#anyway i always die inside a little when hydra peter just

[brekitten]

Guilt

Sometimes, Peter feels guilty.

He knows he shouldn't, because the skipped lab days with Tony and missed dinners with May, and all the little lies and excuses he's told them to ease their worries, are really for the greater good - a fact he has been told time and time again by his superiors. But no matter how much he tells himself this, he can't stop feeling guilty about all of it.

As he bids May a hasty goodbye, throwing his backpack over his shoulder, that same guilt threatens to crush him once again. He almost wants to stay, to have dinner with his aunt like he had promised he would. But he can't.

He hopes he doesn't have a mission tomorrow night, so he can make it up to her.

He steps into the alley outside his apartment, where two men are waiting for him. They hand him a folder, he skims over the information, and he hands it back. They leave without another word.

He quickly climbs onto the roof and changes into the clothes he brought with him. The mask - the final piece of his uniform - slides over his mouth, and he finds the familiarity comforting. Unlike his Spider-Man mask, which always seems so suffocating, it covers just enough of his face to keep him anonymous. He prefers this mask, and wishes he could use it instead. But he can't, because it isn't Spider-Man's.

The mission is quick, far quicker than most. The file had included the likely locations of the target, and Peter finds the man right away. The target is in an unprotected building. All it takes is one shot from Peter's gun, and the man is dead. No one sees him leave the rooftop he took the shot from, and he makes it home without incident.

He changes back into his civilian clothing, tucking his uniform and weapons back into his bag, and goes into the apartment. May is waiting for him, and he rattles off some story of what he had done, the lies falling easily from his tongue. He tells her nothing of his mission.

He does have dinner with her that night, even though it's late. He has dinner with her the next night, too. He still doesn't feel like it quite makes up for his repeated absences, especially with how strained May's smile always looks.

He tries not to feel guilty about all of the lies and excuses he tells her. It's for the greater good, after all. Everyone he kills in Hydra's name deserves it, and their absence from this world makes the lives of everyone else better. But he knows May won't see it that way; not many people do.

Maybe someday, he can tell her the truth. But for now, he lies.

And despite knowing that what he's doing is what's best for her and everyone he cares about, he feels guilty about it all.

[seabass17]

All that’s left | Bucky Barnes

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Fem!Reader

A/n: This is my first time writing something based on a video I found on TikTok, it’s not exactly the same, but it is kinda the idea. I hope you like it and please let me know if you might want a part two. Also, I apologize if you find some errors, im doing my best since English is not my first language. Anyway, happy reading!!

All that’s left masterlist

Pt. 2

Warnings: angst, mentions of injuries (broken ribs, cuts, dislocated shoulder)

Word count: 2.5K

Summary: She still can’t get used to the feeling of being left behind by the people she once called family. After being hurt, she decides that she will give them a chance, and when they failed, she then makes the decision to disappear and start brand new. Of course, she leaves a letter that will left the team standing in the dark, and with more questions than answers about a lot of things, while discovering that she has more of one past that she let to know.

The sound of the rain hitting against the window of my living room was the only thing that could be heard in the silence of my apartment. I looked over my desk where the paper is waiting for me to pick up the pen and get this over with, but somehow, somewhere deep inside of me, a part is waiting, holding on to the smallest of hope that maybe, just maybe, he is going to come knocking to my door asking why the i haven’t showed up to the compound for the last three days, or why i didn’t text nor call the rest of the team. I wanted to see if they would notice my absence so I left the compound on Thursday. I got the answer to my question when Sunday arrived and my inbox was clear; no one noticed. Today is Tuesday, my apartment is thirteen minutes away, fifthteen if you literally fly or speed up, but still, no one came or text.

To be honest, I'm not surprised, that doesn’t mean it hurts less though. I know i should probably think this through instead of making the impulse decision of grabbing my things and get the hell out of here, going somewhere i can start fresh, somewhere i can start over and get a chance to get over all the things that happened,  find people that actually cared for me, or maybe not finding anyone at all and die alone.

I stand up from my bed and go to my desk, it’s time to get this over with. I start writing the only thing that they get to keep.

“Dear Avengers, You’re probably wondering where I am, or you just don’t care, maybe you don’t even find this. If someone from the building finds this, keep it in case they ever come looking for me; thank you. So, this is it, this is my goodbye. You should consider yourselves lucky, given the fact that none of you even deserves a goodbye because you are the ones causing it. I could tell you the reason why I'm leaving, and you know what, I will tell you. I chose to trust you. The one thing I feared the most was trusting people, but when I joined the team, I thought ‘well, maybe i can trust them, they are my team’, guess what, I was wrong. You should really look out for your teammates Stark, oh, and by the way, you might want to look deeper into why the operation that saved those 30 civilians on may 20, didn’t go south, you might even discover its the very same reason of why i didn’t showed up in the compound for a week, yeah, they were busy torturing the information out of me for a week; information that, by the way, i didn't give, hence why the operation went great. Something even more funny, is that behind every mistake, every wrong that each one of you have ever done, I’m the one that suffered the consequences. Don’t believe me? Then you might want to do your homework, because dear teammates, I’m the one you couldn’t protect. By the time you find out the things you’ve done, I will be long gone. I'm very good at disappearing, Natasha (once she figures it out) can confirm that. I wish things would be different and we could be… family, but that’s never going to happen; not anymore. As of now, there will be no record of my name ever existing, everything that once belonged to me, will be burned, and as of me, well, I am no one.”

I fold the piece of paper and put it in the envelope, once sealed, I write down the word my name in the center so they know. I take a last look at my apartment. Everything is intact, the furniture that came with it is the same as always, the only thing different is that it seems empty without all my belongings. I grabbed my luggage and exited the apartment and then went downstairs.

“Hey Richard”  I say to the man that is in the reception like I always do

“Hey miss, what can I do for you?”

“Well, I'm leaving, for good. If someone comes asking for me, my friends, you tell them that you haven’t seen me. Oh, I left a letter for them upstairs, could you please make sure that it gets to them? Only if the show up, do not sent it”

He looked at me a little sad and confused.

“Oh, well, you will me missed miss, I hope you find happiness and yes, i promised i will make sure they get your letter”

“Thank you Richard, for everything, oh, and this is for you” I handed him an envelope with some cash. He looked like he was about to say something about how he couldn’t accept it but I cut him off. “Please, just take it, please”. He sighs but takes the envelope.

“Thank you miss…”

I smiled at him and then turned around to grab a cab. I'm supposed to be in the airport in 30 minutes. Once in the airport, the only thing left is to start again, be someone brand new.

*3rd person POV*

Friday morning was a little colder than usual in the avengers compound, everyone on the team was up and in the kitchen having breakfast. Everything was normal, until someone noticed that someone was missing.

“Hey guys” Bucky said right before taking a bite of the pancakes Wanda made earlier for everyone. “Have any of you seen y/n?”

The team stayed quiet, realizing that they haven’t seen her for quite a while, not until Barnes brought it up.

“Uh… maybe she took a trip?” Steve broke the silence while the rest started thinking when was the last time they had seen her.

“No, she was here when we arrived from the Jersey mission, it must have been like what, two days, maybe three?” Tony said. Bucky could feel his insides burning and twisting.

“No… that was eight days ago” Vision intervened. The avengers felt like someone just blew up the white house. Her teammate was missing for eight days and no one even noticed. Bucky was the first one to react by getting up and running to her dorm, only to find it exactly the way it was when he last saw her. He searched her dorm looking for something out of place that could tell him that maybe you were in trouble and that he has to come save you, but he is left desperate when he doesn’t find anything.

“She’s not here, everything is intact” He informs once he is back in the kitchen.

“Everyone” Steve calls out, “get dressed, we’re going to look for her. Let’s start in her apartment”

The team leaves to change their clothes and next thing they know, they are in her building. Without saying a word to the receptionist, they all made their way up to her apartment.

“Hey! wait-” he goes unnoticed because the avengers are already on her door. Wanda knocks on the door.

“Y/n? You there?” no one responds. “Y/n come on, don’t be mad at us” Natasha says.

After a few seconds they all start to worry when the door is unlocked, and they worry even more once they see the apartment completely empty.

“What the-” Bucky says

“Where are her things?” Wanda asks to no one especifically

“Where is she?” Thor says

“What the hell is going on?” Tony says a little louder

Bucky storms out of the empty apartment and goes to the man in the reception

“What the hell happened to apartment 108, where is y/n y/l/n?” he asks with worry and anxiety in his voice.

“I’m sorry, but, who are you?” the man asks the rather intimidating group of people in front of him.

“We’re the Avengers man” Peter says and the man suddenly realizes and his face changes from a confused one, to a sad one that makes the team’s stomach drop.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t…” he sighs, “She left me indicated to give this to you” he hands them an envelope that looks like it's been sitting there for a while. Bucky stares at the envelope like it's some kind of nuclear weapon that if you touch it, it could kill you. Wanda notices, grabs the envelope and stares at the paper in her hands.

“When did she leave this?” She asked

“Three days ago”

“And why didn’t you send it to us?” Tony asked, getting angry at the poor man.

“Because she specifically said  to handed it to you, if you ever came looking for her”

Bucky could feel the tears in his eyes start to form.

“She said that? `Ever’?” Bucky asked almost to himself. The man slowly nodded. Natasha could feel how her stomach started burning from the guilt and the pain of not noticing that her friend was missing for eight days, little does she know that the entire team felt exactly the same.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y pull the records on the mission on may 20 and also show me the status of y/n on that time” Tony said to the AI and after a few seconds later, pictures of the building that that was about to be blown out by HYDRA with 30 civilians inside showed up. While the avengers were sitting in the conference room looking at the pictures, the AI started talking.

“Mission of may 20. Information was given that HYDRA kept 30 civilians inside the building with the intention of blowing it up with them inside. Source of the information unknown. The Avengers  came to the building and successfully rescued the civilians safely moments before the building was blown up. Agent y/n y/l/n was on an undercover mission on a HYDRA facility at the same time, the communication was lost three days before the civilians situation, and around the same time, the information about the building was given anonymously the very same day that communication with Agent y/l/n was lost; Agent y/l/n returned a week later. Medical record found, access denied”

“Override, Tony Stark” Tony said after a good couple of seconds, the pieces starting to fall in place.

“Access complete. Medical records of Agent y/l/n on may 27th. Access restrained: Agent y/l/n. She presented with several cuts all over her body, three broken ribs, a second grade concussion, a sprained ankle and a dislocated shoulder. Patient refused treatment and was only given medication for the pain”

The seconds were passing and no one in the room would break the silence. The pieces were starting to fall in place, Tony felt nauseous. He yelled at her for being irresponsible for staying a little longer than she should have in the undercover mission, given the fact that she checked in on june 10th, meaning that she waited two weeks for her injuries to heal enough so that he could yell at her for not being good enough. He fell down to his chair, feeling like if he stayed up, he might throw up.

“She was the one that gave us the information about the building” Sam broke the silence. “She was the one that got tortured, and still managed to pass through the data so that we, could be the heroes while she was the one that got beaten up”

“F.R.I.D.A.Y, where is she?” Natasha asked the AI, and it responded after a few seconds.

“No information found”

Natasha frowned, Bucky looked up to the screen to see the red sentence. It only made him want to scream more.

“What does ‘no information found’ mean?” Bucky asked on the edge of falling apart.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y” Steve called

“No information available” it said this time.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y, look for y/n y/l/n” Tony said, thinking maybe he needed to check what was wrong with the AI.

“No records found for y/n y/l/n”

“Detail,” Stark said.

The AI showed what it said before, there was no record of her name, it was like it never existed. No phone number, no mail address, no nothing, just a little picture of an abandoned building or mansion somewhere in the world.

“Wait” Natasha said, “I know that building, F.R.I.D.A.Y, do a close up on that picture”

“What is it?” Wanda asked

“It was where The Red Room used to operate” tha AI responded

“Why does it appear related to her?” Bucky asked, fearing the answer

“The picture was taken when a girl escaped The Red Room in 2002, she eliminated four people on the way, the age or who it was is still unknown” the AI responded.

“Oh god…” Natasha whispered but Bucky manage it to hear it

“Natasha, what is it?” he asked

“2002, that’s three years after i managed to escape, there was a girl, we were some sort of friends, i promised that i was going to get us out of here, but i couldn’t take her with me so i left her. Two years later I contacted someone on the inside so that I could get to her and plan her escape, but she was angry at me and said that she was fine, a year later she did escape, killing four people on her way” Natasha explained. Everything makes sense now, why she looked familiar, why she had exactly the same skills as Natasha. The team noticed it too, but they assumed it was because she had trained very hard to be an avenger.

“What was her name?” Vision asked.

“Eliza” Natasha said

“Wait a minute…” Bucky said, lifting her head looking at Natasha. “Was that her real name?”

“No, she didn’t wanted to say her real one” Natasha said

“Eliza, that’s y/n’s grandmother’s name” Bucky said and the room fell into a silence where you could hear the wind outside.

“In the letter…” Steve started, “She said that you could confirm that she was good at disappearing completely once you figured it out, so, does this mean that…”

“Y/n is Eliza” Natasha concluded

“She was in The Red Room” Bucky added.

“She said in her letter that all of us did her wrong,” Sam said, “how are we supposed to know what the hell we do to her? She’s been in the team for what, two and a half years? And just now we realized that she was the one that gave us the data that saved 30 people and got her tortured, and that she was trained in The Red Room like Black Widow here. What else are we missing?” he added.

“Guess there’s only one thing we can do” Steve said, looking at Tony.

“And what’s that?” Wanda asked

“We find her”

[vydante]

Restart | END | Avengers x Male! Reader

I am discontinuing my Restart series because I've simply lost creative juices for it. That's it, no elaborate or other reason. Anyways, I didn't want to just end it on the last chapter, and as someone who loves to overshare (especially if it's unsolicited), I thought some might like to see what drafts I had in plan, going chapter by chapter.

It goes up to Ch. 20 with additional bonus chapters, and chapters where I wasn't sure where they were going to be placed in the timeline.

If you have any comments, let me know! I'd love to read them :)

Here goes! Warning: very long, since the formatting is weird! The reader will be referred to as (Name) and "you", as in the story.

Right after Ch. 12 (Circumvention), are 2 special chapters (High Caliber Bullet) & (America's Sweethearts).

(High Caliber Bullet)'s basic plot was that Barnes, now # amount of weeks since the last chapter, has gained some freedoms and can now go out and about with either (Name) or DAHLIA for supervision (via his phone, and through the cameras everywhere).

In this particular chapter, he basically goes out for a typical grocery run with DAHLIA "accompanying" him, since before, he remembers (Name) telling him that "I won't always be there with you". But something bad happens! Wooo! (Maybe an attempted robbery, I didn't have the details sorted out yet.)

Either way, DAHLIA loses contact with him, and she tries to contact you ASAP, but it takes a little while since your dumbass was asleep the whole time! Wow! The suit had to manually power on and shake you awake.

Anyways, the only thing I had "written down" after that was that, after a failed search attempt for James, you go back home and are greeted with a surprise... "Kabedon"? Or, you're pinned to the walls by James... Or, rather, the Winter Soldier! 

You're not sure what's going on, only that, "Wow, Barnes is acting weird. Why is he suddenly Russian? Wh- Okay, wow, he's suddenly gotten a lot closer. Now, wait a fuckin' minute-!"

Either way, you and James make a discovery of a second personality living inside his body- the Soldier! Or Winter, I'm still unsure which I would have gone for. If you're familiar with certain WinterIron tropes, this is one of them. Anyways, that's the end of that chapter, or what I had written so far, anyway.

This chapter is really important to the canon of Restart since it establishes Soldier, but it didn't fit into my initial plans of 10 chapters an arc, so. That's why it's a "special" chapter.

The next "special" chapter after that was (America's Sweethearts). I had written 2 "chunks" of text for this chapter. The main plot is, basically, you and Steve spent a platonic (promise!) Valentine's Day together. Hence the title. Cute, right? This was referenced in Ch. 9 (Revelation) during Future! Steve's reminiscing.

Anyways, below the next text is what I had written for that chapter. It will be in normal text.

No other thoughts on that, so let's move on.

"You live like this?"

In his defense, Steve's apartment wasn't messy in the slightest. In fact, it was the other way around- everything was too clean, too pristine, too detached. The only saving grace he's getting from standing in the middle of his apartment is the fact that compared to the chilly Brooklyn weather, it was almost obnoxiously warm in his apartment. 

Not only did he have the heater going on, but he had another separate, portable heater blasting hot air in the corner.

(Sometimes, and only sometimes, Steve will stand in front of the heater and slowly spin around like a rotisserie chicken. The heat feels good, in his defense.)

The heat was something that you, thankfully, didn't comment on as you shed your jacket and slung it around the coat hanger near the door. You're wearing an over-sized tee- Thor's tee, he absentmindedly notes- and some sweats, both like and unlike the (Name) he often sees.

(It's not uncommon for Steve to glance at a newspaper or TV still shot and see you with your hair slicked back and dressed head to toe in a suit so expensive he's confident it costs at least a few years' worths of a typical New Yorker's rent.

Neither is uncommon to see you on the front cover of Men's Magazine, wearing a simple tee that shouldn't look that good on you but still does and posing confidently for the camera.

But despite all that, all of the clearly flattering outfits you could possibly wear at the tips of your fingers, often Steve will see you wear a disparagingly obnoxious, dirty shirt, and an old pair of sweats as your go-to outfit.)

(No, he will never admit that he really likes seeing you like that. Even with the mysterious smudged substance often found on the bottom of your sweats, as if you had swing danced in mud and crude oil.)

Regardless, while he often questions your private life fashion choices (and this is coming from a man who willingly wears khakis), he at least knows why you're wearing what you are, given the fact that he's also dressed in an overused tee and some joggers.

"What's wrong with my apartment? Not up to par with your penthouse standards?" Steve jests.

"Steve. Please." You threw him an unimpressed glare, much to Steve's never-ending amusement.

You glanced back to the inside of the apartment and squinted at it with what Steve could only describe as a rich man's scrutinizing gaze, before shrugging nonchalantly. You strolled into his apartment with a confidence Steve can still never get used to, one that reminds him so much of Tony's, and even Howard on his bad days.

(He understands why Tony doesn't like it when he brings Howard up, as he belatedly realizes that Howard didn't die the same man he knew him as, but he never understood why you've suddenly gotten bitter about Howard as well.)

He follows you into the hallway, and if it weren't for the fact that this was his apartment, he would've looked like a lost puppy following its new owner.

His apartment's not really that big, so it doesn't take long before you've both reached the living room. A simple TV, simple couch, simple table. Nothing really exciting in his living room, but it serves its purposes, in Steve's opinion.

(This is the end of that chunk. Next is where I picked up in writing. Short time skip, they both fall asleep and now Steve's waking up.)

It was the change in the smell that woke him up.

It's always the scent of fresh linen that greeted him early in the morning, something that's become so attuned to his everyday life. So when, instead, popcorn and sweets drifts his way, for a brief second his heart rate jumps.

'What?', his mind asks as he opens his eyes, bleary but cautious.

'Oh,' his mind responds back at him when his eyes drift down to your sleeping form laying splayed right on top of him, body glued to his side. You're mainly hogging the blanket, but he doesn't really mind as he runs hot 24/7. 

'Oh', his mind repeats softly, as something deep unfurls from his stomach and rises to his throat, clenching up and unable to say anything as his eyes fixate themselves on your steady breathing. Your lips are too close to his neck, each breath too warm, even for him. His skin burns where it meets yours, and absently he thinks, 'this is nice'.

'Yeah,' he lifts his hand to brush away a strand of hair away from your eyes, 'This is nice.'

Steve blearily throws a glance at the clock on his nightstand. 4 more minutes until he'd typically wake up and start his day with a morning jog.

'No,' his body protests.

'Okay,' his mind agrees without a fight.

He carefully reaches over and presses the silence button on his alarm. Above him, a breathy exhale escapes your lips at the sudden movement, and if possible, you curl closer to him than you were before. He pauses, unsure if you're going to wake up or not, but relax when he realizes that you're still in a deep slumber.

(Another break. Next sentence was supposed to be the final sentence of the chapter.)

In the end, neither of you commented about how Steve had missed his daily morning run as his limbs were straddled in between yours.

Ch. 13 (Upheaval) and 14 (Airlocked) are short in terms of drafting, so I'll combine them into one section here. Ch. 13 (Upheaval) was about taking down SHIELDRA in a better manner than the mess that was CA:TWS. And (Name) also forces Steve and Natasha to fess up immediately about Tony's parent's murderer. ((Name) threatens them.)

As for Ch. 14 (Airlocked), it's pretty much a filler chapter of sorts. (Name) graduates, there's now an official class-action lawsuit against Ross, also now keeping an eye on Baron Zemo, and we see some progression on Barne's therapy session. Not much, but some.

I really was not looking forward to these two chapters, as I knew they were gonna be boring as hell.

Ch. 15 (Spiralling) has actual written chunks. It's basically about the early prevention of Ultron. The Avengers go to a Sokovian HYDRA base, take out baddies, and the Super Twins get captured first- wow! But not before Wanda does... something to (Name), causing you to hallucinate and lose contact with the team- uh oh!

But don't worry! You get run over by a car. Lol. Below is what I had written for it, sans minor text.

A/N: In Ch. 7 (Summer), there was a 'dream-sequence' that happened where (Name) was on Titan with Tony, Peter, Stephen, and the GOTG. I've now decided that in canon, (Name) was not on Titan- instead, you were on Earth instead during IW helping at Wakanda. Just a brief plot-hole wrap-up; let's imply that (Name) had watched video footage of the fight at Titan via Tony's suit afterward, and that's where the nightmare came from. Okay bye.

(VERY abrupt start into the story, not meant to be the start of the chapter in the final draft, just where I wanted to start writing. Intro to Wanda.)

You jerked your head, catching a glimpse of brunette hair in the corner of your eyes. You swung your gauntlet instinctively and made instant contact with whatever was next to you. Flutters of red wisps followed your eyes, and you instantly knew what just happened as a body dropped next to you. 

You grunted and leaned onto the nearest wall, watching the girl's limp body with caution. Your shoulder plate lifted, and a tranquilizing dart connected to her thigh.

Just in case.

"Guys, I- I've been- ugh..." You wanted to vomit, the pounding in your head worsening with each millisecond that passes. Already, your surroundings distort you with each blink, walls melting and the floor sinking in on itself. "I've been- com-," you swallowed back your bile, "-compromised... Sending- location... Ergh..."

You didn't even have enough time to hear a response before the whole world around you shifted. You squeezed your eyes shut, trying to calm your thundering heartbeat. The pounding got worse as the armor around you dissipated into nothing but the under-suit you were wearing. Before, where there were the shouting and gunshots, is now replaced with an eerie silence filled with just your laborious breathing.

You didn't know the full extent of what visions you were about to see, but you needed to remember that none of this is real. Scientifically, that was your only safe haven from possibly losing your mind for what's about to come. And it was worse because you had no idea what visions you'd see. Would you see Thanos? The Chitauri, just like your father once had? Or would it be something more close to home; the bunker? Tony's dead body, splayed with vomit around him, frostbitten to the touch and still like a marbled statue? 

Ready to go up and arms at whatever it was you're about to see, you cautiously opened your eyes.

(Line break, there's meant to be an "oh shit" line, like "Only, you were met with eyes far too similar to yours." but I still didn't know what I wanted to do for the hallucination sequence. Maybe meeting an older you, a younger you, or your dream life without the Avengers or meta-humans.)

(Below is an abrupt shift in the story; same general setting, but outside POV! What I had was dialogue only, alternating between people in bold, as a POV switch.)

(Name) "Guys, I- I've been- ugh... I've been- com-compromised... Sending- location... Ergh..." 

(Steve) "Apex, do you copy? (Name)!" 

(Steve) "Shit, (Name) isn't answering! Tony!"

(Tony) "Got his location, he's inside the base. J.A.R.V.I.S., what's his status?" 

(J.A.R.V.I.S.) "I'm sorry, Sir, but it appears that I am not in contact with his suit." 

(Tony) "Wha- the hell do you mean you're not in contact?!" 

(J.A.R.V.I.S.) "I cannot connect to his suit; it appears that Young Sir has somehow deprogrammed me from his suit." 

(Tony) "Wha-!" 

(J.A.R.V.I.S.) "However, it seems as if there is an A.I. present nonetheless. Though..." 

(J.A.R.V.I.S.) "I do not recognize the code. Would you like me to attempt at forming a mode of communication?" 

(Tony) "Yeah, just- God, make sure (Name)'s okay, please." 

(J.A.R.V.I.S.) "On it." 

(J.A.R.V.I.S.) "Establishing a connection." 

(DAHLIA) "Mister Stark?"

(Tony) "Wha- I'm sorry- who are you?"

(DAHLIA), ignoring Tony, "An enhanced got to (Name). The operative is down, but (Name)'s experiencing hallucinations. I can't get through to him- you need to get to him, now. I fear he may hurt himself more than he already has."

(DAHLIA) "And if I may be privy to a request?"

(Tony) "What?"

(DAHLIA) "Don't bring Rogers." (I don't remember why I wrote this bit.)

(Steve) "Any updates on (Name)?"

(Tony) "Yep, and by the looks of it," there was a loud boom coming from the base, and as Tony looked up to see an all too familiar suit fly out of the building. Or, rather, flying was an interesting way to put it- it was more of a free-falling more than anything else.

(Steve) "What was that?"

(Tony) "That was (Name), and he's not havin' a great time I'll tell you that."

His voice was light and joking, but he'd be lying if he didn't say that his heart wasn't in his throat by the sight of you flying out of the building and falling back into the forests.

(Line break, another POV switch)

Steve sprinted towards the loud boom, movements quick and calculated, but mind racing a thousand miles an hour. He saw a red and gold glint fly up above him, zipping in and out between trees gracefully. 

(Line break, but no switch, same place. Another story POV shift, sort of. Steve makes contact with (Name), or so he thinks.)

"(Name)? Hey, do you copy?"

The suit was eerily silent, glowing eyes that once gave comfort to the soldier now bringing nothing but an awful, gripping dread; one that he'd get when there were Nazi soldiers nearby, but he couldn't tell where even with his enhanced senses. The suit gave away nothing that usually screamed out everything that was you- no head swaying, no restless and constantly shifting feet, only a stillness that looked so unnatural. Almost as if there was no one in there.

"(Name)?"

There was no response from you.

The hairs on Steve's neck stood up, everything in his system suddenly screaming to get out of there, run, leave, get away from the suit, but he ignored it as he took a cautious step forward.

Again, you didn't seem to react.

Then, the suit took a step forward.

Then another one.

And another one.

"(Name)-"

Before he could say anything more, the suit lunged forward. Only for a moment could Steve react, but even he wasn't as fast as you could be when you're in the suit. He raised his shield, ready to be shot at, but only the sound of harsh metal on metal makes it to his ears. By the sounds of it, it sounded like Tony had managed to land a direct hit on you, from wherever position he was at. Cautiously, Steve lowers his shield to look.

But instead of the familiar red and gold suit of armor greeting him, it's the sight of two (color) suits wrestling on the ground with each other that manages to sucker-punch all air from his lungs.

(Basically, you went bat shit insane and got out of the older suit, then prematurely activating the nano suit instead, in a fit of panicked hallucination. The older suit, now operating by DAHLIA, was trying to protect Steve from being ambushed by (Name), and now they're wrestling.)

(Another big break, but I think I had a hallucination sequence from (Name)'s POV planned here. Not sure what I was gonna do here since I planned this like, maybe in 2018, early 2019. It's... 2021 now...)

"-(Name)!"

Your eyes widened as the world around you suddenly shifts out of existence, and instead, you're outside in the dim, snowy alps once again. Someone called out to you, you don't know who, but there's a light in the corner of your eyes that's so goddamn bright. You turn your head in the direction of the light, and amidst all of the yelling and gunshots, DAHLIA's cool, chilling voice rings the loudest in your ear.

"Aborting protoc-"

And then the world turned black.

Ch. 16 (Enflamed) also has written text. Basically, you're recovering from being caught slipping by a car, the team is now aware of certain secrets you've been keeping behind their backs, and you realize that you have to get back to Barnes to let him know you're okay.

This chapter was meant to be focused on the twins, but I guess I forgot that as I was "writing" it. Basically, the gist was that their parent's deaths weren't by officially licensed Stark tech (maybe even a counterfeit since Stark weapons are the best, and don't malfunction as it did in WandaVision ep. 8). Maybe HYDRA was the one that did it in order to recruit more people. Or something like that. Basically, Tony wasn't the one who authorized those weapons to be sold and used there, but it was Stane. Either way, they get their own healthy moment to mourn and lament over it all.

Here's the text below. Italics for a dream sequence, since you were unconscious/ in a coma from being bOnked on by a car.

"Hey, sweetheart."

You smile, turning around to face the voice only to be greeted with lips on yours. You chuckle, amused that this was the first thing you'd be greeted with, but lean into the kiss anyways as you wrapped your fingers around their cheek.

They pull back first, but their eyes are warm as they smile, lingering in the space between the two of you. Where their hands laid on your hips, your skin burned bright hot, but you paid no mind to it. 

(There's supposed to be more, maybe foreshadowing, but I stopped here in terms of the dream sequence. Jump cut to another POV, but you're waking up!)

(Name) "Hnng..."

(Steve) "Stay down! You're in no condition to move at all, just- just rest, okay? The doctors- and- your dad are coming."

(Steve) "How're you feeling? You want some water?"

You tried to turn your head to look at the blonde but hissed suddenly.

(Name) "S'nnof'a' b'ch..." (Son of a bitch.)

Steve helped you settle back onto your pillow- which even he'll admit doesn't look like the most comfortable setting in the world.

"Language, (Name)..."

He reprimanded, but there's no heat in his words as he's just so thankful that you're even capable of forming any words, no matter how profane they may be.

Beside him, Clint laughs a bit too loud for comfort. Steve wants to tell him to be quiet, as he's sure you're sensitive to noise right now, but God he can't blame the archer for his overwhelming relief. 

Lord knows Clint wasn't the only one to stress over their youngest Avenger.

"First words after a damn coma, and it's 'son of a bitch'! I told you he's a fighter!"

"Of course he is, he's a Stark after all."

All eyes turn to see the billionaire and assassin walk into the room. They look clean and pristine as always, but by the slight sheen of sweat on both of them, Steve knew they rushed here as soon as word spread that you were awake.

(Natasha) "Tooting your own horn a little much there?"

Natasha's smile betrays her words as she looks fondly from the senior Stark to the junior. Even the ironclad wall she has up 24/7 has a soft spot for the team's junior member.

(Especially for the junior member, but you didn't hear that from Steve.)

(Tony) "It's both of our horns, excuse you."

Tony turns his attention to you and places a gentle hand on your shoulder.

"You sure took a hit back there, champ."

"Mmm... 'm feel like a... Nn... A damn Make A W'sh kid...", (Mm, am feeling like a damn Make A Wish kid...) your eyes, though blown out from still being drugged up, wandered across each Avenger. You frowned, then smirked- well, as best as you could, anyways. 

"Where's th' Hul'k? T'or?" (Where's the Hulk? Thor? (As a joke, since usually the whole gang visits, but they're missing))

"Relax junior, you're not that special. We can only afford so many Avengers to visit you."

Despite his harsh words, Tony places a kiss right on your forehead. Your eyes flutter closed, lashes delicately batting as Tony leans away.

(Big block of nothing, there were supposed to be more text here, more dialogue or something. Same setting!)

(Tony) "So. We need to talk about what happened back there. Y'know. The brand-smackin' new A.I. that's in your suit- she's been awfully quiet. Oh, and the- lord, the thing's a work of art- the- what is it? Nanite suit? That's in a collar- a collar? I mean, I'm not one to judge questionable fashion statements, but-"

(Steve, or someone else) "Tony."

(Tony) "Right- but, we are going to talk about all that, okay?"

"L'ter, ple's? Am tir'd..." (Later, please? Am tired.)

"An' b'sides, chok'r's fun..." (And besides, chokers are fun.)

(Line break, basically, you remember you have a certain Winter Soldier that's been sitting at home without any word from you.)

’Oh fuck.’

(Big line break, basically, you get discharged from the hospital, and now you visit the safehouse Barnes is in to check up on him.)

It was eerily quiet when you opened the door to the safe house. You limped into the door, thankful that the ride on the way back, there were no paparazzi to see you leave at all. (Really, Happy should get a raise.) Lord knows how much of a rile that'll get out of the news media.

'Avengers' Golden Boy: Fatally Injured?' or something dumb like that.

You'd love to roll your eyes, but the tension that's coiling up in your gut surpasses the want as you slowly step into the house. It's warm, more so than the slow brewing chill that's been tempering outside. James never liked the cold, but even so, the house was warmer than you remembered. His shoes are still near the doorway, in the exact place that you remembered it to be, so he definitely hasn't gone anywhere.

(Though, the alerts that were on your phone from DAHLIA definitely show that he wanted to.)

For a brief moment, you were concerned that there wasn't enough food; but even then, DAHLIA would still be up, so she could place an online order to refill the fridge at a moment's notice, so it's not like James (even with his super-soldiered appetite) would starve himself here.

You quietly slipped out of your shoes, slowly as to not incur another cramp in your back, and stepped into the hallway barefooted. You glance into each room you pass by, but not a single sign of the soldier was anywhere to be found.

You stopped when you stood in front of one specific lounge room; yours and James' favorite lounge room.

Lurking into the room, you glanced around.

The room looked exactly like how it did days before when you were still conscious. There are a few mugs strewn about. Most empty, conjoined in one area of the table (James' area), but there's one that's filled with your favorite drink. A drink that you don't remember making for yourself.

And it's placed right in front of your favorite chair, too. Something squeezes at your heartstrings as you couldn't help but smile fondly.

It's gone cold, you absently note as you dip a finger into it. Wiping your finger on your pants, you grabbed it and the rest of the empty cups, making a note to place them into the dishwasher when you make it into the kitchen.

"James?"

You called out, but only your voice echoed back. The cups quietly rattled with each step, and it's not long before you make it into the kitchen. It, too, looks the same, but there's a thin layer of dust only a clean freak would notice. The sink is empty and clear of any beads of water. Unused for a little bit, you concluded.

Yeesh.

You placed all of the cups into the dishwasher, which was also dry and empty as well. Sighing, you turned on the machine and jumped out of your skin when you felt a pair of built arms wrap themselves around you tightly.

It only takes a split second for you to realize that, no, this is not some ax murderer that's about to choke the life out of you, it's just James.

James who, apparently, is holding you flush against his chest, fingers curling themselves against your bandaged abdomen. You held back a wince of pain, careful not to make your breathing waver, as James nuzzle his whole head against the crook of your neck. 

(Honestly, for someone named the Winter Soldier, he sure is warm because whew, boy-)

"Ja-"

"I thought you were gone."

His name is caught in your throat as James' voice- gritty, deep, unused- rumbles into your skin. You freeze, unsure of what to say to that as you shuddered, suddenly breathless as he mouths at your neck. Your ears turn bright red as he takes that moment to speak up, not once letting up on his fingers ghosting a trail on each muscle on your abdomen.

"You were gone. One second you were in my arms, and the next... The next, DAHLIA's tellin' me you're in a damn coma."

You winced, not sure how to respond to both what he said or the growl that accompanied it. You looked up at the camera that was in a nearby corner and threw it a withering glance, feeling slightly betrayed by DAHLIA for telling James that.

Thankfully (or probably not), James isn't really looking for a response as he continues on.

"Моя звездная пыль (My stardust)," Russian slips out, bringing a chill up your spine as bits of Winter spills out from James' fingertips, "The witch got to you, didn't she?"

Goosebumps raised on your skin, and to your silence, James snarled. You can barely feel his teeth graze on your nape, and you really don't know if you should feel embarrassed or something else.

And wow, okay, maybe you should tell James to ease up on the "hug", because holy shit, his grip's getting tighter and it's starting to actually hurt.

(Ah, he might tear the stitches.)

"HYDRA сукa...! Я убью ее...!" (HYDRA bitch...! I'll kill her...!)

You huffed, still red in the face as he hasn't even nudged away from letting you go. You patted his forearm, signaling for him to loosen up his grip, and to his credit, he does. Barely, but it was still something. 

"I dunno what ya' just said in Russian, but I know what Hydra сукa means. No cussing in Russian, only in English."

He mumbles something incoherent into your shoulder, rubbing circles into your stomach with a tantalizingly slow speed. You coughed; in literally any other situation this would be one of the hottest things you've ever experienced, but considering that James was more Winter than James right now, and your stomach is literally burning in pain from the rubbing, you opted to ignore the fact that you really liked that James was this close and spoke up.

"Not to alarm you or anything, but uh, if you keep rubbing my stomach like that," your breath hitched, the pain starting to become a little too much, "I'm gonna pass out from the pain," you said, with clenched teeth.

(End of what I had written down. Anyways, not sure where I was gonna go from here.)

Ch. 17-20 are relatively short in terms of what I had written down.

Ch. 17 (Reconditioning) has 3 things typed down:

integrating the twins, thoughts of integrating bucky

supreme distrust between you and the twins

meanwhile maybe thoughts from twins abt you? you're around their age 

3rd bullet introduces the idea that they might be love interests. Maybe. Shrugs. That chapter would be heavier on the character developments of the twins, both as their own persons and their relationship with you, specifically. They don't like you because you're Tony's son, still some bitter feelings there, and you don't like them because... Well... there's just a lot of bad feelings. They helped kill J.A.R.V.I.S. in your original timeline. Wanda basically fucked off with Vision. She antagonized Tony. (And there is a hypocrisy there since I would've written you to have done the same thing there. (Name) isn't perfect.)

You just didn't get along with Pietro since, back when he wasn't dead, you were immature and not yet accustomed to dealing with people who're purposefully frustrating/ teasing/ mocking/ etc. Nothing really personal with him, it's Wanda that you had beef with. But you'll get over it one day.

Ch. 18 (Longstanding) is shorter.

you and james have a talk, and after a year or two being solitary, you agree that he should be in the avengers

he joins the avengers

That's it, that's the chapter.

Ch. 19 (Accountability) deals with newer Accords (not a Sokovian one! Just from the proposed need for accountability).

It goes better around this time, as basically all of the Avengers agree to it, with their own caveats of course. Steve especially, but of course, he's willing to work with the governments about it this time around. Also, Peter Parker gets introduced, in accordance with the "underaged enhanced/ superheroes" clause, or some bull like that.

Ch. 20 (Wakanda) is basically the intro to CA:CW but like, civilized. No bombing since Zemo still has his family. Introduces Wakanda, and T'Challa as a potential love interest. If you're interested in IronPanther, I highly recommend reading the IronPanther Collection by Okyverlo on AO3. It's great and got me a lot of interest in T'Challa as a love interest.

As for official chapters with the plot, that's about it. I wasn't sure what to do afterward.

There were some loose ideas I had about what would happen to (Name). Maybe the truth is revealed, that you're actually from the future, and Dr. Strange separates past and future you into two separate bodies. Future! you into your original future body, and past! you into the current body. Past! you still have the same memories and thoughts that future! you had, but with less angst. Future! you is noticeably more depressed and just a bummer. Lol.

And after that, 2023! you would go back to the future where you belonged, and Past! you would stay in the present since, duh, that's still Past! you's original timeline. It's a little confusing when I type it down haha.

I was thinking maybe 2023! you would pair up with Steve since you realized how burdensome it is to continue to resent someone. Now you understood what Tony meant.

And Past! you would definitely pair up with James, but maybe Steve too. A nice lil' polygamous relationship. 

Now here's the other, non-official chapters.

2 What If's, and 3 Specials, in the order they're listed at the moment.

What If (2013 Counterpart) plays with an initial idea I had, where Past! (Name) was actually sent into the future into 2023! (Name)'s body during the prologue. Not sure where I was gonna go with this chapter, but I really wanted to mess with that possibility, and show just how immature and teenager-y Past! you were.

What If (Swapped Places) plays with the idea that you and Tony, in the original timeline, had swapped places. You were on Titan with Spiderman, Dr. Strange, and the GOTG, while Tony was on Earth with everyone else. That's all I had planned. Maybe you actually won and managed to get the gauntlet off of Thanos when you realized that Peter Quill was about to go crazy over his ex's death, and you knocked him down in time.

Special (Find My Body, Only At The Oak Tree), deals with you and your depression over the reality that you might have to relive the blip again, and aside from the Avengers, you really don't have anyone else and nothing's worth really living for at this point. I actually have a lot written for this one. Not sure if I wanted this to be canon.

Trigger warning: suicidal tendencies.

(Below is the general idea I had for the plot.)

(names) birthdays across the years so far

we see slow mental deterioration of (name) as he aches

we see as we reach closer and closer to the deadline, (name) dreads even thinking about thanos and wants to die before even looking at him, a symbol of their failure 

lowkey highkey suicidal

___

The first time you celebrated your 17th birthday was in 2014. 

The second time you celebrated your 17th birthday was also in 2014... Obviously. 

The first time you celebrated your 17th birthday, the whole tower was flooded with people who you knew and people who you couldn't care to know. It was filled with what little was left of your friend group outside of the Avengers; it was also filled with the rich, the pompous, the irritating of New York.

You got into a yelling match with your dad that night, over something you couldn't even bother to remember, and stormed off into your room, fuming as the party still went on without their birthday boy present.

(It's always like that as if you're replaceable. Surely, you must be; the Avengers can and will, if need be, exist without you.)

The second time you celebrated your 17th birthday, you told your dad you wanted it to be small and personal. Only the Avengers were there, as a few days ago did you spend a pre-birthday celebration with some of your high school 'friends' (which only mainly consisted of playing Smash Bros Brawl in your room and eating an ungodly amount of junk food as you fake laughed along with their shitty jokes.) (Steve promptly made you burn those calories off in training.).

(What Steve doesn't know is that you purposefully ate that much to train with him; otherwise, you had the whole day off the next day.

You didn't want to be alone.)

It was sweet as everyone gave their gifts to you (which you already knew what it was, but said nothing of it), and as everyone got drunk off of the expensive liquor or Asgardian mead, you quietly snuck out of the building and back into the safe house where James was waiting for you.

(He waits, but how much of it is because he has no other choice?

It is not like that, you keep reminding yourself.

Who is to say, other than you?

James never says anything of it, and you start to wonder if he feels as if he has no choice.

As if he feels like he's been made another prisoner, once again.

At what point, what is separating the distinction between you and HYDRA, in his mind?

You're not too keen on finding out the answer anytime soon.)

The whole way there, you thought of nothing in particular.

You quietly celebrated with him too, shared a few slices of cake he made just for you before you quietly said goodnight to him. He kissed you on the cheek, said a simple goodnight, and slipped away into his own bedroom.

Meanwhile, you spent the rest of the night drinking too much alcohol, alone, in the dark of your room, staring at nothing in particular, thinking about nothing in particular.

The next morning, you jokingly wished you had just died last night as you're bent over the toilet emptying your stomach contents.

___

The first time you celebrated your 18th birthday, you spent it outside in another country with your friends.

The second time you celebrated your 18th birthday party, you rented out a bumper kart arena with the Avengers.

The first time you celebrated your 18th birthday, you tried desperately to hang onto the remaining friends you had outside of the Avengers, a chance to feel normal for once. You practically went hiking across Europe and into Asia over the week of your birthday, and by God did you visit so many places. From the Louvre to the casinos in New Deli, you trekked everywhere with your friends and acted as a cash pig for their endeavors under the guise of celebrating your birthday. Least to say, you always got 'accidentally' blackout drunk on multiple occasions, oblivious to their actions.

Later you found out and cut them off instantly without another word. They didn't seem to notice that you stopped talking to them.

It hurt.

Pointless of you to try to maintain that friendship.

So on your next 18th birthday, having long forgone those friendships ages ago, you suggested going bumper karting with the Avengers. Bruce operated as the 'coach' of sorts, but he seemed to have enjoyed it as well. 

It was fun, obviously.

It went on for a few hours, as you all had made up mini-games to play along with as they got bored of chasing after each other aimlessly for half an hour. A few games had you pairing up with some of the Avengers; the other had them actually using their skills to try to maim each other.

(Wanda at one point lifted everyone into the air as Pietro zoomed through the rink; though, he did slip and slam into the wall. Everyone laughed, but it was interrupted as Wanda promptly dropped everyone out of shock.

Everyone was too busy in their own shock as well to notice your labored breathes, wild crazed eyes, or how you clawed viciously at your throat at the sight of Wanda's red wisps. Your fingers were tinted a sick vermilion.

Thankfully, the arena was relatively dim, so no one could tell what just happened.)

It was fun. Everyone didn't hold their shoves back, and when things riled up, it turned into who would break a bone first. No one did, but everyone was definitely sore afterward. Of course, the enhanced ones didn't limp as much, but it made your limp nothing out of the ordinary.

(You tried your most damn not to just collapse completely, both exhaustion and pain threatening to snap your spine into little bits and pieces.

You jokingly wished it did.)

Thankfully, during the whole ordeal, no one noticed how you didn't avoid obvious hits, instead opting to just get harshly jostled in your kart and neck snapped haphazardly to the side at the sudden jolt. Or how you 'accidentally' keep forgetting to put on your seat belt or keep your fingers inside the kart.

Or at least, if they noticed, no one said anything as you limped around the tower the next day, bruises marred everywhere on your skin, a sheen of sweat blanketed on your skin throughout the whole day.

___

The first time you celebrated your 19th birthday, you were too swamped with both college and SI to actually... Celebrate.

You didn't even realize it was your birthday. No one did, actually; it took one of your professors to comment on how your name was trending on Twitter to actually get you to realize what the day was.

But even that didn't change your schedule, and as you moved on with your day, so did Twitter and the Avengers. 

You never got to celebrate your 19th birthday, too swamped with other things to care.

The second time you celebrated your 19th birthday, you had too much free time in the world.

It ended up being just like your 17th. The Avengers had a little get-together (they remembered this time; what made it so different?) and all of them got drunk wildly off their asses. Once again, you slipped away from the main lounge, and stalked silently, blank-faced, towards a balcony.

You adjusted your collar appropriately and stood there. You stared outside into the bustling busy streets of New York, the city that never sleeps.

(Strange, that it's named that when often times it's the quietest whenever you're there to see it.)

You spend maybe 10 minutes standing there, staring into the oblivion that is New York.

And then, you climbed onto the railings.

Standing there, there was no rush of adrenaline that coursed its way through your veins, nor was there any fear or dread.

Only an overwhelming and crippling exhaustion that made waves through your body. No longer are you in your 19-year-old body, but your 27th. No longer are you in your younger, former self; one that shone brightly above the others, aspiring as both a heroic figure and one that would help pave the way towards a better, peaceful world.

No, instead, your soul feels like it's settled deep into your bones, an aching tire that keeps rocking and rattling at your already fractured, beaten down body, laughing at how pathetic you look.

(You're so tired.

You just wanted to live normally.

You never can, you eventually come to realize on your first 24th birthday.

That thought, now fully realized, would come to permeate it's way deep into your bones.)

All you wanted to do was to just take one step forward, off of the railing that you're so delicately balanced upon, and dive into air headfirst.

Really, all it takes is just one step.

And truly, you've never felt more at peace as your body dropped from the railings, descended quickly towards the streets below you.

What should've been a quick few seconds of a dive felt like an eternity drowning in a bottomless pool. The lights of New York flashed and beamed at you, but it changed rapidly from one to another. Your throat closes, shuttering, and you want so desperately to start screaming.

Only, no one would hear them. 

The winds would carry away your screams, rushing a sound of its own that would overpower yours.

You wonder, absently, was this similar to what Rhodey felt that day? 

Well.

You'd never really find out, now, will you?

Too late to ask.

(There's no way to get back home.

You can never see Morgan again- the Morgan that called you her big Care Bear, the Morgan that cried and threw a temper tantrum because you forgot to give her a goodnight kiss. 

You can never see mom and dad again- while they're still here, it's just not the same. You'll never get to see the same Pepper who was so relieved just to see you alive after the Battle of Wakanda, even if you were practically on your death bed. You'll never get to see the same Tony who you spent hours crying into the shoulder of after the Blip.

You can never see the same Steve, Natasha, Rhodey, anyone, ever again. 

Years spent just trying to be better, to help the world, to mend and build any relationships you could, gone.

And even if they weren't?

There's just no way to get back home anymore. Not back to the person you used to be.)

The next day, you got an earful from your parents when photos of your falling body appear all over the internet. All the meanwhile, you're not really listening to them, just staring right back at them.

Odd.

('When did you start looking at me with contempt?', you'd ask one day.

Tony just stares at you, then out the window. In his hand, he's holding a cup of coffee; in yours, water. You've since stopped drinking anything remotely sugary, caffeinated, or alcoholic, though you've never told anyone why.

'When did you start mistaking concern with contempt.', he responded, though it was more of a statement rather than a question.

You stared at him, then followed his gaze out the window. 

Neither of you says anything, even as the hours go by in the blink of an eye.)

(That's all I had written down so far. Not sure where I wanted to go with this afterwards.)

Special (Vapidity, Testament To Absence) deals with future DAHLIA realizing what it means to mourn someone.

The house is empty.

It is an irrelevant thought, DAHLIA notes.

Technically speaking, the house has been empty quite often than not; after all, you were a busy man with an equally busy schedule. Being the CEO of SI and a huge contributing factor to the world's rebuilding made it more or less impossible for you to stay at home for long. Though, she also doesn't linger long in the house, either. But she's still there regardless, even if she's also with you on the other side of the planet for diplomatic reasons.

She knows of the emptiness inside this house; it was never an unfamiliar concept.

But with this emptiness, she's never once associated loneliness with it either. 

It's a bit better when Virginia occasionally comes around to the house to do some maintenance. She might even bring along little Morgan with her.

("You keep saying she's a pest, but I know I sure as hell ain't the one that keeps shifting the TV to the kids' channels when she's around," you comment, not even taking your eyes off of the pan. DAHLIA says nothing towards your accusations, instead opting to tell you that you're burning your eggs.

You aren't, but she says nothing amidst your panic.)

A few others occasionally visit, too, much to DAHLIA's internal disapproval.

Rogers used to visit every day ever since she first noted the emptiness. His behavior was also peculiar. He'd prowl around the house, pausing here and there at random parts of the house. He'd often just... Stand there, seemingly looking at nothing for a long period, before jolting back and continue what he was doing. She's thankful that he hasn't noted her silence when he's around.

Often Banner would come along too, and he'd be talking quietly with Rogers. As of recently, they've stopped visiting though. Probably because of the recent news (that (Name) might still be alive, just lost in time), DAHLIA almost bitterly notes.

James ("Just call him Rhodey- literally no one calls him James nowadays." you laugh, eyes crinkling with amusement) visits too. He doesn't linger for long, but he makes sure to check up on DAHLIA, help tend to the flowers... She'd even dare say she wishes he'd visit more often.

Peter also visits here and there as well. He often comes with Morgan and Virginia, but there have been a few occasions where he's come here by himself. He'd spend most of his time in the garden, your favorite place. And when he's alone, she'd given him privacy out of respect, but even at a long distance, she can hear him talking by himself. He'd come back eyes red and swollen, but he's always smiling afterward.

A few others have visited too, but not as often as the others. Though, none of that really helps negate the emptiness she feels as she wordlessly navigates through a routine she devoted herself to after your disappearance.

And the final chapter, Special (Chemically Compromised) is basically a fluff filler with (Name) chaperoning Peter's field trip, inspired by an Instagram post.

Written in bits and pieces, unfinished. Not sure if I wanted it to be romantic (the name implies it in a nerdy way) or just a fun, platonic, "dude you're literally embarrassing me" way.

(Peter) "I can't believe you're doing this...!"

(Name) "What? What's wrong with this?"

Pan to (Name) dressing like he's a Typical, Normal Civilian Man, but it's clearly (Name) Stark, son of Tony Stark, and an Avenger.

(Peter) "I don't need you to chaperone my field trip...! May could've done this-"

(Name) "No, she really couldn't, sweetheart. She's got a busy shift, and even told me that no one else's parents was free."

(Name) "Listen- this really could have gone worse if, say, Tony, knew. God knows Tony would've dropped everythin' and just embarrass ya- he did that shit to me every chance he got," Peter winces, almost forgetting that Tony was still your dad, and a chill ran up his spine as he imagined what it would have been like for you. 

(Peter) "But still..."

(Name) "Don't worry, I'll just wear a cap and sunglasses."

(Peter) "That can't possibly work."

(Name) "You'd be surprised- Sam's standin' down there, right near that phone booth."

Peter's head snapped over to where you were pointing at, and indeed, right on the floors of the Manhattan streets, there was a relatively built black guy that's wearing a cap, sunglasses, and a brown leather jacket. Peter tilted his head.

He hasn't been around Sam all that much, but he still knows what the Avenger looked like. But even then, he wasn't sure if that man was actually Sam. He's built right, but Peter can't see much of his hair or eyes. Plus, he's kind of far away.

He squinted at the man, before glancing back at you, now unsure of himself.

(Peter) "That's really the Falcon?"

You stared at him, before snorting.

(Name) "Nah, I'm joshin' ya, that's just some random guy...", you glance at the man, sniffing, "... Probably."

That's... pretty much it. That's all I had for Restart, as far as writing goes.

Now here are some closing thoughts, just to wrap all of this up nice and tight, sort of.

I'm not really happy with how the initial chapters were paced and how they were written. My writing style has mildly changed, and if I had the motivation to, I'd love to rewrite them. But alas, I don't.

I think about this story often; or at least, variations of it. It's like when you daydream, and you restart it but to the left. But unfortunately, writing a plot without too many plot holes while remaining as canonically correct as possible, and making it interesting without being a complete word-by-word remake of the movies, is difficult.

I'm not sure if I would ever pick up this story again, especially since this whole chapter told you what I had in store anyways. 

Thank you to those who took the time out of their day to write nice and encouraging comments about this story. It's unfortunate it had to end this way, but I'm glad it happened anyways. And hopefully, it's the same for you.

And remember: the one thing writers love to do is talk about their story! If you have any other comments, questions, or just general thoughts about the story, I'd love to discuss it further!

Anyways. If you're reading this now, thanks for sticking with Restart for as long as you did.

_____

Masterlist

_____

I know I had people on the tagged list, but it’s a bit hard to get them all as URL’s change, so I opted not to. Sorry!

[apocxlypticangel]

achievement unlocked🔓: [lovers]

SERIES (1/?) THIS IS THE PROLOGUE WHILST I FINISH WRITING THE FIRST PART.

Please let me know what you think.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x clumsygamergirl!Reader, eventually gamerboy!Bucky x clumsygamergirl!Reader

Spoilers: Probably none, I’m taking my Bucky Inspiration from before TFAWS so unless you haven’t seen any of the movies you should be good. Basically long-haired Bucky because my whole being belongs to his beautiful hair.

Warnings: This is probably just going to be pure fluff, MAYBE smut. I’ll add warnings as I write the series. Probably cursing.(Edit: most definitely, alot of cursing)

Author’s note: i thought of this cute idea and figured it’d be a oneshot but decided to turn it into a series. aha. along with the other two series ideas i have 💀 anyways, i thought this was cute so i hope y’all like it.

18+ puh-lease! Thank you!

Bucky had never met a girl like you. He was bewildered by you. You were brash, unashamed and you cussed like a soldier from his time in the army. He thought dames weren’t supposed to act like that, but he guessed times really had changed. He had been alive for nearly 110 years, but never had he ever met someone so badass yet... such a fucking hot mess -Sam’s words not his-. You may have been able to take out six Hydra agents in three minutes and were one of the only people to actually win against Steve and himself whilst sparring- with nothing but your bare fists. But, my god, were you a fucking clumsy dumbass when not in the field.

So much so Bucky found himself grimacing and groaning watching you go about your day to day life. You cooked something? You burnt the fuck out of yourself. Walking-literally anywhere-you were always tripping and splitting your lip or giving yourself a concussion. He knew you were making tea when you screamed, “Fuck! That’s fucking hot as balls!” because you dropped your spoon into the cup and couldn’t wait for it to cool before sticking your fingers in to fish out the spoon . You consistently had your nose buried in what Peter Parker told him was a.. Nintendo Gameboy?? Whatever that was. You literally couldn’t get the thing out of your fucking face, walking straight into people, doors, counters, chairs, falling down the stairs- or up occasionally. Trips to the med-bay were made almost everyday on your behalf.

Mostly, Bucky just watched you embarrass yourself- even though you were never embarrassed, you always just laughed your failures away. He couldn’t figure it out, he’d be so ashamed he’d want to die if he wiped out consistently like you did. He asked you why you didn’t just take your head out of your “video games” and pay attention to the real world one day, and your answer most definitely confused him even more.

You looked up at him with a slightly bleeding busted lip and a knot that was darkly bruised on the top right of your forehead and simply stated, “My entire life, I’ve always known that living inside a fantasy world was better than real life. I mean, look at what you’ve been through, Barnes. Wouldn’t you rather escape it for a day instead of facing everything head on without a break? Why should I be ashamed of living in my own world and being clumsy in the real one; when I could care less about boring day to day life?”

He didn’t get it. I mean, sure it sounded nice to have a break from the consistent pain he was in, but how does one completely lose themselves into something fictional??? He didn’t have the facilities to do that back in his day.

He didn’t understand you, but he definitely wanted to. So he made a vow to actually spend time with you and get to know the things you were interested in. Little did he know, you’d suck him into your fantasy world too and then you’d pull each other out, finding real life with each other was much better than fantasy.

[worldspinsmadly]

OKAY! This is going to be an extreeeemely long post with my various WandaVision theories! SPOILERS ahead for episodes 1-5, so tread carefully if you haven’t seen them yet! Also, buckle in for a lot of reading haha...

- Agnes is Agatha Harkness

This theory is pretty widely accepted but in case you haven’t heard it yet/need a reminder of what the theory is: Agatha Harkness is a witch in the comic books. She is an agent of Mephisto (basically the devil in the MCU, a sorcerer who is super powerful & does trades/grants wishes but in a monkey’s paw kind of way) and also acts as Wanda’s mentor when she is training. She is there to help Wanda realize her full potential. Reasons for this theory being accepted are:

1. Agnes = AGatha HarkNESs

Pretty self explanatory, this one.

2. One piece of evidence everyone likes to point to is that Agnes is ALWAYS wearing a brooch, much like Agatha. 

In a similar vein, Agnes dresses up like a witch in the Halloween episode (which we get tonight!!). The third comic-y reason is that she says her anniversary with Ralph (whom we NEVER see) is June 2nd, which is the start of the Salem Witch Trials. Agatha Harkness was one of the witches at Salem.

3. She (especially in episode 5) keeps showing up at the exact right time to help Wanda however she needs it. Examples include her showing up to welcome Wanda to the neighborhood and plan the dinner with Vision, bringing her along to the neighborhood planning committee, helping Wanda with the boys (showing up when they’re crying, the doghouse). She is always there, basically acting as a guide for Wanda in the town.

3. She knows that this is a fake world and that Wanda has some control over what happens. This is most clearly evidenced in episode 5 when she says “Do you want me to run that again?” She also doesn’t notice/care that Wanda has magic, which anyone else in the town would. Also - anyone else notice how she overacts constantly? (In a good way - I love Kathryn Hahn)

Which brings me to theory two:

Agnes/Agatha Harkness is the one in control, not Wanda - or at the very least, is using her power to try to influence Wanda’s actions.

1. Agatha is an agent of Mephisto. I think that she is acting on his orders to make this town and Wanda’s life in it the way that it is. Multiple reasons for this, but the main one for me is episode 5 (On A Very Special Episode), she clearly has control over/intimate knowledge of what’s happening inside the WandaVis household. How else would she know to show up when the twins are crying, or when they bring in a new dog? Other sketch things:

2. The boys only ever age up (or attempt to age up) when Agnes is there. I think that she is the one who is making them do that. If she can control every single person in town’s actions and speech, who’s to say she can’t control and manipulate the magic twins’ powers as well?

3. She clearly* killed Sparky, likely in order to try to help Wanda realize how powerful she really is and bring in the idea that she can bring people back to life. It may even be possible that Agnes wants to bring back a specific person but can’t without Wanda’s powers. *To me, it’s clear, because when she walked into the kitchen, Sparky almost killed himself with the electricity but didn’t, and then of course she “found him” in her azaleas.

4. Norm never specifies who “she” is that’s in his head.

MOVING ON TO THEORY THREE:

SWORD and (Acting) Director Hayward are sketchy as fuck, and likely are doing some evil shit and trying to pin it on Wanda.

I don’t mean this to say that SWORD is the organization that put the town in the hex, or is the one that is controlling everything that's happening, but I think it's very clear that there's something going on behind the scenes that they don't want us to know. There are lots of different ways that you can see this, but some of the ones that are most important are as follows:

1. SWORD is clearly developing weapons which Monica highlights when she says, “it also says observation and response on that door not creation.” This is apparently against the mission of SWORD itself, which does not lead to a super trustworthy organization.

2. Director Hayward is clearly trying to place blame on Wanda for things she either didn’t do or didn’t control. The clearest example of this is when he is giving his speech in Episode 5 after Monica comes back, and Jimmy Woo was speaking. Hayward keeps interrupting to explain how Wanda is evil - she joined Hydra (as Jimmy says, it’s more complicated than that), she purposefully hurt people in Lagos (it was an accident), she fought against the Avengers (before gaining their trust and joining them). (Also, side note, I love Jimmy Woo and how kind he is. We need more Jimmy Woo in the MCU). 

3. The video that he shares of Wanda breaking into SWORD...not a single. person. in the SWORD lobby turns, notices, or reacts at all to Wanda walking in, violently throwing open doors, and basically stealing a corpse. I don’t know about you, but if I worked in a secure and secretive government facility, and a rogue Avenger that’s been gone for 5 years just suddenly appeared and was using her powers to break down doors and steal a secret project, I’d probably at LEAST turn and look. 

3a. I’m honestly not even sure that that’s Wanda vs. a body double, like, there’s a reason that the only power they showed was her opening a door, breaking glass, and gently coming down into the room - all things that can be easily faked. You’re telling me that SWORD, in all their advanced tech, space travel, science, money, you’re telling me that the best visuals they have are 1. barely in color 2. blurry and 3. don’t show close-ups of her face? I think that it wasn’t Wanda who took Vision’s body, and I think the footage was fabricated. 

4. CLEARLY - SWORD has been experimenting on Vision. Whether to revive him, recreate his technology, whatever, it is explicitly stated that that is against his living will and the Sokovia Accords. IF (and I think it’s a big if...) Wanda did violently break in to steal his body, it would likely be to protect him and make sure he is being honored, not make him into a weapon. 

NEXT THEORY!

VISION IS ALIVE - and no, Wanda is not just puppeteering his corpse (this is one of the worst theories I’ve heard about WandaVision and I hate it and if I never hear it again it’ll be too soon)

1. I have several reasons to think this. First, if he weren’t alive, why would we have so many scenes of just Vision, or scenes where Vision is figuring out that something is wrong?

2. In the trailers, we see Vision leaving the boundaries of the hex (to be fair, I haven’t watched any of the new trailers, because I don’t want any spoilers) - BUT - how could he do that if he weren’t his own being?

3. I genuinely do not think that Marvel is going to make us watch Vision die again. Not a third time.

How is he alive? I think that there’s obviously an extreme amount of Mind Stone energy within Wanda, and I’m sure that there’s a world in which she could transfer some of that energy to Vision and help bring him back. Not entirely sure of the methodology to be fair, but I just have a feeling in my heart.

OKAY ON TO RANDOM THEORIES THAT I BELIEVE BUT HAVE NO EVIDENCE FOR:

1. Monica came out of the Hex with powers - my only reasoning being that her brain scan and her blood draws were both inconclusive/blank.

2. Wanda isn’t lying when she says she doesn’t know how this started or what’s happening. I think she has more control than most people in town, but I think that’s more that she is a little tuned in to the frequencies of the town than that she started it all. But I really think that Agnes is in control.

3. OH PIETRO - He’s the Evan Peters Quicksilver instead of ATJ (rip) because Agnes had to search through the multiverse for him - she can’t bring people back to life (Wanda can though...ATJ i’m holding out hope...). So anyway, she just searched through the universes and found the closest thing to Pietro that she could.

4. Aerospace engineer that Monica knows might be Reed Richards aka Mr. Fantastic. (The Fantastic 4 and the X-Men have a long history with Agatha Harkness, so it would make sense to bring those characters in now that Disney is able to)

5. Dottie is also a witch - she’s not identified on the magnet board with the other townspeople, she’s in control of some things.

6. Hayward might be Mephisto in disguise, who knows.

7. Magneto is going to come back at the end of the series i have no real reason to believe this

8. I don’t trust the post man.

OKAY THAT’S ALL I have to go back to work and this is way too long please send me all your theories :)

[stark-tony]

Uhm hi I am in desperate need of iron dad and spiderson fics. ASAP Or I might actually die. Pls help

i’m not for sure what type you want but here are some that I’ve read recently

* = incomplete

irondad bingo series* by hailingstars

summary:

pairings: pepperony, happy/may

tags: fluff

warnings: none

heart and nerve and sinew series* by blondsak

summary: 

pairings: none

tags: angst, hurt/comfort, fluff 

warnings: hydra, kidnapping, non-consensual drug use

Up Came the Sun series* by WhimsicalEthnographies

summary:

pairings: pepperony, stucky

tags: fluff, hurt/comfort, angst

warnings: none

irondad bingo 2019 series* by sahiya

summary: 

pairings: happy/may, pepperony, ned/peter

tags: hurt/comfort, angst

warnings: torture

a very, merry unbirthday by ciaconnaa

summary: “What’s all this, huh?” Peter asks. His eyes don’t leave the table as he wanders over to stand by where Tony is sitting, wrapping him in a gentle hug and pushing his head into his chest. Tony smiles before he tugs gently on the sleeve. Peter gets the message and leans down, allowing Tony to kiss his temple in greeting.

“You threw me a birthday party,” Peter accuses, smile going all dopey.

“An unbirthday party,” Morgan corrects. “Like in Alice in Wonderland. For all the ones you missed!”

pairings: pepperony

tags: fluff

warnings: none

The Hoodie™* by coconutknightshade

summary: The one in which Tony overhears Peter telling his roommate that the MIT hoodie he’s wearing is his dads.The one in which Peter never plans to call Tony ‘dad’ to his face but the universe has other plans.

pairings: pepperony, happy/may

tags: fluff

warnings: none

A Parent Apparent* by happyaspie

summary: In which the author indulges herself in some shameless Irondad/Spiderson with fluff, angst and everything in between because she needs more of that in her life. 

OR

Just another one of those, oh so overdone, fanfics where Tony and Peter’s relationship grows into more of a father/son relationship after an accident involving Aunt May (who lives)

pairings: pepperony

tags: fluff, angst, hurt/comfort

warnings: none

oh, darling. by luna_e_stelle

summary: "Peter?“ Tony’s voice wavered with an urgency that cut through the thick haze in Peter’s mind.

There was so much emotion in that one word that Peter wondered how he had ever doubted that Tony loved him. They had never said it out loud, just showed it in a way that spoke louder than words ever could.

–

Peter is taken, and he tries to find his way back home.

pairings: none

tags: angst, hurt/comfort

warnings: torture, kidnapping, non-consensual drug use

Metamorphosis by art_deco_deity

summary: How Peter Parker changed Tony Stark; seen through the eyes of one Pepper Potts.

pairings: pepperony

tags: fluff

warnings: none

Sunlight by ArdenSkyeHolmes221

summary: “Stop pouting and ignoring me. You’re giving me a complex.”

“I am— I’m not pouting,” he sputters, avoiding his father’s gaze.

 “Oooh, but you are ignoring me.”

***

Or the one where Peter struggles reintegrating in his own life after his dad lived five years without him.

pairings: pepperony

tags: fluff, angst

warnings: none

forty miles by peterstank

summary: “I love you,” Peter says. “Father-son styles.” 

Or: the one where Morgan is sick and Tony is in way over his head, so he calls his spiderson for a little bit of help.

pairings: none

tags: fluff, hurt/comfort, angst

warnings: none

A Little Monument of Stones by YellowDistress

summary: Russia’s royal family has been executed. The little prince is presumed dead.

That is until a boy is brought to Stark Manor, alive, thousands of miles away in rural England.

pairings: none

tags: hurt/comfort

warnings: none

How to Repair a Broken Heart* by InfluentialPineapple

summary: The Mechanic has a lot on his plate; Thanos is coming, the Guardians of the Galaxy are marooned, Thaddeus Ross is reaching right down his throat, and a budding super hero deserves his full attention. He’s also dying. No big deal. He can fix it. He can fix anything. 

And he can do it all without even opening that stupid phone.

 Now, where did those notes on Extremis go…?

(06/25/19: expect an update within a week, and I thank you all for your patience!)

pairings: pepper/ happy

tags: angst, hurt/comfort

warnings: torture, suicidal thoughts, alcoholism 

Outsider by PinkEasterEggs

summary: “You know,” his Dad mused when they were halfway through the bread and the ducks were all swimming around them. “I used to come here during the 5 years when you were … gone.”

Peter didn’t know what to say, he’d half expected his Dad to of brought Morgan.

 “I never brought any bread,” Tony sighed. “I just sat on that park bench for hours. I thought about bringing Morgan one year but … i wanted this place to be ours and ours only.”

Peter couldn’t even say how much that meant to him. 

“You’ve changed,” Peter admitted. His Dad had created a whole new life for himself, one that Peter wasn’t really sure where he fit. All of his stuff had been thrown out and the Tower was sold. 

“I know,” Tony sighed, ducking his head down to kiss Peter’s crown. “But i’ll always be your Dad.“ 

Peter tries to find his place in the world after the Avengers defeated Thanos. As much as he knows he’s loved, he can’t shake the feelings of being replaced when he comes into a new world where his father is now married and had another child.

(No Spider-Man Far From Home Spoilers)

 #10: Biological Child

pairings: pepperony

tags: angst

warnings: none

Appendicitis by tommyparkerr

summary: In which Peter doesn’t realize until too late that the flu shouldn’t be this painful, and Tony Stark is right there to both lecture and comfort him (and accidentally call him his kid in the process).

pairings: none

tags: hurt/comfort

warnings: none

Allston Christmas by Gruoch

summary: “You guys didn’t have to do this,” Peter says from where he sits squeezed into the middle seat of the U-Haul, sweat running down his back. The air-conditioning in the truck they’ve rented is broken, and even with the windows rolled down it’s hellishly hot inside. “Really. I could have handled it myself.”

“We wanted to,” Tony replies as he blasts the horn at a minivan with a “Harvard Mom” bumper sticker that is attempting to cut into his lane. “It’s like a little trip down memory lane. It’s nostalgic—it’s gonna be fun. Right, Rhodey?”

“Absolutely,” Rhodey agrees, with all the enthusiasm of a man being lead to the gallows.

pairings: none

tags: fluff, humor

warnings: none

who ya gonna call? by pparker (vaselseok)

summary: He shrieks and stumbles backward on instinct, slipping in the soapy water. His arms flail out in hopes of catching himself, but instead he snags the shower curtain and ends up ripping it free from the rod as he crashes to the ground. A split second later, the metal rod smacks into his nose. 

 “…Ow.”

 Or, Peter thinks he’s being haunted, and Tony’s just trying to get through the week.

pairings: pepperony

tags: fluff, humor

warnings: none

Do Spiderlings Dream of Iron Sheep?* by blondsak

summary: A mission leaves Peter with narcolepsy. Tony may or may not be freaking out.

pairings: none

tags: humor, angst

warnings: none

chocolate chip cookies (alternate words for i love you) by hopeless_hope

summary: Being a superhero, Tony has come to expect a lot of things. He can’t really afford to be surprised by too much; being flexible is just part of the job. Aliens attacking New York? Sure. People threatening to attack his home? Not uncommon. A teenage spider-kid baking cookies in his kitchen at almost three in the morning?

Completely unexpected.

“You know, kid, when I said you’re welcome to anything in the kitchen, this isn’t quite what I was expecting,” Tony says dryly.

-

The evolution of Peter and Tony’s relationship, as told through late night conversations and chocolate chip cookies. aka 5 times Peter baked cookies for himself and Tony and 1 time Tony did the baking.

pairings: none

tags: hurt/comfort, angst

warnings: none

It Hurts to Become by seekrest

summary: “Peter, what is going on with you?”

 Tony sees the look in Peter’s eyes – can recognize the hint of something burrowing behind them. A look of someone who is distracted but is desperately trying to focus. 

Peter looked exhausted, more than usual. Something’s off with the kid, he’d noticed it but now – watching Peter as it seemingly took all of his attention to focus on Morgan – caused something akin to regret to churn in his stomach. 

Something was wrong with Peter.

pairings: michelle/peter

tags: angst

warnings: none

The Chilling Realities Of Hunting And Being Hunted by Buckets_Of_Stars

summary: All Peter and Tony had to do was cross the mountains. That’s it. Just climb a few hills and get to the Convention. They didn’t count on the snow, or the wind, or the fact that neither of them have cell service.

 And they definitely didn’t count on the fact that they would be hunted—stalked—as they sit, freezing and shaking, on the side of the road.

pairings: none

tags: angst, hurt/comfort

warnings: none

For Pete’s Sake! by KitCat992

summary: Maybe he’d feel better if he closed his eyes, just for a second. It was too dark to see anything clearly anyway, and he’d be able to concentrate better without seeing how fast the ground was coming up to meet him. 

A rush of wind sent goosebumps across his skin before two strong hands gripped his shoulders tightly, keeping him upright and from nose-diving straight into the alleyway cement.

Peter snapped his eyes open, blinking a couple times to clear his vision. Everything was blurry. Was that…?

“…ice cream man!?”

pairings: pepperony

tags: hurt/comfort

warnings: none

[marvel-lucy]

The Fall, chapter 20 - THE END!

Yes, you read that right, I’ve only gone and flipping finished this fic! Fluff ahoy!

I’m not saying it’s any good, ‘cos it isn’t, but it’s complete, and that fills me with satisfaction anyway!

Complete story Masterlist is here

Steve just sat there. She couldn’t read his face at all; he was hiding his emotions too well.  She wasn’t sure what she’d expected – anger that she was meddling, anger that Bucky was giving up perhaps? Maybe pity that Bucky couldn’t walk away, or even confusion at the idea. Then he blinked, and his face changed, and she saw… sorrow. His eyes, usually so clear, glinted with unshed tears and he looked down so that she might not see his weakness. He reached for his glass, took a drink to steady himself, then pushed the plate away and looked up.

‘He told you that? That he wants to stop?’ She nodded, unsure where this was going to end up. Steve’s shoulders suddenly dropped, as if all he’d been holding a hundred years of tension and it had been taken from him at last, and he smiled, although his mouth shook as if he was breaking. ‘I never thought he’d find it…’ he said, but he seemed to be talking to himself, his eyes unfocussed now.

‘Steve?’  Her voice broke into his thoughts and he met her eyes.

‘He wouldn’t stop, he couldn’t… you’re right, he’s been trying to make amends, but he never thought he could, he never would have felt it was enough, whatever he did, until he’d given every last bit of himself. And he never had to…’ His voice was shaking now, and thick with emotion. ‘He never had anything to atone for; it wasn’t him, all those years. He never needed to…’

He dropped his head and she heard him draw in shaky breaths, trying to control himself.  She reached out, gently put her hand on his where it lay, tight fist, on the table top.  Another breath in, and she saw the Captain re-emerge, shoulders back, stoic and unshaken.  It was his way of hiding the scared kid from Brooklyn, she knew now, always had been. For all his years, his strength, his successes and fame, inside he saw himself as Bucky’s small friend, the Captain was just a front.

‘He never had a reason to stop before, that was bigger than his reason to carry on.  He’s found one now, something that matters more to him, that feels more important, that outweighs the burden he’s been carrying’. His hand relaxed, turned over and held hers softly.  Her hand looked so small in his but she never felt any threat from him.

‘I think he’s just tired Steve. This last accident, he’s recovering more slowly than before, you said. Maybe he knows now that his body’s ageing, that the serums effects are petering off.  He just wants to rest.’ Steve cocked his head at her, one eyebrow raised. ‘That’s what he said, he doesn’t want to fight any more, but he was afraid to tell you.’

Steve laughed at that, but there was little humour in it.

‘He was carrying on because he didn’t want to let me down?’ She nodded. ‘I kept going for him. If he was determined to save the world a hundred times, to make up for what he did when he was under Hydra control, I was going to be alongside him every single time. ‘Til the end of the line…’

‘He said that too.’ She said, and smiled at him.  She felt almost dizzy with relief, that maybe Bucky could let himself be at peace, finally. She remembered a conversation they’d had, weeks before, over Bucky’s silent body in the hospital. ‘Looks like you both took the stupid with you.’

Steve laughed out loud at that, real happiness in his eyes now, then quickly closed his mouth, afraid to wake Bucky, recovering on the couch. But Bucky had been awake since they’d sat down at the table, the sound of quiet conversation, chairs scraping, plates clattering, reaching through his exhaustion.  He’d enjoyed lying there, not really listening in, just revelling in the feeling of being alone with the two people he cared about the most in this world, knowing they cared for him. It wasn’t until he heard her say his name that his attention was caught.  don’t know if he’ll hate me for telling you… he heard, and wondered what on earth she could be going to say if she thought he could ever hate her. He heard what she told Steve, and for a moment there was white-hot anger, but it wasn’t for her, it was for himself, for daring to dream; then fear, cold as ice in his spine, waiting for Steve’s response.

And then… and then. He squeezed his eyes closed then opened them wide to convince himself he was awake. He was, and Steve was ready to rest now too.

‘Punk’. The voice from the couch startled them both.  Bucky’s hand appeared first, gripping the back of the couch to pull himself up, then his face, eyes matching Steve’s with unshed tears. ‘You punk. You really are too dumb not to run away from a fight. And you did keep the uniform too.’

She looked on confused, and then delighted, as Steve’s face broke into a smile, and he vaulted over the back of the couch to pull his oldest friend into a hug, both men slapping each other on the back repeatedly.

They talked, Steve and Bucky, perhaps more honestly than they had for years.  For too long, both had tiptoed around each other, misunderstanding building on misunderstanding. Bucky, for too long, had been seeking redemption and forgiveness, always looking for the next mission he could complete, as if one day he really would be able to say ‘that’s enough, the books are balanced now’, and while Steve had kept fighting, figurehead for security across the world, he’d not dared say that he deserved to rest. And Steve, watching Bucky throwing himself without care into every fight, had determined that he had to stay alongside, reminding Bucky that he wasn’t alone. And neither had ever stopped to ask themselves if this was the right decision.

They re-hashed old missions, both slightly incredulous at each other’s takes on what had happened. I thought you were… and I was only doing it because…  She leant against the wall behind them, watching them find each other again, from where they’d been hiding behind a façade of bravery and service. After a few minutes, she quietly picked up her things and left. Nodding to the security guard on the way out, a now familiar face, she hailed a cab and set off for home.

It was only a few minutes later that Bucky realised she’d gone.  He spoke to the AI, asking if she was still in the building, hoping that she’d just stepped out for a second, but she wasn’t in the building.

‘It’s her isn’t it?’ Steve asked. He was looking more at ease than he had in decades, slouched low on the couch, long legs stretched out in front of him, burdens laid aside.  ‘She thinks you’re just tired – and you are, I know – but it’s not just not wanting to die, is it? You’ve found something you want to live for.’ Bucky smiled, squeezed Steve’s shoulder.

‘She kissed me, y’know. Today.  I’m not saying it’s my first kiss in 70 years, but… it is.  Not that much time for romance in Hydra’. It wasn’t often that Bucky could laugh about his past, but it seemed as if she’d changed everything.

‘You’re blushing Buck. Is that what I used to look like, back in Brooklyn?’ Steve teased him gently, and Bucky smiled.

‘Like this, but much, much smaller Stevie.’

-

She went back to her apartment, and for a moment it felt unfamiliar, she spent so much time at the Tower now.  The air was dusty and over-hot, and she felt suddenly stifled.  She flung open the windows, wanting to breathe in the world, she suddenly felt so light.  Unable to sit still, she paced, picking up then putting down items without paying attention. In her room, she took a moment to inspect her plant – his plant, his gift – and carried it through to the kitchen to water.  With the plant in the sink, she reached into the cupboard for a glass for herself, and her hand found Max’s cup, put back away at the back of the cupboard, too painful to see.  She pulled it out, ran her thumb over his teethmarks, and waited for the pain to come. It did, but it was gentler than it had been for a long time, and she had to steady herself for a moment.  It would never stop hurting, but somehow she would live with it, she knew. She would look at his photos, and remember the four years before, and not that one night. She put the cup back, hands shaking slightly, found another glass and drank.

She paced a little more, unsure what to do with herself, her mind racing. She had kissed Bucky, he had fallen asleep on her. Steve had said it was time, that it was OK for them to stop now.  The future suddenly lay too wide open to contemplate. She wasn’t sure where she would fit into it now.

Her doorbell buzzed. She picked up the handset, said hello? and heard the voice she’d been hoping it would be.  It’s Bucky. She quickly moved to press the button, hearing the door downstairs bang open, and footsteps hurrying up the stairs.  She opened her apartment door at the same time he arrived, and they stood for a second looking at each other, then she stepped back, giving him space to walk in.

She closed her door and turned slowly, suddenly awkward now they were alone, but Bucky had found his voice, felt freer than he had for so long.

‘We talked, me and Stevie. He says its time, there’s others who need to step up now, time to put down the fight, and move on. He says he’s been wanting to for a long while now. Knowing Stevie, he’s gonna do something dramatic, handing over his shield all showy, reckon I know who he’s gonna give it to too.  Me, I don’t want all the show. I’m done, that’s it. Can’t say I know what I’m going to do next, how I’ll fill my time, but I don’t care. I’ve fought my last fight, picked up my last weapon. My service is over.’

He stepped forward, picked up her hands with his, felt her fingers tremble slightly.  He knew she was still broken inside, but over the time he’d known her, she’d pieced much of herself back together.  The joins were visible, and perhaps they’d never be as strong as she once had been, but she was tougher than she knew.

‘I’ve given enough. I’ve paid my debts. Maybe not everyone will agree I should be allowed to, but I’m choosing happiness.’

Before, she had taken the lead, reaching up and kissing him, but this time he leant down, softly holding the back of her head in his left hand. The hand that had been torn from him in the war, replaced with a machine, upgraded and improved, but so often used to kill. Now he let it hold something so precious, knew that it could be gentle as well. He lifted his right hand, used it to stroke some hair off her face, silky against his fingers. For a moment, he wish he’d shaved, wish he was the clean-cut sergeant he’d once been before shipping out, but it was too late now, and he didn’t think she’d mind.  

She felt his hands moving gently on her face, but her eyes were closed.  A slight rasp against her skin was his stubble, then the softest brush against her lips, gone almost before she felt it. She half-opened her eyes, reached out her hands to pull him closer towards her, mumbling more against his smile.  The next kiss was firmer, and her heartbeat sounded loud in her ears as she kissed him back.

EPILOGUE

The year had turned through all its seasons, and the rain was as relentless now as it had been when they first met.  Small waves lapped at the gutter as their car drove through flooded streets, the streetlights glowing orange in all the raindrops on the windshield, wipers unable to keep up with the force of the downpour.

‘You sure you want to do this?’ From the passenger seat, she turned her head towards where Bucky drove, hands resting loosely on the wheel, eyes glancing at her then back to the road. ‘It’s going to rain all night, they say.’

‘I’m sure. I’m better dressed this time.’ She smiled at him, still surprised by how much pleasure she found in his happiness.  Since retiring, he’d faced criticism from some that he’d dared to allow himself to retire, but he’d ignored it and the fuss had soon died down, and the louder voices, those that spoke of his exemplary record in the war, at his actions since he left Hydra, at the experiments and torture he’d endured, those were the ones that he mostly heard now. The day an elderly man had clasped his hand, quietly said ‘thank you for your service’, pulling himself straight to salute, he had wept, but each day he believed more that he’d made the right choice.

Steve too had been questioned, some furious that their symbol had chosen humanity over sacrifice.  The moment Steve chose, in front of the cameras, to hand his shield to Sam, had been hailed by many as one of the most powerful gestures ever seen. Those who griped soon learnt to keep their complaints quiet.

They drove in companionable silence, Bucky pulling up the car in an empty space at the foot of the hill. She struggled into a waterproof coat before getting out, Bucky merely pulling a cap on his head and doing up his jacket a little higher.

‘It’s Ok for you, you don’t feel the cold, some of us are mere humans’, she mock-griped, then squealing and turning away as he reached to tickle her.  It felt very different from the last time they were here. Bucky opened the back door of the car, and a large dog jumped out, obediently waiting while she clipped on his lead, handing the end to Bucky to hold.

‘Why do I get the feeling I’ll be cleaning the muddy footprints out of the car, even though it was you wanted to come here?’ he said, but there was a smile in his words.

‘He’s your dog, registered and all; I couldn’t possibly take that away from you…’ She reached down and ruffled the dog’s fur, feeling the raindrops already starting to collect. Bucky had applied for a service dog a few months after standing down.  His happiness at being free was still often overlaid with decades of guilt and anguish at his actions under Hydra control, and putting aside his responsibilities had made them resurface from where they lay long buried.  She’d soothed him through nightmares and flashbacks, but when the press of crowds, eager to meet him, had started to cause panic, they’d retreated into the Tower, and she’d sought professional help. Therapy was helping, but the solid warmth of the dog to lean on, able to know without doubt that there was no judgement, was keeping him steady too.

He preferred times like this still though. It was evening, light dimming behind the clouds, and the rain was keeping people away. Streets had been almost deserted as they’d driven through the city, umbrellas and heads held low made the few people they passed faceless.  Where they were now, outside the city, was empty, and Bucky turned his face up to the sky, letting his arms open wide now he felt he could breathe again. Raindrops caught on his lashes lit up like stars as lightning flashed above them.

She tugged on his hand, pulling him towards the gate. The ground was already starting to soften, and their feet slipped a little, while the dog walked steadily beside them. At the top of the hill, she paused, trying to get her bearings, but he knew what she was looking for.

‘Here’, he said, pointing a little further on.  It looked much like the rest of the hilltop, but it stood out for them.  She stopped, much further from the edge than she had been a year ago, and he stood close behind her, arms wrapped around her, waterproof rustling as he rested his head on hers.  She crossed her arms, for warmth, and for comfort, holding on to his hands, and they stood in silence.

‘It’s been three years now Buck.  He’s been gone three years.  It doesn’t hurt as often, but when it does hurt, it hurts so much.’  Her voice was so quiet that it was only because of their closeness that he heard.  He didn’t answer, she wasn’t looking for platitudes, just tightened his grip for a moment, let her know that he was there for the pain as well as the good times.

She liked to come here, whatever the weather.  From here, the city seemed far away.  In the sunshine, she watched the plants grow, wild flowers reclaiming Battle-damaged wastelands, but in the rain she remembered that first night, drunk and despairing, when Bucky had saved her from the fall.

Breathing in deeply, she stepped away from Bucky and turned to face him, the dog lying resigned to the rain on the ground beside them.  She wrapped her arms around his neck, felt him shrink away from the cold wet of her sleeves, and smiled as she pulled him closer.

‘I love you’, he said, and although the sound of the wind and the river carried the words away, she knew, and when she said it back, the rain didn’t matter any more.

---

@melconnor2007 @avengerscompound @kittyslove @badassbaker@phoenix21love@lbouvet@bellenuit45 @prplprincez @gingerrootknits@pineapplebooboo@feelmyroarrrr@avengerofyourheart@eyeofdionysus @hellomissmabel @learisa @mitra-k-w@imhereforbvcky@shaddixlife @supernatural-girl97 @iwillbeinmynest @amrita31199 @algud@whatsbetterthanfantasy@pixierox101  @madcheshire89 @chipilerendi  @mckorni32843@amandarosemire @nyxveracity @sea040561 @mrsalh32611@ruinerofcheese@callmebucky-doll @vintagepigeon  @sassycanoodler@natcad@thisismysecrethappyplace@geeksareunique @mywinterwolf  @moderapoppins@rinthehufflepuff@holyfuckloueh @onebatch--twobatch @jaqui-has-a-conspiracy-theory@patzammit@procrastinatingart1st  @marvelouspottering @princess76179@fangirlanotherjust

[shellheadtmark2]

actually, because i’ve gotten a lot of new mcu mutuals lately, and i need to redo my 616 tony stark care manual bc i wanna tweak it and make some aesthetic changes (because i’m just Like That), things you should probably know because i am actually 616/marvel prime/main continuity-based.  i swear i’ll be serious this time.  maybe.

the original flavor tony is not going to be the same tony you’re used to from the mcu - mcu tony is actually more marvel ultimates inspired, which is a whole kettle of fish unto itself and that i have a verse for, but we’ll get to that at a later date.  instead, meet main continuity tony.

+  he started his path to iron man in a very similar way to mcu tony, in that he was injured by his own weapons (depending on where you pull from the sliding timescale, it’s everything from landmines to micromunitions) that damaged his heart and left him slowly dying.  we all know this story, right?  he built the first iron man to escape and the rest is history.

+  the difference is, main continuity was dependent upon the armor’s chestplate for a few years. the arc reactor ain’t really a thing in 616, instead we have the rt node.  similar in function, only tony could use it to do unibeams without the suit.  anyway, when tony came back, he took on iron man as an alternate identity, and told the world iron man was his bodyguard.  no one knew for a few years there that tony stark - handsome, generous, kind-hearted benefactor of the avengers who opened his home to them - and the metal-clad adventurer known as iron man was the same person.  it took a mishap with molecule man and a tiny red silk thong (no, i’m not kidding) for that little secret to come to light.

+  he was in his very early twenties when he became iron man - much younger than his mcu counterpart, and he’s very, very good at being iron man.

+  his relationship to most of the avengers - and heroes in general - is very different.  his best friend in the entire world is steve rogers - he’s had a captain america memorabilia collection since before the avengers pulled steve out of the ice (which is another thing - the avengers thawed steve, and tony has always idolized him - there’s no resentment there - and steve was not a founding member, he came in after the avengers had already formed).  his other best friend is rhodey, who was his employee-turned-military liason for stark unlimted (formerly known by many other names).  his other other best friend is pepper potts - they’ve never actually been romantically involved.  his other other other best friend was happy hogan, who died a few years back during the nightmare of civil war - which was much more us-based and much more horrific in tony’s universe.  he’s carol danvers’ aa sponsor.  he’s good friends with reed richards.  he’s been friends with stephen strange for years.  he and bucky barnes are fairly close and tony’s the one that got rid of bucky’s trigger words.  he and natasha have dated...ish, and are close.  he was never peter parker’s mentor, as his peter is a full grown adult, but peter did intern for him for a while.  and was on an avengers team with him before civil war.  he, steve, and thor are still the big three, but they have a friendship that’s been forged in the fires of really bad mistakes and they’ve come out the other side still close.  he knows the guardians of the galaxy because he was a guardian for a while during his big vacation in space.  he’s dated more avengers and x-men than you can shake a stick at.  and jarvis for him is edwin jarvis, his living, breathing, now semi-retired butler who served the avengers for many years and is part of the avengers family.

+  he was director of shield for a short time after civil war and steve rogers’ assassination.  he hated the job and he hated steve being dead and he hated what he forced himself to do so bad he literally erased that entire year out of his head.  and to get rid of the database full of superhero secret identities stored in his brain but you can’t tell me he didn’t have a more recent backup without it.

+  his first ai was named homer.  jarvis actually was pepper’s ai, for her rescue suit, and was never tony’s.  friday is and has been his main ai for years, and she has a hologram form.  she mostly runs the day to day stuff that doesn’t require tony to physically be there for the company.  which, also, tony is still ceo, he hasn’t handed that over to anyone, and pulls double fulltime duty as both a working stiff and an avenger.  his eyebags are designer.

+  he was secretary of defense for a year - he got himself elected when he found out someone in military research was reverse engineering and stealing things from the iron man.

+  he’s in his early 40s and looks younger:  being an extremis enhancile for a while and then undergoing a full-body reboot does wonders for the skin, apparently.

+  he’s canonically bisexual.

+  is known for using himself as a lab rat for incorporating experimental technology into his biology.  ask me about the suit he carried in his bones!

+  he’s 6′1 with blue eyes.  that’s, uh.  kind of important to know.  he’s tall.  he’s lanky.  and if you’re not a metahuman he might just can kick your ass, because captain america trained him in hand to hand combat (of which he’s very proud of).

+  the ten rings are literally ten alien rings used by his main archvillain, the mandarin.  they hurt.  a lot.  and he hates when he gets an up close and personal view of them smashing into his face.

+  he’s not as quippy as his mcu counterpart, and instead is more prone to bad puns and rambling awkwardly.  canonically he has depression, anxiety, and ptsd, and struggles with them regularly.  he’s also a recovering alcoholic.

+  take mcu tony’s tech.  then put it on steroids.  then make it the craziest scifi thing you can imagine.  and you’ve got the barest hint of what this tony’s tech is like.  seriously.  ask me about the suit he literally carried inside of himself.  or the time he could control machines with his brain.  616 is wild.

+  he’s been homeless.  and i don’t mean rich people homeless. i mean living on the street, nearly froze to death riding out a blizzard in a doorway and almost lost fingers and toes to frostbite homeless.  tony’s a Rich Boy but one who’s had a taste of how the other half lives on more than one occasion.  he’s also worked a regular nine to five like everyone else and lived in what was...honestly...a really shitty apartment.

+  he’s adopted, and he has a(n adopted) brother named arno.  his bio mom’s a former rockstar, and his bio dad a hydra double agent.  you literally can’t make this shit up.

+  he’s incredibly self destructive and self sacrificing.  if things look hopeless he’ll be the first to offer himself for the pyre.  because he has absolutely horrid self esteem.

+  he’s a liar.  he’s sneaky.  he tends to make decisions for other people without consulting their feelings on the matter - partly because of a tony knows best attitude, but also because there are people in the world he’d do anything, and i mean anything, to keep safe, even if they hate him in the end.  it’s kind of awe inspiring and terrifying if you manage to inspire that level of devotion in tony, because really.  anything.

+  he has a playboy reputation, but he’s anything but.  you either get casual sex out of him?  or you’re married now, sorry, that’s just how it is.  he settles and nests with a vengeance.  he’s one of those people that would love to be happy and safe and loved and married and all that happy shit but doesn’t feel like he’s worthy of it.  his issues with this have issues, to be honest.

+  if you call him in the middle of the night and need an evac and you’re on his People list he will come.  twice in two days.  dropping everything to go to the middle of indiana to do it.  if you are sad and text him about it he will bring you food.  if you don’t answer his texts he will find you and check in on you.  if you feel out of place and adrift he will try to buy your baseball team and move them back to brooklyn to make you happy.  if you die and he can’t cope with your death he will buy your first avengers indenticard for 2mil at an auction because he can’t stand the thought of anyone else having it.  if you’re really special he’ll call you “beloved” and “captain handsome”.  sometimes sweetheart.  please note these things are all canon.

+  he dies a lot.  it’s okay, he gets better.

+  his irrational fears are the dark and cockroaches.  his actual fears are waking up drunk and the suit becoming a coffin.

anyway this is a Lot.  and it’s not even really scratching the surface so.  i’m gonna just drop this on the dash as is.  and you know it helps for me to make dumb lists like this from time to time to refresh things.  anyway, i know it’s a lot!  i know it’s different!  but my (broken) ims and disco (shellhead#8434) are always open for questions and plotting.  and my inbox, too, ig.  so you know.  remember we’ve got a canon multiverse.  it’s real easy for me to drop him in the mcu to make your day annoying.

[littlemsstark3000]

Common

Pairing: Tony Stark x Natasha Romanoff

Summary: Natasha went on a 21-day mission in Turkey one year after she got married to Tony, leaving him and Peter behind.

*****

Peter was lying on his bed for more than two hours but he still could not sleep. He was done watching his mom and dad's favorite series on his own Stark pad before jumping to bed and even shut his eyes for an hour, but he was barely sleepy.

He decided to get up and walk to the elevator that could bring him to the rooftop. It has been a while since the last time he went up there. Before - those days when he was still adjusting to his new life in the tower as SHIELD consultant-slash-Stark Industries owner's adopted son - he used to go up there to think, as he watched the busy New York City.

But after Tony Stark married Natasha Romanoff, the very own Black Widow of SHIELD, the two treated him very much as their own child. There was never a day that the couple left him out. They showered him with so much love and devoted their time to attend to his every need, that he did not have a moment to be lonely anymore.

Until this night.

Before he reached the lobby of the elevator though, Peter passed by the tower's bar and caught Tony sitting there alone, head down. In his hand was a glass, and he noticed, despite the dimly lit spot of his father, the bottle of vodka which was almost halfway finished already.

Tony looked up almost the same time that he called his attention.

"Dad?"

The genius billionaire put down the shot glass and wiped his face with bare hands. "Hey son. Why are you still up?"

Peter stepped closer to the counter.

"Why are you still up and here, too?" he asked as reply.

"Uh, nah," Tony shrugged and glanced at the vodka. "Just getting a fill."

"Can't sleep?" He opted to ask even if it was too obvious.

His dad shook his head.

"You miss Mom." It was more of a statement than a question.

He received a nod.

"I miss her, too."

Yeah, Peter admitted to himself, it was why their huge house felt empty to him and why he wanted to go up the rooftop instead of staying in his room. Natasha was not around to check up on him in his room at 9:00 pm like what she always did, and she wouldn't be there to wake him up the next day, too.

Tony sighed and took one more shot from his glass before his expression turned from sad to grim.

"She won't be home until after 21 more days."

It was a giveaway for Peter. And he had to speak out what has been bugging him for days.

"I know that you and Mom weren't talking before she left..."

He caught him freeze for microseconds before responding.

"We did, over our last dinner together. About your graduation right?"

"You were just trying to because I was there. I'm not a kid anymore..." Peter pushed further. "What's happening?"

Avoiding his eyes, Tony stood from the bar stool and approached him. "Everything's going to be fine, Pete. It's... just a phase," he answered vaguely then tapped his shoulder instead of explaining.

"You will fix it once she's back, right?"

"Of course. Don't think too much about it." His dad kissed his hair from the side. "Go to bed. Good night, son."

Peter just nodded and turned to watch a-little-drunk Tony walked back to the hallway that led to the bedrooms.

"Good night, Dad."

*****

"Hello?"

Natasha sensed anticipation from Peter's voice when he spoke from the other line after the ringing stopped. It seemed like he had been waiting for her call, so the moment that his mobile line rang, he picked it up immediately.

"Hey sweetheart," she replied briefly, knowing that he would recognize her despite the unknown number.

"Mom! I knew it, you'd call! How are you? Is everything okay?"

Peter was a combination of excitement and worry. Her eyes automatically watered.

Natasha never thought that she would reach a point like this... Working at SHIELD had been her life for more than a decade and she believed that she could die a SHIELD agent. Being abroad for missions was a norm for her. Going on dangerous assignments was never an issue. Every time she went away to take down bases with her team, the thought that she would not be able to go back alive to her home - if she could call the SHIELD helicarrier as such - was welcome.

But not this time around.

Three days into this 21-day assignment in Turkey, her first long and out-of-the-country task after she got married to Tony a year ago, she already felt that things weren't the same anymore. She still is the Black Widow, her skills for her job and the want to do good for people always in her. The thing is... she’s also Natasha Romanoff-Stark now. Wife and mother. Tony and Peter are her home now and she is deeply, passionately invested in her small family. She never imagined that the love she has for them is humanly possible.

Her chest tightened at the thought of his son and husband being so far away. Though, she needed to be strong for them and for her duty at hand.

"I'm fine. How's everything there? Your dad?"

"We're okay mom, I just miss you so much. Dad misses you, too... I caught him at the bar late last night."

Anxiety clouded her head. Tony has not been drinking for the past months. But what Peter just said...

"I miss him too, baby. Both of you. I miss you everyday," she kept her voice from breaking.

"Will you call him, too?"

In an instant, her husband filled her mind. How he did not stop her from taking this mission, though she felt that he was not happy about it. How he was zoning out during the last few days before she left the tower. He never suggested about re-considering this assignment nor did he request to cut it short. She probably would not have yielded anyway; she wanted to do the mission. But being in this situation now, she could only hope that she listened to what her husband had to say.

"I might -"

"Nat, let's go."

Before Natasha could finish what she was about to say, she was cut by Clint who stood a few steps away from her but has been monitoring her call. She could not make a call as often and as long as she wanted for security purposes, so she has to limit it and remain untraceable.

Peter heard him from the other line.

"Mom..."

Her heart broke once again. Unlike the previous night when she was able to keep herself from crying so Clint would not be alarmed of her internal struggle, the following nights might be less bearable. Although, she knew her best friend understood. It was actually him who arranged this call to Peter even without her asking.

"I gotta go, Pete. I'll call you again when I can, okay? Please look after your Dad for me," her lips trembled and she had to bite it.

"Yes, Mom. You take care. I love you."

"I will, sweetheart. Love you two so much. I'm going home soon."

As soon as she ended the call, her tears fell. She wiped them as she crushed the phone to the ground then walked past Clint, saying her thanks discreetly.

The Black Widow mask was back on.

*****

Tony has stopped working but he hasn't realized it yet. He was just looking at various holograms which he opened to, supposedly, study. But his mind just wandered off to Natasha, like how it had been for the past 20 days.

A month ago, Nick Fury asked him to look into the case of possible new HYDRA base in Turkey and he did. He provided all the information he gathered and proposed on how they could go about it.

The base would need a closer surveillance for a few days to see the routine around the area, ins and outs, as well as to check on the technology that they can use to infiltrate their systems - basically, things SHIELD cannot perform from afar due to restrictions.

To his great dismay, their best option was to send Natasha and Clint to do the job. Both were very well-versed in what to do, strategies and technical skills combined. They were highly reliable even if they worked remotely; they problem solve on their own, no need for supervision.

And when Fury asked if Natasha could take the mission, Tony was not surprised that she did almost immediately. Almost, because she looked at him while they were inside the director's office as if asking for permission... But how could he say no?

One: Having seen the available details about this base himself, he knew how delicate the job would be. They could not send just anyone who could afford to go. It required specially skillful, experienced agents... Unfortunately for him, his wife is on top of that list.

Two: When he married Natasha, he accepted the fact that she would not stop doing what she had been doing for more than half of her life. She rested, yes, but would never stop. Being a SHIELD agent was her good cause. She did what she does best here. She found her purpose here. More than anyone else, he as her former teammate and co-Avenger should understand that.

Three: If she declined this mission, it should be her decision because she has always been more than capable of thinking and deciding on her own. It would not be him dictating stuff to her or directing her actions. She is his wife, his better half. He swore to himself that he would respect her and value her more than his ego, which he has taken care of for a good portion of his childhood to adulthood.

And so he... did not affirm but did not disagree either.

Natasha took the job. He was left behind to wait. As a SHIELD consultant, he could not meddle with operations. While he can give and get information, he could not get in the front line. He stayed out, as he always has in other missions which did not involve his wife.

Fury was kind enough to let him know from time to time that Natasha and Clint were still in their radar, but they still cannot reach the two anytime they want for their security.

Tony's thoughts were interrupted when FRIDAY spoke.

"Boss, Natasha is in the vicinity. She is taking the private elevator from the helipad to the 90th floor."

He immediately stood up from his swivel chair and headed out of the workshop which was five floors below their three-floor penthouse, where Natasha was going.

"Where is Peter?"

"He just arrived from the University and is at the 90th floor too, boss."

In a few seconds, he was already on the same floor. He heard Natasha's and Peter's voices from where he stopped and stood out of the lift, and he gave them a little time alone.

"Mom!"

"Hi, baby."

"What happened? What's this?"

"Don't worry, it's nothing serious. Just bruise and scratches," his wife chuckled.

She's hurt, his jaw automatically clenched.

"FRIDAY, can you please tell Dad that Mom is back?"

"I already have, Peter."

"Are you sure you're okay?" worry was still evident in Peter's tone, and Tony was feeling the same.

"Nothing that I cannot handle. And you're gonna take care of me, yeah?"

"Of course, yeah... I missed you so much."

"Missed you too, sweetie."

He stepped out of his hiding and saw Peter hugging his mom tightly as they sat on the couch.

Natasha's left arm was in arm sling. There was a patch on one side of her forehead.

She saw him approaching first, and the young man must have felt it then turned his head.

"Dad," he voiced.

Tony smiled a little and nodded.

"Pete, can you get your mom water and make her a sandwich, please? She's probably tired and starving."

"I am," his wife confirmed.

"Alright."

Natasha kissed their son’s hair before he headed to the kitchen.

Tony fell on one knee in front of her and rested his hands on both her sides as she still sat on the couch.

"Hi."

"How was it?" He asked about the mission.

"Done."

He nodded. "Good."

"Is this time for small talk?"

"Guess we have to reserve the longer discussion until tonight. Peter will be back with your sandwich in a bit."

"How much time do we have?" she ran her free hand from his messy hair to face, touching his cheek with her thumb repeatedly.

"One minute tops."

"Can I kiss you for one minute then?"

"You can, but just to set your expectations, that's never gonna be enough after 21 days of absence," he teased.

Natasha raised an eyebrow as if asking what else?

"That's another thing we'll reserve for tonight."

Natasha broke into her familiar laughter, but her eyes suddenly were filled with tears.

And Tony's were, too.

His wife is definitely home.

*****

"I wanna feel your love

Just give me all your trust

Common ain't us

Cause common ain't enough..."

- Common, Zayn Malik

[geeky-writes]

Pieces of Echoes Chapter 22 Preview

Behind? Catch up on AO3/ FFN 😊

********

“How’re you doing today, Bucky?”

Bucky stared at him, his expression neutral as he studied Steve’s face. They went through this pretty much every time Steve came to visit so he should’ve been used to it by now, but it was still painful to have his oldest friend have to struggle to place who he was.

“Стивичик?” he asked.

“Yeah, Buck, that’s right,” Steve said softly. “I’m Stevie.”

“Maybe tell us a story, Papa?” Peter suggested. “Uncle Sam told me that happy stories can sometimes help bring back memories.”

Steve drew in a deep breath, his hand cupped around Peter’s skinny shoulder. What Peter said made sense of course, but unfortunately most of the stories Steve had that involved Bucky were either from the war or before Steve received the serum. Stories from the war probably wouldn’t help at all, and while Steve was often telling Peter that a person’s physical size didn't matter if they had a big heart, and that it was okay to stand up to bullies, he still felt uncomfortable with Peter hearing about him back when he was so weak that he could barely go three days without getting beat up or nearly suffocating.

He was Peter’s dad, and dads were supposed to be strong.

“Yeah, okay, little guy,” he murmured, giving Peter a quick smile.

“Oh, this’ll be good,” Peter said eagerly.

“I was almost five years old the first time that Bucky and I met,” Steve began. “It was springtime, and springtime in Brooklyn meant that everyone was out and about trying to shake their cabin fever from the long winter, and also that the air was full of dust and pollen and smoke and just about everything else that made me sick. My ma had gone to work, and since she'd been working so much and there wasn't a lot of food in the house, she told me I could walk down to the corner store and buy myself an ice cream cone if I promised to go straight there and straight back. I was just getting over a pretty bad cold, and she didn't want me exposed to too much else that might’ve made me sick again.”

“Your ma let you walk down the street alone?” Peter exclaimed. “In New York? When you were five?”

“Well, yeah,” Steve answered with a slight shake of his head. He couldn’t possibly imagine Tony allowing Peter to do such a thing. In fact, neither he nor Tony allowed Peter to do such a thing even now, and he was thirteen and had enhanced strength and agility.

“Things were quite a bit different back in the twenties, little guy,” he said, with just a touch of regret. “Not as… fast.” No alien invasions, no evil company executives out to get me and my family… just no father, an overworked and underpaid mother, and not enough money for food or medicine.

“Yeah, I suppose that makes sense,” Peter said. “But still, you and Dad would never—”

“And things are going to stay that way for the foreseeable future, Peter,” Steve said, a bit more sternly than he probably needed to. “All right?”

Peter blinked nervously as he nodded. “Uh huh.”

“So, of course I promised my ma that I would do as she said, because it was ice cream, right?” Steve continued, chuckling when Peter gave an emphatic nod. “So there I was, walking down the street with my head down and my hand in my pocket, clutching the shiny nickel that ma had given me for my ice cream, when these three other boys appeared on the sidewalk in front of me. They were all at least a head taller and a lot broader, and they stepped right up to me and demanded that I give them my money. And when I told them no and to leave me alone, the biggest boy punched me right in the face, and I hit the ground so hard that I got dizzy.”

“But you got up again, right, Papa?” asked Peter.

“I did,” Steve said with a nod. “And my nose was bleeding and it hurt so bad that I could barely see, but I did get back up. But before I could even draw back my fist Bucky suddenly appeared out of nowhere, shoved me aside and punched the boy so hard that he knocked him back into his two friends and they all ended up hitting the sidewalk.” He looked over at Bucky, whose lower lip was twitching, his eyes trained on the sketchbook in front of him. “And then you tossed me an old handkerchief and told me to wipe my nose, and then asked if I wanted to play stickball in the street. And I knew I wasn’t supposed to, especially since I was still coughing quite a bit and my chest was already starting to tighten up. But I—” Steve broke off, swallowing hard as he remembered how unbelievably lonely he had been back then. How he had always wished for a friend to play with, one who wouldn’t mind playing indoors most of the time since he couldn’t be outside for very long.

“I did anyway,” Steve continued. “I went and played, and about fifteen minutes later—”

“You started turning blue,” Bucky suddenly said, low and gravelly. He slowly looked up, meeting Steve’s eyes. “You were doubled over, with your skinny-ass arms wrapped around your stomach and your eyes so wide they were almost popping outta your head. And you said, ‘My ma’s gonna kill me’, and I said—

“That I looked like I’d die before she got the chance,” Steve finished, trailing off as his lips curled into a shaky smile. “Bucky, do you remember?”

Bucky’s eyes shifted as a pause settled between them, laced with regret.

“Sometimes,” he whispered. He shook his head, his shaggy hair falling across his forehead and into his eyes. “Bits and pieces, here and there. Most of the time I can’t tell what’s real and what’s made up anymore, if the memories are clear or if they're shiny, if I’m still who you say I am or if I’m what you say they turned me into. But other times it’s—” and he glanced over at Peter, giving him an almost imperceptible smile.

“Other times it’s better.”

“Then we just have to hope it’ll keep getting better,” Peter said, and Steve's heart gave a lurch at his sincerity and determination. “Right, Papa?”

“Absolutely, little guy,” Steve murmured as he squeezed Peter’s shoulder. “And you’re doing a great job of it.”

“Петр мой друг,” Bucky said, so softly that Steve had to strain to hear him.

“He said ‘Peter’s my friend’, Papa,” said Peter with a proud smile. “‘Cause I am.”

“Yes, he is, Bucky,” Steve said. “Peter is your friend, and he’s not the only one. There are so many people here who are willing to help you as long as you’ll let us.”

Bucky flexed his metal left hand, turning it over in his lap.

“Да” he answered. “Друзья.”

“I’m pretty sure that means, ‘friends’,” Peter whispered.

“Friends,” Steve repeated. “You have lots of friends here, Bucky, and we’ll all be with you til the end of the line. You have my word.”

He reached a tentative hand towards Bucky, placing it carefully on his shoulder. Bucky flinched at the touch, but to Steve’s relief he didn't try to pull away.

“Друзья,” he whispered.

“That’s right, Bucky,” Steve said. “And friends always help each other get back up when they’ve been beaten down, right?”

Bucky’s chin started to shake, tears welling in his piercing blue eyes. “Я хочу вспомнить,” he said quietly.

Steve looked helplessly at Peter, who only shrugged as he pulled out his phone. “JARVIS?” he asked. “Can you please display what Uncle Bucky just said?”

A lump rose in Steve’s throat when the words, I want to remember appeared across Peter’s phone screen.

“And we’re gonna help you,” Steve said, as fiercely as he dared. “I promise.”

Bucky looked up at him then, his expression tortured and intense. “Я не заслуживаю вашей помощи.”

I don’t deserve your help, scrolled across Peter’s phone.

“It doesn’t matter whether or not you deserve it,” Steve said. He tightened his fingers on Bucky’s shoulder, looking straight into his eyes. “Because you have it anyway.”

He looked away for several seconds, his metal fist opening and closing in his lap.

“Благодарю вас,” he finally said. “Thank you.”

“You're welcome,” said Peter. “Would it be okay if I come back tomorrow sometime, Uncle Bucky? Papa’s going on another trip in the morning, but I’ll still be here.”

Bucky’s lips curled into a slight smile. “Да.” He glanced at Steve, tilting his head. “Another mission?”

“No, not this time,” Steve answered, smiling sheepishly as his cheeks flushed. He held up his left hand, wiggling his wedding ring. “Um… it’s my honeymoon. Mine and Tony’s.”

Bucky’s smile grew even wider until it was practically cheeky, and for a moment he looked so much like his old self that Steve nearly burst into tears.

“Стивичик,” he said. “You rascal.”

“Got that right,” Peter mumbled, smirking.

“Tony and I will be gone for two weeks,” said Steve. “But I’ll come and see you again once we get back if that’s okay.”

“Да,” replied Bucky. “Have fun. Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Thank you,” Steve said softly. “Take care, Buck.”

At Bucky's nod he and Peter stood up from the bed and exited the room. “He is getting better, Papa,” Peter said once they were in the elevator. “It’s just gonna take awhile.”

Ever the optimist, Steve thought fondly as he ruffled Peter’s hair. I should take some lessons.

“I know, little guy,” he said. “It’s just… it’s hard for me to see him like this. He was always so full of life, even larger than life, and now—”

“He won’t ever be exactly the same as he used to be, Papa,” Peter said. “But we can still help him be the best that he can be now.”

Steve gave him a sad smile, trying hard to contain the flurry of emotions swirling inside him. Steve knew that if the science of what HYDRA had done to Bucky was unclear to even Bruce and Tony, two of the most intelligent people in the world, then he himself would be very hard-pressed to understand it.

Unfortunately, that knowledge didn’t help much. Watching Bucky struggle to remember him almost hurt more than when he thought he had lost him for good.

And besides all that, he and Tony were leaving for their honeymoon in only a matter of hours, and it wasn’t going to be fair to Tony for Steve to be so distracted by what was going on with Bucky.

“You’re absolutely right, Peter,” Steve said, a lot more emphatically than he felt. “And it doesn’t do any good to dwell on things that we can’t change, right?” Isn't that what I’m always saying to Tony?

“Right.” He shot Steve a rather wary look as they stepped into the penthouse. “I still can’t believe your ma let you wander around Brooklyn when you were not even five though.”

“Who’s wandering around Brooklyn?” Tony asked as he entered the living room.

“No one is wandering around—” Steve started.

“Papa was,” Peter cut in. “He just told Uncle Bucky and me a story about how he was walking to get ice cream before he was five.”

Tony quirked a stern eyebrow in Steve’s direction. “Uncle Bucky? Are we really there already?”

Peter shrugged. “It’s no big deal, Dad. I felt weird just calling him Bucky, and if he’s gonna be living here with us from now on, why not?”

“Mmm,” Tony grumbled. “Okay, so who’s wandering around Brooklyn now?”

“I was when I was five, Tony,” Steve said with a huff. “And I’ve made it perfectly clear to Peter that things were very different back then and that under no circumstances is he allowed to do the same.”

“Damn right he’s not,” Tony stated. “And you just heard me say that, right, bud?”

“Loud and clear,” muttered Peter.

The full chapter will post on Monday, July 1st 😊

[gold-from-straw]

Spectres - ch7

Loki brings everyone back to his cavern, and Tony starts trying to heal Barnes... until they're interrupted.

THANK YOU SO MUCH to all of you who’ve supported this story, it’s completely insane and I’ve had SO MUCH fun writing it! Special thanks to @salamanderink who prompted it in the first place over a year ago oops!

Read from the beginning on AO3 if you like!

Tony was getting used to travelling by Spectre teleportation. He only had to gulp air three or four times before he was able to take in the scene around him.

And what a scene it was. Loki’s cavern seemed larger, Tony thought as he looked around. Hela started dancing, shooting Spectral power at the roof so garlands of light hung themselves and cast a warm white glow. Jormungandr shifted into his human form as the last kid slipped off his back into Peter’s arms. “Injuries over here,” Jor called. “I can heal you.”

Loki nodded to him, the pride clear in his eyes. He lay Barnes on a table that rose out of the ground at his gesture. “I think,” he said, cocking his head to look at Barnes’ face, contorted in pain. “That you should heal him. He has had too much Spectral interference.”

Tony nodded, and took a deep breath. “Healing’s not much my thing,” he admitted.

Loki smiled softly, his bone mask turning to mist and floating away. “I have faith.”

Tony looked down to hide his smile, and cast a diagnostic spell over him. “OK, so he’s got a bunch of broken ribs, a - jeez, a skull fracture, bruised kidneys and a fuck-ton of scars.” He breathed deeply again and rubbed his hands together.

“Can I help?” asked Hela from right by his elbow.

Tony startled so hard he nearly yelped. “Holy sh- uh, yeah, OK, kid.” He glanced at Loki. “You can’t use your magic, but you can fetch and carry, yeah?” She nodded, a wide grin spreading over her sweet little face. Really, the moving wounds weren’t that creepy, not when you knew what a cutie she was.

Tony laid out herbs and stones from his pockets, chatting constantly to her to keep himself calm and on target, telling her all about the associations and powers of all the ingredients. “Oh, here’s a piece of gold, huh, forgot I had that. That’s for riches, obviously. Then linden root, for strength. And that’s pansy petals, they’re for premonition, but I don’t really like the way they feel, it’s not quite right, you know?” Hela smiled up at him and nodded. He grinned and patted her head. “Yeah, of course you know. Anyway, I’ll work out what to do with them some day, but we definitely don’t need them for this.” He took another deep breath. “Right, pass me the weeping moss, the willowbark and the bloodstone.”

She passed him two tupperware pots and a small earthenware jar and he set about mixing a pinch of this, a dash of that, following the tug in his fingers that took him to the next right thing.

“What about this?” she asked, holding out a slim root.

He spared her a quick glance, still mixing the reagents, golden sparks flying up as his mortar struck. “What about that?”

“Linden root,” she said. “You said it was good for strength and bones are the strong parts of a human, are they not? We do need to fix the bones, right?”

He blinked down at her, a slow grin spreading over his face. “Hey, Pete! You’ve got competition for apprentice duties!”

Peter grinned and used his Spectral powers to thunk Tony in the back of the head. Tony flipped him the bird and took the linden root. “I think this is just what we’ll need,” he said to Hela, who grinned so hard her eyes almost closed.

The linden root started hissing as soon as Tony crushed it, and white smoke poured from the mixture. Tony held it over Barnes’ face, blowing gently so the smoke coated him, clinging to his skin in certain places, sliding off him in others. He started moving slowly downwards, rationing the potion so it could cover his whole body.

The first warning that something was wrong was Loki suddenly going rigid and turning, his bone mask appearing and his feather cloak rising into fierce wings. And then the room was full of roaring, raging Spectre.

“Leave him alone!” the very air screamed.

Tony dropped his mortar and pestle, hunching down and covering his ears, the terror vibrating in his very bones. He heard children all around him wailing in terror, but it was little Hela’s whimper that penetrated the fog of fear.

He forced himself up to stand, heart pounding, hands shaking. A great eagle Spectre slashed at Loki, whose raven form shrieked and whirled around him. Feathers filled the air, and as one of the ravens screamed and fell, turning to dust, Tony felt the fury fill him.

“Enough!” he roared, hurling a force bomb onto the floor between them. The powder inside the delicate glass vial blew everywhere, forcing all the Spectres nearby into their human form. Loki tumbled to the side, clutching at his arm, and Tony raced over to him, propping him up. “Are you OK?” he asked, voice low. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know what else to do, are you--”

“I’m fine,” he said, voice strained. “It was the best…” he trailed off, frowning. “Is that not…”

Tony turned and stared at the furious human-form Spectre, crouching on the floor. “Steve Rogers?” he gaped.

“Give him back,” Rogers snarled, his face nothing like the wholesome, blue-eyed human form he showed to the public. “What are you doing to him? Give him back!”

Tony blinked, then looked at Romanov. “What?”

“Why have you got Barnes?” she asked, her eyes darting around the room, always gathering data.

“Uh, because we found him? He was… well, he was kinda acting as a jailer for these kids. We got into a fight, but Loki pulled all Hydra’s soul away from him so he’s got his own mind back, at least, and then I was using linden root which was Hela’s idea really, but it was a good one, and--”

“Stark,” Romanov said, frowning. “Shut up. Wait. You found him?”

“Where was he?” Rogers demanded, standing straight, surging forwards, stopping as Loki rose, snarling in front of him.

“Steve?” croaked a voice. Tony turned to see Barnes pushing himself up.

“Hey, no, wait, I haven’t finished healing you, I--” But Hela stood behind, waving, the mortar and pestle in her hands. “Huh,” Tony said. “That… that actually shouldn’t work without a Monk…”

“Bucky?” Rogers said, and Tony’s head whipped back, because that… he’d never heard Rogers sound so small, so lost. His mouth was hanging open, his entire soul visibly pulled towards Barnes.

Barnes climbed, wincing, off the table, and Rogers rushed towards him, catching him as he stumbled, his hands cupping his face like he was looking at a religious relic. “You’re here,” Rogers said, barely audible. “You’re really here, Buck… everyone thought you were gone, but I wouldn’t… I couldn’t believe it, I would have felt it… the world… life wouldn’t have been worth living.”

“Wait,” said Tony, gaping. “You know Barnes? Like… the Howling Bucky Barnes?”

Rogers didn’t even look at him, but as Tony watched he shifted into another form, a muscular blonde man, vast shoulders and a blue and red suit. “You’re Captain America?” Tony squeaked. “You didn’t… but you’re a Spectre! Captain America was a Monk, he and Barnes, they were The monks!”

“That’s what everyone had to believe,” Barnes said, his eyes still fixed on Rogers, his hand clinging to Rogers’ hip. “There was a war on, people wouldn’t have accepted a Spectre in their ranks.”

“The world’s different now, Buck,” Rogers said, stroking Barnes’ hair back from his face. “Spectres, Monks and baseline humans, we all live and work together… there’s still a bit of bad blood with the Monks but… we can…” he gulped. “We can be together, if you… if you still--”

“Oh god, Steve,” Barnes said, pressing closer, tears leaking from his eyes as they fluttered shut. “I was trapped in my own head, watching my body do all these terrible things, I never dreamed… I never even hoped I’d find you again.” He whimpered and pulled back. “I’ve done terrible things, Steve, I’ve… you won’t want me, not like--”

But Rogers held his face in both hands and kissed him. Barnes melted into the kiss, pressing closer, wrapping his arm tightly around Rogers’ back and clenching his fingers into the fabric over his back.

“Well,” said a voice in Tony’s ear, and he looked up to see Loki smiling down at him. “Perhaps we are not quite so strange. A Monk and a Spectre together?”

Tony looked around at the abandoned human children being comforted by the young Spectres. At the Spectre child poking around Tony’s Monk equipment. At the young Monk, his soul fused with that of a Spectre, learning the Spectral healing methods, and teaching some Monk methods to anyone who’d listen. He looked at the Spectre standing at his own shoulder and leaned up to kiss him.

“What about the Hydra?” he asked, leaning against Loki’s chest as the kiss broke.

Loki wrapped his arms around his back. “You cannot kill it,” he said. “It is a mindless decomposer, as long as there are those who allow their souls to die in their own living bodies, it will thrive. There is still work to do, though. The Hydra would not think to capture children, to fuse humans with its own soul.”

“Yeah, honestly that sounds a human thing to do,” Tony admitted. “Trying to get Spectral powers without the work that goes into becoming a Monk.”

“There have always been those who worship power, in all its forms,” Loki nodded.

Tony sighed and leaned into Loki, watching Barnes and Rogers reunite, Romanoff joining Jormungandr and Peter, Teddy hover by Billy as he stretched his healed ills. “We’ll fight, then,” Tony said. “But for now, we’ve got a lot of kids to look after.”

Loki looked at him, his head cocked to one side. Tony rolled his eyes. “Oh, don’t look like that. It’s your fault. You called them my children. ‘What becomes of the children, Monk?’” he said, mimicking Loki’s voice.

Loki grinned, bent down and kissed him again. Tony smiled into the kiss, and felt his heart glow.

That’s it!! It’s all finished ;_; Thank you so much to everyone who supported this <3 Tagging everyone who interacted with the last chapter! @theonewhowandered01, @redramzi, @the-smoke-machine, @zanydragonshepherddean, @glitternotgold73, @kit-kat57, @aformingsiren, @kalimav6, @letitdevour, @averageotaku, @dracusfyre, @frost-iron, @mxvampirepunk <3

[imagine-loki]

Of Numbers and Strange Friendships

TITLE: Of Numbers and Strange Friendships CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: 24/? AUTHOR: nekoamamori ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Loki being friends with Peter Parker RATING: T NOTES/WARNINGS: None so far.  Also on AO3 here

The group continued telling stories throughout dinner, and the multitude of desserts that were served to the group.  Everyone seemed the most interested in Frigga’s stories, as they wanted to know more about young Thor and Loki.

The boys both groaned when she pulled out old stories to tell.  She told them about the day the boys accidentally led a stampede of bilgesnipe through the palace and straight to the throne.  They had looked about six at the time by Midgardian standards and had stumbled upon a herd when they’d been playing in the royal forest.  Both boys had been scared out of their minds and ran straight to their father for help.  He was livid at the damage, but had been so relieved that his boys were safe and had at least had the brains to get help before they were trampled by bilgesnipe.

She told them of ten year old Thor coming up with ‘get help’.

Loki groaned loudly at that story and buried his head in his hands so he didn’t have to relive the story.

He, however, was laughing in delight with the others when Frigga told the story of the creation of ‘my apologies’.  It was a tactic Loki had come up with and was his equivalent of ‘get help’.  It consisted of Thor bumbling around like an oaf knocking into things and spilling drinks on people while Loki followed behind him going “My apologies, my brother is so clumsy and such an oaf”.  By the time they made it through the room they were tricking, the secret scroll, map, or magical item they were after (along with quite a bit of gold or whatever else Loki fancied taking) would be in the brothers’ possession with none of the people the wiser until after the pair were long gone. 

“That’s brilliant!” Peter said approvingly.  Loki grinned across the table at his friend.

“I always thought so,” he replied with a smirk at Thor.

“It’s not,” Thor protested.  “I hate it, it’s humiliating,”

“Not for me, it’s not,” Loki replied.  “And I hate ‘get help’.  It is way more humiliating as you literally throw me at enemies,” Loki growled.  He loathed ‘get help’.  

Thor laughed.  “It is not humiliating for me,” he replied jovially and it took the fact that Frigga was sitting next to him for Loki not to draw his daggers and stab Thor across the table.  

He was mollified quickly when all of the desserts came out.

At least he was until Frigga held her palm up and with a shimmer of magic, showed the group holographic images of her sons growing up.  The team loved it.  Her sons wanted to crawl under the table and die since they couldn’t stop her. The only saving grace was that she didn’t pull out naked baby images.  It was a close call, though.  There was one of a young Thor teaching a younger Loki to walk; the boys sparring as children;  them coming back successfully from their first hunt alone dirty and injured, but successful and looking so proud; a teenage Thor in the foreground swinging a sword while Loki sat in the window-seat in the background reading; the brothers as young adults, Thor’s arm around Loki’s shoulders as the two both laughed over something; the look of exhausted pride when Loki passed his master magician trial; a formal event that had both brothers taking their place on the stairs before the throne of Asgard; the last was a formal portrait of the royal family and they all looked so happy in it. 

The team loved seeing that the Asgardians, while royal and literal gods, were also a family and were also just normal people living their lives.

Aunt May returned the favor, showing pictures to Frigga on her phone of Peter growing up. Loki laughed when it was Peter’s turn to wish he could crawl under the table and die.  “Aunt May~~” he whined, but that didn’t stop his aunt from sharing pictures. 

Eventually, the massive collection of desserts were eaten (mostly by Loki) and Tony paid the bill, not even cringing at the massive check, though anyone else at the table would have.  “Thanks, Mr. Stark.  It was a fantastic dinner,” Peter enthused as the group was leaving the restaurant.  

“Yes, it was lovely, thank you for inviting us,” Aunt May agreed.  She hugged Frigga and no one was one bit surprised. “It was lovely to meet you,” the two had bonded over their intelligent adopted sons and how similar it was raising them.  

Unshed tears brimmed in Peter’s eyes when he’d realized that Aunt May thought of him as her son.  He loved his aunt dearly, but he hadn’t even considered that she thought of him as a son and not just her nephew she’d taken in. Loki chuckled and wrapped his arm around the teen’s shoulders.  Peter gave him a lopsided grin in reply, relieved by Loki’s silent reassurance.

The group made their way out of the tower, laughing and talking as they headed back to the vehicles to return to the tower or Aunt May’s house in her and Peter’s case.  

Though they were Avengers and superheroes and used to things going wrong every time they were having five minutes of happiness, none of them were expecting the men with guns to appear out of nowhere.  None of them were expecting Hydra’s monsters to attack the group.

It was fairly obvious that the team was there that night.  Stark had made the reservations in his name, they’d arrived in limos, and the press had been there announcing their presence to the world. The group was so used to press everywhere they went that it hadn’t even crossed their minds that it might be a problem. 

It was a problem.

A definite problem.

The team circled automatically, pushing Aunt May and Pepper to the middle where they’d be protected. Loki saw the fear in Peter’s eyes.  He couldn’t fight this battle and keep his identity secret.  “Don’t fret, arachnid.  We will keep you safe,” Loki reassured him as he assessed the situation and as Peter was shoved into the middle of the circle with Aunt May and Pepper. 

With a shimmer of magic, Loki was in his battle armor, Thor raised Mjolnir to summon his own with lightning, Stark summoned one of his ironman suits through Jarvis, and Bruce summoned the Hulk, which still made Loki cringe.  Everyone else would be fighting in their formalwear. 

That wouldn’t do.  

“Hold still,” Loki told them and let his magic flow over the group. He found Frigga’s hand linked in his and smiled warmly as she added her magic to his.  In a moment, the group was in their battle armor and leapt into the fray.  Loki looked to Wanda who was new to fighting with the team and didn’t go on many missions.  “Wanda, stay with Sif and my mother, protect the civilians,” he told her, giving her a clear order, a clear duty.  

And his most important mission, though he didn’t say the words.

He didn’t give her the unspoken order, but she nodded, she understood what he wouldn’t say:

Protect my mother

None of them were expecting Frigga to draw a blade as long as her arm as armor shimmered into place over her formal gown.  None of them except the Asgardians were expecting that anyway.  Frigga had taught Loki to fight and Asgardians were a warrior race.  She, Sif, and Wanda moved the civilians away from the battle.

Loki breathed a sigh of relief when his loved ones were safe and joined the others in the battle.  He kept one eye on the group of civilians, proud of Wanda for doing so well keeping the others safe. He made a note to tell her as much later.  Praise from Loki was rare and she cherished every single instance of it when he was teaching her magic. 

The battle was harder than expected and raged for a long, long time.  The team was wearing thin when Loki was thrown across the battlefield by a giant.  He crashed at Frigga’s feet and struggled to get back to his feet quickly as the giant thundered over to them.  It tossed Sif aside effortlessly, heading straight for the defenseless civilians.  

For Loki’s family.

Loki growled as he got to his feet, jumping in front of Frigga to protect her.  He would do anything to protect his mother, including taking the blow himself. His dagger shattered at the giant’s blow and he was knocked off his feet again, one of his gauntlets shattered at the impact, his shoulder piece fractured at the blow.  His armor was damaged in other places, but he couldn’t focus on that now. 

“Loki?” Peter asked with fear in his eyes as well as his voice.  He couldn’t help.  His secret would be revealed if he helped, especially with Aunt May there.  There was no way to hide to change into his costume.  Aunt May had her arms around him, as if to protect him.  If only she knew.  

Wanda threw up a red shield to delay the giant, holding her hands up to keep it going.   She was still young and couldn’t attack while she was holding the shield.  Loki was just grateful she was inside the shield this time.  He’d drilled that into her during hours of magic lessons and he was glad it had stuck. 

The others were busy on the other monsters. 

Loki was alone in this fight.

Loki growled as he forced himself back to his feet as fast as his injured body would allow.

His mother, blood brother, and little sister were in danger.  In that moment he accepted that he had adopted Wanda as a little sister.  She was family to him too.  

His found family was in danger.

He had to defend them.  

He got between the giant and Wanda just in time, shoving her back before the giant could crush her skull with his bat, her shield had vanished under the pummelling from the giant’s bat.  Loki reached up and planted his feet, bracing himself with magic to catch the bat, to stop the momentum.

It nearly threw him off his feet again, but his magic held, his more than human strength held. 

He reached out to summon a blade and swung automatically when the handle was in his hand.  Centuries of combat experience had taught him never to drop his weapon, to let nothing surprise him in battle, to fight for his life and for those he loved. 

He still nearly dropped his weapon after he’d hit the giant with it.

He was in shock that it wasn’t one of his beloved daggers.

He was holding Mjolnir.

In fighting so hard to save his family, in that moment, he had become worthy.

[afangirlwashere]

Come rant with me about Endgame

So.......... I saw Endgame yesterday and I have some opinions, feelings and thoughts... Also a story about me being an idiot after trying to get home from the cinema but I’ll leave that for a bit later. Anyone who wants to talk about Endgame feel free to hit me up about it ‘cause I got nobody to talk about it with rn.

I’ll talk about the characters a bit more and afterwards, I’ll talk about plot stuff.

So... Thor

I have seen people complaining about what they did to him in this movie. I personally did not expect them to take this route with him but I wouldn’t really say it was completely out of character for him.  He lost a lot. And there is no real threat, nothing to really protect for him anymore apart from his people who he feels like he failed. He feels like he failed everyone and at everything and I can understand that feeling veeeery well.  And it was nice seeing them actually stick to his new figure and not giving him a stupid montage how he got fit again. No! He was worthy no matter what because it’s what's inside that matters.  His hair, beard and glowing eyes 10/10 Kinda sad and mad there was no talking about Loki though... Felt like he should have brought him up somewhere in there. I’m super excited for him to join the Guardians. It’s gonna be a riiide.

Now we can move on to Natasha and Clint

Let me just tell you... The second they started talking about having teams and going for the stones I was like “But Vormir? Who the fuck is going to go to VoRmIr to get the fucking soul stone?! WHOOO?!!!!” and I kind of expected it to be Natasha and Clint.  And I kind of expected Natasha to be the one who sacrifices herself because Clint has a family + after seeing what she did for those 5 years it made sense for her character to be the one who sacrifices herself.  I did not cry at this death I guess because I suspected it but I was VERY sad. I’m a little disappointed that they didn’t do something similar for Natasha as they did for.... y’know... our boi.  I guess the reason I didn’t actually cry could be that when she was lying down there I think she was in the exact same position as Gamora and there has been talk about it that it could mean something (you can watch the SuperCarlinBrothers Endgame review they talk about it a bit) but when I saw her there... It looked just weird man. Like logically she probably would not fall and be in the same position AS Gamora and I got the picture of Gamora just lying down there literally burned in my memory since I’ve seen it like billion times over the past year. The CGI on it was just... It looked weird okay? Otherwise, I was super happy about seeing Clint again. I missed him as much as I will miss Natasha. She did good and she will forever be remembered ❤️ 🧡 💛

Ant-Man a.k.a. my boy Scott Lang

He peaked in this movie. Truly. I had such a good time watching him do stupid shit, be funny but also serious.  He’s just always so much fun. Loved him a lot.  I was a little confused when Cassie was all grown up I thought it was her mom who was at the door first but then Scott was like “Cassie?” and I was like “OH SHIIIIIIT THAT’S THE KIIIID!” 

Bruce... honey...

Don’t have much to say about my boy Bruce. Cool seeing professor Hulk. I really liked the scene where they were trying to figure out time travel. I could relate to him just not knowing what he was doing but doing it anyways ‘cause... same.  Also, thank you for doing the snap. Good job. 

America’s ass Steve Rogers, Cap, whatever you want to call him

Soooooo... I’ve seen theories of his ending actually like.. before this movie came out. I’ve discussed him time traveling to be with Peggy with my cousin and we both agreed it would have been the best ending and that we would really want it for him. BUT when we discussed it we hit this big thing that would kind of not make sense for his character.  BUCKY! He would never leave him be tortured for years and years on if he knew Bucky was alive and that he could actually do something about it.  He would want to do something about HYDRA in S.H.I.E.L.D. as well! It’s not like him to just stand around and do nothing. He said it himself that he could not possibly do that. Like many people on the internet, I’m just... Not happy about this thing. Also, did they talk about it beforehand? Did Steve offer Bucky to go with him? Did Bucky say no? If they explain it in the future (they better) I hope that they mention Steve going for Bucky who was still being tortured WHEN he was with Peggy in the past. I hope that we will get Bucky’s and Steve’s talk after he finished talking to Sam. We could potentially get all these answers in the Falcon & Winter Soldier Disney+ show. I hope we do because if we don’t I’m gonna be hella mad. I wanted to shed some more good tears about Steve and Bucky but they didn’t talk... I’m not bitter. Trust me. Not. At. All. (they could have maaaybe cut the scene of them talking because: time)  Steve picking up Mjölnir was some good shit. I knew it was him the moment that hammer moved a bit. I got the flashbacks to Age of Ultron and I was like “Is he gonna..... Is it.... It’s..... YEEEAAAAHHHH!!!! IT’S FUCKING CAP!!!”  That was truly some good shit we got right there.  Also, I was kind of bitter that Steve and Tony never really talked over Civil War.  Hail Hydra scene? Perfection.  YeAh I know- scene? Perfection. That is America’s ass scene? Perfection.  Overall Steve had some great scenes. I just missed the Bucky in them. No real reuniting between them either... I just don’t know man. I wanted more from that. Bucky played a huge part in all three CA movies (one was literally named after him say what) and we didn’t get... anything. 

Nebula and Rocket 

I was very pleasantly surprised by both of these characters.  I hope they’re gonna be a bit closer now that they spent 5 years with each other.   Everybody say thank you Mr. Rocket for actually following the plan and getting the stupid fucking stone we needed.  Nebula kind of fucked up everything even though it wasn’t her fault. But when she literally killed her old self? I felt that. That was powerful shit.  Also loved her and Tony a lot. She’s a great addition to the Guardians.

Gamora

Sweet summer child. Obviously, they set up a plot for Guardians 3 with Quill trying to find her at the end of Endgame. 

Carol Damnvers Danvers, Cap Marvel, my lesbian hero

Underused. But I get why. She is truly OP. Her haircut? Thank you Marvel gods? Her meeting Peter? I’ve never related more to Peter in my life because I too would be crawling in dirt and curled up on the ground if I got to meet this queen.  AND THEN THE SCENE? THE SCENE WHERE ALL THE MARVEL WOMEN FUCKING STAND UP AND GO AGAINST THANOS?! I felt that.  It was really funny seeing Peter get surrounded by all of them. He is protected by the lesbian queens.  Also her fucking up Thanos? Good shit. Little sad her and Fury got zero scenes in there. 

Wanda motherfucking Maximoff

Another OP women.  Loved her to pieces. Seeing her almost rip Thanos apart was truly inspiring. Fucking legend. Get that revenge for your toaster girl.

Falcon

I don’t have much to say about him because there was not much of Sam in Endgame.  Loved the “On your left” thing. Great call back to WS. But I wanted to tell you guys something that happened in the cinema that I saw coming.  There was this group of boys around 17-19 years old sitting right behind me and when Cap was giving Sam the shield and basically making him the next Captain America.. I think ya’ll know where this is going.  These fucking dudes had the audacity to scoff and out loud talk about it like “A black dude is gonna be Captain America? The fuck?” I was trying not to sob in my seat because EMOTIONS and I felt the fucking rage that went through my veins at that moment. I can’t believe people still do this shit. Why, why, why the fuck do you think that it’s not okay? I wish I could go back to that moment and just throw my water bottle in their faces. Assholes.  It really ruined the moment for me and I’ll never forget the fucking disgust I felt when I heard that coming out of their mouths. Really wish I told them something but the state I was at... I was just not in the shape for calling them out on their bullshit. 

Um.... I feel like it’s time we address the elephant in the room. THEM. 

Dad Tony was really fucking me up good in this movie I gotta tell you.  The I lost the kid scene? Good shit. (In our subtitles they translated it to “I lost Peter” which was like.... Ummmmm.... kill me nooooow) The I love you 3 000? Good shit.  The shit scene? Good shit.  The bedtime story? Wish we got some Peter in there but still. Good shit.  Any scene with Morgan Stark in it? Good shit.  I just need her and Peter bonding in some future movie and I’m satisfied. Anthony Edward Stark really is that bitch, isn’t he? He made time travel happen in like 4 hours.... We love a true legend man. I wish we could have seen him talking to aunt May (that is if she didn’t die in the snap we still don’t know). I just kind of hoped that we could have seen him getting over losing Peter and stuff... even though he never really got over it.  I’ve also seen people blaming Peter for Tony’s death??? Umm? How? He did not jump out of that fucking picture and tell Tony to save him. He did not force Tony to care about him. Tony just did because he has a serious issue with adopting sad ki-I just don’t understand how anybody could blame Peter for his death. Tony decided totally by himself.  Seeing him go off on the team when he came back from space was... just wow. I felt that. I was genuinely scared of him for a bit. Also how skinny he looked? :) That shit hurted.  All of his dialog? Gold. Actual gold. There isn’t a scene in which he did not excel.  The talk between him and his dad? That shit hurted.  When Peter came on the screen... Man I was WAITING when all the guys from Titan started showing up I was at the edge of my seat like “whereishewhereishewhereishewhereishe” and then when he fucking jumped in there the music got all epic and when he took off the mask he looked so fucking adorable and happy and the hair and ghdakskguarieogs-  That was truly the first time I cried in that movie. That is what he does to me.  And WE GOT THE HUG FOLKS! Him rambling and being all OwwwO and Tony just looking at him. Cried like a crazy person. I’ve waited for that a long time.  And then Peter jumping around and protecting the gauntlet and meeting everyone and Carol and... I just can’t even. He was perfect. It was perfect. But then it happened... The moment Strange gave Tony THE look I knew shit was going down for real.  I was crying like a little baby.  Seeing Thanos fade away was very satisfactory but right after that seeing Tony just... do THAT. And by THAT I mean fucking DIE. Yeah... Rhodey was the first one at his side and he just kind of pet his head...  But then fucking Peter got to him and I- that was truly painful as all hell. Seeing him cry and break down because that’s his father figure, that’s his mentor, that’s his Tony.  And now he’s just.... gone.  Go watch the Far From Home trailer that’s a lot of fun now :--))))  Pepper telling him that he can rest I- think I never cried more in my entire cinema experiences. When the reactor turned off it was over. I was trying so hard to not sob and be loud in my seat but I actually have no clue if I was loud or not because I was that deep in. Didn’t bring any tissues. That was a mistake I am never making again.  The funeral was beautiful.  The cheeseburger scene. Great. I actually had a burger yesterday and... It’s the first time I cried over a fucking burger.  I still can’t believe it happened. My brain is still not comprehending it. I just can’t believe...  I was SO convinced that Cap was the one who’s dying and I was SO convinced that they could not just get rid of Tony. But they did... They did that. It’s the end of an era. Truly.  And Morgan is going to grow up without a father now :---))) just end me.. This is fucking hell.  I’ve never cried this much in a cinema. Fuck Endgame. 

Okay so now I wanna talk about some plot stuff

The time travel I don’t fucking get 

Okay but can somebody explain to me how the time travel works? Maybe after I watch it a few times I’ll understand it better. I have some kind of idea how it probably works but I’m still veeery confused.  They made such a big deal about returning the stones back to the realities they borrowed them from. Okay. But how did they return them back in the way they were before?  The reality stone aka Aether was in Jane Foster, right? Tony, Thor or someone must have figured out a way how to put it in its stone version but can you put it back in Jane Foster then? So that nothing changes? Can you? Or do you have to? How much do we have to follow the rules of how things have been when we return them? Can it be given back in the stone form?  Same thing goes for the space stone. It was in the Tesseract. How did they put it back in the Tesseract? Did they have to? How. Does. This. Work?  And what about the soul stone? We know that Red Skull is the protector of it on Vormir but he is not the one who put the soul stone in there. So who did? And can they put it back? How did Steve put it back? He couldn’t have just given it to Red Skull right? Then Red motherfucking Skull would have the stone and it would fuck up some other reality. Just like when Loki took the Tesseract. I just don’t exactly understand this. Also if we made a huge deal out of the stones what about Mjölnir?? When Thor took it right before the dark elves attacked? Don’t they have to give it back as well? I get that he took it so that we could see Cap with Mjölnir but.... ???? I don’t remember if Steve had it with him when he was returning the stones he might have but he also had it when he was old sitting on that bench. He could have given it back just like the stones and maybe call it to himself when he needed it (which would probably confuse Thor a bit). I suppose Thor could still call it back when Steve had it in the past but that would mean there were two Mjölnir hammers at one point right? Because Steve went back to Peggy and at that point, Thor still had his hammer because Hella did not destroy it yet AND the thicc dummy Thor hasn’t taken it yet either.  So what if he called two hammers? Wouldn’t that be just really weird? Also what happens with that reality where Thanos is dead? It’s 2014 Thanos. I would think they have to put him back as well so that the whole snap can still happen.  I’m just super confused with EVERYTHING about this.  But the thing that is the weirdest to me personally is old Steve??? Like... Did he time travel from his own reality back to ours with the shield and  Mjölnir? Because he couldn’t have been in OUR reality right? The things they do when they travel to the past do not affect the present. No butterfly effect right?  Which means Steve couldn’t have lived in OUR reality with Peggy because in our reality Peggy had her own husband, children, and life.  So he must have traveled from our reality to the one where Peggy did not have a family yet and then when he wanted to go back to Sam and Bucky he must have traveled from that reality where he was with Peggy back to ours or this doesn’t make any sense. So why did we not see him in the time traveling suit?  That must mean in some other reality we have Peggy’s and Steve’s kids but not in ours. So does that mean there are two Steve’s in some other reality? Because Steve is still stuck in that iceberg.  IDK man I’m super confused how all of this worked. The stones, the hammer, and Steve.

I hope I made at least some sense in this. I highly recommend you to watch the SuperCarlinBrothers review they talk about some of the stuff I talked about here. If any of you who actually read this whole thing (wow kudos to you) want to chat about it you can message me or something IDK. I have no one to talk about this movie with rn so if you’re in the same situation you can definitely hit me up if you have some opinions, theories, and emotions. 

Also the little story I promised. 

I went to see Endgame on Thursday and I had to take a train that was leaving around 9:53PM to get back home. There is this park that I have to walk through to get to the road that leads to the train station. It’s basically like at least a 20-minute walk from the cinema to that train station.  So I got lost.... in the park. It was dark as fuck in there. I was in a city I barely know, heartbroken over THAT movie and I had to catch the train.  In the middle of all of that my mom called me and I was like barely holding back tears because THAT movie, I’m also lost in a dark motherfucking park in a city I don’t know, somebody is laughing loud as fuck in there and the train is leaving in like 15 minutes.  My mom later told me that I sounded weird like I was crying or something (which I almost was) I was panicking as FUCK. I eventually made my way out of that park but I did not catch the train. I even RAN to catch it. Still didn’t make it. Had to take a bus to get home.  It was a disaster.  I also sat outside of my apartment just looking at the dark sky around 11PM and cried my eyes out because TONY.  So that was a stressful journey home. 

In the end... The movie destroyed me. I’m not sure I am completely satisfied with everything that went down and how it went down but I still think they did a very good job with it.  I will forever miss Tony Stark and Natasha Romanoff. It will never be the same without them. Thank you for everything. 

[mftrash]

Girl the Soldier Saved Ch.5 (Peter Parker X OC)

She stood in the doorway, eyes jumping from man to man, trying to assess the situation and figure out what to do. There was no cover that was close enough for her to duck into. She could always go back into the building and make sure the knocked out men inside were taken care of, but that would just escalate into a waiting game. A waiting game that Lana would undoubtedly lose.

Besides Lana had things to think about. She never really took count of all the things she had come to care about since leaving HYDRA. Now she had the school, and if HYDRA had found her at the warehouse, there was no doubt that they knew she was a student at the Midtown School for Science and Technology, if she resisted going with them now, who knew who they would hurt to try and get her to comply. Not only that, but she also had to think of Peter. If she disappeared for a few days, Peter would look for her. She was not thinking this because she thinks they’re friends; but because Peter was good. He would take her disappearing as either her deciding to do something bad (he was still a little iffy with her for the whole ‘Ex-HYDRA’ thing), or he would take it as her being in trouble (which, in this case, would be true) and he would look for her.

If she were still at a standoff with HYDRA when he did find her, HYDRA would not hesitate to kill him if he got in their way. That, or they would do the worse thing and decide he is interesting enough to take in and experiment on. Peter’s abilities were remarkable after all.

As Lana was still deciding which path to take, a man stepped out from the group.

“Myriad, you are to return with us and face your punishment for betraying the cause, or you shall die.”

Well, at least they were giving her a choice.

When Lana failed to move or respond in any way, the apparent leader of the group gestured to two men to come forward and apprehend her. She let them get close, and when they were within spitting distance, Lana let her instincts kick in and shot them both, catching one as he dropped to use as a shield against the incoming array of bullets. She continued to unload her gun into the men in front of her, but she was tragically outnumbered. It did not take them long to overpower her, first, with a shot to the hand holding her gun. Next, with a shot to the thigh and torso when she stumbled, dropping her human shield after being shot in the hand.

Lana laid on the ground, in excruciating pain, when many of the men approached her. The leader spoke once more.

“You chose to die. Too bad we are to take you back. Nice try though.”

As he was talking to her, Lana was fiddling with her trusty bracelet, which was risky, but when the men saw her hands resting on her torso, they assumed she was attempting to put pressure on her wound.

“My name, I- I want you to know my name.” was all Lana replied with.

“Pardon me?”

“I want you to know, Myriad is not my name. It is Svetlana.”

The man smirked, “And why is that of any importance?”

“Because, I though you should know the name of the person that’s going to kill you.”

She moved to hit the button on her bracelet that would detonate the remaining explosives that she had on her, but right as she moved, a voice was heard above the crowd. “That won’t be necessary kid, I got this.”

The men were quick to turn and point their weapons at the voice, but by the time they had, the sound of blaster fire was heard and all of them were down. Lana wanted to get up, she wanted to look on as the men who were going to take her back to Hell were killed. But, all she could feel was the excruciating pain in her side, accompanied with the increasing light-headedness, most likely from blood loss.

Soon she felt herself being lifted, causing her to let out a subconscious moan of pain that escalated into a yell.

“They did quite the number on you, didn’t they kid?”

Lana decided to ignore that and managed to slur out, “How did you find me?”

“Well, I already had a general idea of where you were because of surveillance, but, I must say, the sounds of explosions and gunfire definitely helped me.”

Lana let a small smile slip past her lips, “Fair enough Stark.”

It was only now that she acknowledged that they were flying and he was taking her somewhere. She did not know where it was, but she knew it would be safer than wherever HYDRA wanted her. She also knew the chances of the Iron Man ever letting her go free again were slim, but her chances of ever living freely were cut down to nothing the second HYDRA found her at the warehouse anyway.

She could feel her last grasp on consciousness slipping, and she did not know if she would awake again, so she took the moment to say the most important thing that could come to her mind in that moment.

“Stark, don’t blame Peter. I threatened him into helping me, he is not deserving of punishment.”

Then everything faded to black.

[inawickedlittletown]

Walking The Wire (22/?)

Summary: Tony Stark always knew about Peter Parker. He didn’t know that Peter was going to get superpowers and become Spider-Man, but he always knew about Peter because Peter was his son.

This will span from pre-Iron Man up through the rest of the MCU (eventually including Infinity War) and will be for the most part canon compliant except where I’ve taken some liberties and interpreted canon a certain way.

Pairings: Pepper/Tony, Tony/Steve (endgame), Tony/Mary (past)

A/N: If you want me to tag you when I post new chapters let me know. This fic is also on AO3

I used Collider’s MCU timeline to stay canon and the title of this fic is an Imagine Dragons song that is just so fitting for Peter and Tony

Masterpost

Chapter Twenty One

“You didn’t have to do any of this,” Steve said as he got into Tony’s car.

Tony grinned over at him. “I did,” he said. “It was come here and hang out with you guys or surprise the Bartons at the farm. I did send the kiddos some cool gifts, though, so Clint’s going to be a happy camper.”

“Of course you did,” Steve said, “and I think Clint would have appreciated a visit. I think he’s getting bored of the normal life.”

Tony laughed. “And now you all understand why I couldn’t retire the first time and even now I’m not completely retired. It’s not easy sitting anything out.”

Tony drove them out of the facility and Steve leaned back in his seat and watched him for a while. “I think,” he said, “you’re trying not to think about how this is another Christmas not spent with Peter.”

Tony didn’t deny it, but he didn’t answer for a long while. When he did, it was a red light and he actually turned his face to look at Steve. “I sent him a book on spiders since he seemed so interested. I think his interest in science might be taking a more biological basis. I guess he takes after his mother. He’s been a bit quieter lately when it comes to emails but I’m not too concerned.”

Steve nodded and just stared ahead as Tony drove them at a fast speed and didn’t take the usual turn to head into New York City. Tony seemed at peace. He was relaxed and happy and Steve wished for nothing else than for him to stay that way.

“Have you thought about trying to meet him?” Steve asked. “You wouldn’t have to tell him everything at first.”

Tony shook his head. “I don’t think that’d be fair to him. I’d have to tell him. I couldn’t -- it’s one thing to keep this lie alive when I only know him through email. But if I met him it would be different and I couldn’t form any kind of relationship with him if the lie stands.”

“I get it,” Steve said. “Or rather, I don’t, but you’ll have to face that soon. You can’t keep putting it off.”

“I know,” Tony said and smiled a little.

“Where are we going, anyway?” Steve asked, not sure that he recognized the road they were on.

Tony tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “You do know I own a lot of property, right?”

Steve did know. He didn’t actually know how much Tony owned, but he knew that Tony had inherited quite a lot from Howard and then probably purchased newer property on his own too. Steve actually didn’t like to think about how much money Tony had because he knew that he would never be able to accept that someone could have that much wealth. At least Tony did a lot of good with it.

Tony took him to a large Victorian style house. It looked like it was in need of some repairs, but overall not a bad home.

“The last time I was here Edwin Jarvis was still alive and I was in the process of making Dum-E some friends,” Tony said as they pulled up.

“And why are we here?” Steve asked.

“Your present is here. I really should have come on my own and made sure it’s actually still here but I just -- I don’t know if I could have done it.”

He followed Tony to the door and watched as Tony fished out a key to open it. The door was a bit stuck and it creaked loudly when it finally opened.

“It’s the same exact door it’s always had,” he said to Steve as they walked inside, “which probably means it needs to be replaced.”

All the furniture inside was covered by sheets, but even then it didn’t seem to be dusty or in much disrepair which meant that someone regularly cleaned it or that Tony had made sure someone would clean it before they arrived. Past the foyer the first room Steve saw was a living room complete with a covered piano and Tony walked directly towards the piano. He lay his hands on it whispered something that even Steve didn’t catch.

“I grew up here,” Tony said. “My dad gave this house to my mom as a wedding gift. She loved interior design so everything in this house was chosen by her for some reason or another. I haven’t changed anything about it.”

Steve suddenly understood why it had been so hard for Tony to return to that house. Before he could say anything, Tony continued.

“I never really lived here. Howard sent me to boarding school by the time that he thought I was old enough and then later I was at MIT. Then, they died, and I couldn’t face coming back here again.”

It was hard to listen to Tony talk about his parents’ deaths without telling him that they hadn’t just died in a car crash but that their deaths had been ordered by Hydra. He was basically giving him an opening so that Steve could bring it up, except that he didn’t want to hurt Tony with that particular truth when there was nothing that they could do to change what had happened short of time travel.

“I had Jarvis pack the things he thought I would need and I went back to school and when I graduated I moved to California because it was just easier. I could never live in this house that was my mom’s more than anyone else’s.” Tony looked towards Steve then and Steve reached out, touching his shoulder.

“I get it,” Steve said, “my mom was a nurse and I lost her before the war. Seeing her get sick and watching her die was hard. Bucky was probably the only reason I survived and he just really took care of me afterwards even when I tried to push him away.”

Tony smiled a little. “That was Rhodey for me. He was my roommate at MIT and he was with me the entire time. He even made me stay with him at his parent’s house for a few weeks.”

They stood in silence for a long time over the piano and Tony seemed to be taking in the room, as if trying to picture all the memories he must have had from it. Eventually he sighed and shook his head.

“Well, I didn’t bring you here to be all sad and melancholy,” Tony said, “there’s actually a reason.”

Tony took him up to the second floor and after some hesitation into the last room at the end of the hall. Steve hadn’t expected to see what was at the other side, but of course he should have. It was something of a shrine to him. There were posters and news clippings and shelves that seemed to hold all those comics that had come out of his time in the war and just so much more.

“Coulson used to think that he had the largest Captain America collection, but actually I did. Well, Howard did and I inherited it, although these were the things that he always let me look at and that I really considered mine. I kind of figured you’d want to see it. To see what you’ve inspired. There’s also a real gift for later, but let’s just say that I used to dream about my dad finding you and you actually coming to see me here in this room. Your biggest fan. Well, when I wasn’t hating you because Howard seemed to think finding you was more important than being my dad.”

Steve took a look through everything carefully and he was amazed at how much there was and how much was just so wrong or got things strangely right. It was odd to see the comics and the way that the artists had imagined him. At one point when he was still skinny and sickly Steve’s aspirations had been to become a comic book artist. He had never intended to be the subject of so many of them.

There were other things too like posters and calendars and just so much that he couldn’t even wrap his mind around and Tony just smirked at him.

“This is actually kind of incredible, Tony,” Steve said.

Tony grinned at him. “Yeah, and it’s kind of worth it to trigger my daddy issues by coming here.”

“You didn’t have to,” Steve said.

Tony shook his head. “No, I did. I really didn’t know it could affect me this much even now.”

The guilt of knowing they hadn’t died in a car crash settled on Steve’s shoulders and he tried not show his discomfort even as Tony gave him a tour of the house and then actually took him down to the basement where his real gift was.

It turned out to be an old picture of him and the Howling Commandos. It wasn’t one that had been put out into the public like most of the pictures from back then and in it Steve had his arm thrown around Bucky and they were laughing. Peggy was off to the side and so was Howard and Steve just couldn’t remember when the picture had been taken.

“There’s a whole bunch of them and just other things that Howard saved. Actually, I think there’s some sketchbooks of yours in here too. Howard never really let me look at those so they never made it into the museums either.”

Tony dug around in some boxes and handed Steve things as he found them. He started making a pile for the things he actually wanted to take. Mostly pictures of his friends in the moments when they had been at their best.

“Aha!” Tony said.

“What?” Steve asked and moved closer.

“The sketchbooks. I knew they’d still be here,” Tony said and opened one and then he burst out laughing.

“Oh god,” Steve muttered and he grabbed the sketchbook out of Tony’s hands already feeling mortified because he knew what Tony had found. He couldn’t believe that Howard had kept them.

“You drew nudes,” Tony muttered after a while. “Steve Grant Rogers, you porn drawing deviant!”

Steve could feel himself turning red as Tony just kept staring at him and then he was grabbing the sketchbook and Steve couldn’t even stop him as he started to flip through the book. A part of him didn’t even seem to mind because Tony was so weirdly gleeful about it. He also seemed to actually appreciate the art.

“It’s good,” Tony said, “but I always thought it was only ever Peggy that you--”

“She was the only person I ever really cared for that way, yeah,” Steve said a little bit amused about how Tony didn’t seem too comfortable asking the question. “A lot of those are from my art classes. We had models come in -- volunteers. Then, when I was on the USO tour some of the girls let me draw them. Not all of them in the nude. Some of the guys too after I rescued Bucky and the others.”

“Oh,” Tony said and flipped through a few more pages.

Steve grinned. “There’s a beauty to the human form.”

“So should I ask to be drawn like one of your USO girls?” Tony asked with a glint in his eye.

Steve actually laughed, especially when Tony gave him a pose. “Titanic,” he said after a moment.

“I love that you get my references now,” Tony said and turned back to the sketchbook.

Later, as they were leaving, Steve could tell that Tony was still affected by being there from the way that he looked at certain rooms and how a picture of his mother in the hallway made him pause for a long moment. Steve felt horrible about not telling him. Maybe he needed to. Steve told himself that he would and yet he just couldn’t ruin the holiday with it and anyway he wasn’t sure that it would make things better for Tony to know it hadn’t been an accident. It might make things worse.

Chapter Twenty Three

[ninjakitty15]

Chapter 4: Like Death Warmed Over (Loki x OFC Pairing)

"Supernatural ended?! What the actual fuck?! Why?!" I exclaimed while catching up on the shows I missed in the five year absence. "That show was supposed to go till I die...again! My life is over!" I curled up on the couch, hugging my knees to my chest and burying my head in my arms.

"It was quite an entertaining show," Loki agreed, having grown curious early on in my catching up what I was bitching about missing so much. "Is any of it true? The monsters and the ways to kill them?"

"I only know about ghosts and spirits and most kinds of salt does act as a ward against them, rock salt especially. As I don't get rid them by force but by coercion if anything, I don't know if burning the bodies or pieces of the body left would send them away. Not about to try either."

"And the other monsters of legends in there, do they exist?"

"Almost every culture has their monsters on this planet, some overlapping between werewolves and vampires, I wouldn't be surprised if they do but I've not personally seen any beyond my area of expertise. Not my problem."

"What about angels and demons?"

"Those two are a bit different as they were primarily created by only one such religion, and a shady one at that, people somehow have different ideas of what those are. There have been cases of demonic possession in the past but its not like in the show where they're black smoke forcing themselves into your mouth, you don't see it happening, it just happens. Angels on the other hand...bit more complicated, ancient literature depicts them as benevolent  guardians of God to carry out his will and guide us lowly humans. Modern media however depicts the majority of them as dicks with an agenda of their own that doesn't involve helping us at all."

"What do you believe then?"

"I have no one religion to believe considering I'm talking to a god right now and was given more power from beings that claim they're gods as well, everyone  wants to be king of the mountain."

"And what do you want?"

"A cottage by the shores of Salem, where death and dark magic is strong but not shunned and the weird are welcomed more than the mundane."

"That place sounds intriguing, tell me more about it."

"Centuries ago when my ancestors first settled, people were even more religious nuts than they are now and they were crazy superstitious. They were also just plain crazy and got the idea of obtaining other people's land and property by accusing the owners of being evil witches after watching their daughters dabble in a bit of voodoo magic with their slaves. That's when the infamous Salem Witch Trials started which was a horrific dark mark in this country's history. Hundreds of innocent lives were ended as women and children and even the occasional man was accused, tortured, and locked away for life or executed horrifically."

"And you wish to live there?" he asked incredulously.

"There might be some unrest still from the victims and I want them to be at peace. Also, while the history of the place was terrible to say the least, it has become a bit more whimsical and touristy which I usually hate but they make it so fun there. You might even like it yourself if you ever wanna visit, assuming Tony lets me off the leash and I'm not stuck living here forever. Nowadays its a place that celebrates and capitalizes on magic."

"What if I were to convince Tony to let us have a day trip to there?"

"You'd do that?"

"Why not?"

I shrugged but smiled at the idea. "I'd say you're living up to the nickname Silvertongue."

"Oh that's not the only reason I'm called that," he purred into my ear.

I'm pretty sure if I could still bring color to my skin, I'd have the slightest blush of excitement from his voice alone let alone the suggestion. "Promises promises."

"Tell me something, you say you're dead inside and only the necromancy itself keeps you going, but do you still feel or are your nerves dead too."

"I don't think I'd wanna be alive if I couldn't feel or taste things so yes intense pain and strong levels of pleasure, kinda like a succubus I guess, pleasure keeps me alive, reminds me I'm still kicking." I paused then, trying to read if he was just gonna dump naughty images in my head or actually follow through. I do something totally impulsive then and rest my head on his lap, reaching up and touching the razorsharp jawbones of a god. Though he's cool to the touch, the second I come in contact with him I feel alive again.

"Do you miss being completely alive?" he asked, seeing the sudden but fleeting change from my touch.

"I'm not sure, the life I had before the change was almost complete hell from what I remember and I'm not one of those protagonists that wishes they could just be normal again, I like being what I am. I'd probably have died for real at Hydra, always finding new methods to get the same result of me not doing anything, I think a normal human would've died from the pain or blood loss then."

"That would make you an immortal, staying alive when you should be long dead, unaffected."

I shrugged. "I am what I am. Doubt I'm immortal though, a blade through the heart might not work but most creatures are killed by beheading including zombies which apparently Stark thinks I am. Jokes on him though, I don't eat brains, that's the least appetizing part of the body."

"You know from experience, do you?" he asked in bemusement. "Is it the heart then?"

I wrinkled my nose at this, recalling a certain show where a horse heart was devoured raw. "Have you ever eaten a muscle? It's like eating a wet squishy piece of leather, your jaw starts to ache after a few bites of a chewy chunk. Everyone assumes its the heart or brains thats best because we think since thats our best quality alive, it should be that in a meal." My hand slid from his face to his heart then though was blocked by his green asgardian leisure robes so the feeling of being alive was a bit lost though I still wanted to feel his heart, so many people seemed to think he didn't have one. I wondered if I could survive pulling his lifeforce from him, not that I'd want to of course when just touching him gave me a taste of life, but an immortal with immense power meant he wouldn't be dead for a while and that meant he was a potential atomic bomb in my hands. I was quiet for once, feeling his heartbeat, his power under my hand, so many different thoughts between naughty and dangerous running through my head then. I could feel him watch me just as quiet as I was, ever the curious god observing his new catch.

"What are you thinking that's stayed your tongue suddenly?" he asked me then.

I smirked. "I'm wondering what true power tastes like."

"Lean up and find out," he challenged smoothly.

Both my eyebrows popped up then, usually when people find out I'm a walking magical corpse they're instantly turned off due to that pesky little thing called necrophilia. I didn't need to be told twice though and did just that, our lips connecting softly. The second it did, my entire body warmed and tingled back to life, causing me to moan into the kiss in the rush of long missed feeling I didn't want to end. What started out as a tasting, testing the waters kiss quickly became one of lust and hunger he was matching just as greedily. I pushed myself up to get even closer to him and his hands snaked around my hips without breaking the kiss. Of course something had to at least give Loki some air to breathe and it was a soft thump coming outside the room followed closely by, "Mr. Stark, are you here?"

We pulled away reluctantly, allowing Loki to catch his breath and me to lose mine returning to my current corpse form. "You'll be the life of me, Loki," I mused. "Did a kid just interrupt this?"

"That must be the Spiderling then," loki replied, waiting for me to get off him before getting off the couch and offering me his hand once more.

I took it curiously and followed him out of the living to where a teenager was looking around wearing a high tech spider themed suit that looked like an offshoot of Deadpool's suit though the mask part was pulled off. He's cute though a bit young. "That has Stark written all over it."

The kid whirled around as his back had been turned to us watching him look for his sugar daddy. "Hi Loki, who are you?"

"Who am I? Who are you?" I countered. "I was here first."

"I'm Spider Parker- I mean Peter Man," he stumbled in answer. "Dammit."

I couldn't hide the laughter at his failed attempt to cover one if not both identities and looked over at Loki who was smirking just the same. "Isn't he just precious?"

"I think you caught him by surprise, not an easy feat as he claims he has a sixth sense for that sort of thing," Loki commented.

I shrugged. "Occupational hazard. Tony's not here right now, but if you'd like to leave a message you can do so elsewhere."

Peter as I guessed his actual name was scowled at me and appeared to get in a defensive stance but once more we were interrupted by something entering the building followed by. "Loki, you guys here?"

"Maybe," I called back.

Tony walked into the room we were all standing in and grinned seeing Peter there as well. "Hey kid, what brings you here?"

"Mr. Stark, I heard rumors theres a horde of zombies at the hydra base and wanted to help," Peter replied quickly.

It was my turn to frown then. "So much for keeping that under wraps, I'm blaming you on this, Stark. You just had to know, didn't you?"

"Me? I'm pretty sure you volunteered as you hate them as much as we do."

"I was hoping you'd handle most of it, you're the Avengers after all, but once more a woman has to clean up a mess made by lousy men."

"You know her, Mr. Stark?" squeaked Peter between the bickering.

"We found her in the second to last base we raided, well Loki did anyway," explained Tony. "I let you into my compound as a guest I know almost nothing about and this is how you thank me."

"You could've just let me go back to where I was before I got caught but noooo, you had to know why I was there."

"She's got a point there, Stark," Loki noted.

"Who's side are you on?" he demanded.

"Hers, clearly. I thought that much was obvious as I'm standing right next to her this whole time."

Tony rolled his eyes but returned his attention to Peter. "Don't worry about it, kid. The zombies don't work for Hydra."

"They don't?" he asked in disbelief.

"They work for me," I chirped. "Well not worked so much as follow since its free of charge and labor."

"You? What are you, the Night Queen?" Peter asked.

Tony chuckled at the reference. My eyes went snow white then and I gave him a look that matched the lead wight walker. "Winter is coming," I told him in a hollow voice.

"M-Mr. Stark, I don't think it's a good idea to have her on the team," Peter told him quietly.

"Are you questioning my judgment, kid?"

"No, sir."

"Good, because she's staying here."

"Actually," I interjected. "I have a request on that note."

Tony turned back to me then with an arched eyebrow. "You're not moving out till I can fully trust you."

"She wants to go on a field trip with me somewhere, just for a day," Loki spoke up.

Tony crossed his arms and looked expectantly at the god. "Where?"

"Only the most magical place in the east coast," I answered.

"Disneyworld?" Peter asked hopefully.

I wrinkled my nose in disgust. "Hell no, that's the most nauseating place in the east coast. So full of families with kids they can't hope to control, and all that noise noise noise. That place ain't magical, it's mechanical and made of money and memories. No, this place isn't in the south and doesn't require commercial airlines to get there."

"Hm, well you proved you can handle yourself on the battlefield and Loki will be with you on this trip but as I still don't trust him completely we'll have someone else with you two to make sure you don't get into too much trouble," Tony stated. "Clint will go with you as he's the only one free at the moment and wasn't fighting off hydra like the rest of us did. Family outting or whatever at his farm."

"Is that a yes?"

"Yup, don't make me regret it either or you'll be on a tighter leash than Loki is."

"Oooh a leash, kinky, what's the safe word?"

"Bananas," he quipped right back, making me cackle before I thanked him for letting have some fun on my own.