#i just wanna go check out prosthetics facilities and help out and shit

[lexicled]

why is it that doing cool things requires me to make phone calls and send emails and whatnot. they should make internships that you apply to telepathically with your mind and positive vibes

[newtafterdark]

Taste of Metal - Chapter 7: Between Pancakes and Digital Islands

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26157634/chapters/65487961

Summary: What if the overwhelming VR experience Gordon went through, had a deeper purpose than just being a simple simulation & a freelance debug job for him?

But most importantly- what if Gordon Freeman listens to Metal & used to be in a band? aka. the “Metalhead Gordon AU”

- - -

Gordon slowly came back to consciousness after several hours of dreamless sleep, searching for his glasses around him with barely opened eyes. 

 He felt his sore muscles protest, screaming at him to just lay still on the futon beside Tommy, Darnold and Sunkist… and honestly, that sounded very inviting. 

 His hand finally found his glasses and he put them on with a slightly shaky hand.

 Yeah, at this point there was no denying that his body was slowly catching up with the stress, now that he was no longer in imminent danger.

 He propped himself slowly up with his intact arm, letting himself wake up at a casual pace as he looked around the room, checking on his new roommates. 

Tommy, Darnold and Sunkist were still out cold, cosy among kicked-off blankets and pillows, Tommy snoring away softly as he laid there, limbs spread out like a starfish and Sunkist curled up at his side.

 Darold was laying half on top of Tommy, one arm resting gently on the man’s chest, his breathing calm and even. 

 Gordon tilted his head at them, smiling. The domesticity of the whole situation was a relief to his nerves. That, and Tommy and Darnold just looked absolutely adorable like this. Gordon shook his head, chuckling at himself and slowly got up to his feet.

 “Yo, you up!”

 Gordon, to his own surprise, didn’t jump at the noise of Benrey’s voice. What did catch him by surprise though, was where the voice was coming from-

 “Yeah, Gordon's up… and you… uh… you’re okay up there?”

 Benrey was sitting on top of Gordon’s storage closet, looking up from something in his hands.

 “Yeah. Cool cosy watch spot. Got a pillow up here and everything--”

 Squinting up with his still tired eyes, Gordon finally made out the thing Benrey was now showing to him.

 “Is that my Nintendo Switch?”

 “Whuh? Nah, that’s mine.”

 “Benrey… just don’t delete my save files, okay?”

 “...It’s really not yours, bro. Here, looksie-”

 With that, he bent down, showing Gordon… an extremely scratched-up Switch with several glittery Lisa-Frank stickers on the back. Huh. 

 “Oh... Sorry, man. I really thought-”

 Benrey just waved him off and leaned back up, his back resting against the wall above the closet.

 “All good. Wanna have my friend code?”

 Gordon thought it over. While he still felt a smidge of unease around Benrey… well, it couldn’t hurt trying to bond over video games with the guy while they were all living in Gordon’s apartment for the time being. 

 “Yeah, sure! Just want to check on everyone and get some breakfast ready before I do anything else. You… uh, stay cosy up… there?”

 “Will do, Gordo.”, Benrey assured him, giving him a mock salute. 

 Gordon let out a snort at the sight and slowly made his way to the kitchen to check on the remaining members of the Science Team… and Tommy’s dad. 

 “Hello, Gordon!”

 Gordon yawned and gave the trio at his small kitchen table an apologetic smile. 

 “Mornin’. Sorry, am still exhausted as fuck… you all good though? Sleep-wise and all that?”

 “Better than any night at Black Mesa… but Let me tell you- you sound like a damn foghorn when you snore!”, Bubby teased with a smirk, his feet resting on the table and his arms behind his head.

 Gordon turned red at that.

 “It’s n-not that bad!”

 “Oh, it absolutely was, my good bitch!”, Coomer assured him with a smile- “But in a way we could all appreciate!”

 “It was almost… like a small concert, Mr Freeman. Between you, Tommy and... Benrey.”, G-Man added, smirking a bit before he took a sip from the mug in his hand.

 Gordon blinked at the sight of the mug, his thought process derailed from thinking about his snore habits back to what he wanted to do the kitchen in the first place-

 “Oh shit! Breakfast! Do I even-”

 “I took it upon myself to refill your kitchen with… appropriate nutrients. If you… stand by wanting to house everyone for a while, I assumed it would make the first few days easier on you.” said G-Man, setting his mug down.

 “Y-Yeah… it- it absolutely does! Thanks, man!”, Gordon let out a flustered chuckle.

 “I do want to... let you know though that I will not remain here. While I… appreciate your eager hospitality… I have... business to take care of. Regarding the state of Black Mesa… and what my employers were able to assess since our departure from the facility yesterday. I… do not like being “out of the loop”, so to speak. ”

 G-Man reached down the side of his chair and pulled his suitcase up, setting it on the table and opening it, facing it away from everyone but himself. He pulled out a few papers and handed them to Gordon. 

 “While I am gone… for the time being… do give this to Tommy. He will know what to do with it.”

 Gordon looked down and scanned the pages, Bubby and Coomer leaning over curiously to catch a glance as well.-

 “...”Approval for ”Pocket-Dimension Expansion of Limited Space”? What-”

 But when Gordon looked up, G-Man was gone. 

 “What a show-off.”, Bubby huffed and crossed his arms. 

 “Now Bubby, everyone should be allowed to show off their powers now and then!”, Coomer reminded the man, then stood up- “Now, do you need any assistance with preparing a hearty breakfast, Gordon?”

 “Huh?... Oh! Oh yeah!”

 Setting the papers on the table, for now, Gordon moved over to the fridge to assess what they had to work with-

 “Man… okay, Wow. G-Man didn’t fuck around… Yeah, we can go all out with a proper big breakfast, if you guys want!”

 Bubby made his way over to look over Gordon’s shoulder and let out a huff-

 “I don’t even know what half of all this junk is, but I guess we have enough to come up with something edible.”

 Gordon rolled his eyes at that, reaching inside the fridge to grab a carton of milk and handing it over to Bubby. 

 “Less doubting our cooking abilities, more helping me decide what we want to make, jackass.”, He said with a grin, sticking out a tongue at Bubby, then letting out a laugh. 

 Coomer beamed instantly at Gordon’s playful retort, while Bubby was standing frozen in place for a second in shock but eventually allowed himself a chuckle.

 - - -

 Several minutes later, the trio was joined by Benrey… who admitted outright that the smell from the kitchen had been too good to ignore. 

 Gordon puffed up his chest a bit in pride, while he was in the process of frying pancakes… then smirked as an idea came to mind. 

 “Hey, Benrey?”

 “Yo?”, the guard looked over in slight confusion.

 “Wanna see a gamer strat?”

 “Whu-”

 Gordon lifted the pan from the stovetop, his grip on its handle firm- and made a short forward-backwards movement, angled slightly up- which made the pancake flip in the air before it landed perfectly in Gordon’s pan once more. 

 …

 There was absolute silence in the kitchen for a moment.

 …

 “YOOOOOOOOOOOO~!!!”

 “WHAT THE FUCK?!”

 “I didn’t know you were trained in advanced cooking techniques, Gordon!”

 Gordon looked over his shoulder with a bright smile.

 “I taught myself a bunch of them actually! Mostly from watching friends and family and then trying them on my own until I got them right! In a way… I guess I trained myself for this moment.“, Gordon mused, humming slightly as he adjusted where he was resting his still sensitive stump against his body. 

 Before any of the others got a word in, he went on-

 “... and for previous moments like this. Ain’t the first time I only had one working hand to work with! I broke this arm so many times in the past, at this point I am almost used to barely using it....”

 Gordon finished setting the last pancake on the stack, set the pan down and turned around.

 “Still… I am already thankful that you want to make me a prosthetic, Dr Coomer.”

 The older scientist pulled Gordon into a gentle side hug.

 “Again, it’s the least I can do, Gordon. Bubby also offered his assistance! Not to mention Benrey!”

 Gordon blinked and looked over to the two people in question.

 “R-Really?”

 “Look, we were dumb shits who didn’t know the bastards would pull this bullshit on your physical body. Doesn’t make it better… but you know. Already said my two cents about it last night… but yes, the least I can do is help build a hand that is even better than your original one.”, Bubby said over cutting strawberries and bananas into slices.

 Gordon accepted that with a grateful nod before he felt a slight pull on his t-shirt sleeve. Looking down, he was faced with Benrey, hands still holding his Switch and looking anywhere but at Gordon.

 “You good, Benrey?” The man before him remained silent, but then lifted his Switch up for Gordon to see.

 “Look, please? While I try to pick the right words? ”

 “Y-Yeah…? Sure, man…”, Gordon said as he gently took the console from Benrey, leaning it against his stump so he wouldn’t drop it and using his intact hand to move the joystick and push buttons. 

 It turned out Benrey was playing “Animal Crossing: New Horizons”. Gordon had the game himself but hadn’t had the time to play it properly between the recurring jobs from Black Mesa and other freelance programming work. 

 He looked at the scratched screen, the game already running and the player character, Benrey’s little villager, standing in what appeared to be a huge field of blue windflowers… and trees that had star pieces handing on them. Of course, Benrey would be the type to mod his game. 

 While Gordon moved the character through the flowers, occasionally stopping at a few furniture items Benrey had placed- he had a full rainbow squad of monster statues lining the left beach- Benrey began to talk.

 “The… uh… the selling you out to the boots thing was a dumb strat. Dummy brain didn’t think anything would happen IRL. Thought it would be a funny moment in the game, ‘cause it would just respawn… but then it didn’t. A-And then Coolatta Senior found you after we got out and-”

 Slowly, the blue windflowers made way for pink tulips… only to be followed up by orange roses. A sea of them stretching over the island… this must have taken Benrey hours to create...

 “- you know I like being an ass. it’s FUN! But only when… w-when we can laugh about it? And we can’t laugh about this… so… shit’s fucked. You don’t gotta be all like “I don’t hold that shit against you”. I know you already said that but… uh… I’m still sorry. Was real shitty of me… so I’m gonna help the doc’s with your new hand.”

 Finally, Gordon reached the end of the island, where he found two big star pieces sitting in the sand… with a sign behind them, reading- [> Restart?].

 He looked up, brows slightly furrowed. After a moment of silence, he set the console gently down on the table. 

 Benrey looked increasingly nervous, until-

 “Benrey.”

 “y-yeah, what’s up, br- HURGH!”

 Gordon had pulled the slightly smaller man into the tightest hug he could muster and Benrey positively melted into the touch, wrapping his arms around Gordon carefully in return. He got an assuring squeeze and found the confidence to give a slight squeeze back, relieved Sweet Voice spilling freely out of his mouth, earning him a few chuckles from Coomer and Bubby in the background.

 Gordon eventually pulled back, his hand remaining on Benrey’s shoulder, said man instantly hiccuping out a bright pink orb at how the taller man was looking at him. 

 Benrey had never been good at reading human expressions… but whatever Gordon’s face was doing, it made him feel warm and safe inside. 

 “Alright, you one-of-a-kind cryptic bastard-”

 Gordon took a step back and extended his hand towards Benrey. 

 “Gordon Martini Freeman. Human. Graduated MIT with a doctorate in Theoretical Physics and currently a Freelance Programmer.”

 Benrey didn’t even hesitate a millisecond as he grabbed Gordon’s hand-

 “Benrey Lover. Xenian. Black Mesa Security Guard and now...uh... full-time gamer?”

 Gordon smiled brightly at him.

 “Nice to meet you, Benrey.”

 Benrey nodded, a hint of what could be described as their first proper smile on their lips.

 “Samesies, Gordon.”

[bigskydreaming]

princeescaluswords replied to your post:

Alex Summers, after the most recent of 128979889...

Why don’t you write Marvel? You couldn’t possibly do any worse and I could use the laughs!

Lol, its a nice dream, but realistically I don’t think there’s any universe in which Marvel would ever let me write the X-Men. 

Like, my very first story would probably have Bobby refreezing the Arctic while Storm heads up a team of elementals to combat climate change. And then a Republican senator and a Democrat senator would go on TV and make a bipartisan show of expressing their gratitude towards mutants for helping save the planet and this is the real future of humanity, this is them all building a world where they can live side by side in a mutually beneficial -

And then the broadcast would cut off because Cypher just hacked every satellite worldwide and said “all your binary codes belong to me now, resistance is futile, blah blah” before turning the camera to Sunspot who’s all decked out in his snazziest suit and dressed to the nines. Roberto yawns and flips the whole world off and says “LOL fuck you, the X-Men are done with respectability politics, we took a vote and our democratic process actually works, we don’t have a fucking electoral college. We only saved the planet because it happens to be the planet we live on, dipshits, nobody did it for you, you’re still cordially invited to go extinct. Or you can play nice and try getting along with the rest of us for a change but good luck trying to make Sentinels happen again, lmao, funding’s gonna be an issue for you pretty soon I think.”

He turns off the camera and goes back to planning his and Sam’s wedding, because look, I have my priorities, okay.

Then Mystique unleashes her new Fellowship of Evil (Same Name, But This Time Its Evil as in STFU, Its Ironic U Assholes) Mutants that she’s been recruiting from the ranks of the young and disenchanted. Overnight, the market is flooded with gold and gems transmuted from ordinary materials by mutant powers, as well as a bunch of shit ‘liberated’ from the coffers of the 1% via her Fellowship’s alliance with her son-in-law’s Thieves’ Guild. Value plummets instantly, and then technopaths join in the fun, crashing every banking system worldwide.

“Whoopsie, I broke capitalism, money’s worthless now, vive la revolution, everyone eat some fucking cake,” Raven sing-songs merrily from the chaise she’s lounging on while eating grapes. The city outside her window is burning. Meanwhile, a fiddler is playing nearby. She calls him Nero, because Aesthetic.

“Oh relax,” she rolls her eyes when Remy attempts to frown at her disapprovingly. “I had my teleporters evacuate the city before I set it on fire. I’m not a heartless monster, you know.”

“You mean you didn’t want to spend the next ten years dealing with your children yelling at you about innocent civilians and how could you,” Remy says dryly.

Mystique just shrugs and eats some more grapes. “Or that.”

Far-right dominated police forces and white supremacist militia groups attempt to forcibly establish martial law, except mostly they’re just standing around clutching their heads and trying to cope with the mother of all migraines as a gestalt of telepathic minds headed up by a Cerebro-powered octet of Jean, Emma, Betsy, Rachel, Quentin, and the Stepford Cuckoos psychically screams FAKE NEWS!!! into their brains every time their CO’s attempt to bark out new orders.

“Best school project ever,” Quire shouts. Emma smirks.

“Extra credit to the first person to psychically leak the full extent of just how extensively governments have invaded their citizens’ privacy with surveillance extremism in the name of national security.”

Jean attempts a half second of chastisement, but with them all linked this closely, there’s really no way to hide that she’s mostly just amused. Oh no, she and Emma are seeing eye to eye on something and there are witnesses and everything. The revolution was a mistake.

Atlanteans and mutant hydrokinetics team up to shove the worst oil and toxic waste and trash spills up onto the shores of every beach marked ‘privately owned’. The mile-wide ‘island’ of plastic debris that formerly sat in the middle of the Pacific is now parked off the coast of Malibu.

There’s a twenty foot demon from Limbo sitting in the Oval Office. It burps. Illyana beams and boops its nose. “Good boy.” It wags its tail and breaks the Oval Office.

Kitty and Kurt direct teams of similarly powered mutants in raiding the top secret R&D facilities of major pharmaceutical companies for all their research on diseases that never made it to mass production because they decided those treatments or cures wouldn’t be profitable in the long run because healthy people don’t need to spend a ton of money on medical care. Teams of healers are standing by to vet the viability of various research, while Hank, Cece and other mutant geniuses are already working on filling in the gaps on all the projects that were shutdown and Forge, Madison Jeffries and tech-based geniuses are converting existing infrastructure into the necessary machinery to take over mass production of these drugs, prosthetics, and sweatshop labor in general.

Speedsters and teleporters are redistributing food and stocking up the millions of properties worldwide that have just been sitting there empty for god knows how long, useless. Colossus is standing in the smashed remains of a mansion with his arms crossed sternly while a man who is definitely not meant to resemble the CEOs of either Tesla or Amazon or look like some kind of Musky Bozo hybrid cowers on the floor.

“You are a very stupid man,” Colossus says. “Why are you wasting billions funding research into space travel when there are aliens with a strong grasp of the technology in the ships that brought them here on every superhero team on Earth? You could have easily provided the Earth with working and widely accessible space travel by now if you weren’t so miserly.”

“Yeah,” Juggernaut says behind him, scratching his head. “Aliens have been coming and going from this planet for like fifty years. There are tons of fancy spaceships anyone could’ve just reverse engineered and mass produced by now. How come nobody’s ever done that and we’re all just acting like space travel is some far-off dream when everyone we know’s been to space like at least ten times?”

“Stupid people,” Colossus rumbles again. Musky Bozo wets himself and Piotr sighs and shakes his head. He didn’t even touch him.

Cyclops and Wolverine and their teams of bruisers are already done with the ICE facilities and have progressed to busting open prisons and liberating all nonviolent offenders. They inform everyone else that they can appeal to a panel of telepaths to read their minds and see for themselves that they’re innocent.

“Guilt determined by mind-reading?” Someone asks. “Lots of potential for sketchiness there.”

“Absolutely,” Scott says. “Which is why laws about boundaries and oversight have to be established. For now, its a volunteer basis only. Nobody has to get their mind read, but its an option available in the meanwhile as we sort out a better system for determining who’s been imprisoned for crimes of premeditated malice and abuse and who’s just been railroaded by an unjust and biased system.”

“So this is your new utopia, huh?” Sneers the prison warden, from the floor where he’s on his ass with a busted face because, idk, Reasons.

Scott just shakes his head. “No. It’s merely a start.”

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, but if its broke and you wanna fix it, you gotta start somewhere,” Logan says gruffly. “Shit was broke. This is ‘starting somewhere.’”

He and Scott share a very Passionate look of camaraderie. Rogue sighs loudly.

“Just fuck already, jfc.”

Logan grunts. He already offered, but apparently all Personal Business must wait until after the Revolution was over, because a Scott Summers who put himself first was very clearly an impostor, so its not like Logan could even fucking get mad considering Scott putting in a pin in sucking each other’s faces after their We Were Both Dead But Now We’re Not and Also What the Fuck Was Up With Us For the Five Whole Years Before That reunion was what confirmed that it was definitely the Real Scott’s tongue in his mouth.

“Alright, let’s move it people,” Logan barks, clapping his hands. “There’s three more joints to hit before sundown. We got a timetable here.”

Jubilee squints at him suspiciously. “Since when are you efficient?”

“Mind your own fucking business.”

At no point does anyone suggest they erase the most sacred sites of all the world’s major religions and call them all fake or randomly resurrect a bunch of dinosaurs and release them on unsuspecting and innocent populations, because those are terrible ideas and make no sense and just because they’re stinkin’ commies now doesn’t mean they’re fucking morons.

Also, nobody grows a ridiculous beard or stops using shampoo or starts wearing flip flops or robes, because apparently those are not actually essential components of being a stinkin’ commie or even just a garden variety peace-aspiring socialist. They checked. Extensively. It was almost a dealbreaker. Emma, Monet and Roberto all threatened to side with the Capitalist Pigs if that was not thoroughly clarified before proceeding any further.

Thus ends my first issue. I email Marvel the script. They email it back, almost entirely redacted in red, with the note “This isn’t quite what we were looking for. Do you have anything about a new cure for mutants, maybe?”

I email them back: LOL NO. MAGNETO WAS RIGHT.

I am promptly fired.

I go back to ranting about how Marvel sucks on the internet.