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magic5ball · 3 years

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Nature Trail to Hell Arc IV: Megamart of Darkness (6)

Chapter 6: Franklin vs. Penn: Ultimate Grudge Match

“I’m sorry,” He said, all polite-and-founding-father like, “but the museum is now closed. Those who do not leave WILL BE EXTERMINATED. As I always say, early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and NOT DEAD! Thank you so much for visiting the Franklin Institute, and please come back tomorrow, when I WON’T KILL YOU!”

Unfortunately for Silverstein, I’d been in situations like this a thousand times before. See, when you get in trouble, be it trying to flood the house, drawing pictures on the walls, or just plain old putting fireworks in your breakfast cereal, you learn real quick to always have a buddy (or little brother) on standby. Why? Because-

“It was them, Mr. Franklin!” I cried, pointing my index finger. “They started it!”

Then I ran. Always run before they can think long enough to punish you!

There was a loud Pop as Ben Franklin cracked his knuckles.

“A fool and his money are soon parted, as is a certain Quaker and his life if he does not leave now. I once said visitors and fish stink after three days, but you were rotten on arrival, pacifist!”

Penn stamped his foot so hard it cracked the floor, accepting the challenge. “I may not believe in fighting, but soon you shall see why they call us the Quakers, you impoverished d!ck!”

“Uhh… guys? I’m still here.” Said Silverstein, just in time for Penn to kick him into a marble pillar.

“The child is mine to reprimand, you fool!”

“’Tis not!”

“’Tis too!”

“’Tis not!”

As much as I wanted to hear a riveting philosophical debate between two of PA’s most famous citizens, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to getting crushed by giants, either. Instead I ran. I ran so far away. Now, keep in mind I hadn’t been to the museum since I was five, which made searching out the train an absolute pain. Having two giant men bumbling behind me didn’t exactly help.

All I could think was runrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrun.

It should have been easy: all I needed to do was find that stupid train, bring it to life with gold dust, and vamoose! If only I could remember which room the darn thing was in! Instead, I ran through rooms filled with electricity, weather, and ‘shudder’ physics. Sometime along the way, I realized this is where parents put all the boring sciences nobody cared about, locking them away from the rest of the world. This wasn’t a museum, this was a prison. A prison of learning.

Then there were Ben Franklin and William Penn hot on my tail, reducing rooms to rubble as they went. I had no idea what would happen when all that science got released into the world, but I didn’t want to find out. At least they seemed more interested in each other than me. Until Ben Franklin stuffed Penn’s body up a working Tesla coil, that is. Penn might have recovered, had he been made of something other than bronze. Instead, the room exploded in a burst of electricity, Franklin and I leaping out in the nick of time like a pair of action heroes.

Of course, without Penn to distract him, I had to contend with Big Ben himself (and Silverstein, whenever the heck he got back in the fight). So now on top of finding Baldwin (seriously, how hard can finding a 400,000 pound choo-choo train possibly be?!) I had the world’s angriest founding father on my tail, spitting maxims at me. Maxims that were also really bad puns about my demise (that I may or may not still sometimes hear in my sleep).

“I once said three can keep a secret if two of them are dead. So far, one down, one to go!”

I slammed my knuckles to my head.

Come on, Watt! Think, thiiinnnnkkkkkk!

I pumped my ten year old legs hard enough to pop my knees off, the air pushing back against me like concrete. There was a flash; the world spun. Then everything was still. Absolutely still.

. . .

When I opened my eyes, I back at the Franklin Institute. Srta. Now, it was day and there were tons of guests. And in that great thong of guests was none other than five year old me being dragged along his parents.

Fist, I was right confused about what the hey was going on, when it struck me that just last year I managed to run faster than the speed of light, going back through time. But back then, I’d sprained my ankle so I shouldn’t have been able to go that fast again. This had to be an illusion! Unless...

Unless, being a soul now, my ghost ankle wasn’t sprained, which, combined with my dinosaur feet, had let me run fast enough to break he sound barrier again and go back to the day my parents first took me to this hell of learning! Should I have been worried I wasn’t more shocked? Maybe, but all my mind could think of was how I distinctly remembered seeing a giant train as the last stop on my visit. It took my nerve wracked mind five seconds to churn out a plan. And so began the first (but sadly, not last) time I would find myself stalking somebody.

Funny about stalking. In the movies they make it look like some daring spy espionage thing while some awesome music plays in the background. Fact is, you spend most of it just sitting around searching for that perfect mix of part of the crowd, but not so much you’ve lost your target, the whole time internally screaming Darn it, kid! Put down the plastic stegosaurus and get a move on to the trains already! (I also felt tempted to tell him throwing Steggy into incoming traffic on the way home was a terrible idea even by 5-year-old standards, but that’s the sort of thing that causes time paradoxes, so I kept my mouth shut.) Seriously, it’s no wonder I didn’t remember squat about the place! And somehow, despite having his face in front of a dinosaur the whole time, little Watt spent hours in front of every exhibit (except the giant human heart, that one sent little me screaming for the exit until Mom convinced him there were no ghosts in there). If it weren’t for Dad grumbling how ‘we should’ve just gone to the dinosaurs like we usually do’ while Mom countered with ‘we need to expand our son’s horizons’, I might have died of boredom for the third time that summer.

One planetarium show later (which I sat outside for, seeing I didn’t have a ticket) they finally got a move on to the trains, which actually got little me to stop staring at his plastic dinosaur for five seconds. Heck, I found myself gaping at the darn thing (which of course was in an out of the way area most people wouldn’t even notice if it wasn’t on the map.)

So I knew where the Baldwin was, now I could get going returning to my own time! As if on cue, a loudspeaker screamed

“ATTENTION GUESTS! IN FIVE MINUTES THERE WILL BE A DEMONSTRATION OF OUR TESLA COIL IN THE WONDERS OF ELECTRICITY EXHIBIT!”

Mom, determined to get little me to see there was more to life than dinosaurs (Mom, I love you, but you’re wrong) immediately started dragging the family over. Naturally, I followed suit, knowing full well how this story ended.

Turned out, there was one other thing that could get little me to take his eyes off his plastic dinosaur for more than five seconds (that wasn’t a giant, fleshy organ in the middle of a museum hall). And that was seeing their future self running into the Tesla coil right as the demonstration began.

Have you ever been barbequed? Roasted so dark your skin feels like lava, then you can’t feel anything at all? Well, jumping into that coil was like that, and more. Only thing I could feel was my brains being spun around like clothes in a washer. All the while, I thought of that stupid giant heart. Whose heart did it even belong to, anyway, and who thought it was a good idea to put it in the middle of a museum hall where all a manner of kids could crawl through it to their heart’s content?

Whose heart was it?

But I already knew the answer, just like I know the history of dinosaurs. With that knowledge, I came up with the perfect plan.

And everything was still, absolutely still.

. . .

When I got back up, it was nighttime in 2006, angry Ben Franklin and all. Quick on my feet, I ran to where the little kids go to learn how disgusting they are on the inside. Franklin followed close behind, each footstep a five on the Richter scale. If I wanted to pull my plan off, I couldn’t miss a beat. Running was a bit trickier, though: somehow, I’d sprained my ghost ankle from running so fast. Not that I really had time to wonder how that worked.

Anyway!

Most kids like theme parks. I was never one of them. You know why? Because of those creepy animal mascots! Just like clowns, there’s something inhuman about them! But at the end of the day, a thousand of those costumed freaks seemed less scary than Big Ben Franklin’s ticker. And this is coming from a guy who literally lived in the Underworld for a few weeks!

Did you know it glows at night?! It freaking glows at night like some bloody Chinese lantern. While pulsing! It was enough to make me lose my lunch (or Cheetos, in this case) to the point where I wondered if being crushed to death in the marble hands of our first president might not be such a bad thing after all. (He was our first president, right?) But at the end of it all, I flinched. First I was fleeing from death, the next moment I was lodged somewhere in Big Ben’s left ventricle.

“Coward! Come out and face me!” He cried, punching a hole mere inches from my face.

I may or may have not screamed as blood splattered my face. For the next few minutes, it was a fight for survival. Franklin ripped open the heart, trying to grab me, and I didn’t know what would kill me first: Fists, or the guy’s cringy maxims.

“He who would sacrifice his freedom for security deserves neither!”

Punch.

“My energy and persistence will conquer all things-that includes your flimsy little bones!”

Slam!

I would have parried with quips of my own, but really, it’s kinda hard to come up with puns for ‘ventricle’. But in the end, I decided who lived a-or-ta died, so that’s neat.

Sure enough, the more Franklin punched, the more blood spread over his marble face, the slower the heat beat and the weaker he got, over and over and over…

“Nothing is… certain in life… but death and…”

Just like that, Ben Franklin collapsed on the floor. Now it was my turn for a witty one liner.

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you an investment in knowledge pays the best interest? Fun fact about the heart: when it stops beating, you stop living.”

And with that, I went to my way toward the Baldwin, but not before Franklin gave me one last ominous warning.

“He who lives upon hope…”

I didn’t hear the rest because by then, he’d drowned in his own blood.

So I ran to the best of my memory, diving down that staircase where they keep the pendulum thingy into the space travel exhibit (or as I like to call it: ‘You think it’s gonna be fun, but it’s not’.) And who do I see leaning against a replica lunar module but Smell Silverstein himself, looking mighty proud of himself

“Good evening, Watterson.” He said, all sinister-like. “You probably think you’ve been doing real good, busting up two of Pennsylvania’s most famous figures like that. Too bad, mother*cker! Because I’m Shel mother*ckin’ Silverstein, and now, you will be crushed by the wrath of Apollo, the Living Lunar Module!”

With as much charisma as he could muster, he took some dust from his pocket and splashed it on the space thing.

Nothing happened.

Shel looked at his hands, now a bright orange. “What the Stephen Hellenberg?! This isn’t gold dust, this is CHEESE PUFF DUST!”

You know that gold dust Silverstein tried to snatch from me earlier? Too bad he didn’t have good night vision (the kind you get from constantly checking for monsters under your bed) otherwise he’d have noticed I’d pulled the ol’ switcheroo on him.

And I made certain he wouldn’t have time to correct his mistake.

You ever rammed a guy twice your size before? The key is to catch them by surprise, because even if you’re an eighty pound wimp like yours truly, if the other guy isn’t expecting it, they’ll topple like a domino, bang their head on the leg of a lunar module, and that will be that.

Of course, I didn’t exactly have time to celebrate my victory. With what little energy I had left, I tottered over to the train exhibit. For a moment I’d expected the worst, but there it was, black, long, and big as a house: the Baldwin 60000, the greatest locomotive ever designed by man. Right where I’d left it. Climbing into the cockpit, I opened the firebox, pouring every last ounce of Penn’s gold dust inside. The whole thing shimmered as streams of gold circled the train, like some kind of magic spell.

“What the f*ck?!”

A deep booming voice erupted from right out of nowhere.

“Where am I? What is this place?! How the hell am I talking?!”

“Hey, relax-“

“And now there’s a voice in my head!”

“Actually, my name’s Watt, and I’m gonna bust you out of here.”

“Well I’m not interested! If you’ll excuse me, I have to go back to being the greatest steam engine in America!”

I slapped my head, finally realizing my Mom put up with this crap every time she put me to bed at night.

“C’mon, Baldwin, I nearly got sent to the Underworld, MULTIPLE TIMES I might add, trying to rescue you!”

“Then if you want a train so badly, go to Rocket over there! He’d probably help you out!”

Rocket was a dinky little rust bucket who probably couldn’t outrun a fourth grader, much less crush a Wegmart Greeter. In fact, I’m still not sure if that thing even qualified as a train.

Fortunately, my Mom put up with this crap every time she put me to bed, so let’s just say I knew a little about getting people to do what you want.

“Fine then,” I said, putting up my hands and making an exasperated sigh. “Guess you won’t have the chance to be famous, then.”

“How?!” The desperation in his voice was palpable.

“Oh, I just wanted you of run over a Wegmart Greeter and help some geese get their nesting grounds back. It would get you in the papers. But I could just go over to Rocket, since you insisted…”

A whistle erupted. “NO! NO! You definitely want me! Ever since I’ve somehow gained a consciousness, all I’ve had the inescapable urge to do something stupid that’ll land me in the papers! I’m a very useful engine, I SWEAR! Please don’t leave meee!”

I crossed my arms and rolled my eyes “Okay, but promise you’ll do everything I say, alright.”

“Yes, yes! Anything for fame!”

Just at that moment, William Penn barged in, creating a giant Quaker shaped hole in the wall. His hair was a bit frazzled, but other than that he looked just as dandy as when I first saw him.

“Halt, Wastrel! In the name of Penn-“

“CHARGE!” I screamed.

With an ear shattering whistle Baldwin rammed forward, shattering Penn’s bronze butt into a million pieces. But we didn’t stop there. No, we kept going through the museum, out the other end, and…

“We’re going to crash into traffic!”

“Don’t worry, kid! You just have to belieeeeevvvveeeee!”

“How is that supposed to-“

“Do you want to ram through a traffic jam or not?!”

So I did. I hugged the firebox, believing we might somehow get away with all this. Gradually, the ground stopped screeching beneath us. When I finally found the courage to look down, we were a hundred feet in the air. I wondered what passersbys would think when they looked up to see a seven hundred thousand pound train making a silhouette as it passed over the moon.

“What the heck is happening?!”

“Magic, kid! The Magic of BELEIVING, MOTHERFORKER!” He tooted his whistle triumphantly “Just don’t stop, or we all fall to our deaths. I’ll even sing a song to help you remember!”

“No that’s-“

“Don’t stop! Beleivviiiinnnngg!”

I screamed all the way back to the pond.

. . .

Just like I promised, Baldwin did get in the papers. Specifically, an article in the National Esquirerer titled

“Lascivious Locomotive Finishes Founding Father! Makes Daring Escape into the Heavens!”

Right beneath an article about one of the most pressing issues of our time:

‘Hannah Montana: the American Beethoven?’

#My writing #Nature Trail To Hell #william penn #ben franklin #the franklin institute #train #baldwin 60000

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meganmazing · 6 years

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another phlint rec list*

i’ve done one of these before (1), and phlint also shows up in one of my multi-fandom rec lists (2), so if you want more of these two, check those out!

click the titles and author names for links and remember to show love to your authors in the form of comments/kudos, they love it all, i promise.

READ THE TAGS AND WARNINGS ON EVERYTHING, PLEASE <3

(*except for one fic that is technically not phlint-centered, but it’s a sequel to a phlint fic and it is important and 100% recommended reading, plus Clint plays a role, so.)

Phil Comes Back

Never Sold a Lie by nerdwegian Words: 7k+ Rating: M

"The Life Model Decoys are designed with a self-sustaining Artificial Intelligence, with the project goal being for them to be able to pass as their Target Model in any given situation."

Road trip fic. Obviously.

EDIT: Now also available as podfic by the lovely, amazing shell!

YEAH, YOU DID READ THAT RIGHT. This story broke my heart, but becasue I am who I am (read: a massive sap), it has a happy ending. It’s Clint’s perspective and so the Clint feels are front and center, but I was thrown by how hard it hit me with the PHEELS. The grief is so well done on Clint’s part, and I love how the author dug right into that, BUT PHIL.

It’s not the road trip trope you’re expecting. No spoilers, becasue it’s better if you don’t know a ton going in.

ask ourselves what road to take by topaz Words: 47k+ Rating: E

Clint knew it was going to be bad as soon as he looked up from whatever the hell Nat had gotten for him to eat and saw Fury standing in front of him.

Clint and Steve being friends is generally overlooked in a lot of the stuff I’ve read, so every time it pops up in a fic’s tags I’m like, “oh right, this is a thing!”

It’s the most Hawkeye thing I've read in a long time, and I love it. It follows along with MCU movies, too, but GOD. It hurts, and hurts so good. The ending totally melted my soul.

(Barney shows up ~kinda~ but this is not the fic I referenced earlier. I read this before I actually cared about Barney, so when he ~kinda~ popped up I didn’t give a shit, BUT EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT NOW)

I Could Live by the Light of Your Eyes by nerdwegian Words: 43k+ Rating: E

All Clint wanted was to get laid.

(In which Clint meets a mysterious man who may or may not be named Phil, and accidentally stumbles into a big conspiracy where very few things are what they seem to be.)

The quote that won me over: ""You're going to get me fired," Clint says, which is also dumb as hell. He's going to get his own ass fired, all because he can't turn down a fucking blowjob from an assassin in a three-piece suit, what the actual fuck, Barton-- ”

This is amazing. The way they play with the lore/canon of the MCU is incredible, and honestly, that universe is so interesting I wish there was more of it. I audibly when “OOOOHHHH...hell yeah” more than once. Phil is awesome. Clint has a complicated relationship with impulse control. Life is bad ass and messy.

Good Publicity (is worth its weight in tequila) by aftersoon Words: 18k+ Rating: M

All Phil wanted was a quiet drink. What he got was a devastatingly handsome archer, one meddling boss, and a job in PR for the most destructive team of superheroes he'd ever heard of.

I thought I hated AUs that had Clint as an Avenger and Phil as a civilian, but damn. Add this to the list of things I can’t say anymore. The way he gets tied into the whole team is great, and I loved how involved everyone was. Plus, obviously, Clint. Always.

If you’re looking for a good Phil-centered fic, and you like AU, definitely don’t skip this one.

Chilling with the Avengers

There's a Dog-Related Pun in There Somewhere (Don't Worry; Tony's On It) by Perpetual Motion Words: 11k+ Rating: G

Phil gets turned into a corgi. There are emotions involving Clint. That's literally the entire plot.

Tony’s name is in the title. Is it a surprise that I clicked on this story? At this point, it really shouldn’t be.

The corgi!Clint fics in this fandom are the best, and so hell yeah I clicked on a corgi!Phil one. And I am so glad I did, because it’s the cutest thing and so funny. Out of all the recs on this list, this is the one that’s pure fluff and goodness.

Pre-MCU

This One Time in Shanghai by Eligh Words: 9k+ Rating: E

Clint and Phil just keep on accidentally having sex. And then Phil screws it up with (ugh) feelings.

HELL YEAH HE DOES. The way this is written is so Phil, and the style/flow of it changes as Phil's understanding of his own feelings change, and it was just so damn well done. Plus, there are expertly done sexytimes with FEELINGS (a lot of both in this fic, tbh). All the love to the author, seriously.

(The cameo in the end had me going: is that...? IT IS.)

Series

Line of Sight (series) by shadowen 8 Works Total Ratings: E/M/T

My series bookmark just reads: If you haven’t read this series you’re doing so many things wrong. So, clearly, I kinda like it. Just a little. And can I just give all the kudos to the author for making 8 whole works in the series? Bless.

By the time I got to the tags in Part 8 (Anchor Point), I was walking on air.

The first installment is below, and it pretty much cemented my love for the author.

Fifty Pound Draw by shadowen Words: 30k+ Rating: E

There was always a chance the mission would go wrong.

This fic quite literally builds the relationship from the ground up, and I still vividly remember getting to the end of the very first chapter and thinking, “Oh, Clint”, and wanting to wrap him in a million blankets forever. Dude has been through the ringer.

The final chapter is one of Phil’s mission reports, and holy shit only in this fandom do formal mission reports make me tear up, what the hell. I love Phil so much in this. I mean, I love him always, but the way he’s written here just kills me because the characterization is so spot-on. And so is Clint’s. This is that backstory fic to stomp all backstory fics, and (at least this first part) could be stuck right into the MCU as is with zero change to any of the properties, and that kills me just a little bit more.

And Here’s That Series I Referenced in the Beginning

Landslide by JHSC Words: 91k+ Rating: E

Clint is seventeen. He has a girlfriend, a baby on the way, and a headlining act in the circus.

Then, he doesn’t.

When I think of amazing OCs, I think of JHSC. The world created here is honestly in a class of it’s own, like an elseworlds tale that my brain just immediately accepts as alternate universe canon - no questions asked. Landslide (and it’s sequel) are very heavy reads, and so I would say know what you can and can’t handle before going into this regarding depression.

Found family dynamics get me, man, and Landslide is a gut punch. It digs into Clint’s life in a way I don’t often see, and I love this series all the more for how it handles backstory. In my bookmark I rave about the pacing and oh boy, THAT CLIFFHANGER.

Under Pressure by JHSC WIP, Current Word Count: 83k+ Rating: E

Barney has a plan: leave the circus, support his family, and get control over his life.

Then his plan gets shot to hell.

I’ll be honest. I hate Barney. Rather, I did, before this fic. Honestly, I knew from how hard I fell for JHSC’s character portraylas las time that there was a good chance it would all happen again, but I’m a little mad about how much I care now.

I will go to the mat for Barney and Paul at this point, and the most recent update was so GOOD. If you want a raw, emotional story that is so real it hurts, but also sweet and romantic, then HERE YA GO. The latest update is getting into THAT CLIFFHANGER in Landslide that left me screaming, and I’m on the edge of my seat for the conclusion, guys, send help.

#fic rec list #phlint fic rec #phlint fic rec list #fic rec #fanfiction rec #fanfic #fanfic rec #phlint #barney #clint barton #phil coulson #marvel fic recs #mcu fic recs #i need to stop saying hell yeah

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