#Actually saw a post getting mad at people who draw her with her proper skin tone and features I am losing my mind in real time | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

spider-bih · 6 years

Text

Burn [Peter Parker]

Red Roses & Torturous Thorns [PT.2]

Pairing: Peter Parker x Female!Reader [[Post!Homecoming]]

Warnings: Major angst, mentions of pain, heartache, death, blood and my shitty writing💕💕

A/N: Kinda short, next parts should be longer.

Part 1, Masterlist, Part 3

Anger.

That was all Peter ever got from his soulmate. Blinding rage- and sometimes it was powerful enough to consume him for a moment or two. He could be stopping a mugging or just talk to someone and suddenly he’d snap. He’d kick too hard or speak with venom in his voice. The change would be so quick, it’d scare even him. He wondered what caused you to be so angry, what made you like that, but he was half glad for it. It meant that he had a soulmate somewhere and despite being angry, she was okay.

It meant that he wasn’t alone like some cruel people liked to say. [Flash]

If it wasn’t anger, it was pure exhaustion. However, in two different ways. Some days it was emotionally. He’d feel drained and empty, and it would show in his face. It would make his outlook on the day- or even the world, bleak and colorless. Other days, it would be physical. He’d feel it deep in his bones- in his very soul. It was like some sort of weight dropped on him, and even with his super strength, he struggled to carry it. When you were that tired, he was forced to sleep it off, unless he wanted to eat bricks or someones foot. He could tell you hated when ever he got hurt. If any criminal ever landed a hit on him or caused him to fall from his web or something, he’d get angry. The blinding rage would burst through him and make him finish the job quicker than normal.

Sometimes he didn’t mind it. It was only an issue when he broke bones, something he didn’t like to do. He didn’t want to hurt anybody drastically. He just wanted to stop them and prevent anyone from being harmed by said criminal. That was all.

You made his job hard some nights- and some days, you made his life hard. It was hard to focus when his other half was so angry or tired- or even numb. It was hard to engage in conversations with his best friend when you were causing him to feel such a way. Especially now. He just wanted to calmly order his sandwich, but you were mad. You were very mad and he was stuck in line- god you were not helping. He could feel his hands twitching- his body screaming to just burst out. His heightened senses only worsened the feeling. He’d had a long day at school- and an even longer night before that. He just wanted his damn-

“Fucking move.”, someone hissed before pushing him out of their way.

The anger he’d been feeling overpowered his spider-sense, and so he wasn’t aware someone had been trying to get past him to get further into the bodega. They’d even managed to push him out of the way, making him stumble back. His anger- or well, his soulmates anger, bubbled up over him.

At last, it spewed out, “What the hell is your problem?”

The person didn’t even bother to turn to face him, “Fuck off. You were in my way, and you didn’t move, so I moved you.”

“Moved me? You didn’t even say excuse me!”

“I did!”, the person hissed, turning their head enough to glare his way. Their eyes bored into his and for a second he couldn’t breathe. Something on his chest burned and he wasn’t sure if it was his soulmate doing something, or if it was his rose tattoo. It was placed right over his beating heart. Still colorless after all this time. “It’s not my fault you didn’t hear me, asshole.”

Now that he’d had a proper look and let his soulmates anger have less of a hold on him, he could see this person was a girl. A very angry girl, who ignored him and grumbled to herself as she grabbed what ever snacks she’d been looking for. The burning on his chest didn’t cease- but he couldn’t just tear off his shirt in the middle of the store to check. Could it be? Was this-

“Ugh. The line didn’t even move, and of course I have to stand behind you. Stop staring at me before I hit you.”

Peter makes a face, his soulmates anger bubbling up inside him, “Don’t threaten me.”

“Not a threat, but a promise. Just turn away.”, she said, and his chest seemed to burn more. He could faintly see her face scrunch up, but her fingers twitched towards her throat- and then he saw it.

A white rose was right at the base of her throat- right at it’s peak- but it was shifting. It seemed to flicker red for the slightest moment, before being consumed by lines of thorns. They wrapped around her throat, and when they seemed to tighten, she winced. He felt it- he felt his throat burning- it felt like it was on fire and he struggled to not grip his throat like a madman. His chest was burning just as badly, like someone literally set a fire inside of him and his heart was burning up first. He could practically taste smoke if he-

Her throat was bleeding, as if the thorns tattooed on her skin actually pierced through it. He could feel it dribble down, but saw no source of a cut, so was it really blood? Or was it that flicker of red finding it’s way out and away? Please no- he wanted red. He wanted red so bad. No more black- he was tired of seeing the black rose on his Aunt’s forearm. A permanent reminder that the world was unkind. People were supposed to die with their soulmates, so that they wouldn’t have to be alone. He was incredibly grateful that his Aunt was still around, but he knew the emptiness she felt was constant and painful. Why was she an exception? How many other exceptions are there? Was his Uncle Ben’s soul just drifting around with them- having found no new life to start?

What did thorns mean?

“I said stop staring at me.”, the girl grunted through clenched teeth. Not because of anger, but because of pain. He could feel it. She was in pain and she was panicking. Her fingers continued to twitch in want to move.

“Thorns.”, he said.

“What?”

“Thorns.”, he repeated, putting his own hand at the base of his throat, “We have thorns.”

He didn’t have to look at his own chest to know he had thorns too. He felt it, and he saw the red running down his arm and dripping off his fingers before disappearing into thin air.

She froze in place.

RR&TT Tags [Ask to be added] [Strikethrough means tumblr won’t let me tag]: @archimedsbae, @letstrysomefanfic, @hollandroos, @fangirllegacy, @stilinski-parker, @sighparker, @elyshugh, @lizm-05, @flovveries, @wintersoldierbaby, @calmdownyall, @readersfever, @meyrapp, @markusstraya, @cjnotthedj,

Permanent Tags [strikethrough means tumblr wouldn’t let me tag you]: @o-brienwrites, @spidergirlwanab, @thumper-darling, @bagginsofbagend, @sammy-holland , @cosmetologynerd , @timelord-sorcerer, @i-love-superhero, @mendes-holland, @dangerousluv1, @malumplaylist, @faithful-music, @melli-chou, @spidey-mantom , @fandom-hq, @thegirlwiththeimpala, @mayroseinneverland, @maggieanne13, @internetgremlin, @parkerbabeh, @spidey-spooked , @iamwarrenspeace , @djdre92, @sergeantjbuckybarnes, @everythingthatisrandom, @spiderman-2013, @rileyloves5 , @twizzziee, @therealme13posts, @clean-and-claire, @malfoyofthenight, @peters-vlogs, @leilei-draws , @rmillerartemis, @cassiopeia-barrow, @valeriasobsessions, @rosescentedblood, @hi-mishamigos, @brightcolorsoffendme, @isabellamozzarellla, @courtneychicken, @technicallycrazyfun, @iamthepenguinwhosearseisonfire, @wombatholland, @starksparker, @frostymoon11, @agent-spidey, @a-hecking-mistake, @starlightfound,

240 notes · View notes

tisfan · 7 years

Text

To Victor Goes the Spoils

A/N: My goodness, it’s been a while since I’ve worked on this fic... that being said, I have the next 2 chapters pre-planned and I know what’s going to happen. Because chapter nine will end on a bit of a cliffhanger, and I don’t want to leave you guys hanging that long, I’ll get both chapters done before I post. Thanks to all of you for your patience. I do love this pairing so much! (This chapter picks up EXACTLY where chapter seven left off)

Chapter Eight -- Voice of Doom

“You admit this?” That wasn’t even Steve, that was Nat.

For a brief, glorious moment, Tony thought he’d actually shocked Captain Self-righteous into shutting up.

“The evidence seems fairly compelling to me,” Tony said. “And I’ve never claimed to be a hero; that was something fantastical and kinda cool in the beginning label that I got stuck with. I know who I am. Hero’s not one of the words. So… theoretically speaking, I can’t really stop being something I never was.”

Clint crossed his arms over his chest and scoffed. “You’ve been soakin’ up the hero gig since the beginning, Stark. Tell it to someone who wasn’t an assassin.”

Tony didn’t even bother to grace that with a reply. As the Merchant of Death, he’d been responsible for so many more deaths than Legolas could have hoped, even with an army of Gimlis to compete with.

“It doesn’t matter what you call yourself,” Steve said, tapping the page. “This is unacceptable. You’re compromised, Stark.”

“You’re probably right.” Tony took another sip of his coffee.

“All right, then,” Steve said, blinking in surprise. He wasn’t used to Tony agreeing with him. Or even being less than wordy about his agreement. “So, what are we doing about it?”

Tony very placidly drank the last bit of his coffee. Placed the cup on the counter, just so. Blinked. “I don’t know what you’re doing, Captain. I don’t think I’m part of we anymore.” He made a general hand-circling motion, indicating the Avengers. He wasn’t sure he’d ever, really been a part of we, but he’d pretended for a while, and sometimes the rest of them had gone along with it. “As a decent landlord, I’ll have your termination of lease written up, sixty days. That should give you time to find new digs, or negotiate with SI for continued rental of the building. I’m sure the UN will come through with funding for you anytime now.”

“You’re kicking us out?” That was Bruce and Tony felt a pang at that; Bruce had never done anything to him, aside from vanish just when Tony needed the support, and truly, Tony didn’t blame him for that. (Mostly.)

“Well, some of you may have an easier time negotiating use of space than others,” Tony said. He’d make a note in the file.

“You can stop being pedantic any time now, Stark,” Steve said. “What do you plan to do about Von Doom being in the Tower. I assume you invited him here.”

Tony nodded. “I did,” he agreed. “We needed to talk, and this was a convenient neutral ground. Although perhaps less neutral than I’d expected at the time. I was, mistakenly, it seems, under the impression that I could have whatever guests I wanted in my home.”

“I didn’t know villains counted as guests.”

(More below the cut, or read the whole fic at A03 [cha 8])

“This is pointless,” Victor said. He appeared out of nothing. There was no flash or portal or dramatics. One moment he wasn’t there and the next second it was like he had been there since the beginning of the conversation. For all Tony knew, he had been. Invisibility was probably one of the first things a person learned in Magic 101, World Conquering for Beginners. Just because Victor was no longer pursuing a job that utilized his degree, it didn’t mean he couldn’t use the skills he’d developed.

Tony jerked, ready to defend, to protest, to--

What the actual fuck?

Steve was standing, mouth still open like he was arguing. Unmoving.

“The hell?”

“We are between the moments, love,” Victor said. “Time here… is infinite. Were it possible to age here, you could grow old, die, and be dust all before the good captain here could draw another breath.

“Is this how you’re so fast, when you fight?”

“No,” Victor said. “As pretty as it might seem, this ability takes too long to use. And, for most things, it is useless. We cannot interact with anything in the momentary stillness. No door will open, no glass will break. You cannot harm anyone. All it can be used for is time to think, and to move yourself.”

He waved a hand. “They have not seen me. When I break the spell, you will simply vanish in front of Captain Rogers.”

“How’d you know we were arguing?”

Victor chuckled. “I am a very smart man, my love. I did not know. I merely surmised. I came down here, between the moments, that I might not attract attention and saw the way they were all turned on you.”

He drew Tony aside, showing what the scene looked like from the outside; every single one of the Avengers was firm-focused on the spot where Tony had been, expressions everything from mildly concerned (Bruce) to furious (Clint.)

None of them looked like his friend, anymore.

“Huh,” Tony said. He poked at Steve, curiously. The man’s skin was like marble; hard, cold, unyielding.

“They seem a school of sharks that have scented your blood,” Victor said.

Not entirely an inaccurate, although possibly unfair, assessment. “Well, can you blame them? I’m consorting with the enemy.”

“No,” Victor said. “You are becoming the enemy.”

“Iron Man, yes,” Tony murmured. “Tony Stark… not recommended.”

“They are not fools, and I do not blame them,” Victor said, and instantly Tony wanted to put his arms around his lover, because he knew exactly what self-loathing looked like. He saw it most days… in the mirror.

Tony waved a hand around at the group. “So few of them have clean hands. You’d think they’d be more understanding.”

“I have only stated my intentions,” Victor said. “I have much to atone for, and many suspicions to allay before they will begin to trust. And even then, I may never make much headway.”

None of us have.

Steve with his sneer, his conviction that Tony was trying to pull a fast one. Nat, who even now, he couldn’t trust. She might have his back today, but as soon as the wind shifted, her ultimate goal, her loyalty, that was something he hadn’t earned. Clint’s rage… well, he’d probably never burn that down.

Tony sighed.

“Plan B?”

“Plan B.”

Victor took his hand, and Tony followed him out of the room. By the time Steve realized he wasn’t there anymore, they’d be gone.

There was no Avenger badge for Tony to leave on a desk somewhere. No one who would want a snippily worded resignation letter.

Tony Stark. Exit, stage left, without fanfare.

“You know that magic works, my love. You’ve seen mine, from all sides,” Victor said. “Do you not trust the evidence of your senses?”

Tony scoffed. He was perched on a stool in the alchemy lab, his toes resting on the metal bar as if the very floor itself offended him. “Your senses can deceive you, do not trust them.”

Victor raised an eyebrow. “Do you not see the irony in using Star Wars quotes to explain to me why you can’t believe in magic?”

“Magic is just a fancy word for technology that we can’t explain,” Tony said.

“Well,” Victor said, agreeably enough, “that’s quite possible. Magic does have rules, and they’re both very exacting and have particularly dire consequences if you fuck around with them too much.”

“Science does that, too,” Tony said. “I mean, the first people to mess around with x rays found out the hard way, there’s just some stuff you shouldn’t fuck with. Close up, without proper protection.”

Victor nodded. “Well, consider that Newton wasn’t the first scientist, but one of the last magicians. Jumping off from his studies is the base of modern magic. The interesting bit, however, is that magic is so very old, there’s always more to learn. From our own shamans all the way back when we were beating on drums made from wooly mammoth hide and praying to the gods in the storm, all the way to the pinnacle of magical achievement. Strange, myself, a few others…”

“More others,” Tony muttered. Whatever respect -- or lack thereof -- that Tony might have for magic, he was at least mostly restraining himself. He wasn’t picking stuff up randomly and shaking it. (Although Victor had done a thorough inspection to make sure that Tony couldn’t atomize himself in mere milliseconds by poking at something that might take it unkindly before Tony was even allowed in the alchemy lab. There was extending courtesy to his lover, and there was reckless foolishness.)

Not that there weren’t still a half-hundred ways to die, just in arm’s reach, but at least the things that remained Victor could fix, or he could warn, or… well, it was Tony, and if anyone was going to accidentally figure out that the painajainen could be called up by mixing horsehair with the dust of dreams, it would be Tony. (Tony was a good source for that dust, a thing that Victor hadn’t yet told him, but would. Very soon. Once he’d topped off his stores.)

And what Victor would do about a nightmare demon on the loose… well, he had some defenses against it, and given time, he could catch it and banish it again. In the meanwhile, the damn thing would sit on Tony’s chest every time he went to sleep, and Tony had more than enough trouble with sleeplessness without demonic interference. But Tony was being cautious, which meant despite his tone, there were parts of him that believed.

“So, what is it you do, down here, when you’re not trying to convince me that hocus-pocus exists?”

“We can call it pataphysics, if it makes you more comfortable. The science of impossible solutions,” Victor said. “And what I do down here, mostly, is prepare magic. Think of magic as a cookie; I have to mix all the ingredients together before I can have a cookie. There are certain incantations that have only verbal or mental components, but even those require study, strength. A certain mental fortitude. Casting out of nothingness is not possible. Even with magic, you cannot make matter without energy.”

“What happens?”

“Well, if you’re very lucky, mostly nothing happens. You can stand around and yell at a circuit board all day if you like, and end up with nothing but a sore throat, if you don’t have any power, nothing will happen to the circuit board. On the other hand, magic is a little more… molecular than that. Should I, for instance, attempt to lift you from that stool and make you stand inside the casting runes without practice, without proper preparation, I might strain the muscles in my back. I might lose ten pounds in a few seconds, as my body cannibalizes itself for the strength. I may get caught in a feedback loop and unmake myself.” Victor considered that line of thought for a moment, running through all the possible consequences, just from a little bit of unplanned alterological manipulations. “I suppose that’s why there are so few magicians. I would suspect many amateurs of causing their own demise, before they’re able to do damage to another person and thus be made note of.”

“For someone who talks so fancy, and who uses magic to rearrange the world to his liking,” Tony said, “your grammar is shit, Vic.”

Victor laughed. No one ever called him Vic before. He wasn’t entirely sure he liked it, and glancing at Tony sidelong, he was pretty sure Tony was pushing his boundaries, trying to see where the line was at acceptable behavior.

“Criticizing my grammar?” Victor asked. He flipped a few pages through the grimoire -- one of his underlings had discovered it, hidden deep inside a castle in northern Ireland -- to see if there was aught inside worth preserving. “Are we sparring on the internet now, that you resort to childish tactics?”

“Do you practice being annoying, or is it just natural skill?”

Tony wasn’t looking at him, studying, instead, a stoppered bottle full of sunlight. Good defense against vampires and other night creatures, and the easiest thing in the world to harvest, as long as you could get to the arctic circle, and that the day wasn’t cloudy. Seven years previous, they’d had good weather, and Victor had laid out over a thousand bottles. Might have been telling, the sort of company he kept, that he was down to his last dozen or so. He checked the calendar absently. Huh. Less than two weeks until the solstice. “Does your suit keep you warm?”

Tony didn’t even blink; it was one of the nicer things about being in love with someone else who was also a genius. He could track Victor’s change in conversation without a moment’s thought. “Of course,” Tony said. “Thirty-thousand feet isn’t what you’d call super comfortable without some sort of heating system. Some particular reason?”

“I’m reminded that I need to harvest more sunlight and I thought you might like to watch.”

“Harvest sunlight.” Tony’s voice was flat, skeptical. Victor found himself a little giddy at the process of being there when Tony witnessed magic. Real magic, that he couldn’t explain away with science or as mere illusions. The opening of one’s eyes to a larger realm of possibility was always awe-inspiring.

“It works well in battles against vampires.” May as well shock him all at once.

Tony spluttered. “Vampires aren’t real,” he said. Then hesitated. “Are they?”

“‘If there is a well-attested history in the world, it is that of the Vampires. Nothing is missing from it: interrogations, certifications by Notables, Surgeons, Parish Priests, Magistrates. The judicial proof is one of the most complete. And with all that, who believes in Vampires? Will we all be damned for not having believed?’ So spoke Jean-Jaques Rousseau, in 1764.”

“That quote was in Twilight, too,” Tony snapped. “Doesn’t make it any more true now.”

“Again, call them something else if the word offends you, but they are, by all real criteria, vampires. Humanoid, but non-human sentients who feed off hemoglobin. Some of it is hollywood sensationalism, of course, but the fact remains, there are predators who look human enough that will drink your blood.”

“Gross,” Tony declared. “Do they spread it around?”

“No, that’s a movie invention; they’re a whole and separate species of sentient and self-aware organisms. They’re close enough to humans that, theoretically, we could engage in sexual activities with them, but we’d have better luck actually procreating with a daisy,” Victor said. There were some people, he knew, who’d like to fuck a vampire, but really, the vampire was going to eat them, and even vampires were pretty dubious about the whole thing. Well adjusted humans didn’t fuck their cheeseburgers, after all.

“So, like, disgusting aliens?”

Victor shook his head. “No,” he said. “That would imply extra terrestrial or perhaps, transdimensional beings. They’re not. They’re born here, live here. They’re no more alien to us than we are to chickens. They just see us as food. Very, very hostile food, these days. You can communicate with them, sometimes. Some of them keep humans as pets, or cows, of sorts. They’ve been close to hunted to extinction. If they weren’t from here, I imagine they’d leave.”

“If they think of you as a meal, why would you talk to them?”

Victor’s mouth twitched. “They are masters of illusion,” he explained. “Those that live, they walk among us, and most of the time, no one notices. You can bargain with them, for lessons. It’s… exciting.”

Victor could tell, by the faint curl of Tony’s mouth, that he was going to be one of those skeptics for whom everything needed to have a rational explanation. And magic was just one of those things; physics need not apply. Tony would believe, eventually. Or he wouldn’t. Magic, at least, wasn’t shamanism; it required no faith to work, nor to have an effect. His magic would work whether Tony believed in it, or not.

“You want to learn?” Victor asked, suddenly. He remembered an old cantrip his mother had taught him, years before he even knew what he was doing. A fuzzy, comforting thing that even a child could master with time.

Tony scoffed. “I don’t think I have what’s required to learn magic.”

“Nonsense,” Victor said. “It’s a simple working.”

He came up behind Tony, folded Tony into an embrace and rested his chin on Tony’s shoulder. “Here, give me your hands,” he said, tracing his fingers down Tony’s arms. “Hold them like… so, there, no, wrist just a little higher.”

“I feel like I’m at a heavy metal concert,” Tony said.

“Perhaps,” Victor said. It could be true, the metal concerts evoked great emotions in their listeners, perhaps at one time, a spark of magic had danced along those fingers. “How are you feeling?”

“Little bit silly,” Tony confessed.

“Deeper, how do you feel?” He pushed, a little of the command voice. It wouldn’t work on someone as strong-willed as Tony if he fought it, but just a nudge to get him talking.

“Tired,” Tony said. “Always tired, these days, really. Still angry, sad, frustrated with Steve and the others. Worried, what’ll happen.”

“Remember how you feel now,” Victor said. “Now, think about your body. Imagine, for just a moment, that your whole body is limned with light. Close your eyes if you need. Visualize it.”

“Meditation, your pain is a ball of healing light mumbo jumbo,” Tony said, but he closed his eyes. Victor opened his inner eye, watched as the energy of Tony’s vitae pulsed over his skin. Every living, breathing thing was made up of it. Spark of life, soul, manna, whatever name was placed on it; the core power of the living.

“Hmmm,” Victor said. He breathed, slow and steady and Tony followed him into it, without really being aware of what he was doing. Victor scraped the thinnest bit of his vitae off, held it on his fingertip like a dab of sweet from a bowl. “Open your mouth.”

The natural barrier that protected all living things from magic, hostile or otherwise, was thinnest inside the mouth. From this knowledge came the origin of kisses, sharing strength, love, healing. It was also why many magical potions and poisons had to be drunk. Certain sects had taken to sewing their mouths shut, although that was extreme, to protect themselves.

“Here,” and Victor touched the tip of his finger to Tony’s tongue, depositing the trace amounts of his essence, his very existence, to Tony’s.

Tony’s life energy flickered, absorbing Victor’s. Pure, unadulterated energy.

Tony’s eyes flew open and he licked his lip. “What the hell was that?”

“How do you feel?”

Tony stretched under him, moving his shoulders, twisting his neck. “Amazing,” he said. “Like I woke up from a restful sleep.” His eyes were wide. Victor wondered how long it had been since Tony actually had a dreamless sleep. “What was it?”

“My life energy,” Victor said. “Only a tiny, tiny amount. I have shared it with you. In time, you can learn to do the same.”

“Does that… hurt you?”

“It can,” Victor said. “Like the difference between a drop of blood and a million drops. It is a way of sharing strength, energy. It is… vitae. The course of your life. It is what fuels magic, what makes it possible. And everyone has it.”

Tony was watching him with heavy-lidded eyes. Watching him with intent. “Does something else, does it, aside from sharing strength?” Desire pulsed off him in waves, an almost physical force.

“It amplifies,” Victor said. “When my mother showed it to me, I felt like… my birthday morning, and eating cookie batter raw from the bowl, and listening to her read bedtime stories at night. When you consume my vitae, you feel… what I feel for you.”

Tony’s mouth curled up into an inviting smile. “So… what you feel involved that little sofa over there and you naked on your back?”

“Oh, it certainly could.”

“Pep, no, come on,” Tony said. It was o’fucking dark thirty and Castle Doom was quiet and a little gloomy if Tony was being honest. He walked around on the parapets, because really, that just seemed the thing to do if one was in a castle. He kinda wanted to have a big pointy weapon of some sort, just for the atmosphere. “Look, all these arrangements were made when I thought I was going to die, and there’s no reason why-- yes, I know the company has my name, but it’s okay, if you want to rename it Potts Industries… okay, no, yeah, that sounds like a cooking company or something. Well, I’m sorry about that, you’ll just have to marry Rhodey and put his name on-- kidding, Pepper, oh god.”

Sometimes Tony thought there was no depths of boredom to which business affairs could sink and every time he gave voice to that thought, business had to say challenge accepted! Seriously, Pepper was the CEO, and Tony owned a good deal of stock, and when he was in between Avenger’s missions or handling exceptionally hostile press and corrupt politicians, he was the head of the R&D. A job, he might add, he’d still be able to do in Latveria, because of this nifty little invention called the Internet, some of the assholes on the Board of Directors might have heard of it, maybe, if they got their heads out of their asses once in a while and looked at something more impressive than the bottom line (or their mistress’s bottom, whatever. Did Tony look like he cared?)

Nothing had changed that was important to business, as if clean energy and symbionic prosthetics were utterly dependent upon Tony being both in the United States and presenting information to the Board in the same room on a weekly basis.

Which was just stupid.

Tony could do what he did in the comfort of the workshop that Victor was setting up for him; in fact, he would probably be bothered significantly less, all things considered.

“Look, the United States doesn’t need me, Pep,” Tony said. “And the Avengers need me even less. I’ll still be around if the world decides Iron Man is required, but until then, I think I’ve earned a partial retirement with someone I love.” That was a little painful; Pepper had wanted to him to retire, begged him to, in fact, and he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t do it until all his mistakes were rubbed in his face, and he came to admit it. Iron Man getting involved was the nuclear option. Last resort.

“All right, Tony,” Pepper said. “I reserve the right to call you, though.”

“You’re the best,” Tony told her, and that was true. He was leaving his legacy in her very capable hands.

He disconnected the call and dropped his phone into his sweatshirt’s kangaroo pouch. That was another nice thing about Latveria; no one cared what he wore on a regular basis and so he was getting a lot of wear out of jeans, tees, and hoodies.

Tony was pretty sure that Latveria would wear on him eventually. He’d get bored with it. But right now, in the middle of Victor’s modernization projects, with his lover to keep him warm and the weird feeling of being an actual hero to the Latverians, all of whom knew who he was, and what he’d done… they didn’t treat him like an American hero, either, didn’t expect him to be perfect or have a witty sound byte or endorse certain products.

They… thanked him for his courage. Their lives. Invited him to dinner, and were kind and cheerful on the few occasions that he went. Minimal fuss, maximum hospitality.

It was weird.

And nice.

Sometimes it made him uncomfortable, wondering how much of Victor’s reputation he was leaning on; the man had been a fascist dictator for decades -- according to some sources. Which made him wonder how accurate that assessment had been, but Victor openly admitted he’d made mistakes, carried on traditions. That his people were used to unquestioning obedience.

“Honestly,” Victor had said, “I’m shocked there hasn’t been a rebellion, given that there’s so much more leeway. It would be the perfect opportunity.”

“What will you do?”

“Let them,” Victor had responded. “Don’t fret, love. I won’t let them hurt you, and I’ve a refuge awaiting us. It will not be luxurious, but we will have each other.”

“That’s all I need.”

Which might have been a little bit of a lie, because Tony was pretty sure he needed a cheeseburger once in a while. And coffee. Coffee was stone-cold necessary.

A spill of light illuminated the courtyard below and Tony shifted into the shadows; the staff in Castle Doom were often a little overly solicitous of his comfort and he didn’t feel like being fussed over right now if the baker’s assistant found him wandering the walls at some ungodly hour.

No servant or staff, that. The man who strode out into the courtyard had the same arrogant walk that characterized a person who knew their own value far exceeded others around them. He wore an emerald green cloak that swirled around his boots and he wore a sword strapped to his back. Tony closed his eyes and tried to see, the way Victor had been teaching him. He’d never managed it, but at the same time, lab was always different from field work.

For a long moment, Tony saw nothing but the insides of his eyelids and he felt nothing but the same niggling embarrassment that happened every time Tony tried to work a spell. Like his high school classmates were going to jump out and laugh at him or something. And then--

It wasn’t light, not the soft glow of vitae that Victor had described, but rather a pulsing, pulling darkness that surrounded the shape of a man. Clawing, angry, and cold, so cold. Tony opened his eyes and pulled back into the shadow with a strangled gasp.

The man turned, eyes going immediately to Tony’s hiding spot without hesitation.

“An apprentice, VonDoom? Surely this one is too old,” the man said.

“Are you not left yet, Mordo?” Victor’s voice, and a moment later, the man himself came into the courtyard. He followed Mordo’s gaze and saw Tony. Victor’s eyes widened briefly, then, “No, not an apprentice. He is my pleasure-love, and you would do well to remember not to touch that which is mine. Go, Mordo. We have no more business here this night, or any other.”

“We’ll see,” Mordo said, dismissing Tony with a sniff. “We all fall prey to the weakness of being human in the search for power. You know where to find me, if you change your mind.”

The man spun a hand in a gesture reminiscent of actions Tony’d seen Dr. Strange perform before and he disappeared into one of those swirling purple portals.

Tony waited until he’d descended the stairs into the courtyard and found himself at Victor’s side. “What was that about?”

“The desperate grasping of a man who believes he has the right to rule the world,” Victor said. “It is nothing we need dwell on.”

“Is he looking for your help?”

“In a way,” Victor said. “He fails to understand that the world and the rulership thereof holds no appeal for me. Stay far away from him, love. He will not have your interests in mind, and he is no small talent. I would avenge you, but I’d prefer not to need to.”

“Yeah, I think I’m pretty well done with avenging, myself.”

#irondoom #tony x victor #quitting the avengers #not a fix it fic #latverian refugee #tony stark #victor von doom

24 notes · View notes

drferox · 7 years

Text

20 Questions with Dr Ferox #14

Another mixed bag of 20 questions and comments from you Vetlings. I hope I’m not overloading you with answers lately. Many of these questions and comments pertain to posts made earlier in the week.

Anonymous said: Dumb question but do you draw? I looked at the FAQ and realised most of the questions have been vet stuff so I wanted to ask something non-vety... If you do draw, can we see an art?

Unfortunately i do not effectively draw, and I’m profoundly jealous of those that can. I can manage an unconvincing kidney or an overly complicated scribble on an endocrine system, but they are better described as ‘a spider falling into ink and having a seizure across the paper’ than ‘art’.

Anonymous said: Talking about drug seeking behavior: My mom use to work in a human urgent care and once a lady walked in saying she's new to town and doesn't have a vet yet but her poodle has SEVERE anxiety and NEEDS some kind of drug to help the dog and the poodle just happen to weigh as much as the lady. What a coincidence. Needless to say she didn't get drugs.

Rightfully so. What sort of poodle weight as much as a grown woman? That’s a poorly thought out ruse if ever I saw one. That said, I’ve had someone come into the clinic and ask to take home a syringe full of euthanasia solution for their dog at home, which happened to be human sized. We firmly declined.

@ jbbarnes-rogers said: I wanted to say that I really liked hat you compared surgery to hand sewing :^). I've always wanted to be a surgeon or a vet but gave up on that when I was in middle school because I inherited my mother's shaky hands, but I'm pretty proud of my ability to sew.

It’s a fair comparison for soft tissue surgery, which is the more common surgery. Facial surgery takes a little more finesse, but orthopedic surgery is more like carpentry.

Anonymous said: My cat, Arrow, has been with us for about 10 years and she's got a few adorable habits. When she's sleepy, you can pick her up and move her somewhere else and she'll remain purring and not be disturbed even slightly. She also seems to have figured out petting, somewhat; when she wants you to pet her she'll raise her paw and slowly claw your arm until you start petting. She doesn't seem to realise we don't like claws, but she never tries to hurt us or deliberately break skin. She's a good kitty.

All kitties are good kitties, according to their own definition.

Anonymous said: My cat really likes to eat grass. Is that ok for her?

If it’s not sprayed with anything then eating a little bit of grass is probably fine. Some cats just like to chew it, some like the novel taste or texture. A little bit wont hurt her.

@thisoleking said: ive known the issues with the Scottish fold breed for quite some time, however id like to know if Scottish straights are generally of better health?

I’d never heard them called ‘Scottish Straights’ before this site. I’m sure there’s a joke to be made from that name somewhere. They lack the gene for osteochondrodysplasia but are equally likely to develop the genetic heart and kidney diseases.

@ vilkasdaina said: Do the American Curl cats have the same risk as the Scottish Fold because of their ears?

If you mean whether they also get osteochondrodysplasia, then it doesn’t appear to be so at this stage. This s a relatively new breed though, and I’m yet to see one in Australia, so will await further data.

@dracus16 said: Quick question: what does feeding a cat a banana do?

Quick answer: You will have fed it a banana.

It eats a whole bunch of starch and potassium that won’t do any harm to a normal cat. It’s far from a balanced diet, but the occasional banana nibble doesn’t concern me.

Anonymous said: Why does eating too well cause so many problems in horses?

Someone who’s still studying this can go into more details, but asides from potentially getting colic from either pasture which is too lush, or stomach ulcers from feed which is too rich in easily digestible carbohydrates, horses (and ponies) that are fat are at increased risk of laminitis, where their hoof can basically fall off.

@lunalcvegoocl said: Hi! Thankyou for all your advice and time and effort you put into this blog! I had a check out of previously answered questions but i dont think youve answered anything along these lines before! My pregnant dog (she is in her second term, getting regular vet check ups) has recently started going mad whenever there are certain foods around, foods she has never bothered about before, also foods that are poisons to her, chocolate is one of the biggest reactions, is it like the dog version of cravings? we have kept her on her regular food, the vet recommended one, yet while she has never begged before she will now growl and bark and whine if anyone has anything (like chocolate, or weirdly, eggs and cheese) that she wants. Is this normal or should we be worrying about her not having all her proper vitamins needed? do you know if theyre any way to find out what it is she is lacking in? (she is a shih tzu, just turned 4 years old, this is her only litter)

You can get blood levels for various vitamins and minerals checked (they’re expensive though), but I would suspect this is more likely behavioural, especially because she’s after chocolate and it’s easy to ‘spoil’ a dog who’s pregnant for the first time. I wouldn’t give in to her, especially with regard to teh chocolate.

Anonymous said: I know breeders would never let it happen, but what would you think about making the puggle the new pug? Their faces are still a little smushy but at least they have an actual visual nose, and they get also get more proportional legs from the beagle as well. I just think any pug/English bulldog/etc are unethical to breed since, ya know, they literally can't breathe, and they need to figure something out, and for pugs making the puggle the actual pug might be a solution?

A pug x beagle is not a ‘new pug’. While such a cross reduces some problems, It’s not going to solve all of them and is a lazy, short term solution. This is particularly the case if you have breed standards, and public desire, striving towards a flatter and flatter face.

I have talked about this before here.

What I personally would like to see is new gene infusions from multiple suitable breeds, then back crossing those mixes to pug lines, selecting for better faces, hips and spines. This will take a global effort and a lot of work to organize, but it would be the best long term solution.

Anonymous said: Hey Dr Ferox, I was wondering, how often have you seen yellow cats aka cats with yellow nose, gums, inner-ears etc.? One of our own turned to that shade and, without going into detail, he couldn't be helped. Just wondering if it's a common occurrence. As for the question tax: came for the breed evaluations, stayed for the fantasy biology and vet stories. I like reading your posts that come by on my dash!

I don’t see really yellow cats very often (they look like their blood has been flooded with yellow highlighter), but I have about a 50:50 track record for getting them to survive. By the time they’re that jaundiced, the poor things are very, very sick.

@phenolphthaleinfuchsia said: Do you find that cats that started their lives as strays tend to get more health problems later in life even if they are kept inside once they are adopted? My mom thinks it's true based on the four cats we've had but I'm not convinced. Her argument is they are exposed to more pathogens outside that could lurk in their bodies and cause problems later in life. And question tax: what did you choose as your first starter Pokemon?

I tend not to see this. For young kittens their main problems from being strays are parasites and malnutrition, which you can correct with some parasite treatment and good tucker. Older cats may have picked up viral infections, FIV and Feline Leukaemia being the most important too, but if they have avoided these specific diseases then they’re pretty hardy. Pedigree cattery cats may avoid the malnutrition, but they’re not guaranteed to be free of these diseases, and it’s common to see them with cat flu, so they’re not notably better off.

Anonymous said: Do you recommend getting pet insurance? Specifically, do you recommend getting it for sighthounds?

I recommend everyone have a financial plan for if their pet ever gets sick, and for most people that’s insurance. However, I’m not a financial adviser so I don’t recommend any brand in particular.

Anonymous said: Does heat effect the gender of all reptile eggs, or is it just for some reptiles?

I’m not a herpetologist, but firstly reptiles don’t have a gender, they have a sex. In many species it has been determined that temperature does play a role in skewing the percentages of either sex (pH and other water parameters can do this in fish too). Wikipedia has a good starting article.

Anonymous said: Do you get foxtails in Australia? Inspired by a very recent incident in which my cat got a foxtail in his eye.

Yes, we have that type of grass seed, but we don’t often use that name. They’re just a grass seed or an *expletive* grass seed.

@ mushymaman said: Do you often see working animals such as seeing-eye dogs or therapy pets or even police dogs or horses? Have you made any observations regarding them? I assume that they have to be especially well for their jobs and I always wondered what vets think of animals being relied on for important tasks.

The police usually have their own vets they prefer, but I see the occasional guide dog or seeing eye dog. They have a few extra challenges when it comes to medicating them, because instructions like “administer half a mil” is a challenge when you’re vision impaired.

I have treated a custom’s dog before, and had to write him a medical certificate to excuse him from work while he was healing after surgery.

Anonymous said: Can cats crack their knuckles? My cat uses his teeth to pull at his toes very hard when he's cleaning them, and I can hear an audible "pop" sound before he lets go. He does each toe very methodically. There are no wounds/scratches on close examination, touching and handling the toes produces no pain reaction, he is not limping or showing any sort of injury. Vet check reveals nothing out of ordinary. He does it about twice a day for all the toes. I've honestly never seen anything like this before

It’s possible, you could technically ‘crack’ any articular joint. I suppose he might also be cleaning his claws, but I can’t really speculate more than that.

Anonymous said: Going anon because I speak for all of us vetlings on a very important matter. May I politely demand more Trash Bag?

If you’re willing to come to my house and tell the little scamp to sit still more often for his photos, then sure. He’s a constantly moving target.

@ actual-dullahan said: A little "question tax" if you will, heh! If you could live in any video game for a day, what game would it be and why?

That’s an interesting and difficult question because video games either have very short days or lots of bad things happen and you’re likely to die

While there is a certain appeal to survival games where literally all you’re expected to do is find yourself some food and not annoy the monsters, I would probably choose the Legend of Zelda, Ocarina of Time. I’m still hugely fond of that game from my childhood, it was very pretty and the danger levels were manageable. And it was just pretty and peaceful a lot of the time.

#20 questions

46 notes · View notes

oldthe-nothing-maker · 7 years

Note

do you have a tag for where you post your ocs? can you share some snippets of the story they're from?

Okay first thank you SO MUCH for asking because talking about them made me go on fucken memory lane and I kinda needed to talk about it SOI don’t have a tag for them because I don’t post about them often enough (but maybe that’ll change ?) They’re OCs I created with a friend (who doesn’t care about them anymore so I can’t talk about them to her) for a Death Note fanfic based on the mention of three orphans at the Wammy’s at the end of Another Note - X, Y, and Z.If you’re familiar with DN, basically it happened before the whole Beyond debacle, even before L came to the orphanage. We had imagined a very strict, rough, deshumanising Wammys before they got “slightly better”. If you’re not familiar with DN, there’s an orphanage in it that welcomes clever children, reaps them from their names, gives them a letter + a code name and trains them to be really good detectives. Except we thought it wasn’t good for children so. We wanted to roll with that.You can see them here : http://the-nothing-maker.tumblr.com/post/152394563395/fun-idea-draw-that-thing-you-wanted-to-draw-forand here : http://the-shame-maker.tumblr.com/post/152776095165/wow-kenneth-who-let-you-have-two-boyfriends-follow (warning this one is nsfw)Under a cut because we’re getting into details and I don’t want to bore anyone (but if you don’t read the whole thing just know you made my goddamn day and I’ll go to bed being a little happier tonight) :

So the three children are X Y and Z. They’re the best of all the children and they have to solve a fuckton of big cases. It takes a whole story for them to develop ahah but here’s a brief summary :X : real name Killian but he chose X (Kenneth) because he’s a little shit also symbolism with forbidden stuff and pornography etc. He’s an irish American but got transported to England by the recruiters of the Wammy’s at age 10. He’s… Actually really dumb, as in these posts “i can’t fucken read my dude i don’t know shit” but he’s got a really good instinct which makes him find answers “illogically” and that’s why he’s needed in the team. He’s really handsome, wears “feminine” clothes and has a lot of charisma, but is also really egoistical and self-centered. He also has a very big lack of empathy which makes him unable to form safe relationships or accept feelings (his own or others) and he feels really alone. But most of the time he’s just rude and arrogant, humiliates people, and is very childish. Think Peter Pan kind of guy, but, book Peter Pan, so not good.He hates the Wammy’s because once you’re in you can’t go out and he fiercely misses the outside world. He has this weird pale/red relationship with Z where he believes he doesn’t care about him when he actually does (and realises it when Z dies), so he’s always being rude, then being sweet, then being rude because URGH feelings also To Care Will Deprive Me Of My Freedom blahblahblah.It’s harder with Y because he couldn’t get to be his “friend” but he still wanted his attention so he did everything he could to make Y hate him. Which worked. They hate/fight each other for some years then after the trio starts to split up they’re left together for a while and they both realise they find each other really hot and really interesting because they have similar interests and they smooch. So black/red thing going on here.Y : real name Ysmaël, he got here when he was 7 but he didn’t speak English (he is Spanish) so the other children gave him the name Yogur as an insult (ofc he hated that name). He meets Z the same day and they become each others best friends/brothers/parents/kissfriend. He’s really passionate and clever and he has a wonderful memory but he’s also fat and foreign and dark-skinned so he’s the victim of everyone’s jokes. It makes him really bitter and he clings to Z as they grow up (also PTSD because he saw his parents die in front of him in a car crash so not good), BUT Z likes X ! And X hates Y ! So Y is super jealous and starts hating X as well and they fight a lot. It doesn’t help when he gets haunted by a God of Death who tells him there’s no point in life and speaks in his head and prevents him from going to sleep. He gets very bitter and sarcastic as he grows but also very handsome and he stays fat so (y)Very much like X he misses the outside world, but also wonders what would have happened to him if he didn’t meet Zephyr, so he’s not too mad (but still)Z means basically everything to him. It’s a full blown pale relationship before I knew it was a thing. He first thought he could be friends with X but X was such a little shit (and hurt him and Z countless times) so he eventually started to hate him. As they grew up he saw that X was actually really sad and alone and they started talking for real and not being dicks to each other just to feel alive and… It clicked.Z : real name Zoran, he’s one year older than the two others and got to the orphanage first. His code name is Zephyr. He always hides himself behind his hair and a thick fringe so we never see his eyes (we do at the end but plot twist he was just a normal frightened traumatised boy and had normal eyes). He’s the “perfect boy” as in, he’s very proper and clean and very, very, very clever. He’s also very quiet and almost invisible, he has no presence at all. Because there’s such a huge pressure put on him (he’s the number one of the Wammy’s so he has to Be Perfect) he tries not to care about people, but he’s shit at that so he does care, a lot. He just doesn’t know how to say it. He can appear as cold but he’s just bad at feelings. He also has narcolepsia. His story with X and the general pressure (also he saw his dad kill himself) make him very depressed. He hides it for years out of fear until he finally kills himself as they’re about to leave the orphanage, leaving the other two alone. He truly, truly hates himself, and sees death as… The only good thing that could happen to him ? So he doesn’t kill himself until he feels he’s deserved it. He was a very sad boy.Y means an awful lot to him. He took care of him when he first came but in return Y protected him and became his first friend and made him a better person and he’s so grateful for that. Pale shit all over again.X… Is complicated. Zephyr knows exactly what kind of person X is and doesn’t want to be seduced like everyone else, but he also sees the person behind the facade and eventually falls hard for him. But X being X he keeps being “oh yeah I like you you’re the only friend I have and I need you” and then “you’re disgusting I hate you I don’t want you to talk to me ever again”. So he’s never sure if he’ll like him back or not, and never tells him his feelings. Eventually Y will tell X after his death, but X will pretend not to believe him.… I’m sorry this has gotten awfully long, I’m sorry. As I said they’re coping OCs so I know them… EXTREMELY WELL. Thank you so much for giving me a reason to talk about them !! This is the best thing you could ever have done. I’m being 100% serious, this is so nice to be able to write this !! They’re very precious to me, Z especially as he dealt with depression when I was only 14 and starting to say “oh… I don’t feel too well all the time”, so, you know. In my perfect AU they all date each other and no one dies.Have an excellent day !!

#text post #i need a me tag #oc talk #i'm sorry this has gotten out of hand #but it's just...#you know how it is with coping mechanisms #sometimes i wish i didn't use them because now when i'm happy i'm also deflecting it on them #but since i'm mostly sad it's nice to imagine other people sharing the pain #makes it easier #I guess it'll go when I'll get better #anyway #thank you so much!!!#dundee998 #x y z

6 notes · View notes