on his face.

Tony shoots him one right back.

“Because I know this wasn’t your decision, Agent, I won’t be mad at you. Also because you’re one of Pep’s favorite people. But it’s like salt-and-pepper shakers; just having one is sad.”

That’s all the explanation SHIELD gets, until they learn to ask Rhodey.

“You have any mechanics that Tony trusts with that suit?” he asks.

"We have a variety of skilled mechanics that would be happy to help,” the man says over the phone.

“No,” Rhodey says, grinning. “I mean, do you have any that Tony knows and trusts?”

The phone is silent after that.

“I thought as much. Well, let Tony know I’m eating his leftovers since he left them in the fridge to help you guys out with the end of the world or whatever.”

Click.

The Avengers is a shit-show.

But Tony is very excited to see one man in particular, and that’s Bruce Banner. Doctor Bruce Banner, if you wanted to get technical. (If you wanted to get even more technical, you could add about six more “doctors” in there.)

They work well together, and Tony gets a tiny view into how Bruce works, in a sense.

They found him playing doctor, and he wasn’t exactly happy to leave.

Tony tells him that he thinks that there’s more to his life.

“So what, Hulk...saved my life?” Bruce asks, and Tony can tell he doesn’t believe it, can tell how he’s avoiding looking through the glass across the way.

(Tony’s broken a window that way, having eye contact with himself.)

“Yes,” Tony says simply. “And I’m glad he did, because I have a lot to ask you about...”

And then, you know.

Life happens.

You make about three too many jokes, and suddenly you and Captain America have this weird tension thing, and then you have to manually turn a fan so the entire ship crew doesn’t die.

It seems to run on some form of electricity!

God, what a nightmare.

Aliens invade.

Tony learns about how to tell the modern telling of Jonah and the Whale, and he also learns that he never wants to learn anything about space again.

Hulk also makes a lovely alarm.

Bruce is the first to move in.

Well, he’s kind of forced to, but not really, because Tony promises that he won’t actively try to get Hulk to come out for things, and Bruce is swayed by the promise of getting bagels for breakfast.

Natasha and Clint trail in next, and Natasha says that she told Steve to come to.

“You didn’t ask me if I was okay with that,” Tony says with a frown. “But I suppose it’s better than whatever accommodations SHIELD pulls.”

Clint snorts.

“You got that right.”

Thor knows he has a place to stay at, should he ever need it. He smiles at Banner on his way up to Asgard to send his brother to alien-jail, or whatever they call it up there.

Tony doesn’t ask about it.

He and Bruce drive home in one of his flashy cars, and Bruce looks a little lost at all the posters hung up around the city, the ones with a green man grinning.

“They like you,” Tony says. “Good job.”

“Not like they hate Iron Man or anything,” Bruce says. “I just...I’m not a hero.”

Tony nods. Doesn’t say anything. He gets the sentiment.

(He knows how this will go.)

Hiding Iron Man is...harder. Admittedly.

Steve keeps wanting to talk to him about battle strategy, and Tony is at work, so it’s not like he can conference call.

(Okay well he can, but Pepper yelled at him for wearing the helmet in his office.)

Natasha and Clint are naturally curious, as they’re supposed to be. The only problem is that both of them have professional training in how to make that curiosity dangerously effective.

Thor doesn’t really mind, although he keeps making hints that he could take Iron Man to get better armor.

“Sorry lightning rod, I’ll pass,” Iron Man says on one mission. “Now, where is my favorite doctor...”

“He’s already back at the Tower,” Clint says. “Said something about wanting to ask Tony a question on his experiment.”

Iron Man pauses.

“...alright. I’ll start jetting home, meet you guys there.”

Iron Man barely makes it into his “section” before Bruce is coming down the stairs, muttering and holding papers.

“Tony?”

“Yes, dear!” Tony calls, scrambling to shed off the armor before Bruce could get too close.

It didn’t work.

He has one of the gloves still on his palm as he faces Bruce.

“...what.”

“Um, just. Trying out the schematics. Of the suit. For Iron Man.”

“You’re...you’re Iron Man?”

“Well, let’s not throw around accusations that can’t be proved.”

“You have literally stated in interviews that the suit is custom-fit to the user,” Bruce says. “I have the magazine that that’s from.”

“Well, I have a...similar body type?”

“Oh my god.” Bruce blinks, readjusting his glasses. “Do the others...Natasha knows, right? She has to know.”

“Absolutely not,” Tony says. “Of course not! Why would she know?”

“Because she’s a spy, Tony! That’s what spies do!”

“Well then she’s a bad one!”

There’s silence for a moment as they stare at each other.

Tony sighs, heading over to the chairs set aside.

“I imagine you’ll have questions, Dr. Banner.”

“Of course I do.”

Tony gestures somewhere, telling Jarvis to put the lab in blackout mode, no one out or in, and to update Pepper on the NDA situation.

“Why’d you hide it?” Bruce asks.

“No one needs to know it’s me. Easier to balance work and home life.”

Bruce looks at him.

“Do not bullshit me.”

Tony looks over at a blue hologram of a project he’s working on.

“In all honesty, I’d like to say that it’s because of that, but I’ve never actually balanced work and home. It’s just...ugh. It’s personal. Can I say it’s personal, and you drop it?”

“I mean, you could,” Bruce says. “But I still know that you’re him and he’s you, and you’ve been hiding that you’re a hero for years.”

“I wouldn’t call it being a hero,” Tony says. “Just tying up loose ends.”

“And saving the world, can’t forget that one,” Bruce says.

“Well if you call me a hero, then I get to do the same thing for you.”

“Hulk is not a hero, he’s a carefully monitored rage monster.”

“Was that what we were doing the whole time we were up against the Chitauri? Monitoring the Hulk while multitasking? I don’t know if you’ve read the scientific news, Bruce, but none of us can multitask as well as we think.”

“Not the point.”

“Yes the point.”

They stare at each other.

“Why don’t you want to be known as a hero?” Bruce asks, finally.

“I’m not the type of person anyone wants for a hero.”

“And am I?” Bruce asks with a smile.

“Are any of us?” Tony responds.

So they sit, and there’s this comfortable familiarity about being the same, looking at things the same, if not for a bit of difference.

Bruce finally speaks up.

“So. Who are we betting to be the last to know? Because I think it’ll be Natasha.”

“Are you crazy? She’s gonna be the next to know.”

“I don’t know, Clint can be pretty perceptive.”

“Oh come on. If anything, it’ll be Thor. He’s almost never here, and he never drops by with a message beforehand.”

“I bet you a smoothie that it’s Nat.”

“You’re on.”

Nat is the last one to figure it out. Bruce just shrugs as Tony looks at him, mouth open.

“How did you...?”

“I know things,” Bruce says.

(Not true: he’s been waging psychological warfare on Nat ever since he made that bet because he wanted a peach-mango smoothie.)

Neither think of themselves as heroes. But sometimes, you don’t think of yourself as a hero even though you are one. (Not that they know that other people’s perceptions hold sway.)

#lovelyirony writes #this was originally going to be in-depth on how different and yet how similar steve and tony are #but then i decided including bruce would be sexy so i did that #bruce banner #tony stark #steve rogers (kind of)

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destroyrofworlds · 3 years

Text

► GENERAL INFORMATION

FULL NAME: daisy johnson

ALIAS: quake

AGE: thirty-two

DATE OF BIRTH: july 2nd, 1983

ALSO KNOWN AS: skye, tremors, mary sue poots, sweaty cosplay girl, destroyer of worlds

IDENTITY: public

CURRENT TEAM(S): ultimates, secret warriors

OTHER AFFILIATIONS: S.W.O.R.D, S.H.I.E.L.D, rising tide

MULTIVERSE ORIGIN: earth-199999

SNAP STATUS: not snapped

HOMETOWN: san diego, california

CURRENT RESIDENCE: wherever the job takes her

CURRENT OCCUPATION: agent/hero

PAST OCCUPATION(S): hacker

GENDER IDENTITY: cisgender

SEXUALITY: pansexual

NATIONALITY: american

ETHNICITY: chinese-american

► APPEARANCE

FACE CLAIM: chloe bennet

HEIGHT: 5’6

HAIR COLOR: blonde with purple streaks underneath

EYE COLOR: brown

ACCENT: just plain ol’ american

SCARS: she has bullet wound scars on her side, shoulder, and leg as well as a faint scar on her cheek from reopening a wound there several times during fights

TATTOOS: none

RECOGNIZABLE FEATURES: the purple hair and gauntlets she sports with her uniform

►BACKGROUND

FINANCIAL STATUS: she’s pretty well off thanks to S.H.I.E.L.D., and even still sends lincoln’s sister a portion of her paycheck every two weeks

EDUCATION LEVEL: high school dropout, no GED. but she learned everything she knows about computers from being in the Rising Tide.

SPOKEN LANGUAGE(S): english, mandarin (she was inspired to learn it after meeting her mom), bits and pieces of random languages cause spy stuff

RELIGION: atheist

CONVICTION(S): nothing she’s been caught for

►RELATIONS

FATHER: calvin johnson (mr. hyde)

MOTHER: jaiying johnson

SIBLING(S): kora johnson

CHILDREN: n/a

EXTENDED FAMILY: her entire S.H.I.E.L.D. team

BEST FRIEND: jemma simmons

ADVERSARY: nathaniel mallick / all of hydra lol

PARTNER(S): alfonso mackenzie, phil coulson, leopald fitz, jemma simmons, bobbi morse

►EXTRA INFORMATION

HOROSCOPE: cancer

JUNG TYPE: ISTP

ENNEAGRAM: type 8

MORAL ALIGNMENT: chaotic good

VICE: wrath/anger. daisy finds it pretty hard to control her temper when it comes down to it.

VIRTUE: diligence

►PERSONALITY

POSITIVE TRAITS: perceptive, dependable, honest, passionate, caring

NEGATIVE TRAITS: blunt, impulsive, reactionary, hard-headed

► THEME SONG

https://youtu.be/iMgTVB3HF8k

►HEADCANONS/FUN FACTS

as the show mentions, daisy used to cosplay in front of stark tower and I’ve always had the head canon that she’d cosplay as thor bc that’s hilarious

she’s got a pretty bad fear of nuns from being at st. agnes orphanage for so long, and hella trust issues because she ended up aging out of foster care instead of finding a family

she’s a pretty infamous hacker after leaking some classified project pegasus files, and still has a few connects to the rising tide

►ABILITIES / SKILLS / POWERS

vibration manipulation, vibrational absorption, disintegration, force-field generation, concussive blasts, hacking skills, pickpocketing, expert marksmanship, tactical awareness, expert fighting ability

►WANTED CONNECTIONS

(!!) nick fury: I really want to toy with adding some of daisy’s comic origins into my writing, so I would love a fury to come and be her mentor post-coulson

alfonso mackenzie: having her director and partner here would be so cool

kora johnson: the show only really gave these two a few episodes, so it’d be really fun to be able to write out their relationship and develop them!

phil coulson (lmd): another relationship I’d love to explore since this technically isn’t the real coulson

#daisy johnson #musings #mvprompts #about

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aion-rsa · 3 years

Text

MCU Phase 4 and 5: What the Multiverse Means for the Future of Marvel Movies and TV

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This article contains Loki spoilers and potential spoilers for the wider MCU.

The ending of the Loki season finale made one pretty substantial change to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The introduction of a full multiverse, caused by Sylvie killing He Who Remains, is an enormous shift in the cosmogony of the MCU. And it opens up some fascinating story possibilities for Marvel’s film heroes. So what does the introduction of a full, unlimited multiverse mean for the future of the MCU?

Hopefully, everything. Literally.

There are obvious near-term implications to Loki’s finale. It answered questions that Spider-Man: No Way Home (with its purported multiversal Sinister Six) and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness asked back when Loki first premiered. Specifically: “What do you mean there’s only one universe?”

The beauty of time travel is that now, there is and has always been a full multiverse in the context of the MCU. Because whatever Kang War happened far in Loki’s subjective past (because the timelines were left to run wild when Sophie killed He Who Remains), the entire history of the MCU is now potentially subject to retcons as necessary. So the strong implication from Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse that that movie and all its various spider-people existed on Earths parallel to Tom Holland’s MCU can now be considered accurate, even though the movie came out years before Loki was even a twinkle in Kevin Feige’s master MCU spreadsheet.

Time travel is a trip, man. It’s also beautiful. Literally anything is possible now.

What Does the MCU Multiverse Mean for Marvel TV?

This sort of thing happens all the time in comics. The slang is “retcon,” comics-speak for retroactive continuity, where creators reach into their characters’ pasts to change something that impacts their present.

Loki’s infinite multiverse sets up the entirety of Marvel history for any number of retcons that the folks in charge might deem necessary. It allows current MCU casts and crews to cherry pick what they liked from old MCU projects and fold them into this new normal. All those times Agents of SHIELD didn’t quite line up with what the movies were doing? The show was on an alternate Earth! Want Ghost Rider back without the TV baggage? Blame it on a Kang!

And grabbing the stuff that worked from old projects means porting in the good actors, too. That means people like J.K. Simmons, the Platonic ideal of J. Jonah Jameson, can continue playing the role across from three different Spider-Men, or Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio can show up as Daredevil and Kingpin in Spider-Man: No Way Home while Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings nukes Netflix’s Iron Fist continuity from orbit. Wondering how Ms. Marvel could potentially deal with concepts from the Inhumans without ever mentioning that disastrous TV show? Now we know.

Could the MCU Multiverse Retcon Marvel Movies?

This same ability to pick and choose the continuity most appropriate for the story applies to decisions the movies made, too. A full multiverse lets future filmmakers bring back Chris Evans as Captain America or Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow (OK…maybe not ScarJo) without burdening the MCU with yet another time paradox. As far as we’re concerned, pre-Marvel Studios curiosities like all those crazy old live action Marvel TV shows or Howard the Duck or Dolph Lundgren’s take on The Punisher are now officially canon somewhere within the multiverse.

Phil Coulson could show up in Phase 6 leading a Squadron Supreme (just like in the comics), out for vengeance against the Avengers because they let his Earth 20085 brother die. Hell, if they really wanted to get dirty, Nick Fury could hire Deadpool to kill Coulson in retaliation, like in the comics. Wait, that was Secret Empire,wasn’t it? Never mind, don’t do that.

Anyway, you get the idea.

The possibilities are as infinite as the imaginations of the writers, limited only by Kevin Feige’s patience/sense of humor. Don’t expect anything too crazy: the time travel solution in Avengers: Endgame was wild, but before Loki, that was far and away the most ridiculous comic book science the MCU had trafficked in. Typical MCU adaptations include much more modest nods to comics’ wackier elements – Eternals pending – like secret societies that had taken over SHIELD or Kurt Russell being Chris Pratt’s dad. So that ultra-maxi series that starts out a movie, moves into a TV show, has a comic tie in that directly crosses over with the show, and wraps up in Avengers 6 that we’re all hoping will come to pass is probably not on the horizon.

The Crisis on Infinite Earths Problem

An infinite multiverse doesn’t just mean possibility. It has a trap built in, too. The biggest multiverse story of all time, probably the one that set the template for future interactions with the concept, was DC Comics’ Crisis on Infinite Earths. That book set the standard for multiversal destruction, collapsing DC’s infinite comics timelines down to one single Earth and one single timeline. Gone were the separate Earths for the modern Justice League and the World War II Justice Society, replaced by one, unified timeline. And while the comic itself was a masterpiece, miraculously balanced by Marv Wolfman and beautifully drawn by George Perez; what it wrought on the DCU was 30 years of explainers why the Green Lantern of World War II still looked 35, or why Batman has only been operating for five years but went through six Robins in that time.

The cautionary tale here is one of inward looking stories versus expansionary choices. Post-Crisis DC retcons were about fixing problems the writers and editors perceived with the new timeline, and not about telling the best story they could with the characters and continuity they had. This is an easy trap for a new, expanded (but not all the way expanded) MCU to fall into. There are key pieces of the comics that haven’t been ported to the films yet.

The Fantastic Four

The temptation is likely huge to use this new, beautiful, infinite multiverse to introduce the Fantastic Four and the X-Men to the MCU. That’s probably half of a good idea.

The cosmogony of the multiverse is ingrained in who the Fantastic Four are. Their story begins as explorers of the unknown – Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Ben Grimm, and Johnny Storm are bombarded with cosmic radiation after an unauthorized space launch. That origin is very of the time when they were created, and would probably hit different now when the only unauthorized space launches are led by giant assholes. So why not take a page from the end of Secret Wars and have them get their powers exploring the new multiverse? It makes so much sense to do it that way that one is almost suspicious of this entire retcon. But that doesn’t make it any less cool.

The X-Men in the MCU

While introducing the Fantastic Four to the MCU by saying they’ve been off exploring the multiverse would make a certain elegant sense, if Marvel tried to introduce the X-Men that way, it would be hugely problematic.

The core concept of the X-Men is the mutant metaphor, the idea that mutants are hated and feared because of who they are. On a completely superficial level, this is nonsense: what’s the difference between Cyclops’ eye blasts and Captain Marvel zapping Kree ships with fist beams? Why are mutants singled out for scorn and bigotry when someone like Doctor Strange has MUCH more terrifying abilities?

The difference is the idea that mutants are humanity’s destiny. There’s no concern that the majority baseline human population is going to someday be replaced by handsome super-soldiers or radioactive Catholic lawyers. But that genetic distinction – the idea that Magneto and Apocalypse and Pixie and Skids all share a distinct identity, while Captain America and Daredevil and Dr. Druid and Tigra do not – creates tension that allows real world out groups to superimpose their struggles onto X-Men comics and makes them infinitely relatable.

As superficially attractive as the idea of plopping the mutants on their own parallel Earth might be (and trust me, this definitely seems like the simplest justification for keeping Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine and Ryan Reynolds’s Deadpool in the MCU while jettisoning anything else that is less appealing for audiences or studio execs), putting the mutants on their own separate Earth strips that struggle from the story and makes them just another cape crew.

Worse, using the multiverse as justification that suddenly mutants are here because they came from a parallel timeline disrespects the marginalized people who identify with the X-Men who, like left-handed people, have been here the whole time. Whether society noticed or not.

The Sony Spider-Man Problem

What keeps me up at night about the new Marvel multiverse is the Spider-Man family. The Marvel/Sony relationship has always been…complicated.

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While the new multiverse provides creators with endless storytelling opportunities that could expand the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it also sets up an easy out for the studios to separate the Spider-Man movies from the rest of the MCU. Cleaving off the Spider-family movies wouldn’t be great – I don’t need to be reminded of complicated business deals while I’m at the movies. Dedicating all of a future Spidey movie to explaining why Pete isn’t in the master MCU and can’t talk about Iron Man anymore would almost certainly be a nightmare.

But these inward-looking continuity fixes are the types of stories that Marvel, on page and on screen, has generally avoided (before you jump in the comments to shout “CLONE SAGA” please take into account how much work “generally” is doing in this sentence) with its big multiverse stories. Hopefully they’ll keep making those wise decisions going forward.

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