#(No this has nothing to do with Milk's latest fic shush)

[sophieswundergarten]

I forgot John had a crew cut in EE, why is this so upsetting to me?

[stovetuna]

Stony for 30 or 40? I LOVE U SO MUCH UR FICS GIVE ME LIFE 💛💛👏

AHHHH YAY LIFE!!! you and an anon both requested #30, so here’s some classic tony!angst and protective!steve :3 — I PROMISE THERE IS A VERY MUSHY, VERY HAPPY ENDING

#30: “You’re not worth it.” (TW: child abuse, references to alcoholism, Howard being a shitty human being [but what else is new]) 

***

It’s Wednesday, and Wednesday means movie night at the mansion. A time-honored tradition that goes all the way back to the Avengers’ inception, back when Steve was still finding his way out of the ice—literally and figuratively—and Iron Man and Tony Stark were two different people. 

It’s been a long time since those early days, Tony thinks, watching the new team assemble on the couches, loveseats, beanbag chairs, and blankets strewn around the in-home movie theater. The screen isn’t excessively massive, per Steve’s wishes, but the sound is as good as it gets, per Clint’s; Tony updates the hardware year over year to keep up with the times, especially as film goes the way of digital (much to Steve’s chagrin). 

But tonight is Steve’s pick for movie, and Tony wonders if it was planned that way the moment Luke Cage asks what they’re going to watch and Steve gets that glint in his eye. The one that Tony can recognize from a mile away now without even trying, the one that screams “Steve Rogers is a little shit” and that very few people seem to be able to hear. 

Tony groans the moment Steve grins and says, “Home movies!” while revealing two armfuls of reels from behind his back, some of which are so dusty and small, Tony wonders if they’re Steve’s. 

The team settles in with enough snacks to put a rhino in a coma while Tony and Steve head to the back of the room where the vintage projector Tony pulled out of storage for the occasion awaits. 

“Next week, you can pick the movie,” Steve whispers conspiratorially, bumping Tony with a friendly elbow. Tony has to hold himself back from leaning into Steve in response, the way his body feels primed to do and has done for literal years, ever since—god, since always. But Tony knows his interest and affections are very much one-sided, and Tony doesn’t need to flagellate himself over it any more than he already does with everything else in his life. Plus, watching Steve with each of his girlfriends is more than taxing enough.

He’s had years of practice keeping his feelings for Steve from the man. He can handle an elbow and a wink. That shit’s practically child’s play. 

“If footage from my sweet sixteen made it into this lineup, we’re watching all three Die Hards,” Tony replies with a saccharine smile that makes Steve blanch. 

“Tony, no.” 

“Tony, yes.”

“The last time we watched Die Hard, Clint wouldn’t stop talking with a fake German accent for a week.” 

“I know! It was hilarious, and I want to get it on camera this time so I can send it to Alan Rickman. He’ll hate it.” 

Tony giggles at Steve’s huff, which is really a laugh disguised as exasperation, another one of Steve’s tics Tony knows by heart. The pain and joy of knowing that secretly splits Tony right down the middle—the joy of knowing Steve is a much bigger troll than anyone realizes, the pain of wanting to grab him and kiss him for it—but he hides it all with an elbow to Steve’s ribs and a muttered “jerk” under his breath. 

He’s spent the past ten years and change like this—halved by a love that makes him feel whole, which is an equation that shouldn’t work, but does, because Tony’s math is always right—so what’s one more night? In the grand scheme of things, not much, and every second of it is more than Tony could have ever hoped for. 

Together in the darkest part of the room he and Steve work in tandem to load the first reel onto the projector and let it run: it’s early footage of the first Avengers team, recorded off of a news broadcast. Down in front, the rest of the team throws popcorn and jeers, laughing themselves hoarse at the costumes, the villains, the dialogue—“‘He’s a real ball of fire!’” Clint wheezes from his beanbag before Natasha pelts him with Milk Duds—while Steve and Tony sit back behind the projector, shoulder to shoulder, running their own private commentary all the while:  

“I miss that armor.”

“Shut up, no you don’t.” 

“It’s true! Anyways, isn’t vintage all the rage these days? You should bring it back.” 

“I’m not bringing back Pointy-Faced Iron Man and his Roller Skates of Doom, Cap.” 

“Not even for me?” 

Tony slides Steve a look out of the corner of his eye, face still directed toward the screen, a classic are you fucking kidding me? if there ever was one. Steve bats his eyelashes in response, because of course he does. Unfortunately for Steve, Tony is mostly immune to that tactic by now. 

Mostly. 

“Let us watch Die Hard next week and I’ll consider it.” 

“Ugh, Tony…”

“Hey, heart-eyes! Next reel!” someone (see: Bucky) shouts. Not for the first time, Tony’s glad to be concealed in relative darkness back here—even Steve’s enhanced vision won’t be able to make out the blush Tony’s knows is all over his face right now. He also gets a reprieve from sitting so close to Steve, hyperfocused on his warmth and all of the sensory trappings of home that come with it, while he swaps out the old reel for a new one. New-er, rather. He doesn’t look at the case or look at any frames before feeding it through the projector. 

“Alright, you rabble-rousers, pipe down,” he shouts as the image on screen flickers to life. 

“‘Rabble-rousers’?” Steve quirks an eyebrow at him as he sits back down. Tony folds his arms over his chest and shushes him. 

“Don’t start.”

“Ooh, is that you, Tony?” Wanda coos from her place on the loveseat next to Vision. 

“Look at all of that hair! Danny Zuko’s got nothing on you, Stark,” Clint laughs. Tony nails him with a popcorn kernel right in the ear.

The footage unspools, harmless—albeit embarrassing—at first: it’s a home movie from when Tony was young, no more than eight or nine. He’s wearing what looks like the remains of what was once a nice suit, something his parents forced him into, probably, but devolved into undershirt and slacks and suspenders hanging down past his knees. He really was a gangly kid, wasn’t he? 

Tony laughs along with everyone else, warmed by Jarvis’ voice offscreen telling “Young Master Anthony” to show off his latest invention for the camera. He feels Steve’s eyes flicker over to land on him whenever young Tony smiles at the camera or laughs at something Jarvis says, but Tony ignores it. Mostly.

“He reminds me of Steve,” Bucky tells the room when young Tony is shown with a replica of Cap’s shield, posing triumphantly to the sound of Jarvis’ delighted laughter. Jess aww’s. 

“He does, kinda, doesn’t he?” 

“How have I never seen these before?” Steve whispers, leaning closer as he does. Tony swallows hard against the shiver that ricochets down his spine hearing that low voice in his ear. 

“A lot of things of mine you haven’t seen, Cap,” he replies, too late to stop the innuendo from slipping out. He looks at Steve after he says it and almost, almost lets out a gasp: when did Steve get so close? And why is he looking at Tony like that? All intense and considering? 

“Oh, here’s someone else I remember,” Bucky laughs. Tony turns away from Steve, grateful for the excuse, and starts to release the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. 

It gets caught in his chest the moment he sees himself filling up the screen, young Tony standing alone in Howard’s office, having perched the camcorder on the big oak desk to record himself with Cap’s shield—the real one this time, not a toy. On screen, Tony has his back to the camera, the vibranium shield clutched in his too-small hands. He has to perch it on the floor, its weight just enough to counterbalance Tony’s, but holding it…even now, he remembers the thrill of that first time. The cool touch of vibranium humming under his fingers, the knowledge that he was holding his hero’s greatest treasure…his adult fingers clench against his thighs at the memory. 

But then, the image shifts into a sharper memory still, and Tony feels something old and awful claw its way from somewhere deep in his chest, remembering all too well what comes next. It tastes like bourbon and cigar smoke and the metallic taste blood leaves on the tongue after you’ve been smacked in the mouth. Tony’s hands fly out to clutch the sides of his chair and stick there; he can’t move them to stop the projector in time. It just keeps playing out, each frame worse than the one before. 

Of course he remembers this moment. He remembers it perfectly, because it was the first time Howard really hurt him. Not with his hands, although the bruises did linger longer than usual, after. 

This was the moment when Tony, so tender and impressionable even at that “advanced” age, learned what his father really thought of him. 

That old, awful feeling feels a lot like drowning when he thinks of Steve seeing what’s about to happen, let alone the rest of the team.

“I’m Captain America and I’m here to save you!”

“You’re not saving shit, boy.” Howard stumbles into frame like a bad Vaudeville performer, slurring Tony’s name like an expletive. “Put that down, you fucking brat. You’re not worth it.” 

The blood rushing in Tony’s ears drowns out the sound of voices past and present. All he can see is Howard filling the frame in that horrible tan suit, gripping a bottle of bourbon by the neck. The image catches on young Tony’s terrified expression, the way he hides behind the shield that’s almost as big as he is. He watches his own mouth move—Cap will save me, he’d cried, so confident, so certain that his hero would come and put Howard through the wall and carry Tony away to safety—and then down the bottle comes…

“Turn it off! I said turn it off!” 

Something hits the projector hard enough to not only knock it off the table it was sitting on, but send both hurtling across the room. They smash to pieces against the far wall with a noisy clatter that almost stops Tony’s heart in his chest. 

For a moment, the only sound in the room is the thwap-thwap-thwap of film smacking the floor as the reel spins on and on until coming to a feeble stop. He can hear breathing, heavy and labored and sliding quickly toward panic, and he realizes with a shuddering gasp that it’s him making that sound.

Tony looks up and sees Steve standing where the projector once was, cradling his bleeding hand. The man looks stricken, pale and horrified, worse than if he’d seen a ghost; behind him, the team has inched closer, all of them wearing varying expressions of distress and pity and guilt and sadness, and suddenly Tony can’t bolt out of his chair fast enough. He can’t get away fast enough. He follows his feet out of the room into the corridor and down, down, down to the workshop where it’s safe, where he can’t get in, no one can, not unless Tony lets them. 

Someone is calling his name, but Tony disappears down the stairs before he can figure out who. He bursts through doors he can’t see and staggers over to the closest workbench, sucking in deep, ragged breaths like he can’t catch up to them. Is that a screw loose in his chest cavity, he wonders, gasping, because that rattling sound seems to indicate something has come undone that shouldn’t have. Howard’s dead, Tony reminds himself, over and over again. It’s a fact as true as any algorithm, so why won’t it take? 

JARVIS’s voice moves gently through the noise in Tony’s brain: “Sir, Captain Rogers is asking permission to enter.” 

Steve. 

Tony can’t decide if the thought of Steve seeing him like this helps or worsens the rattling in his chest. Either way he feels like shit, but only one of those ways ends up with Captain America pitying him, or worse. 

He’s so caught up in thinking about all the ways this could backfire he doesn’t realize JARVIS has let Steve into the workshop, regardless of Tony’s feelings on the matter. The realization sets in when Steve’s voice appears close to his ear, soft and low with a frisson of urgency, like he too is slightly out of breath. 

“Tony, it’s just me. It’s okay. I’m going to put my hand on your back.” 

Warmth spreads from Steve’s fingers through Tony’s shirt and into the skin high up on his back between his shoulders. Steve can probably feel how fast Tony’s heart is racing, but spares him his overt concern and instead keeps telling Tony what he’s going to do before he does it: a hand on Tony’s forehead, an arm around his back, asking JARVIS to turn the lights down to thirty-five percent. 

“I’ve got you, it’s okay.” 

Tony sags into Steve’s touch, his large, warm hand cradling Tony’s head like something precious; the deeper dark quiets the room around them, makes it less overwhelming, less full of ghosts waiting to cast their own opaque shadows on the empty walls. Tony and Steve are left standing in a dim light Tony knows makes him look sallow; he wavers on his feet, left to borrow from Steve’s strength because he can’t find his own. Lucky for Tony, Steve is right there, braced and ready for anything. Like always.

The rattling has settled somewhat, but Tony still has to rely on Steve to tell him when to breathe and how deeply. He forgets, sometimes, that Steve has experience dealing with panic attacks, which so often came before an asthma attack. Steve once told him that even years removed from his sickly days, he still remembers what it’s like to lose that grip on reality, feeling the heart too acutely as it beats against too-brittle ribs.

While Steve draws on those memories often enough with others on the team, it’s a rare occasion for Tony to be on the receiving end of Steve’s nursing hand like this. Jokes or angry silence over cuts, breaks, and bruises, sure, but this? Tender hands and a voice pitched low and soothing, lullaby-soft, speaking words of gentle encouragement? Tony’s head feels light with it. 

“Do you want to sit down?” Steve asks. Tony shakes his head against his palm. “Okay,” Steve whispers, his voice the only one in the room, which makes for a funny kind of one-sided conversation. Then, before he can think better of it, Tony turns toward Steve, wraps his arms around the man’s impossible waist, and hugs himself close to Steve’s radiating heat. He’s too gone for shame, and too weak; a soft, gentle Steve is hard to resist, even on good days. And this just became a no good, very bad day.

Fucking Howard.

Steve, for his part, takes the hug in stride like they do it every day. Tony likes to imagine it, touching Steve like this whenever he wants to, but that’s all it is—a fantasy. Just like being with Steve is a fantasy, one Tony has entertained for far too many years to count. He satisfies himself with Steve’s friendship, tells himself it’s enough, and if he happens to sleep with the occasional look-alike, that’s nobody’s business but Tony’s (and JARVIS’s, and in one deeply unfortunate instance, Pepper’s). 

Strangers want Tony Stark, the celebrity; Steve wants Tony as a friend and teammate. That’s all. So Tony steals his nice, platonic hug as he trembles and breathes his way out of a panic attack, being careful to avoid nuzzling the soft notch at the base of Steve’s throat the way he wants to. Badly.

He’s so preoccupied with holding all the disparate parts of himself together and hiding them so Steve can’t see, he doesn’t notice Steve’s hands start to rub his back in long, soothing strokes until Tony is half-melted in his steady arms, weak-kneed at how comforted he feels. Steve doesn’t say anything—just keeps moving his hands, up and down Tony’s back, across his shoulders, along his arms, and over again. He can’t remember the last time someone touched him like this, without motive, ulterior or otherwise; his skin feels warm down to his toes.

“Better?” Steve murmurs. Tony nods against his chest. He doesn’t let go. Neither does Steve, who seems to fold himself over Tony until they’re more like one person than two, standing there breathing together in Tony’s darkened workshop. 

Slowly, thoughts of Howard, of hurt, start to melt back into the shadows. In their place is Steve, filling up all of Tony’s empty spaces with light, even some of the ones he didn’t know he had. For such a strong man, Steve is unbearably gentle, handling Tony the way he might handle spun sugar or thin glass. Tony has never felt so genuinely cared for, and the fact that he can’t pull back and thank Steve with a kiss smarts a little in the face of it. 

That is, it does, up until the moment he feels Steve brush a kiss against where Tony’s hairline meets his forehead, soft and uncomplicated, but lingering, like Steve wants to stay there. To do more. Tony knows that move because he’s imagined doing the exact same thing to Steve, god, thousands of times.

Tony wants so much. Too much. Asking Steve for this would tip things precariously toward the latter. But the question is taken out of Tony’s hands the moment one of Steve’s perches itself under his jaw and tilts his face up.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says. 

“It’s ancient history,” Tony replies, maintaining eye contact through sheer willpower when all he wants to do is look at Steve’s mouth, now so close to his. 

“Not to you, it isn’t,” Steve counters, and there’s not much Tony can say to that. “I’ll talk to the team. They might have questions, and you shouldn’t have to answer them. Not tonight, anyways.” 

“I know you’ve got big shoulders, Steve, but you don’t have to take on my baggage on top of everything else.”

As they talk, their bodies never move an inch apart; chests pressed flush against each other, Steve’s fingers splayed along the side of Tony’s neck. All of it—the proximity, the tenderness, the intimacy—feels as natural as the breathing they just did together. Ten-plus years of friendship will do that. But then, the way Steve is looking at him doesn’t really scream friendship. 

It kind of screams I love you. 

Steve gives him that little smirk and says, “Maybe I want to.” Tony scoffs, flicking one of the shoulders in question for good measure. 

“God, how are you still such a horrible liar, Cap? Is there something in the serum that makes it impossible for you to keep a good poker face?”

“This is my good poker face,” Steve replies, and there it is again, the same look Steve gave him earlier before the night spun out like a race car with its wheels blown off: intense, considering, and so, so close. 

Tony swallows nothing but air. Steve, never breaking eye contact, cards his fingers through the hair on the back of Tony’s head and holds them there. 

“If I kiss you right now, will you have another panic attack?” he asks quietly. Not even a blink. The part of Tony’s brain—a scant centimeter, at best—that isn’t currently blasting a hundred sirens at full volume is actually kind of impressed.

“I doubt it,” Tony replies evenly. “I’ll probably just pass out.” 

The smirk becomes a full-blown grin. Steve squeezes his other arm around Tony’s lower back and hums, deep and resonant, in his chest as he leans down to brush his lips feather-softly against Tony’s. 

“You fall, I’ll catch you,” he whispers before dipping in for a proper kiss that floods Tony’s head with incandescent light. It’s chaste and measured and burning with mutual restraint, tastes faintly of the buttered popcorn Steve ate earlier, and the only way it could be better is if it never ended. 

Tony tightens his arms around Steve’s waist, and when Steve pulls away to speak, he doesn’t go far, seemingly content to stand there in Tony’s embrace in the middle of the dimly lit workshop. 

“Still breathing?” he asks. Tony smiles; Steve smiles back. 

“Takes a lot more than that to knock the wind out of me, Cap.”

The way Steve’s eyes darken at that little remark is definitely something Tony intends to investigate further, later. For now, he leans into the hand now resting on his cheek and sighs. 

“We’ll test that theory another time,” Steve husks before leaning forward to press a kiss to each eyelid. Tony hums happily, sinking further into Steve’s arms. “Can I carry you to bed?” 

Tony gives him a look. “I’m heavy,” he says. 

Steve just smiles, kisses Tony like he’s been doing it forever, and replies: “You’re worth it.”

- - - 

see? happy endings. fuck howard. 

[thepartyresponsible]

another whumptober fic! the prompt for this one is isolation. so here’s steve rogers waking up in the wrong century and moving into clint barton’s apartment building.

warnings for depression and angst, but, again, this one is fairly sweet.

SHIELD puts him in an apartment in a building in Bed-Stuy, citing ongoing concerns that he is exhibiting an alarming lack of social integration. Steve doesn’t see how the hell they expect him to stop being lonely. His whole generation is dead or dying. And the older people, the men and women he looked up to, are bones buried under untended gravestones.

A man should lose his mentors one-by-one. Like baby teeth. One bloody bit of bone in your palm is a life lesson, but a whole mouth full of blood, a graveyard full of teeth, that’s a tragedy. That’s a nightmare.

He went for a swim, and, when he came up to breathe, everyone he ever knew was gone or changed.

Every night, he dreams about putting that ship in the water, and, somedays, all he can think when he wakes up is: It was supposed to be quick.

God knows, by the end of the war, he didn’t have the heart left for anything slow. But he’s here anyway, plodding along. Breathing, walking, fighting. These days, people never quit, never slow down, never take time off. There’s always a war somewhere. Always somewhere for him to be.

There’s a woman that SHIELD wants him to talk to. She asks him questions that are probably meant to help. “How are you feeling, Steve? What do you do in your spare time? Have you spoken to any of the Howling Commandos? What about Peggy Carter? Have you made any new friends, Steve? When was the last time you left a SHIELD facility for a reason other than a mission? Did you go outside today, Steve? Are you sleeping? Are you eating?”

Honestly, he’d probably have a better time if she dispensed with the questions and just started ripping his fingernails out with a pair of pliers. It’s a hell of an exaggeration and a disrespect to Bucky besides, but sometimes, after an hour with her, all he can think about is Bucky, strapped to a table, repeating his name, rank, and serial number with empty eyes.

He spends one too many nights walking the hallways after particularly murky missions, and SHIELD gets unnecessarily proactive about it.

“We’re worried about you,” Phil Coulson says. There’s a heaviness in his eyes that isn’t quite disappointment. Steve remembers when Phil used to look at him with the feverish light of hero worship.

“I’m fine,” Steve says.

There’s nothing wrong with him. He’s not hungry, not tired, not cold, not sad. He’s nothing. It’s like his brain and body woke up, but his soul stayed in the water. Like every human part of him is still frozen solid.

“If you need time,” Coulson says, “if you need a break from the missions--”

“I don’t,” Steve says. He tries to be patient about it, but the words feel like a threat. He doesn’t know how he’d fill the days if he didn’t have the missions to keep him occupied. There are only so many punching bags in SHIELD storage. There are only so many times he can reread the obituaries of people who died simultaneously four days and forty years after he saw them last.

“We’re worried,” Phil repeats. And he looks it.

From a hero to an object of pity. Well, he’s had worse falls.

“I’m getting better,” Steve says. “I’ve been reading the reports. I have an email account.” One of the SHIELD agents on the latest Strike Team told him he needed a private email address to sign up for things online. Steve’s not sure what he wants to sign up for, but he dutifully checks the empty inbox every morning.

It’s good, he thinks, to be prepared.

“I haven’t broken a phone in two weeks,” Steve tacks on, when Phil still seems unconvinced.

He’s trying. He doesn’t know what the hell they expect from him. Six months ago, he lived in a pre-atomic world. Now people walk around with technology in their pockets that far exceeds what they used to walk on the moon. He can use his phone to check baseball scores and grocery store stock and the weather anywhere in the world. He can order food he’s never tried from a place he’s never been made by people he’s never met, and they’ll deliver it to his door, and he can do all of this without seeing or speaking to a living human being.

No flying cars, though. Guess Howard never did figure that one out as well as he wanted.

“We’ve found an apartment for you,” Phil says. “You need to reintegrate.”

Steve is baffled as to how Phil expects him to reintegrate. His whole world is gone. He’s not coming home. There is no home left. He’s homesick for a time and place that don’t exist anymore. Like a refugee who can’t ever go back. Uprooted, transplanted.

He’s a woolly mammoth, a sabretooth tiger. A reanimated extinct species, brought back to pace the bars of a cage he doesn’t understand. Useless and ludicrous and out of place. A man out of time.

“Sure,” Steve says. It’s no use fighting about it. No reason to upset all these people who just want to help. “That sounds fine.”

  What he appreciates most about Clint Barton is that he never once tries to pretend like he isn’t Steve’s assigned babysitter. “Hey,” he says, that first night, crashing into Steve’s apartment with a couple of beers in one hand and the other holding a freezer bag of peas to the side of his face. “I’m Clint Barton. I kinda own the place.”

“Kind of?” Steve asks, blinking as Clint careens a little unsteadily from one corner of the apartment to the other, apparently looking for a place to land. He settles, finally, on the kitchen counter.

“Yeah,” Barton says. He arranges himself on the cluttered kitchen counter, squeezing between the boxes of unpacked dishware and kitchen appliances SHIELD thought he’d need. “I mean, legally. I do. I’ve got paperwork.”

Steve raises his eyebrows. He’s been thinking about getting unpacked. He was coming up with a plan. He got a little distracted staring out the window after all the helpful SHIELD agents disguised as movers left, but he won’t sleep tonight anyway, so he’d figured it didn’t matter how long it took him to get started.

He hadn’t been expecting a guest.

“Um,” Clint says, after a few seconds of silence. He juggles the peas, pinning them against his face with his shoulder, and then pops the caps off both of the beers. “Here. To your new place.”

Steve thinks about asking him to leave, but the ghost of his mother hisses at the discourtesy inherent in refusing a gift-bearing guest. He crosses the apartment to take the beer, knocking the bottle gently against Clint’s before lifting it to his lips.

What the hell. He doesn’t know a poison that will kill him. And he figures SHIELD will have vetted the place from rooftop to basement.

“Thanks,” he says. The beer is cold and hoppy. Decent, he thinks. It tastes vaguely medicinal, the way most food tastes now.

“No problem,” Clint says. He’s blonde-haired and blue-eyed. There are bandages on his hands, and, when the peas droop, Steve catches a glimpse of a still-blooming shiner that’s going to cover a quarter of his face.

“You have some trouble?” Steve asks, tipping his chin toward the bruise.

Clint shrugs. He takes a drink of his beer and kicks his feet, looks perfectly at ease in Steve’s apartment in a way that Steve decidedly does not. “Milk run,” he says, offhand. “Guess I got a bit expeditious about things toward the end. Wanted to be sure I got back in time for your first day.”

Steve blinks. Milk run, he thinks. He hears the word in old echoes, memories of soldiers reporting back. Some of the old slang survived. It’s nice, hearing it. He wonders if someone gave Clint a list of terms to work into casual conversation.

“You’re SHIELD?” Steve asks.

Clint shrugs, grins up at him. His smile is slanted sideways, held down on one side by the bag of peas. But his eyes are bright and friendly, and there’s something comforting in the lazy disregard of his body language, like he doesn’t know or care who Steve used to be.

“Don’t tell them I told you,” he says. “I have a bet going with my buddy that I can make it at least a week.”

Steve snorts. He’s quiet for a second, weighing out the mischief in Clint’s eyes. It’s been a long time since anyone dragged him into anything even remotely playful. “Sure,” he says, caving the second Clint waggles his eyebrows. Something aches and splinters in his chest. He ignores it, clearing his throat while he turns to regard the mess of boxes and bags scattered around the place.

Someone’s going to have to do something about this mess. He figures, as usual, that the someone is going to have to be him.

“Hm,” Clint says. He slithers to the ground, heavy boots clattering on the kitchen floor. He surveys the kitchen counter and then visibly perks up, dropping the peas so he can grab a box, cuddle it lovingly against his chest. “C’mon, Steve,” he says, hefting the new coffeepot onto his hip, “we’ll start with the important stuff.”

  Clint leaves around midnight. The living room and kitchen are unpacked, and Steve hasn’t even started on the bedroom, but he’s not worried about it. He goes out to wander the neighborhood until dawn. Just keeping his feet busy, shushing the buzzing hum of his mind. He tests his tether, climbing up onto the roof to watch the sunrise, but, if he has a tail, he never sees them.

When he goes back to his apartment, he encounters Clint in the hallway. He’s mussed and sleep-dazed. There are red lines on his face from where he slept too hard on his pillow. There’s a bit of toothpaste stuck to his chin, and he has a piece of toast shoved in his mouth, a cup of coffee in one hand, and a dog’s leash in the other.

“Mmph,” he says, greeting Steve through the toast.

“Morning,” Steve says, going stock still at the sight of such disarray.

Clint’s wearing pajama pants with little purple bullseyes on them. They’re tucked into combat boots. That bruise got ugly overnight, but all those dark shades really set off the bright blue of his eyes.

“Hey, Steve,” Clint says, after he hooks the dog’s leash around his wrist so he can take the toast out of his mouth. “You sleep okay?”

“Oh, sure,” Steve says. “You?”

“Like a fucking rock,” Clint tells him. And then, with a grimace, “Sorry, I gotta—this is Lucky, and Lucky really needs to pee.”

Everyone Steve’s encountered on this side of the new millennium is efficient and serious and professional. Everyone’s been so bloodless. He thought that was how they raised people these days. But Clint’s a loud, frazzled, mussed-up mess. Clint’s the first living thing Steve’s seen in this century.

Well, right up until the dog sticks its cold nose into the palm of Steve’s hand and whines like a thing with a heart breaking clean in half.

“Oh, hey,” Steve says, crouching down. “Sorry, pal. Didn’t mean to ignore you.”

The dog pants kibble-scented breath in his face. He’s missing an eye. His fur is soft and warm under Steve’s hands.

“Oh, for—Lucky, stop guilt-tripping Steve. He’s a nice guy. C’mon.” But for all his complaining, Clint doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to leave. He’s standing unsteadily, sloping slightly to the side, with one eye closed like he’s letting that half of his brain catch a quick nap.

“You gotta go,” Steve says, giving Lucky one more gentle scratch behind the ears before he stands up. “Maybe I’ll see you later.”

“Oh, definitely,” Clint says. “Just come see us whenever.” He straightens up, gives himself a little shake, and then smiles sweet and sleepy, right in Steve’s face.

Like they’re friends. Like Steve’s a real person. After all this time, after everything he’s done, he can still just be someone’s neighbor.

“See you, Steve. Let me know if you need any more help unpacking.” And then Clint shoves the rest of the toast in his mouth and reaches out to pat Steve on the shoulder as he walks by. He misses pretty catastrophically, getting a handful of Steve’s chest and then just committing to it anyway, patting him like Steve had just patted Lucky, before he dozily meanders his way up the hall.

Steve stares after him for a long moment and then he goes into his apartment, locks the door, and makes some coffee. He drinks it sitting up on his new couch, and he doesn’t expect to fall asleep, but he does anyway.

He dreams about the water. He always dreams about the water.

But he keeps getting flashes, little glimpses through the ice. A black eye and a friendly smile. Soft fur under his hand, a dog’s sad whine echoing from years and years away.

Coffee. He tastes coffee.

And he feels something on his chest, a warmth that spreads outward. A patting. Or maybe a knocking.

Wake up, he thinks. And he does.

[seasonsandcenturies]

fic: Alice and the Magicians (CCS, gen)

Summary: “She knows her family thinks she can’t do anything right. When she was young, they used to tell her she’d understand everything when she was older, but the older she gets the less they tell her.” Akiho Shinomoto has an unusual childhood. (Clear Card Arc, manga-based. 2,579 words.)

Notes: I haven’t read the latest Clear Card chapter yet but this was based on a few of my pet theories, like that Akiho isn’t her real name, and that Kaito and Momo have been connected for a long time. Quotes are from various Alice in Wonderland-related stories and other books featuring characters named Alice. :)

Read at AO3 or below the cut.

-

Alice moving under skies Never seen by waking eyes. 

-

One night she wakes up to find Auntie standing over her bed with a light in her hand. It must be a candle, even though she can’t see any wax. She knows it’s Auntie because she recognizes her soft voice as she says, “Wake up, darling. Would you like to come outside for a walk with me?”

She looks over at the clock on the wall. It’s very late.

“I’m not supposed to be out of bed now. Will I get in trouble?” she says doubtfully.

“Oh, no, darling. Not if you’re with me. It will be our little secret.” Auntie taps her hand to her face in a shushing motion even though her face is hidden under the hood of the robe, the flickering light staying perfectly still next to her even when she moves her hand away.

Auntie helps her put on her own robe and is impressed when she can do it up all by herself. She takes her hand and leads her over to the open window. Outside the moon is very bright and there are no clouds at all. The stars are all twinkling hello but one dances away from the others.

“Oh!” she gasps. “A shooting star!”

“And do you know the constellation the star came from?” Auntie asks.

She has to look very carefully but she does.

“Very good!” Auntie praises her. “Now, why don’t we go take a closer look?”

She thinks Auntie means they’re going to the observatory, but instead of sending her to get her telescope, Auntie tells her to climb onto the window sill. She shuts her eyes tight and tries not to look down, because the ground is very far away.

“Oh, no, we can’t have that,” Auntie tuts, climbing up next to her. “Hold my hand, please.”

The night air is cool on her face but her robe is warm, and with her hand safely in Auntie’s, she feels much better about standing outside on the ledge. She opens her eyes just in time to see another star streak across the sky.

But when she looks down, she suddenly realizes they aren’t standing on anything. The house looks very small below them. She feels herself slipping out of Auntie’s grip as the ground rushes towards her.

She wakes up with a start and finds herself in her own bed with the covers pulled up to her chin. Her robe is hanging up on its hook just like it always is. Auntie is sitting at the foot of her bed, the candle in her hands dripping wax down the side.

“I dreamed we were flying, Auntie,” she says sleepily.

“Don’t be silly, darling,” Auntie says. “You can’t fly.”

But she doesn’t sound very happy about it.

-

Alice replied, rather shyly, “I hardly know, sir, just at present-- at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.” 

-

Cousin invites her to tea. She can tell it’s Cousin because he slouches, his shoulders dropping forwards even under the robe. She thinks it’s because he takes care of so many small creatures, he’s always leaning over trying to see where they’ve gone.

She tries to scratch her legs under the table. Her new stockings are very itchy. She’d ripped her other pair that morning when she’d been trying to reach her books. She’d been scolded for not taking better care of her clothes and for climbing the furniture, although she hadn’t meant to, it was just that someone had moved everything to the very highest shelves and taken away the ladder. But when she’d explained why she’d done it she’d been told that she should have found a more creative solution.

He wants to know what books she’s read lately, so she tells him all about Alice in Wonderland as he cuts her another slice of cake.

“My, my. And how does Alice get to Wonderland?”

“She follows a rabbit!” she says.

“Do you like rabbits?”

“Oh, yes,” she says eagerly. Cousin let her pet one, once. She hopes he might let her see one again.

“What if we had one just here? Do you think you could make one? Imagine a nice, white rabbit, just popping up there –- with nice soft fur to pet — running around on its little legs–”

They imagine the rabbit. They imagine chasing a rabbit. She wishes very hard for a rabbit but none show up.

“I–” she falters. “I don’t think I can.”

“Are you quite sure?” Cousin says, sounding a little desperate. She nods, and he makes a thoughtful humming noise. “Well, would you like to be a rabbit?”

She thinks about wiggling her nose and her ears – she’d tried to do it lots of times in the mirror, but never as an actual rabbit. Then she thinks of Alice, knowing who she was at breakfast and being lots of things since then. The idea of not knowing who she really is makes her feel strange and her legs itch.

“Think how high you could jump!” Cousin prompts her.

“I’d rather just be a girl,” she says in a small voice.

There is a sudden noise. His robe drops to the ground, a flock of birds fly out the window, chattering angrily. Cousin is gone. A deer wanders through and picks up his robe on its antlers before walking back out of the room.

She puts her cup back on the tea tray and sees herself out.

-

‘Children do know some things without being taught.’    —ALICE.  

-

It’s half past noon and the doors to the big dining room are still closed, she can hear the quiet murmur of conversation so she knows the rest of the family must still be eating lunch. She takes her sketchbook to the parlor to work on her drawing, but she’s surprised to find that someone has already lit a fire and pulled one of the big armchairs closer to the hearth. They turn and motion for her to join them, so she drags an ottoman over.

She can’t tell who it is but they smell like spices and ink so she thinks they might be Uncle. He’s always traveling to interesting places and bringing back old scrolls and things like that for their collection. He produces a second teacup from his robe and pours her a cup of spiced tea. She drinks it even though he adds too much milk and sugar, because it would be rude not to.

He asks what she’s learned recently. A little, she tells him shyly; a little math, a little history, and then she shows him her sketchbook. She’s been trying to draw the sigils from their robes, but it’s harder than she thought it would be. He doesn’t seem impressed. She’s certain now that it’s Uncle, because he’s never impressed by anything.

“I suppose you aren’t completely empty headed after all,” Uncle grunts, which is probably the nicest thing he could say.

Uncle picks up his tea and sips it. The cup vanishes under his hood. She can’t see his mouth, although she knows it’s there, because everyone has mouths, of course. She thinks about Alice and the caterpillar, wreathed in smoke so thick you can’t even see his face, and bites back a smile.

-

“But I mean there’s nothing at all on them,” said Alice; “they’re only blank paper.” 

-

She’s just finishing up her breakfast when Great-Aunt comes in. Great-Aunt always pushes up the sleeves of her robe because she likes to have her hands free, even though the robe is supposed to cover your entire arm. But she’s an Elder so no one can tell her she isn’t allowed, even if they want to.

Today Great-Aunt is wearing white cotton gloves. She hands her another pair and tells her to put them on, so she knows they’ll be going to the Old Library. You always have to wear gloves in the Old Library because the books there are so fragile.

Great-Aunt takes her through the rows and into a storage cupboard in the back of the Old Library, pushing aside boxes of candles and a mop to pull an old, dusty book off a shelf. She wonders if they’re going to clean it but Great-Aunt tells her that this kind of book likes to have a little dust on it.

“Is that why it’s in the cupboard?” she wants to know.

“No, it’s just happier when it’s hidden,” Great-Aunt says, and she thinks that she likes the way Great-Aunt talks about books as if they have feelings.

The book is strange. It’s written with symbols in ink that’s faded and sometimes scribbled as if someone was in a hurry to write everything down, with larger letters painted at the beginning of each chapter like the illustrated manuscripts Uncle brought them last month. Some of the pages have pictures.

“Can you read it?” she asks.

Great-Aunt nods. “I learned when I was, hmm, about your age, I suppose. Turn to the front, please.”

The first page has much less writing than the rest of the book does and there’s a picture of water pouring out of a jug. Great-Aunt points to each symbol one by one and tells her what it means and how to say it until she can read the first paragraph all the way through.

Great-Aunt closes the book. “Now, can you remember the very first word?”

She repeats it back from memory.

“Good, good. Watch closely.”

Great-Aunt pulls a small pitcher and basin from a shelf. She holds the pitcher over the bowl and says the word again. When she tilts the pitcher, water pours out of it, just like in the illustration.

“I’m thinking of water,” Great-Aunt says. “Doesn’t matter which kind. Cold, hot, rivers, baths, tea. The point is it has to be water and has to move. Then you say the word and it’s there. Now, you try.”

Hesitantly, she takes the pitcher. It feels very light. She tries to look inside to see how much water is left because maybe there isn’t enough to pour, but Great-Aunt raps her knuckles on her head, just hard enough to startle her but not hard enough for it to hurt.

“Don’t look! Just say the word and pour.”

So she does, but nothing happens. Great-Aunt makes her try again and again but the pitcher is still empty, and finally she offers to go fill it with water but Great-Aunt just sighs like she’s done something disappointing again and tells her not to bother. She tells her to leave the pitcher and basin in the cupboard and puts the book back on the shelf, where it blends in with everything else and looks so ordinary she hates to leave it.

“Please, may I come back and read it again?” she blurts out.

Great-Aunt shrugs. “If you like. It won’t matter, anyway.”

-

They're changing guard at Buckingham Palace - Christopher Robin went down with Alice. They've great big parties inside the grounds. "I wouldn't be King for a hundred pounds,"                                                                   Says Alice. -

One night, Kaito finds his new charge in tears over Winnie the Pooh as Edward Bear comes down the stairs with a bump, bump, bump.

“The p-poor bear!” the little girl sobs. “I’d never treat a bear like that. Bears are so lovely and so friendly.”

It takes her a long time to calm down. He sits next to her bed and they read together until she’s satisfied that Christopher Robin does learn to take better care of Pooh.

The next day, Kaito takes her with him into town to run errands. They pass by the toy store on their way home and she gravitates to the window, staring longingly at the teddy bears on display. He realizes with a jolt of surprise that he’s never seen any toys in her room.

“Would you like to have a bear of your own, like Christopher Robin does?” he asks.

She smiles at him, but the smile doesn’t reach her eyes as she shakes her head no. “I don’t think I’m allowed to. It wouldn’t look very dignified.”

She’s right, of course. Frankly, he thinks her clan cares too much about how things look and not enough about how things are. Her parents may have been powerful magicians, but the girl is still just a child. Kaito decides he’ll have to do something.

So Kaito thinks and he thinks and he thinks, until he thinks up a small thing that’s just the right size for a little girl’s pocket, with long ears like the rabbits in the garden, with dark eyelashes and a beautiful muff and a golden crown.

“Hello,” he says politely, once he’s finished. “I’ve got a job for you. Are you ready?”

The rabbit yawns. “Oh, I suppose.”

Kaito gives her the little white rabbit and knows he’s done the right thing by the way her eyes light up with delight when she sees it.

“What shall we name her?” he asks.

She’d just read a story about a small person who lived inside of a peach so she has exactly the right name. She runs to fetch the book to show him all the illustrations and barely stumbles over the words as she reads aloud in Japanese, translating the tale of Momotaro on the spot. There’s an innocent magic in her storytelling that he suspects her clan will never be able to appreciate.

“You truly have a talent for words,” he praises, resting his hand on her head. She blushes and hides her face behind Momo, the small rabbit smiling serenely at them both.

-

“You see,” he went on before giving her time to reply, “it might mean ALICE MAYBE!” So perhaps it’s not for you after all. It might even be intended for me.” This was a rather disturbing thought, especially as, curiously enough, Alice could not for the life of her, at the moment, remember her full name.

-

She knows her family thinks she can’t do anything right. When she was young, they used to tell her she’d understand everything when she was older, but the older she gets the less they tell her.

Maybe that’s why she likes Kaito so much. He isn’t like the rest of them. Whenever he asks her questions, she always feels like it’s because he’s genuinely interested in what she has to say, not because he’s looking for an answer she can’t give.

Sometimes, when the family’s disappointment is too much to bear, she goes to her room and cries into Momo’s soft muff because she knows Momo won’t tell anyone. Momo is very good at keeping secrets. She isn’t allowed to tell her real name to anyone outside of the family, but she tells it to Momo, because while Momo isn’t family she isn’t not-family, either, because she’s just a toy.

“I wish I could be a more interesting Alice, like the Alice in books,” she confides, hugging Momo close. “I think they would like me more.”

Momo waits until Alice falls asleep to promise her that someday, things will be different; she strokes her hair and does what she can to take away the hurt and give her good dreams. After all, it’s her job to look after her.

“You’re better than all of them,” Momo tells her. “They don’t know what they’re missing.”

Sleeping peacefully, Alice smiles.

-