#Hike to Howard Lake

[cedarboughs]

Hiking Journal: Banff NP,

Fossil Mountain Loop, Part IV, August 14

Packed up and headed back through Jones’ Pass into Skoki Valley in the rain the fourth morning. Fears that the rain might return kept us from trying for the barely higher route over Packer’s Pass. Instead it was a long slog up the higher side of Deception Pass.

Tiring as it was, the spires of Ptarmigan Peak, laced with clouds above, and the Wall of Jericho looming across the cirque of glacial lakes, seemed right out of Tolkien.

Lunch at the top of the pass helped with the fantasy impression: smoked cheese and dried spiced pork on protein bread. Might as well be Lembas. Can one bite feed a man for a day? Well, I haven’t tried, probably not, but it’s still good and energizing. Probably my most rangercore meal or whatever they call it on Tumblr now.

Very fantasy. I was full of songs on the way down the pass back towards the wide-open valley of Ptarmigan Lake.

Last trip I was dreading the future sometimes, seeing the blasted waste of burnt forests. Now I'm thinking about how old stories can help us today find the courage to fight the seemingly insurmountable darknesses of our time, and how wandering the wild can show us both the importance of that fight, and that so much remains still to protect. Hope isn't lost. In the veiling of the sun, we will walk in bitter rains, but in dreams, I can hear your call-

For all the romanticism I was still tired by the time we came once again to Hidden Lake. We played a longer game of cribbage, enjoying the less-buggy evening, and ate lots of food we had left. I went to bed full and happy for one last night in the not-so-very-far-back country. As I lay in my sleeping bag writing, I heard women in a nearby tent discussing names on their map, named I had also pondered that are even deeper into the wild, beyond full campgrounds and busy trails and beer-service lodges. For other times.

[ppenvs3000w24]

Blog 2: We Must Role On

Howard Gardner noted ‘Naturalistic’ personality as one of the newer personalities in their book: “Frames of Mind: "The Theory of Multiple Intelligences”. This personality endears to nature activities such as flora/fauna identification, going on nature walks, etc. While reading this week’s textbook readings, I found myself resonating with the Naturalistic personality. When I read this week’s blog prompt, I immediately recalled my ideal role of an environmental interpreter being a naturalist.

Before last summer, I did not even know that naturalist was a profession. While staying at the Algonquin Wildlife Research Station at Algonquin Park, I was able to meet Peter, the Interim Chief Naturalist at the provincial park who happened to be living at the research station. His knowledge of Algonquin Park’s flora and fauna was vast. Whenever, we would ask him questions, he would give vivid directions. I remember when I was searching for garter snakes, he gave me directions to a good spot for snakes on the way to Rock Lake but the way he described it was very vivid. He used visual cues, saying, “After you pass the giant boulder, around the bend, you will see a huge opening on the right that slopes up with multiple rocks scattered throughout”. When I got to the snake site, I was able to immediately identify it as I traced the visual cues he gave me in my head and confirmed it while on the road there. He also gave us great advice and historical information when describing specific locations at the park.

Peter in his natural element; the Visitor Centre

A Naturalist like Peter is who I would strive to be as an environmental interpreter, as he always captivated the audience and gave great, thoughtful information. His role as a naturalist entailed running the visitors center, giving guided talks and hikes, hosting informational events, answering, and guiding researchers’ questions regarding ideal study site locations, and working with the park rangers. However, unlike Peter, I would like to be a naturalist somewhere in Asia, ideally Nepal, where much of nature is still unexplored and understudied due to the danger that forests of most Asian countries present. Asia faces an increasing rise in human-nature conflicts due to the rapid urbanization of the continent so the need for environmental education is prevalent.

A Bengal Tiger that can be found roaming the jungles and parks of Nepal

A naturalist needs to be able to capture the attention of the audience, so they need to be charismatic and talkative. They also need to be good listeners and welcoming as not everyone knows about nature as much as the naturalist themselves. They need to be able to imaginative with the ability to tell vivid stories and historical information without boring the audience. One of the two key skills for a naturalist is physicality, a naturalist needs to be active, going on hikes, steering a canoe, swimming, etc. The other key skill would be the ability to enjoy nature. A naturalist cannot spend their time on their phone, social media, or playing games. Parks like Algonquin require a naturalist to live with other naturalists or in a small cabin with limited wifi capabilities or if you were like me while at the research station, no cell service either.

[ollieofthebeholder]

Each Sunday, post six sentences from a writing project — published, submitted, in progress, for your cat — whatever.

His office, small as it is, bursts with his personality—the wall calendar with pictures of lakes and waterfalls he’s planning to hike to someday, the desk organizer with an image of the man from the Monopoly board leaping out of a flaming pit with GET OUT OF HELL FREE written beneath it the guy he’d been with in uni had given him for Christmas before breaking it off and moving back to Colorado, the lopsided trinket box constructed of flat wooden sticks and glitter glue his neighbor’s son had made for him at summer camp as a thank you for teaching him to ride a bike while his mum was at work, the photograph in a goofy ceramic frame currently lying face down because he can’t bear to look at it anymore but also can’t bear to take it down. Five days out of nine he can also count on there being a lemon with googly eyes glued to its peel staring at him from somewhere, which is usually his cue to go down to Lou’s office, with its photographs of her nephews and nieces and their kids—or at least the ones speaking to her this week—its awards and accolades proudly displayed wherever they’ll fit, its Newton’s cradle, and the knitted shawl draped over the back of her chair, for a cup of tea and a chat or a good laugh about something. Hell, even Howard Jackson, who hardly ever says a word to anyone except to snap about the quality of authors these days, has a pair of small flags stuck in a bud vase on one corner of his desk—the Portuguese flag and a pride flag that Tim’s never worked up the courage to ask him about. But Elias Bouchard’s office has…nothing.

It’s unnerving. Much like the rest of this place.

[pcttrailsidereader]

The Pacific Crest Trail: A Visual Compendium

Howard reviewed Joshua M. Powell's creative treatment of his 2014 thru-hike back in June, 2021. His book is filled with interesting sidebar ("Mental Struggles," "Songs Stuck in My Head," "Things Found in the 1935 CCC Stone Hot on San Jacinto Peak," "Most Delicious Berries of the Trail," etc.).

Here are a couple of Joshua's asides:

Characteristics of a Great Trail Town

Directly on the trail or requiring only a brief detour or hitch

Compact and walkable, not too sprawling

Decent options in terms of food and lodging, but not so many as to be overwhelming

Scenic location

Charming atmosphere

Elements of Americana (neon signs, historic buildings, classic restaurants, friendly locals)

Best Trail Town

It's nearly impossible to choose a favorite, but considering the previous criteria: Cascade Locks, Oregon

Food

Most Memorable Breakfasts: Alabama Hills Cafe and Bakery, Lone Pine, CA; Morning Glory Cafe, Ashland, OR

Friendliest Service: Der Baring Store and Cafe, Baring, WA

Best Overall Food Experience: Timberline Lodge all-you-can-eat buffet, Government Camp, OR

Best Food Option in the Backcountry: Vermillion Valley Resort, Sierra Nevada

Only Meal I Couldn't Finish: Burrito at Roberto's Cafe, Mammoth Lakes, CA

What I Fantasized about Most on the Trail: An ice-cold Sprite from a soda fountain, fizzy with carbonation and chilled with ice

Dinner at VVR

We'll include some most from Powell's book in coming weeks.

[zdenvs3000w24]

Mother Nature's Mixtape

Imagine yourself by a serene lake, where the water mirrors the sky and carries the sound of a gentle breeze. As the wind weaves through the trees, it brings with it distant melodies, blending with the symphonies of the ecosystem. In these moments, music and nature merge, where nature reflects music just as music reflects nature. 

This is a picture I took from a hiking trail in Milton!

Howard Gardner’s work on multiple intelligences shed light on the diverse ways individuals interact with the world around them. Through his theory, Gardner illuminated the rich tapestry of human potential, categorizing different intelligences that manifest in various degrees within each individual (Beck et al., 2018). Among these intelligences lies the musical domain which he describes as a realm of individuals who have a sensitivity to rhythm, pitch, meter, melody, and tones and can potentially come in handy as a tool for interpreters (Beck et al., 2018). But, what if the theory of multiple intelligences, specifically the musical domain, extends beyond humanity alone? 

Music in nature expresses mixtures of joy, sorrow, and desires that we perceive as mere symphonies, blissfully unaware of the secrets it whispers. Consider the deep melodies of humpback whales, echoing through the depths of the ocean. Their sounds, reminiscent of human compositions, reveal a striking similarity in structure and form (Gray et al., 2001). Like our own musical traditions, whale songs follow patterns of rhythm, tone, timber, and melodies (Gray et al., 2001). Now some believe that musical instruments are exclusive to humans, given their intricate design and usage in human culture. However, this assumption can be challenged when observing the behaviors of certain birds, such as the palm cockatoo of Northern Australia and New Guinea (Gray et al., 2001). Palm cockatoos use “instruments” like twigs to drum on hollow logs as part of their courtship ritual (Gray et al., 2001). These behaviors illuminate the diverse ways in which creatures engage with musical expression, expanding our understanding of music’s origin and universality. 

On the other hand, nature in music reveals itself both explicitly and implicitly. It can show itself through compositions, mimicking or taking inspiration from the elements of nature. Some music might transport listeners to a natural setting, evoking emotions or memories of specific landscapes or experiences. From the lens of interpretation, music can be a powerful tool. It possesses the ability to evoke profound emotions within listeners, to anchor words and information in one’s memory, and to transport individuals into vivid mental landscapes, bringing the outdoors to life within the sanctuary of one’s mind  (Beck et al., 2018).

A song that does just that for me is Counting Stars by OneRepublic. While the song itself doesn’t explicitly evoke images of nature, it reminds me of memorable family road trips. I recall us heading to a cottage nestled amid lush forests and serene lakes. The morning sun painted the landscape in golden hues, while the crisp breeze greeted us through rolled-down windows. As we journeyed mile by mile, the song played softly in the background, harmonizing with the tranquil beauty outside. It was a refreshing change from the city life in Toronto that I’m accustomed to, and it created memories of tranquility and a sense of adventure.

References:

Beck, L., Cable, T. T., & Knudson, D. M. (2018). Interpreting cultural and natural heritage: for a better world. Sagamore Venture. 

Gray, P. M., Krause, B., Atema, J., Payne, R., Krumhansl, C., & Baptista, L. (2001). The Music of Nature and the Nature of Music. Science, 291, p. 52-54.

[thorsenmark]

Views of McGregor Mountain from Howard Lake (Coon Lake, North Cascades National Park Service Complex) by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: Even though the reflections off Howard Lake were captivating that afternoon, I did remember to look around and take in view of the nearby mountains. With the clouds being slightly overcast at times, I tried to minimize that, bringing more of a focus to the mountainside and peaks above.

[pocketmacro]

Episode 173 Sylaward Trail 2

Episode 173 Sylaward Trail 2 I went back to Lake Howard and had fun on Sylaward Trail with my macro lens this time!

On this episode, I went back to Sylaward trail at Lake Howard to go on a hike and get some macro photos. On my previous visit, I took wide angled shots and hiked the whole trail, and on this visit it was nice to go slow and steady for part of the trail with my macro lens. I encountered a good variety of things to photograph…

[fatehbaz]

The Agua Fria is what people refer to as “intermittent” or “ephemeral.” [...] Depending on the time of year, an intermittent stream may not have flowing surface water. An ephemeral stream [...] may not be recognizable to a casual observer as a river at all. [...] And in the Western part of North America, so much of the water is impermanent. In Arizona, 95% of rivers are seasonal [...]. It’s difficult to admit when rivers are dry or gone: to acknowledge that impermanence has led in fact to obsolescence. [...] Is this what is happening with the Agua Fria today? In some places the riverbed has water in it, and in some places it doesn’t. Sometimes, like for the past few years, there has been a minuscule amount of surface water, only 25% of its normal capacity. [...]

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Under the American financial system, the mere suggestion of disaster, the memory of it, is often cause enough for someone, somewhere, to make money.

In Phoenix, insurance companies require people living along the banks of the Agua Fria to buy flood insurance -- even though in 2020, only 5 inches of rain fell over only 15 days, a record low. If the Agua Fria relies on rainwater to flow and rainwater is minimal and lessening, then one might argue that it is neither “intermittent” nor “ephemeral.” The Agua Fria is dry.

The history of the Agua Fria can be read not so much as a warning but rather a symbol of what happens to small bodies of water in Arizona.

This is the state of the five Cs: cotton, copper, cattle, citrus, and climate.

The Agua Fria has been impacted by each.

It is a 120-mile riverway, which, at its basin, provides municipal water for the city of Prescott (a small city about two hours south of the Grand Canyon), and at its reservoir, provides municipal water for Phoenix suburbs. [...]

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[T]he Agua Fria was a steady stream that used to irrigate small farms in the northwest corner of the state growing alfalfa for grazing cattle. When it flowed uninterrupted, it moved south almost 100 miles until it met the Gila River (which has become an intermittent stream, due to damming), just south of what is now Phoenix. But in the 1930s, the Agua Fria was dammed 30 miles north of its natural ending point, its flow stopped by a reservoir named Lake Pleasant. [...] There are 16 copper mines in the Agua Fria Mining District, which is located east of the city of Prescott in the Bradshaw mountain range. Most of these mines became operational in the early twentieth century. [...] This in turn leads to the dissolution of heavy metals like copper, lead, and mercury into groundwater and surface water storage sites. In 2008 the EPA designated parts of the area around the Agua Fria basin a superfund site [...].

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[T]he Agua Fria National Monument [...] encompasses a nearly 73,000-acre expanse of grassland and hiking trails [...] There, you can find petroglyphs and archeological sites built between 1200 and 1450 by the Pueblo people; 140 species of birds; countless species of reptiles and frogs; bears, deer, a kind of antelope called a pronghorn, and the javalina, a species of wild pig that roams throughout Arizona [...]. The organization Friends of the Agua Fria National Monument conducts yearly wet-dry surveys of the Agua Fria, walking down the riverbed at 5:30 in the morning. The Friends are [...] trained to track the surface flow of seasonal streams. These surveys usually happen in June, the hottest and driest month, when streamflow has historically been at its lowest level, in order to determine the river’s peak dryness. Since 2018, they have found that the Agua Fria is more than 60% dry, and stops flowing altogether 45 miles north of Phoenix, 15 miles north of its reservoir.

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Images, captions, and text published by: Rachel Howard. “Grappling with the Drying Riverbeds of the Agua Fria.” Edge Effects. 4 August 2022.

[onceuponatown]

The Mohonk Mountain House, also known as Lake Mohonk Mountain House, is an American resort hotel located on the Shawangunk Ridge in Ulster County, New York. Its location in the town of New Paltz, New York, is just beyond the southern border of the Catskill Mountains, west of the Hudson River.

The National Historic Landmark Program's "Statement of Significance", as of the site's historic landmark designation in 1986, stated:

Begun in the 1870s as a small resort for family and friends by the Smiley brothers, it became so popular that it was enlarged many times. Because of the Smileys' love of the outdoor life, the area around the hotel was treated as an integral part of the attractions of the resort. Much of this area was planned as an experiment in conservation of the natural environment, and as an educational tool for the study of botany, geology, and outdoor living.

The resort is located on the shore of Lake Mohonk, which is half a mile (800 m) long and 60 feet (18 m) deep. The main structure was built by Quaker twin brothers Albert and Alfred Smiley between 1869 and 1910.

From 1883 to 1916, annual conferences took place at Mohonk Mountain House, sponsored by Albert Smiley, to improve the living standards of Native American Indian populations. These meetings brought together government representatives of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the House and Senate committees on Indian Affairs, as well as educators, philanthropists, and Indian leaders to discuss the formulation of policy. The Haverford College library holds 22,000 records from the 34 conference reports for researchers and students of American history.

The hotel hosted the Lake Mohonk Conference on International Arbitration between 1895 and 1916, which was instrumental in creating the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, Netherlands. Those conference papers were donated by the Smiley Family to Swarthmore College for research.

The house was given a United Nations Environment Programme Award in 1994 in honor of "125 years of stewardship". According to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, "Through its buildings and roads, its land, and its spirit, Mohonk exemplifies America's history and culture. Mohonk has since managed to maintain its 19th century character into the 21st century."

Mohonk Mountain House has 259 guest rooms, including 28 tower rooms, an indoor pool and spa, and an outdoor ice-skating rink for winter use. The property consists of 1,325 acres (536 ha), and much of it is landscaped with meadows and gardens. It adjoins the Mohonk Preserve, which is crisscrossed by 85 miles (140 km) of hiking trails and carriage roads. The Smileys conveyed the majority of their property to the preserve, in 1963. At the time the preserve was called the Mohonk Trust. 

Mohonk Mountain House has hosted many famous visitors including lawyer, Daniel H Kovel, industrialist John D. Rockefeller, financier Charles A. Schmutz, naturalist John Burroughs, industrialist Andrew Carnegie, prolific author Isaac Asimov, and American presidents Rutherford B. Hayes, Chester A. Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and Bill Clinton. Guests have also included actor Alan Alda, former First Lady Julia Grant, author Thomas Mann, and religious leaders such as Theologian Lyman Abbott, Rabbi Louis Finkelstein, Reverend Ralph W. Sockman, Reverend Francis Edward Clark. `Abdu'l-Bahá, the eldest son of Baháʼí Faith founder Bahá'u'lláh, stayed there in 1912 during the Lake Mohonk Conference on International Arbitration as part of his journeys to the West. William James Roe II described the resort as a "palace of peace" after his stay there, writing an article of the same name, published in Harper's Young People. 

See our other post on the Mohonk Mountain House here. 

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hi hi hi.... Hope you are doing fine.

Do you know fics where Sherl and Jawn gets into an arranged marriage (Husbands to Lover fic) ?

I don't mind ratings, or if it has Ocs , or if it's omega verse. All works till it's Johnlock.

Lastly, I would like to thank you again. Also there is no rush. So take your time ❤️ Love you.

Hi Lovely!! <3

Ooof, I initially thought I DIDN’T have a list but I did one AGES ago here. I’ve a few others since then, so you can check out these fics below:

ARRANGED MARRIAGES (Sept 2020)

See also:

Married For a Case / Fake Husbands

Arranged Marriages (Jan 2018)

Marriage and Weddings (April 2019)

Proposals (May 2020)

Weddings / Proposals / Husbands and Established Relationship (Dec. 2017)

Uncharted Territory by J_Baillier (T, 19,603 w., 4 Ch. || Dystopian Future / Black Mirror AU || Alternate First Meeting, Angst, Drama, Homophobia, Bisexuality, Technology, Humour, Romance, Near Future, Happy Ending) – The System puts people through a series of assigned relationships in order to determine who their Perfect Match is. John believes that it works; Sherlock really, really doesn't. One of them is probably going to be wrong.

Once More, With Feeling by cellard00rs (T, 21,178 w., 7 Ch. || John’s Family, Fake Relationship, Romance, Fluff, Humour) – To put off his meddlesome, matchmaking mother, John convinces Sherlock to play the role of his significant other. Unparalleled awkwardness ensues.

A Marriage of Convenience by Phuchka (E, 43,116 w., 24 Ch. || Regency Omegaverse || Jealous John, Mpreg, Angst, Whump, Fluff, Smut, Arranged Marriage) – You are cordially invited to attend the wedding of ~The Honourable Sherlock Holmes, Alpha, younger brother of the Earl of Sherrinford with Mr. John Watson, Omega, son of Mr. Howard Watson, chairman of the City Bankers Guild. (TO READ, MFL)

Spare Change by Ermerness (E, 51,966 w., 14 Ch. || Rich Holmeses AU || First Kiss / Time, Holmes Family, Virgin Sherlock, Anal, First Meetings, Bossy Bottomlock) – The Holmes family is one of the richest and most powerful in England. Sherlock spends his time flying around the world on the family's private jet drinking a lot and shopping at expensive boutiques as a way of trying to alleviate his endless boredom. His mother decides it's time he settles down with someone powerful, wealthy and well connected. John Watson happens to be none of those things.

The Wedding Garments by cwb (E, 105,390 w., 36 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Alternate Future AU || Alternate First Meeting, Dating / Arranged Marriages, Romance, First Kiss/Time, Heavy Petting, Cuddles, POV Sherlock, Virgin Sherlock, Idiots in Love, Slow Burn / Falling in Love / Dev. Rel., Nervous/Anxious Sherlock, Jealous/Cranky, Hiking, Vacation Homes / Honeymoon, Sherlock’s Family, Horny John/Sherlock, Patient John, Massages, Hand Jobs, Assassination Plots, Hand Jobs / Oral Sex, Case Fic, Emotional Love Making, Bath Time Fun) – This is the story of a young consulting detective who wants nothing to do with marriage and an army doctor who wants to find true love. It's 2020 post-Brexit England and the British government is encouraging arranged marriages. Candidates meet through state-run agencies and date in hopes of finding love (and tax benefits). Sherlock doesn't need or want a spouse, at least not until John Watson shows up. Hesitant to give in to his more carnal urges because of the way they derail his mind, how will Sherlock progress toward the more intimate aspects of a relationship? The answer lies in a very special wedding gift.

The Swan Triad Series by Pennin_Ink (T, 121,660 w. across 3 works || Swan Lake AU || Magical / Fairy Tale AU, Romance, Falling in Love, Pining, Psychological Torture, Transformation) – Sherlock and John grow up spending every summer together. Their mothers' attempts to play matchmaker only fuel their mutual resentment and scorn. But then, one summer.

The Gilded Cage by BeautifulFiction (E, 326,887 w., 31 Ch. || Omegaverse || Omega Sherlock / Alpha John, Friends to Lovers, Dub Con, Reproductive Rights) – In a world where Omegas are the property of the elite Alphas, locked away and treasured by those wealthy enough to buy them, John never questioned his flatmate's secondary gender. Sherlock Holmes was an Alpha through-and through. Wasn't he? A chance discovery turns the world on its head, and John is left grappling to come to terms with Sherlock's past as events conspire to threaten their future.

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If anyone has any they’d like to add, please do!! <3

[imjustthemechanic]

The Price of a Soul

Part 1/? - Agent Russel Part 2/? - The Letter Part 3/? - Miss Lake Part 4/? - The Stewardess Part 5/? - An Assassination Part 6/? - Fallout Part 7/? - Face to Face Part 8/? - Deals, Details, and Other Devils Part 9/? - Baggage Part 10/? - Private Funding

Howard, of course, is all for this plan.

-

Howard Stark’s hours were unpredictable at best.  Sometimes he was awake for days on end working on a pet project, running on coffee, cigarettes, and whiskey until he simply ran out of steam and collapsed.  Sometimes he’d been overseas for too long and had not yet reset his internal clock, so that he was up all night and slept all day.  Sometimes he napped in strange places like a lazy cat.  Peggy had no idea what to expect when she rang his bell in the morning.

The first thing she heard was the barking, followed by a yelp from Mr. Jarvis and a cry of, “Anna!  Would you please contain this beast?”  Some scuffling and more barking followed, and then the door opened.  Whatever had just happened, it didn’t stop Mr. Jarvis from looking as tidy and composed as ever when he opened the door.

“Agent Carter, good morning,” he said cheerfully.  “What can we do for you today?”

Behind him, Anna Jarvis was kneeling on the floor in her dressing gown, cooing Hungarian endearments to the animal Peggy assumed was called a ‘Bernese mountain dog’ not because it came from the Swiss Alps but because it was simply a mountain of dog.  Its tongue was lolling out and its eyes closed in bliss.

“Good morning, Mr. Jarvis,” said Peggy.  “I was wondering if Howard were out of bed yet.”

“He’s in the backyard, nursing a hangover by the swimming pool,” said Mr. Jarvis.  “I’m sure he’ll be delighted to see you.”

Peggy stepped inside and nodded to Anna and the dog.  “Good morning, Anna.  Zoltan.”

“Lovely to see you, Peggy,” Anna said, fondling the dog’s red and black ears.  “Sorry I’m not dressed.  I just have to get this fellow his breakfast.”

“It’s quite all right,” Peggy assured her.  “I don’t know how long I’m likely to be here, anyway.”

Behind the house, Howard was sprawled across a chaise under the canopy, wearing his brocade bathrobe, a pair of sunglasses, and probably nothing else.  Jarvis picked up a discarded newspaper and laid it discreetly over his employer’s lap before touching his shoulder to wake him.  “Mr. Stark?”

“Huh?” Howard twitched.

“Agent Carter is here.”

“Oh.”  Howard’s head tilted back again.  “I guess there’s no chance of telling her to come back later?”

“I don’t do later, Howard,” said Peggy.  Jarvis pulled up a chair for her, and she sat down across from Howard.  “I need a favour… in fact, Daniel and I both need a favour.”

“Is this the part where you remind me again that you kept my ass out of jail?” he asked.

“It is.”

“All right.”  Howard made an effort to sit up and look slightly more presentable – at least as much as a man could when there was only yesterday’s Examiner to preserve his modesty.  “What’s going on?”

Peggy had spent a good deal of time in her bath the previous evening thinking over exactly how she was going to present this idea.  “I’m sure you remember the time you had me steal back a vial of Steve Roger’s blood for you under the pretense that it was a superweapon.”

“Technically, it could be, in the wrong hands,” said Howard.  “But I definitely remember where you hit me.  Did you find it?” he asked, peering over his sunglasses with bloodshot eyes.

Howard did not know that Peggy had thrown the vial in the East River, and she was not about to tell him.  “No.  But before I tell you what I did find, I need you to assure me of your honourable intentions.  If some piece of Captain Rogers or his property were to turn up, what would you do about it?”

“Depends on what it is,” said Howard, “but if it were his body I’d throw him the hero’s funeral he deserves, and if it’s the shield I’d build him a monument out of it.”

Peggy leaned closer.  “You swear?” she asked.

“Cross my heart,” he said.  “What have you found?”

“A set of coordinates.  Seventy-four, forty-seven, thirty-five.  Ninety-five, twenty-five, three.”

She could almost see the gears in Howard’s head turning as he placed them.  “That’s… that’s further north than we ever looked… way up in the sea ice.”  He started to get up, then grabbed at his newspaper.  Peggy politely turned her head while he fixed his robe.  “I’ve got a map here somewhere…”

“I know,” she said, getting up to follow him inside.  “I already looked.”

In the library, the atlas Peggy had used was still sitting out on a table.  Howard quickly found the same page, and the same point.  “Cornwallis Island.”

“Daniel and I aren’t sure the tip is trustworthy,” Peggy explained, “so we need this to be discreet, no taxpayer money.  I’m on medical leave for the occasion.”

“Of course.  Not a word,” said Howard.  “Just you and me and a few of the locals to carry stuff.  There might not be anything visible on the surface anymore.”

“No?” Peggy asked.  “Our source described the crash in some detail, as if they were there when it happened, and seemed to think there would still be parts of the plane caught on the rocks of the island.”

“Yeah, but sea ice isn’t static,” Howard said.  “It moves around, and snow builds up and doesn’t melt.  If the wreck’s in the ice it’ll be torn apart, very slowly, and will eventually melt out the bottom and fall onto the sea floor.  The ice up there isn’t transparent, either, it’s yards thick and full of cracks and bubbles.  We need a way to see what’s under it.”

“And you happen to have just the thing?” Peggy guessed.

Howard nodded eagerly.  “I’ve been working on it on and off for a while now… an ice-penetrating sonar.  The big problem was keeping the sound of the plane itself from interfering, but the last month or so I’ve actually had your buddy Dr. Wilkes up there troubleshooting on it.  He’s a great guy for acoustics.  His work on the vibration frequencies of the Zero Matter…”

“Is it ready for testing?”  After knowing him for nearly ten years, Peggy was an expert at gently encouraging Howard to stay on topic.

“Yes!  That’s why we moved it to my hangar in upstate New York,” Howard said.  “Closer to the ice, less shipping hassle than getting it to Alaska.  It’s installed on one of my planes there.”

“So we can simply fly it up to Canada and take a look,” said Peggy.  That would cut down on their search time enormously, if they didn’t have to trek across the ice for days on end.  “Wonderful.  But as I said, we can’t have any fanfare.  Absolute secrecy is best.”

Howard pouted.  “You don’t think I can keep a secret, Peg?” he asked.

“You do tend to get over-excited,” she said.  “And we know, by the way, that there are more of those Russian girls in the country, so you’re not even allowed to hint at it over drinks.  How soon can you be ready to go?”

“I can be ready to go right now,” Howard replied.  “It depends on if Jason’s got the thing ready in New York.  I’ll give him a call right away.”  He checked his watch.  “Yeah, he’ll be up by now.”

“I should hope so,” Peggy said.  “Dr. Wilkes tends to be far more regular in his hours than you.  But don’t tell him over the phone where we’re going,” she added.  “Treat it as just another test flight.  You never know who might be listening in.”

“You can count on me, Peg.  After all… you did keep my ass out of jail.”  Howard grinned at her.

“Thank you, Howard.”  She smiled back.  “I’ll head home and pack a bag.”  That wouldn’t take long.  Peggy knew how to travel light.

As she was heading back to the front door, she met Mr. Jarvis coming the other way.  “Agent Carter?” he said.  “Are you leaving?”

“Yes, I’m afraid I have a lot to do today,” she said.  “I can’t stay for tea.”

“I wasn’t about to ask you to, but I’ve just taken a phone call from Chief Sousa,” Mr. Jarvis said.  “He was unable to say why, but he would like you to stop by the SSR offices as soon as possible.”

He probably wanted to know how her conversation with Howard had gone, Peggy thought, though it was strange that he’d called rather than waiting for her to contact him.  “I’ll do so on my way home.  Thank you, Mr. Jarvis.  Give my best to Anna, would you?”

“I shall.  Will we see you again soon?”

“I certainly hope so,” Peggy said.

She probably could have done more to warn Howard how unlikely they were to find anything up there, Peggy thought as she drove back to the office, but for the moment it was probably best to let him ride the initial wave of enthusiasm.  The whole story could wait for their flight back to New York and the subsequent journey to the Northwest Territories.  Howard and Jason’s sonar, though… that was exactly what they needed!  If this were indeed some sort of trap, there was no way the Soviets would be expecting them to fly over at a height rather than hiking out from the island.  If there were something there, they’d be able to get at least an idea of it without so much as setting foot on the ice.  Then if it appeared dangerous, they could contact Daniel and ask for further suggestions.

“Afternoon, Rose,” said Peggy cheerfully as she entered the reception area.  Rose was sitting at her desk, tiredly watching a trio of midgets in matching sequined costumes perform an acrobatic routine.

Rose did not smile back.  “Oh, you got Mr. Auerbach’s message?” she said.

“I did,” Peggy nodded.  “He’s upstairs?”

“Yes.  So is Mr. Masters.”

Peggy’s spirits, which had been high on her drive over, sank straight through the floor.  It wasn’t that there was no reason for him to be here – Peggy could think of half a dozen things he might have decided to stick his unwelcome fingers into – it was that whatever he wanted was always at odds with whatever Peggy was trying to accomplish.  Daniel had rung her at Howard’s because he was trying to warn her.

She took a deep breath, stood up straight, and nodded.  “I’ll head right up.”

Peggy stepped into Daniel’s office with her head held high and determination in her step.  Daniel himself was not there.  Vernon Masters, however, was.  He was sitting in Daniel’s chair, where Peggy had sat for her interview with Lake as Agent Russel, waiting for her.

“Carter,” he said.

“Mr. Masters,” Peggy replied.

“Care to explain how another Soviet spy got into the country undetected and killed one of our most important political prisoners while you were a dozen feet away?”

He certainly did get straight to the point, didn’t he?  “It is my understanding that Miss Lake drilled through the glass of the cell window and shot Dr. Zola using a police revolver with a home-made suppressor,” she replied.

“While you stood right next door and did nothing.”

“Our best information at the time suggested that Miss Lake was here for Underwood and Fenhoff,” said Peggy.  “I was acting on that.  We had no reason to think Dr. Zola was in any danger.”

“You sure didn’t try to protect him,” said Masters.

“We did our best to keep the entire prison secure,” Peggy said.  “Perhaps you ought to question the people in charge of the Sing Sing Correctional Facility, rather than me.”

Masters sat up.  “I’m going to be straight with you, Carter,” he said.  “We sent an FBI agent to investigate your potential involvement in Underwood’s escape – he was drugged and robbed by a colleague of hers, who then went on to kill Zola right under your nose.  You understand why this doesn’t look good for you.”

“I do,” said Peggy, keeping her body language as neutral as possible.  Since Masters’ last visit she’d been telling herself not to worry about him because he had nothing on her… but now events were conspiring against her.  The situation he described could easily make Peggy look like a traitor to somebody sufficiently paranoid… or at least incompetent.  He couldn’t possibly have any real evidence, though, because if he did he’d be having her arrested.  His ‘case’, if it could be called that, must be entirely circumstantial.

“I’m going to have a full investigation look into your conduct, Carter,” said Masters.  “If you haven’t done anything, you have nothing to fear, but you’re suspended from duty as of now.”

“As it happens, I’m already on medical leave,” she said.  “Chief Sousa insisted I take time off to recover from the chemical Miss Lake attacked me with.  Apparently Dr. Mroczek in New York worries there might be permanent damage to my lungs.”

“From what you’ve said about these Russian girls you should be grateful she didn’t shoot you,” said Masters.  He stood up from Daniel’s chair.  “I’ll be checking in.”

“I’m sure you will,” said Peggy, wondering what he would think when she left the country… and how he would fit it into his personal conspiracy theory when she came back.

[losingmymindtonight]

The Reinvention of Tony Stark

AN: I scrolIed through about a 10,000 messages to find this (since this was originally just a stupid idea I decided to scream at @dazzlingtony because I was bored one afternoon), and then it took me literal MONTHS to clean up because I’m extra like that. I’m sorry in advance.

A little background before you read: this is set in a post-Endgame universe where Tony survives. It’s written as if it’s an interview article for a blog/magazine. I kinda wrote it in a style that I see used a lot in Rolling Stone and Vogue. I have no idea if it has any kind of formal name, but I love how this kind of article reads more like a story and internal monologue than a plain interview. It also happens to lend itself really well to what I wanted to convey. It really enjoy character studies through an outsider’s POV, and I also enjoy playing with different genres. I hope you enjoy my little experiment too!

Some people have done some wonderful art about this concept as well, all of which have really inspired me to get my ass back to writing this! Here are some links if you're interested in some jaw-dropped talent: @ceruleanmindpalace's art of Tony looking like a regal king as Time’s Person of the Year. @argieart​‘s portrait of Tony smiling on the cover of Time that literally makes me want to cry.

(Note: this one is VERY long. If you’d rather read it on the AO3, I’m linking it here.)

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“There are a lot of things you worry about when meeting Iron Man, and there are even more things you worry about when meeting Tony Stark.”

From playboy to the pinnacle of heroism: Tony Stark's life has been anything but quiet. In his first face-to-face interview since wielding the Infinity Stones, Iron Man lets the public in on a glimpse of his life as a retired superhero and stay-at-home dad. 

--

There are a lot of things you worry about when meeting Iron Man, and there are even more things you worry about when meeting Tony Stark.

I worried about my clothes, my greeting, how he would perceive me. Despite my friends’ and coworkers’ near constant reassurances, I felt justified in my anxiety. Not only was this one of the richest men in the world, but he’d held the fate of the universe in the palm of his hand. What could he possibly think of me?

The morning of our interview, he texted me (yes, Tony Stark actually texted me, himself, on his own), and asked me to meet him at a park near his house. He said we could talk there, before meeting his family, because that was, of course, the whole point of the interview. I was going to be the first and, possibly, the only reporter allowed within ten feet of Stark’s personal life since the Decimation was reversed.

He was five minutes early. He drove an Audi prototype that I knew wasn’t on the market yet, and my nerves were instantly reignited, if I could claim that they had ever even remotely began to settle.

I had a lot of expectations for that first meeting. I’d built this man up in my head, and I wasn’t the only one. There were murals of him littering the streets of New York, statue after statue being erected in his honor across continents. The admiration of Tony Stark transcended differences in ways few things could. Political, racial, gender, religious, or any other number of societal divisions: Tony Stark built bridges between them all.

What could a man like that possibly be like? He had been ready to sacrifice himself for me, for us, for everyone. There must be something that set him apart, something in his demeanor that was just as awe-inspiring as the looming monuments built in his name.

Except the moment that he stepped out of the car wasn’t grand. I’d expected to be immediately overcome with a sense of his superiority, but he was shockingly unassuming. That isn’t to say that he didn’t carry with him a sense of easy confidence, which he did, but it was the kind of self-assurance that built my own up instantly.

He wasn’t dressed like I’d expected, either. I’d been looking for Armani suits or, at the very least, a set of street clothes that looked like they cost more than my entire wardrobe, but instead, he was wearing a worn leather jacket and dark wash jeans.

He shook my hand, and I ended up staring at his t-shirt for just a few seconds longer than I should’ve. It was light blue, which was, for some reason, not a color I’d expected the savoir of the universe to wear, with a cartoon Earth on the center, the words the rotation of the Earth really makes my day circling it.

I let out a little laugh before I could even consider the repercussions, and he smiled, eyes crinkling at the corners. In that instant, he didn’t look like a man who had built an empire on military funding and war profiteering. He didn’t look like the richest man on the planet. He didn’t even look like a superhero: the man who had cradled destiny in his palm and forced the scales back into balance.

Instead, he reminded me, strangely, and a little embarrassingly, of my grandfather.

“It was a gift,” he said, shrugging, gesturing almost lazily around the shirt’s graphic. “from one of my kids. A, uh, I’m glad you didn’t die saving the entire universe kind of thing. You know how it is.”

I definitely didn’t, but I nodded anyway.

He asked me if I’d like to take a walk around some of the hiking trails, and I quickly agreed. As we set out, he offered me his arm, and I took it. There were a few bizarre seconds when I forgot to interview him, too overwhelmed by the fact that this was probably going to be one of the most surreal experiences of my entire life.

Eventually, he was the one who reminded me.

“I suppose you have questions.”

I jolted, letting out a nervous laugh. “Right. I’m so sorry.”

He waved a hand around in the air, dismissing the apology right away. “Don’t sweat it. I’m used to it.”

I imagined that he must be. He’d been striking people dumb since childhood. On paper, it looked like Tony Stark had always been destined for greatness. Born into riches, raised in the cradle of a patriot’s legacy: there was nothing out of reach for Howard Stark’s heir. He’d graduated MIT at just 17 years old, long before most children had gotten their high school diplomas, and been thrust straight into the life of a celebrity. Even after his parents’ deaths, Stark Industries only grew under his leadership.

And then, of course, came Iron Man.

The kidnapping, Afghanistan. The press conference that ushered the world into the age of superheroes. Tony Stark was at the forefront of it all, pioneering in every field he dared touch. Of all the Avengers, he was the one we knew. The one we recognized. Despite the suit of armor, every single one of us knew that underneath the exoskeleton, Tony Stark was painfully human.

Just like us.

And yet somehow, it still managed to be a surprise that, at the climax of it all, he was the one to offer the final sacrifice.

Except… it hadn’t been a sacrifice.

Or, at least, it hadn’t been as large a one as he must’ve imagined it would be, when he wielded the universe on his fist.

And, for the second time in our very brief acquaintance, I found myself torn back to reality by Tony Stark’s gentle voice.

It wasn’t until the moment he spoke that I realized that I had been staring at the red and gold prosthetic that sat in place of the man’s right arm. Stark held it up with a wry smile, letting the sleeve of his jacket slip down to give me a better view.

“Yes, well,” he regarded the metal with a hint of amusement, “suppose we ought to get that out of the way, too. Yes, the rumors are true: it’s very much gone. A shame, really. I had a fun little scar on my thumb. It looked a bit like an upside-down squirrel.”

I laughed despite myself, then sobered. “I… I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine…”

He shrugged, as if the loss of his arm was a minor inconvenience instead of a life-altering change. “Small price to pay. The prosthetic is a lot more durable than the real thing, anyway. Built it out of the same stuff as the suit, stuck with the color scheme, too.” He grinned. “Branding, y’know?”

“Now you’ll always be Iron Man,” I said, not thinking.

I’d been mortified the moment the words had left my mouth, but Stark had just nodded, as if it was the most obvious comment in the world.

“Funny,” he murmured, “that’s almost exactly what Peter said.”

A part of me knew that I should be prying for more stories from that final battle, gathering the blood-stained details that would get readers’ hearts pumping, but I was suddenly far more interested in Tony Stark, the human, rather than Iron Man, the hero.

So instead, I asked him how retired life was suiting him, and he seemed pleased by the question. He gestured grandly around the path we were taking, at the lake and the trees and the sloping landscape: the violent reverse of the concrete jungles we had both been raised within.

“As you can see, I certainly can’t complain about the views.”

“Are you bored?”

He chuckled to himself, as if I’d just hit on an inside joke without meaning to. “Bored? Never. Even if I wanted to be, I can’t imagine how I’d find the time.”

“Some people call you Pepper Pott’s trophy husband,” I joked, and I was surprised by how easy it was to talk to him. “I’ve always found that amusing.”

This time, he laughed full-out, open and bright. “Oh, it’s very accurate. These days, I leave nearly all the business to her. I’m just a stay-at-home dad.”

“And that works for you?” At his questioning look, I scrambled to clarify. “It’s just… I can’t imagine going from the life you’ve had to the life you have now. It’d give me whiplash.”

“It is hard, every once in a while,” he admitted. “But, mostly, I enjoy the peace. Or, the peace that the kids let me have.”

That was the money topic, perhaps even more so than Thanos’ defeat, and it was something he’d brought up himself at least twice now: his children. When I had been preparing for the interview, I hadn’t known how to approach it, but it felt surprisingly natural in the moment.

“How is your family? I assume by kids, you mean Morgan, and, well…”

He paused at a picnic table, and gestured for me to sit. I did, and he settled down across from me, finishing my sentence.

“And Peter.”

“Right. And Peter.”

Peter Parker. The child that Tony Stark created a memorial fund for in the wake of the Decimation, and the child that, on the few occasions when he’d ventured into the city since using the Stones, he always seemed to have trotting along at his heels.

Before Thanos’ defeat and Stark’s resulting dance with death, all questions about Peter had been answered with the same harsh response: that the kid was his intern, and nothing more. Afterwards, however, there had been a sudden switch. In the few recent press releases that had mentioned Tony Stark and his family, Peter had been unanimously included.

I decided to inquire specifically about the health of his children at this point, careful to use the plural to watch for his reaction, and everything about Stark seemed to soften. A layer that I hadn’t even realized he’d had raised suddenly dropped away, revealing an adoration that was entirely uncensored. It was as if I’d just hit on his favorite topic in the world.

It was nothing like I’d imagined from him, but it also felt as if this was his most natural form. The superhero, the weapons dealer, the playboy: these were all just facades.

I wondered if I might be one of the first outsiders to truly catch a glimpse of who Tony Stark actually was.

“They’re both brilliant,” he breathed. “You’ll meet them later, when we head back to the cabin. Peter’s, uh, Peter’s 16, which I’m sure you already know. He’ll go back to high school in the fall, as a junior. We’re waiting for the College Board to get their shit back together so he can take the SAT. Morgan just turned 5. She’s in preschool, kicking ass. She’s already reading way above her level, because she’s just that smart, and we’re in a phase where I have to pretend to like something from her Easy-Bake oven nearly every day. They’re both a lot nicer than me.”

I knew that my next question was verging into dangerous territory, but I asked it anyway.

“Peter was one of the Vanished, wasn’t he?”

He regarded me with a sharp gaze, and I suddenly felt like a bug under a microscope. This was the look of a man who had run a multi-million dollar business for the entirety of his adult life. It was calculating, cold. The switch happened so suddenly that it made my head spin, and I felt the loss of his warmth keenly.

“That’s not a secret.”

I stuttered out an apology, but he pushed it aside. Instead, he shot a question back, which wasn’t uncommon but certainly wasn’t usual with these kinds of interviews.

“Were you?”

I nodded my affirmation, and he seemed completely unsurprised.

“Yeah, I thought so.”

“Did you look me up, before today?”

“No, I can see it in your eyes.”

I asked him what he meant by that.

“The people who didn’t Vanish are colder,” was all he said in return, but it was enough to send chills down my spine.

“You don’t seem colder.”

“You don’t know me.”

I dropped it. I just wanted to stick to the script, for a while. Tony Stark was proving to be even more complex than I’d imagined, and that was saying something. He seemed to bounce from guiding warmth to flinty steel in the slip of sentences, and the changes were as predictable as the summer thunder storms that used to tear through my grandparent’s Georgia lake house. One second the skies were sunny, humid heat beating down on your sunburnt shoulders, and the next the trees were quivering under the weight of wind-howls and lashing rain.

“Can I ask about the battle?”

A tiny smile pulled at his face. For such a sensitive topic, he seemed to relax. “Which one?”

Which one? It baffled me, for a moment, that the man sitting with me at a splinter-heavy picnic table, wearing a science pun t-shirt that looked like it had been ordered off of Amazon Prime, had been in enough life-or-death conflicts that he had to make me clarify which one.

“The… The final one.”

“You want to know about the gauntlet.”

And, yes, that was exactly what I wanted to know. It was exactly what my editor wanted me to know, too, what we knew our readers would gobble up. The Infinity Stones were fascinating, in the way the human species tended to covet and idolize the things that filled us up with horror.

“I do. Why did you put it on?”

“I knew that I had to,” he said, like that one decision hadn’t been the most monumental of our generation.

“Did you know you were going to survive?”

There was a profound sorrow in his eyes that told me my answer before he even opened his mouth.

“I thought I was a goner, actually. Thought I still was afterwards, too, although I barely remember it. My memories really start back in the hospital, about a week later.”

“Were you scared?”

It was such a childish question, but it seemed appropriate. He must’ve been, of course, but my mind couldn’t quite grasp the concept of someone like him experiencing the same reality that I did. I felt fear, but did he? He seemed so much more than human, now, so much more than me.

He smiled. “Terrified.” He shifted, fiddling absentmindedly with his watch. “The thing is, everyone thinks that I did it for the greater good. And… maybe I did, to some degree. But when I snapped, I was only thinking about my family. You can judge me for that however you want.”

“I don’t think that’s wrong. I think that’s… I think that’s just human.”

He watched me quietly for a few breaths, studying. “You know,” he finally said, “you really do remind me of Peter.”

It wasn’t long after this that I finally got to meet the teenager in question. Stark brought me back to his car and, as soon as I was settled in the passenger’s seat, handed me a security badge.

“Here, put that on. Don’t take it off.”

I did as I was told. “Does everyone who comes to visit you have to have one of these?”

He pulled out onto the road with a tiny smirk on his face, eyes obscured by a pair of sunglasses he’d slipped on once we’d gotten into the car. “Most of the people who visit me are already in my AI’s systems. But, yes.”

“Are you worried about your safety?”

He shrugged. “Not necessarily my safety. Despite retiring, my AI can operate the suits, and so could I, given enough reason, although I’m sure that this,” he held up his prosthetic again, “might make things a little more difficult.”

“So why all the security?”

“Reporters,” he said, glancing over at me, and I suddenly felt a strange sense of shame. “I want Morgan to grow up as normal as possible, and I don’t want Peter’s life ruined anymore than it already is. The least I can do for them is make sure that no paparazzi can get within range to take photos of them at the house. That’s a safe space, for all of us.”

And yet he was bringing me there: directly into their safe space. I couldn’t help but wonder why, so I asked, hoping that I wasn’t about to drop yet another dark veil over the atmosphere.

Thankfully, Stark took the question with ease, as if he’d been expecting it, eventually. “People are fascinated with forbidden things. If I make my house and my family entirely off-limits, the public’s interest only grows. But if I let a few people in, people we’ve carefully chosen, then it starts to lose its appeal.”

“That’s clever.”

“I’ve been playing this game for my whole life. I know how to gain the upper hand.”

I paused. “Do you want me to print that?”

He hit the brakes at a stop sign, and turned to look at me over the rim of his sunglasses. Maybe I was imagining it, but I swore that I saw a flicker of respect in his gaze. “You can print anything I say. I’m not afraid of public opinion. It’ll swing whichever way it wants, and it really doesn’t matter what I do about it.”

“It’s pretty in your favor right now.”

“The key words of that statement are right and now.”

“So you don’t think it’ll stay that way?”

“I know it won’t.”

I didn’t know if I agreed with him, but I stayed quiet. I imagined, though, that it would take a truly ungrateful world to tear down the man that had saved it. I wanted to think better of humanity than that, even if Tony Stark himself seemed to struggle with the optimism.

We drove through three security checkpoints before pulling into the cabin’s driveway. It was smaller than I’d expected, but that still made it larger than an average house. In fact, its size made Stark’s designation of it as a cabin seem almost comical. Dark brown siding melted into stone accents. A chimney rose up through the trees that clustered around the front porch’s carefully-maintained railing. In the distance, I could see the sunlight playing on the lake. There was a boat in the dock, bobbing peacefully in the morning waves.

It didn’t look like a museum, or the palace of a king. It looked like a home.

Morgan Stark herself was waiting on the porch. She looked smaller in person, but more lively as well. In the few paparazzi photos I’d seen of her, she’d always seemed frightened and unsure. Now, though, she came barreling down the porch steps like a rocket, overexcited shouts of Daddy! filling the air.

Stark scooped her up as soon as she got to us, face melting into a smile. He looked calm, again, and perfectly in his element. It hit me rather suddenly that the savoir of the universe was, at the end of the day, just a father who loved his children enough to lay his life down for their futures.

I liked Tony Stark better as a man than as a god, I decided. And from the look on his daughter’s face, she agreed with me.

I was introduced to Morgan right there in the driveway, and it seemed to take her all of a minute to decide that I was a perfectly acceptable addition to the scenery. I’d been expecting more resistance, more of Stark’s wariness, but in the end all I got was a childlike acceptance.

I met Pepper Stark next. Her new last name still tripped me up, even four years after her wedding. No matter how much I tried to condition myself, I could still remember her as Pepper Potts: a lingering presence over New York, formidable CEO and, by all accounts, the only person on Earth who could control the great Tony Stark.

She was sitting in the living room, which happened to be the first space I saw when Stark ushered me through the front door and into the cabin’s cozy warmth. There was a fireplace against the wall, leather couches and armchairs tucked up against it’s glow. A simple staircase led upstairs, but we walked past that, further into the house.

Mrs. Potts was kind in a controlled, well-groomed sort of way. Her demeanor wasn’t fake, necessarily, but I recognized the carefully prepped exterior of a woman who had learned to fight battles in a man’s arena. Besides that, I could also see that she wasn’t certain of me. There was something in her eyes that told me that while she didn’t dislike me, she didn’t necessarily want me in her house, either.

I could understand the trepidation. She and her husband had fled the public eye five years ago, when the Decimation had turned all gazes to the Avengers for answers, for someone to blame. Then, six months ago, her husband had very nearly become a sacrificial lamb.

She had very nearly been forced to raise their child all alone. Staring that in the face must change a person. It had to.

After the introductions had faded into idle conversation, Morgan declared that she was going to go “get Petey,” and raced off up the stairs. A minute or two later, she returned, dragging a teenage boy along by his hand.

Peter Parker was, for lack of a better word, shy. When he met my eyes, usually by accident, he immediately darted them back down to the carpet. He was a little awkward, a little nerdy. His hair was curly, and way too long. A few strands stuck out from the rest, and he stuttered over himself when he spoke. In many ways, he didn’t seem to have any of the suave, easy-going charisma that Stark did.

But Stark loved him. That much was clear from the moment he stepped into the room. Tony Stark looked at his children as if it was a new experience every single time, and it only got more and more breathtaking as the years wore on.

Once we’d finally made it through all the necessary greetings, Morgan tugged on my sleeve and asked if I could give her an interview. I looked to Stark for permission. He went to sit on a couch a few feet away, guiding Peter along with him by pressing a hand against the small of his back, and made a lazy gesture for me to go ahead. He propped his feet up on a crayon-stained ottoman as he watched me, calculating.

I had never interviewed a child before, although I knew at least one of my colleagues who had. Still, she seemed like a smart kid, eyes blinking up at me with barely-contained excitement, so I proceeded just like I usually would.

“How old are you, Morgan?”

“Five!”

“Do you like school?”

“Yeah!”

“What’s your favorite thing to do, there?”

“I like art.”

That was surprising. The daughter of Tony Stark, an artist. It wasn’t what I’d expected at first, but the more I considered it, the more it made sense. What were the Iron Man suits, if not a work of art?

“Do you do a lot of art at home, too?”

“I do! I like to draw portraits of Mommy and Daddy and Peter.” Her face lit up, and she bounced to her feet. “I can draw you one now, if you want!”

“I’d love that.”

As she raced off towards her bedroom, presumably to gather up what were sure to be absurdly expensive art supplies for a five-year-old, I marveled at the fact that she seemed so… normal. Perhaps that was another way that my warped concept of Tony Stark had led me astray. I’d expected his children to be, well, more than normal children. Different, somehow, more serious or solemn or conscious of the power they wielded in the world, and yet even Peter seemed detached from it all. In the few moments when I managed to forget that I was sitting on Tony Stark’s couch in Tony Stark’s living room, the family life sprawling out around me had the same domestic taste as my own childhood memories.

Maybe that was a testament to the Starks’ parenting techniques, or maybe it was a testament to the power of hero worship. The human race could, it seemed, build any man into a legend.

The next few hours slipped by in a domino chain of normalcy. Morgan came back downstairs and covered the floor with crayons and pencils and three different sketchbooks. She drew me a portrait of her family. I’d been expecting stick figures from a child her age, but she drew a series of people that were so well-formed that I could point out which person was which without her telling me first.

Stark got up and made sandwiches for lunch, and everyone ate in the living room except for Peter, who disappeared for the meal but came back in just as it was finished. Nobody else seemed to think that his vanishing act was atypical, so I didn’t comment on it.

As the day crept forward, and my awe at the unexpected normalcy faded, I started seeing those kinds of gaps in greater frequency. Yes, this family wasn’t as abnormal as I’d originally anticipated, but they weren’t entirely normal, either. And the more I looked, the more I saw those blips. Even as Stark worked so hard to leave the superhero life behind him, it still bled through the cracks.

Morgan Stark didn’t seem to notice her father’s prosthetic arm, or the ugly scars that marred half of his face, but Peter Parker did. He danced around the man’s injured side, always brushing shoulders with the left but giving the right as wide a berth as possible. Every once in a while, when he thought I wasn’t paying attention, his gaze would linger just a little too long on the back of the prosthetic’s hand: the space where, according to rumors, Stark had born the Infinity Stones.

Pepper Potts gave less obvious signals, but they were still there. When she handed Stark a new mug of coffee, she went out of her way to place it in his flesh hand. Even more than that, she was always half watching her husband, as if a stray wind might tear him away from her.

The paranoia was in Stark, too, although that was far less of a surprise, considering his reputation. He was almost predatory about the way he guarded his children, and Peter in particular seemed to spark something fierce and mother bear-ish in him, which was a phrase I never would have expected to use in relation to one of the most powerful men in the universe.

I couldn’t help but wonder if Morgan or Peter understood that: the concept that their father, the man who fixed the broken wheels on Morgan’s doll carriages or shamelessly bragged about Peter’s intelligence to anyone who would listen, had the whole world, the whole universe, breathless in awe. His endorsement or censor could build or topple political campaigns. His name made people pause mid-step. The very concept of his existence was enough to influence the unfolding of strangers’ lives.

I doubted that Morgan knew, but I had an inkling that Peter might. But even more than that, I had a pretty solid suspicion that even if Peter did know, he just didn’t care.

Peter fascinated me, both as a human and as a reporter. He was sweet and shy, and yet I knew that there must be something else underneath it. The way Stark looked at him was unique, and unlike Morgan, he was old enough to perceive that.

I wanted to talk to him. So, I jumped on it.

“Do you mind if I talk to Peter, before I leave?”

I’d deduced that Stark was fiercely protective of Peter, and the man’s reaction to the question did little to contradict that conclusion. I supposed that it made sense, considering the Decimation. To lose a child and gain them back was a complicated thing, and he wasn’t the only parent struggling through life in the aftermath of that whiplash.

“If Peter wants to talk to you,” he finally said, jaw tight.

As it turned out, Peter did want to talk to me, much to Stark’s barely concealed displeasure. In fact, it seemed like he’d prefer an emergency root canal to letting me go just about anywhere with the teenager, but he didn’t stop us. From the surprised look on Peter’s face, that was probably some kind of progress.

We went onto the front porch, at his request, and sat on the wooden steps rather than the rocking chairs carefully placed to offer views of the lake.

“So,” he said as soon as we were seated, “how do we do this?”

“I ask you questions, and you answer them.”

I didn’t mean for the explanation to sound so sarcastic, but he grinned, eyes twinkling.

“Yeah, okay,” he laughed, a hint of nervousness in the sound, “I probably should’ve guess that bit. Well, ask away, then.”

“Do you live here now?”

He shrugged. “Kinda, but kinda not. When school starts I’ll have to spend a lot more time at my aunt’s place, but for now I try to split it fifty-fifty.”

“You’re not Stark’s secret biological kid, right?”

That question earned me a sly glance. He seemed to toy with his answer, mischief growing with every passing second.

“I think I’ll let people keep wondering about that, actually. Mister Stark thinks it’s fun to watch them stew.”

“And Stark said you were nicer than him.”

Peter snorted. Obviously, that piece of information wasn’t a surprise. “Yeah, he does that.”

“And you don’t agree?”

“You’ve met him, right? You know he’s wrong.”

“He’s… a lot nicer than I expected, that’s for sure.”

“Yeah. A lot of people say that, if they actually give him a chance.”

I could tell, just from that minuscule exchange, that Peter loved Tony Stark just as much as I’d seen Tony Stark love him, that the teenager saw something in the man beyond what I did. That knowledge wasn’t necessarily surprising, but it was refreshing. In some ways, it made the savoir of the universe that bit more human.

“Stark told me you’re going to be a junior in the fall.”

Peter’s face turned a little red, every bit the embarrassed teenager who just found out that their parent had been bragging about them behind their back. “Oh, no. What else did he say?”

“That you were brilliant.”

“Ew.”

I laughed. “I assume you like school?”

“Uh, I mean, yeah. I like learning.”

“You must be very smart, to have caught Stark’s attention in the first place.”

“I’m alright, yeah.”

I knew that he was being modest. All of the information I had on Peter Parker told me that he was a proper genius, rivaling even Tony Stark’s IQ.

“Do you remember coming back, after the Decimation?”

Peter’s shoulders tensed, and I wondered if I’d just crossed a line. There seemed to be a lot of those, in this house, in this family. An unspoken guidebook of limits and cautions that I hadn’t been made privy to.

“I do,” he finally said.

“I assume that you don’t want to talk about it?”

“No, not really. Sorry.”

“That’s fine.” It was, too. Talking about the Decimation didn’t bother me, but it did bother some of my friends. It was just different coping mechanisms, I supposed, and I understood not wanting to go into such a traumatic experience with a stranger. “When did you find out what happened to Tony?”

He seemed to choose his words carefully. I’d been interviewing people for long enough to know when an answer had been rehearsed, and Peter just wasn’t as good at lying as Stark.

“Pretty soon after.”

“And the first time you saw him was in the hospital?”

“Yes.”

Another lie, which was interesting. In any other interview, I probably would’ve tried to pry for the truth, but I had a weird feeling that Stark would know the second I so much as mildly upset Peter, and it wouldn’t end well for me if he did.

“It must’ve been hard, when you heard about what he did.”

Peter watched me carefully for a few seconds, and my previous evaluation of him gave way to something new. He was shy, yes, but he was smart. Even smarter than Stark, maybe, or maybe he just wasn’t as good at controlling it yet. Still, I could see the raw, borderline brutal intelligence in his eyes. He was running every inch of me through his brain like I was an equation to unwind.

“It wasn’t my favorite day of my life, no.”

“Is that why you spend so much time here, now?’

A pause. He was still sizing me up. I could tell.

“Sort of.”

“I never thought of Tony Stark as a father, you know,” I said easily, testing his reaction. “Even after we heard about Morgan being born, it was hard to imagine.”

“That’s because everyone thinks that they know him, but they don’t.”

I was caught off guard by how quickly he said it and, from the look on Peter’s face, so was he.

I asked him if there was one thing that he wished people did know about Tony Stark.

“He’s complicated, but that doesn’t make him bad,” is all Peter said.

Stark was lurking by the door when we come back in, and Peter didn’t even try to hide his eye roll. He made a joke about having survived the interview without spontaneously combusting, which didn’t seem to land all that well with Stark. For a second, it looked like he was about to scold the teenager, but then his eyes darted over to me and he silently glared instead.

My last hour at the Starks’ cabin was spent getting a tour of the house and surrounding acreage. The kids stayed back in the living room with Mrs. Potts, so I found myself alone with Tony Stark once again.

I’d seen photographs and videos from inside the Stark Tower penthouse, and the décor in his cabin was as far from that style as I could imagine. Where the Tower was sleek and steeped in modern, minimalist designs, the cabin was more rustic. It had a farmhouse vibe, and the furniture was worn and used. It was, without a doubt, a lived-in space.

I only saw a single room upstairs: Stark’s office. Otherwise, I was told that the floor held his and his children’s bedrooms.

“Peter would disown me if I let anyone into his room, and, besides,” Stark said, leading me back down the stairs and away from the hallway of locked doors, “some spaces ought to stay private.”

We spent the rest of the house tour chatting about superficial topics, like the Yankees’ most recent loss and how awful it is to drive in New York at rush hour. Once we stepped outside, however, the conversation got a little more interesting. One of our first stops was a half-downed tree, which Stark pointed to while looking unexpectedly somber.

“The roots gave out during a few days of pretty bad storms about two weeks ago,” he said. “It’s a shame, I guess. Morgan and Peter used to climb all over it. Gave me a good few heart attacks while they were at it, but at least they were having fun.”

He took me down to the dock, where he showed me the boat they kept tethered there. I asked him if he did any fishing, and he laughed.

“Not a chance. I’m rotten at it, Peter’s too nice to kill anything, and Morgan just doesn’t care.”

“And Mrs. Potts?”

His smirk was fond and knowing. “If she ever slows down long enough to even consider fishing, I’ll let you know.”

The cabin’s ground were nice. They weren’t immaculately well-kept, but they weren’t entirely wild, either. It felt very natural, and when I asked Stark who did the landscaping, he told me that he took care of most of it himself.

“Don’t look too carefully at some of the details,” he warned. “I’m an amateur at best, and it doesn’t help that I’ve usually got at least one kid quote-unquote helping while I work.”

“It seems to me like you’re good at just about everything you do.”

“That’s because I rarely do things that I’m not good at.”

I couldn’t help but ask if he was at all grateful for Thanos as we walked back to his car. I knew that it sounded a little perverse, a little brutal, especially considering the prosthetic arm that was a constant reminder of the physical losses he endured, but it was a curiosity that I couldn’t scratch. At the end of the day, it seemed like Stark had come out of that tragedy far more solid than he’d gone in. He had a family, a wife, a beautiful cabin on the lake. He was living in a paradise.

“Maybe,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to say I’m grateful for something that resulted in five years of grief for a universe, but I am grateful for the way it ended up. There are worse things to lose than an arm.”

He drove me back to the park, where we’d met so many hours before. My Chevy was the only vehicle left in the lot, that late in the evening. He got out once we parked, came around to open my door, and walked me the few steps it took to get to my car.

“Any last words?” Stark asked, and while he didn’t seem to get the irony of that question, I certainly did.

This was a man who once had chosen his final words. It felt ridiculous to compare that moment to this one: a dusk-stained parking lot, my 2008 Chevy Cobalt, and the biggest problem in my future being late-night New York traffic.

“Why did you choose me?” I asked, hand paused on my door’s handle. “You’ve denied every other reporter’s request for an interview, so what made you pick me?”

He smirked. The streetlight glinted off his metal arm.

“I didn’t,” he said. “Peter did.”

He patted the roof of my car, then stepped away.

“Drive safe.”

[silverlake-rp]

The following characters have just joined Silver Lake! Please go over the checklist, make sure everything is in order, and send in your account in under 48 hours.

Daniel “Danny” Rhodes [ Tom Hardy, Boxing Instructor ]

Nikolo “Niko” Lani [ Jason Momoa, Junkyard Owner ]

Zayn Winters [ Elliot Fletcher, Barista/Bartender at five by night ]

Reginald “Reggie” Boone [ Mason Gooding, Radio Host at Fuse Records ]

Chandler Tait [ Charlie Hunnam, Owner & Chef at Lotus ]

Aubrey Lightfoot [ Bryce Dallas Howard, Nanny ] 

[ DANIEL ‘DANNY’ RHODES. 35. CIS MALE. HE/HIM ] is here! They’ve lived in Silver Lake for [ 1 WEEK ] and are originally from [ SILVERLAKE ]. They are a [ BOXING INSTRUCTOR ] and in their downtime love [ HIKING ] and [ GOING TO BARS ]. They look a lot like [ TOM HARDY ] and live [ IN OASIS APTS ]. (ooc: zari, 21, she/her, gmt+3)    

[ NIKOLO 'NIKO' LANI. 40. CISGENDER MALE. HE/HIM] is here! They’ve lived in Silver Lake for [ TWENTY YEARS ] and are originally from [ WAILUA, HAWAII ]. They are a [ JUNKYARD OWNER ] and in their downtime love [ METALWORKING ] and [ SCULPTING ]. They look a lot like [ JASON MOMOA ] and live [ ON REDCLIFF ST ]. (ooc: turais, 22, they/he, pst)

[ ZAYN WINTERS. 23. CIS MAN. HE/HIM] is here! They’ve lived in Silver Lake for [ ONE MONTH ] and are originally from [ CHICAGO,ILLINOIS ]. They are a [ BARISTA/BARTENDER AT FIVE BY NIGHT ] and in their downtime love [ TO AUDITION FOR ANY POTENTIAL LIVE THEATRE PRODUCTIONS ] and [ TAKE SPONTANEOUS WEEKEND TRIPS OUT OF TOWN ]. They look a lot like [ ELLIOT FLETCHER ] and live [ IN OASIS APTS ]. (ooc: max [2], 24, they/them, est)    

[ REGINALD ‘REGGIE’ BOONE. 26. CISMALE. HE/HIM] is here! They’ve lived in Silver Lake for [ 8 YEARS ] and are originally from [ PHILADELPHIA, PA ]. They are a [ RADIO HOST AT FUSE RECORDS ] and in their downtime love [ VIDEO GAMES ] and [ PHOTOGRAPHY ]. They look a lot like [ MASON GOODING ] and live [ ON REDCLIFF ST ]. (ooc: jay, 27, she/her, est)

[ CHANDLER TAIT. 33. CIS MAN. HE/HIM] is here! They’ve lived in Silver Lake for [ 9 YEARS ] and are originally from [ NEWCASTLE, ENGLAND ]. They are a [ OWNER & CHEF AT LOTUS ] and in their downtime love [ PAINTING ] and [ BOXING ]. They look a lot like [ CHARLIE HUNNAM ] and live [ ON REDCLIFF ST ]. (ooc: Pali, 28, she/her) 

[ AUBREY LIGHTFOOT. 45. FEMALE. SHE/HER ] is here! They’ve lived in Silver Lake for [ HER WHOLE LIFE ] and are originally from [ SILVER LAKE ]. They are a [ NANNY ] and in their downtime love [ READING ] and [ BAKING ]. They look a lot like [ BRYCE DALLAS HOWARD ] and live [ ON REDCLIFF ST ]. (ooc: eve, 21, she/her, gmt +1)

[pcttrailsidereader]

Black Rock Basin

From Pacific Crest Trail: Mountain Encounters of a Wilderness Ranger by Ronin Demele.

A mystery was reported in a basin just north of the Pacific Crest Trail concerning a very large, remote artifact. My friend Jimmyo, who was still working in the alps had told me about it.

When hiking into Black Rock Basin, which is seldom visited by backpackers, a discovery was made. I had visited this place only once on a day hike to see the lovely little no name lake. This pocket lake consists of a two-foot-deep lake of perhaps one acre, surrounded by lush grass with tall white firs growing near one side and boggy, marshy spring water, filled meadows with azaleas, corn lillies, and shooting star flowers nearby. Surrounding this basin is steep solid rock with no trail in.

A few years back, Jimmyo came hiking down into the basin the hard way, reaching the south rocky ridge before heading toward the lake below. Over toward the peak,he noticed a shiny metal reflection, and trees broken off nearby. Jimmyo told me about what he found.

Spread out along the scene was a plane crash. A small plane trying to cross the northern Alps had hit the tree tops several feet short of clearing the high peaks, and smashed into the rocks below.

It had happened that winter, and now in summer it was discovered by accident. He found not just an airplane in pieces, but he also found a human body in pieces. The body had been ripped apart by bears, and decayed. Pieces of plane and pieces of person were found in the rocks and trees. Also found nearby were large bricks of cocaine. Most mysteriously, there was money spread around the site also. Jimmyo decided to turn right around and report this to the sheriff.

Deputies and rangers were called in to help pack out all they could in garbage bags for identification and investigation. The word got out and within a few hours of the initial report, the sheriff got reports that about a dozen bikers were seen trying to ride up into the forest to locate the site. The area was closed off for miles around. After investigating, officials could not find any record of a flight plan issued or any reports of distress by the pilot. This event was never reported in the media. The mystery did not exist until Jimmyo hiked into it that summer.

Recently, I was hiking on the PCT near this basin and saw large bear scat on a ridge trail. I nervously wondered what he had eaten recently, but only found grasses in his poop. Perhaps this bear wanders the trails today looking for plane crashes. Jimmyo has found new place to explore in the Trinity Alps Wilderness and rarely talks about his trip into Black Rock Basin.

Climbers with retrieved marijuana (1977)

In January of 1977, two employees of Yosemite’s Ahwahnee Hotel went for a snowshoe. The park was in the middle of one of its worst droughts in a hundred years, so they could hike further than usual. That day, they were able to reach all the way up to the Lower Merced Pass Lake, where they made a terrifying discovery.Climbers show off recovered marijuana from a crashed plane

Laying nose first in the lake was a crashed Howard 500, a twin-jet aircraft with a missing wing. The crashed plane had laid there for a month, along with occupants of the plane – a pilot, a passenger and 6,000 pounds of Mexican marijuana.

The hikers reported the crash to authorities and soon enough, the park was filled with law enforcement. Authorities recovered 2,000 pounds of half-frozen marijuana in burlap bags scattered around the lake. They hauled the bags down the hill and stuck them in one of their small jail cells. But the plane was carrying much more than that.

Over the next month, the lake froze over, creating a cold, underwater bath of leaked oil and scrap metal. Authorities brought in the best in the business to dive into the water and hopefully recover the bodies and grab any marijuana still in the fuselage. But the conditions made it much too difficult, and with a massive storm approaching, they decided to wait until early-spring to finish the recovery mission. They wouldn’t return to the site for another three months.

Word reached the climbers in Yosemite, and they spent the following months turning Lower Merced Pass Lake into the legendary Dope Lake. They would make the arduous hike up to Lower Merced Pass Lake, where they would take axes to the frozen sheet of ice to recover as much marijuana they could hike down the mountain. Factions were beginning to congregate around the cold lake, with busy workers constantly in search of their next bag. Some were said to have made up to $20,000 from their findings, the equivalent to $125,000 today.

“We underestimated the entrepreneurial spirit of certain members of the community,” said Yosemite Park Ranger Tim Setnicka to The Men’s Journal.

[bobgasm]

in the moonlight [1/18]

pairing: bucky barnes x ofc!sloane peters word count: 4985 warnings: mentions of rape and murder, peggy stabs bucky

summary: in which bucky comes back to town after a stray attacks a civilian

author’s note: we back. not taking tags so please don’t ask

part one | in the moonlight | part two

        Billing, California was quite a rural town.  Surrounded by some of the most beautiful lakes and mountain ranges, Billing was rather popular in the shoulder seasons.  Bringing visitors from all around to experience what the town had to offer, no matter what the weather.

        Spring brought a new wave of visitors wanting to explore the hiking trails before the weather became too warm to enjoy it.  It also brought back the Thursday evening and Saturday morning markets.  Locals wanting to sell produce or crafts, or promote another event happening in the coming weeks.

        For a long time Billing was a town with a very low crime rate, even with outside visitors constantly passing through.  But recently the sheriff’s department had been set upon a string of missing females in the region.  The women each with a prominent presence within the community.  The first to go missing an elementary school teacher, the second a law student home for the weekend, the third a fifteen year old who didn’t make it home from her class hiking trip.

        The sheriff believed they were dealing with the same person, but his officers weren’t as sure as he was.  They didn’t have any concrete evidence to prove it one way or the other, but the sheriff had better intel than his officers.  As a werewolf, he trusted his nose more than concrete evidence, but even he knew that wouldn’t hold up in a court of law, so he needed to work harder to prove the disappearances were the work of one man.

        But it wasn’t until a fourth victim surfaced, barely escaping with her life, that he was able to get a description of the man.  His scent, from where he’d beaten her with his fists and tried to strangle her, helped him know for sure who they were dealing with.

        A stray.

        The stray who had previously been taking young, attractive she-wolves had changed his M.O. and attacked a civilian.  A stray who had risked exposing the entire werewolf community by shifting in front of the barely conscious human, swatting her with his paw before he’d ran away.  The commotion she’d caused bringing attention to what was happening, and two men passing by had run to her aid, preventing the attack from ending any other way.

        Sheriff Rogers wasn’t new to the area, having grown up in the town of Billing after his family moved from Vermont when he was five years old.  His best friend, a regular kid by the name of James ‘Bucky’ Barnes, had moved to Billing with his mother when he was thirteen, leaving his dad and sister in Brooklyn, New York after a messy divorce.  The two adolescents had gotten on well from the get-go after meeting at school, and Bucky had been there for Steve when his father was killed after being mauled by a bear while on a hike.  At least, that was the story they’d told humans.  The real story being he’d been on patrol and had taken care of four strays wandering into the pack’s territory before a fifth had snuck up behind him and killed him while he was shifting, masked in his fellow stray’s dead blood.

        Steve didn’t like that he knew this stray.  He didn’t like that he was back in town, kidnapping she-wolves, and attacking humans.  He didn’t know what it meant, and he was scared.  More importantly, he didn’t know what to tell the fathers of the missing girls.  Alpha’s of their own packs, they all intimidated him.  He didn’t want to make the call, but he had to.  Reaching out to local Alpha, Howard Stark to try and get a sit down with him and the missing she-wolves Alpha’s.

        He kicked his office door shut and sat down at his desk, dialling Howard’s personal number and hoping the Alpha himself would answer instead of his son.

        “Howard,” the older male greeted roughly.  “Who is this?”

        “Sir, this is Steve Rogers.  I’m the Sheriff here in Billing,” Steve responded.  “It’s about the missing she-wolves.”

        “What do you know, kid?”  Howard asked, the background chatter blocked out as he closed the door to his office.

        “It’s the work of a stray, Sir,” Steve told him.  “At roughly 10pm last night a civilian female was attacked by the same stray who took the she-wolves.  I can’t tell you why he’s gone for a civilian, but she got a good look at him and I’d like to show their fathers and their enforcers a composite sketch of the stray.  I was wondering if you’d be willing to help me arrange the meeting.”

        “Was she bitten or scratched?”

        “No, sir.  My friend, Peggy, is a doctor and she was there to help Sloane, that’s the woman who was attacked, to get cleaned up.  Said she didn’t see any visible bites or scratch marks, but she’ll keep a close eye on her over the next few hours to see if anything changes,” Steve answered.

        Howard hummed.  “I’ll reach out to the other Alphas.  I make no promises, you know how they are with law enforcement, but I’ll try my best, kid.  If you don’t mind, I’m going to send Tony and a few others out your way.  I’d like you to show them where she was attacked and try to get them on his scent.  The more who know what he smells like, the higher our chances of catching this son of a bitch.”

        Steve nodded.  “There is one more thing, Sir.  I’m not sure if you’re aware, but a few years ago there was a woman and her son attacked by a stray who forced his way into their home.  She was raped and murdered, and the son scratched trying to protect her.  I’d like to call him in to help.”

        “Why?”  Howard asked.  “I mean no disrespect, kid.  But what is this stray going to do that you and my men can’t?”

        “It’s the same stray, Sir.  The man who killed Winifred and kidnapped these she-wolves is the same stray.  He’s got just as much of a reason to want this son of a bitch dead as these girls’ fathers do.”  Steve’s voice was firm with authority, which he knew wasn’t the smartest thing to do when talking to his Alpha, but he needed Howard to listen.  He needed him to bring in Barnes.

        “I’m assuming you’re in contact with the stray with a vengeance?”

        “Yes, Sir.  He’s my best friend.”

        Howard grunted disapprovingly.  “Is he in my town now?”

        “I know the rules, Howard, so does he.  He won’t step foot inside the town limits until you give him permission to do so and put word out that he’s welcome,” Steve answered, rattling off his friend’s number and hearing a soft scratching of pen against paper.  “Give him a call.”

        “What does he know?”

        “That someone has been picking off young, single, attractive she-wolves.  He was the one who suggested it might be a stray.  He doesn’t know there’s been any new development, though.”

        Howard exhaled, his pen clattering to his desk.  Chair creaking as he leaned back.  “Where’s he staying?”

        “In the free zone outside San Francisco,” Steve answered.  “He’s got a place with me when he comes into town, Sir.  He’ll stay out of trouble, I promise.”

        “Good.”  Howard hummed.  “I’ll send a group of men out to you and give him a call.  How close are your men to this case?”

        “I’m keeping them at an arm’s reach,” Steve revealed.  “But Sloane is going to need watching round the clock in case he comes back for her, and my men aren’t equipped to deal with a stray.  And quite frankly, Sir, I won’t risk any civilian lives.  This is pack business.”

        “I agree.  Clint and Scott will take shifts watching her.  Get them fitted with some uniform when they arrive and make sure they’re both on his scent before you send one of ‘em to the hospital.  Thanks for the call, kid.”

        Howard ended the call before Steve could say anything else.  Sighing as he docked his phone back in it’s home on his desk, running his hand over his face.

        Steve stood at the photocopier, making copies of the composite sketch when he caught the scent of Howard’s men entering the station.  He turned, leaving the photocopier to keep producing more copies while he walked out of the bullpen and to the front of the station.

        “Just the man we’re after,” Tony said as Steve opened the door beside the reception counter to greet the three men.  “How’s it going, Sheriff?”

        Steve gave Tony a tight lipped smile as he shook his hand before repeating the action with Clint and Scott.  “Gentlemen.  Thanks for coming down.  This way, please.”  He unlocked the door and led them through the station.

        “Pops said we’re dealing with a stray?”  Tony asked, falling into step behind Steve.

        “Say it any louder and my men will arrest you for sprouting psychobabble about wolves,” Steve replied lowly, making Scott guffaw with laughter.  “But yes.  He attacked a civilian last night.”

        “Oh, shit,” Clint said.  “They okay?”

        “She’s in hospital.  No sign of fever yet, but it’s still early,” Steve told them.  “Howard tell you two he wants you keeping an eye on her?”

        “Boss barely tells us anything,” Scott replied.  “Smart, though.  Always wanted to play cop.”

        “I’ll get you two kitted out and then we’ll go to the crime scene so you can try to pick up his scent before one of you starts a watch.”

        “And me?”  Tony asked.

        “Guess daddy just wants to see how well you run point,” Steve said.  “Isn’t he training you to take over?”

        The slight quip was enough to stun Tony into a momentary silence, leaving Steve to give Clint and Scott the correct uniform from storage.  Clint, having volunteered for first shift, changed into his uniform before they left for the hotel parking lot.  Riding in Steve’s patrol car, they earned a few looks when they stepped out.  Clint in his uniform, riding shotgun, with Tony and Scott in the back, needing their doors opened for them.

        The scene was still roped off, but it’d been a few hours now so it wasn’t as fresh.  Steve pointed out where the stray’s scent was strongest, but the men struggled to get a good whiff with Sloane’s potent human blood dribbled on the ground.

        “Try to isolate the smell,” Steve suggested.  “You know what she smells like, so block it.  Focus on the garbage and the burnt rubber.  Block them out.  You should be able to smell him a little easier, then.”

        “It’s not fresh enough,” Scott told him.  “I’m sorry, man.  The garbage was collected earlier.  There’s new smells here.  A lot of humans.  He was careful not to touch a lot.”

        “I might have something here,” Tony said, crouched down next to a spot of blood on the ground.  “It’s not hers.  Did she scratch him?”

        “Not that I’m aware,” Steve replied, crouching down to get a sniff of the blood.  “It’s faint, but it’s him.  Maybe he hurt himself trying to get away.”  He stood back up, letting the three males try to memorise the scent and taking a look around the parking lot.  “This place was heavily populated last night.  I don’t know why he chose to attack her here.”

        “Guess you’ll have to ask him when we catch the son of a bitch,”  Clint said.  “C’mon.  I need a ride to the hospital.  Let’s get out of here.”

        Steve downed the last of his beer before signalling the bartender for another one.  Still in his uniform, he knew he shouldn’t be seen drinking, but he’d had a very long last 24 hours.  Having pulled a double after the call came in last night of a woman attacked in the hotel parking lot, trying to make sense of why he’d suddenly go after a civilian.  Spending hours at the hospital trying to work on a sketch of the man, while also keeping a close eye on the woman in case she became feverish.

        In his experience, and commonly in history, Steve had never known a female to survive being attacked by a stray.  They’d become feverish and die, because the first shift was too much for a human body to take.  With men it was slightly different, because they grew hungry before their shift, as well as developing a fever.  The shift leaving females dehydrated, starving, and far too exhausted to go out and find food or shift back.  Dying very shortly after the fever broke.

        His day had dragged on, with calling his Alpha, Howard, to try and get a sit down with the missing she-wolves Alphas, and then taking some of Howard’s men to the crime scene.  Spending a few hours posting flyers around the town and warning his friends and other locals to stay safe at night.  Now down at one of the local bars, enjoying a much needed cold beer or two.

        Steve was shook from his thoughts when his phone began to ring, answering it without checking the caller I.D.

        “Hey punk.”  He laughed at the greeting, a smile forming on his face.  “Got a call from Stark a few hours ago giving me permission to come into town.  You have anything to do with that?”

        “Might have done,” Steve replied.  “When are you thinking of heading up?”

        “I’m already in town.  Walking along main right now,” he replied.  “Is that your patrol car outside the bar?”

        “You know it is.”  Steve laughed.  “I’ve got a beer with your name on it.”

        “See you in a few.”

        “See ya, Buck.”

        Steve ordered another beer as he pocketed his phone, taking a swig of his beer and waiting for Bucky to finally join him.

        It’d been a few years since they last saw each other.  Steve had headed down to San Francisco to sit his Sheriff’s course a few years ago, and he’d spent a lot of his free time hanging out with his old friend and catching up.  From what he’d learnt, Bucky was working odd construction jobs to pay the rent, and doubling as a bouncer for a couple of clubs at night to earn some quick cash.  He was doing alright for himself, but he wasn’t happy with his life.

        There’d been women in his life, none managing to steal his heart for longer than a couple of weeks or the odd night.  Unable to let himself get close to a woman after his ‘accident’, afraid he’d lose control and hurt them, so pushing them away or keeping them at a distance.  Making it easier to break things off if he didn’t let them stay long enough to develop feelings.

        It was hard, though, living that lifestyle.  He was at the age where he wanted someone to settle down with.  Someone like him who knew his strength and he knew he wouldn’t hurt.  But she-wolves were few and far between.  For each female almost fifteen males.  A lot of men settled for humans, though they couldn’t reproduce because their kid could potentially be born a werewolf, and it was too risky.  So there were a lot of male wolves looking for a female to mate with.

        Steve was much the same, though recently he’d been more involved with a nurse at the hospital who had moved into town at Howard’s request after the two crossed paths in London.  They’d slowly crossed the path between professional and personal, and had met each other for the odd coffee whenever they were free.  He liked her a lot, but he hadn’t quite worked up the nerve to ask her out on a proper date just yet.

        Steve turned as the door to the bar opened, a grin forming on his face as he recognised Bucky.  He jumped up from his stool and strolled towards the burly man, arms spread wide to embrace him.

        Bucky had changed some since they’d seen each other last.  He’d given himself a haircut, now sporting a buzzed look, and had actually taken a razor to his beard so he no longer looked like a mountain man.

        “How you going, Buck?”  Steve asked, the two men embracing briefly.  Clapping each other on the back.

        “Better than you, by the looks of things,” Bucky replied, grinning as they parted.  “When was the last time you slept?”

        Steve shook his head as they walked up to the bar, taking residence upon a couple of stools.  “I’m fine.  Just busy, y’know?”

        Bucky nodded.  “Stark didn’t tell me much,” he said, taking a sip of beer.  “Just that I might want to think of heading into town.”

        “Son of a bitch.”  Steve took a long drink of his beer and jerked his head towards a set of empty tables on the other side of the bar.  “C’mon.”

        Bucky followed Steve over to a table, away from nosy patrons who might listen in on the conversation.  “Was it a stray?”

        “Yeah,” Steve said.  “He went after a human last night.”

        “Were they turned?”

        “She’s fine.  Stark has a couple of guys taking shifts watching her to make sure he doesn’t come after her again.  As far as we know she hasn’t developed a fever.”

        Bucky nodded.  “That’s good.”

        “That’s not it, Buck.  It’s the same stray...who killed your mom and turned you,” Steve said, wringing his hands together on the table in front of him.

        He looked up to see Bucky’s face harden.  “You’re sure?”

        “I smelt him, Buck.  It’s the same son of a bitch,” Steve stated.

        “Fuck!”  Bucky cursed, slamming his fist down on the table.  A few curious eyes turning their way at his outburst.  “Steve, what the fuck?!”

        “I know, alright?  Why the hell do you think I asked Stark to let you come home?”  Steve ran his hand over his face, scratching the stubble over his jaw.  “He’s careful.  Barely leaves his scent at the scene of the crime.  I know you can’t forget it.  It’s the same for me.  But I can’t run point on this anymore.  I can’t risk my men’s lives following his trail.”

        “You should have told me the second you knew,” Bucky told him, eyes alight with anger.  “Fucking hell, Steve.  You should have told me!”

        “I’m telling you now!”  Steve replied just as furiously.  “But there was no right way to tell you.  If I called with my suspicions you’d have breached the territorial line just to fucking come here, and Stark would’ve been forced to send your ass back to the free zone.  I honestly expected Stark to tell you, but I’m not fucking surprised he didn’t.  I’m sorry, Bucky.”

        “What’s my jurisdictions here?”  Bucky asked.  “Sit back and let the council decide how to act?”

        “I don’t know,” he answered, running a hand over his face.

        “What the fuck do you know, Steve?”  He spat.  “You call Stark to give me permission to come home, and then what?  I’m at the mercy of the council?  You know I want this prick dead for what he did to my mom.  Do you really think they’ll let me kill him if he’s done the same thing to an Alpha’s daughter?”

        The two men held each other’s gazes before Bucky finished the last of his beer and roughly placed the bottle back on the table.

        “You still down Old Quarry Road?”  He asked, needing to change the conversation and go for a ride to clear his head.

        Steve shook his head, swallowing a mouthful of beer and twirling the hand empty bottle in his hand.  “Moved a couple months ago when the disappearances started happening.  Head towards the lake, down Iles and then the first right down Long Mile.  It’s an old cabin.”

        Bucky nodded and slid out of the booth.  “I’ll go and see Stark.  Figure out what he wants from me, if only for his men to get a sniff of me.”

        “Bucky,” Steve said, reaching for his friends arm as he slid out of the booth, stopping his from walking away.  “I really am sorry.”

        “I know, kid,” Bucky replied, half-heartedly hugging his best friend before pulling away and keeping his hand resting on Steve’s shoulder.  “I appreciate you getting Stark to let me come home, even if I have to sit this one out.”  He pat Steve on the back of the neck and leant in to kiss his cheek.  “Make sure you eat before you crash or you’ll hate yourself when your stomach wakes you up in two hours.”

        Steve laughed, shaking his head.  “Okay, dad,” he teased.  “I’ll fire up the grill and chuck a couple of steaks on.”

        “Sounds good, Steve.  Later,” he told him, a faint trace of a smile tugging the corners of his mouth.  He turned on his heel and made his way out of the bar.

        Steve sighed and headed up to pay for the beers before making his own way outside, walking over towards his patrol car and stilling as he hearing the loud tap of stiletto against concrete further down the road.  Inhaling, he focused on the scent, the hairs on the back of his neck standing to attention as he recognised the smell of fear and something uniquely Peggy.

        “Steve!”

        His feet were carrying him in her direction before his name had even left her mouth.  Racing down the street, on high alert.  Coming to a stop beneath a street lamp.

        “He’s here, Steve,” she told him as he took her face in his hands.  Wiping away a tear from her cheek as he pressed a kiss to her forehead.

        “Are yo–”

        She’d cut him off before he could ask if she was okay.  “Someone shot him while he was shifted in the woods.  He sniffed me out, Steve.  He knew Stark had an enforcer at the hospital, but he cornered me on my way home and made me help him.”

        “How long ago?”  He asked, one arm around her, holding her close while the other dug his phone out of his pocket and dialled Bucky.  Hanging up after one ring and repeating twice more before actually letting it ring.

        “Five minutes,” she told him.

        “Wh–”

        “Change of plans,” Steve said, interrupting Bucky.  The sound of his motorbike purring softly in the background.  “Where?”  He asked Peggy.

        “By the Tree Trust, opposite the grocer’s,” she answered.

        “He was injured, but he might have shifted.  Double back to the hospital, just in case.”

        “Right.”  He revved the bike before the call ended, but soon both Steve and Peggy could hear the growl of the bike growing louder and louder until it sped past them.

        “Are you okay?”  Steve tried asking again, smoothing Peggy’s hair back with his free hand once pocketing his phone once again.  She wrapped her arms around his waist, letting herself feel weak just this once, because she knew he’d keep her safe.  Hiding her face in his chest and enjoying the comfort and familiarity of his scent.

       “I will be,” she assured him.

        “C’mon, I’ll take you home,” he told her, rubbing her back and turning to begin walking back to his patrol car.

        “I don–”

        “I mean, if it’s alright with you, I can keep you safer at my place,” he said.  “But if not I can have Howard send one of his men out to stay with you.”

        “No it’s–your place is fine,” she told him.  “You mind taking me home first so I can grab a few things?”

        “Of course,” he replied, smiling a little bit.  “I expected a bit more protest than that, if I’m being honest.”

        “Why wouldn’t I want to stay with you, Steve?  I trust you wholly.”

        Steve fired up the grill outside while Peggy freshened up in the bathroom.  While she’d packed herself a bag, Steve had called Howard and filled him in on the latest news.  Telling him Bucky was in town and on the scent of the stray after he’d cornered Peggy and made her help him.

        Unfortunately, even though he was injured, he was still beyond careful.  She’d explained to Steve in the car on the way to her apartment about how meticulous he’d been.  Making her wear two sets of gloves and taking any instrument she’d used to help him with him when she was finished.  Being far too scared to try and hide something, knowing he’d smell whatever it was – and her own fear intensify, – so she had done as he’d asked.

        Howard had sent men to try and pick up the trail, and warned them about Bucky.  That even though he might smell like the stray, he wasn’t the one they were after, so to approach with caution.  He knew how to greet a pack properly, and would stand down without a fight if he stumbled across them.

        Now back at Steve’s, he’d set out to make some dinner.  If Bucky had shifted he’d need quite a bit of food to keep him going, and both he and Peggy were hungry.  Their metabolisms burning through calories three times faster than that of a humans.  And five times faster if they needed to shift.

        After grilling a few steaks and sausages, Steve plated the food up and headed inside.  He stopped by the bathroom, the water in the shower still running, and knocked on the closed door twice.

        “Food’s ready when you are, Peg,” Steve told her before continuing on to the kitchen.  Setting the plate on the counter and grabbing some salad greens from the produce drawer in the fridge.  Making a quick salad that didn’t do much to curb a wolf’s hunger, but put some colour on their plates so their diet wasn’t just meat.

        It was just starting to go dark out.  The sun dipping slowly behind the high rise of the trees, so Steve turned the kitchen light on.  It was starting to stay lighter longer in the evenings as summer approached, but even so, it was dark by 7pm.

        Steve picked at a split sausage while he served himself dinner, dropping a fork to the floor as Peggy shrieked and the smell of fresh blood filled his nostrils.

        “Fuck,” he muttered, stepping into the hallway to see Bucky still in his wolf form with a gash in his flank and a small pair of scissors lying in the middle of a pool of blood on the ground.  “You’re an idiot,” he told his friend.  “You fucking smell like him and he just scared the daylights out of her.  What did you expect?”

        Bucky whined lowly.  He was annoyed.

        “You’re dripping blood all over my hardwood floors.  Go outside and shift,” Steve told him, knocking on the bathroom door and trying to jiggle the doorknob.  “It’s just Bucky, Peg.  I told you about Bucky, and about his mom.”

        Peggy let out a string of curses so profound, Steve swore he could hear Bucky chortling outside.

        “He’s waiting outside, Peg.  I promise.  I told you I wouldn’t let anything happen to you,” Steve said, hearing her cough out a laugh as she shuffled across the room and unlocked the door.

        “I’m sorry.  I’m not usually this jumpy,” she apologised, wiping her face as she opened the door.  Steve pulled her into his arms and kissed her forehead.

        “It’s okay,” he assured her.  “We’ll get the son of a bitch.  Buck?”

        A groan sounded from outside, low.  A cross between a wolf’s growl and a human’s moan of pain as he shifted back into his human form.

        “I’ll clean this up,” Peggy said, blowing out a breath as she composed herself.  “Go find out what he learnt.”  Steve hummed, brushing his thumb over her cheek as he cupped her face.  She took his hand in hers and kissed the back of his knuckles.  “I’m okay, Steve.  Really.  It’s just been one hell of a long day.”

        “We won’t be outside long,” he told her, offering a small smile.  Squeezing her hand before ducking into his room to grab a pair of pants for Bucky to change into and heading outside.

        Bucky was in the final stages of his shift, his hands and feet still in paw form.  Crouched over on all fours as he focused on turning back.  A thin sheen of sweat coating his skin from the exertion and being hungry.

        Steve threw the pants at him as he started to stand up.  Catching the denim in his hands with ease and stepping into the legs before donning them.  Tight around his thighs and waist, Steve just a bit smaller than him.  But grateful for the clothes nonetheless.

        “He crossed into Coulson’s territory not long before Stark’s men showed up,” Bucky said, examining the now pinkening scar in his right side from where Peggy had shanked him.  “I’m sorry about scaring your girlfriend.  I couldn’t smell anyone else so I just padded on inside.”

        Steve shook his head.  “It’s–she’s not.”

        “Sort it out, Rogers.  She won’t wait for you forever,” Bucky told him.  “You made food?”

        Steve rubbed the back of his neck as he followed Bucky up the stairs and back inside the house.  “Yeah.  Hey, Peggy?  This is Bucky.”

        Peggy, knelt down on the floor with a towel, took off a rubber glove to proper shake the hand Bucky extended to her.  “I’m so sorry for stabbing you, Bucky,” she apologised sheepishly, rising to her feet.  Catching sight of the pink, puckered scar just below his ribs.

        “Nothing another shift or two won’t fix,” he assured her.  “And I’m sorry for scaring you.  You should come and have something to eat with us.  Steve is used to me bleeding all over his floors.”  He cracked a smile as Peggy laughed, holding his thumb up behind his back.  Steve clapped him on the shoulder.

        “Let’s eat.”

[thorsenmark]

Howard Lake and Water Reflections (North Cascades National Park Service Complex) by Mark Stevens