#also re james: i can relate to being loud & Too Much. someone once told me i talked too much and i stayed quiet the entire day

[padfootastic]

Can you be awesome and give me some well thought out prongsfoot headcanons? (If you have the time), I want to write a story with then and I need more on their dynamic, than just the basics.

(Friendship and Romantic! 😁)

omg hi yes!! i’ve never gotten an ask like this, i don’t think, and my hcs usually develop during stories so let’s see if i can do it :p

x

- soulmates in every universe, if not romantic then definitely platonic. they’ll find their way to each other, always.

- james has a crooked nose that sirius loves kissing. he’s very possessive about it, actually

- j might be generally a bit thick bc of the whole spoiled-only-child thing but he’s particularly attuned to sirius’ moods and emotions. i can imagine him writing long ass letters to his parents in the first few years whenever something tripped him up (which was, ykno, everything considering how sheltered he was) to so for help and sirius featured a lot in this (mum, how do i help with nightmares? mum, he doesn’t like treacle tart what do i doooooo, mum he wasn’t allowed to fly as a kid this is a travesty, mum he’s sad a lot and chai doesn’t always help, mum i don’t know how to make him smile etc etc)

- this one’s controversial, i think, but i love thinking of sirius as modelling james’ behaviour. we know he grew up being fed violent hatred + a superiority complex the size of Everest yeah? fully believe his process of unlearning started with james (the first time he used the word mudblood, our boy probably clutched his pearls, scandalised, ‘what are you doing u can’t say that!!’ so sirius started turning to j as a barometer for how to act, sometimes, bc he realised he couldn’t trust his family (and by extension, his own) behaviour. this isn’t instant, mind, but a gradual, time & labor intensive process and even after he grew out of it, i think sirius had this subconscious tendency to look for james’ approval.

- i hate the whole ‘james matured for a girl’ arc so my take on it is that his ‘growth’ came from a combination of ailing, elderly parents + rising war tensions + most importantly, sirius. end of 5th year he got a first hand view into the treatment his best mate received by his family and that horror made him want to be the best he could for sirius. i’ve always seen james as a protector and a caregiver, someone who takes people under his wing & looks after them, and i don’t think it was ever more obvious than around sirius. post 5th year, he gained a focus that he lacked before and would spend a lot of time just picking up on skills that could help him be better. duelling, defence, first aid, knitting, cooking etc etc. anything to feel useful.

- the shift from friendship to romantic would be tricky & probably require outside intervention or a lot of time, i think. they were already so close as friends that it just never occurs to them to take it any further ykno? their hearts & souls are intertwined, they’re super physically affectionate, and they’re already each other’s no. 1. so someone either has to bring it to their attention, they take yeaaaaars to realise ‘huh. this isn’t how i feel towards others’ or they live a wonderfully fulfilling qpp life together.

- i’ve talked about this before but physical!!! affection!!! and not just in terms of like, kisses or hugs but touch. they’re always in contact in some way. it’s comforting, safe. arms around waists, shoulders, hips/chin resting on the other, leg slung across, hand on a back or leg. you get it right? it’s subconscious, it’s natural, and they don’t even realise they’re doing it unless someone points it out

- sunshine and sunshine protector!!!! james was loud and brash and took all the space in a room. he was also sensitive bc he’s not told no often so when it has to be done, u need to do it in a certain way so he doesn’t internalise it as a personal failing and shut down. sirius is the best one to do it bc he can stand up to james w/o being intimidated + realise that the carrot works better than the stick w him. there’s a very real risk of his light fading out. at the same time, this makes sirius very protective of him. it’s why i wrote shovel talk. even in a universe where lily & sirius were friends, i think he’ll have a Talk with her to confirm her intentions. sirius is not willing to take chances with his james.

- pet names! james called sirius darling and my love and honey and sweetheart because he’s an old soul in a young body. sirius called james love (and sometime babe/baby). their go to for each other was ‘si’ and ‘jamie’ respectively, which was a term of affection on its own bc only they used it, no one else.

- james has *always* been attracted to sirius; he just didn’t realise it bc he thought this was how everyone felt towards sirius. ‘oh yeah he’s so ethereally beautiful, it’s just like, a fact of life and everyone knows it’ and thinks the random boners are normal until one day he realised that, no, that’s not actually the norm & he’s just a simp who thinks everything sirius does is perfect (think chin in hand, heart eyes, sighing)

x

ok i’m gonna cut myself off here bc this is already criminally long but i think it’s pretty clear i can go on for days lol. i tried to include both but i’m not great w romantic so i hope that came thru 🙈🙈

pls tag me in ur story when u write it (even if the hcs don’t help lol u can still use them in a process of elimination to find ur niche)!! i’d love, love , love to read it + always here if u wanna brainstorm 💜

[calligraphist-artemisia]

Of Family and Unexpected Friendship

Summary:  It's Christmas break and Harry is having a difficult time sleeping in the silence of the boy's dorm, so he goes down to the Common Room where he can better relax. There he finds a third year student named Leona Black, who surprises him with the knowledge that their parents were best friends when they attended Hogwarts. He latches on to the chance to learn more about his mom and dad, and the foundation of a new friendship is born.

Also posted on AO3 under the username kishirokitsune.

--

Of Family and Unexpected Friendship

It was the first day of the winter holidays and Harry Potter could not sleep. Whether it was because he was too excited about being able to stay at Hogwarts for the duration or because of the lack of Ron's loud snoring, he'd be hard pressed to say. Either way, it left him tossing and turning until he decided it would be far better to go down to the common room.

He wasn't surprised that most of his fellow students chose to go home over the holidays, his new best friend included. After all, they had loving families to spend time with, so why would they choose to stay at school?

Harry didn't think he could name any of the others who remained behind in Gryffindor. They were all older than he was, and outside of the Weasley's, he hadn't taken the time to talk to them.

The point was, Harry thought for sure that he'd be walking into an empty common room and wouldn't have to deal with any unwanted questions, but when he got there he discovered that he couldn't have been more wrong.

Sitting at the window was a girl with brown hair, loosely braided over one shoulder. She looked startled by his appearance, but quickly recovered to give him a nod and a soft smile. “Hello, Harry,” she greeted.

“Hello,” he responded carefully.

He did recognize her, though he didn't know her name. He'd seen her frequently around the Weasley twins and their friend, Lee Jordan, so he assumed she was in their year. Harry had never had a reason to talk to her, nor her to him.

Harry shifted his weight, fighting the impulse to turn right around and go back up to his dorm. “Sorry if I'm bothering you.”

She immediately shook her head, as though surprised by the notion. “You're not! Of course you're not! Want to sit with me? You don't have to, of course, and I won't bother you if you'd prefer to sit by yourself.”

Harry shrugged, seeing no harm in sitting with her, and was soon settled at the window with her.

“I'm Leona Black,” she introduced, holding out her hand.

And, not knowing how else to respond, Harry grasped her hand and uttered a simple: “Harry Potter.”

Leona grinned at him as she released his hand. “It's nice to meet you, officially. I'm sorry I didn't approach you sooner, I just wasn't sure how. You seemed so lost your first few weeks that I didn't want to overwhelm you.”

Harry frowned in confusion. “Sorry?”

“You don't need to apologize,” she said, mistaking his meaning.

“No, I mean...” Harry shook his head, his confusion building to mild frustration. “I don't understand. Overwhelm me with what? Have we met before?”

“Well, I only have vague memories of it, but it may just be that I've seen pictures and heard stories that I can imagine it pretty well.” She paused, tilting her head as she regarded him, her smile slipping away. “You... you have no idea who I am, do you? No one ever told you? Our parents were best friends.”

Best friends.

Harry hadn't put much thought into it. He knew there had been a war. A war that his parents and a great number of others had died in. Any passing thought about their friends or people they knew when they were alive had been quickly dismissed, especially when Hagrid didn't mention any of them. Then again, the mere mention of James and Lily made Hagrid start to tear up, so maybe that was the reason why.

Leona suddenly stood. “Wait here, I'll be right back!”

Harry watched, completely mystified, as Leona sprinted up to the girls' dorms, returning minutes later with a thick, leather book in her arms. She was beaming as she sat down next to him again and opened the cover to reveal the first page, turning the book so Harry could see as well.

It was full of photographs, Harry realized as he gazed down at a picture of four Hogwarts students, three boys and one girl, all wearing Gryffindor colors. One of them, with his darker skin, wild black hair, and thick-framed glasses (all-in-all, a striking resemblance to himself), could only be James Potter.

“My dad...”

“Uh huh,” Leona said, nodding. She pointed to the dark-haired man next to James. “And that's my dad next to him. They became friends on the train ride to Hogwarts. It's where they met my mum too. And Uncle Peter shared a dorm with them.”

Harry watched her point out each person as she named them. Her mum was a tiny brunette girl, whose second-hand robes stood out against the newer robes of her friends. Uncle Peter was a chubby boy with blond hair, who looked at his friends with awe in his eyes, as though he was surprised they were including him.

“They had this one taken at the end of their first year. Mum has the rest labeled, if you want to look through it. And if you want to know more, I remember most of the stories she told me about them! I can't tell them as well as she can, of course, but I bet she'd love to tell them to you herself if you'd rather hear them from her,” Leona said.

Harry drank in the images of his dad – it was the first he'd ever been allowed to see him and there was a craving to know more, a craving he never expected to have.

Family. A family who loved him. A family who wanted him. And there was someone alive who could tell him more. More importantly, someone alive who wanted to tell him more.

“I... I don't... Would she want to?” Harry asked, hardly daring to believe it.

“Harry, she would love to hear from you,” Leona said seriously. “I can write to her and double check, but the number of times she has asked about you so far this year tells me that a letter from you personally would be the best Yule present anyone could give.”

Harry wordlessly stared at the moving photographs as he took a moment to decide. As his dad beamed up at him, he knew what his decision was.

||

He and Leona sent off two letters at breakfast the next morning; Leona with an explanation to her mum about why Harry was writing, and Harry with a simple letter asking for stories about his parents. It took him several revisions to get it right, but even then he felt nervous about handing it over.

A thousand-and-one worries bounced around in his head, ricocheting off of one another, never staying still long enough for him to dwell on them. Harry watched as Hedwig flew away with the letters carefully attached to her leg and knew that it was out of his hands.

“Hey,” Leona said, gently nudging him with her elbow to get his attention. “Fancy a game of snap?”

Harry was grateful for the distraction and nodded.

They passed breakfast that way as the few other students staying over the holiday break filtered into the Great Hall. Some of them sat down at their houses tables to eat slowly and enjoy their meal, while others came in and gathered up a few things to take with them.

“Fifth and seventh years like to use the peace and quiet of the holidays to study without interruption. I suppose near-unrestricted access to the library helps with that as well,” Leona mentioned as a trio of Ravenclaws walked into the great hall.

Harry crinkled his nose. “Why would anyone spend their holiday studying?”

“It's better to keep up a consistent pace rather than trying to cram everything in at the last minute. Less stressful that way,” Leona answered. “I learned that the hard way during my first year, and had to deal with Fred and George trying to entice me with adventures on top of that.”

Harry considered her words for a moment and had to admit that she had a good point. After all, he'd gotten all of his homework done in the first few days because of the lack of distractions. “Can I ask why you stayed?”

“Mum hasn't been feeling well lately, so she said I should spend time with my friends at school instead of staying with my cousins. And I might have had an ulterior motive for agreeing.” Leona gently set down a card as she glanced up at Harry.

It took Harry a moment to catch on. “You stayed for me? But why?”

“I was hoping to get the chance to talk to you. I figured if we were two of the few Gryffindors staying over break, you'd be more like to approach. And besides, I haven't been keeping up with my etiquette studies as well as I should be, so I'm avoiding cousin Andy for now. She'll be so disappointed in me.” Leona flinched as one of the cards exploded, flinging the others into the air. She and Harry ducked to avoid the rest of them.

“Etiquette studies?” Harry asked once things settled, his curiosity getting the best of him.

Leona tilted her chin up. “I am a daughter of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, and furthermore, it's eldest heir. My sister is too, but I'm the one expected to take up the mantle of Lordship once I graduate, so Andy gives me lessons. She was a Black before she married,” she explained, dropping all regal pretense once she was done. “It's pretty standard for pureblood families. Your lessons aren't much different, I'm sure.”

Harry's confusion must have been obvious, because rather than set up another game of exploding snap, Leona set the cards to the side and gave him her full attention.

“You... haven't been approached about lessons. Whoever introduced you to the magical world should have given you the contact information for someone capable of giving you those lessons. I'm not entirely sure who it would be for the Potter family. Maybe Lady Longbottom?” Leona winced in sympathy at anyone having to take lessons from the intense witch. “No, there has to be someone closer, just let me think for a moment. I haven't studied the Potter family tree in depth before, but I know you're related to a number of pureblood family's. We're all related someway or another.”

“We're related?”

“Mmm hmmm. Your great grandmother was Dorea Black before she married Charlus Potter,” Leona responded, her brows furrowed in concentration.

It was too much to handle over breakfast. Harry felt a little numb as she rambled on about a few other familiar names, all of which were apparently too distant or didn't have the resources to help him. He listened to her without really taking any of it in, letting her words wash over him, until he heard a more welcoming and familiar name.

“...Prewett family, but that would just be Molly Weasley now. And again, it's a distant relation, but the Potters and Prewetts came from similar backgrounds, so she would likely have the easiest time with it.”

He was related to the Weasley's.

The thought came as a comfort to him and he latched onto that above all else. While he'd only met her for a brief moment at Kings Cross, he got the sense from Ron and the twins that she was a caring woman who loved her children very much.

“I have an idea. You can stop me if you're not interested, but I figured, well, I should offer, since no one else has,” Leona told him. “If you'd like, I can teach you the basics. It would be a good review for me and a good starting place for you until you find someone more capable. I can help with that too, so don't worry about that. I'm just surprised no one has talked to you about this before. You're muggle-raised, right? That means one of the professors should have come to talk to you and introduce you to the magical world. Who was it?”

“Er, Hagrid?” Harry responded hesitantly.

Just another oddity of his life, being fetched from the muggles by the groundskeeper rather than a professor like everyone else.

Leona gaped at him, her eyes flickering to the mostly empty Head Table as she struggled to compose herself. It took her a moment and then she took a deep breath and looked at him as seriously as she ever had. “Harry, I know it's our holiday break, but I need you to come with me to the library today. I won't make you study for hours, but there are some good resources there that I'd like you to see. And after that, I won't bother you. I'm sure you have more interesting things to do than hang around with me all day.”

Not really, but he appreciated her for giving him the option to sit by himself for a while. It seemed he had a lot to think about.

[aroacehogwarts]

What We Have in Common

"Who’s that?” a familiar voice rumbled. “And why isn’t she moving?” Sirius frowned, and Lily wondered if it was due to confusion over the muggle photo or if it was a remnant of whatever had happened to cause James, Remus, and Peter to all ignore him.

“My sister. Tuney.” Lily’s finger rubbed over the bent upper right corner of the faded photo. “From a couple years ago. The most recent one I could sneak.”

Sirius hopped over the back of the couch to sit with her. “Sneak?” Lily briefly wondered if he’d be talking to her if his friends were talking to him, but she was overcome by melancholy and nostalgia tonight, and she wasn’t going to say no to someone willing to listen.

“Yeah. Ever since we discovered I was a witch, she alternates between ignoring me completely or just hurling insults at me.” She stared sadly at the photo. “We always had a rocky relationship as children. You know, just regular kid stuff. Mum always used to tell me that when we grew up, it’d get easier. Better. I don’t think even mum believes that now.”

Sirius had averted his gaze and was staring deeply into the crackling common room fire. “I don’t know.”

“Hm?”

“Regular kid stuff.”

“You and Regulus?” Lily asked kindly. She’d known the two were related but they seemed as different as centaurs and mermaids. Night and day. Summer and winter. Sirius was loud and never stopped moving. From what she’d seen of Regulus, he was cool, calm, and collected. They truly seemed to encapsulate their Houses.

“I didn’t really realize until I came here and met the guys, saw some of the other siblings. But good behavior is always expected in the Black House. Regulus and I never really fought. Or laughed. Or played. We just... mostly exist around each other.”

“Must be hard,” Lily said quietly.

Sirius hummed. “So why doesn’t she like you being a witch?”

“Mum always tells me she’s just jealous. She’s always felt like I was prettier and more talented and more popular and did better in school. Which is ridiculous! Because she’s got this beautiful grace and poise, this air about her that’s just so confident. She just... she expects a lot of people, and she can be... judgemental if they don’t meet her standards, which makes it hard for people to be friends with her. You know, I told her last summer that I thought I might be some kind of arospec and bi, and she told me I’ve always done everything I could to get people’s attention.” 

Sirius winced in sympathy. “That’s just cruel. It was brave of you, though. I’d never tell Regulus I’m gay and ace. Well, acespec. It’s... Remus taught me those terms. From him, I was able to hear they were good things. I don’t want to chance losing that.”

Lily gave a small smile and gently squeezed his hand with her own. She could talk forever about being queer, but that’s not what she needed to get off her chest now. “But now I have something else she can’t experience. Muggleborn, you know, and Tuney is just as muggle as my parents. I don’t know, though. Seems petty just for some jealousy. I think she hates herself. Not enough to change. Just enough to take it out on other people. She’d rather she be right about whatever she first thinks than have to change her mind and admit she was wrong or made a snap judgement.”

“She’s older, right? Must be a younger sibling thing, being the perfect child,” Sirius said, self-depricatingly. 

Lily would have felt a stab to her heart if Sirius hadn’t sounded so heart broken. “Regulus the star of the Black Family?”

“Especially ever since I got sorted into Gryffindor.” Lily wasn’t sure how to respond. She was treading new ground with Sirius here and didn’t want to scare him away. She wasn’t his biggest fan, as he was also a bullying toerag - and unlike James, didn’t seem to be pulling back, but Remus insisted there was more to him, and Lily gave everyone a second chance. “Is it... How noisy is your house?”

Lily raised an eyebrow, formulating her response. Sirius took her silence for apprehension and continued speaking. “It’s just... Sometimes when we talk about our parents and home and stuff, the guys, they - well, they have very different experiences than me. I just... I’m trying to judge if...” His brows furrowed together, unwilling to say the words aloud. 

Lily didn’t need him to. Even though her and Severus were no longer friends, she had been his friend for many years now. She’d quietly learned the signs of an abusive home. Lily knew exactly what Sirius was struggling with. She held up her hand. “It’s okay. I’m just... trying to figure out how to answer.” She didn’t miss his shoulders dropping with his anxiety over what she’d think but didn’t comment on it. “It’s... You know that time in the Common Room when the upper years are studying for exams and most of the younger students have gone to bed? There’s a drone in the air. It’s not completely quiet, but people speak if they want and sometimes some of the younger years get rowdy and loud for a little bit before they’re shushed by people worried about their exams? My house is like that. Sometimes we get lively but mostly it’s just being comfortable with each other. The tension between Tuney and I is like the tension of so many people studying up here sometimes, but... It’s still home.”

Sirius stared at her, deep in thought. Lily let him. She went back to gently brushing her finger over the picture of her sister, as if by doing so she could erase all the bad blood between them.

“Do you ever get in trouble?” The gentleness to his voice worried Lily.

“Of course. Not like you and your friends do here, of course. But I do.” A story popped into her mind of when her and Tuney were young and they dug up all of mum’s garden to give her the flowers she’d lovingly planted. It’d been for Mother’s Day, but that hadn’t tempered any of their mother’s frustration. Lily refrained from re-telling the story, knowing it wasn’t why Sirius was asking.

“And how do your parents react?” he asked, trying to sound casual.

“Sometimes there’s yelling, but especially when we were younger, I remember sitting in the corner until they were calm enough to not yell at us. I was sometimes really scared when they yelled, but they were really good about always making sure they spoke to us fairly. Sometimes we had time out - sitting in the corner, like I just said. It was a lot of talking with my parents. They’d ask if I knew what I did wrong and why it was wrong and how I could act differently next time. I was grounded once the weekend of a big sleepover with a friend and wasn’t allowed to go to the sleepover. If it’s anything worse, usually I have to do things like extra chores for a while.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah. I think Petunia might have been spanked a few times when I was too little to remember, but I’ve never been spanked. There’s all these parenting books around our house, even today. Tuney told me once that mum and dad sat her down once and apologized for spanking her and explained they were wrong and were going to use better problem solving techniques from then on.” She’d actually threatened to spank Lily because mum and dad liked her more and wouldn’t do it themselves like they used to do to her, but that was too much to admit out loud. At least to Sirius. At least right now.

Sirius sat back and stared into the fire. He was more somber than she’d ever seen him. So often, she thought that she wished he’d just shut up, but now that he was silent, Lily was oddly unsettled. He was allowed to contemplate and process, of course, but Lily didn’t want him to spiral. She stuck her picture in her pocket. Consciously not touching Sirius, not wanting to startle him, she shifted, trying to draw his attention. “We still have some time before curfew. Want to see something cool?”

He gave her a curious once-over, but he was already grinning in anticipation. “Sure. Always up for an adventure.”

She was immediately hopping up and gesturing him forward. “C’mon, c’mon, we’ve got to hurry to get there before curfew!” she said, already on the move with Sirius hot on her heels. It felt good to let go and run, back like her and Severus used to do through their ‘secret garden’, like her and Tuney used to.

Paintings shouted at them to slow down as they rushed by, but Lily laughed as Sirius shouted back at them that they were “old fogeys who needed to learn to lighten up”. When the moving stairs ruined her path, she rolled with it, and her and Sirius ran down an extra two corridors and up an extra flight of stairs. She was out of breath when they reached their destination, stopping so suddenly that Sirius bowled her over. They fell, a mess of limbs and all laughs. Lily brushed off Sirius’ apology as she surveyed her skinned knees.

“It’s not a good romp if you don’t have physical proof,” she claimed, popping back up to her feet.

Sirius didn’t bother to hide his shock. “Go, Red,” he said in awe. “I’m starting to understand what James sees in you.”

She gave him a playful shove. “Shush or you won’t get my secret!”

He snapped to attention and adopted some serious grump face. 

Lily didn’t bother to swear him to secrecy. She knew that, no matter what, sharing this secret with Sirius meant sharing it with James, Remus, and Peter, too. She wasn’t going to bother trying to control something she had no hopes of controlling.

She stood in front of the witch statue by the stairs where they had Defense Against the Dark Arts. “You do know there was a shorter way here, right, Evans?” Sirius asked before she could reveal the secret.

When she whirled around to face him, he was back in serious grump face. “Yes, Black,” she said his last name like he did hers, channeling her mother’s Don’t-Sass-Me tone, “if you had wanted to wait who knows how long for the stairs to rearrange correctly again.”

He broke character and laughed. “Okay, okay.” Sirius gestured for her to continue.

Lily puffed up her chest, turned back to the witch statue, and in a very McGonagall-like way, said, “dissendium”. She stepped back and allowed Sirius a good view to the hump opening up and revealing a narrow passage.

Sirius’ jaw dropped. He weakly held up an arm and pointed a finger at the passage. His reaction made sharing her secret totally worth it.

“It leads to Honeydukes. The cellar,” she said proudly.

Emotion flashed across Sirius’ face. Shock, awe, amazement, respect, disbelief, incredulousness... He turned towards Lily, his jaw working up and down as he tried to get words out. Lily’s grin only grew. For the second time that night, she’d reduced Sirius Never-Stops-Talking-Even-When-McGonagall-Has-Docked-Him-Thirty-Points Black to silence.

But this time, the silence sits comfortably between them.

[imaginetonyandbucky]

Hi! I love this blog. One idea: Modern!Bucky is an engineer, maybe working at SI, who comes up with a really good idea or solution to a problem. Tony is so excited when he sees what Bucky's come up with, he decides to email this person right away. Unfortunately, this is at the end of Tony being in the workshop without sleep for way too long, so the email is ridiculous and rambling and hilarious. Bucky loves it. He prints it out and it becomes his favorite possession.

(I took a little artistic liberty with the prompt but I still hope you like it!  This was so much fun to write!!!)

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Attached

From: Tony Stark Date: Wed, Oct 11, 2017 at 3:10 AMSubject: Re: Resonance in FTL Magnetometer from Fused Zirconium Connected by Indium SolderTo: James Buchanan Barnes

Barnes,

Been staring at the proposal you sent over for the last three hours.  At first I thought someone was punking me because this reads like MacGyver and Wil E. Coyote had a bastard lovechild who really likes explosions and lacks all common sense.  Chemistry 101 says no to pretty much this entire concept from start to finish but... I started running the math and this shit could work.

Could really work.  I’ve pulled in Dr. Banner.  We’ve got ideas.

I’m attaching-- 160 pages of notes?  That can’t be right.  Well, the attachment says 160 but just assume that however many notes you receive are the notes that are there.  We were using the holoboard and

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From: James Buchanan Barnes Date: Wed, Oct 11, 2017 at 3:15 AMSubject: Re: Re: Resonance in FTL Magnetometer from Fused Zirconium Connected by Indium SolderTo: Tony Stark

Dr. Stark,

There’s no attachment.  Also, if you said anything after ‘holoboard and’ I didn’t receive that either.

James BarnesEngineer Class IIIResearch and DevelopmentStark Industries

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From: Tony Stark Date: Wed, Oct 11, 2017 at 3:16 AMSubject: Re: Re: Re: Resonance in FTL Magnetometer from Fused Zirconium Connected by Indium SolderTo: James Buchanan Barnes

Should be attached now.

Tony

Attachment: You’ve-got-to-see-this

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From: James Buchanan Barnes Date: Wed, Oct 11, 2017 at 3:18 AMSubject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Resonance in FTL Magnetometer from Fused Zirconium Connected by Indium SolderTo: Tony Stark

Dr. Stark,

This attachment is a jpg of a piglet wearing rain boots.  Is this some kind of continued employment test?  I thought they only did that at Google.

James BarnesEngineer Class IIIResearch and DevelopmentStark Industries

(Watch out for the break!)

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From: Tony Stark Date: Wed, Oct 11, 2017 at 3:38 AMSubject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Resonance in FTL Magnetometer from Fused Zirconium Connected by Indium SolderTo: James Buchanan Barnes

Yes.  The pig was a test.  You passed.  The attachment was not at all the result of me being up for 44 hours straight working on this piece of shit government oversight paperwork to get it out in time.   Or me forgetting what I named the piglet file when I saved it to send it to the guy I’d been seeing but who was really after my money or the spotlight or something.  I don’t know.  He was fucking someone else so he couldn’t have been that into me, right?  

Anyway, Jarrod had about the same reaction as you to the pig.  Unimpressed.

It was an employment test like you said. Got it in one.  Excellent work. I’ll pass your Piglet Identification Exam score along to HR.

Numbers and notes should be attached.  For reals this time.

Tony

Attachment: You-have-got-to-see-this

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From: James Buchanan Barnes Date: Wed, Oct 11, 2017 at 3:46 AMSubject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:  Resonance in FTL Magnetometer from Fused Zirconium Connected by Indium SolderTo: Tony Stark

Dr. Stark,

The numbers came through.  I’ll look at them now.

James BarnesEngineer Class IIIResearch and DevelopmentStark Industries

P.S.   I was not unimpressed by Porkchop.  What kind of soulless jerk is unimpressed by a smol pig in rainboots?  Pig’s just doing his thing, trying to keep his feet dry.  I AM unimpressed by your ex.  You can do better.

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From: Tony Stark Date: Wed, Oct 11, 2017 at 4:02 AMSubject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Resonance in FTL Magnetometer from Fused Zirconium Connected by Indium SolderTo: James Buchanan Barnes

James,

Look at the math in the morning, at your desk, when I’m paying you for it. Don’t feel pushed because I’m an insomniac.  I’ll feel like an ass.

Tony

P.S.  Porkchop?  You’re naming our pig Porkchop?  You’re going to give him a complex.  What if I named you-- shit, I guess there’s no name for a piece of a human that you eat, is there?

P.P.S  The ex was a Nobel prize winner.  You think I’m going to do better than that?

P.P.P.S.  Stop calling me Dr. Stark.  You’re creeping me out.

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From: James Buchanan Barnes Date: Wed, Oct 11, 2017 at 4:08 AMSubject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Resonance in FTL Magnetometer from Fused Zirconium Connected by Indium SolderTo: Tony Stark

Tony,

I don’t mind looking at the numbers now.  I was running my own numbers when you’re email came in.  Don’t  need much sleep.  I’m pretty sure at this point my blood’s mostly caffeine.  It’s fine.

Like you said, it seems like there’s got to be some kind of flaw I’m missing in the work I turned in.  Logic says explosions should be imminent but the math says they’re not.  And between logic and math, math always wins.

James BarnesEngineer Class IIIResearch and DevelopmentStark Industries

P.S.  Guess that depends on how you define ‘eat.’  Think outside the box and you can probably come up with something.  Just nothing you can call me without getting into trouble with Human Resources.

P.P.S.  What about Hampton?

P.P.P.S  I’d rather be with a nobody who likes me than a somebody who doesn’t.  Just sayin’

P.P.P.P.S.  Most people call me Bucky.

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From: Tony Stark Date: Wed, Oct 11, 2017 at 4:10 AMSubject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:  Resonance in FTL Magnetometer from Fused Zirconium Connected by Indium SolderTo: James Buchanan Barnes

Bucky.  Seriously?  Who’d you piss off to get a nickname like that?

Tony

P.S.  This might be the first time someone’s ever told me, King of Thinking Outside the Box, to think outside the box.  But Pepper will yell at me if I type any words in this email that would embarrass the company if I had to read them out loud in court, so just assume I called you an incredibly clever nickname related to being eaten.  Blush accordingly.

P.P.S.  Hampton will do.

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From: James Buchanan Barnes Date: Wed, Oct 11, 2017 at 4:11 AMSubject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Resonance in FTL Magnetometer from Fused Zirconium Connected by Indium SolderTo: Tony Stark

Tony,

That’d be my friend Steve.  But we were 4 so I’ve had some time to forgive him.

Bucky

P.S.  It takes more than that to make me blush.

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Bucky waits up almost another full hour but there’s no response.  Hopefully Dr. Stark got some sleep.

The next morning, he reads over the emails again on the way to work.  He can’t stop smiling.  He doesn’t think anything’s gonna come of any of it.  Not a chance.  But it was still a fun way to spend the evening and he knows that’s a side of Dr. Stark that hardly anyone gets to see.

So he takes it for what it is: a one-off sleep-deprived nonsense fest between himself and the owner of the company.  He’ll look at the attached notes when he gets to his desk, fire off a totally professional email, and get on with his life.

But first, coffee.

Once he has a huge cup, he sits down and opens his laptop.

“What’s that?” Peter asks from behind him.

Of course it’s the picture of the piglet in rainboots, displayed full screen.

“Jpg from a friend,” Bucky says.

“You should print him out!” Kamala suggests.  “Cheer up your cubicle a little.”

“Then people will stop asking why you’re depressed,” Riri chimes in.

This is what Bucky gets for making friends at work.

It’s not that there’s anything wrong with Peter and Kamala and Riri. They’re actually great kids.  But that’s the problem.  They’re kids, fresh out of college, and early graduates at that.  Peter’s the oldest at 21, and Riri’s only 17, making her 11 full years younger than Bucky.

Engineer Class III is where all the newbies go, and he’s the oldest of the newbies since he went into the service first, and is only at Stark Industries because of a Veteran’s Hiring Initiative that they’d started up a few months before.  He was the very first veteran to be placed.

At first he was wary of so much as speaking to the other three R&Ders who shared his cubicle pod, but they were all so damn insistent on making friends that it just kind of happened.

And now here they are.

Bucky’s got his hand (his only hand) on his coffee and he doesn’t swat Peter away when he reaches over to press the print screen command.  

Kamala’s the one to walk over to the printer to get the little colorful pig, and take scissors to it to trim it carefully into something that can be displayed.  Riri uses a thumbtack to place it up front and center in Bucky’s cubicle and Bucky knows he could take it down, but he’s not really inclined to do so.

It’s like an inside joke that’s only inside to him.  Well, and Dr. Stark, but he’s not ever going to see it, so really it’s just there for Bucky.  And Kamala wasn’t wrong... it does cheer the space up considerably.  The three of them have all kinds of pictures of friends and family and comic strips and motivational sayings hung up in their walls.  Hampton is Bucky’s first and only.

With coffee in him, and his coworkers finally on to their own projects, Bucky can focus on the task at hand.  He opens the notes attachment and starts to wade through.  It’s a fascinating read. The notes are pretty much just screenshots of the holoboard, taken every few minutes, and done in two distinct handwritings.  It’s easy to tell which belongs to Dr. Banner because it’s neat and orderly and all laid out in a way that makes sense.  Tony’s (wow, that’s going to be a hard habit to break) is chaotic.  There are slashes and doodles and smileys and smudges but the math

Holy shit the math.

It’s the most beautiful thing Bucky’s ever seen.

Tony hadn’t been lying when he said he was King of Thinking Outside the Box.  He’d taken Bucky’s idea and just... launched it into space.  All of the variables were there, and the tensile strength calculations and the load bearing adjustments and some calculus that Bucky understands but that’s definitely being applied in a way that he’s never thought possible.

Bucky takes in a deep breath and holds it.

He’s got a mad crush.  On Tony’s brain.  He’s actually a little hard, which is-- all kinds of inappropriate and awkward.  And he has no choice but to continue on wading through the notes until he has enough information to work on his own calculations and finally then he stops sporting nerd wood.

What has Stark Industries even done to him?

Once he’s put together a response that sounds intelligible he sends his thoughts back to Dr. Stark, and again, he doesn’t hear back.  That’s fine.  That’s not even unusual for their line of work.  He has other projects in the backlog and he moves on to those.

Days pass.

A picture of Steve and Natasha joins the Rainboot Piglet on his board. Then a hilarious fortune he got out of a fortune cookie while he was out to lunch with the Class III Engineers.  Then a postcard his sister sent him from Spain, and an autographed picture of Bill Nye that Sam gave him out of the blue.

Still, Hampton stays in the place of honor and when Bucky looks at him he smiles every time.

It’s a Monday in mid-December when Bucky gets to work early and sees someone hovering near his desk.

“Can I help you?” Bucky asks.  “The rest of the team won’t roll in for another half an hour or so.”

“No,” the man says.  “I was just-- just dropping something off.”

“At my desk?”

That gets the man’s attention and he turns to look at Bucky and oh god it’s Tony Stark, looking disheveled and sleepy and so so much more attractive in person than he looks on company memos or in that giant picture that hangs in the lobby.

Bucky’s mouth falls open.

“You kept the pig,” Tony says.

Bucky nods.  “I told you I liked him.  And I still maintain your nobel-prize-winning-ex was a dick if he didn’t.  What’d you bring me?”

“Oh-- that.  Well, come look.”

Tony gestures to Bucky’s desk and Bucky walks over to see a stack of papers.  “My recommendation for making the changes you suggested to the FTL Magnetometer.  With full credit to you.  Bruce and I worked on a few prototypes and the math held.  No explosions.  I also recommend that you should be brought in as the engineering consultant on the project.”

Now it’s Bucky’s turn to go silent.

“Is that okay?” Tony asks.

“That’s... incredible,” Bucky says.  “More than incredible.”

“I thought all the Class III Engineers were kids,” Tony says suddenly. Nothing Bucky’s said would make those words make sense in that order.

“Well, the other three are,” Bucky says slowly.  “I came in through the Vets program so I’m the odd one out.  Is that a problem?”

Tony shakes his head.  

“Only the part where I stopped emailing you because I thought I was chatting up a kid young enough to be my son and felt like a complete creeper. You said you still had a friend who knew you when you were four.  I figured that meant you were under twenty.   Who keeps friends that long when they’re-- however old you are?”

So that was why the emails stopped so abruptly.

“Pretty sure HR doesn’t let you ask,” Bucky says with a smile.

“There’s a lot of things HR won’t let me do,” Tony responds.  “And some that they will.”

“Like what?” Bucky asks.

“Like take you out for coffee.”

“To discuss the project?”

“And other things,” Tony says.  “I’m not your direct supervisor.  There’s some ummm... paperwork.  And I know this is sudden and I’m not gonna lie I have not had sleep in a while.  For-- some amount of time that would make you wince.  But coffee’s allowed.  Not mandatory.  Say no if it’s a no.  You’re still on the project.  You’re still brilliant.  Maybe batshit, too, but the math.  It’s kept me warm at night.  Wishing you were ten years older, and now here you are...”

“I saved our emails,” Bucky says.  “And--” he gestures toward the pig, “Hampton’s what made me finally start feeling like maybe SI is where I belonged. And I haven’t had that much sleep either.”

“So coffee then?” Tony asks hopefully.

“Coffee,” Bucky agrees.

And paperwork.  In the end there is so. much. paperwork.

---------------- Two Years Later ----------------

From: Tony Edward Barnes Stark Date: Wed, May 13, 2019 at 9:10 AMSubject: Legit work related email about v important work thingsTo: James Buchanan Barnes Stark

I wish I was your project notes for the model imperfections in variational data that I know are due by end of day.

You know why?

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From: James Buchanan Barnes Stark Date: Wed, May 13, 2019 at 9:12 AMSubject: Re:  Legit work related email about v important work thingsTo: Tony Edward Barnes Stark

I can’t even venture a guess here, doll.

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From: Tony Edward Barnes Stark Date: Wed, May 13, 2019 at 9:10 AMSubject: Re:  Re: Legit work related email about v important work thingsTo: James Buchanan Barnes Stark

Because I’d be ridiculously hard and you’d be doing me on your desk for the next 6 hours.

P.S. I love you.

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From: James Buchanan Barnes Stark Date: Wed, May 13, 2019 at 9:12 AMSubject: Re:  Legit work related email about v important work thingTo: Tony Edward Barnes Stark

I love you, too.

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[ruminativerabbi]

Great Leaps Forward

Every generation has its “you know where you were when” moments. My dad used to say that there simply weren’t any Americans his age who didn’t know where they were when they heard about Pearl Harbor or where they were and what they were doing when they heard that FDR had died. In a different age, that same comment would have been true with respect to Fort Sumter and Lincoln. But for people of my generation, the two “where you were and what you were doing” moments are definitely the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the precise moment Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.

I was ten years old when President Kennedy was assassinated. It was half past noon in Dallas when the shots rang out, so still early afternoon in New York. I was in Mrs. D’Antona’s fifth grade classroom on the second floor of P.S. 196 when our principal, Mr. Tauschner, came into our classroom and whispered the bad news to our teacher, who promptly burst into tears. Having no choice, the principal himself told us what had happened. And then someone brought a television into our classroom and we were allowed to spend the rest of the school day watching the news.

When Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, I was sixteen. I was lying on my back on a blanket on the lawn behind the dorm at the University of Vermont in Burlington in which they housed participants in the special music program for high school students they used to run there each summer. Lying at right angles to my head was Lily Goodman, normally of Wilmington, Delaware, but that summer also spending her summer on the UVM campus in the same program I was in (and being much more talented a singer than I was a pianist). Between our heads lay my red transistor radio tuned to some local news station with the volume up as loud as it could go. We listened patiently to endless replays of the great man’s words of earlier that day: “Houston, Tranquility Base here; the Eagle has landed.” And then, just few minutes before eleven PM, we heard the man, now speaking from the lunar surface, say that he was taking one single step as a man, but that that step was simultaneously a giant leap forward for all mankind. And it was my memory of that specific experience that came right back to me last week when I read that Beresheet, a 1290-pound spacecraft owned and operated by Israel Aerospace Industries, had successfully lifted off on its lunar mission last Friday atop a Falcon 9 rocket owned and operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company. The plan is for Beresheet (appropriately, “Genesis”) to orbit the earth for a while, then to depart for the moon under its own steam and then, after a journey of about seven weeks, to touch down on the moon on April 11.

It’s a pretty exclusive club, the one to which belong nations who have done this: only Russia, China, and our own country have managed successfully to land spacecrafts on the moon. But the club is expanding: India is expected to become its fifth member later this spring, as is Japan within a couple of years. Still, it won’t be that big a club even after India and Japan join. And Beresheet’s, once it lands on the lunar surface, has another distinction worth mentioning because it will be the first private-sector landing on the lunar surface in history.

It’s not hard to understand why this club has so few members. For one thing, it’s a really long ways off—the moon is about 239,000 miles away from the earth. And it’s a journey fraught with dangers and difficulties. And it costs a fortune to undertake a project like this—the price tag for the Beresheet mission is a cool $100 million, and that is the least amount ever spent to send a landing craft to the moon. (Could that detail be related to the fact that this will be the first lunar landing not paid for by a government spending money it prints up itself? I wonder!) Of special interest to me personally, though, is the list of digitized items Beresheet is going to leave on the moon for future visitors—perhaps even some eventually not from Earth—to ponder: details about the spacecraft and the crew that built it, an Israeli flag, a copy of Israel’s Declaration of Independence, dictionaries in 27 languages and all of Wikipedia, the memoirs of a Shoah survivor, a Hebrew-language Bible, recordings of the most popular Israeli songs, and some children’s drawings inspired by the mission. Just thinking about someone from a distant galaxy coming across this one day and trying to puzzle through all that data is intoxicating!

Things seem to be going well; the spacecraft sent home its first selfie just the other day, looking over its own shoulder at itself and the earth behind it from a distance of about 37,600 miles. (If you look carefully, you can see the outlines of South America and Australia.)

But all of this excitement regarding Beresheet has awakened another set of emotions in me as well. This summer will be the fiftieth anniversary of Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon. Last December marked the fiftieth anniversary of Apollo 8, in the course of which the first picture of “earthrise” was snapped when Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders became the first human beings to leave low earth orbit, reach the moon, orbit it, and then return to earth safely. There’s a “Beresheet” moment in this story as well: Apollo 8 orbited the moon ten times, in the course of which they made their memorable recording of the first verses in Genesis and Astronaut Anders took his now famous picture of the earth rising out of the black of space.

What happened to our need to discover? The incredible successes of the mid-twentieth century, which included Project Mercury, which sent the first American into space; Project Gemini, which first brought astronauts into space for an extended period of time; the Apollo program, which brought astronauts to the moon and back; the Skylab program, which put our nation’s first space station into orbit; the Space Shuttle program, which endured two terrible tragedies but nonetheless succeeded in bringing reusable spacecrafts into the picture—all of these were enormous scientific, intellectual, and cultural achievements. But somewhere along the way, we seem to have to lose our way.

NASA still exists, of course. We continue to play a leadership role in the International Space Station, although our astronauts travel there and back on Russian Soyuz spacecraft. There are all sorts of research missions underway to Mars and beyond. But the idea of human-led exploration itself—the principled willingness to send people to go where no one has ever gone and to do things that no one has ever done, thus to make more great leaps forward for humankind in the Armstrongian sense—that feels as though it has somehow vanished from the American psyche. The last American to stand on the moon, Eugene A. Cernan, was mission commander of Apollo 17, which went to the moon and returned in 1972. Apollo 18, 19, and 20 were cancelled due to budget cuts.

Mentioning the Space Shuttle program makes me rethink my comment above about the “where we were and what we were doing” moments in our lives, because I remember—and clearly—where I was in and what I was doing in 1986 when Challenger broke apart just seconds after take-off and all seven crew members died and where I was on February 1, 2003, when Columbia disintegrated upon re-entering the earth’s atmosphere, which disaster took the life of all seven of its crew members as well. (There’s an Israel connection there too, of course, because the sole non-American on board was Colonel Ilan Ramon, the first Israeli astronaut.)

But those disasters only made us more eager to succeed and, indeed the Space Shuttle program continued until 2011, by the end flying off on 133 successful missions involving 833 crew members (including the fourteen who died on the Challenger and the Columbia). And then we lost interest. Or it feels as though we have. And that is why the launch of Beresheet, for all it excites me, also unnerves me a bit by forcing me to wonder where our American sense of pioneering, of derring-do, of courage in the face of incredible obstacles, of exploration of the unknown, where all that went to? I suppose lots of people can think of lots of better uses for all that money—and the expenses involved were, to use the term literally for once, astronomical. But what price tag can or should we put on the sense that we are actively engaged in setting out on new paths, including ones on which no human being has ever travelled? Or that we are not wrapping up the search for knowledge in the universe, but only beginning to fathom what it is we don’t know about…everything? Underlying the need to explore, after all, is a foundation of humility born of the conviction that knowing how little we know can and should energize us to step further into the seductive unknown rather than retreat into blissful unknowing like timid children.

On one of the Saturday nights after the appearance of the new moon in the nighttime sky each month, we at Shelter Rock gather outside to recite the ancient prayer called Kiddush Levanah, the Sanctification of the Moon. Taking the moon as the embodiment of the unattainable, we use the sight of its return to the nighttime sky as an opportunity to renew our commitment to seeking to know the Creator through the contemplation of Creation. As I look up at the sliver of moon in the dark, I occasionally think of that night long ago in Vermont when I lay on a blanket and looked up at the moon as the first man in history took some first tentative steps onto its surface. It’s that precise sense of courage mixed with awe and, yes, humility, that I wish we could summon up again in our American psyche to remind us that there really is no upper limit to what we can dream of doing.