#bottom!rhodey

[dadtron-3000]

Cyberpunk, this time

[denebolablack]

Don't forget how Rhodey never really gave up on Tony (even when Tony wanted him to) since MIT

never forget tony falling to his knees in the sand and rhodey jumping from the helicopter and running to him as fast as the loose sand and whirling wind from the helicopter’s blades will allow.  

never forget rhodey cracking a joke and the laugh it forces out of tony even when he’s broken and exhausted

never forget rhodey dropping to tony’s level and pulling him close into an embrace, tony’s head pressed against rhodey, the emotion of having tony back clear on rhodey’s face.  

“next time you ride with me.”

[thewidowsledger]

Mistake

© thewidowsledger 2025 - DO NOT REPUBLISH AND PLAGIARISE

Pairings: Professor!Natasha Romanoff x College Student!Female Reader

Word count: 4.2k

Tags | Warnings: +18 smut, ANGST, vile, mean, obsessive, hurt and dark Natasha, Natasha has a penis, top!Natasha, bottom!reader, hate fuck, crying but def not dacryphilia, kind of dubcon, noncon breeding

Author's Note: This is by far the darkest fic that was requested to me…I might be overreacting but I just a baby. I don't know how Latin honors works from others so I just referenced it to mine. Plot is kind of inspired with the song Teacher's Pet but it's the other way around. Request

Navigation | Masterlist

⧗

"What happened to us?" She asked again. The question hung in the air, demanding an answer that you know yourself wouldn't be willing to give.

Because you just want to forget it, forget it all—forget her.

⧗

"Isn't Y/N your rival since like 8th grade? You always hated the girl man! How come you're confessing your feelings to her on our graduation day?!" Rhodey groaned while rubbing his entire face as he talked to his best friend who just told his deep shocking secret.

"That's when I started loving her too." Tony simply replied.

You and Tony were actually schoolmates since grade school. And you have always been a top performing student ever since, while Tony only got to show his skills and intelligence not until high school—late bloomer as they say.

Who would imagine that the shy weird kid back in grade school would turn into a big massive fuckboy slash science freak in high school until college?

"So what's the plan, man?" Rhodey can only ask. He and Tony have been side by side since forever so there is no way he will not support him in getting to you. "Tony, as much as I want to support you in this…thing. You know your reputation. First, you are Y/N's acads rival, as long as there are numbers and letters and numbers and letters mixed together you are enemies and everybody knows that. Second, you have a reputation of sleeping with so many women. You know you didn't have your name cleared about the sleep night with the entire cheerleading team two years ago, in fact you didn't want your name cleared because you liked having that reputation."

"That was two years ago, I'm different now, at least I am trying too."

"I can't believe this. But honestly, I'd hit that." Rhodey smirked, showing your beach photo wearing a maxi skirt, a crochet top and the black glasses you always wore.

"Okay, enough of that! That's…that girl is mine, man. Please bro code." He snatched his friends' phone away from him and turned it off. Tony doesn't need to look at your photos anymore since he had memorized each photo of yours because he had been checking on your Instagram for at least twice a day.

"I was just joking! Of course I wouldn't." Rhodey chased his phone and was able to get it before Tony put it in his pocket. "So what's the plan? How will you…you know?" He shrugged while looking intently at his friend.

"Don't worry, I'm never running out of plans and pick up lines." He let out a laugh while also flexing his biceps

"Hey, hey! Friendly advice man? Just cut with your bad pick up lines and be a man. You just told me she's the girl you want to marry and she looks like the type who wouldn't fall for jokes or pick up lines. This isn't any rom coms, if you want her to fall in love with you, compliment and admire her mind—her intelligence."

"O…kay…where did that come from? That was a good one, Rhodey. I never thought I would hear that from you." Tony tried not to laugh his ass off, but the words of wisdom his friend just told him was something he needed.

Rhodey just shrugged, a genuine smile on his face showing as he looked at his friend. "I've always had it in me, Tony. It's just you never asked for some advice. Besides, you're different and so am I. And now, seeing you genuinely in love with this girl? I just know you need some unsolicited advice from mister lover boy right here."

"Hey, I'm a mister lover boy too." Tony pouted.

"You can be. But first, we have 8 minutes to get to Mr. Coulson's class."

The two sprinted out of the cafeteria, not even noticing Professor Romanoff sitting in the corner, her nails grazing hard against her own coffee mug.

⧗

"You're not gonna run for Latin?" You asked Tony, you were frustrated, you expected him to be your rival up until the end but when you knew you were the only one who filed for latin honors in your class, you were infuriated. You should be thankful, really, because you have no more competition but…

"I had 2.75 in molecular dynamics in 3rd year, if you didn't know. So basically, I'm not eligible to run for latin since then." You huffed at his reply, you don't know if it's out of disbelief or relief because he had that grade that made him not qualified for latin anymore.

"Did you purposely fail that class?" You asked him suspiciously. "Because I don't want to have this honor if you just basically gave it away. Like what you did in our elemag quiz bee during 10th grade, you said I only won because you basically let me, because you were just forced to join."

Tony pinched his nose, trying to hold a giggle. You are so cute, he thought to himself. Always so competitive and he loved every bit of it.

"I sucked at the subject, I promise, princess." He replied sincerely, not teasingly and provoking like he always was when he talks to you. Like when he tells you to calm yourself down before you internalize everything you had reviewed for a quiz bee, because it's just him you're gonna have to contend in some stupid quizzes.

You hated the man, but he's like a part of your system. You wouldn't function without him infuriating you—without him always competing with you.

"So…congratulations, summa cum laude." You were shocked at his words and genuineness but you didn't let him notice. For once, he didn't annoy you—for once—he's not your rival.

Before Tony could hand you the bouquet of tulips he was holding, a student suddenly rushed up to you.

"Hey, Y/N," the student said, her cheeks blushing as her eyes darted between you and Tony. "Professor Romanoff is asking for you in her office."

Hiding the tulips behind his back, Tony feigned nonchalance while you fought back your irritation. You couldn't believe it—even after all this time, he still had an effect on the women in your school. Unknown to you, the student had glimpsed the flowers he was secretly holding in his hands where she thought were for you.

"R-right now?" You stammered and the student nodded before bidding goodbye to the both of you.

"Are you alright?" Tony asked, noticing you turned pale.

As Tony asked you if you were okay, you found yourself blurting out, "Can you come with me?" You immediately regretted your words, silently cursing yourself for asking for help from the one person you loathed the most.

Despite the tension between the two of you, Tony agreed to accompany you to Professor Romanoff's office. As you walked, he fidgeted awkwardly, still holding the bouquet of flowers behind his back. Whenever you stole a glance in his direction, he'd turn away, so you wouldn't notice the bouquet peeking behind him.

The walk was filled with an uncomfortable silence, neither of you uttering a single word until you reached the professor's office.

Tony was about to reach for the door handle to Professor Romanoff's office, you quickly stopped him, passing him your bag. He shot you a questioning look, his eyes filled with concern as he asked, "Are you okay?"

You just gave him a small nod. He took your bag without protest and offered a reassuring nod in return.

"I'll wait for you here," he said, awkwardly holding your tote bag and wiggling his fingers as you go inside. His other arm was tired from having to hold the bouquet behind his back.

He could give it to you after, he thought.

⧗

You closed the door, but you deliberately left it unlocked. After a moment, Professor Romanoff emerged from the bathroom, her eyes scanning the room until they landed on you.

"Professor." You said, your head bowed in submission. Despite your fear and trepidation, you couldn't bring yourself to meet her gaze, keeping your eyes on your shoes as you struggled to maintain your composure.

She walked towards you, your heart pounded in your chest, and you felt a cold sweat breaking out on your forehead. Your lips trembled, and your shoulders tensed up as if preparing yourself for the worst. Your shoulders grazed onto each other as she locked the door behind you, trapping you inside with her.

"Is the pictorial done for graduation?" She asked, it came out soft but cold.

You took a deep breath, gathering what little ounce of courage you had left and managed to stammer out, "Yes."

Professor Romanoff's eyes traveled down your body, scrutinizing your outfit. You were wearing a skirt that teetered on the edge of being too short, paired with a fitted white top and a cardigan. You fidgeted under her intense scrutiny, feeling exposed and vulnerable under her stare.

"May I ask why I was being called, professor?" You asked, you bit your lip after for trembling too much.

"You're the only candidate for the Latin honors in our program. I talked to Professor Coulson and others in the faculty, and all of them said that your position is already secured for it not to drop below a 2," she stated. "Many professors are rooting for you to deliver your speech in 5 months."

And you? You desperately want to ask but you hold yourself back, keeping the question locked inside your mind. You wanted to speak less to her as much as possible, so you just nodded.

The room was filled with silence for several minutes, and you just stood there while she was still sitting in her office chair.

"I missed you."

Your heart literally dropped. The last time you had heard those words from her was two years ago, when you both had been caught up in a dirty secret affair.

"Didn't you miss me too? Detka? " You begged in your mind for her to not to call you those russian pet names again, well, it's one of your weaknesses still after so long.

You shook your head side to side in denial and screwed your eyes shut, as if trying to block out the words and the memories they stirred up. The mere thought of admitting to missing her was too much for you to handle—because you did, you missed her so much and you hated yourself for it. So every time your heart flutters when you see her along the hallways, you move to a different direction just to avoid her or if your mind starts to think about her, you immerse yourself in studying which most of the time failed to work.

You tried to be strong and you think you're doing good at it. You told yourself as long as you're not going to be alone with her again, you'd be fine.

And you are definitely not fine right now...

"After you came back from your immersion program, you didn't talk to me anymore..." Her voice was dark and tinged with hurt that had festered over the time you had spent away.

"What happened to us?" She asked again. The question hung in the air, demanding an answer that you know yourself wouldn't be willing to give.

Because you just want to forget it, forget it all—forget her.

Her words echoed in the air, a single tear slipped down your cheek, your breath growing more labored with each passing second. You couldn't bring yourself to answer her, your throat tight and your body trembling.

"Did you even lo—"

You didn't let her finish, you don't want her to ask you that question because you're afraid about the answer that you had kept hidden, locked in the deep, dark corner of your heart. "What I felt for you was…genuine."

What a nice way to put it.

"Genuine?" She huffed, she could take that one for now, Natasha thought. "If it's genuine then why am I a secret?"

"It was a mistake!" You rushed out before you could even blink. What would people think if they knew? That the top student in the university only got her achievements because she was basically a professor's cock sleeve?

"Nat—Professor…what…what happened before was a mistake. I told you that, right? And you know it too! We talked about it after I went to my immersion, that we'll stop. God, please, you know how wrong it was!" You cried desperately, it's not loud but it's enough for her to hear.

"Mistake?" she snapped and you can see the hurt in her eyes. "The bar, yes. That could be a mistake."

You cleared your throat awkwardly, memories of that night suddenly flooding your mind. The way the two of you danced, the way she laughed, how her lips tasted like whiskey...and then, the realization that hit you both when you're both sobered up. That was the night you slept with her, so much for being drunk you didn't realize it was your professor—the professor you had a crush on.

"What about here?" She pointed to her desk, where she had pounded you for dear life after class because you had joked to her that if you get a perfect quiz then you'll have a reward from her—and you did, she had made you cum twice for the recitation and quiz she had prepared for class, specifically for you. "And there?" You looked towards her sofa, where a lot of things happened between you two. You sucking her when she gets so frustrated during a meeting, riding her if she's too tired from paperworks—all the dirtiest kinks were done on that sofa. Even the softest ones where you both cuddled up after you didn't win the regional college quiz bowl or when you straddled her while teaching her how to tie a necktie.

"Motels, my car, my apartment, here again in my office during prom where you begged me to fuck your ass while wearing your prom queen crown." Her voice grew darker, matching the intense memories playing out in her mind. "Tell me baby, were those a mistake too? It would really hurt my feelings if you said yes."

You sobbed, shaking your head side by side, trying to dispel the memories and she can see the fear and denial in your eyes. You can just walk right now and end this torturous reminiscing. But you felt trapped in place, trapped in those memories, and she was too—she was trapped in the need to make you remember…

"Please, stop." You hiccup, trying to hold back a sob. You continue to shake your head over and over.

"You can't just go around, fuck me up and then say that's it's just a mistake afterwards." She spat, standing to walk towards you.

She loomed over you, her tall frame casting a shadow, making you feel small and vulnerable. She could see you shaking, hear your ragged breathing and it only fueled her frustration.

"Bent over my desk with that perfect little ass in the air, waiting..." She moved closer, her hand reaching out to trace your collarbone.

She watched you scramble to your feet, a dark satisfaction gleaming in her eyes as you approached her desk. She followed close behind, her heels clicking on the floor. When you reached the desk, she pressed a firm hand between your shoulder blades, bending you over it.

As she bent you over, you let out a soft moan, your face pressed against the cool surface of the desk. She could see your body relax, falling into the familiar position. Her hand slowly inched up your skirt, feeling the soft fabric bunch under her fingers. "You still remember, don't you?"

She stepped closer, pressing her length against your backside, feeling the thin barrier of her pants between you two. You found yourself grinding back against her feeling she was growing harder.

"Fuck you're still such a slut for my cock." She smirked as she gripped your waist. "Is it still a mistake? Huh? Slut? You grinding your slutty pussy back against my cock?"

You shook your head side by side, biting your lip to contain your moans.

"I need you to say it, slut." She spat.

"N-no, it's…it's not a mistake, professor." You said in a shaky tone.

Without warning, she reached down and unzipped her pants, pulling out her thick, hard cock. She wrapped her hand around it, stroking it slowly behind your back, the tip rubbing against your ass through your panties. "Fuck, I've missed this," she pressed the head of her cock against your ass, rubbing it against your panties. "Gonna fuck this tight little pussy again, just like old times."

She pushed aside your panties, revealing your vulnerable entrance, "Missed how perfectly you take me..." In one smooth motion, she thrust forward, burying herself deep inside you.

"N-nat!" Your back arched even further as you cried out a breath.

"I missed you calling me by my name." She said in a ragged breath, "I want you to shout it so Stark can hear it behind those doors." Her other hand reached around to grab your hair, tangling it in her fist as she pulled your head back, forcing you to arch your back further and to look at the door of her office where Tony was waiting. You didn't know how she knew Tony was waiting outside for you.

Your voice only seemed to spur her on. She began pounding into you, the rhythm steady and intense. She pulled out slightly, just the tip still inside you, before slamming back in with renewed ferocity. "You made me struggle, everyday, seeing you walk around in those fucking skimpy clothes...and letting anyone touch you, but not me." Each word was punctuated by a brutal thrust. "I didn't reach you because I respect you so much, love you so fucking much. And I know you will run back to me eventually…"

"But you didn't…fuck, you didn't come back to me. Am I…am I that easy? Y/N?" She asked with so much vulnerability and hate. "Do you know how hard it is to watch you go on for a day without me? When I couldn't?"

You felt some hot liquid dripping down onto your bare back, your clothes being bunched up…are those tears? You are too dumbed down to think but you noticed how Natasha held back a sob, covering up trying to sound cold and resentful towards you.

"Natasha…" you called out to her, you wanted to hold her against you but she snapped forward continuously and sloppily, hitting a spot inside you that made you whimper. "F-fuck!" You cried, it was loud and that made you cover up your own mouth.

Her climax hit and she buried herself to the hilt inside you, holding perfectly still as she rode out her orgasm. Waves of her hot cum filled your pussy, coating your insides, but she didn't say a word, she didn't tell you or even warn you. She just stayed frozen, her body shaking with the intensity of her release.

She gazed down, biting her trembling lip as she observed her cock, slick with both your arousal and her release, still buried deep inside you. A shudder ran through her as she felt the last drops of cum seep out on the tip of her shaft. Slowly pulling out, she couldn't help but moan softly at the erotic sight of her thick cum slowly oozing out of your well-used pussy. You innocently wiggle your ass as you move and it only intensified the lewd display.

You stood all by yourself and she calmly situated herself back into her leather office chair, cleaning herself up, refusing to look at your trembling form.

"N-nat?" You called, a tear running down your cheeks. You saw her reddened eyes and flushed cheeks—you were right—she was crying, but so are you. You slowly backed away, frantically tugging at your disheveled clothes, you could feel her cum still dripping slowly into your panties.

"Nat? Can we talk?" You tried again, you didn't like the feeling of this. You felt used.

"You can go now." She said flatly, her voice devoid of any emotion.

You walked towards the door, desperation etched on your face, hoping for some kind word, any sign of affection. You hated yourself for expecting some that you wanted to slap yourself. You frantically swiped at your wet cheeks, trying your best not to break down in front of her. But no matter how hard you rubbed, more tears spilled out. You couldn't catch a break, each blink bringing forth a new wave of salty drops.

And her? She just sat there, staring at her computer screen, her expression cold and heartless as if nothing happened.

She has done her plan for you anyways. So there is nothing to talk about anymore, the last thing on her list is you running back to her.

As you rushed your way out, you saw your bag on the chair with a bouquet of flowers. "Hey, Y/N. This is for you, I had to leave for the chess team. I really hate doing this but I'd like you to be my date on senior night. —T.S."

You could only huff, your brows pinching together to hold the tears that are threatening to fall again. But you weren't able to help it, you ended up having a break down outside her office, with the flowers on your arm and the evidence of what she did to you still oozing inside of you.

⧗

"Ladies and gentlemen, faculty, family, friends..." Your voice cracked slightly, betraying your nerves, but you steadied yourself, refusing to let the ghosts of the past dictate this moment. "We've worked tirelessly, overcome obstacles, and in some cases, experienced pain both personal and academic."

You glanced down at your notes, a faint smile playing on your lips as you continued. "I'd like to thank my family and friends for their unwavering support, my blockmates for turning sleepless nights into unforgettable memories, and lastly, I want to express my deepest gratitude to the professors who have molded us into the graduates we are today."

As you scanned the audience, your gaze landed on Professor Romanoff, who sat upright, her expression unreadable. You swallowed hard, the lump in your throat threatening to choke you. With a deep breath, you concluded your speech. "Thank you, and congratulations to the class of 2025!"

The graduation ceremony drew to a close, and the air was filled with joyous cheers and the clicking of cameras. As you mingled with your fellow graduates, collecting well-wishes and hugs, you couldn't shake the feeling of being watched. It seemed like everyone was drawn to you—your classmates, their families, even some of the professors. You were the center of attention, the summa cum laude, the valedictorian.

As you made your way through the crowd, congratulations ringing in your ears, a different sort of tension gripped you. You shifted uncomfortably, trying to ignore the growing pressure and the whispers that began to rise around you. Your swelling stomach was becoming more prominent by the second, stretching the fabric of your gown. You caught a few raised eyebrows and exchanged looks of confusion among your peers, their eyes glued to you.

The whispers grew louder, more urgent, as realization dawned on everyone. The batch valedictorian delivered her speech with a baby bump that had been concealed beneath flowing gowns and baggy clothes all semester, but now...there was no hiding it. Exactly four months along, your secret was suddenly the most spoken topic at this joyous event.

Tony stood near enough to be seen by you, a bouquet of roses hiding behind his back. He had been about to confess his feelings, to tell you that your intellect and beauty had captivated him all these years you had been rivals. But now, as he noticed the unmistakable curve of your belly…you noticed how he stepped back. His perfectly prepared speech shattered in his mind.

He walked away from you as if he was disappointed in you. At the same time you could feel the shift in the atmosphere, not just from him but the disappointment radiating off the crowd like a physical force.

You tried to smile to those around you to mask the dam that is going to break soon, but you still held your chin up with the little courage and confidence you had left in you.

"Mama, I'll just talk to someone. I'll meet you in the car." Your mother has been very supportive of you, yes, she scolded you when she got the news that you were pregnant. She always looked up and expected more from you, but still, she accepted and took care of you.

With a deep breath, you marched down the corridor towards her office. There were no people around and that's when it suddenly hit you. Tears started rushing down your cheek as your heels clicked urgently against the polished floor even though your OB gyne told you to stop wearing elevated shoes, you wiped them away frantically because you don't want to face her feeling vulnerable like this. The determination etched on your face chased away any lingering doubts. You were going to face this head-on, consequences be damned.

As you pushed open the door, she glanced up from her desk, surprise momentarily flashing across her features before smoothing into a smirk.

She leaned back in her leather chair, folding her hands atop the polished wood. "Y/N, to what do I owe this unexpected visit?"

"Natasha…" you stepped forward, your hand traveling down your stomach. Your built up mask breaking, feeling vulnerable and exposed in front of her. You held back your tears, shaming yourself. "I have never been with anyone but you. I'm pregnant…I—I think you got me—"

She got your message, of course she did. Because this is exactly how she planned it to be, her claiming you in a way you didn't expect, you running back to her all vulnerable, and her turn saying…

"It was a mistake."

[deathbyathousandspiders]

hey! could you write something where tony accidentally finds out the reader, his daughter, and peter are dating? they’re both scared for his reaction but then he’s actually super cool about it :)

I LOVE STARK!READER !!

i got saucy w this one :,) my b

!!! 18+ MDNI !!!

content warnings — steamy peter make outs, light swearing, sexual content, suggestive dialogue.

✨masterlist✨.

2.1k.

Nothing could beat lazy Sundays at the compound. The whole team was either MIA, on a mission, or training, so every room fell still with serenity. It was the perfect time for you to stick your nose in a book, and lounge around the empty estate. Your father was off somewhere across the complex working on some gadget, which left you free to roam around wherever you wanted.

Your hair gently tickled your bare shoulders as you tied it up, laying your book face–open on the kitchen island so that you could keep reading and grab a snack. The air conditioning nipped at the skin exposed from your minimal clothing; your black–cropped tank top and favorite pair of shorts didn’t protect you from the artificial frost in the air, but it certainly helped with the heat when you stepped outside.

Just before your hands fell back to your book, arms wrapped around your waist from behind. Their shape and placement was something so familiar, the touch brought you more comfort than startle. Cedarwood and bergamot were quick to fill your nose whilst your boyfriend’s head craned into the base of your neck. His fingers locked to the belt loops of your shorts, tugging you back into him so that he could feel more of you.

“I’ve been looking for you..” His voice was throaty. Needy. The pads of his thumbs traced tiny circles into either of your hips, gently pressing further into your skin when your hand stretched up to comb through his fluffy brown curls. His affection and body heat were a welcomed company in the cold of the kitchen.

A smile found your face, even though Peter couldn’t see it from where he was. “I missed you too, baby.” Humming, your fingers scratched his scalp. “D’you know who’s here right now?” Your voice grew hushed, heart racing with the small adrenaline rush infiltrated your system.

“Your dad’s in his lab, Steve and Natasha are in the gym, and Vision’s with Wanda in the meeting room, but otherwise.. Everyone else’s out..” Peter’s voice dropped an octave as he spoke just above a whisper, his lips finding your collarbone. “Sam, Bucky, Thor..” In between each name, he placed another kiss on your neck, only inching higher. The more skin he nipped at, the more your fingers curled around his hair, curving your neck so that he had more access to you. “Bruce, Clint, Rhodey, Pepper…” His whispers sent shivers down your spine, especially as his left hand slid under the fabric of your shirt.

As Peter trailed kissed up to your jaw, a shuttered moan caught between your lips. You fought the urge to roll your hips back into his, knowing that you couldn’t finish what you were starting. If anybody found you two, your secret relationship would be out, and your dad would give you hell for it. “Peter.. We can’t…” You spoke breathlessly, tugging at his hair; it was an attempt to pull him from your body, but you didn’t try too hard.

His lips hovered over his favorite soft spot in the crevasse of your jawline, brushing his teeth along the surface of it just to rile you. It certainly didn’t help that he aimed his breathy chuckle right at it, but god did it feel good. “Why not?”

You huffed impatiently, eyes half lidded whilst your entire body anticipated the gentle brushing of his lips against your neck. His cooling fingers teased at the bottom of your left breast, testing waters you two hadn’t touched before. Sure, you’d let Peter Parker touch you like this plenty of times before, but never in the open like this. Never in the open where your secret could be outed.

“Cause I–” You felt the tug of Peter’s smirk against your skin at how worked up you were already getting. “I’m reading…” You knew that Peter was well aware of how secretive you needed to be. ‘Reading’ was merely just to give him a hard time.

He let out a quiet sigh, pressing a lingered kiss to your cheek. His thumb lightly rubbed at your rib cage beneath your shirt, but otherwise, he gave up his attempt. “You’re sure I can’t even get one kiss?” He asked, pouty even in his tone of voice.

You turned your head to look at him. Your eyes glanced at his lips just to tease him, “Over my dead body, Parker.” Your voice still sang out low, wanting nothing more than to taste him right then and there.

Peter’s face inched closer to yours, snickering quietly at your stubborn response. “Not if your dad kills me first..” He mused, voice still just as groveled as before. His lips nearly brushed against yours, but the sound of the floorboards outside of the kitchen made you both add three feet between you.

“Why would I kill you?” Your dad’s voice hummed nonchalant, as if he wasn’t interrupting such an intimate moment. He walked right through the thickening tension like it wasn’t the weight that it was. Tony’s focus seemed to be glued to his holographic wrist watch, completely oblivious to Peter’s hand slyly slipping out from under your black camisole.

You and Peter glanced at each other, astonished that he seemed so unfazed and unaware. Perhaps, your father didn’t hear as much of the conversation as you assumed he did. Maybe he truly was clueless to the blush coating your cheeks, and the timid bulge poking at the fly of Peter’s jeans.

“Uhh..” Peter lost every thought that occupied his brian. “Because I ate the last Pop Tart. I–I just figured you’d be upset.” Even he didn’t sound convinced about the excuse.

Finally, Tony looked up from his watch, eyeing you first, then Peter. This was the closest you two were to getting caught, and even though the AC was cranked fairly high, it felt like the air suddenly ran much cooler. Your heart was in your throat, easing a little when your father walked over and placed a gentle kiss on your cheek.

Tony leaned back on the kitchen island beside you, crossing his arms over his Nirvana band–tee. “Lucky for you, kid, I’ve got a whole secret stash in my lab.” He spoke with his typical Tony tone, “I’ll let you off the hook this time.”

Little did you or Peter know that your father actually heard most of your conversation. How much of it? He’d never tell you. Tony Stark knew that you and Peter had the hots for each other for a long time. He was just waiting for both of you to come clean about the relationship, or for the perfect time for him to address it. He’d known for a while, but the longer it took, the more entertaining it was to act like he was oblivious to it. Now, how he found out about the relationship, he’d never tell that to you either.

“Are you calling my daughter a liar, Rogers?” Tony asked the blonde from across the pool table, watching as the captain missed the shot with no reaction.

Steve stood upright, stepping back so that Tony had room to make his turn. “No. No, Tony.” He started, “All I’m saying is that if Peter were chivalrous, he would ask you for your permission first. That’s all.”

The topic of the evening was why you and Peter both flaked out of game night. Ever since Sam joked that you could’ve been bailing to go out together, every conversation Tony had was directed on how likely the possibility truly was.

His eyes squinted at Steve, readjusting his cue and stance in one swift movement. He knew Steve was traditional, but sometimes, Tony forgot just how traditional he really was. “They don’t need my permission. They’re teenagers.” Tony creased his hips, focusing on the pool table for a second. “Besides,” with a faint clank, Tony knocked two balls in with one hit, “Maybe she asked him out. It’s the twenty–first century.”

Steve sighed with a slight twinge of annoyance, both at Tony’s coyness and his success in their game. He leaned on his cue like a cane, watching the genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist walk around the table again. “Alright, fine.” Steve huffed. “But if they are out canoodling tonight, what are you going to do about it?”

A focused glare glistened in Tony’s eyes as he bent over to take the shot. He pulled the cue back a few times, pondering on both his turn and the question. If he made this shot correctly, he could win the whole game; if you and Peter were really out on a date, what would he do?

Tony shoved the wooden rod in his hand, acing the shot just like he calculated. He subtly smirked to himself, looking back at Steve to answer his question. “I’ll find a way to give them hell for it.”

And that, he was. Ever since he caught you and Peter getting frisky on the security system later that night. That conversation happened months ago, and Tony still managed to make both of you incredibly jittery. He wasn’t entirely sure why it was such a big deal to tell him, or why you’d kept it a secret for so long, but he knew sooner than later you’d find a way to tell him.

Little did he know, Peter Parker was finding his way onto your bedroom in the thick of night after patrols.

You unlocked the door to your balcony, welcoming him in with the kiss you meant to give him hours earlier. Hungrily, your lips clasped with his, getting drunk on his taste, and lacing your fingers in his hair. “God, I missed you..” You spoke between kisses.

“Missed you too, baby..” Peter let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, finally able to relax in your presence.

Both of you took steps towards your bed, slow and steady to avoid the lack of contact. Peter’s mask was lost somewhere on your bedroom floor, and you wasted no time to press the button on his chest and strip him from the suit he’d been wearing.

Peter got to your bed first, sitting back on it and quickly helping you climb on top of him. His hands grasped every inch of you that they could — grazing your neck, squeezing at your hips, grabbing your ass, and now inching up your inner thigh as you straddled his lap. His hips arched up to meet yours, pressing up against you in a delicious way.

Tongues greeting each other, you both moaned into each other’s mouth. You couldn’t get enough of each other, and the foreplay only reminded you of how little patience you had for it. You didn’t just want Peter right now, you needed him. Inside you. The ache in your lower stomach felt throbbing, and you were confident that your arousal was already coating the fingers Peter had at your upper thigh.

Just as you both parted the kiss to catch your breath, your bedroom door abruptly opened, light invading the room. Your blood ran cold as your head snapped toward the door in time with Peter’s; you both met the casual stare of your father. Tony Stark stood in the doorframe, unfazed, in pajamas, toothbrush in his mouth.

The room fell quiet, apart from the sounds of the bristles cleaning Tony’s pearly whites, and the faint heavy breaths that you and Peter tried to catch.

Taking the toothbrush out of his mouth, Tony was the first to break the awkward, deafening, silence. “Hey, Kid.” Tony’s head nodded upwards, as though he were greeting Peter in public. Not like he was speaking nonchalantly to Peter, flushed, in boxers, sat beneath his daughter’s thighs. “Next time, can you use the front door so that I don’t have to disarm the security system?” Even if little he knew, little was still more than nothing.

Peter stared blankly at him, sure as hell that this had to be some nightmare he just hadn’t woken up from yet. He glanced at you, then swallowed the frog stuck in his throat. “Uh– uh, yep! Yeah, I–uh, I can do that!” He wasn’t sure why his voice always raised two octaves when he was nervous, but it definitely made this moment that much more amusing for Tony.

With a small smile, your dad grabbed the doorknob with his freehand. “Thanks.” He then put the toothbrush back in his mouth, slowly shutting the door. “Have fun! Use protection.” His words were muffled and spat due to having his mouth full, but he shut the door after that.

As awkward as it must’ve been for you and Peter, Tony found that moment to be as satisfying as he pictured it to be. Boy, he would give Peter the talking to of a lifetime in the morning, but it thrilled him to know that you’d found someone who made you so happy.

He didn’t see need to kill Peter either, after all.

[realtalkswithfinn]

Christmas at the Compound

Avengers x reader

Summary: Avengers x reader Christmas head cannons because I am a sucker for the found family trope.

a/n: I tried to get this up before christmas but totally spaced it, so… tale it as a christmas morning gift! I tried to make it as age neutral as possible, so it could totally be teen!reader or not.

The holidays are a tough time for the Avengers.

Most of them have lost family members or friends, and the idea of celebrating anything is extremely difficult.

Tony especially - he always gets gloomy around the Holidays.

He always says something along the lines of, "I don't actually care about this, but its social convention."

But secretly he cares a lot.

He overcompensates for his lack of affection throughout the year by buying everyone the expensive gifts he knows they want but could never justify spending on themselves.

At surface level, it just seems like “oh rich guy is spending rich guy money”

But they’re actually really thoughtful gifts

Like last year, he got Peter a new laptop for school.

He bought Bucky new and thick clothes since all of his were old and worn.

He upgraded Clints cellular data so he could talk to his family anywhere.

Things like that.

Sam and Rhodey take one for the team and string the christmas lights on the tower

“It’s too cold for this.” Sam would complain, the sharp wind nipping at his cheeks as he flew from one end of the building to the other, lights in tow.

“Come one man, where’s your christmas spirit?” Rhodey would laugh

“I’m just doing this so stark’s power bill goes up.”

it really was worth it seeing the tower lit up top to bottom though

Wanda LIVES for commercialized American Christmas

"We have to make gingerbread houses and go to Rockefeller to see the Christmas tree and we have to go out to the snow and go sledding-"

She demands family Christmas photos be taken, even though you don't really have anyone to send them to.

This years theme was christmas pjs

Which lead to a few very interesting viral videos of the avengers in an Old Navy

“Tony come on the reindeer ones are cute!”

“Bruce. A man can not hold onto his masculinity while wearing pjs with dancing reindeer.”

Natasha gets tired of the bellyaching and bickering and makes the final decision

She grabs everyone’s size in the Reindeer pjs and marches to the front of the store

After snagging Tony’s credit card, of course.

Actually taking the picture is a whole other ball game, but that’s a story for another day

Thor has a hard time with the idea of Santa

You try to explain it to him, but it doesn’t seem to help

“So a fat man breaks into the safety of your home late into the night… and you let it happen because he comes baring gifts?”

“Well… yeah.”

“But only to nice children. That he stalks throughout the year.”

“He doesn’t stalk the children he just…”

“Hm.” He squints. “what about the naughty children?”

“They don’t get any presents.”

“OR,” Wanda interjects, “Krampus comes to get them.”

“Is that another fat man in a red disguise?”

“No. He’s a demon sent from hell to eat them.”

Thor nods in approval. “Ah. That’s much more asgardian. A fair reward system for the youth!”

You stare at him. “So… you’re okay with Krampus but not Santa?”

“Well I think they work together well, like a team. Like us!”

“I… I guess…”

Decorating the tree was an all night event

You would help happy bring up what felt like hundreds of boxes of christmas decorations

The tree itself was about 15 feet tall, because it wouldn’t be a holiday at the compound if you guys weren’t extra

It was placed in the living space, right next to a huge wall of windows so all of New York could see your festivity

it had to be decorated to the nines to pass Wanda’s inspection

Not a bare branch

Theres tinsel, ribbons, colorful lights, and hundreds of ornaments

But of course, ladders were a no go

You guys liked a challenge

To reach the higher branches, you and Natasha would stand on Steve and Buckys shoulders

And I mean stand

Not sit

It was a thrilling balancing game

You trusted them to catch you if you fell, but you still had to try to avoid it at all costs to save the tree from certain destruction

Peter would dangle from the ceiling, crawling around to hang ornaments toward the very top

Both of these acts nearly gave Bruce and Vision a heart attack

“CAP, you’re moving to fast shes gunna lose balance-“

“Bruce, please take a breath.”

Meanwhile Thor is getting distracted by all the ornaments and forgetting to actually hang them up

“This one’s a little man of snow! How silly!”

Speaking of ornaments

You all have an ornament of yourself on the tree

Or, your super hero alias at least

There’s a tiny black widow, a little iron man, a bity baby hulk, so on and so forth

Tony always demands his be the highest up on the tree to fuel his god complex

Drawing names out of a hat to see who got to put the star on top of the tree

(except you guys would always rig it behind Wanda’s back, only putting her name in the hat)

She would always protest, insisting to let someone else do it this year, but you guys never relented

So with a big cheesy grin on her face, she would use her magic to delicately place the star on the tippy top

You would think Natasha wouldn’t want to see the Nutcracker Ballet after her time in the red room

But it makes her so happy to see dancing as an art form instead of a way to brainwash young girls

She drags you, Clint, Wanda, and whoever else wants to tag along every year

She even splurges on front row seats

You look over and see her eyes glittering while she watches every turn, leap, and stunt intently

Leaving the theater, she’ll walk on her toes and do a few turns, encouraging you to try as well.

She ends up cackling watching you trip and stumble

“We’ll work on it.”

Can you IMAGINE the ginger bread making contest???

You’re all huddled around the long dining room table with christmas music playing

Theres Clint and Natasha, who just make the classic gingerbread house, no fancy bells or whistles.

Then there’s Bruce,Tony, and Peter who are going absolutely wild building gingerbread sky scrapers and gingerbread hotels.

“Mr. Stark look, I made a working elevator!”

Bruce puts an electric system (fairy lights) through his

Steve and Bucky rebuild their childhood homes

Wanda is going all out, delicately hand placing every candy and covering the whole thing in edible glitter

Visions is pretty similar, but more sleek and modern than Wanda’s

And then there’s Thor, who’s totally missing the point and just DUMPING everything on top

“Hey Peter, I think yours is missing something.”

You string a long thread of white rope candy from his structure to yours.

“Webs!”

“You know… we can probably make a web-like consistency with some starch and frosting…”

That becomes a whole sticky project, but you eventually get it to work, connecting everyone’s gingerbread houses with icing webs

Steve and Bucky are TOTALLY participating in the classic christmas traditions they grew up on.

They sit quietly together in the living room, making paper chains and stringing popcorn

“Do you mind if I join you guys?”

they smile gently. “Of course not.”

You sit crisscross in front of the couch while they teach you

They tell you stories of christmases long, long ago, which feels kinda silly considering they’re talking like grandpas while not appearing much older than you

On Christmas eve, you’re all there except for Clint, who went home to his family

Youre all dressed in your pajamas from the christmas card

You make hot coco and cider

Wanda pops in some old vhs tapes and you watch the classics late into the night

“Alright you nutcrackers,” tony would say around midnight. “I know you want to stay up and catch Santa, but he’s not coming if you all stay awake.”

he really just wanted to go to bed

He sauntered off, calling for lights out.

Most of the boys wandered away to their rooms, leaving you, Wanda, Nat and Thor not quite ready for sleep.

“So,” you ask, taking a sip of coco, “Do you guys think we’re on the naughty list?”

Natasha Chuckled. “I’m not sure. Does beating people up count as naughty if you’re taking down the bad guys?”

Thor set his mug down on the coffee table, the bells on his sweater jingling. “Do not fear ladies, I will catch that nasty Krampus if he comes in to devour your soul. I believe you were doing the right thing.”

You all laughed, thinking he was joking. But he just stared at you.

“Thor… you realize Krampus and Santa aren’t… real?” Wanda asked.

He had a hard time swallowing that.

He ended up sleeping on the couch “just in case”

you woke up at 3 am to a loud clattering coming from the living room

You decided to check it out against your better judgement

There was Thor. Hammer in one hand, cookie in another.

Down the hall toward the elevator was a completely destroyed life-size nutcracker.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I thought I heard something by the elevator.”

“Congratulations. You murdered the Nutcracker.”

“I feared he was an accomplice of the holiday demon.”

“He’s been there for weeks!”

“He could have been a spy. Or possessed.”

“Goodnight Thor.”

Christmas Morning finally arrived

Everyone was sleeping soundly in their beds

Until Sam decided to be a little shit and wake everyone up at 7 am

He pounded on every. single. bedroom door.

“Y/NNNN. SANTA CAME TO TOWNNNNN.” he sing-songed

“No he didn’t.” You grumbled. “Thor killed him.”

“… I don’t know what that means.”

You all stumble out into the living room

Natasha took the time to actually run a brush through her hair and do her morning skincare

You and wanda were far too excited and skipped over that completely, barely remembering to brush your teeth

Tony looked the roughest - he had a silk robe draped over his pjs and looked like he was just awakened from a coma

Essentially, everyone was a little disheveled

Vision made everyone coffee before you started the gift exchange

You all sat around the coffee table in a circle so everyone could see each other

Bruce and Steve passed out the gifts from under the tree

it took a solid few minutes, there was a MOUNTAIN of presents

You went one at a time opening gifts

Some people think this is awkward, but you felt it was more genuine

this way, everyone can see the gift and the joy on the receivers face

as well as a million “thank you”s

It also gave time for the giver to explain why they chose the gift they did, whether it be something they remembered you said you wanted, something they knew you needed, or even just a simple “this made me think of you”

In the end, you loved all your gifts

And everyone loved what you got for them

But mostly, you were just happy to spend the holiday with your family

[gunsandspaceships]

Proof that Tony Stark is a Sub

(Or at least a bottom) in the MCU.

Iron Man (2008):

Sex scene with Christine Everhart (0:09:00): Tony on his back, Christine is sitting on him, leading.

Deleted scene (supposed to be at 0:14:00) “Tony and Rhodey on Stark Jet” (1:25): a «flight attendant» blindfolds Tony before taking him to the bedroom.

Iron Man 2:

Alternate Opening (Deleted Scene – that moment is not on the Disney+ version of the opening, so check on YouTube): so Tony likes spanking, huh… That’s not the only “spanking” moment, read further.

The Avengers:

0:27:25 – Pepper is whispering something in Tony's ear, and we can tell by the look on Tony's face that she will do this to him in the bedroom after the job is done. If we check Gag Reel video for the movie in the first scene we can hear Tony commenting “Dirty, filthy. Fine, suits me” to Pepper’s promises.

Iron Man 3:

0:03:35 - Maya takes off glasses from Tony and pulls him by his scarf into a kiss.

1:18:50 - Tony is tied to a bed in Killian’s lab. Maya says “It’s just like old times, huh?”. Tony replies “Oh, yeah. With zip ties. It’s a ball.”

Avengers: Infinity War:

0:14:35 - Cloak of Levitation smacks Tony for leaning on the Cauldron of Cosmos. Tony turns around and looks at Strange and his hand, thinking that it was him. He replies with “I’m… going to allow that”.

[stark-ironman]

Firefighter AU, Part 2

Warnings: Semi-public sex (in an ambulance), making out in an office, smut, sort of name calling, hair-pulling, praise kink

A/N: Tony is a Firefighter Captain, Reader is an EMT Captain. All Marvel characters are also part of this universe. Also Tony and Reader are more of friends with benefits but with a bit more romantic feelings than normal.

Hello to all my new followers! I wasn't expecting the reaction I received yesterday on part 1 so I'm so excited to get started on this journey. Honestly, I love this series and if anyone has any ideas for future installments then just let me know! Thank you to everyone! Also photo creds go to @tonysfarts

"What's a pretty thing like yourself doing in this office all alone?" Tony asks from the doorway. You turn your chair and look at him, noticing that he's gripping the top of the door with both hands and leaning inside the door. "I had some paperwork to fill out from that last call we went on to explain why we had to do a field tracheotomy on our patient. The usual fun stuff." You say filing the paperwork away. He moves from the doorway and walks over behind your chair, placing his hands on your shoulders and massages gently.

You moan softly as he moves his hands and notice how he pays special attention to your shoulders. A comfortable silence falls over the two of you, with the occasional moan falling from your lips. Tony leans down and kisses your forehead so you lay your head back to steal a kiss. He chuckles against your lips and kisses you again.

"If anybody walks in, they're going to have a field day with this one." You laugh. "Well then let's give them a show, honey." He stands you up, pushing your chair to the side and kisses you deeply. Your arms wrap around his shoulders as he lifts you up and sits you on the desk as his tongue swipes across your bottom lip and you open slightly, letting him attack your mouth. You grind your hips against his, feeling his erection as he moans in your mouth.

"You're such a dirty girl, honey. Getting me all hard knowing anybody could walk in right now." His kisses trail down your jaw and neck. "I should punish you for being such a naughty girl." He nips your skin just above your t-shirt. A moan escapes your lips as you pull him closer. "Does my dirty little slut want that? To be punished for being so naughty and impatient?" He asks. "Fuck, yes sir. I want you to punish me." You moan as you pull on his hair.

Tony comes back up and kisses you again, unbuckling your pants to pull your shirt out but a loud ring fills the fire station. "Shit!" You both exclaim, standing up and fixing your clothes as fast as you can. "Catch you later?" Tony asks mid way down the stairs. "You know it, baby." You smile running over to the ambulance and getting in while he gets in the firetruck.

------

"Rhodey, Romanoff, take a well deserved break. I'll finish up here." You tell them as they finish organizing everything in the back of the ambulance. "Alright, captain. Thank you." Rhodey says as they walk upstairs. You start spraying everything down, smirking when you feel someone's presence. "You know it's rude to stare at people, right?" You ask. "I'm sorry, can't help but admire you sometimes." Tony flirts as he steps inside the ambulance. He takes the spray from your hands and sets it aside. "Remember that idea you had a while back? That involved us and this ambulance?" Tony asks as he pushes your hair out of the way, leaning down to kiss your neck.

"You really are trying to get us caught by everyone." You chuckle. "Everybody here knows we're messing around, darling. Luckily they like us so they won't expose us to the higher ups." He mumbles as he trails kisses up to your ear. A moan escapes your lips and you feel his hand sliding up your thigh. "At least shut the-" He shuts the doors quietly before you can finish your sentence. "Where do you keep the extra sheets at?" He asks looking around. You reach across and grab one, handing it to him.

Tony spreads out the sheet on the floor, crawling over to you and helps takes your boots off. "Come here, honey." He says helping you to the floor. "I guess it's a good thing I took the stretcher out of here, huh." You chuckle. He laughs and kisses you deeply, unbuckling your pants and slowly pulls your pants off. Biting his lip, he leans down and trails kisses up your leg before taking your underwear off. "Look at you all ready for me, darling." He moans as he slides his tongue up your slit. "Taste so sweet for me.." You moan as he starts to praise you and you tug on his hair.

"What do you want, hon? Hm?" He looks up at you with those sinful, lust filled doe eyes. "I want you, baby." You moan. "Yeah? How do you want me?" His tongue slides across your clit. "Your tongue. Please." You whimper. He smirks and lowers his head, using his tongue to tease your clit while he slips a finger inside of you. "Fuck.. Tony." You moan as he slides another finger in and starts moving them. He sucks and licks on you, using his other arm to move up your body and squeeze your breast softly.

You moan, knowing you won't last much longer especially after what happened earlier in the day, and you start moving with his fingers trying to chase your orgasm but he pulls them out and sits up. "What the fuck, Tony!" You exclaim sitting up. "What? You think I forgot about earlier when I told you that you needed to be punished for being naughty?" He says innocently. You look at him, shocked but knowing why he did it.

Tony leans down and kisses you again, laying you back down. "You'll be able to cum soon, I promise," He unbuckles his pants and pushes them down to free his cock, "I always take care of my baby." His hand moves down and grips his base as he teases your entrance with his head before sliding in. "Shit, Tones." You moan as he bottoms out. He starts moving at a medium pace, placing his hands behind your knees and pushes them down so your knees¹ are by your ears.

"Such a pretty little slut for me. Letting me do whatever I want to you." Tony moans as he leans down to kiss you. Your arms wrap around his shoulders, holding him close as he pounds into you. You hiss as you feel your orgasm getting close again. "Can I cum, please?" You beg. "Yeah, cum on my dick, darling." He moans as he feels your walls clenching around him.

You pull his hair as you cum, feeling his movements stutter as he releases inside of you. "Shit, I wasn't expecting to cum yet." He says pulling out of you. "I have that effect on you." You smirk as you sit up, hearing his chuckle while you grab some wipes. He cleans the both of you off and kisses you deeply before helping you get dressed. You fix your hair and start cleaning up, throwing the sheet by the door as he opens it.

"See you later, okay?" He kisses you softly. "I'll be here." You chuckle as he walks off. "Hey, Y/N." He calls from the steps, making you turn towards him. "Do you want to go out on a date tomorrow? I know this great restaurant a few towns over if you're interested." Tony asks, shyly. "Yeah, I would like that." You smile as he smiles. "It's about time you two asked each other out. Maybe then you can stop having sex in our ambulance." Natasha calls and you cover your face in embarrassment. "Or make us want to do it more." Tony says laughing as he heads to his office.

[ussgallifrey]

(She Moves With) Shameless Wonder | 22

✦ Summary: Your badge clearly said SHIELD consultant, so you weren’t entirely sure where Fury was getting this whole make you an Avenger idea from. But you had a feeling it might have something to do with the recent discovery of an artifact at the bottom of the Arctic Sea.

✦ Pairing: Steve Rogers x Female Reader

✦ Warnings: Canon divergence, dialogue taken directly from Avengers: Age of Ultron, language, mild violence, minor medical episode (seizure-esque), Steve Rogers definitely not being jealous.

✦ Word Count: 11k

✦ Playlist: Here

[Master List]

There’s a physical weight settling into Steve’s stomach as he stands there in the aftermath of the fight. A nasty mix of guilt and bruised egos permeates the room as his attention falls on you and your blazing golden eyes, chest heaving and hands clenched. A trickle of blood falls from your ear down the curve of your chin, landing with small plops on the ivory draping of your dress. 

In a moment that should be a victory, all he can taste is the bitter sting of defeat.

Though a drone lays unmoving at their feet, there is no sense of battles won at this moment, as all eyes seem to round on the sole owner of said robot.

Someone says his name then with a warning tone that verges on the blossoms of bristling rage:

“Stark - ”

But Tony is already scrambling off the floor and bounding up the stairs to his lab, with nearly the entire team following after him just a beat later.

“Quinjet people, let’s move it.”

“Stark!” Thor bellows.

Driven by an invisible motor, however, the man in question ignores them all entirely in favor of jamming the elevator button repeatedly.

And just when Steve is ready to confront him, a million questions coming to mind, the lab plunges into pitch darkness.

“Oh, that’s just great. JARVIS, talk to me here - ”

Seemingly at once, the majority of the team pulls out their phones - using the built-in flashlight feature to light the eleven of them up in an awkward switching of straight-beam lights.

“Not the eyes, Jesus, man - ” Clint flinches, throwing a hand over his face as someone across from him quickly lowers their phone down to a reasonable level.

In the chaos of the room, Steve seeks you out. 

But he doesn’t have to look long because there you are, already at his side, eyes searching his face. 

Perhaps due to the adrenaline still rushing through his system, he entwines your hands together - squeezing a sense of reassurance across the connection. A steady breath releases from your lips and he can even feel himself relaxing as an invisible teether keeps the two of you from drifting into the madness of the situation.

You had taken on an alien invasion together and fought the likes of HYDRA side-by-side. A few drones controlled by Stark couldn’t be that bad.

“Okay, JARVIS is down,” Tony announces a moment later, tangible frustration lacing his words as he rubs his free hand over his face.

“Which means the quinjet is out of commission until reboot,” Nat supplies.

“Bingo.”

Your fingers pull from his hold and Steve releases your hand as you move toward the center of the lab, your index finger being the last to loosen from his grip. And it’s foolish how reluctant his heart is to fully let it escape his reach. Priorities, he tries to convince himself.

“At least three drones escaped. If they’re rogue or their AI is corrupted, they’re considered a risk.”

Steve watches as your eyes briefly land on him before your attention returns to the billionaire.

“We need to go after them, now.”

Rhodey slaps Tony’s arm, “Let’s suit up, man.”

“Out of the question.”

Steve turns, eyes landing on Maria who’s sat on the edge of a workbench, seemingly pulling shards of glass from the sole of her foot.

“She’s right,” Tony nods, reluctantly. “Suits could be equally corrupted and unstable.”

“We need fliers then,” you realize.

Everyone seems to turn toward Thor at that moment, but Steve and the goddess of old find their attention landing firmly on Sam.

Someone’s phone light illuminates your body then, still dressed in your elegant white dress. But behind you, a table is finally put into view.

“Stark. Where is the scepter?”

Thor, in all his towering power, crosses the lab in three giant steps before he stands in front of the man in question - backed into a workbench - a violent shimmer of ice-blue lightning flashing across his body. In the blackout, you had all failed to notice the most glaring difference in the lab. The lack of light had obscured your attention away from the now empty table where the scepter had previously been secured.

Sensing the ensuing chaos, Steve clears his throat, “Sam. Do you have your wings?”

“Course I do,” he huffs.

“Take the stairs, hurry,” you implore.

With a nod and slightly confused eyes, Sam takes off for the nearest emergency exit door - his phone’s light guiding the way. 

With that set in motion, Steve watches as you move toward the shattered windows. He’s a few steps behind when you give a sharp high-pitched whistle. Coming to stand by your right side, he crosses his arms as he looks out at the darkened skies. He says nothing, but after a moment, he can spot the shimmering blue trail as a jet of bursting light comes hurtling toward the two of you.

Pallas swoops down through the archway, his talons circling your arm as he comes to perch. You coo at your avian friend.

“Hey, buddy,” Steve greets.

The owl immediately leans toward him and Steve can’t help but brush his index finger over the bird’s head.

“You seriously have an animal sidekick?”

Clint, who has pulled away from Nat and Bruce immediately rounds on you - voice filled with genuine disbelief.

“Something like that,” you reply, brushing your finger over your companion’s plumage. 

Tilting your head in the direction of the others, Steve and the archer part for you as you stride over toward Tony - who remains on the receiving end of a god’s fury.

Your voice cuts through their building argument with clear precision, “Thor, you need to follow their trail - now.”

Steve returns to the conversation, staring down the other god as Thor’s golden eyes fall upon your face. They ease out, after a second, returning to the more familiar blue hues, causing Steve to relax his shoulders and clenched fists a fraction.

“As I was trying to say - ” Tony begins.

“Ah!” Your fingers snap in the direction of his mouth - effectively silencing the billionaire as he forces his lips back together, “Not now, Anthony.”

“Noted.”

The man pulls away, crossing his arms as he leans against an adjacent workbench next to Rhodey, who shoots him a particularly heated look. The supersoldier's fingers dig into his own forearms.

Steve watches as you command the situation with ease, turning toward Thor with a plan already in place.

“We have no jet. You can fly and we both know your vision is superior to just about everyone here. Now, go. I’ll send Pallas on as well.”

“A bird?”

“An owl who tracks foes across dimensions and worlds, with eyes better than anyone else in this room - even you, God of Thunder.”

He bristles back, eyes hardening.

Sam comes bounding in just a moment later, chest heaving, his hands gripping his wingpack.

“Got it.”

“Another set of eyes, particularly at night, can’t hurt. Without access to the quinjet yet and Stark’s legion, we need someone to follow their trail.”

Steve nods, picking up on the plan immediately without a single word shared between the two of you.

“There were three of them that shot out of here. Follow their trails as far as you can. Sam, get redwing on it too if you have to. Find out where the hell they’re taking it.”

“Now, the three of you - go!”

Thor gives a petulant look at the owl before he summons his hammer to his hand and heads for the window. Sam slings the pack on, eyeing Steve as he does so.

You whisper something then to Pallas, though above the readying of Sam’s wings, he can’t make out what exactly you say. With a squawk of acknowledgment, Pallas leaps from your arm and soars out the window, with Thor and Sam on his tail just a moment later.

He watches you then, as you move toward the open windows of the tower. Hands gripping your bare arms as a brewing sea of troubles flits across your features at a disturbing rate.

Maybe it was similar to the things that were crossing his mind.

The hows and whys. The what-ifs and should-haves.

Had it been foolish - naive - of them all to bring the scepter back here? To let it sit, relatively unsecured, in the lab for three days. The same weapon, Steve recalls, that caused the entire team to turn upon one another three years prior. The tool that had turned Barton against his teammate, that had swayed several brilliant minds into helping Loki, of all beings.

He should have known better.

That thing should have been handed over to Thor and sent back to Asgard the minute they cleared Sokovian air space three days back.

And then his attention falls back on the woman beside him. Her gaze is despondent as she stares out into the emptiness of the night air. Steve takes a steadying breath before nudging your shoulder with his arm.

“You okay?”

Your face turns then, a grimace forced into a tight smile as you nod.

The lights flicker back to life, nearly blinding you both as you shield your eyes from the sudden brightness overhead.

“Hey, look at that,” someone proclaims.

You look more assured now, ready to stride forward once again, and Steve is determined to stay by your side as you do.

“Okay,” you start, returning to the group. “We need to know everything that happened in this lab tonight. Can you pull up JARVIS?”

Tony looks up with slightly widened eyes before he glances back down at his phone in dismay.

“That’s gonna be a no-go, Wonder Woman.”

Steve takes a step forward, curiosity mixing with his already heightened frustration, “And why’s that?”

With a flick of his wrist, a hologram shoots out from the billionaire’s phone. Fragments of orange and blue light, scattered apart from a central sphere, hover in the open space of the lab - illuminating the entire room.

It’s Bruce who takes a step forward then, pulling his glasses on as he stares into the depths of the image, “This is insane.”

With a shake of his head, Steve says what everyone else was also likely thinking, “Jarvis was the first line of defense.”

“But this doesn’t make sense,” Bruce responds, looking to Steve, then Tony. “Ultron could have assimilated Jarvis into its system. They’re different AIs, but this… this isn’t strategy.”

“It looks like the hole Thor would have left in Tony’s head if he had the chance,” Clint adds with nearly no amusement.

You nod in agreement, “It’s rage.”

“Lucky he didn’t kill you tonight then,” Rhodey clips.

Tony actually rolls his eyes at that, pushing away from the table and pulling the hologram with him. 

“That was never going to happen.”

“Oh, yeah? Why’s that then? The system was too bonded to you, its creator?”

“Something like that,” you add.

A few curious eyes meet your gaze - Steve’s included - and Tony gives a little nod in return.

With a sigh, you elaborate, “The three laws of robotics. Number One: a robot can not harm or injure a human, or, through inaction, allow a human to be harmed.”

At that, Rhodey pushes up, anger flaring across his usually composed features.

“Oh, was that what that was? Cause I thought that thing was dangling him by the goddamn neck sixty stories above the street? Or maybe I’m just blind. What exactly would you call that?”

Tony puts a hand on his friend’s shoulder just as Steve moves to stand beside you.

“That’s enough.”

The billionaire rolls his eyes, turning instead to address Rhodes.

“He couldn’t do anything more than that. I wasn’t being choked and I was never going to be dropped. It’s exactly what it was; a threat. And… a promise, from the sounds of it.”

“A promise to do what?” Clint questions, hands on his hips and brows raised in clear confusion.

“If I had to take a guess,” Maria speaks up from behind you and Steve. “I’d say your drone thinks he can do a better job of keeping the peace than he thinks you guys can.”

Tony points his phone at him, “Right on the money.”

“And now we have a rogue robot running around with a scepter that allowed Loki to bring an alien army to Manhattan. Imagine the possibilities,” Natasha intones with a shake of her red curls.

“Uhm… guys?”

Steve, and the rest of the team, are pulled by the sound of Helen Cho’s voice. 

Standing near the shattered window frames, overlooking the city, they all wander over to the doctor. Laid out before them is complete and utter darkness from the business district, and the street lights, and the countless restaurants and apartments. Only directly down on the street itself, do the headlights of the cars remain to illuminate the blackout.

“What the hell?” Clint murmurs with a hand over his jaw.

“So… this is bad,” Bruce adds, eyes wide as he glances from Tony to you to the window once again.

As Steve’s mind comes up empty for an explanation, he looks over to see you with a look on your face that seems to say you have already pieced the puzzle together. Leaning into his side, you explain: 

“The drones disabled the arc reactor that supplies the tower… and the local grid.”

Right. In the years following the dismantling of his suits, Tony had focused his efforts on expanding the arc reactor’s reach. Moving from just supplying the Tower, eventually, the entire city was switched over to the “clean energy” route, with plans to move to a country-wide operation in the near future.

Steve had picked that up one early morning when Tony had been working through calculations when the supersoldier returned from his 5 AM run.

But the only thought that comes to mind is simply, “Why?”

You shake your head, hands clutching your crossed arms, “Distraction maybe - keep us from following after right away. The whole tower was shut down, meaning the jet was too. I’m not sure. Only he could answer that, honestly.”

Pointing your chin in the direction of Stark, he follows your gaze.

“I don’t have a read on the system,” you continue. “But vengeance isn’t typically embedded into a robot’s coding.”

“But these aren’t usual circumstances,” Steve concludes.

You nod in return.

“And with ours back on and working, the city goes into blackout, and chaos reins,” Nat smirks.

“Yeah, and the Terminator gets to fly off and do hell knows what while we’re stuck here,” Clint finishes his statement with a swift kick to a cabinet.

Tony pushes away from the workbench, pocketing his phone, “Well, fun as this is. I need to go secure the rest of these fuckers before we have a mass break-out. Banner?”

Bruce’s head pops up at the call of his name, “Yeah? Yup, coming.”

The archer watches them go, holding out a hand in clear incredulousness.

“And we just… what, exactly?”

Your eyes find Steve’s furrowed expression for a moment before you both look toward the shattered window frames once again.

While Sam and Thor were in the wind, following a trail that would hopefully lead you all to the scepter, the rest of you formulated a plan.

With some minor begrudging and hesitation, Rhodey was suited up and sent to work on fixing the line to the arc reactor in the bay. The entire legion was a no-go, currently on full lockdown in the tower, thankfully. And without JARVIS, Tony couldn’t access his standby suit which Pepper definitely didn’t know about. And he was about 99% sure that Rhodes' suit would be fine as it operated on a different system.

“What about the other 1%?” he had questioned.

“I’ll be with you the entire time,” Tony had promised.

From what Maria was able to tell you, with her access to both SHIELD’s information and the news outside of the city, panic was beginning to pulse across the island. Local news networks were unable to broadcast and the national news was only just starting to pick up on the situation - not that the majority of Manhattan could see that: the whole power outage, and all.

“Ouch.”

You glance up from your position on the floor, Maria’s foot in your hand as you carefully remove the last few pieces of glass with the medical tweezers.

“Sorry, I promise it’s almost all out.”

“No,” she shakes her head, turning her tablet around for you to see. “I was referring to this coverage.”

Your eyes squint to read the article in front of you, published all of two minutes ago by The Daily Bugle.

Party at Stark Tower Causes Mass Outages; Mayor Marino Asks for Public to Remain Patient

“Oh, that’s reassuring,” you bite, shaking your head as you return to the task at hand.

“Yeah, public opinion, that’s all we need to help the situation right now.”

“No mention of the rogue drones though, right? Just Tony and his excessive electric bill?”

“Of course,” Maria grins.

While you remained at the tower with Helen and Maria to resume order and keep an eye on the possibly impending situation out in the city, the others had gotten the quinjet up and running. Steve, Natasha, and Clint had blazed out of the lab as soon as Tony gave the all-clear.

About fifteen minutes behind Thor and Sam (and Pallas, of course), the likelihood of them actually tracking one of the bots down was nearly zero. At best, they could assist the others if they actually managed to find the one wielding the scepter. But even those odds were becoming lower and lower as the minutes ticked by.

With her foot properly bandaged, Maria begins setting up a pseudo-command station at one of the cleared workbenches in the lab. She was the only access point to the outside world right now.

Diverting your attention to the only other person in the room, you make your way over to Dr. Cho.

Standing near the stairs overlooking the main atrium where the party had been broken up, she holds Steve’s leather jacket even closer to her frame. It practically engulfs her entire upper body and, as you draw near, you can make out the faint fragrance of the supersoldier’s musky cologne.

“Hi,” she greets, darting a quick look in your direction as you come to a stop.

“How are you doing? Anything need tending to?”

“Wha- oh, no. No, I’m fine.”

You give a nod, crossing your arms as you look out at the destruction.

In the morning, no doubt, Tony would have cleaning crews up here to deal with the mess. And there was a good amount of it. Between the shattered glass, shards of broken furniture, and dented walls and floors.

But where your attention falls, is on the mangled drone still lying at the base of the stairs.

Without another word, you make your way down the steps before you drop to your knee, staring down into the unlit visual optics of the robot. You turn its head from side to side as if expecting to find an answer to one of the many questions you had brewing around in your mind after the attack.

Now, human vengeance you understood all too well. Centuries of first-hand experience to the fact, actually. But this? Corrupted software? That was an entirely different playing field.

Steve had told you all about the likes of the supercomputer that housed the remnants of Arnim Zola. But even that coding had elements of humanity in it. Ultron wasn’t nearly comparable. Apples and oranges, someone might say. But the rage and destruction that had occurred tonight… you couldn’t ignore that.

Releasing the robot from your grip, your fingers instead reach up and wrap around the silver locket.

Perhaps this is what Hermes and Dionysus had been sent to warn you about. Something large and unforgiving was heading your way. But, as your eyes fall back upon the lifeless drone, you can’t help but wonder if something so easily overtaken was truly that great of a threat.

Prying the lock free, you stare at the flickering flame held within the pendant.

Surely not dangerous enough to warrant a direct link to the Promethean Flame?

An hour passes, yet you receive no word from the away teams. Bruce pops his head in at one point to check on Helen. He offhandedly comments on the state of Rhodes and Tony, and their progress on repairing the Arc Reactor’s main lines, but otherwise has little to contribute.

It was a total feeling of helplessness.

While the others were at least chasing down the threat that the rogue Ultron bots posed, you were stuck in the tower. Waiting for the tides to turn, or for the masses to revolt in full.

Maria had been keeping you in the loop, relaying intel from SHIELD and other groups your way.

The majority of Manhattan remained where they were, patiently waiting for the return of their electricity. But others were taking the lack of surveillance as a free pass to do what they pleased.

Perched behind Maria, your arms crossed and eyes focused on the screen in front of the agent, you try to listen as notifications continue to pop up on her main video feed.

“NYPD is spread thin, but nothing truly alarming yet. Break-ins and looting for the most part. No mention of killer bots, thankfully,” she reports with a long sigh.

“How much longer until we’re at an escalation level though?” You ponder pushing away from her command station to pace the length of the lab.

“Well, it’s just after midnight on a weekend,” she shrugs. “I give it another hour.”

“Honestly, last of my worries right now.”

The two of you look up as Tony makes his entrance. His usually-kept hair is tousled and wild as if his fingers have been raking through it for the past two hours. The three-piece suit is dismantled down to his button-up shirt, hastily rolled up to his elbows, with signs of grease and oil present upon his forearms and hands.

“What is it?” you question, rising to your full height as the billionaire draws near.

“He cleared out. Dumped everything I had. Basically used the internet as an escape hatch before he flew the coop. Everything downstairs is worthless.”

You shake your head, disbelief rattling through your body, “One giant distraction to get what he really wanted.”

“Had his fingers in everything,” Tony continues, perching on the edge of one of his lab’s tables. “Files, surveillance, pretty much everything that got dropped by Agent Carter after the whole SHIELD / HYDRA mess courtesy of Cap.”

Even though you shoot him a look then, he plows forward.

“Big question I’m wondering here though is… what’s his endgame? Access to everything we go now, what’s step two?”

Maria scoffs, barely looking up from her computer, “He’s got our files, but let’s say he’s feeling even more bold. Nuclear codes or something like that.”

“Nukes?”

Your eyes meet Helen’s from across the room when she enters with Bruce at her side. Maria blinks, mouth opening and closing for just a moment longer before she swipes up her phone and pulls away from the table.

“I’m gonna make some more calls. While we still can.”

The four of you watch as she makes a hasty exit, already speaking to someone before she’s even fully out of the room. But then you look upon Tony and Bruce. A weight seems to settle onto your shoulders as the gravity of the situation sinks further into place.

Banner tugs off his glasses, rubbing his forehead for a second before the words come out.

“It said it wanted us dead.”

Tony shakes his head, “Not us as in the whole human race, mind you. Just… us.”

“No,” you retort, dropping down into the chair Maria had previously occupied. “Not dead… extinct.”

“Po-ta-toe, po-ta-toh,” Stark waves dismissively.

Your brows arch, but you remain silent as your eyes fall upon the sudden clap of thunder outside the tower.

Thor’s feet slam against the floor as he strides toward the four of you, gaze focused on only one person. Before you can even move from the chair, Thor wraps his hand around Tony’s neck and successfully lifts him from the ground.

“Come on, use your words, buddy.”

“Odinson,” you warn, moving to step between the two.

“I have more than enough words to describe you, Stark,” he bites.

“Thor. The drone?”

Your fellow god spares you but a look before he drops Tony with little fanfare. As the man stumbles backward, gasping as he holds his reddened throat, Thor lets out a long breath.

“I followed it across the ocean, one hundred miles out, before it lost its head.”

Bruce steps into view, “Did it… did it have the scepter?”

“Nay.”

You share a nod of understanding with the doctor.

It was down to Sam, the team on the quinjet, and Pallas to locate and track down the remaining two.

When the away team returned a near half-hour later, they too reported engaging with a bot. While the drone was successfully defeated and its body returned to the tower, the scepter was nowhere to be found.

Steve runs a hand through his hair, his helmet resting on the table beside him.

The others had cleared out of the lab, yet the two of you chose to remain.

Perhaps under the intention of feeling useful while you truly had nothing else to offer in the matter. Energies exhausted and options limited, yet neither one of you could simply call it quits just yet.

Your eyes travel down to the still-open laptop that Maria had left behind. Coverage from CNN showed minor instances of looting, arson, and a group of people just outside of the tower’s entrance - shouting inaudibly as the anchors covered the strange power outage.

It wasn’t anything that required your assistance yet. And, honestly, you hoped it wouldn’t. That was the last thing these people needed. Seeing the group of you out there trying to break up the madness after you inadvertently caused the blackout in the first place.

“We tried,” he explains, yet again. “Nothing was coming up on our systems though.”

You offer him a small smile, looking away from the computer, “It makes sense that they would shoot off in three different directions. Ultron had to be expecting to be followed.”

Sam had even sent Redwing out after Pallas, but the drone had returned with nothing of use.

Steve’s tired eyes meet yours as he stares up at you from his seated position.

“Will he be…?”

You understand his line of questioning and immediately shake your head, “He’ll be more than fine. Trust me. The fool won’t try and engage a robot, I assure you. He’ll just return to my side when he’s sure of a location. He knows how to keep his distance.”

The blonde gives a reluctant nod.

After a beat of silence, you move to stand beside him, resting your hip against the edge of the table. His gaze travels down your side, landing on the hem of your dress where a small splatter of your blood remains, staining the soft fabric.

You watch as his fingers gently tug on the material, smoothing over the already-dried splotch. A breath catches in your throat and you quickly cough to recover from it. Steve’s eyes meet yours once again.

“I - this is why I don’t do parties,” you settle on.

His brows raise, but a curious smile tugs at his lips.

“Is that right?”

“Mhmm, and let me tell, you that is quite a feat to accomplish back on Olympus.”

“I imagine so.”

“Between Dion and Apollo, you could barely sleep at night,” you smile at the memory of ages past. Absently, your hand clutches at the pendant around your neck once again. Your finger drags over the raised engraving on the cover clasp.

And then Steve’s standing up. One hand comes to rest on the table beside your left hip, though his added height makes him have to bend his head down to keep your gaze level.

“You know,” he starts, eyes dipping down for just a second. “If we can’t locate the scepter right away, we’ll need to go back to raid missions.”

“Yeah.”

The thought had occurred to you. After all, you had only been planning to stay around long enough to wrap up the business with the scepter before returning to Fury’s side. But the prospect of working alongside a team to hunt down the remnants of HYDRA certainly sounded more favorable now.

“And it’d probably be easier having you here at the tower than trying to track you across Europe.”

“Is that right?” you smile in return.

He shrugs, “Just a thought.”

With him this close, you can feel the heat radiating off his body, and smell the bitter Asgardian ale on his breath. Sweat that beaded up on his hair makes his usually soft blonde hues look darker. You can even feel the sudden sensation of his thumb rubbing against your clothed outer thigh.

You clear your throat, pulling yourself further back on the table. Steve immediately takes a step back as well - hands returning to his sides.

“Hey, Stark says the reactor’s back on.”

The two of you whip your heads in the direction of Clint who enters the lab, gaze firmly set on his phone. He looks up a beat later, when he’s met with silence, and immediately grins.

“I wasn’t interrupting something, was I?”

Your face scrunches in confusion, looking from him to the supersoldier and back again.

“No? Steve was just saying that I should remain here if we need to go on more raids.”

“Did he?” Barton sounds almost gleeful as he rocks up on his heels.

You look toward Steve again, but his eyes remain on the archer.

Clint stops, mouth closing as he jerks his thumb back in the direction of which he had just came from, “Yeah. I’m just gonna…”

He walks backward for a moment before he turns and heads down the stairs and out of the lab. You watch him go and then you turn your attention back to the man standing in front of you. He shakes his head, letting out a huff of unamused laughter.

“Well,” you brush the draping of your dress that rests below your knees. “Until Pallas returns, it looks like you’re stuck with me, Rogers.”

His radiant blue eyes meet your soft expression as you hop up from your place on the edge of the table. He lends you a hand as you steady yourself.

“That’s not so bad,” he replies with a gentle tone.

You give him a smile in return.

One last glance at the laptop shows updated images of the lit New York skyline before you close the lid. At least a riot wasn’t on the agenda for tonight.

As you make your way down the stairs, toward the elevator to the residence floor, Steve’s hand comes to rest on your lower back as you side-step a large pile of broken glass.

“I don’t think I mentioned earlier,” he starts, gazing down at your face as you wait for the elevator to reach your floor.

“What?”

He takes a breath, darkened eyes focused on your own, “You look beautiful tonight.”

You look away, feeling a strange rush of heat to your cheeks and ears, as a surprising smile graces your features at the compliment.

Steve rocks back on his heels for a moment, also looking up toward the floor indicator light before his fingers tighten briefly on your back.

Natasha’s in the kitchen when he returns to the tower. She has a steaming mug of black coffee in one hand when she looks up from her phone to greet him.

“Good run?”

When she's given no reply, she looks up, green eyes hardening as she sees right through him. He shakes his head, moving his attention to the fridge where he seeks out a bottle of water.

“Should have kept it to the gym.”

Her sculpted brow arches in question.

Taking a moment to unscrew the lid and have a gulp of the much-needed cold drink, Steve brushes his lips dry with the back of his hand, head thudding against the door of the refrigerator.

“Rogers. What happened?”

He gives a small shake of his head, hardly believing the events of the morning himself.

“People on the street weren’t in the best of moods today.”

“Wow. New York on a Sunday, who would have guessed?” she laughs, returning to her coffee.

“It’s not…” he sighs, rubbing his hand over his sweatpants. “Not people being people. I mean, they were shouting at me. Things about last night and where my priorities lie. There was genuine hate there.”

She deposits her drink back down on the counter.

“Are they honestly still mad about that? The power was restored in less than five hours.”

“Yeah, well,” he shrugs, pushing off from the fridge. “Apparently there’s some distaste in their mouths after the news was all over the party last night.”

Nat gives a nod of understanding.

“Tony, extravagance, using up the entire grid for his party, of course.”

“What’s the point in public servants if that’s what we’re doing in our free time?” Steve says, recalling the words of a young woman who had crossed his path near the coffee shop by Grand Central.

“Well, I’m sure you’re all too used to that at this point. Wasn’t WHiH claiming you were hellbent on destroying D.C. because you were… what was it?”

“Demanding a pay increase,” he snaps, cooly remembering the headlines that graced the media two years prior.

She snorts, taking a sip of her beverage once again.

“Look, when you’re in this business long enough, with a public image, you’re going to get bad press every now and then. As far as they know, there were no Ultron drones tearing up the tower. Better to have them know less of the truth and deal with a little public fallout than mass panic, don’t you think?”

Steve sighs, holding the bottle against his cheek for a moment as his emotions rattle their way through his system.

“I guess.”

She gives him a pointed look then.

“Anyway, Tony’s prepping to give an address at ten. Calm general worry and all that jazz.”

“Good.”

Steve was not a stranger in the realm of negative press. The days of wearing blue-knit tights and holding a wooden shield hadn’t strayed that far from his mind. He knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of dislike and general disgust. To be booed and have tomatoes thrown at you and generally feel like a piece of crap, to put it lightly.

But this was the modern era, news traveled faster than he could have ever believed. And one negative story could easily spiral out of control until public opinion was permanently changed.

It was only two years after D.C., and three since the Battle of New York. When, even after saving the city from an alien invasion and their own government trying to bomb them out of existence, the public was still up in arms over the concept of them.

The assassin stares at him for a moment more, before she changes her tone entirely.

“So… how were things last night?”

He rolls his eyes, “Come on.”

“No, I’m genuinely asking. Barton was all doe-eyed when he reenacted it to us. Something about walking in before a big declaration of love?”

“I’ll see you later, Nat,” he announces, striding out of the kitchen with a quickened pace as her laughter follows after him.

While he had allowed himself to spend a portion of his morning recalling everything about you from the party, the run had largely soured Steve’s mood. And it had refocused his attention back on the rather pressing issue that was a missing and corrupted robot with an alien-based scepter.

He hadn’t been able to sleep after he dropped you off at your room. Tossing and turning on his bed for a solid two hours before he just threw his hands up and decided to go for his usual morning run. Half of the team was still out for the moment - too exhausted from the events of the late night to be awake before eight - though he had a feeling that no one would be getting particularly restful sleep.

And while you had reassured him that you were confident in Pallas’ situation, Steve could still see the hint of worry in your eyes.

Maybe that’s why Steve isn’t entirely surprised to see you when he rounds the corner to the living quarters. With your arms resting on the window ledge, your attention is focused on the city down below. He clears his throat, giving you a moment to acknowledge his approach before he comes to rest on your left side, mirroring your pose.

“Hey,” you greet, voice soft but strained with a lingering sense of tiredness. “Get any sleep?”

He snorts, “Not a wink.”

You offer him a look, lips barely able to reach up into a proper smile.

As the silence stretches for a minute longer, Steve looks down at your hands whereupon he notices a small scrap of paper held tightly between your fingers. You twiddle with it as the seconds pass, but he can see nothing on it. Drawing his eyes back to your face, the supersoldier lets out a sigh.

“It’s the worst, feeling stationary, isn’t it?”

That makes your gaze pull up, curiosity piqued.

“Never was very good at waiting around while things went on around me that felt… out of my control.”

“You were never a proper soldier,” you smirk.

He can feel his smile grow.

“Do you want to spar?” 

When your eyes meet his, he feels the need to elaborate. “I have all this tension from last night and I think I’ve wrecked just about every one of Stark’s punching bags at this point.”

“Oh, am I the replacement for your usual punching bag? Is that it?”

Though it’s teasing in nature, your smile overpowers the harshness of it.

Steve inclines his head in the direction of the gym before he shakes his head and adds, “Never.”

Steve’s head slams onto the mat as all of the breath is pushed from his lungs. You’re securely sat on top of him, holding his wrists together in one of your hands as you lean down - your chests pressed together.

“You’re getting better at this, honestly.”

He huffs out a sound of laughter as you gently release him and pull back, resting on your haunches.

“It doesn’t feel like it,” he grunts with just a hint of playfulness behind his ocean-blue eyes.

You give him a little shrug.

“What, like it’s easy to take down a god? Honestly, Rogers.”

This had been your routine for the past two days. While public outcry died down and Stark began cleaning up the tower and securing his current systems, the two of you found yourselves in the gym more often than not.

Sometimes the others would join you. Feeling equally stuck in the waiting game that you and the supersoldier did.

There had been no word from Pallas, nor sightings of a silver robot wandering around with a deadly alien scepter. So, you used your time in the only way that seemed appropriate.

Steve sits up, hands resting on either side of your hips, catching you somewhat off guard as the heated breath from his lips meets the tip of your nose. 

You wriggle against him, feeling slightly caged by his positioning.

But then his fingers are digging into your sides, tickling you, and the shocking gasps of laughter surprise even you as you find yourself being rolled over onto the mat.

“Ste-Eve! Cronusss, mercy! Mercy!”

It lasts a minute more before Steve stops his attack, chuckling at your exposed position. While it wasn’t a well-known fact, goddesses could also feel the effects of tickling. When his hands retreat and your breathing calms, you find yourself staring up into those darkened blue eyes as he straddles you.

There’s a glint of a smile on his lips as he leans forward, gaze moving from your eyes down to your lips.

“First time for everything,” you whisper.

There’s a strange dichotomy draping over you as he tilts forward. The blanket of heat that lays across your body mixes with the screaming anxiety in the pit of your stomach that commands you to move, to pull away. And like an ice bath, that feeling tips over until your body begins to shake involuntarily and your vision blurs.

You can hear his voice, but it’s far away, drifting toward you through muddied waters.

And while you lose sight of the gym, of Steve’s face above yours, your eyes blink open to the sight of reddish-orange bricks.

You force another harsh blink of your eyes, trying to see more of what lies in front of you.

Distantly, someone is shouting your name and it takes all your energy to yell back shut up, but even that sound never reaches your ears.

You can feel the rustle of the breeze in the tree you’re perched within, light dim in the late afternoon sky, as the white words finally come into sharper clarity for you. Grasping everything in front of you like a sponge sucking up knowledge, you try to retain it all down to the last detail.

Bodies are strewn across the ground, ripped apart with careless blasts, the large metal doors are destroyed, and a siren rings out. And you can see a silver drone, and a man being pulled along, muttering something, something… his arm is missing, blood gushing down his side as he is pulled away, red eyes land on you and panic rises in your throat as a hole is blasted into the trunk just an inch from your head.

And then, at last -

“Daughter of Zeus. Return to me. Athena. My Lady, Athena. Return to me.”

It takes a second, but a punch of air pushes out from your lungs as the sight of the gym comes back into view, nausea rising to a volatile level. You shield your eyes against the light as someone is quick to block out the remaining fluorescents from your sight. A hand presses down on your shuddering chest, holding you steady against the sticky mat.

“Her eyes,” someone says. “They were silver, like she had film over them or - ”

“A vision,” a deeper tone replies.

With another breath, you finally look up to see the curious eyes of Thor. A braided strand of his blonde hair rests upon your clavicle as he peers down at you, searching your eyes for something.

“Where is it?”

A hand cradles your cheek and your stomach sloshes.

Letters and images flash by your inner mind until, at last, a location comes forward and a word is spat out:

 “Netherlands.”

You can feel Steve’s gaze upon you as you sit on the cream-colored couch in the central living space of the tower. Knees bent and pulled up to your chest as your body tries to recover from the experience.

It had taken the strength of the supersoldier and the other god to get you here as your own feet had been reluctant to function in the aftermath. Even now, an involuntary shudder wracks your body.

While the experience had lasted only seconds for you, Steve said you were out for several minutes. With your eyes glazed over and your body convulsing so hard he thought the worst. Thor had merely been passing by the gym when he found the two of you.

Of course, your fellow god knew exactly what had happened.

“I have a link to Pallas when necessary,” you explain to the team. “When he was sure of Ultron’s location, he connected with me. Sorry, by the way - ” you direct this part to Steve.

He waves his hand in dismissal, but his face clearly gives away his discomfort with what had just transpired.

“Great. Where’s the bastard?” Clint claps his hands together.

Giving yourself a moment to breathe, you answer at last, “The Hague Penitentiary.”

Tony’s head snaps up, pointing a finger as if he wants to say something before he grabs his phone instead.

“A prison?” Sam questions.

“Not just a prison,” Natasha continues for you.

From across the room, the billionaire pulls up a hologram of the location, alongside a map and a 3D globe.

“It’s the main detention unit for NATO.”

Clint blinks, “Seriously?”

“And wouldn’t you know it, there was a breakout less than an hour ago,” Stark snaps.

A holographic list of prisoners is thrown into the center of the room before it lands on a single name. Pulling up the accompanying image, your memory of the vision suddenly connects with the portrait in front of you.

“Strucker.”

Someone’s hand slams onto a table behind you, but you can barely hear it over the sound of anger pulsing through your own ears.

“That fucker,” Clint spits.

Thor stalks off across the room to stare out the windows, you can see his shoulders visibly shaking as he clenches his fists. Shocks of electric blue travel along his frame.

“Why?”

When you feel the gaze of the team fall upon you, you reiterate, “Why him?”

“Strucker was working with the scepter before this; days before literally,” Tony suggests.

Steve shakes his head, “Access to everything online - HYDRA included, why would Ultron need him?”

At that, Tony opens and closes his mouth, perplexed into silence.

Steve had a point, of course. What use was Strucker to Ultron when the drone knew anything and everything? Probably even more than the Baron did about the scepter. For a supposed superior peacekeeper it was surely strange for the bot to take a man like Strucker hostage. No, he needed him for something. But what?

Thor snorts, turning back toward the team.

“Personally, I care not for the why.”

“Same, actually,” Clint cracks his knuckles. “We put him away once, maybe we should make it permanent.”

Nat places a silent hand on his forearm.

“Yeah,” Tony nods, pocketing his phone. “Let’s get the bastard.”

That’s how you find yourselves in the air, barely ten minutes later. While Tony and Bruce chose to remain at the Tower, the rest of you hopped on the jet with a course set for the Hague district.

Clint drums his hands upon his knees, sitting across from you on the benches, while Thor continues to pace the length of the jet. Twisting and turning his hammer around in his grip. Everyone has the sense to steer clear of the God of Thunder.

When Natasha comes back to sit beside the archer, you push up from your own seat to move toward the controls at the front of the plane where Sam and Steve reside.

“See, this is what’s pissing me off.”

You arch a brow at the supersoldier when you come to stand beside his chair. He has a fist drawn to his mouth, gaze drawn in thought as Tony’s voice comes over the speakers.

“Think I can get footage of these two? No. Think I can find any functioning camera in a fifty-mile radius of this place? No. I’m serious, Cap. I’m off the robotics market after this. I can’t have my projects trying to outsmart me.”

“We’ll do it the old-fashioned way then,” Steve sighs, trying to placate the situation.

There’s a beat of crackling static before Tony responds.

“Yeah. Let me know how that works out.”

The comm link switches off and Sam lets out a low whistle.

Steve stares at the controls for a long moment before he finally meets your gaze.

“They’re in the wind, aren’t they?”

He nods.

It’s another twenty minutes of flying before the quinjet crosses Dutch borders. The team, while rattled by the revelation that they were basically back at square one with the scepter, got to work on their last-minute preparations. Across the ocean, back in New York, Tony and Bruce were working to get a signal on the rogue bot. Still technically connected to the original Ultron AI network, there was a large possibility of finding it.

Perhaps if the drone hadn’t rearranged Tony’s schematics and software before he left, it would already be up and running. But, as it was, Stark was stuck working around his own systems to get to what he needed.

“Damn.”

You look up from your spot behind Steve, craning your neck to see out the windshield.

At Sam’s exclamation, you finally see the large coverage of agents outside the penitentiary, followed by camera crews and vans held behind barriers on the streets. There’s a handful of them, in the center of the yard, frantically waving their hands in an X motion at the jet.

The two men share a look between themselves, before pulling the lever on the panel that would allow the ship to remain in the air.

“What’s the hold-up?” Natasha questions, the smirk on her face falling by a fraction as she joins the three of you at the front of the jet.

Clint’s a step behind her, “What the hell?”

“Are they denying us permission to land?”

Steve flips a switch, static ringing out for a moment, before he speaks, “Tony. We’re not cleared to land.”

There’s a long sigh that follows across the comm.

“Yeah, okay. Let me make a call.”

You press forward, looking down at the masses. Black body bags covered the entrance path, just like your vision had shown you. The doors to the main center of the unit were barely hanging on their hinges now. On instinct alone, you begin searching the outlying trees and perches - seeking out the one who had brought you all here in the first place.

“Any sign?” Steve intones, leaning into your side.

You shake your head, “Not yet. But he’s out there.”

The blonde takes a moment to scan the ground below, but also seems to come up empty.

“Okay. Fantastic news,” Tony announces. “They’re denying you entry and want you to vacate the area, immediately.”

“That’s… that’s not good news,” Clint states.

Nat gives the archer a little shove, moving closer to the speaker.

“Did they give you a reason why?”

You can imagine Tony rolling his eyes, shrugging, and fiddling with a screwdriver all at once when he replies.

“Something about not needing extra hands getting into their mess, press coverage, international borders, a polite thanks, but fuck off sort of vibe. Oh! And for an extra sprinkle of fun, the Dutch Customs and Border Office is trying to deny you permanent entry into the country.”

“You’re kidding me,” Steve deadpans.

A crackle of thunder makes you turn, eyes falling upon Thor as he tosses his hammer up and back down into his hand.

“You know,” you start, turning toward the microphone. “Technically speaking, international law only really applies to… well, humans.”

A deep chuckle reaches your ears.

“Always the clever one, my dear Lady.”

“Pardon! Je kunt hier niet zijn - ”

Thor pushes the agent out of the way by simply pressing his hammer into the man’s chest.

“This won’t take long,” you placate as you pass.

The two of you move past the working agents who all remain too stunned to do much more than stare at you both. Dressed in your usual battle regalias, you appear indomitable and all too similar to the legends that were born in your wake.

A screech rings across the busy courtyard as a pair of sharp talons bears down onto your right shoulder. Thor gives you a curious look as you quickly wrap your hand around Pallas’ head.

“Well done. Now, don’t scare me like that again.”

The tawny owl gives you a light nip on your finger in apology.

“Hey, love the energy,” someone says, trying to cross your path. “But this is a secure area, and I’m afraid, Mr. Odison and Miss…”

“Parthenos,” you supply.

“Miss Parthenos,” the man nods, looking from your face to Pallas and back again. “I’m afraid you’re currently in violation of local ordinances and I have strict orders to have you escorted from the premises.”

Thor genuinely chortles at that, staring up at the quinjet still hovering overhead.

“That’s unfortunate,” you say, drawing closer to the man. “For we do not work within the bounds of human law. Now, I believe you have something we require.”

Without a further word, Thor pushes the man thoroughly out of your way as the pair of you move into the NATO unit. You can hear the man make a sound of distaste, barking orders and demanding the head of their agency be called immediately.

The interior of the detention center is quartered off with yellow caution tape, while extra security remains on hand to deal with the breach.

“Pathetic,” Thor snorts, staring down at the armed guards as you pass unburdened.

You tilt your head toward the left hall, “Tony said it should be down here.”

The central office is a mess of people when you enter, two calls are happening simultaneously in both Dutch and English while men shout over each other. The two gods merely stand in the doorway, watching on with the amused sense of a child with a magnifying glass staring down an ant hill.

“Hey! You can’t be here!”

Your head tilts to the side, Pallas ruffles his feathers, and Thor crosses his arms as someone, at last, notices your presence.

“I’ll have you arrested! No Avengers! No superheroes, no meddling, thank you! Good day!”

The God of Thunder looks down at you, then back toward the man. Silence rings out for a long stretched moment before the man takes a step back, posture shrinking slightly.

“We have rights,” someone else decides to perk up. “Our country has laws, you know. Who can come in and mess about and those who can’t.”

“Laws?” you question, voice pitched and brow raised. “Laws that keep assistance from reaching you, helping to stop an armed criminal from further terrorizing this world?”

“It is under control.”

Thor huffs, “Your laws do not pertain to us.”

“Perhaps if you got in touch with Themis,” you joke, tone sharp and biting. “Or… who was it again?”

“Forsetti,” Thor answers, tilting his head down toward you. “Occassionally Tyr if you get him in the right mood.”

“Of course.”

“I’m sorry,” a third man stands, hands held wide. “What is happening here?”

“Apologies,” you schmooze. “You have information on the man who was taken from this unit, do you not?”

He balks, mustache twitching as he looks away, “It’s being handled by the appropriate authorities.”

“Not fast enough.”

Thor leans over again, “This is drawing too long.”

You give him an acknowledging nod, “I’m asking nicely only once. After that, I can’t be held responsible for what he does.”

The hulking blonde tosses his hammer up once, for added show. The men visibly gulp as you move forward, leaning your arms upon the nearest desk.

“So… what do you have for me?”

Steve can’t help but stare at the way you and Thor interact upon your return to the tower. The team had been given the breakdown of what had transpired inside the detention unit, but he had this nagging feeling that certain things were being left unsaid. 

The blonde god places his hand on your shoulder, leaning down to speak more words Steve can’t hear into your ear. He has to physically look away before his emotions get the better of him. As if tensions weren’t already high.

“Okay,” Tony claps his hands together, gathering the team’s attention.

They’re centered in the lab again, standing in a sort of circle around the central hub.

“Here’s what we got to work with, people. Strucker,” the man’s image appears in holographic form in the middle of the lab. “ - was placed with an internal tracker the minute he entered custody. Unfortunately… it looks like that tracker was picked up just outside of his cell.”

“His arm was chopped off,” you supply from behind him.

Steve whips his head around to look at you, but you merely shrug, as if it wasn’t that big of a deal to you. Perhaps it wasn’t. It was Strucker after all.

Tony grimaces, “Yikes. Now, this thorn in my side has been sidestepping us whenever it comes to tracking them down. A little Bonnie and Clyde scenario.”

Bruce coughs, managing to redirect the billionaire’s train of thought.

“Anyway, good news is we might have a lock on Ultron in the next few hours. The system’s… getting there. Not-so-great news… everything we had on Strucker has been erased. Bastard still has a backdoor into my stuff.”

“Fantastic. And you want us to, what? Wait?” Clint clarifies. “While the T-800 pairs up with HYDRA?”

Stark rolls his eyes, “What do you take me for? Actually, don’t answer that.”

The archer closes his mouth, holding back the insult he so clearly wanted to say.

“When technology fails you, go old school,” Tony drops a large brown catalog box down onto the workbench, giving it a gentle smack.

Steve stares at the SHIELD emblem on the side of the container before he meets the billionaire’s eye, brow raising. Maria enters a beat later, a trolley cart stacked with even more boxes.

“Awesome,” Clint groans.

“What are we looking for exactly?” Sam questions.

“Look, there’s something Strucker knows that Ultron needs. We’re just gonna have to connect the dots in between.”

Sam gives a small nod, looking entirely unassured by the prospect.

Everyone grabs a box for themselves, sorting through near decades of files on Wolfgang von Strucker. The archer and Natasha occupy a corner of the lab for themselves, while Tony and Bruce spread out over a series of workbenches - with the former tossing papers left and right and the latter neatly stacking everything he goes through.

You’re on the bottom step of the stairs, flipping through manilla folders and papers. Pallas is comfortably perched on the railing above you, eyes nearly shut.

Steve drops his second box down on the floor beside you and you immediately offer him a sheepish smile as he takes a seat across from you, mindful of your own pile.

“Anything?” he questions.

“Known associates mostly,” you sigh, closing yet another folder and filing it back into the catalog box.

“He have a lot of friends?” Steve can’t help but snort.

You roll your eyes, “A few. One name’s popped up a few times, but I can’t for the life of me remember where I heard it from.”

He lifts his brows, waiting as you turn a particular file around for him to see.

Ophelia Sarkissian.

Humming in thought, he takes hold of the paper and stands up, moving across the lab to where Tony is seated on a stool, raking his hands through his hair.

“This name ring a bell?” he asks.

With an annoyed sigh from being interrupted, Stark grabs it with a slight flourish and squints at the name.

“Sarkissian. Sarkissian. We know a Sarkissian, right?” he peers over at Bruce.

The Doctor blinks, “That was… that was the other name, wasn’t it?”

Tucking his hands onto his belt, Steve asks, “What name?”

The paper is shoved back against his chest as Tony rolls off the stool and saunters across the room. Clint and Nat watch him as he passes.

“There were four other people in Strucker’s block that took a break for it when Ultron came knocking.”

He pulls out his phone, scrolling for a moment until he finds what he’s searching for. Steve looks over at Banner before he follows after Tony.

“A. Burgos, G. Van der Berg, M. Gbadamoshi, and… yeah, there it is, O. Sarkissian. All otherwise unnoteworthy criminals of international repute. Everyone was found and rounded up within three hours, but Miss Sarkissian is still missing.”

The billionaire shrugs, “Might be worth looking into.”

Another two hours pass, looking through old catalogs of information collected by the previous SHIELD organization.

Natasha went on a coffee run while Clint took a temporary nap on one of the tables, a folder covering his eyes. Thor remains by the window, slamming file after file when he finds nothing of actual use. Bruce was pinning images on a physical map that Tony had wheeled into the lab. A pencil between his teeth as he stares at two separate points located in Eastern Asia.

Pallas has fully drifted off to sleep on the railing now, and even you, the goddess who claimed required no sleep, looked fully exhausted. Steve had to admit that the words were beginning to blur together now too, as he skimmed through years of HYDRA experiments and SHIELD intel logs.

With yet another file to discard, Steve drops the folder into his pile and looks up at you.

You have your hair tied back and a thumb pressed between your teeth as you flick through another outdated report. And though there is so much going on around him right now, he can’t help but allow himself this small moment to watch you.

He knew his feelings were growing by the day, bursting to a point of no return whenever you were around. But he didn’t know how to approach it yet. Nat’s words had truly struck a cord in him. You were two centuries old and a relationship had never once been mentioned in the history or mythology books, and definitely never by you.

And maybe that was why he was constantly reaching out to you, but equally hesitant to let the words spill out. You had become far too important in his life for him to recklessly rush forward and mess this up. No… he was going to take his time with this. Do it right.

As you shut your folder, your bleary eyes glance up and find his gaze. You give a little sigh of discontent as the file slips from your lap.

“Hey! I know that guy.”

The two of you turn as Tony reaches across the workbench to nab one of the files Bruce had been browsing through. Feeling like a breakthrough might actually be happening, you both drop your folders to the side and move to where the two scientists are stationed.

“From back in the day. He operates off the African coast, black market arms.”

Steve can’t help the immediate look of distrust that crosses his face, choice words rising to his lips. But he’s quickly silenced by Tony who gives him a pointed expression.

“There are conventions, all right? You meet people. I didn’t sell him anything.”

You’re holding onto the file that Tony had discovered when Thor wanders over. The other god pushes in between the two of you as he peers over your shoulder to stare at the image of the man in question.

“What’s this?” Thor questions, pointing at the man’s neck.

The billionaire shrugs, “A tattoo. I don’t think he had it when we met.”

“No,” Thor continues. “Those are tattoos, this is a brand.”

You pull the picture closer, also studying the image before holding it for Steve to examine as well.

“Great, he’s branded, so what? We know he’s slimy if he’s working with anyone dealing with HYDRA,” Tony digs through the box where Banner had first found the file.

“No, no. I know that dialect,” you clarify, pulling the photo away from the group as you move toward the windows into more direct sunlight.

“It’s similar to Swahili, but… no, that’s not it.”

Steve watches you pace, eyes closed as you try to recall the exact language.

“Bast! Of course,” you exclaim, striding over to the stationary map, swiping up a pin, and dropping it down into a tiny African country. “It’s Wakandan. Klaue received that brand in Wakanda, I’m sure of it.”

He watches your bright expression seek him out as the others begin moving around you.

“It means thief, essentially. But with some less friendly connotations,” you elaborate.

But that’s not where his attention immediately falls. Instead, he looks toward Tony.

“If this guy got out of Wakanda with some of their trade goods - ”

Steve feels an eerie sensation traveling along his spine as the implications become more and more terrifying.

“I thought you said your father got the last of it.”

“I’m sorry,” Bruce clears his throat, looking at each of them for a moment. “I’m not following. What comes out of Wakanda?”

You give a little gasp, understanding drawing clear across your face as you look toward the map once again. Steve crosses his arms, fingers digging rivets into his flesh as he looks down, unwilling to even try to process the thought.

Tony supplements in his steed, “The strongest metal on Earth. Vibranium.”

“Shit,” Clint groans.

Sam drags a hand over his jaw, “So, Ultron breaks out Strucker, gets the intel he needs, and what? Goes after this guy?”

Nat moves beside Steve, peering over at the mess on the workbench, “It’s a lead.”

“I mean, realistically,” Tony intones. “They keep a pretty big lock and key on the whole secret mineral. Not many people are gonna know about it. And if Strucker or Ultron gets their hands on vibranium…”

He trails off, but the implications are fairly apparent.

“And where is this Klaue now?” Thor questions, tone sharp.

There’s an immediate flurry of papers as Tony begins yanking folders out of the box, flipping through pages of intel.

“Ran out of the Congo, spotted in Kenya… yikes, Madagascar too. And… yeah.”

It takes a minute, but he blinks and steps toward the map, grabbing a final red pin and bullseying the coast of South Africa.

“Best guess, really,” he clarifies, stepping back to look at his handiwork.

“Better be sure,” you quip, arms crossing as you look over at Stark.

Previous Chapter || Next Chapter

[eccentricgrace]

Howl, Talk, Scream || IronDad

summary: tony rescues him, he does, he always will. but he's never quick enough, and this time-- someone has sewn his kid's lips shut.

tags: peter parker whump, hurt/comfort, mentions of kidnapping, protective tony stark, peter is okay!!

wc: 1953

⚠️tw: needles, sutures/stitches, gross medical stuff

cross-posted to wattpad by the same name!

Tony doesn't think this part of the job ever gets easier.

He gets used to most of it, see; the racing heart, the ache in his bones that never seems to go away, the threats he sees in very dark corner of a room. A rush of adrenaline that fades to crushing lungs. You'd think that was the biggest hurdle. Tony thought that would be the biggest hurdle, too, back in 2007, back when the sound of his phone going off had him choking in gulps of air between bile, back when the dark of his room after a nightmare would have him stop breathing all together.

Miraculously, he did get used to it, and then he got used to it all over again, but this time it was worse. It was worse because then Pepper's right there holding his hand after every nightmare, and Rhodey's visiting almost every day to bully him into taking his stupid SSRIs, and Happy's dropping by with some five dollar cheeseburger every other week "just because", and suddenly— suddenly he realizes. For the first time in his life, he has something worse to lose than himself.

Nobody ever comes out of a life like this without getting used to it. There's no other way to survive.

And yet. And yet.

Moments like these.

The part of the job that never gets easier.

The aftermath, of course. Tony's never prepared for the aftermath of it. He's never had to be, before all of this. He's had to take a stabilizing breath before entering a room before, but never because he was afraid to see—

Well.

The kid got himself into some hot water again. These days, this has proven to be the number one cause of Tony's tachycardiac increase. It was horrible, the whole process of it, like it always was— realizing he never made it home, scrambling to find him, praying when they found him he wouldn't be...

But they did find him, because Tony wouldn't let himself fail with something so colossally as important as keeping Peter Parker safe and be able to live with himself afterwards, the only issue is that he just— he just wasn't fast enough.

On a paper passed in the quinjet, he wrote in shaky writing:

they didn't like how much i talked

Peter's in the med bay, and he's bruised to high heavens, a wild look in his eyes that sets all the nurses on high alert. He hasn't spoken in hours. This doesn't mean he hasn't tried.

He clearly has tried, actually. Torn skin and dried blood coating the entire bottom half of his face, all the way down his neck. Tony feels sick at the thought.

"We just need to remove the stitches," the doctor says calmly. Gloved hands hold scissors in one, tweezers in the other. She stands a safe distance away. "Okay? Nod yes if you can understand me."

Peter— Peter's shaking. His eyes don't leave the doctor's hands, and his whole body is strung as tight as a bow. His fists clench.

"Peter," Tony's voice cracks. He clears his throat, avoiding his eyes. Takes another deep breath, and then summons all his courage to look his kid in the eyes. He's already looking back, holding so much trust and terror in his panicked gaze. 

Tony swallows thickly and shifts his chair closer. He'd been trying to give the doctors the space they need to fix this, to make it better where he couldn't, but he doesn't give a shit now. He can't, not when Peter's looking at him like that.

"We need to get those off your mouth," Tony says, wincing, because just the acknowledgement of the current situation feels so heavy. He feels like he's being crushed. "We need to know happened, if you're okay, we can't do that if you can't talk to us."

Peter looks like he wants to open his mouth. His lips twitch, but are firmly held in place by the shoddy sutures. He shudders, looks back at the doctor, then back at Tony.

The doctor takes a step forward, and immediately Peter's neck snaps back over to her. His breathing becomes frantic, his nostrils flaring to compensate for the lack of oxygen. A panicked series of muffled noises comes tumbling from his lips, and blood drips down his chin as the slight movement tears further at the stitched skin.

"Hey, woah," Tony stands up, putting himself between Peter and the doctor. She has already taken several steps back, her arms raised in the air, her expression soaked in guilt. "Okay, easy. Let's take it easy."

He turns to Peter, bending his knees to look at him better. Reflexively, a hand reaches for Peter's knee, and he pats it in comfort. "You're okay, right? I won't let anyone hurt you, I've got you now. I'm not letting you out of my sight. You can trust me, can't you? Breathe, kiddo."

Peter nods quickly, forcing himself to slow the breaths his nose was rushing to take. He blinks furiously, and tears trail down and wash lines of blood away. It's horrific. Tony wants to sit very quietly and cry for a very long time. He wants different blood to be on his hands.

"Mr. Stark," the doctor says meekly. "Might I suggest you remove the stitches instead? It should be fairly simple to remove, it doesn't look like they even did it properly..."

"Yes. Thank God for that," Tony grits out dangerously. He exhales shakily and looks back at his kid. "What do you say, kid? Can you nod, if that's alright with you?"

Peter looks at him for a long moment, his teary eyes glassy in the white lights of the medical bay. He slowly, cautiously, nods.

"Okay," Tony says. He takes a moment to solidify himself, his arms, his legs, all the parts that have been more or less liquid since he's carried Peter in here, since he's stopped carding a hand through his sweaty, blood-matter hair.

He locks away the wildness in his chest, the paternal beast that cringes and cries at the thought of touching Peter's wounds with his own hands, being the reason he winces, being the source of his pain if even for a moment.

Peter's trusting him. He keeps that running through him like saline on an IV drip. Peter's trusting him. He's in pain, he's trusting you to fix it, so fix it.

Tony pulls gloves on, takes the tools from the doctor. He approaches Peter carefully, and keeps his face neutral. He hopes it's more comforting than the look of a doctor who keeps glancing at clenched fists with sweat on her brow.

Peter's still shaking. Marvelously, he blinks a few times, and then closes his eyes tightly, and Tony feels his entire heart clench in his chest. It seems like such a simple thing. So, so, simple. But Tony's been on the other side of the room, watching needles or what have you with that kind of terror, and the last thing he could think of doing would be to sacrifice his most valuable sensory input.

Tony doesn't know how, doesn't know what he did to deserve this kind of innocent all-forward trust, but he looks at Peter, trembling in his fear, his eyes clenched shut and his chin jutted out, and Tony swears by everything holy that he'll protect it with his life.

"Do you want me to talk to you while I work?" Tony says quietly, sitting down in front of him.

Peter takes a second, and then nods.

"Okay." Tony steels his gaze, taking in the work. Fishing line, maybe, or something just as crude, sewn in one uneven, messy, tight line of stitches across his kid's bloodied lips. His stomach turns. "I'm gonna start on the left, your left, and I'm going to use tweezers, okay? You feel metal, that's just tweezers. Nothing sharp."

Peter nods once, just to show he understands, and goes still. Tony takes it as permission. He moves carefully, picking at the loosest bit of the stitch he can find, which ironically is a knot tied at the edge of his mouth. He pokes at it with the tweezers and Peter flinches.

"Just tweezers," Tony reminds him, keeping his voice level. It's a miracle he isn't shaking like a leaf. "Little cold, nothing scary."

He pulls it up a little, and grimaces at the sight of it, the whole grisly thing. "Alright, Peter, you're going to hear the scissors, but they're not anywhere near you. I just want you to hear the sound."

Tony waits for another nod, and then lifts the scissors up. He snips them once, twice, a few more times, until Peter's flinches become less as jolting.

"Are you okay?" Tony checks in. Peter nods.

"Okay, I'm going to snip the thread," Tony says. "It'll be just like last time. You won't feel anything. You're just gonna hear the scissors, remember? Do you want me to count down?"

Peter hesitates, and then shakes his head.

"Alright." Tony pulls back again at the stitch. He holds his breath, and then snips it with the scissors. With the knot gone, tension goes immediately lack, and Peter's shoulders drop.

"We're almost done," Tony cheers weakly. His eyes are misty, and it's so, so hard to keep the cracks out of his voice. He's trying. He's trying, for Peter. "Good boy. We're almost done. Few more snips. It'll be way easier now."

He tugs at the middle of the line, it easily becoming loose. Peter shivers, his face curling in displeasure.

"Yeah, I bet that doesn't feel good," Tony tries lightly. "Okay, you're gonna hear the scissors again."

He pulls up the line with the tweezers, and another snip. With that, he's able to pull half of the thread out of his goddamn mouth. Halfway there. Halfway. Blood trickles from the open wounds.

"Okay, other side now," Tony continues. There's a waver in his tone this time, sneaking out before he can calm it. "You okay still?"

Peter doesn't move. He keeps his jaw clenched and just breathes, and Tony remains still until he's ready. After a minute, Peter nods again.

Tony pulls at the other knot, and snips it, and then quickly pulls the thread completely out, and drops both the tweezers and the scissors to the side with a shaky breath of relief.

He blinks and he has an armful of teenager, Peter's arms wrapped around his waist so tightly Tony struggles to breathe in. Tony welcomes the feeling, just grateful that Peter is feeling strong enough to do so in the first place.

All the while, Tony's smoothing out his hair, he's petting at his back, squeezing his shoulders, saying, "I've got you. Jesus. Never again. You're okay. You're okay. We're okay."

Tears drip down his cheek, fine, he wasn't strong enough to keep them at bay. None of it matters anymore. The only thing that matters is the kid, and he's right here, and Tony's right here, and it's all going to be fine.

"I knew you'd save me," is the first thing Peter says, all blubbery and snot-covered all over Tony's nice shirt, and he really shouldn't be speaking yet at all. Blood is trickling from his mouth. His voice is very clearly hoarse.

"Of course," Tony repeats, over and over and over. "Always. Every time. Any time. God, kid."

Because yes, he'll save Peter for as long as he can still breathe. Longer, if he's able. He's done it countless times already.

It's always the hardest part of a job that matters the most, even if it never gets easier.

[roleplayfinder]

Hi, I'm 30F so please be over 21 preferably! Minors DNI

♡ I have some AUs saved but would prefer brainstorm

♡I live in Europe so there can be a time difference and my schedule is irregular

♡I respect triggers and limits and reply delays, real life comes first

♡I prefer to RP in Discord my user is disneyprincesssebby

♡I prefer a private server, it's easier for worldbuilding and ooc chatting

♡I mirror length if it's reasonable and I can. No one liners, no novellas, no counting words. I do this for fun

♡I do not want to do OCs. I just don't. I have bad experiences, I'm sure youre not the same and I'm sure your OC is lovely and very skillfully made but I'm not a fan. Please respect that.

♡Don't control my character

♡NSFW-wise my characters are bottoms and it won't change

Fandoms (my preferred characer in italic) :

Red, White, and Royal Blue: Henry x Alex

Witcher: Geralt x Jaskier / Geralt x Yennefer

Sherlock: Sherlock x John / Sherlock x Greg / John x Mycroft /Jim x Sebastian / John x Sebastian

Marvel: Steve x Tony / Steve x Bucky / Steve x Thor/ Loki x Steve/ Loki x Tony / Sam x Bucky / Sam x Steve / Bucky x Zemo / Tony x Bucky / Stephen x Tony / Venom x Eddie / Steve x Rumlow / Wanda x Steve / Steve x Zemo  / Loki x Steve /  Sam x Zemo / Bucky x Clint / Pepper x Tony / Tony x Rhodey / Tony x Bruce Wayne / Wanda x Tony / Wanda x Stephen/ Bucky x Wanda / Bruce x Natasha / Clint x Natasha / Tony x Natasha / Natasha x Steve / Natasha x Bucky / Clint x Matt / Clint x Pietro / Joaquin x Bucky / Joaquin x Sam / Bruce x Tony / Thor x Bruce/ Foggy x Matt/ Matt x Karen + MANY OTHERS

DC Diana x Bruce / Diana x Clark / Harley x Bruce / Barry x Oliver / Felicity x Oliver / Bruce x Clark

Shadowhunters Magnus x Alec / Simon x Jace

Lucifer Lucifer x Chloe

Grimm Nick x Monroe

Hawaii 5-0 Danny x Steve

Supernatural Dean x Castiel/ Sam x Lucifer /Gabriel x Sam

9-1-1 Buck x Eddie / Buck x Tommy

Star Wars Rey x Kylo / Hux x Kylo

Star Trek Jim x Spock / Bones x Spock / Uhura x Spock

Merlin Merlin x Arthur

React to this post or message me here or Discord!

.

[laurie-stark]

Chapter VI: Cold Coffee

A/N: crazy sorry for such a long time between updates my friends. the end-of-term brain fog has finally settled in and i care so little for school that i was able to write a bit in my lectures lol. also i must give credit to chat gpt for writing the accords at the bottom. yes i used AI to write up a fake legal document, i aint coming up with all that jargon. gotta use the tools available to you kids. until next time, take care -mimi

TW: There are subtle mentions of accidental self-harm at the end of this chapter, as well as some mention of blood.

Word Count: 2.9K

Series Masterlist

I should have known that sneaking into the meeting room would be harder than just opening the door. I stalked my team over the security camera footage on my smartwatch, following them as they trudged out of the room and down the halls. I struggled to keep up with every turn of a corner. Dumb tiny controls. Eventually they settled in the living room. It was perfect. They probably left the meeting room door unlocked and everything! All I had to do was sneak down the hall and-

Shit. 

The living room was directly down the hall. They were directly down the hall. There was no way that I could stroll past them, not without anyone knowing what I was on the hunt for. And in the back of my mind I knew that the security cameras were only easy to crack into because my father wanted me to see that footage. He wanted to remind me that I’d only ever watch from behind a wall. 

I tip-toed closer to the living room. Their voices got clearer as I snuck a peak around the corner. Breathing heavily, I scanned for a way to waltz past the group. My eyes darted to the air duct by the ceiling. I could climb through those? I thought. No, there was no way I could even attempt to be as quiet as Clint was when he hung out up there. 

My heart jolted out of my chest when Rhodey turned his head in my direction. I whipped back around the corner, hand over my mouth for good measure. This is why they never sent me in to gather intel anywhere. I was way too jumpy. 

I scampered back down the hall to my room. Pacing along the floor, I wracked my brain for another way I could get to the meeting room. Surely there was a way around the living room. I had never seen the blueprints for the compound, but my dad had to have installed some sort of emergency exit. 

A wicked grin crossed my face. I crossed my bedroom floor and pried open the door to a small balcony that overlooked the compound grounds. It was a sunny Sunday afternoon. The pond was still enough that I could see wiggly reflections of the treeline in it. I stepped towards the railing, hands pressed against the cool metal bars. I heaved my weight to look down at the ground. I was four stories up, which I guessed equated to around fifty feet off the ground. That’s not that terrible, I thought. I was higher up in Sokivia.

I inhaled deeply and swung my left leg over the railing. With incredible incoordination, I carefully pulled the rest of my body over the railing so that I was teetering on the edge. If I looked, I was sure that I’d see white knuckles gripping the bar for dear life on either side of me. This was a great plan. It was a terribly great terrible plan. 

Launching myself down a flight of stairs was easy. It was one step after the other with minimal exertion of my powers. I did it without thinking all the time, this was no different. Instead of three or four feet over a wide span, I just had to make it fifty straight down. I could do this. I can’t do this. I could totally do this. Laurie, just do it! I probably didn’t have much time before they realize they forgot the document in the living room anyways. Quit stalling! Just close your eyes and-

My stomach flew up into my throat. I clenched my fists and tucked my arms in tight to my sides, keeping my eyes closed. Even though I couldn’t see, I knew that my body was beginning to glow. I could feel it, as though an invisible hand was reaching out through my chest, desperate to grab onto anything. Grasping at air, I began to panic. I had no frame of reference. Nothing to pinpoint my gravitational pull to, not with my eyes closed. And for the life of me I couldn’t get them open. I felt myself slip and plummet towards the hard ground. This was it. This was how I die.

When I opened my eyes I was dumbfounded. I let out a disbelieving gasp as I took in the world from forty feet in the air. I was completely suspended, my body stuck between atoms like an airplane in turbulence. I mustered the courage to move my head to look up and see what I was tethered to. To my absolute shock, there was nothing but open sky above me. How the hell was I flying?

I slowed my breathing and remembered all that I had learned with Wanda. I focused on my palms first. They were buzzing with energy, alive with a force I needed to control. You are in control. Wanda’s voice echoed in my mind. I was in control. I let myself feel the pulsing inside my chest. It beat and thumped like a drum. Like a heartbeat. Looking inward, I realized with a gasp that I had redirected my gravitational pull to…myself. Well how about that?

Lowering myself down to the ground was tricky business. It felt like trying to control the muscles in your face that you don’t normally have manual control over. Eventually, I wobbled down until my feet touched the grass. I collapsed onto my hands and knees, head lowered. I mentally cracked up at the image of me looking like a poser. 

Still in shock that I had uncovered a new layer to my abilities, I dusted my hands off and felt the energy cool down. I had time to unpack all of that later. Right now I was on a mission. Cardio had never been my strong suit, but I managed to jog around the perimeter of the compound easily enough. I hoped that the few straggling SHIELD agents who had nothing better to do but be here on a weekend didn’t notice me gasping for breath as I walked through the large double doors. 

As I predicted, the door to the meeting room was unlocked. The document was still sitting in the middle of the oval table. The room felt heavy, and although I knew better than to believe in spirits, I could have sworn that the document was calling my name. Surely it was a normal legal binder, but it felt like it had it’s own gravity, tugging me closer. 

I picked it up using two hands, running my fingers over the glossy title page. My heart was beating loudly in my ears, drowning out any other sounds in the room. The Sokivia Accords: Framework for the Registration and Deployment of Enhanced Individuals…Deployment? I thought. My mind had jumped to jumbled up the words deployment and deportation. The government didn’t have the power to deport us. Surely not. 

I sat down in one of the empty office chairs and propped the Accords open in front of me. It was thick, nearly the same size as my math textbook. Flipping through the pages, I tried to understand what about this thing got my team into such a tizzy. The more I read, the more confused I got. The legal jargon was far beyond my comprehension skills. There was a reason I used to pass out during the HR meetings Dad dragged me to.  

The table of contents was just as hard to understand as the rest of it, but I ran my finger down the pages regardless. I scanned across ink, looking for any semblance of the English language. The pad of my pointer finger came to a screeching halt. I stared at the page with my mouth agape, mind having gone blank. Staring back up at me was my own name printed in bolded letters. 

They called me “The Subject.” I kicked myself for being surprised, I should have known that this would implicate me. You didn’t even know what this was five minutes ago, I thought. Yeah but you should have.

I forced myself to read through every single word. Regulations…oversight protocols…stipulations…My heart was racing. I started to feel sick to my stomach, even though I still wasn’t clear on what this meant at all. And then it hit me.

Article XII, Section 3A: Failure to comply. In the event that the Subject violates any of the statutes or stipulations outlined within Article I-XII, the following measures shall be immediately enacted.

Immediate detainment. Placement in a specialized containment facility.  Behavioural and ability development assessment. I suddenly felt like eyes were already on me. I started breathing faster, and the heart that was once stuck in my throat had dropped to the pits of my stomach. The curtains were completely drawn back now. If I broke any of the rules laid out in front of me, the government would put me in a lab and study me. 

I was seven when my father went missing for the first time. It was rare for him to take work trips without me, but going into an active war zone was no place for a child, so he left me behind. Pepper had moved into our house almost immediately. She made sure I did my schoolwork, that I kept going to my theatre and art classes. She got me into therapy too. It took three months for Dad to come back, and when he did I felt different. 

In therapy, I learned how to ground myself. The night terrors were pretty persistent back then. I’d wake up screaming with no recollection of my dreams. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t see, and it felt like I was dying. My therapist taught me how to come back down to earth. She taught me to breathe deeply, to feel the floor beneath my feet. It was around this time that my powers first manifested. The techniques I used to channel the power under my sternum were the same ones my therapist taught me way back when. I stopped throwing things around in my sleep after a while.

The government thought I was dangerous. They called me a threat to civilians, they wanted me locked up. I knew that if these Accords got signed, these people would look for the smallest of excuses to put me away, to put all of us away. Frantically, I flipped to the last page in the document. I was looking for the page where my team would inevitably sign. Angry tears blurred my vision when I landed on the page. 

Clint Barton, Wanda Maximoff, James Rhodes, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, Anthony Stark, Vision, and Sam Wilson. 

Of course, they wouldn’t give me a say in this. Of course they would give that fucking cyborg a say in my future instead of me. My nails dug into the centre of my palms, and I felt the distinct pop of skin breaking. For a fleeting moment, I worried about getting blood on the Accords. 

A desk chair to my right went flying over the table, smashing through the window opposite me. Glass exploded and fell in shards to the ground, the lights started to flicker. They wanted a monster? Fine, I’d let them have it. But first I needed to go find my father.

I barreled into the living room holding the Accords above my head like it was a rifle and I was trying to get attention in a mall. The team was scattered around the room, hovering over the brown leather couches or splayed across them. My father was standing in the kitchen by the coffee maker, in front of a hologram projection of something I couldn’t see. It looked like he was preaching to the choir. Clearly, I was interrupting. 

“What the hell is this?” I slammed the Accords down onto the coffee table so hard that cold liquid spilled out of the mug I had left early that same morning. Surprise clouded the faces of those around me. 

“Laurie,” Steve started. He had another copy of the document in his hands, closing it gingerly like he thought sudden movements might set me off.

“No, don’t ‘Laurie’ me. What is this? What is going on?” It was hitting me all at once that it was the same Sunday and I hadn’t even been awake for half a day. It was just a few hours ago that I was curled up on these very couches with Steve. Finding out about Lagos and discovering the Accords in such quick succession, my head was spinning. 

Natasha took a step forward and picked up the Accords I had tossed around. She flipped it sideways, examining the spine, and my jaw twitched when I noticed the splotches of red seeping into the white pages. I shoved my fist into my pocket. 

“What happened to this?” She held the document out towards me, her eyes piercing daggers into mine. 

“Is that coffee?” Rhodey asked, peering over Nat’s shoulder. 

“Did you hurt yourself?” Natasha asked, ignoring Rhodey's breathing down her neck.

“You spilled coffee on that? Come on, that’s a government document!” 

“I’m sure the guy with the goofy glasses has it on hard drive, Rhodey,” I said flatly. 

“It’s clearly blood man,” Sam said. 

“Blood? What do you mean blood?” Dad chimed in, stepping out of the kitchen and putting a hand on my shoulder. I tensed under his touch. 

“Laurel, did you hurt yourself over this?” Natasha’s eyes were scanning all over me. 

Dad gripped both of my shoulders and turned me to face him, shaking me slightly as he asked. “Why is she saying you’re hurt, are you hurt?” I stuttered over my words and he noticed the hands in my pocket. “Show me your hands.” 

“Dad, stop.” More voices were piling into the conversation and I started to feel like I was drowning. 

“Okay everyone, let’s calm down,” Steve interjected. 

“Show me your hands!” 

“GET AWAY FROM ME!” I screamed. I was holding both arms out in front of me now. My breathing had become erratic. Electricity pulsed underneath my skin. I could feel every object in the room, every person’s gravity pulling me in a thousand directions at once. Dad leaned back at my outburst, everyone else took a step away. 

“I’m going to need you to watch your tone, little miss,” Dad said, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“And I’m going to need all of you to quit the horse shit,” I bit back, waving my pointer finger around the room as I spoke. “You have all been keeping me in the dark for a year. I am sick of it. Tell me what’s going on.” 

“You are not an Avenger anymore.” Dad was the only person with the balls to speak up. 

“Oh, don’t I know that,” I laughed bitterly. “You never let me forget it. And you know what’s funny, Tony? You preach about child endangerment, you swear that you’re keeping me safe but the truth is you can’t deal with the idea of your kid becoming stronger than you-”

Dad didn’t give me a chance to finish. He grabbed me by the upper arm and pulled. He dragged me out of the living room as if I was a dog who just tore up all of his designer throw pillows. My anger subsided and was replaced with shame. As Dad walked us to the hallway, he turned around and pointed at the red-stained document in Natasha’s hands. “I’ll be back. Sign it.” 

Article XII - Special Provisions for Minor Enhanced Individuals with Significant PotentialSection 3.7 - Laurie Stark Clause

Subject DesignationLaurie Maria Stark, a minor and known Enhanced Person (hereinafter referred to as "the Subject"), shall be subject to enhanced oversight protocols due to her unique abilities, which include but are not limited to gravitational and elemental manipulation. Given the considerable power inherent in these capabilities, and the potential risk to public safety, the Subject shall be bound by all regulations contained within this Article.

Mandatory ComplianceThe Subject shall adhere to all stipulations outlined within Articles I-X, specifically regarding the registration, tracking, and supervision of superhuman activity. The Subject is expressly prohibited from the unsupervised use of her abilities in public spaces or in any manner that might endanger civilian life or property, unless explicitly sanctioned by the International Enhanced Persons Oversight Committee (IEPOC).

Failure to ComplyIn the event that the Subject violates any of the statutes or stipulations outlined within Articles I-XII, the following measures shall be immediately enacted:

Immediate Detainment: The Subject will be detained by designated authorities without prior notice or warning, in order to mitigate any further threat to public safety.

Placement in a Specialized Containment Facility: The Subject will be transported to an Enhanced Persons Rehabilitation and Containment Facility (EPRCF), where she shall remain under secure supervision until further assessment and clearance by IEPOC.

Revocation of Conditional Freedoms: All conditional rights or privileges previously granted to the Subject, including but not limited to the right to independent movement and association, shall be summarily revoked.

Behavioral and Ability Development Assessments: In order to better understand and responsibly manage the Subject's capabilities, she will undergo periodic assessments with specialists to evaluate her behavioral and cognitive responses in controlled conditions. These assessments shall be conducted with a view toward ensuring public safety and furthering scientific understanding of Enhanced Persons.

[darthbloodorange]

There in Spirit [Comic]

For the: ✦ @tonystarkbingo Round 8 - Ghosts [Adopt] (Card: 8050)

Word count: N/a - Art Title: There in Spirit Rating: Explicit Universe: Marvel Cinematic Universe Pairings: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark Characters: Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, James "Bucky" Barnes, Pepper Potts, (brief) Happy Hogan, (brief) Bruce Banner, (brief) Clint Barton, (brief) Natasha Romanov, (brief) Jane Foster, (brief) Thor, (brief) Darcy Lewis, (brief) James "Rhodey" Rhodes, (brief) Sam Wilson, (brief) Vision Warnings: Explicit Sexual Content Major Tags: Humor, Established Relationship, Clothed Sex, Closet Sex, Halloween Costumes, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Being Walked In On, Avengers Tower, Shy Steve Rogers, Tony Stark is So Done, Top Bucky Barnes, Bottom Steve Rogers ~ Summery: Tony hosts a Halloween party for the Avengers. He tries inviting Steve…

Character's Costumes (in order of appearance): Tony Stark ⮕ Johannes Vermeer (artist) - Part of a couples costume with Pepper inspired by Pepper's interest in art. Pepper Potts ⮕ Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer Happy Hogan ⮕ Mime - Just thought the idea or joke of Happy, head of security, apprehending a intruder with mime powers. Bruce Banner ⮕ Plague Doctor - because 'Doctor' + Gamma/Hulk Clint Barton ⮕ Werewolf - Because Clint likes dogs. And because of the idea, I couldn't dress Steve as a werewolf or Capwolf. Natasha Romanov ⮕ Vampire Spider Queen - Started off as a vampire, thought it would be cool to add spiders to it too. Jane Foster ⮕ Angel Thor ⮕ Pop Tart Darcy Lewis ⮕ Devil Rhodey ⮕ Han Solo - I think he likes Star Wars? Unsure. Sam Wilson ⮕ Big Bird - Play on the idea that he's the falcon. Vision ⮕ Frankenstein's Monster. - The idea of Vision correction everyone at the party that he's "Frankenstein's Monster" not "Dr Frankenstein himself" was really funny to me. Steve Rogers ⮕ Poltergeist/Ghost Bucky ⮕ Ghost

[kandisheek]

FIC REC WEEK 32 - EPISTOLARY

The Impossible Return by Goodnightsammy

Pairing: Steve/Bucky Rating: M Words: 25,935 Tags: Winter Soldier Steve, Love Letters, Identity Porn

Summary: In 1996, the wreckage of the Valkyrie was found off the coast of Greenland. The cockpit was empty. There was no body and no shield. There was, however, a leather-bound journal filled with letters to a man long dead. In 2011, that same man is found frozen at the bottom of the Alps, still very much alive. Or: The Winter Soldier Steve AU I never thought I'd write.

Reasons why I love it: Okay, so I already love fics that twist canon on its head, but when it's done as skillfully as this? It's on a whole other level. Steve's letters are so raw and incredibly written, and I love Bucky's relationship with the rest of the Avengers. Also, Steve as the Winter Soldier is fantastically characterized, god, I want to give him a hug so bad. Definitely check this one out, it's amazing!

Do Not Reply by FestiveFerret

Pairing: Steve/Tony Rating: E Words: 33,159 Tags: Wrong Number AU, Secret Identity, Confessions

Summary: When Tony starts replying to a "daily deals" donotreply email address from some random security supply company, he finds shouting into the void soothingly cathartic. Less so when the void answers back.

Reasons why I love it: This fic is like sunshine on a cloudy day. Like a cup of warm tea on a cold night. Like a whole bunch of other poetic descriptions of heart-warming, tooth-rotting fluff. I love how real their relationship feels, their first meeting in the real world, Steve's backstory with Pierce, all of it. It's definitely one of my favorites, and if you haven't read it yet, I highly encourage you to do so, because it's excellent!

Long Distance by NotEvenCloseToStraight

Pairing: Steve/Bucky/Tony Rating: E Words: 44,017 Tags: Long Distance Relationship, Wrong Number, Polyamory Negotiations

Summary: At the end of a bad day, Tony gets drunk and texts Rhodey all his woes. Except he typed the wrong number, and has been texting someone named Steve– who is blond, 28, teaches art and somehow charmed by Tonys drunk rambles. One conversation turns into another, and soon they are texting and talking and flirting every day for weeks until Tony finally takes a chance and asks Steve to meet in person. Steve replies that he and his boyfriend Bucky would be thrilled to meet. Devastated, and feeling betrayed, Tony stops talking to Steve all together, and their budding relationship comes to a screeching halt. But Bucky has been eavesdropping on their conversations and texts and is halfway in love with Tony too, so he takes it upon himself to fix the rift between Steve and Tony. Tony isn’t sure about it at first, but after some cute videos, sexy selfies, several date nights, Tony starts to think that the three of them may actually work. Can Bucky and Steve convince Tony there is enough room in their bed and their arms for each other AND him? Will this Long Distance texting and phone call relationship ever make it into the same zip code?

Reasons why I love it: The progression of their relationship in this is so much fun. From Steve and Tony bonding to the betrayal of Tony's trust to the reconciliation with Bucky in the mix this time – it kept me on the edge of my seat the whole way through. The texting is super engaging, and I love the flirting (and eventual sexting, hehe). Plus, the trials and tribulations of long distance relationships are super well explored here. I love this fic, and I bet you will too!

[themculibrary]

Fics With Christine Everhart Masterlist

Acquaintances (ao3) - d_aia T, 2k

Summary: Moments in the lives of Christine and Tony.

break loose of loss and longing (ao3) - victoria_p (musesfool) steve/bucky G, 3k

Summary: "What do you think of the speculation that you and Steve Rogers were lovers?"

"What? Who thinks that? I don't think about that. Why would I think about that?"

Concession (ao3) - obsession_inc pepper/tony M, 26k

Summary: An AU diverging from canon after the first movie: Christine Everhart investigates the disappearance of Tony Stark and Pepper Potts. No warnings, no guarantees.

Exclusive (ao3) - megamatt09 christine/tony E, 1k

Summary: Tony Stark helps Christine Everhart get to the bottom of the story. Or the bottom of something.

Eyes Only (ao3) - Meatball42 G, 819

Summary: While on an international assignment, an investigative journalist makes a dangerous discovery about someone who shaped a century.

Honey, I'm Home (ao3) - DobbyRocksSocks tony/rhodey T, 1k

Summary: Tony really hates walking the red carpet. Thankfully, Natasha is there to help him deal with the press, and there’s a surprise waiting for him that will make his night a million times better.

Humanity's Unlikely Ambassador? (ao3) - Rozilla jane/thor G, 4k

Summary: An article for Vanity Fair written by Christine Everhart profiling Jane Foster, with Darcy making sure no one a) slips up and over shares or b) makes her boss look bad.

I am Iron Dad (ao3) - cpt_winniethepooh pepper/tony, steve/bucky T, 2k

Summary: Let's put all the canon nonsense aside and imagine Tony going back to 2008 and having to do the "I am Iron Man" speech... but because he basically became the (un)official Dad(TM) in the MCU, he accidentally reveals more than he had planned.

I Came to Win (ao3) - Philyra T, 13k

Summary: Pepper Potts inherits a failing hockey team at 25. She builds her staff and team her way, screw what anyone else thinks. She wants a Stanley Cup.

Interviews (ao3) - HIAParker phil/tony G, 866

Summary: The first thing Christine notices is he looks much better since Stane and Afghanistan. The second thing is that there is now a wedding ring on his finger, an abundance of ink on his skin, and he’s smirking.

Iron Man (ao3) - mcsquared789 minor pepper/tony T, 72k

Summary: "Welcome Tony Stark, the most famous mass murderer in the history of America." Stark’s eyes widened, but he said nothing.

The leader continued, sneering. Yinsen spoke up over him. "He is honored. He has a request of you… to build the missile. The one that you demonstrated."

Stark turned to look back at the leader, who seemed to be growing impatient — but now, so was he. He had already made up his mind… and if he was about to die, it was time to show a little dignity.

Stark glared at him. "I refuse."

Tony Stark — genius billionaire, eccentric playboy, CEO of a global company specializing in production and distribution of smart weapons. But when he is kidnapped and forced to rebuild his ‘magnum opus’ against his will, he is forced to reckon with the consequences of letting them be put in the wrong hands, and his place in the world. But by donning the armor of Iron Man, will he be able to change his world for the better — while he still has time?

A canon rewrite of the original movie: bigger, longer, uncut. Fully completed.

OUT EXCLUSIVES (ao3) - 17826 steve/bucky G, 3k

Summary: OUT EXCLUSIVES

Oh Captain, My Captain

War hero turned terrorist scapegoat turned Avenger: James ‘Bucky’ Barnes on history, legacy, and the new Captain America.

BY CHRISTINE EVERHART

TUE, 2020-10-06 11:00

Public Perception (ao3) - TenSpencerRiedPlease bucky/tony N/R, 6k

Summary: Christine, since she was a child, has always been interested in the truth. She’s made it her business to track down the facts and to tell people about them even before she was a reporter. Some people didn’t take their jobs very seriously, reporting half-baked stories before they had every angle and that was their stupidity.

Rumor Has It (ao3) - Faustess tony/rhodey, pepper/steve G, 1k

Summary: Rhodey wakes up to find Tony reading aloud to Pepper and Steve about his (supposed) wild, playboy lifestyle and their respective roles in it. Jim Rhodes is not caffeinated enough for this kind of hilarity.

Stark: Solving the Energy Crisis? (ao3) - Starfire (kalypsobean) N/R, 1k

Summary: Stark Industries came under a cloud after Tony Stark announced his company would be taking a new direction. In an exclusive interview, our reporter gains an insight as to the personal reasons for this change and what impact it might have.

the other eight (ao3) - closingdoors pepper/tony T, 6k

Summary: IM1. A kiss on a balcony.

The Vanko debacle (ao3) - Mitsuky christine/tony T, 14k

Summary: Stark Tower opens its doors in New York. A spy appears. Tony takes down a gangster. SHIELD gets on his nerves some more. Oh, and someone tries to kill him, again!

Two Vodka Martinis: Extra Dry, Extra Olives, Extra Fast (ao3) - PinkEasterEggspepper/tony G, 5k

Summary: “Well, Tony Stark, fancy seeing you here.”

Tony’s expression went blank as he searched the woman’s face, a hand moving out as he took a guess at her name. “. . . Karen.”

“Christine,” she spoke over him. “You have a lot of nerve showing up here tonight. Can i at least get a reaction from you?”

“Panic,” Tony supplied, looking to the side and trying his best not to look at his young son’s confused face. “I would say panic . . .”

Tony takes his son, Peter, to the Stark Industries' Annual Benefit for the Firefighter's Family Fund where they run into a face Tony would rather forget.

Unrepentant Flirt (The Lois Lane Remix) (ao3) - Prinzenhasserin christine/tony T, 1k

Summary: Christine Everheart knows how to get her way with men in particular, and nothing is going to stand in her way.

What happens in Vegas...We'll discuss later (ao3) - RaccoonCati pepper/tony T, 8k

Summary: Between too many drinks, gambling and running from the busy schedule, Tony and Pepper forgot for a second that they are to maintain a professional relationship between the two of them. The result: a marriage certificate.

But the playboy billionaire has to leave in a couple of days and his PA won't deal with anything until he's back.

[buckybarnesfanfiction]

'Such Sweet Revenge' by ali_aliska

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15146219/chapters/35123417

This is one of the best fanfictions I've ever read. ali_aliska is one of the best WinterIron/Marvel fanfiction writers ever.

As always, all credit goes to ali_aliska. I OWN NOTHING. THIS IS NOT MY WORK!!!!

I am just premoting it because it is so, so good!

Author's Summary:

When the Rogues are back in the States after being pardoned, the New Avengers want nothing to do with them and as far as Tony is concerned, if he never speaks to them again, it'll be too soon. After all, he didn't spend the last year putting himself (and his family) back together only for his former co-workers to ruin all of his hard work.

But then he gets a hand-written letter from the Winter Soldier himself, apologizing for the events that transpired and an off-handed comment from Rhodey about Rogers failing to take care of an obviously miserable Bucky Barnes sets in motion Tony's new, oh-so-evil plan to get some payback.

After all, what better revenge than to steal the Winter Soldier away from his best friend?

The only problem: Tony sucks at being vengeful, but apparently he's an expert at inadvertently falling in love.

Excerpt from chapter 1:

Tony admired the bright doodles of Iron Man, Spider-Man, and a very Picasso-esque rendition of the Wasp one last time and placed the last letter on top of new pile next to him. With nothing else left to read, he studied the damn white envelope still sitting innocuously on the other end of the bed. 

He should burn it. He should take the damn thing down to the lab and burn it in the incinerator, scatter the ashes from the top of Stark Tower, and maybe invoke Loki’s name in an incantation or something. Tony was not ashamed to admit that he was petty enough to sic the Trickster god on Rogers.

He should do all those things, but already he resigned himself to the fact that curiosity would get the best of him. It was both one of his best and most reckless personality traits. 

Kudos to Rogers for using snail mail (again) to get a direct line of communication to Tony.

Alright, let’s see what kind of half-assed apologies and passive aggressive nonsense he came up with this time. At least there’s no insulting, out-of-date tech to go along with this letter.

He reached for the envelope, tore it open, unfolded the paper, and promptly realized that this wasn’t Rogers’ tidy scrawl (he hated that he had the man’s handwriting memorized). A glance at signature towards the bottom of the letter confirmed his suspicions.

Huh.

With a raised eyebrow and renewed curiosity, Tony leaned back and began to read.

Mr. Stark,

I wasn’t sure this letter would get to you, but I had to try. I thought about meeting you in person (you’re too easy to track down for someone of your importance), but that would have been both imposing and selfish.

Even this is selfish. I know no apology will fix what I’ve done. It won’t bring your parents back, it won’t bring anyone I killed back to life. It won’t fix what happened between you, Steve and the others either. Might not help you at all, so this apology, it’s selfish then, isn’t it? Just to help me sleep better at night. If it makes a difference, I still won’t be able to sleep.

But for whatever it’s worth, I am sorry. I’m so sorry. For your parents, for fighting you in Germany without knowing anymore than what Steve had told me. I’m sorry for fighting you in Siberia, for leaving you behind when you were hurt.

I wish you would’ve taken more than just my arm back in that bunker. 

I’m not sure if there’s something I can do to make up for what happened. I don’t have money and most of my skillsets are frowned upon, but if there is any way I can help, or if you just want to shoot me between the eyes to even out the score, just say so.

Being back in the States, I’ve had a lot of time to think. Can’t sleep with that damn witch across the hall, so I got nothing but time. I made mistakes, hurt people who weren’t my enemies. First time I was free of Hydra’s control and all I did was do more damage. 

I’ve been reading up on your work. Green energy, technology, the new Accords. All of you are doing amazing work and I’m sorry Steve and the others are getting in the way of that. They shouldn’t have ambushed Rhodes and Danvers like that. A damn charity event for sick kids. I don’t know what they were thinking. Rhodes and Danvers held their own though. Soldiers through and through.

Steve is also thinking about coming to that green energy conference next month. Thinks he can get a moment with you because you’re one of the speakers and the security isn’t as strict. No idea if this letter gets to you in time, and knowing you, you probably already know, but thought I should warn you.

They used some of your tech to help with the triggers, by the way. Thank you for that too. T’Challa’s sister didn’t want to be involved though and I don’t blame her, but the other doctors did well enough with the tech. My brain feels like it’s been scrubbed raw, but at least some lunatic won’t be able to control me anymore. Thank you for giving me that freedom. Again, I have nothing to give back but empty words.

You seem like a good man. I wish I got the chance to know you under different circumstances, but I guess that’s selfish too.

Wherever life takes you, I wish you well.

Sincerely,

James Buchanan Barnes

“Huh…” Tony exhaled and kept staring at the letter in his hands. 

Not what I expected. At all.

[braveclementine]

October 19- Aftercare (Nick Fury, James Rhodey, Sam Wilson) 💚

Warnings: 18+ readers only, mostly just fluff, some pet names, a little praise, subspace

Copyright: I do not own Nick Fury, James Rhodey, Sam Wilson, or any other marvel characters. I also do not condone this being copied.

"That's it babydoll." Nick groaned, the two of you finishing together. You collapsed against his firm chest for a moment, before James carefully helped you off of him, carrying you to the bathroom. 

Sam had already filled a bathtub with warm water, a lilac and honey syrup in the bottom, making the bubbles have an almost silvery-yellow look if that were possible. There were small candles of jasmine littering the bathtub edges and corners. 

You smiled at Sam, tucking your head into James warmth more. James chuckled before lowering you into the water. You sighed in content as you felt the silky water and honey syrup wash over your skin. Sam climbed into the bath with you, grabbing the green loofa that was on the hook attached to the wall. 

"What do you want to eat?" James asked softly, brushing your hair back from your face, tucking the strand behind your ear. 

"Marshmallows." You said happily, splashing the water a little in your blissed out state. 

Sam chuckled but there was the sound of a clucking tongue in the doorway. Nick leaned against the doorway, still undressed except for the boxers he'd pulled on. "You need real food babydoll. I'll go get you something." He moved away and walked out of the room. 

You whimpered, tears in your eyes now. "He won't get me marshmallows." You tucked your face into Sam's neck, who let out a sound of affection. 

"It's okay sugar." Sam murmured. "You'll get your marshmallows, I promise. But Fury is right, you're going to have to eat some real food first before you get dessert." 

"Dessert." You repeated, before moving your hand to Sam's cock, starting to stroke him. Sam smiled gently, looking at you like you were the cutest thing he'd ever seen, but took your hands gently into his. 

"A different dessert sugar." Sam said, before starting to wash you with the loofa. "James, you want to put the music on?" 

James nodded, getting up and walking over to the console. Your shower playlist came on, 7 rings by Ariana Grande playing softly through the speakers. You started to sing along softly under your breath. 

Rather be tied up with calls and not strings Write my own checks like I write what I sing, yeah (yeah)

Sam chuckled, running the water over your hair now, softly washing your hair with the hand held shower nozzle. You pressed your lips and eyes together tightly. You felt another pair of hands join in, knowing James was helping you as well. 

Once they were done, James refilled the bath with warmer water, which you and Sam soaked in. 

Shoot, go from the store to the booth Make it all back in one loop, give me the loot Never mind, I got the juice Nothing but net when we shoot

You pretended to shoot a basketball and both of the men who were watching you grinned, loving you all that much more. You were so adorable when you were in your subspace, they loved it. They loved you. 

"Alright sweetheart, I hear Nick is back with the food." James said, moving over and grabbing a thick fluffy robe in a pale pink colour. Sam helped you out of the bath, wrapping you in the robe while grabbing himself a towel. 

"Here babydoll." Nick said, showing you the tray that you'd set up. You bounced on the bed, taking the steak and ate it happily. 

"Thank you Nick." You said happily. 

"You're welcome." He said, coming over with a small bowl. "And here, is your dessert." 

"MARSHMALLOWS!" You shouted, taking it and giggling, before popping one of the fluffy white cubes into your mouth. 

"Love you baby." Nick murmured softly, kissing the side of your head. The three men climbed onto the bed, wrapping themselves around you while you munched on your marshmallows, one by one each of them falling asleep, loving you very much.