scorelaine

[renecdote]

do you think Bruce ever lies awake at night thinking about all the things he has taught his kids and how it seemed like a good idea at the time but maybe some of those habits are actually more bad than good

[dizzydancingdreamer]

Snapchat Memories and Dead People | The Avengers

Hey my lovelies. As per usual, I can only write when I'm in crises.

Today I woke up and was assaulted by Snapchat with a video of someone I miss laughing; someone whom I know I will never hear laugh again. I think I've watched the video about a hundred times. It's the stupidest fucking video. But the laugh isn't stupid. It's just heartbreaking and fleeting— like the video— and it feels like when the snap memory disappears then he will too and I needed to do something with my thoughts to keep from feeling like I'm going to disappear too.

I hate Snapchat, and I hate missing him, and I hate death, and I hope you all like this piece.

Synopsis: Peter with a camera is either the best or worst thing to ever happen //OR// Snapchat is run by the devil himself

Characters: Peter Parker, James Rhodes, Bruce Banner, Clint Barton, Wanda Maximoff, Sam Wilson, Bucky Barnes (mentioned: Tony Stark, Natasha Romanoff, Vision, Steve Rogers)

Warnings: Angst, mentions of death (nothing graphic), general spoilers of the movies (duh), feelings

Word count: 1.1k

They’re Avengers.

They’re the toughest of the tough.

They’re Earth’s mightiest heroes.

And they’re all huddled around Peter Parker— a teenager, sixteen, just barely an Avenger himself— because he’s the one with a Snapchat and so he’s the one with the video of Tony laughing.

It’s nothing professional— just a flimsily shot picture much too zoomed in and shaking in Peter’s unsteady hands— but he’s there and somehow his laugh is so clear that it’s like it’s coming from right next to them. It’s like Tony’s there too, laughing once more over whatever it is Rhodey had said. They can’t remember anymore— not even Rhodey himself. But they— Earth’s mightiest heroes— are all sure for one long moment that if they turn around then they’ll see Tony, death be damned.

So they don’t turn around— because death be damned or not they don’t want him to leave again.

“That laugh used to drive me mental in the labs. Could never think when he was around.” Bruce doesn’t finish his thought— now he can’t even go back in to get his research because it’s too quiet.

“It was even worse in the air. I’ve never heard another person laugh while getting nuked at.” Rhodey adds. He leaves out the part where he hasn’t flown since he died because he’s afraid of the silence.

Everyone else just hums because the video has restarted and Tony’s laugh is like a command— listen to me while you still can.

They do. For once, they do.

After the fifth loop, Rhodey breaks the reverence. “You got anymore videos, kid?”

Peter does. Peter has a lot of them.

The next video is worse— it’s better. They’re not sure what it is but it’s Clint who talks first this time. After all, it's only fitting when it’s his best friend on the screen this time.

“Kid is that—” he can’t even finish his thought— he doesn’t think he ever had one.

His eyes are locked on the flashes of red hair that twirl and twirl and twirl across the screen. It’s like flames lapping at the camera, so close that Clint takes a breath that is echoed through every other person next to him. He feels like he’s going to get burned— he feels like he’s dead too. Dead people can’t be burned, though, and his entire body is definitely on fire. How the Parker boy had managed to capture one of the rare moments of Natasha dancing he has no idea but he’s never been more willing to pay a teenager for his phone.

“Yeah.” Peter’s voice is airy, not quite as rough as Clint’s, still lost all the same. “This was at the movie marathon we had last summer. Well— five summers ago, I guess.”

No one answers when he trails off. They’re all too busy thinking about time. Too busy thinking about death. They’re Earth’s mightiest heroes and not even they can stop either of the two. They all may as well be sixteen too because that’s how they feel. Scared and tired and sixteen.

Peter— scared and tired and actually sixteen— swipes to the next video.

“So the woman turns the turkey into a cat and the audience laughs? That is funny?”

Wanda flinches so hard that she bumps into Sam. The soldier doesn’t say anything and she doesn’t either. Usually she would apologize but not today. She can’t find it in herself to say sorry these days, not when he’s alive and Vis isn’t. It has nothing to do with Sam— nothing to do with her— everything to do with how little she cares about the minor inconveniences of life when all she’s done is obsess over the major inconvenience of death.

“Yes, essentially. It’s easier if you don’t think about it.” Wanda mouths over her own words as they come— she remembers that day vividly.

It’s all she thinks about sometimes.

“What shall I do instead?”

By this point her heart has stopped— the only thing keeping her upright is the love of her life captured on the tiny screen of Peter’s Iphone. She didn’t even hear him taking the video when it happened. She had been too engrossed in Bewitched and in the man next to her. Some people have tried to tell her that he wasn’t a man but the facts are there. The facts being death. He’s dead and only living things can die so he was alive and he was a man and—

Holy shit why is she thinking about this right now!

“Laugh, Vis. You should laugh!”

Wanda walks away. She runs away. Because it doesn’t take being a witch or woman or alive to remember what’s coming next and she doesn’t think she can handle hearing him laugh. She can’t decide if this is an inconvenience of life or of death— or if she’s just a coward. Someone will hear Vis laugh today but it won’t be her.

Peter swipes again and this time it’s not a video.

It’s a picture.

It’s Bucky Barnes. But Bucky Barnes isn’t dead. He should be. By all means Bucky Barnes should be dead. As dead as his best friend, Steve Rogers, is. But he’s not— clearly. A lot of things that should be, aren’t, though. Like how if Peter had only held his thumb down longer then Bucky could have heard Steve tell him it’ll be alright again. It should be a video.

But it’s not a video— it’s a picture, one of Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers with a timestamp of two months ago sitting in the top corner. They’re hugging and if Bucky squints he can see Bruce in the background. Even if he couldn’t see Bruce he would know that moment anywhere. He will always remember the day Steve left, and then came back, and then died. Well, no, he died a few weeks later. But he may as well have died that day.

Bucky didn’t die that day either but he feels like he did so he may as well have too. He may as well be back in Austria with how little he still understands of the world and of Steve Rogers. And of photographs that should be videos. He’s one hundred and six, in a thirty year old body, but no better than a sixteen year old with an okay camera and quiet footsteps.

It’s not Peter’s fault, though, so he pats his shoulders with a huff. “Good shot, kid.”

Maybe it’s better it wasn’t a video anyway, because no matter how many times he hears it he knows that it won’t be alright.

Lies are still lies when they’re told by Earth’s mightiest heroes.

Death is still death— death is still unstoppable— when it comes to the toughest of the tough.

And even the Avengers get Snapchat memories at the worst possible time.