#anyways the color is only there so i could violate the geneva convention

[humming-fly]

I've been vicariously reveling in @post-it-notes7's recent foray into their version of dark meta knight's No Good Very Bad Day, and naturally have had a shitpost bouncing around in my head the Entire time

[urishvalsheva]

Panacea thoughts

TW: if you need trigger warnings, this post isn’t for you.

Just got caught up on Ward and I have some thoughts on Panacea.

First of all, I’m glad Wildbow gave us these Panacea interludes so I can finally stop giving her the benefit of the doubt! I admit, I held out hope for too long. All credit to Wildbow for making a great character that I and so many other people empathize with on a level we don’t like to admit but (hopefully) don’t sympathize with (anymore at least). I know he’s done this for other groups and it was uniquely scary to see a darker version of myself. And I have Bitch and Chris to relate with, so it’s not like she was the only character who speaks to me.

Secondly, to I’ve seen people wondering why Panacea has/still has fans. I can’t deny that some of them just want her power (who doesn’t?) and others  are creepy. But there’s another group that fell in love with her before the S9 arc; people judged for genetic things that don’t give us a sense of community the way racism/homophobia/antisemitism/islamophobia do (if there are other people of your race/religion/alignment around).

I mean the short boys/folks passing thereas who are make fun of by traditional men and women and slapped down by feminists as soon as they complain about the Geneva Convention violating treatment they’ve received all their lives (I’m talking about the literal torture, not getting rejected by girls but I know someone will hold up that straw mortal anyways.). The cis-intersex folks who are shunned by the trans movement and cis folks alike, told that they’re just cis trash by the LGBT movement but rejected by the rest of society. The folks with minor issues like color blindness and tone deafness that don’t quite qualify as disabilities and are ridiculed when claimed as such but are still an excuse to torment them, especially by art/music teachers who don’t believe in their existence and think that enough torture will cure the student’s impudence. Because Amelia Dallon was always mistreated by her “parents” because of who her father was. Always seen as only half family, even by the public. Always working herself to the bone for a scraps of acceptance. She doesn’t gain acceptance until she goes to the Birdcage. Only accepted by villains.

I get that. I remember a primary school teacher telling me that nothing good comes from people like me. That I should kill myself quietly because I would shoot up a school otherwise (spoiler warning: I didn’t do either). I don’t know if she actually believed it or if pushing me to suicide was just more convenient than helping me. That stuck with me more than any of the bullying my peers did. Whenever something went wrong, people blamed it on me even if I wasn’t even present when it happened. Because they knew evidence wouldn’t help me. The knew they could get away with it. Because I was lower than them. No was never a word I could say. If I did, I was greedy and needed to be punished. Because I was evil anyways. Why not punish me in advance? 

“If she was going to be treated like the worst person imaginable whatever she did”, why not be evil and enjoy it? I struggled a lot with that. If there weren’t so many moments when I wanted to do the wrong thing because I would be accused of it anyways, so why not enjoy it?

Fuck me if I didn’t think that verbatim. If I hadn’t learned to meditate, who knows where I’d be now. Definitely in a worse place. But I remember the absolute isolation. No one to have my back. No one to believe me. No where that wants me. Nothing to hold me. I remember that chill. I don’t blame Ms. Dallon for falling but I do blame her for not seeing a fucking therapist and/or trying to make herself better instead of just trying to do better with the same failed methods. I can forgive many actions once. One of my best friends nowadays used to restrain me so others could hurt me. But repeats? And not making any attempt to prevent repeats? No. I could forgive even her obsession with Victoria if she was actually trying to fix it. Her fucked up upbringing lead to a fucked up mental states but it’s still her responsibility to do something about it!

Also, fuck Vicky for trying to use therapy to lure her into a trap and kill her. That will hopefully come back to bite Breakthrough; if this were A Practical Guide to Evil, it definitely would.

[silaslibraryclub]

Discord Diamonds ep4

@ukulelekatie this is for you: The idea here was ‘Buzzfeed quiz results are so random. Maybe a dateability quiz is actually how compatible you are with the author.’ - @jg-firefly

“No one will know.”

Betty quirked an eyebrow, glancing over the top of her nail file at Laura. She had arrived much like she always did—unexpectedly, with bubblegum already smacking. Sometimes, Laura wondered when she had time to do her actual job, but, more often than not, she accepted that Betty was just going to be... Betty.

“I’ll know,” she scoffed, her fingers pausing their path across her keyboard. It was far from hard-hitting journalism, but she had an article on potted plants that looked like celebrities that she needed to turn in by that evening, and a How Dateable Are You quiz, of all things, was low on her radar.

Besides, that was generally Betty’s area.

“The quizzes are nonsense, anyway. How does picking a color determine which Doctor Who character I am?”

“Right, coming from Miss ‘Pottermore-says-I’m-a-Gryffindor.’”

Laura knew it was childish, but she was sorely tempted to stick out her tongue. She settled for rolling her eyes.

“Doesn’t mean I’m going to do it.”

“You just said it yourself: it’s nonsense. So what’s the big deal?”

“It’s got to be some sort of... I don’t know, ethics violation.”

“Right. Because it’s against the Geneva Convention to skew an internet quiz.”

“What would be the point, though?” Laura gave up on her article entirely, waving her hands and letting them fall into her lap. She kicked out her desk chair and turned it to face Betty more solidly. Her neck had enough of a crick already, from where she’d been sleeping on Perry’s couch.

Damn termites. Damn shitty landlords.

“Fun, Laura. The point would be fun. Now c’mon, just answer a few questions!”

She glared, but it was without any real fight. Betty gave a little hiss of triumph, scooping up her notepad and running the eraser-end of her pencil down a list she had been careful to keep hidden.

“Alright. First date. What’s the worst possible thing they could order?”

///

“Hey, 52% is respectable, Perr,” Mel said. She tossed back another swig of Corona. “Better than LaF.”

“Broke my heart,” LaFontaine agreed, their voice dropping into somber, dramatized tones. They pressed a hand to their chest. “Only 11% compatibility... I’m not sure I can go on.”

“It’s because you answer every question with the worst response on purpose.”

“I still say diffusing a bomb would make for a memorable anniversary.”

“Hence the 11%.”

LaFontaine put on a pout, but it vanished immediately in the face of the cookies Perry set before them. Laura put three on her plate, watching the rest vanish in a flurry of grabby hands.

Only Perry would serve baked goods with drinks.

She really hadn’t expected the quiz to turn into anything more than a few laughs with Betty. But then Betty had reported results from across the office, each announcement rife with personal commentary, and Laura hadn’t been able to contain her amusement when LaFontaine had declared their offense at ‘not being dateable.’

So she had clued them in. And with them had come everyone they knew.

Which was how Laura knew that she should absolutely not date any of her friends.

“I can’t believe any of you would order seafood on a first date,” she complained. “It’s like you don’t want to have a goodnight kiss.”

“Oysters are hot,” shrugged Mel.

Laura made a face. “Not visually, they’re not.”

“Well, Charlotte thinks so. And, not that it matters, but we got the exact same score.” She raised her bottle to no one, smirking, and took another hearty swig.

The back door swung open without warning, the sound of suburb crickets wafting in as Carmilla clomped her boots over the threshold. She set a six-pack on the counter, offering only a nod in greeting.

“About time,” said LaF.

“Shoes,” declared Perry.

Laura busied herself with collecting the empty bottles and moving them into the recycling, pretending it was for Perry’s benefit and had nothing to do with the jump in her heart rate or the sudden heat behind her ears.

Carmilla was always in leather, but tonight she also had her helmet slung casually under one arm, her hair parting so easily as she swept a hand through the raven tresses. It would be impossibly easy for Laura to lose herself in the sharp cut of her eyeliner, let alone in the perfect curve of her jaw.

It was still bizarre to her that they were even in the same circles. Carmilla had been the nameless ‘hot bartender’ at Redd’s long before she had become ‘Mel’s friend Carmilla,’ and Laura was almost certain that Carmilla still had no idea they had met before, despite making her whiskey sours every weekend for the better part of three years.

Now, she was just... around.

All the time.

Quirking an eyebrow at Laura’s jokes, calling her all sorts of snarky, cutesy nicknames seemingly just to watch her babble and sputter in reply.

And it would have been a dream come true, were it not for the fact that Carmilla was certainly not interested in dating her. She didn’t appear to be interested in dating anyone, when it came down to it. She collected numbers with a graceful ease, barely even trying when they went out for drinks—the girls always just came to her, sliding numbers to her on napkins, letting their fingers brush on her thigh—but she never went out for coffee or bothered with dinner, as far as Laura could tell.

To her infinite relief, Carmilla did not ask what she had missed, and no one prompted her into answering quiz questions the moment she claimed a seat.

Instead, they dove into discussion about the fight at Redd’s the night prior, and how Carmilla had been forced into calling the cops to break it up. And, when the details there had been exhausted, it was on to a mishap with LaF’s intern at the lab, and before Laura knew it they had segued into a segue and she was telling the room—at LaF’s eager prompting—about the time she had worked fast food in college, when a particularly rowdy customer had bit her.

“He didn’t leave in a body bag?” Carmilla asked, her lip curled just slightly at the corner. The others were turned to LaFontaine, already giving their witness’s rendition of the events, but Carmilla’s eyes were locked on hers, glinting and warm. She had peeled half the label off of her beer with practiced fingers, and the way her elbows were splayed put her right nearly touching Laura’s left. “I imagine you don’t take well to biting.”

Laura’s cheeks were dusted pink before the words were even out, but it was easy, when she was on the dregs of her third glass of sav blanc.

“Not that kind of biting, no.”

Carmilla’s eyes widened. And then so did her grin.

But Perry was insisting that they start the movie, now that everyone was present, and so they allowed themselves to be herded into the sitting room and handed homemade popcorn in Perry’s cutesy little tins... and Laura tried not to sulk—at least not externally—when Carmilla wound up on one of the floor poufs while she was stuck on the couch between LaF and Mel.

It had been months, since they’d been properly introduced. She knew she should be over this, whatever this was... a crush, certainly, and nothing more... but the feeling persisted, despite her efforts. A nagging to just spend more time in her presence, if only to get more chances to see her laugh.

She was pathetic, really. And that was a fact hammered home by the amount of time she spent side-eyeing Carmilla rather than paying attention to what was on the screen.

It was just that she had seen Mamma Mia! before, and it was far more entertaining to watch Carmilla’s face contort into various grimaces, her annoyances kept at bay solely by the plates of food Perry nudged her way, every five minutes or so.

(Laura suspected this was the main reason she had attended, in the first place.)

Mel was already shouldering her coat, when the credits finally rolled. She offered a salute and a click of her tongue rather than a proper farewell before she ducked out the door, and Perry started tidying at once, collecting the blankets that Laura had been using to turn the couch into a bed for the past several evenings.

Carmilla hesitated, weighing her helmet in her hands, and then raised an eyebrow at Laura, almost expectantly, and tipped her head towards the exit.

“Need a ride, cupcake?”

Her ears were hot again, immediately, even before she was shaking her head. They lived on the same block, and they had gotten an Uber together, once—a ride of mostly silence as Laura attempted not to blurt out something along the lines of ‘you’re super pretty’—so it was hardly a reach for her to offer, now.

But termites.

Fucking termites.

“Uh, actually, no. I’m sort of... staying here.”

Carmilla frowned. LaF and Perry vanished to the kitchen, almost on purpose.

“Why?”

“Pest control. My apartment is sort of under a big blue tent at the moment.”

“Well that sucks.”

Laura laughed at the bluntness. “Yeah... like, a lot.”

Slowly, Carmilla surveyed the living room. Laura saw her eyes latch, for the first time, upon the various things that did not belong in the space—her suitcase, for one. Her brow furrowed even further as she noticed Perry’s started attempts at making her bed.

“Here like... on the couch?”

She grimaced. “Yeah. I mean, it’s not ideal, but you know Perry is renovating the guest room, and then LaF’s office doesn’t have space, and I’m just grateful for all the free food. And for not having to pay for a hotel.”

“You work on the other side of town.”

It was a statement, not a question, and a surprising one, at that. “I didn’t realize you... knew that.”

Carmilla’s lip quirked, but there was less of an air to it... there was something disappointed. Or maybe that was just in the way her eyes dropped, and her shoulders lifted.

“I pay attention,” she said, her tone unreadable. And then she cleared her throat, and played her fingers over the curve of her helmet like a drum solo. “I... happen to have a spare room.”

Laura stared, not comprehending.

Carmilla raised an eyebrow.

“Oh! Oh.” She blinked, her mouth abruptly going very dry. “That’s... are you offering..?”

“If you’re interested. I don’t promise to wake you up with a Michelin Star breakfast, of course. But you also wouldn’t need to catch three buses to get to the office.”

She opened her mouth, ready to say how sweet that was, but how she couldn’t reject Perry’s kindness—how it would only be another day or two, anyway—but she didn’t get the chance.

“Carmilla, that’s lovely of you!” Perry beamed, clasping her hands in the kitchen doorway. “I’ve felt so terrible that we could only offer a couch, and I hate inconveniencing Laura like this...”

“Perry, you’re doing me the favor—”

“And I’ve been a terrible host. You’re such a dear, Carmilla.”

///

Laura still wasn’t entirely sure what had happened. One moment she had been ready to crash on Perry’s couch after a traditional movie night, and the next she was being herded out the door with only a backpack of her things and a promise that the rest would be delivered the next day.

And then she had been on the back of Carmilla’s motorcycle, her arms around Carmilla’s waist, and she had been certain that, yes, this must be a dream.

But it was not. Because they arrived at Carmilla’s place, and it was very real.

“It’s not as clean as Perry’s, I know.” Carmilla grinned sardonically, as she tossed her coat onto the back of a chair and turned to rest her elbows on the kitchen counter. “But it’s home.”

It was nicer than Laura’s place, certainly, and it raised a multitude of questions—most of them along the lines of ‘how much do bartenders make, exactly?’—but she asked none of them. Instead, she let herself roam in a small semi-circle through the main space, taking in the artwork on the walls, the stuffed bookcases, the artifacts and trinkets that looked to have come from all over the world.

She was right about it not being exactly clean, though.

Carmilla seemed to have trouble with putting things back where they came from. There were books littered on various surfaces, some with bits of paper stuffed in to the pages, others left spine-up where she had apparently last been reading them. There was a clear layer of dust on most of the horizontal surfaces. Her sole potted plant looked extremely dead.

Still, overall, it felt very... Carmilla.

“I like it,” she offered.

“Glad to have your approval,” Carmilla teased. “Did you want the grand tour? It costs extra.”

“Ha-ha.”

She showed her to the guest bedroom and the adjoining bathroom, and, despite her commentary earlier, she appeared to have a fully stocked kitchen with the makings of a Perry-style breakfast, after all.

“Are you a secret chef?” Laura questioned, eyebrow raised, when she had finished returning the water pitcher to its shelf, her glass in hand.

Carmilla had said to help herself, and she was usually good at that.

“What were you expecting? A takeout fortress?”

It was what she had at home, and she felt herself flush.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Nice to see you hold me in such high regard,” Carmilla said, but there was teasing in the words, her eyes sparkling that way that they did sometimes, and Laura’s grin in return was easy.

“Never said I didn’t. I just... didn’t exactly picture... all of this.” She gestured to the apartment, and then hurried to soften her words, panic jumping up her spine, “I mean, not that that’s a bad thing. I mean, when I say my place is under pest-control, that should... that should give you a pretty solid indication that I’m not... that—”

“Don’t hurt yourself, cutie.”

“I just mean that it’s surprising... in a good way.”

Carmilla’s smile was still in place, head tipped just slightly to the side, the way it only seemed to do when it was Laura she was talking to. She tried not to read into it.

“Surprising that I’m a slob? Or that I eat vegetables?”

Laura snorted. “The second one.”

“I’ll have you know,” Carmilla declared, reaching around her to get a glass of her own from the cupboard—and very much invading her personal space in the process—“That I am a perfect 50% omivore. Thank you very much.”

Laura swallowed, watching her every move as she reached into the fridge, fingers wrapping around the pitcher handle, back arching and her ass—

Nope, nope, don’t look! Bad Hollis...

“That’s... specific,” she forced out.

Carmilla bent again, to return the pitcher, and Laura suddenly found the dead plant on the counter of deep interest.

“Well, it was according to one of your little quizzes, so it’s clearly certifiable.”

“One of mine?”

“Buzzfeed.”

Laura’s eyes went wide, her mouth working but no sound coming out, and she clutched the cold of the glass a little tighter and took a forced sip.

“Right, yes. I work there.”

Carmilla chuckled. “Again, your opinion of me is dreadful, cutie. Amazed I don’t live in a cave, fascinated at the concept of me owning food... and surprised that I pay attention to where my friends work.”

Laura wanted to supply a retort, but she was fresh out of them. Carmilla wasn’t wrong.

But, then, it wasn’t like they had spent that much time together.

And she hardly thought Carmilla had noticed her, of all people. Even if they were friends with the same gingers.

“I’m teasing you,” Carmilla supplied, when Laura’s case of goldfish-face became much too apparent.

It did not help her blush. “Yes, right. I know.”

Carmilla flicked a switch to dim the lights, padding in the direction of her own bedroom with apparent intentions to get some sleep. But, before she stepped through the door, she turned back.

“Oh, and I’ll have you know I took another one of those little quizzes the other day, and you really shouldn’t be so surprised that I’m a functioning adult. Your company seems to think I’m 100% dateable.”

She pulled the door shut softly behind her, a cocky grin on her lips.

And no idea what she had just admitted to.

[botonbots]

TFC Toys: Old Soldiers Medic

Ratchet has been one of my favorite characters for years but I actually haven’t owned any toys of him. While I love the character, his color scheme has just made him look boring and unappealing. Did I finally find a Ratchet that isn’t just an endless sea of white with red panties?

Okay, well, that box being an endless sea of grey with a blue border isn’t promising...

Ooh, there’s a faint hint of a boy on the side!

And on the back we finally get a preview of what’s to come! 

Hell yeah, giant foam brick and some paper!

Medic is kept safe in a styrofoam cocoon. While it does make for a less dramatic unboxing, it DOES keep him safe and is far less annoying to remove him from that the Hasbro plastic staple prison.

There we go. Medic comes with himself, two guns(?), transformation instructions, a trading card, and two (2) cautionary papers! Despite the papers’ warning, the side view mirrors are not what fell off on my toy.

His card displays the only pose they could come up with for him and a gun he doesn’t have!

Strength: 4 Intelligence: 8 Speed: 4 Endurance: 5 Rank: 7 Courage: 8 Fireblast: 3 Skill: 10

Maybe I’d make his endurance higher, but these stats look fine to me.

Now, technically, he is still a sea of white with some red panties and two Geneva Convention violations on his shoulders, BUT there are lots of pops of grey, blue and red breaking up the white. And the white itself has several sculpted details allowing simple tricks of light to make him less like one solid color.

Outside of the color, Medic is very sturdy and can stand easily! He’s a nice solid toy that’s fun to play with!

TFC Toys did go for the classic black chevron as opposed to the more modern red one. Not my personal preference, but not a bad thing either. His face has an expression that some times looks happy and other times looks like a pained smile, it works for me. Also, look at how bright his eyes are! The light piping is amazing!

His ambulance cab torso gives him a bit of a tummy and this is VERY IMPORTANT.

That giant blue spot on the back of his head is what allows for the piping in his eyes to be so good! It allows a ton of light through and gives him bright eyes that almost look painted! And yay for solid backs on Transformers!

His guns aren’t held in his hands, instead they peg into his arms.

Is this thing even a gun? Wouldn’t it fire too close to his fingers and burn them? Safety first, Medic!

Speaking of fingers, the fingers on his left hand are cupped together and can be moved as one piece. He can either have a grippy hand or a...whatever this is hand.

Yeah hold that... Whatever it is

His right hand has fingers than can more individually allowing you to do this to a poor old man. YOU LET ME DO THIS, TODD.

Lol

More seriously his wiggly fingers do make it difficult for him to get a strong grip with his right hand.

His right arm also has this scope? scanner? thing? Not sure what it is. His gun pegs in to that grey spot on his arm so it probably isn’t a sight. No idea what it is, but he has it.

GUN BUTT GUN BUTT GUN BUTT

One thing that is EXTREMELY nice about Medic is that his hip skirts can flip up and allow a full range of motion on his legs! Go team! His hips do have ratcheting joints, which can hinder nuances in posing, but there seemed to be enough “stopping points” that it didn’t feel limiting.

Front flaps too! And his feet have some articulation at the arch to help with balance.

As an ambulance, he’s quite solid. The transformation was one of the harder ones that I’ve done, but nothing will ever beat the fear and anxiety of transforming Hot Flame. I probably could have squeezed everything together a bit tighter but it felt a bit stiff and I didn’t want anything snapping off. (Least of all the rear view mirrors).

From the front it looks like the ambulance has a face! Also the stubby nature of the cab is more apparently. But I supposed people who want a cool ambulance toys aren’t going to get the one that doubles as a cool robot toy.

Things probably snap tighter...

It could have used a license plate, but I don’t think it’s a major loss.

There’s also a secret Geneva Convention violation on the roof! 

A slight “flaw” of the ambulance mode is that there’s no place to peg in weapons. I supposed he is an ambulance but...gunbulance...

Out of the box, Medic had this tiny silver piece which had fallen off. The corners of his front bumper are hidden away in robot mode, so it took until I transformed him to finally find where the piece had come from. The piece is meant to plug into place, but it doesn’t have a secure grip. I could probably glue it in place without any problem, but feat that this would cause more damage than it’s worth prevents me from doing so.

This trapezoidal window piece fell off after transformation, however it could be places back in securely enough that I don’t feel the need to glue it. Also glue could leave a cloudy or blotchy residue on the translucent plastic.

But now, the real question. Can he kiss Drift?

No. Not my Drift anyway, he’s too short. But Medic CAN condescendingly pat him on the head and call him “kid” and that’s pretty close too. Medic’s tummy probably sticks out too much for kisses anyway. Alas.

OVERALL: Solid toy with good balance! Not to mention that my issue with Ratchet’s color scheme has finally been addressed! The endless white is broken up with greys, reds, blues and small sculpted details. He’s fun to look at and play with! Transformation is a bit stiff, but otherwise a very good toy which I highly recommend!

[likeshipsonthesea]

Ooby Dooby (1/?)

[1] [2]

Inspired by this because I just couldn’t not. The title is from the Wiggles, because Fruit Salad is my jam.

*~*~*

As he sits on a park bench at eight forty-two in the morning, sipping horrible coffee and watching as two toddlers systemically undress a Barbie doll in a sandbox while their mothers gossip about some woman named Susan five feet away, Nursey regrets every decision he ever made. Okay, not every decision, but one decision specifically; his decision to take Lardo up on her bet during their game of flip cup last week.

See, the problem is that Drunk Nursey (an entity deserving of its own capitals) is far more confident than Regular Nursey is on a daily basis. Which means, unfortunately for Nursey’s general wellbeing, that when Drunk Nursey is in control, it usually leads to a further drunken Nursey and also horribly overconfident decisions. So Nursey accepted Lardo’s challenge to a game of flip cup (horrible decision number one) and then, after losing twice, accepted the bet Lardo proposed; if he won, she’d make the cover art for his next novel, but if she won, he had to write a children’s book for her to illustrate.

Neither of them were particularly invested in children’s literature, but Lardo had been itching to do something new since her last gallery opening. Sadly all of the stories she came up with were fairly unimaginative, the best of them being a story about a little girl losing a shoe and realizing in the end that it wasn’t the shoe she had gained, but the friends she made along the way. So yeah, she wanted help.

And Nursey, of course, lost terribly and then proceeded to sign a napkin stating that he couldn’t reneg on his offer, which Shitty got notarized through some definitely sketchy means, so now Nursey was at a children’s park at eight in the morning on a Saturday because he hadn’t had experience with a child since he was one, and he’s pretty sure the nineties was a hundred years ago, kid-wise, and he has no idea what kind of book a child would like to read.

He was half-expecting some indignant mother to come up to him and accuse him of being a pedo or something when something big and fast hits him in the head and knocks the living beejesus out of him.

His coffee, which was shit to begin with because apparently no one thought to start up a good coffee shop near where exhausted parents hang out (really poor decision making on Starbucks’ part), goes everywhere, including Nursey’s pants, leaving a giant brownish stain surrounding the crotch, which implies a confusing mix of pissing and shitting himself at the same time.

“Shit,” he hears someone say, and he’s about to wholeheartedly agree when he looks up and sees the most beautiful lumberjack he’s ever seen in his life. The man, who Nursey can only assume is the lovechild of Aphrodite and Hephaestus who got the best of both worlds from his parents’ genes, has a grimace on his face, holding a blue rubber ball in one hand and a child in his other.

Oh sweet lord who thought it was okay to give this man a child? Nursey thinks helplessly, watching as the wind blows at the man’s gorgeous, soft looking orange hair, ruffling it prettily. He’s got on a red flannel, a t-shirt on under that, and a tan leather jacket over the whole thing that looks worn and soft and Nursey wants to live inside this man’s jacket, what the fuck.

“Are you okay?” the man asks, and Nursey wants to tell him no, no I am not, I just realized that actual mythical beings live among us and I need to sit down for a second, but he doesn’t say that because he has been walking around and talking to people for about twenty four years now, and if that’s taught him anything, you cannot disclose your belief in the supernatural during a first meeting. (He takes a moment to mourn that one date back in sophomore year of college where he rambled on about ghosts for forty minutes and then, when he asked the girl out again via text, she’d just sent back the ghost emoji and a thumbs down. Nursey shakes his head; so harsh.)

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Nursey says. Then he realizes that no, hot coffee in your nether regions doesn’t really put you in the Fine column, but chooses not to correct himself. Hot Lumberjack Father already looks so upset, and Nursey thinks he’s probably about to be arrested for violating the Geneva Convention just by putting that frown on Hot Lumberjack Father’s face.

“I can reimburse you for the dry-cleaning,” the man says, which Nursey almost laughs at because he’s wearing jeans, not a three-piece suit.

“It’s fine, man, they’re just jeans.” He shrugs, frowning down at himself a little because the coffee’s getting cold. “I’ll just put them in the wash.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry.” Hot Lumberjack Father rubs at the back of his neck, sheepish, as the adorable child in his arms has taken the ball from him. The child, Nursey realizes, is obviously HLF’s son (he decides then that he needs an initialism or he’s just be saying Hot Lumberjack Father in his head, which is too many syllables and will take time away from staring at HLF’s face and sighing) as he’s got the same color hair, the same nose, and the same adorable smattering of freckles all over his face. The kid, it seems, is also three seconds from crying.

“Hurt?” the kid asks, whimpering a little, and HLF curses again, softly.

“No, no, Parker, it’s fine, you didn’t hurt him.” It’s instant, HLF turns all of his attention to his kid, bouncing a little instinctively and murmuring soft noises, and Nursey already wants to marry this man just so he can watch him soothe children on a daily basis.

“It’s fine, little dude,” Nursey says, grinning at the kid, Parker, in a way he hopes is charming and not going to get him arrested. “I needed a shower anyway.”

Parker blinks slowly and he’s got the same pretty eyes as his dad does (which Nursey means in a non-creepy, totally factual way) and his lip wobbles. “Weally?” he asks, and fuck it, both HLF and his son have stolen Nursey’s heart, mind, and soul, he is done, he can lie down on the ground and die now because this is everything he will ever need to see.

“Of course,” Nursey says, brightly despite his inner utter collapse of everything he ever thought he knew. “Look at these jeans, they’ve got holes in them.” Nursey adopts a solemn expression. “You’ve done me a big favor, really. Now I can go buy new ones.”

Parker looks hesitant for a moment before smiling shyly, which makes his father sigh in relief, and Nursey is inordinately proud of himself for causing it. “Shopping good,” he says after a moment. “Spidaman.”

HLF waves his free hand haphazardly. “We went shopping the other day,” he explains, “and he got Spiderman pajamas. I think he loves them more than me.” The man rolls his eyes (and Nursey is like three seconds away from telling HLF that Nursey can love him enough for the whole world which is way too much) and adjusts Parker on his hip.

“I hear that. I got a Captain America t-shirt a few months back and it’s the best thing I’ve ever bought.” Nursey is delighted when Parker, and therefore his father, lights up at the mention of Captain America. Which is how he ends up in a half-hour conversation with a two year old about Civil War, which is mostly the both of them agreeing and raving about Sam Wilson, so that’s awesome.

Eventually, as toddlers are wont to do, Parker gets distracted and toddles off towards the sandbox, leaving Nursey alone with HLF (who introduced himself as Dex when there was a break in the conversation. “Hockey nickname,” he’d explained, and Nursey wondered where he could get an engagement ring close by.)

“He doesn’t usually like strangers,” Dex says, watching his son with a practiced ease while still kind of looking at Nursey. He smiles, though, and looks at Nursey fully for a full moment. “You must be special.”

“I like kids,” Nursey manages to get out between internally combusting and thanking Drunk Nursey for getting him into this situation. He doesn’t give Drunk Nursey nearly enough credit sometimes.

Dex’s eyebrows go up just slightly. “You have any?” he asks, and Nursey realizes that sitting on a park bench on a Saturday morning, watching children play, is so exceedingly creepy when you don’t actually have a kid of your own. And he can’t just explain that he’s only here because his drunk self makes horrible decisions, not if he doesn’t want Dex to pick up his son and run away horrified, and Nursey is just about to panic when his mouth somehow gains control without his knowing and answers for him.

“Yeah, he’s about Parker’s age.” What the fuck.

“Oh.” Dex smiles and looks towards the playground. “Which one is yours?”

“He’s not here,” Nursey gets out quickly before his mouth can fuck him over again and point to any random kid out here to claim as his own. He doesn’t care how gorgeous Dex is, he isn’t going to go pick up a random child and risk getting his name on some list just to earn Dex’s affection. “He’s with his mom,” he says, thanking the Lord that he is a writer and can make up fairly good bullshit on the spot. “It’s her weekend.” As an afterthought, he adds, “I missed the noise.”

Dex’s expression goes soft and understanding, and holy fuck Nursey is taking advantage of a young father almost exclusively because he can actually see Dex’s arm definition through three layers of fabric. He is going to hell. “Yeah, I get that.” He looks over at Parker, who is now smiling happily at a handful of sand. “Whenever he stays with my parents I go out of my mind missing him.”

“His mom doesn’t keep you company?” Nursey thought he was hella smooth, inquiring after Dex’s singleness like that, but then Dex’s expression kind of crumbles and Nursey hisses idiot silently to himself.

“Parker’s mom doesn’t really want anything to do with us,” he says, his eyes darkening.

Nursey panics, trying to think of a way to salvage this (which, he’s already fucked, he made up a fictitious child, he isn’t going to save this unless can impregnate a woman like two years ago and/or steal a child, which, nah) and he says, “Her loss, then,” with as much earnest emphasis as he can manage.

Dex looks back at him, his expression turning lighter, considering, as he looks at Nursey. Nursey hopes he’s thinking something along the lines of “You’re really cute and good with my son and I’ll totally forgive you for making up the existence of a human being because I can tell you give good head” but is probably actually “This guy is weird and I should probably get Parker out of here before we end up on the news”.

Dex surprises him, however, because he says, “We have to get going- I have a shift I can’t miss and I need to drop him off at my sister’s beforehand- but we should meet up sometime. Maybe have a playdate?” Dex looks so beautiful, so carefully hopeful like he knows Nursey is going to turn him down, and, look. Really, Nursey is about to turn him down, something about being too busy or how his kid is allergic to the sun (he doesn’t fucking know) but then Dex says, “Parker doesn’t really have any friends his age and it’d be nice if- well, it’d be nice.” And then he smiles, soft and kind and all gorgeous and shit, and come on, you can’t expect Nursey to have that much self control (see: how he got in this situation in the first place).

So he says yes. He gives Dex his number and Dex texts him and then Dex is in his phone, beautifully, godlike, lumberjack, hockey-playing Dex, and Nursey only just manages to keep himself from caressing the screen in front of Dex. Dex calls Parker back over and picks him up again, and they both wave bye with the best matching grins on their faces, and Nursey watches them leave, sighing, because he hadn’t even been thinking about his future beyond this stupid children’s book an hour ago but now he knows, knows, that Dex and Parker are all he wants in his life.

When father and son are finally out of his sight, Nursey makes a group chat on his phone with everyone his knows and trusts (so, like, Shitty, Lardo, and Ransom and Holster, and then he adds Jack for good measure). He sends one message

Nursey to All

anyone know where I can get a toddler?

[lovemesomerafael]

Destroying The Planet To Save It Chapter 21:  Something Snarky, Which Will Come To Me Later

                              Chapters 1-20                Read It On AO3

Nobody likes to be up at four a.m. No matter which end of the day it is, four a.m. is “way too”. Either you’ve stayed up way too late, or you’ve had to get up way too early. Even Bucky didn’t have much energy to make fun of Joss when he knocked on her door to bring her a cup of coffee and found her wearing her Avengerswear™ nightgown. Her gratitude for the coffee, though genuine, was muted.

“Ugh. Thank you. You didn’t have to do this,” she rasped.

He smirked down at her. “I had to know.”

“Know?” She frowned adorably in confusion.

“Which one you slept in.”

Joss made a face as she held her arms out to display her nightgown.

“OK. Curiosity satisfied. Now hit the shower, Soldier, don’t be late for breakfast.”

“That’s ‘Airman’ and, um… Something snarky which will come to me when I’ve had some of this,” she held up her coffee.

Bucky laughed, giving Joss her first stomach butterflies of the day. Even at four a.m. he was ridiculously beautiful. He was still laughing softly when he leaned in, kissed her on the top of her disheveled hair, and turned for the stairs.

  Clint was awakened by Natasha reaching over him to turn off an alarm that was just about to go off.

“Did you sleep?”

“Yes, I just woke early,” she answered, settling in when he put his arm around her and pulled her to him. They lay quietly for a few minutes while he lightly stroked her back. She hummed with pleasure and squeezed him with the arm draped over his chest. It wasn’t long before his hand began to caress lower, which naturally led to fondling her ass, and then to flipping them over and pinning her shoulders to the mattress.  

Clint shifted lower in the bed.  She kept her eyes closed, letting him worship her with his mouth and spreading her legs to his gentle pressure. Clint was well aware of what Natasha liked, and a slow morning wake-up was at the top of the list. He was actually a little surprised that she was interested, given how hard they’d gone at it from the late afternoon through most of the night. Then again, Natasha was never not interested.

He got another surprise after he’d made her come twice and was again lying next to her.  Natasha hated to be late.  She was firmly of the “If you’re on time, you’re late” school, and woe betide anyone who caused her to arrive anywhere less than fifteen minutes early.  But this morning, when she was again capable of purposeful movement, she rolled on top of him and basically demanded to be fucked, although they were already going to have to hurry to make their flight.

  Bruce actually held the pillow down over his head, as if he could hide from this vile hour of the morning. It wasn’t working, though, because Catherine was a horrible human being whose methods were as devious as they were stunningly effective. Since he was lying on his stomach, clutching the pillow to his head, she simply tossed the covers off his naked body and started kissing.

For a few moments, he was annoyed. And cold. Heartless and determined, however, she didn’t relent. Instead, she started in with her hands, stroking him wherever she could reach while she placed light, feathery kisses along his neck and down his spine. He knew he was in trouble when she began to slide one hand lightly up the inside of his leg, starting below the knee, and taking her own maddening time. He tried to be stealthy as he spread his legs to give her more access but, singleminded and evil, she simply lifted herself over one leg and used her body to push them apart. Which put her in position to launch the most indefensible phase of her assault.

Bruce groaned loudly as she began to kiss the inside of his thigh, starting about halfway up and in no hurry. He could in no way be held responsible for bending his knees and lifting his hips just enough to rut against the mattress, and he was pretty sure she violated the Geneva Convention when she slipped a hand under him, palm up, and took him in her hand. After that, he was lost. Even before she reached his balls with her treacherous, delicious, filthy mouth.

He might have been able to keep the pillow over his head, even then, if she hadn’t gone nuclear. It was the tiny little laps of her tongue, moving inexorably up from his balls toward his hole that did it. Suddenly, there wasn’t enough air under there. He gasped a lungful of sweet, cool air as he flung the pillow across the bed.

“Fuck, Cathy! Holy shit…”

He felt her slide her knee under her enough to shift her weight so that she could use both hands, keeping one underneath him where he was now fucking shamelessly into her fingers, and using the other to spread his cheeks just enough to get to his hole with that unspeakably depraved tongue. The words he howled when he came, harder than he could remember ever coming before, would have shocked any student who had ever learned quantum physics from mild-mannered Professor Banner.

It was weird that, while his pulse was racing and he was still gasping for breath, he was no more awake than he’d been when the alarm went off.

  Steve was sure that, no matter how long he lived, he would be perfectly happy to stay right in this bed, smoothly sliding deeply into Sharon and then taking his time pulling back out, repeating the process endlessly and listening to her soft, breathy moans. He wanted to slap the clock, with its insistent red numbers that he could see glowing even with his eyes closed, off the bedside table so hard that it shattered on impact. So he did.

Sharon giggled, which felt fucking amazing, and that pushed things just enough that, suddenly, he no was no longer sure he could do this for eternity. At least without losing his damn mind at some point if he couldn’t coax that tiny, electric spark he felt into the fire he needed.

He looked down at Sharon, concentration starting to color the blissed-out slackness on his face. “I love you. You feel like… You’re…”

Right this minute, Steve wasn’t thinking about anything but Sharon, and the way she felt under him, the hot wet pressure of her grasping his dick in the most glorious way. Sharon could see that in his face, and feel it in the way he moved. That was her goal. The next days were going to be tough, and Steve would be under tremendous pressure to make the mission succeed.  He hadn’t slept well, so she was doing what she could to help him begin those days at least feeling loved and satisfied.

Steve believed that a gentleman should never be satisfied before his lady was, but Sharon enjoyed breaking that rule of his, mostly for the sheer satisfaction of knowing that she could. She bucked her hips into him, lifting her legs above his back to let him plunge deeper into her.

“Oh, not fair!” He cried, and she giggled into his shoulder.

“Just fuck me, Steve.  I need you to come for me.  I love you so much…”

When she put it like that, he really had no choice.

  And then there was Sam.  

Sam woke up swearing. Steve had insisted that they go to bed, since S.H.I.E.L.D. was doing everything possible to find Anita and they would all be flying to D.C. in a few hours, anyway.  In any event, it was going to take the loadmasters that long to finish the weight calculations and securing the cargo.  Sam figured he’d had about forty-five minutes of sleep total, between cursing Steve for not leaving right away and cursing Tony for backing him.  Of course, he’d also been cursing Arias, and for good measure he cursed Phil Coulson and S.H.I.E.L.D., so he’d been very busy while he was trying to make the clock move faster and decidedly not sleeping.

  Sam didn’t want to be the one everyone was avoiding on the plane, but he was completely unable to stop pacing. He kept remembering the briefing at the start of the flight, where Vision had explained the way he believed the “resource” was used in creating the destructive phenomena, and imagining Anita being subjected to that.  As soon as Sam shook that thought out of his mind, he would begin to imagine her being held captive, and the things Arias might be doing to her, while she tried to understand why no one was coming to help her.  S.H.I.E.L.D. had been right there when she was taken! How the fuck had that been allowed to happen?

For the most part, the team let him be.  Clint had tried to distract him, but he’d gotten both barrels for his trouble. After that, the rest of the team just tried to avoid eye contact.  It was a relief to all of them to land in Washington, D.C.  They were all responsible for their own gear, and all had assignments for assisting or supervising the unloading of the rest of the equipment they’d brought from New York.

Once the trucks were loaded, a line of black SUVs with deeply tinted windows arrived to transport them to the new S.H.I.E.L.D. facility.  If the situation hadn’t been so serious, it might have been amusing to watch the team jockeying for places in SUVs other than the one Sam was riding in.

It was Steve and Bucky who ended up with him.  The new S.H.I.E.L.D. facility was only half an hour from the former Andrews Air Force Base (now Joint Base Andrews), where they’d landed, but the ride seemed endless to Sam.  When he exploded at the sight of a traffic light turning yellow in front of them, Steve turned around to look at him in the rear seat.

“Why the fuck ain’t we in a chopper?”  Sam shouted.

“Because it won’t help us to get there ahead of our gear,” Bucky answered reasonably.

Sam responded with a string of expletives that impressed everyone else in the vehicle, even though they were all military veterans.

“Sam…”

“If you try to give me a pep talk, Cap, I swear they will have to scrape you outta this car with a spoon.”

Steve and Bucky both blinked a few times on that one.

“OK, I get that,” Steve said. “You’re worried about Anita and you need to do something. I’m not gonna tell you not to worry, because trust me, I’m worried, too.”

“Trust him on that,” Bucky snarked under his breath.

“We know where she is. We will get her out, and we will take down Arias.”

“Man, you don’t know where she is!  She could be anywhere!  There’s no guarantee she’s in that fuckin’ bunker.  Maybe he’s got something planned in one of the other locations.  Maybe he’s got her at his damn villa, maybe-“

“Not helpful,” Bucky broke in.  “We got a mission.  Even if she’s not there, we’re still gonna be helping her. Focus on the mission, Sam.  You just gotta tune out everything else.”

“So fucking easy for you to say that shit.”

“Sam.  He’s right, and I know you can filter out the noise.  Seen you do it a hundred times.  So do it.”

Steve’s tone was a definite command. It helped, for some reason. Maybe because it reminded Sam who was leading the team. Even though they weren’t suited up yet, Steve was every inch Captain America in that moment.

“On it, Cap,” Sam nodded, a little embarrassed.

“Let’s use this time to go over the plan once more.”

None of them needed to go over the plan again, but it would help Sam focus.

  One of Director Coulson’s assistants met them at the entrance to the Administration Building. They’d learned from their mistakes at the Triskelion; S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters was no longer housed in one building. Instead, it was a compound made up of various buildings, all of which were connected, but could be disconnected at the touch of a button.  Actually, there were a few buttons.  If necessary, it was possible to disconnect the underground walkways the hard way: with pre-set charges that just needed a code to reduce them to rubble.  The headquarters was also within sight of the derelict hulk of the Triskelion, because Coulson didn’t want anyone, especially himself, to forget the result of anything less than ultimate vigilance.

There were greetings as Coulson’s assistant led the group to their assigned building. It was not specifically reserved to the Avengers, but it had rooms and features that most definitely were. All of them had input into the design of the building and some of its more interesting amenities. Tony and Bruce had a shared lab, and there was an underground armory with features designed specifically for each team member’s weapons.

After stowing their gear as quickly as possible and then supervising the installation of the rest, the team headed into the conference room for a pre-mission briefing with Director Coulson and his staff. Coulson began by telling them the bad news: there had been no sign of Agent Herrera since they’d begun continuous monitoring the entrances to Arias’s underground stronghold in D.C. The facility had been monitored since they’d discovered it, but not in real time, so it had taken some time to pull and review the archived surveillance. There was an inordinate amount of activity around the entrances in the days prior to the earthquake, and it was impossible to determine whether Anita had been in any of the many vehicles that had entered or left the bunker. They knew that she had not entered through the man-sized entrance Natasha and Clint had discovered, but that was the extent of their definitive knowledge.

Sam felt better seeing the anger and concern on the faces of Director Coulson and his staff, as well as all of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents crowded into the conference room who had roles in this mission.  Arias had dared to abduct one of their own.  They were pissed and determined to get her back safely, and they meant to destroy him and his operation in the process. They all knew Anita; she had trained some of them, and all had experience serving on teams with her.  It helped Sam, seeing that her safety was personal to them, too.

When the briefing was nearly complete, Scott Lang fell into the room, landing on his side with a loud, metallic crash, still wearing most of his Ant-Man suit.  He ignored the sea of staring, shocked faces, because he was too preoccupied with the bristling arsenal suddenly aimed at him.  Most of the people in the conference room were armed, and every single person with a weapon had drawn down on Scott.  

“Yeah, sorry. My bad. Tripped over the threshold.” He laughed nervously, looking up at Director Coulson, one of the few people who did not have a weapon trained on him.  As he stood, he muttered, “You might wanna get that fixed.  Y’know, lawsuits…”

“Tell me good news, Lang,” Sam barked, holstering both of his Steyr TMPs.  Like all the rest of the Avengers team, he had suited up before the meeting so he could be ready to go when it concluded.

Scott stood awkwardly, not moving further into the room.  In large part because not everyone had yet taken their aim off of him.

“Stand down, people,” Coulson snapped, irritated.

“I wish I could tell you I saw her, man, but I didn’t,” Scott said sympathetically to Sam.  “That place is airtight, at least the entrances.  Didn’t have time to go searching for ventilation shafts. Given all the buildings above that place, they could be anywhere.  So I had to wait for someone to drive in.  I didn’t get everywhere before I had to leave to get back here in time.  I didn’t see her, and nobody said anything about her.  I don’t know what that means, Sam.  Sorry.”

Sam ground his teeth.

“Arias?” Steve asked.

“Arias is down there.  That I know for sure.”

Steve nodded as a rustle went through the room at that news. “What’s he saying?”

“I wasn’t with him the whole time, had to look for Agent Herrera.  He was speaking Spanish, too, so…”

“All right, Scott, that’s OK.  You’re the only one who could get in there undetected and look for Anita.  You did what you could.”

“That’s it, then,” Coulson announced, focusing the group’s attention back to the front of the room.  “I see no reason to change the plan.”  He addressed this to Steve.

“No.  Especially now that we know where Arias is.  We’re pretty sure he’s been in the area when all of the events have happened, so If he’s here, that should mean nothing’s going to happen anywhere else for a while.”

“Why here, though?  Why D.C.?” Natasha asked a question that still remained unanswered, despite both S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers devoting a great deal of brainpower to it.

Coulson looked at one of his staffers.  “We need to let the President know.”

The staffer pulled a phone out of his pocket and pushed a button as he stood, holding the phone to his ear as he walked out of the room.

“There’s one more thing,” Scott announced from where he still stood near the doors.

Something in his voice had every eye on him instantly.

“I don’t speak Spanish, but I kept hearing people say the same two things: ‘Mañana por la noche’ and ‘el principio.’  Doesn’t ‘mañana’ mean ‘tomorrow’?”

One of several Hispanic S.H.I.E.L.D. agents spoke up. “Those mean ‘tomorrow night’ and ‘the beginning’.”

Most people in the room found someone else to share glances with.  Steve and Director Coulson looked at one another.  Steve said slowly, “Tomorrow night. The beginning.”

“Tomorrow night is the beginning of whatever this guy’s got planned?” Coulson asked what everyone in the room was wondering.

“We’re not waiting around to find out,” Steve answered.

 *****

It started simply.

Vision phased through the walls of the bunker into the control room where the cameras were monitored, creating quite enough of a distraction that nobody was watching the feeds when the teams breached the underground facility. No one saw them take out the building where the vehicle entrance was, or the man-sized entrance with the stairway, except those who were there. There was plenty of shooting in the control room, which did a bit of the work for the Avengers, because apparently Arias didn’t have the strict marksmanship qualifications that S.H.I.E.L.D. did. As Arias’s men accidentally shot up their own equipment, Vision simply ignored the bullets.  He was actually in more danger from the arcs of electricity sparking from the damaged consoles.  For his purposes, all Vision had to do was avoid that and hover, which wasn’t much of a challenge.  He was busier analyzing the room to make sure there were no changes from what had been on the pictures and video from Clint and Natasha’s recon.

Of course, there were guards at the entrances, but according to the recon done by Vision and Ant-Man, Anita was nowhere near there.  Steve’s team didn’t even slow down as they breached the drive-in entrance in their impenetrable vehicles; they simply took out everyone they saw.  As for Tony’s team, they saw no one from the time Tony blew off the door at the top of the stairs to the time he blew off the door at the bottom.

The teams met in the underground garage, noting that it contained more vehicles than ever. Interestingly, however, none of them were the service vehicles that had been seen on previous visits.  Bruce was the first to notice this, and wonder what it meant.

“Get a list of those vehicles from Friday, every one anybody reported seeing down here,” Steve barked. “Then get S.H.I.E.L.D. on every camera in the city and let’s find them.  And let the Secret Service know to sweep the area around the White House for ‘em.  I don’t like that they’re all gone.”

Phil Coulson’s voice came through the comms. “Neither do I. The list’s coming through now. We’re on it. I’ll let you know when we find them.”

Steve turned to the group and put on his full command voice.  “Break into your squads.  You all know your objectives.  Clint, Natasha, I want to know the second you’ve got Arias.”

“Copy,” Clint nodded.

With a motion from Steve, the squads split up, each to a different door leading from the garage chamber. Each person had a map of the bunker on a small device strapped to their wrist, with a blinking dot showing the locations of all friendlies, the members of each squad in a different color.

Not surprisingly, Sam was leading the squad tasked with finding Anita. The squad included Wanda and three S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, including Marcus Turell, Anita’s frequent partner on assignments. They were headed toward the parts of the bunker not searched by Scott, with instructions to simply remove anyone who got in their way. If another squad needed backup, they knew they could be pulled off their mission, but every one of them hoped that wouldn’t happen.

Bucky’s squad, which included Ant-Man, Joss and Sharon, was headed for the control room. There, they and the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents with them would set up a command post where they could use the cameras to monitor the situation throughout the bunker and relay information.

Steve’s squad included Tony and Bruce, and would take the machine. That was expected to be the most heavily guarded area, and the machine itself would require both Tony and Bruce to take out.  They only hoped the situation would allow Bruce to remain Bruce.  While handy as hell in a fight, the Hulk wasn’t so good with electronics.

Catherine Mulready was back at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters with Director Coulson, monitoring and ready to provide any scientific, technical or other backup necessary.  If all went according to plan, her role would also require her to work with the S.H.I.E.L.D. technicians standing by, ready to take over satellites once the team figured out how to give those satellites something to do.

It was a good plan. The problem was, Arias had a plan that was just a little bit better. And he had the machine.

There was a reason the machine looked like the pyramids at Chichen Itza, which was that only the top part of it was needed to amplify energy.  The lower, much larger, sections were used for defense of the facility.  Like most machines, it was difficult to know, just by looking, what the machine could do. Between them, Tony, Bruce, and Catherine had determined everything that could be known about the machine simply by looking at its visible aspects and observing what it had done thus far.  They couldn’t know what else it could do.  They didn’t even know it could do something else.  But it could, and it did.

Clint and Natasha, consistent with their mission to simply find and capture Arias, had avoided contact with as many of his men as they could.  That meant hiding and simply observing them to determine who was where as they made their way around the bunker.  As they’d done that, they’d noticed something odd about those they saw, something that hadn’t been present when they’d been in the facility previously.

“Ironman, Hulk, you copy?”

“We got you, Hawkeye. What’s up?” Tony asked.

“You seen any of these assholes yet?”

“A couple so far. Why?”

“Yours got some kind of collar on?”

There was a pause before Bruce’s voice came over the comms. “Yeah. Thick, metal, got some buttons on them?”

“That’s them,” Clint confirmed. “The fuck are those?”

“Stand by, we’ll let you know when we figure it out.”

Clint and Natasha shared a look as they moved from their hiding spot to slink down an adjacent hallway.

  As Bucky led his team down the hallway toward the control room, he could hear occasional gunshots as Arias’s men still refused to give up on trying to shoot Vision.  There were occasional troubled shouts in Spanish and, twice, small groups came running down the hall, apparently trying to escape the red dude in the weird getup who just hung there in the air and didn’t have the sense to know bullets were supposed to kill you.  They were no happier to meet the Winter Soldier or Ant-Man.  

In fact, one of them griped to another as they found themselves helpless on the floor, “I told you we shouldn’t have tried to run.  At least that floaty fuck wasn’t hitting anyone.”

  Sam held up a hand, fist closed.  The squad stopped, flattening themselves against the wall of the corridor in response to the sound of someone yelling in clearly pissed-off Spanish.  There were a series of sharp clicks and bangs, which Sam recognized as the sound of weapons being slapped into hands.  Shit.  Sam moved silently back to where Wanda stood pressed against the wall and made a series of hand motions.  She nodded and stepped with him back toward the door.  

Sam took two quick breaths and whipped around the doorway, spraying bullets into the room as he grabbed for the edge of the thick, metal door.  None of the shocked men inside had time to get off a shot until after he’d already swung it past half-closed, so that the few who did manage to fire only ended up hitting the door.  Sam slammed it closed as hard as he could and flipped down the latch while Wanda sent wisps of scarlet energy into the mechanical workings inside it, bending them sufficiently to prevent it being opened using anything other than an acetylene torch and about half an hour.  They moved on down the corridor.

  Steve’s team didn’t have to go far before they met armed resistance.  At the junction of two corridors, they surprised a group of Arias’s men who were there to prevent anyone from doing exactly what Steve’s team intended; reach the machine. With the element of surprise, the team had little trouble clearing the corridor, but there was nothing stealthy about it.  Gunfire, shouts, and the sounds of fighting echoed in all directions.  Further down the corridor, perhaps around a corner, came the sound of a heavy thunk.  Steve looked back at Bruce, whose face told him that Bruce wasn’t any happier about that noise than Steve was.  

A dull scrape and a thud caused both of them to look over at Ironman, who had removed one of the thick metal collars from the neck of a man lying unconscious at his feet.  He handed the collar to Bruce, who turned it over in his hands to examine it.  

It was Steve who heard it first.  Or maybe “felt” would have been a better word, because it didn’t really seem like sound.  It seemed like some kind of slow blast wave, that hit him and immediately caused a piercing pain in his ears and a burning all over his skin.  For a few seconds, the rest of the team watched in dismay as Steve clutched at his head and grimaced.  Then, one by one, they began to feel it, too.  As soon as Tony saw Steve and then other team members begin to react, he managed to say the words, “Friday, what’s going on?” before he, too, was hit with the same screaming pain in his head.  

For him, it lasted only a few seconds, before stopping abruptly.  “It’s a hypersonic weapon of some kind, Boss.  I filtered it out of your headset, and it can’t penetrate the suit.  But you need to get everyone else out of here.  It’ll be extremely painful and it’ll start to burn them if they stay.”  

Tony saw that Bruce was already transforming, even as he reached for Steve.  He shouted at him and the rest of the team to run, to evacuate.  Steve seemed to understand and began to run, half-dragging a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who was about to pass out.  Those who could followed, stumbling drunkenly as they held their hands over their ears and shrieked in agony.  A few were already on the ground.  Tony grabbed two of these, one under each arm, and began to run after Steve. He looked back from where the corridor turned a corner, to see the Hulk, looking plenty pissed as he kept hitting his head with one hand while he carried the last S.H.I.E.L.D. agent over his shoulder with the other.

On the way, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent fell from Steve’s grasp onto the floor of the corridor, taking Steve down with him. Tony stopped long enough to help Steve back to his feet, and put the agent into Steve’s arms.  They managed to get halfway back to the garage chamber before Steve fell back to the floor, writhing and holding his head.  Tony tried to help him up, but he was unconscious.

The Hulk reached them, and continued stumbling by, roaring and hitting his head.  Tony had a choice: save the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, or save Steve.  He couldn’t do both.

  Like Steve, Bucky had enhanced hearing and was the first to notice something wrong.  He stumbled and cried out, crushing his hands to his head as Joss caught him before he fell to his knees.  It took very little time for the pain to hit the rest of the team, too.  Ant-Man was the only one with a helmet that protected him somewhat, so he heard Friday’s warning about the hypersonic weapon and orders to get out.  He made a few quick adjustments to his suit to filter out most of it, and lifted Sharon from the floor where she’d fallen.  Vision appeared at the doorway to the control room, and Scott shouted to him for help.  

Although he was in the most pain due to his supersoldier hearing, Bucky was able to stagger down the corridor.  He and Joss leaned against one another and the wall, dragging eachother toward the exit.  Two of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were able to do the same thing, while Scott carried another. It was slow going, although they traveled as fast as they could.  Vision was able to dispatch the few of Arias’s men they met with energy from the Mind Stone in his forehead, which was convenient, since he had a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent under each arm.

The group made it almost to the door to the conference room Sam and Anita had been taken to on the night of the tornado before Joss lost consciousness.  She fell to the floor as Bucky tried to keep her upright.  He leaned over, attempting to pick her up, but ended up falling over her prone body himself and seemed unable to rise.  When Scott turned around, he saw that the two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were about ten feet behind him, unconscious in a heap.  

Vision had his hands full.  Scott could probably drag one agent behind him, but that would still leave three of them behind, including either Bucky or Joss.

Sam and his team were the deepest inside the bunker, with the farthest to go to safety, when the sound began.  The first indication was when Marcus Turell uttered a high-pitched shriek and fell to his knees.  After that, he didn’t notice what else happened, because he was hit by a blinding pain in his head and the skin on his bare arms began to burn.  He dropped his weapon as he turned to see Wanda begin to scream.

  Director Coulson was speaking calmly into his mic, but Catherine wasn’t fooled.  She could see the terror on his face and she could hear for herself the screams and desperate shouts of the team.  She could also hear a roar she’d only heard once before in her life, but it was a sound she’d know anywhere.  Bruce had transformed into the Hulk.  And even he sounded like he was in agony.

“Damn it, somebody respond!  What is your status?”  Coulson was now yelling.  

No one was responding.  

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #94: More Than Inhuman!

December, 1971

This cover does the thing again with the cover image over a one color background with a sassy Vision. I guess he’s the book’s mascot now. But I think this works much better than the rusty red last time.

The Avengers beset by the Mandroids with an accusing finger pointing at them just works with the black background. Adds to the ominous, oppressive feeling.

Good cover work Neal Adams and Tom Palmer, presumably.

Anyway, last time: the Avengers were disbanded but it was merely a Skrullish ruse but then Captain Mar-Vell, Quicksilver, and Scarlet Witch were kidnapped by the Super Skrull while the Avengers were placed under suspicion of being alien-sympathizers by H. Warren Craddock. So a lot has been going on for them.

We start this time with an eyebrow raising scene. The short of it is that the Avengers have taken the three Skrulls imitating the Fantastic Three captive and have to sedate them to keep them from shapeshifting. The long of it is that it also looks kinda sketchy.

So after that’s done, the Avengers call the Fantastic Four and fill them in on everything. But Goliath wonders where the Vision has gotten to.

And apparently he flew after the escaping Skrull spaceship and intangibled inside where the Super Skrull is monologuing to his unconscious captives.

A lot of people in comics just like the sound of their own voice, I guess.

Anyway, even though Mar-Vell foiled him by destroying the omni-wave projecter, he still has Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. And he needs them for their mutant brainwaves. Because, see, mutant brainwaves are similar to Inhuman brainwaves so he can use the Maximoffs to find the Inhuman city.

Geez, even back in 1971 Marvel was trying to make fans believe that Inhumans and mutants were interchangeable. Unbelievable.

So now he’s going to blow up the Inhuman city. He doesn’t really explain why, oddly enough, but my theory is that the Skrulls want to deprive the Kree of a city full of potential supersoldiers.

But Vision intervenes to save the city. Although Super-Skrull has the combined powers of the Fantastic Four, the Vision has tricks of his own and... and then like an idiot he lets Super-Skrull pull the lever anyway.

Thankfully, the Inhumans were more on the ball than the Vision. The city is protected from the powerful beam by an energy shield.

Only one thing can pierce the Inhuman’s defenses and the Super-Skrull doesn’t know what it is. And neither do I.

The Super-Skrull does not take his failure well but he still has his three captives and he’s spent enough time on the terrible, terrible Earth. He’s gonna go cash in his prize in the Skrull galaxy (which is the Andromeda Galaxy apparently).

Vision realizes that he can’t stop Super-Skrull, at least not without risking danger to Scarlet Witch. Plus, the Avengers have to be informed about this latest plot twist.

So, bye. And as the Super-Skrull hurls insults, Vision just floats out of the ship.

PART TWO: 1971: A SPACE ODYSSEY.

Because this issue is longer than typical too. Although only by four pages.

And the Super-Skrull is back to talking to unconscious people. This time he’s explaining what the original plan was. The Skrulls pretending to be founding Avengers was supposed to get the current team to split up and head off separately. It would have been easy to snatch up the mutant siblings once they were on their own. Instead the team stayed together but blundered into a trap anyway so... whatever.

And he only really needed them to find the Inhumans.

But he’s definitely glad to have Mar-Vell. Maybe the Skrull Emperor will even end his exile for bringing the greatest Kree warrior in.

Also I guess the captives aren’t unconscious, just paralyzed? Because Mar-Vell gets a monologue of his own. He knows the Skrulls want strategical information from him and even though he’d never betray his homeland, what will he do if the Skrulls try to trade for the safety of Earth?

The Super-Skrull’s ship arrives on the Skrull capital but the royal palace starts to fire on him. Because Super-Skrull was exiled, remember? Two paragraphs ago? Not for anything that he did. Its just that when the Skrulls managed to give him the combined powers of the Fantastic Four they realized that maybe it wouldn’t be great if he hung around getting ideas about maybe overthrowing the Emperor. Anyway, he starts getting those ideas right about now as he beats up ground troops.

Inside the palace, the Emperor watches the battle against the Super-Skrull unhappily. His daughter, Anelle, tries to convince him to end the conflict but he tells her that she’s an endless disappointment and thanks the stars for sexism so that when she gets married, her husband will be in charge instead of her.

Psssh can you imagine building a galaxy spanning empire if you balk at spilling blood? Geez, Anelle, geez.

Also, what kind of nonsense is this. Most Skrulls have big ol’ ears and cheese-grater chins but Anelle looks like an Orion slave girl. That’s a level of gender dimorphism that would be at home in Warcraft.

Anyway, even though the Super-Skrull served well on Earth and even though only he could have gotten through the ‘nega-shield’ that the Kree apparently placed around the planet, a wise king must always be ready to turn around and murder his strongest allies before they become a threat. It’s just good business.

So he uses an energy-sphere designed to contain the Super-Skrull, created at the same time as his powers were granted to him. A wise king also plans ahead to murder his strongest allies before they’re his strongest allies.

Anelle isn’t impressed. So the Emperor tells her he wanted a son instead.

Not a happy family.

Anyway, if the Super-Skrull brought nice souvenirs from Earth maybe he’ll just be imprisoned forever instead of executed.

Oh, nice. Captain Marvel. Greatest fighting man of the Kree. The Super-Skrull knew just what the emperor wanted.

‘Can’t you just free them all?’ asks Anelle, weirdly nice despite being raised by the dickhole of an emperor.

“Your every WORD tries my patience FURTHER, girl.”

If the Skrulls could get the secret of the omni-wave projector from Mar-Vell, they could use it to make a weapon that would wipe out the Kree homeworld in the blink of an eye.

Mar-Vell balks. He’ll never give up the secret and torture won’t work on a man of the Kree. Or an Avenger, Scarlet Witch adds.

The Emperor is offended. How could Mar-Vell think that he could ever violate the Convention of Fornax and torture a prisoner of war? Simply unheard of! Violating the space Geneva Convention like that. Geez.

Of course, Fornax doesn’t apply to... lets say ignorant savage. Like anyone from Earth. JUST FOR EXAMPLE.

So he puts Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch in an energy sphere with some manner of lizardy monster.

Oh, and some fuzzy little... I don’t knows. They’re from Fantastic Four #37 and they’re like a cross between Jamie Madrox and a tribble.

When Quicksilver creates a whirlwind around the giant monster, it accidentally sucks in some of the angry pink things and they start multiplying like kuribos and mobbing all over the monster and filling up the energy sphere and burying Pietro and Wanda. They’ll be crushed or smothered on pink fluffs but at least Mar-Vell won’t betray his own people and Earth to save them.

What are two lives weighed against billions?

Oh. Mar-Vell surrendered. He’ll build an omni-wave projector for the Skrulls.

Well, it isn’t the heroic thing to do to play moral calculus I guess.

The emperor will keep the two mutants as hostages in case Mar-Vell tries to pull any funny business instead of weaving a doom tapestry of all the Kree Galaxy like he’s supposed to be doing.

PART THREE: BEHOLD THE MANDROIDS!

Now this is a cool splash image.

The three technicians that leaked what happened in the Arctic are themselves under suspicion under the accusatory finger of H. Warren Craddock. He has an alien-detector that even reacts to those that have been merely altered by the Kree, like the technicians were.

The technicians are regretting not keeping silent like the Avengers asked them to.

Speaking of the Avengers, they’re in trouble. They didn’t show up for their court hearing so H. Warren Craddock got a court order to bring them in.

So the Avengers get a friendly social call from Nick Fury just for social reasons. He says that Acapulco is great this time of year well that’s all he wanted to say bye. (Subtext: Clear out and lay low you fools)

But the Avengers are too preoccupied to take that advice. Goliath is in the middle of throwing a little tantrum where he destroys the remnant of the growth serum.

And then Vision shows up to report what he has learned, that the Inhumans are somehow involved in this whole thing.

And then time runs out. H. Warren Craddock blares over a loudspeaker outside the mansion, telling the Avengers to come out at once or suffer the consequences.

And if for no other reason than he’s gotten on their last nerves, the Avengers do go outside to see what’s going on. And, uh, H. Warren Craddock brought tanks. And a helicopter. And some Mandroids.

Three of them.

Its a nice goofy design too with cables going everywhere and an exposed face and I’m pretty sure that if they fell down they couldn’t get back up.

And despite the goofy look, they were designed by Tony Stark and trained in simulated battles to fight the Avengers. Goliath gets shot in the neck when he picks one up and the mandroid armor is anti-magnetic so Cap’s shield just rolls right off them.

But remember, Iron Man is secretly Tony Stark, true believers. So he knows the Mandroids’ secret weakness.

They were never trained on countermeasures against the Iron Man rocket skates.

So that’s beautiful.

But as the Avengers engage the Mandroids, the Inhuman called Triton crawls out of the sewer. So I guess that’s going to be a big thing next time. Next week even, when the Kree/Skrull War arc concludes. And to think, the Avengers STILL haven’t gone into space and we’re two-thirds of the way through.

NEXT TIME: Avenger vs Inhuman -- and why!