#if sam wasn't busy trying to be a superhero

[lunamugetsu]

Danny is a house husband.

That's it, that's all it is.

As the years went on. Danny retired from being a superhero. There was no need for Phantom when the GIW were dealt with and all the ghosts were under control.

Now what's left for him to do but to just sit back, relax, and finally be able to live his life.

Sam and Tucker on the other hand....

Well, they had plenty of pent up rage, wits, and chaos inside their mind to become villains.

But they had one rule.

Never bring work home and to never involve Danny in any of their supervillain business.

Okay that's technically two rules, but they're kind of synonymous especially since Danny has been taking care of their house while also entertaining himself with trying new hobbies.

Tucker and Sam both make sure that they never bring any of their villainy home to Danny, because all they want is for Danny to enjoy his happy hero retirement.

And Danny in turn, doesn't bat an eye when watching the news and seeing that there were magical plants that were attacking sites that oil companies were digging or that somehow Lex Luthor had lost five hundred million dollars and had somehow leaked records showing he was building weapons of mass destruction.

He also doesn't bat an eye when he sees that Tucker had brought home a telescope that definitely looks like it came from some fancy lab because hey, Tucker was making him an observatory so he can look at the stars and planets. While also how they were able to make a great gaming pc with computer parts that are definitely not sold in stores, because hey at least the newest update of Doomed wasn't lagging.

Or that Sam comes home with various plants and animals that are definitely not from planet earth, but hey the three headed wolf-lizard-eagle- hybrid thing (that Danny has affectionately named Fluffy) is pretty great at keeping the pests away from his vegetable garden and likes to eat any of Danny's new food creations and is a great playmate for Cujo.

So you can imagine how the Justice League thinks when dealing with the pair of new villains: Upload (Tucker) and Sam (I could not think of a villain name that would suit her, so it's up to you what you think her villain name would be)

And how they were currently wreaking havoc in the city either by cyber warfare with robots or by magic plant monster or a Frankenstein of both approaches. The heroes had all evacuated the civilians from the battle zone and are currently fighting a losing battle. When they've been effectively captured and restrained by the two. Right before the villains could go into a monologue, they hear a person clearing their throat.

Everybody looks to see a 25 year old man wearing a sweater vest (he made it himself, thank you very much) currently holding onto the leash of a giant glowing green dog and some kind of giant animal hybrid. The man's arms were crossed and was currently not sporting a very happy look on his face.

Tucker and Sam (looking at Danny with hesitant smiles): Hi honey.

Danny (frowning): you missed our anniversary dinner.

Tucker and Sam both pale as they quickly realized what the date and time was.

The league all watch as Sam and Tucker immediately start apologizing to the man that just walked into a battle zone.

Danny (still frowning): Hmph! I guess since you two didn't want dinner you can go back to your little fight. Don't expect me to make you any lunches for the next month, and since you two are having so much fun here, you'll be sleeping by yourselves for the next couple weeks.

The league all watch as they were let go as Sam and Tucker yell as they run after Danny yelling apologies as he was walking away from them.

This is not the last they see of Danny.

When Danny is displeased with either of his partners, he'll invite a hero over to have lunch of afternoon tea.

[gremlin-bot]

One (1) New Reply

I finally wrote my prompt I sent to @stealingyourbones back in November! well part of it. This is just chapter 1, so this gets a summary @dpxdcshipweek

Edit: forgot to say that I got help with the usernames from the wonderful @tourettesdog and @half-dead-ham! (If I'm wrong it's bc I'm not at home rn to look at my notes)

Ao3 link: Here Master List: Here

Summary: Danny has always had more internet access than a child really should have had. He tended to spend that time on game forums and different websites dedicated to space. Everyone once in a while he'd venture onto one about heroes and villains. That's how he met Tim Drake-Wayne or BatShadow as was his username back then.

Chapter 1: Blorbo Supplier

Danny just wanted to see uncommon pictures of Superman. It really shouldn't have been this hard. He's an alien, there should be a lot of pictures of him. Frustrated with his lack of results he resorts to looking for the pictures through unpopular social media websites that should have new pictures. His first look didn't meet his goal, and before he could even think of trying again he was distracted by a post. It was a picture of a figure swinging between skyscrapers, backlit by neon light all against a smog filled sky. It was stunning and made all the more captivating by the identity of the subject in the photo. A picture of Batman, The Batman, taken in a way that you couldn't deny it was him. That was impressive on its own, but the quality is what made it shine. Danny had to see if the account had more pictures of Batman, or even other heroes. Looking at the blog, hoping it wasn't a deactivated user, he finds the posts of BatShadow. 

The blog is a gold mine of pictures of Batman and Robin with some villains the duo we're fighting. All with stunning quality, with each subject undeniable as who they were but still giving a sense of privacy. Sadly, Danny couldn't find any other heroes pictured, but Danny could live with that. Batman was his third favorite hero, he blames Sam and all her knowledge on the edgy and obscure. She would be ecstatic about these photos, too bad he wasn't going to tell her. He was being petty. Sam should have known better than to say he couldn't keep a secret, so this is his secret now! Pettiness aside, Danny was going to message BatShadow to see if they had pictures of other heroes they hadn't posted.

Messages begins with BatShadow

(04-17-20xx)

ConstellationCruiser:

Hey, sorry to bother ya

I just saw your posts and was wondering if you have any pics of superman

BatShadow:

I don't know. I would have to look. I don't usually go to an area with him in it much, so no promises.

ConstellationCruiser: 

Thanks!! And that's fine really, it's just that your pics are amazing

BatShadow:

Thanks! Sorry, I have nothing for Supes.

ConstellationCruiser:

Damn

It's fine 

I wasn't really expecting much

I'm just surprised at the quality and quantity ya got there

BatShadow: 

It's super hard to get them without being caught but so worth it!

Danny continued talking to BatShadow about pictures and superheroes. Eventually switching to personal interest. Danny learns that BatShadow skateboards and in turn he tells them all about the stars. By the end of their conversation it was well into the night, Jazz wasn't going to be pleased. It was worth it though.

—-----

Danny ended up messaging again the next day, and the day after that. The other user was interesting and he was just so broad. Especially during these long summer days where Sam was off at some gala trip and Tucker was on vacation with his family. His parents being busy in the Lab at all hours and Jazz working a summer job didn't help. Even with Jazz trying to get him out of the house but it never really was worth it. Not with Dash and his gaggle out. Not without his friends there.

It's not like anyone besides Jazz would care about what he was doing online. Their parents were too caught up in drawing out plans and blueprints for a ghost portal or something. He doesn't care, it's more of the same for him. Don't get him wrong, he loved his parents and they loved him. They just pay more attention to their inventions, and this one happens to be one Danny can't help out with.

He's getting distracted. Danny was supposed to be cleaning the lab, not thinking of long gone days. It was taking way longer than he thought it would. His parents really aren't as careful with their samples as they really should be. After cleaning spilled ectoplasm from the vent grates he will finally be done, then he can get on the computer and add BatShadow on Steam. They were going to play Portal 2 together later.

—----

Tim didn't think he would still be talking to ConstellationCruiser. It was unexpected, but not unwelcome. He wouldn't admit it to anyone, (if there was anyone to talk to in the first place), but he was lonely. So, sue him if he got attached to the other kid with too much free time on their hands. They may not have told each other their ages but it wasn't hard to figure out, they talked too similar.

It was nice to really connect with someone his age. ConstellationCruiser was smart like him, just in different areas. He had learned more about the stars and space travel in the last handful of months than he ever had in his 12 years of life. He knows he wasn't any better, going on about hacking and maybe the new murder mystery that came out. It was fun, learning about the other's interests and different things than what's normal for them. 

ConstellationCruiser's parents seem to have some type of lab in the basement of their house, which was cool in concept but concerning in practice. There have been times where they had to stop in the middle of a game they were playing together to check on an explosion they heard. It happened more than Tim was comfortable with but there's nothing he can really do about it. It's not like he was anyone better about certain aspects of his life either. He avoided the topic of food as much as possible, though it seems ConstellationCruiser is doing the same thing with the topic.

Tim just hopes the other won't worry over him not responding the next couple of days. He probably should warn them but this is time sensitive. Batman needs a Robin. The man is running himself into the ground. His new found grief choking him and by extension Gotham. He has to convince Nightwing to come back, no matter what it takes.

[braveclementine]

Chapter 3

Warnings: None. (Will however be a 18+ reader book)

Copyright: I do not own any Marvel characters or locations. However, I do own a few OCs like Elizabeth, Katherine, Stacy, and Jessie. I do not condone any copying of this.

"Seriously, where were you?" Your sister demanded, arms crossed, looking down at your slumped frame against the door.

"It's a long story. Like a long, long story." You muttered, getting your feet, trudging past your younger sister to get to the kitchen, "What's for dinner?"

"I thought you came home from work early?" Y/S/N scrutinized.

You sighed. "I did. Then I went for a week. I mean a walk. And I met my soulmates."

"All of them?" Y/S/N asked incredulously.

You nodded.

"So why are you so glum? Was it to painful hearing all of their names at once?"

"Am I glum?" You questioned in surprise. "I'm not unhappy. . . just surprised and a little overwhelmed."

"Do you like them?" Y/S/N asked.

"Oh yeah, they're great." You responded, trying to figure out how you would categorize them. "Everyone likes them."

"Who are they?"

"The Avengers."

Silence.

She snorted, "Y/N-"

You sighed, holding your arm out. "Spider-Man dropped me off."

Silence again.

"How much do they know about you?" She asked.

"Nothing. And I know nothing about them."

"Oh, well I got a song that could help with that. It's called We didn't start the fire. It's a lovely little song, lets you know small tidbits about the superheroes."

"Ah." You muttered.

"So, who all did you get?"

She sat down across from you, taking your arm into her hands. "Oh my God Thor? Lucky bitch. Oh my God and Tony Stark and the King of Wakanda and Steve Rogers? Oh, but you got Loki and Bucky though."

"They're not that bad." You said with a frown. "Loki was actually very. . . sweet."

"He tried to take over Earth."

"Minor character flaw?"

"And Bucky is a trained assassin!"

"Because HYDRA messed with his brain." You pointed out. "Not him himself."

"Mm, fair enough. Are you sure you'll be okay around them though?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" You felt your feathers being ruffled slightly as your younger sister had a go at some of your soulmates.

"I'm just saying, some of them are dangerous. And they work in a dangerous line of business. If the wrong people found out that you were half- probably more than half- of the Avengers soulmates, you could be a target!"

"It's not like I have a choice!" You snapped. "They're my soulmates and that's that. I can't change it. I can't just walk away from it. Alright? I would give anything to be normal and have just one, maybe two soulmates. You know I've always covered these up. You know I've never wanted an entire freaking orgy of soulmates!"

"Alright, chill girl." Y/S/N said. "I'm just saying, you're going to have to be prepared. It's not everyday you find out your soulmate is the King of Wakanda."

"Right." You murmured.

"And for dinner, Y/S/BF/N (Your sister's boyfriend's name) and I are going out for dinner." your sister finished. "You're welcome to join us, of course."

Though they were married, she wasn't quite eighteen yet and wasn't allowed to move in with him until she turned of age. However, if soulmates found their mate before eighteen they were allowed to get married at the earliest age of sixteen. However, they had to be eighteen to live together.

And the reason that we weren't with our parents was because. . . well that's a whole other story.

"I'll cook." You yawned, not even sure if you were hungry.

"Alright." She said, dancing out of her chair and heading for the front hallway, "See you when I get home."

The door closed behind her.

You sighed, getting out of your chair to pad into the kitchen. Opening the cupboards and refrigerator, you went easy on yourself and threw together a small meal of Y/F/F.

*Meanwhile at the Avengers Compound*

Tony, Stephen, Thor, Loki, Steve, Bucky, Sam, Clint, T'Challa, Rhodey, and Fury all sat in a large living room like room.

"I can't believe we all have the same soulmate." Rhodey sighed. He was very simple, liked everything simple. He would've been pleased to have a soulmate that was with him and him alone. He'd always liked having only one band. Just the two of them and a family. Well, now things were just slightly- a lot- complicated.

Tony rested his chin on Stephen's shoulder, "I'm not sure why you're surprised. We've all seen each other's wrists everyday. We all knew we'd have the same soulmate. The colours always changed at the same time and everything."

"We'll have to keep an eye on her." Fury said, always in survival mode. "Make sure that she's a safe person to have around, and make sure that she's never in danger."

"You worry to much." Clint said.

"Why don't we just invite her into the tower?" Steve asked. "We have plenty of rooms upstairs."

"We did just meet her. . . six hours ago." Loki deadpanned. "I doubt she'll be highly receptive to move in so early."

"I'm already planning weddings in my head." Thor announced happily, munching on a pop tart.

Loki groaned, putting his head in his hand. "To fast, much to fast."

"We could all just spend some one-on-one time with her, or as groups." T'Challa suggested. "Stephen and Tony. The three of you. Thor and Loki. Clint and Rhodey. Fury and I. That way we're not overwhelming her with to many people that she needs to get to know. And we can also get to know her better than if all twelve of us tried to get to know her at the same time."

"That's a good idea." Sam said, shrugging.

"I'm more worried about your guys wedding." A new voice said from the doorway. Dr. Banner stood, leaning in the doorway.

"Come again?" Rhodey asked.

Bruce sighed, walking forward, folding his glasses up to stick in his pocket, "For example, Nat and I. When we got married, she got a bit of my hulk strength and in return, I got some of her flexibility. We have two gods, two super soldiers, and one immortal here. I don't know how exactly that'll work on her body. Not to mention, the fact that Fury is bonded to Agent Hill means that she will get something from Agent Hill as well, even though they're not bonded. Like how Fury got a trait from Coulson even though they aren't bonded, because Coulson and Hill are bonded."

"Is there even a way to make sure she doesn't get our more. . . dangerous traits?" Bucky asked quietly, his metal hand clenching into a fist.

"It's random." Bruce said with a shake of his head. "You'll just have to wish luck. It's not like you can put it off, you know. You have one year to court her and a second year to get the wedding together. Especially since she's over the age of eighteen."

"This is exhausting." Rhodey grumbled.

"I also agree with Steve." Bruce continued, putting his hands into his pockets, "It would be much safer for her to move into the Compound or the Tower, whichever you guys feel you'd rather live at."

"Let's invite her over tomorrow!" Tony said enthusiastically, practically bouncing up and down where he sat. Stephen flicked his ear lightly. "Knock it off."

"I say we go with T'Challa's idea." Stephen said simply. "Start with one of the groups tomorrow."

"Yeah, she takes the taxi to work so I could drive her." Tony said enthusiastically.

Rhodey groaned, "I don't even want to know how you know she takes the taxi to work."

"Well, it is New York." Sam pointed out. "Almost everyone takes Taxis or subways. It's a pain to try and drive your own car."

"Yes! Stephen and I will drive her tomorrow!" Tony said, bouncing again.

Bruce cleared his throat as Stephen flicked Tony's ear again, "You should go in reverse order of meeting her. So Stephen and Loki could take her to work tomorrow."

Everyone stared at Bruce.

"You want me to work with the guy who made me fall for thirty minutes?" Loki questioned.

"Sure." Bruce said with a shrug. "Or it can be Stephen and Fury and then you and Thor. But as she's already spent a bit of time with King T'Challa and Tony, well it's probably a good idea to start with those she barely met. That way you aren't starting off with supposed favoritism."

"That makes sense." Steve said, stroking Bucky's hair.

"Well, I'm glad that's settled." Nick said, getting up out of the chair he'd been sitting in. "See you at the next meeting. Don't die."

"Cheerful." Clint muttered before moving away to probably go and sleep in the vents.

The others dispersed accordingly.

*Next Day*

There was a knock on the door as you put the finishing touches to your makeup, getting ready for work. A white blouse covered about half of your lines, showing about four of them. A knee-length black skirt and your heels were somewhere in the front hallway, only to be put on last minute.

You hurried down the hallway- your sister having already left for school- opening the door which revealed a rather comfortable looking Stephen Strange wearing blue jeans, a red T-shirt, and a black suit jacket you swore probably belonged to Tony. And also a rather uncomfortable looking Loki who was dressed in the same black outfit as yesterday.

"Oh." You said in obvious surprise, not expecting two of your soulmates you'd met for about a minute and twelve seconds standing on your doorstep. "Er- come in."

"Do you normally let strangers into your house?" Loki asked as they stepped inside. You'd headed back down the hallway to put the makeup case away.

"Only charming ones." You called over your shoulder without looking back.

"I like her." Loki snickered.

You blushed as you shoved everything away before shutting off the bathroom.

"Sorry, but I am on my way to work." You said apologetically.

"We know, we're here to take you there." Stephen said with a shrug. "Thought you'd prefer it to spending money on a taxi or a subway ticket."

"Thank you." You said. "Lead the way then."

You shut off the lights in the apartment, wishing it was just slightly cleaner before you met Loki and Stephen back at the front door.

"We spoke as a group last night." Stephen said as the three of you stood in the elevator. "We said we'd take the relationship as slowly as possible within the Government rules, that way we don't overwhelm you."

"Thank you." You answered sincerely. "I didn't expect to meet all eleven of my soulmates on one day. Or expect that they'd all know each other. Or that half of them would have super powers of some sort of well, no offense Mr. Laufeyson, but not entirely human."

"You can call me Loki. No offense taken. I know I'm a God." Loki said with a slight smirk.

You studied him out of the corner of your eye. He was truly a beautiful specimen. No facial hair, his face extremely smooth with a pale complexion. His inky black hair was curly in waves. He carried himself with an air of elegance and self-assurance.

I flicked my eyes to look at the opposite man. He was just as tall, his facial hair giving a very smart appearance. His eyes looked like galaxies, his hair smooth and combed over on his head. He was a bit more relaxed than Loki was, though Loki had relaxed more since the front door.

The car that was waiting in front of the apartment building made you raise an eye. "This is yours?"

"Tonys." Stephen said it like an explanation.

"Of course." You murmured. Loki opened the back door so that the two of you could climb into the back while Stephen climbed into the passenger seat.

"This is Happy." Stephen introduced the two of you.

Happy simply nodded and you gave a smile, settling back into your seat.

"Would you like to come to the Avengers Tower after work?" Loki asked quietly.

You thought about it, "Yes, that sounds nice. Thank you. Are you sure I won't be imposing?"

"Not at all. Steve, Tony, and Clint are all for you moving in yesterday." Stephen chuckled. "Some of us had to convince them that it's a little to soon and that you might get overwhelmed if we asked you to move in with us today."

"Thor is ecstatic." Loki murmured, "He's already planning weddings in his mind. Mind you though, he's been without a soulmate for a thousand and a half years."

"Haven't you as well?" I questioned.

"No, only 1,058 years." Loki said with a smirk. "442 years less."

I chuckled. "I'm surprised though. Would've thought as Gods you would've had several soulmates?"

"For the longest time we didn't even have colours. Of course, that's not uncommon when it comes to Godlings. We usually wait for soulmates for a couple hundred, couple thousand years. And when we do, we are ecstatic."

It was all fascinating and you found yourself at your job far to soon for your liking. You were just slightly disappointed.

Loki took your hand, kissing the back of your knuckles again, "We'll see you after work my Queen."

Stephen had opened your door without you realizing and you quickly stepped out, making Jessie crash into Katherine as she stopped on the sidewalk.

Stephen placed a kiss on your forehead. "See you after work."

Forward, but it was to sweet to be weird. You were getting butterflies and starting to wonder if you really wanted to wait two years to get married.

"Y/N!" Katherine screeched, making you jump as the expensive car drove off. "Some explaining to do!"

"At lunch." You hissed. "Come on, we have work."

Katherine, Jessie, and Stacy were incredibly impatient as they waited for their lunch break to come. Once it did, they practically dragged you from the office so that the four of you could sit yourselves down at Big Boys, deciding to do the buffet as lunch.

You decided on breakfast for lunch, putting a few pancakes, sausage links, bacon, eggs, and cinnamon rolls along with apple/orange/grape juice as a drink.

"Explain, explain!" Jessie said.

"Shh." You hissed, rolling up your sleeve, "Stay quiet, it's supposed to be a secret."

Jessie, Stacy, and Katherine leaned over your arm to see what was there. They were the few along with your sister that knew how many soulmates that you had. Their mouths just kept dropping farther and farther until Katherine squealed, "OMG THEY'RE ALL THE AVENGERS!"

Stacy and you tackled her to get her to shut up. "SHH!" You both hissed, getting stares from the others around, though they didn't seem to really care about what you were talking about.

"Yeesh." You whined, leaning back in your seat. "I don't know if I'm lucky or cursed."

"Lucky." The other three answered.

"Seriously, you'll be one of the safest people in the city." Katherine said, eyes big as saucers as she rubbed the silver mark of her unknown soulmate.

"Unless someone from HYDRA was here and overheard your big mouth." Jessie teased Katherine.

"Yeah right." Stacy said rolling her eyes. "I'd like to see a big hulking HYDRA agent in a Big Boys."

You all laughed at the ludicrousness of the comment. After you finished lunch, you went back to work, completely unaware of the watchful eyes on your back.

⬅️➡️

[absolutely-esme]

I had a couple more thoughts.

The first relates to Dani being disappointed when she realized she wasn't going to make it back in time for Bruce's birthday. I think it would be funny for Dani to randomly turn up at some point with a late birthday present that's kind of out there. Probably some weird thing she found in her travels.

Could be anything from a little kitschy knickknack from some small, obscure country to a really weird object from another realm, but I think the weirder the better. Like, this little girl randomly shows up, enthusiastically hands Bruce a bizarre item that she found somewhere, and then disappears with no explanation.

I guess it could also be some Fenton Works equipment paired with a mysterious mention of how "Grandma and Grandpa fixed the Specter deflector so it prevents overshadowing without hurting any ghost the wearer touches." I just find the option of Bruce being left holding something that looks like either a weird rock formation or some kind of fungus or egg attached to a stalagmite with no idea what to do with it funnier.

On the one hand, it's a gift from his ghostly little sister. On the other hand he has no idea what it is or if it's dangerous in some way the ghost child didn't realize.

The second thought I had is about Deadman being the one who has answers. In the cartoon, the ghosts all knew who and what Danny was. Apparently the creation of a half-ghost is hot gossip in the zone. Most of them don't bring his condition to the awareness of humans. Apart from the mutually assured destruction situation with Vlad, the closest any of the ghosts come to using Danny's secret identity against him is when Walker makes life really difficult for him by launching a smear campaign and stirring up anti-ghost sentiment in Amity Park.

I kind of headcanon that spreading private matters of the dead amongst the living is something ghosts just don't do. They gossip amongst themself, and they'll even chat with living folks about things that aren't private for the ghosts involved, but they don't air ghosts' secrets to the living. It's not exactly a moral thing, it's just how they do. They just don't tend to have any interest in doing so. The only reason it even came up with Danny and Vlad is because they're both half human.

That said, the fact that Danny, Sam, and Ellie are reincarnations and seems to be trying to reconnect with people from their previous lives might mean that talking to Bruce about their history might not register as "telling the living about a ghost's private business." He wouldn't broadcast it to the world or tell random people, but he can clear up a misunderstanding with their son.

So Deadman tells the tale of Danny Fenton/Phantom as he knows it. Basically it's an overview of the broad strokes of Danny's superhero career and how he became king. It is probably incomplete and not entirely accurate because Deadman wasn't there for any of it and learned most (if not all) of what he knows from stories that had been told and re-told several times before reaching him.

Deadman cheerfully and obliviously delivering a whole new crisis. They got answers about how they can register as both reincarnations and ghosts. Now they have entirely new unanswered questions.

After moving to Gotham and having to deal with a stressful job, Danny has started taking walks around the city as a way to destress.

Since he knows that he could get mugged, he just becomes intangible and invisible while listening to some loud music on his phone.

Unfortunately for him, his control on his Invisibility keeps slipping when he gets lost in his music, and the people of Gotham keep seeing a semi-translucent ghost man walking around at night aimlessly.

Some thugs think it���s just a meta with invisibility and try to mug him, but pass right through and he disappears completely. This convinces them that he is a ghost, since having both invisibility, and intangibility would be too big a coincidence. Not to mention he never reacts to them whatsoever.

The Bat’s get word that a Ghost has been stalking the streets of Gotham, and he looks scarily like Bruce Wayne from the little they have been able to see from him. Now Batman thinks his dad may have come back as a ghost.

Danny is oblivious to all of this. He just likes his nightly strolls.

[saryasy]

“Oh, no...”

A sambucky ficlet with a bit of Sarah & Bucky friendship, 'cos we need more of it.

-----

"So. this place was your parents'?" Bucky asked Sarah after he’d finished lifting some particularly heavy boxes.

"Yep"

"And you took over after them?" he was now sitting on a stool next to her workstation, nursing a beer he couldn't turn down, especially in this hot weather.

"Yeah. At first it was gonna be Sam, but it wasn't his thing. Once he was outta high school he enrolled, and well, you know the rest."  Sarah on her end was busy preparing food for a couple that just walked in.

"Not really. He rarely talks about the past, at least with me." Bucky sighed.

"Well, give him some time. The past few years have been hard on him."

"What about you?"

"What about me, Bucky?" asked Sarah with an amused smile.

"I can't imagine how those years have been for you. Sam left you alone to look all over the world for me - sorry for that again" Sarah huffed a small laugh, but Bucky continued "then there was the blip, and now he's Captain America. You were left to not only take care of this place and keep it up and running, but to also raise two smart boys. It couldn't've been easy."

Sarah looked wistful for a moment and stopped cutting the vegetables sitting on her cutting board. Bucky could see a single tear forming in her eye, before she shook her head and returned to the task at hand "Yeah, well, I managed."

"And for that you’re more of a superhero than any of us," with that she gave him a slap on the arm and left to take care of her customers, chuckling lightly.

"I mean it!!" Bucky yelled after her.

 He waited for her to come back before saying "You don't have to go through it all on your own anymore, you know? Sam and I are just a 10-minute drive away, and I don't go on missions as much as he does. Whenever you need help, you call me. Even if you need someone to look after they boys so you could take a day off and relax, god knows you deserve it."

"Well, thank you, Bucky"

"My pleasure, Sarah"

~

As soon as she left him, his phone rang.

"Hi, Sam"

"Hey, Buck. Where you at?"

"Your sister's restaurant. What's up?"

"Not much. Can you pick up some food? I don't feel like cooking."

"Sure thing, Sammy."

"You call me that and I might never cook again."

"You're saying that like it's a bad thing." Bucky shot back with a smirk.

"Oh, so it's like that?"

"It's like that." it wasn't really like that. Bucky loved Sam's cooking. In the few months they'd been living together as roommates (it was easier for missions) Bucky had the delight of trying southern food on the hands of Sam Wilson. It was the best he'd had in a long time (not that he'd ever admit it.) He even started trying some of the recipes on his own, a few were disasters, but he was getting there.

"We'll see how it is when you miss that sweet, sweet jambalaya." Sam knew Bucky's weaknesses and used them wisely.

"Yeah, ok ya caught me, I could never live without it." The bark of laughter from the other end made Bucky’s heart flutter. It was quite possibly the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard. The best symphony out there was nothing in comparison to this. Bucky was still confused about a lot of things in this world, but he knew this: He loved that sound and was willing to spend his entire life trying his best to be the cause of it.

Bucky raised his eyes and caught sight of Sarah’s amused smirk. He quickly cleared his throat before speaking again "Ok, gotta go."

 "Don't forget the food!"

"I won't."

"Don't be late I'm hungry."

"I won't."

"And bring me that-"

 "Ok, bye, Sam, love you." With a small smile he placed the phone back in his pocket and was about to return to his talk with Sarah, but the mischievous look in her eyes stopped him dead in his tracks. "What?"

"Oh, you poor thing. You have no idea what you just said, do you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." and just as he took a sip of his bear, it dawned on him, and he started coughing violently. Bear was coming out of his nose, and drooling from his mouth, it was disgusting. Thankfully, Sarah handed him a few tissues to clean up with that playful look still there.

Once he was done, his face was flushing hot. There was no telling whether it was from the violent riff he’d just had, or the sheer embarrassment he was feeling (spoiler alert: it was the latter).

He dared make eye contact with Sarah again to ask "Did I just..."

"Yep" she didn't even give him a chance to finish.

"Oh, no..." He groaned and started rubbing his eyes with his fists, willing this nightmare to end.

 Sarah just gave him a pat on the back and left him to stew in the disaster that was Bucky Barnes.

[mercurysstars]

All That Glitters Is Not Gold (part 6)

Summary: Y/n gets hired to be the avengers chief physician and also happens to be an ex assassin.

Word count: 2.1k

Warnings: swearing, the reader getting angry, violence. 

A/N: hope you’re having a better day than Y/n ;)

𝘞𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘦

𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘬𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘥𝘪𝘥

𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨?

_

Y/n's stomach grumbled as she made her way toward the kitchen. Between getting her room organized and training with Peter for 2 hours she didn't get a chance to eat and it was really catching up with her now. She groaned rubbing her face while she yanked the refrigerator door opened. After searching for several minutes she decided to give up and make a sandwich.

Y/n grabbed the bread and a plate out of a cupboard, she returned to the fridge and pulled out meat, cheese, lettuce, and just as she was about to grab a tomato her phone rang. Without checking the caller ID, Y/n answered, balancing the phone between her ear and shoulder. "Y/n Y/l/n speaking."

"Hey, doc it's Matt we've got kinda a situation here." Matt hesitated, Y/n could hear muffled yelling in the background.

"Okay? What's up?" She was confused it wasn't like him to call out of the blue and it was especially weird for him to not sound sure of himself, he was a lawyer, and lawyers always put on a confident front even if they weren't. Y/n began to cut the tomato into thin slices.

"So I kinda have one of his men tied to a chair in my living room." He blurted out quickly.

Well, that was unexpected "Are you sure it's one of his?" She asked cautiously.

"Yeah I checked, he has the branding. I normally would have just questioned him and texted you but the thing is he only speaks Latin."

She sighed, all Y/n wanted to do was eat 5 sandwiches, snuggle up in her comfortable bed and binge-watch the umbrella academy "Alright put him on the phone."

Y/n heard what sounded like the phone getting set down and the floorboard squeaking under Matt's weight. She heard a bit of wrestling and the sound of tape getting ripped off of something. She heard a quick shuffling and Matt picked the phone back up "Here he is."

"Sumus iens ut satus off facile. cur in New York." She questioned. Y/n started to make her sandwich again. We are going to start off easy. Why are you in New York?

"Im 'non adnuntiant vobis cacas." He hissed. This man was definitely one of his. Y/n rolled her eyes not in the mood for this. I'm not telling you shit.

"Iniuriam. Te volo experior quod iterum?" She purred. Wrong. You want to try that again?

At that moment Bucky decided to wander into the kitchen he heard someone speaking Latin and his curiosity got the better of him. He saw Y/n leaning against the counter talking to someone on the phone. Her eyes snapped up to meet his 'You want one' she mouthed to him nodding toward her sandwich. He shook his head and she shrugged.

The muffled talking through the phone caused an angry tick to Y/n's jaw "Pone super daredevil." She gritted out through clenched teeth. Put daredevil back on.

Y/n had to take a moment to collect herself before she threw something at the wall "Hey I'll be there in a bit." She hung up and when she turned back to Bucky her face softened.

He didn't know what to say, he's never seen someone 180 that quickly in his long life "Quite the conversation you had going on there." He tried to break the silence.

She chuckled nonchalantly "Oh yeah just some idiot that won't do what he was told."

"I didn't know you knew how to speak other languages." He quipped.

Oh Bucky you only know a part of me, I am a universe full of secrets she thinks. "I don't kiss and tell Sarge." She instead said.

Right after the words left her mouth Tony walked into the kitchen. "Hey, Sunshine I've got a meeting so I'm going to have to cancel for tonight."

Y/n's eyes lingered on Bucky for a few seconds then she turned to Tony "Convenient because I have some business in Hell's Kitchen to take care of."

Tony opened his mouth to press further until she added "Don't ask because you don't want to know."

Bucky ever the curious couldn't help himself or keep his mouth shut and blurted "What if I want to know."

Y/n raised an eyebrow at the super-soldier, amused "Would torturing a man until he confesses answer your question?"

She turned and walked out of the kitchen. Bucky's eyes went comically wide "She's joking right?"

Tony pinched the bridge of his nose at her recklessness and shook his head "Stay safe." He yelled back to Y/n.

_

Y/n let herself into Matt's apartment he have given her a key when he moved in. When Y/n was younger her father decided that she needed further training so he hired a blind war vet that specialized in martial arts. There she met Matt they clicked instantly him being only 2 years old, he taught them how to hear things others couldn't smell more things that you wouldn't believe was possible, how to heal faster, and even how to fight without seeing.

Y/n walked down the poorly lit hallway leading to his living room just wanting to get think over with. In the living room, the man had a cloth covering his eyes, hands were tied behind the chair behind his back and each leg was tied to the bottom of the chair. Matt was leaning against the counter already waiting for her arrival, he nodded toward her, acknowledging her presence.

Y/n sauntered over to the man, she lifted up the corner of his shirt and tisked "Mark of Cain, definitely one of his men."

The man began to thrash around hearing her voice, she pulled the eye cover off and smirked "Heu est dere." Hey there hun.

"Pedicabo ego vos bitch." He spat furiously.  fuck you bitch.

Y/n frowned at him "Bene quod suus 'non ut salutaret domina." That's no way to greet a lady.

She stood up and patted his cheek giving him a sickening smile that gave him the chill "Sit scriptor committitur. Cur ipse mittet vobis?" Let's start. Why did he send you?

"Irrumabo." He growled, the man jumped at her but the restraints didn't allow him to get far. Suck my dick.

Annoyance began to trickle down her spine and anger rushed through her body. "ego suadeant vos satus loquentes." She snapped in an angry tone. I suggest you start talking.

"Terrebis me non ex vobis, qui non vis tua boyfriend est vulputate." I'm not scared of you or that want to be superhero boyfriend of yours.

No longer being able to control her anger Y/n grabbed him by his hair and tilted his face up "Take a vultus, vultus diu, et bonum dicitur lets videre tua si adhuc durat." She fumed. Take a look, a good long look, and let's see if your statement still stands.

The man studied her face for several moments before recognition flickered through his eyes "Lamia." He breathed. Lilith.

"Nunc autem dic mihi, quid invenerunt in me pater meus!" She shouted her patience ran out long ago and she didn't hesitate to show it. Now tell me how he found me!

"Cur te et ipsum interrogate." The man taunted. Why don't you go and ask him.

The grip on his hair tightened and she lowered down eye level to him "Ego suadeant tu dicas, quod primus est I. cut off vos erant 'iens ut ne nimis" she pulled out her knife and nodded downward. I suggest you tell me because the first thing I cut off you're not going to like very much.

The man's eyes went wide and he attempted to squeeze his legs together. Fear settled into his stomach, he didn't know if she would keep her promise but he also didn't want to find out.

"Hoc tantum scio, aliquem cum Vindices compositis ei" He squeaked out. All I know is someone at the Avengers compound told him.

She didn't let her shook show, she kept her face cold and calculated even though her heart was beating a million miles per minute. "Si igitur deus, auxilium tu mihi mendacem." So help me God if you're lying.

"Im 'non ego promissionem." He exclaimed and Y/n believed him, she tended to have that effect on people. I'm not I promise.

"O Deus, hes 'iens ut interficias me." He muttered shaking his head. Oh god, he's going to kill me.

The man kept whispering to himself and Y/n grew tired and shoved a sock in his mouth. She stood back up and turned to Matt. "Dump him on 23rd street, my father will take care of him soon enough."

_

Y/n blew on her hot cocoa watching the mini marshmallows swirling around, sure it the middle of September but it was her comfort drink. She tried to go over everyone she knew in the compound. How could she be so dumb? How could she let her guard down? She was trained better than this. It didn't matter now what she did or didn't do, but Y/n knew she wouldn't make the same mistake twice.

Y/n could hear the elevator ding from her office and she was confused. All the Avengers were either busy with training or on a mission. She set down her mug on her desk.  A blonde head of hair peaked its head in. "Dr. Y/l/n?"

"Teresa how can I help you?" She questioned. Y/n was confused as to why she was up here Teresa shouldn't even be able to get past the 5th floor.

Teresa stepped closer with her hands behind her back "I got a paper cut stapling some papers together and I came up here for a bandaid."

Teresa was looking everywhere but at her. Y/n could tell she was lying but about what? Then it clicked, how he found out where she was, the weird look she gave her, what Sam said about her sudden move down to the front desk, but then the question struck again. Why was she up- she was up here to kill her.

Teresa lunged at Y/n with the knife she had hidden in her hands behind her back. Y/n went to block but she wasn't quick enough and Teresa cut a long strip down her arm and she hissed, it hurt more than she remembered. Teresa went to slash her again but Y/n grabbed her wrist and twisted causing her to drop the knife.

Y/ n grabbed her mug and smashed it over her head, Teresa staggered backward falling into a bookshelf. Teresa cocked her gun and began to fire, Y/n leaped over the table to take cover behind her desk. Her gun was on the other side of the office strapped underneath a chair. Bullets blew past her body, she shielded her head with her arms, the gun clicked signaling it was out of bullets.

She rolled from under her desk onto her feet. This time Y/n rushed toward Teresa, she threw 2 punches which Teresa both blocked, but the 3rd one Y/n got a hit to her cheek. Teresa attempted to throw a kick but failed, she went down and swept her legs. Y/n fell backward, she rolled onto her hands and shoulder, she pushed up causing her to land right side up, Y/n's movements were a bit slower and staggered due to the blood loss.

Teresa went to hit her but then Y/n grabbed her arm and the back of her neck and smashed Teresa's face into a mirror. With a bloody face, Teresa peeled herself off the wall Y/n collapsed feeling lightheaded. Teresa stood over with her knife ready in hand, she brought her hand up into the air, but Y/n grabbed the from under her chair and shot her right between the eyes. Teresa collapsed backward and the knife slide across the floor.

"FRIDAY Initiate the red button protocol." She coughed out.

"Alerting Avengers now."

Y/n grabbed her arm and hissed, she shouldn't have collapsed this soon, even if it was a cut this big, and the sting was worst too, but then she put it together Teresa would have had a better chance to kill her if she laced the knife with something.

She heard Bucky calling out her name "In here." She chocked out. Bucky rounded the corner to her office and ran in, there were papers scattered everywhere, the desks and chairs knocked over, glass broken. He crouched beside Y/n she was fighting consciousness.

"No Y/n don't you fall asleep on me." He demanded putting her head in his lap.

"It'll be okay Buck." She patted his cheek in a comforting manner.

"No, no, no, hold on they will be here in 30 seconds" He pleaded. That was the last thing Y/n heard before everything went dark.

Part 7

[rocksandrobots]

Phantoms of the Past: Ch. 5 - Best friends, Boyfriends, and Barons Part 1

"Hey Miss Itamae! Ready for a whole new school year? Hee...hee...eeeh.... yeah, fine." Hiro gave up trying to make small talk with the lunch lady as she unceremoniously slopped meatloaf onto his plate.

Today was the first day of the fall semester and the start of Hiro's second year at SFIT.  It felt odd to him, to look back and realize just how much time had passed; how much things had changed during the previous year.

A year ago, today, he had been attending Tadashi's funeral and now he was going about his life as if everything was normal. Well, almost normal. He was also moonlighting as a superhero, adopting an out of time teenager as his new big brother, and befriending deadly robots.

Life was weird.

Of course it wasn't as if he could ignore his loss completely. He had noticed the flowers and cards placed at the foot of Tadashi's memorial over by the exhibition hall. People still remembered that his brother had died a hero. Folks that he didn't even know had left their condolences today, though most of the gifts were from Tadashi's teachers and friends.

Hiro had particularly noticed a painting Honey Lemon had left, of her, Tadashi, and the rest of their friends. He also spotted Gogo sitting out there early that morning, lighting a candle in his brother's memory. He had given her her space, choosing not to interrupt. Gogo and Tadashi had been especially close.

Hiro remembered how excited his brother had been when Gogo finally agreed to go out with him. Tadashi had hurried about their bedroom, a couple of days before the fire, fretting over where to take her on their first date. A date that they had never gotten to go on. At the time Hiro had teased him relentlessly, never passing up the chance to deflate his brother's ego. Now it was just another bittersweet memory to look back on.

Fred abruptly snapped him out of his mournful reflection. "Steve." was all he said as he grabbed Hiro by the shoulders.

"Steve? Uh, my name is Hiro, remember Fred?"

"No, no, no, Steve was the name of the ninja robot that Trina found. She said he was held in a warehouse downtown, along with all the other ninjas. Don't you see, that's our big break! We find this warehouse and then we can track down the mysterious bosu!"

Hiro wearily placed his tray down on the table and took a seat next to Wasabi.

"Fred, it's the first day of school. Can't this wait for later?"

"But-"

"Hiro's right Fred," Wasabi interrupted, "Just because you have all the time in the world to play superhero doesn't mean that we do. We still got our own lives to take care of."

Fred looked hurt at that. "I'm not playing! This is important work. We have a city to protect and this crime boss is just going to keep coming after us if we don't figure out how to stop them."  

Wasabi rolled his eyes. "Then you just go on and do that. In the meantime the rest of us have class to attend. I'm heading early to set up for my first lab."

"But labs won't open for like another hour." Hiro pointed out, confused. "They're still cleaning up from the robot attacks last week."

"Ah, he just wants to get there early so that he can see his boyfriend again." Fred complained.

"Sam's not my boyfriend. He's just a colleague, and at least I'm doing something other than obsess over superheroing." And with that Wasabi stormed off, while Fred slouched into the cafeteria chair with a huff.

"Listen, Fred, why don't you go on patrol with Minimax for a while. I'll help you track down this warehouse after school is over with." Hiro said.

"Okay," Fred reluctantly agreed, "but I'm not 'obsessing'."

"I know Fred, but the rest of us also have school to worry about. We just don't have the same amount of free time as you do."

"I know." Fred sighed before walking off.

                                                ---------------------------

"Sorry Hiro, but we're kind of busy right now." Honey Lemon regretfully informed her friends.

Fred and Hiro had met up after school as promised. Wasabi had declined to join them on their quest and so they had decided to recruit the girls instead. Though this also seemed to be a fruitless endeavor.

"Yeah, we're kind of in the middle of something." Gogo finished as she leaned back in a reclining chair and placed two cucumber slices over her eyes.

They had found the girls at a spa. Honey Lemon sat next to Gogo with curlers in her hair, and they apparently weren't the only ones out having a beauty day.

"Can't you see we're having some girl time?" Karmi asked, annoyed, as she examined her nails.

"Yeah, Hiro, go take your weird superhero hobby elsewhere?" Megan added.

"It's not weird!" Fred insisted.

"If this is supposed to be a girls only event, then why is he here?" Hiro said, pointing to Varian, who sat next to Megan.

"Uh, getting a manicure obviously." Varian rolled his eyes and then leaned over to show Carol, who was beside him, two bottles of nail polish. "Do you think I should go with the midnight blue or just stick with black?"

"Hmmm... I think either would be nice," she replied.

"Ooooh, have you tried the seaweed wrap they have here? It's great." Fred chimed in.

Hiro rolled his eyes, "Okay, so what are you two doing after this? Could you take up patrol tonight?"

"Nope." Gogo said.

"I promised my brother Carlos that I would help him move into his new dorm room. He starts at UCLA this week and Gogo's offered to drive me there. We won't be back till tomorrow morning." Honey Lemon explained.

"Okay, well, we'll just-"

"Alright, I'm ready." A voice called out, interrupting him.

Trina walked out from behind a door at the back of the spa. Her bulky gigantic metal body was gone and in its place was the frame of a young woman, dressed in a t-shirt, pants, and a cropped jacket. She looked very much the same as the day Hiro had first met her, at the bot fights. Only this time her hair had been cut and styled into a short mohawk and dyed a light purple.

"What do you guys think?" She asked as she twirled around.

Everyone shouted encouragements to her, and Varian cheekily whistled.

"You look nice, Trina." Hiro complimented.

Trina snorted and rolled her eyes. "In your dreams, Hiro." She said, leaving the teenage genius confused by what he had said wrong.

Ignoring him, Trina walked over to the rest of the girls, "Thanks for the clothes... and for everything else." She sheepishly added.

"Hey, no problem." Megan replied. "They look good on you."

"Yeah, and if you need anything else just ask." Karmi added.

"Not to mention it's always fun to have a spa day," Carol piped in. "This was a good idea Varian, thanks for inviting me along."

"Sure thing. When Trina said she wanted help with finding a new wardrobe, I figured all of you would like to go shopping too.... and also y'all know more about clothes than I do."

"Hey, Trina," Fred interjected, "that warehouse where you foun- I mean, met 'Steve', do you happen to remember where it was located?"

Trina gave Fred a frown.

"Oooh, who's Steve?" Karmi asked, happy to gossip, "Is that your boyfriend Trina?"

"No." She said, "The place you're looking for is over in Good Luck Alley, next to Louie's."

"It must've been a bad breakup." Karmi whispered into Honey Lemon's ear, she wasn't very good at keeping her voice down.

"Yeah… he kind of... broke alright." Honey Lemon nervously added, unsure what to say.

"Uh, yeah, well thanks for the tip Trina. We'll be going now, bye." Hiro said as he hurried Fred out the door. He had had enough of awkward conversations and makeovers.

                                               ---------------------------

"Fred, wouldn't it be better if we brought our robots along at least?" Hiro whispered.

"You want to sneak around an abandoned warehouse with those two?" Fred whispered back, "I love him, but Minimax doesn't know how to be quiet, like at all."

Hiro sighed, Fred had a point. Baymax also wasn't the best at stealth missions. Hiro slid into the alleyway and peered through a dirty window. He couldn't shake the sense of deja vu as he remembered how he and the robotic nurse had tracked down his missing microbots a year ago at a similar warehouse. They had both been nearly killed by Callaghan when the villain had caught them snooping around. He would prefer to avoid such a scenario again.

"It doesn't look like anyone is here." He said.

"See any ninja robots?" Fred asked as he also pushed by to get a look, pressing his nose against the glass.

"No… Fred, this may be a dead end. Trina already raided the place and no doubt this Bosu would have abandoned the hideout if it was compromised."

Fred pouted, "Maybe… Buuuut, we could always man a stake-out and find out for sure!"

"Fred, I have homework to do. Maybe some oth-"

"Oh please! Just for an hour, or two? Please, please, please? Pretty please? I'll do your homework for you."

"I don't want you doing my homework."

"Okay, chores then; I'll wash Varian's dirty socks and underwear for a… a week… no, a month! Come on, I know how much you hate doing laundry."

Hiro sighed and watched his friend crawl on his knees and beg. "Does it really mean that much to you?"

"Yeeeesss."

"Okay, and no, you don't have to do the laundry either."

Hiro turned to walk out of the alley and Fred got up and followed him.

"That's good, cause I don't actually know how to wash clothes. Usually, Heathcliff does all the laundry. Last time I tried to, I just flooded the washroom."

"Do you have any survival skills? Like at all?"

"Nope. Unless it's kicking bad guys' butts! Ooh, hey, we can host the stake-out at Louie's across the street. I'm starved."

                                               ---------------------------

Hiro and Fred took up a window booth inside the restaurant. The establishment had recovered from the police raid from a few months back and was now serving food as usual; though Hiro had already spotted the advertisement for the next upcoming 'bot fight.

A couple of hours past and they had both eaten their meals, plus dessert, along with Fred going back for seconds. Now they were both nursing a couple of cups of coffee, though Hiro's was going cold; it wasn't great coffee.

"Fred…"

"Yeah."

"It's been three hours now."

"I know."

"No one's showed up."

"Not yet."

"Look it's been… 'fun', but I'm going home now."

Hiro got up to leave but Fred grabbed him by the sleeve.

"Oh but… uhh… we haven't even tried the uh… hot dog sushi special. I hear it's really good."

Hiro leaned his head back slowly and closed his eyes in frustration. He didn't want to snap at Fred, really he didn't, but he was quickly losing his patience.

"Fred… no one is coming. Let's just call it a night and try again some other time. Okay." And with that he yanked his hand away and began to walk off.

Fred didn't follow. Instead he sat in the booth, his eyes downcast, staring blankly at nothing. It wasn't his usual pout either. It was something else. Some deeper sadness that few saw from the usually optimistic teen.

Hiro began to worry. He walked back, and stood there waiting for Fred to jump back up all excited again for his return, only he didn't.

"Fred, what's wrong?"

Fred sighed but couldn't bring himself to answer.

"Look, I know that this superhero business is important to you, so much so that you'll probably wind up making a career out of it, which is great, but the rest of us are not going to be doing this for the rest of our lives. We also have to keep up with our studies, chores, our jobs, and what little shred of a social life we have."

"That's not it… I mean yeah, it's a part of it, but that's not why I asked you to come along."

Fred finally looked Hiro in the eye and tears threatened to spill.

"I just miss my best friend, okay."

Hiro looked at him confused.

"I didn't want to say anything, cause… cause he's your brother and I didn't think you'd want to be reminded about him being gone any more than you already have… but today has just been really hard… remembering what happened… I just thought getting out and doing something fun, getting both our minds off everything, might be better than just… just being alone. You know? Especially today."

Fred didn't even have to say Tadashi's name for Hiro to know who he was talking about.

Hiro sighed and slumped back down into the booth.

"I'm sorry…. I… I guess I just… I don't know. I didn't think...."

"No… no, don't. Of course you didn't think. I mean who wants to be reminded of that. The whole idea was to not think about it. And I just ruined it all by bringing it up. Gah…. I'm so sorry."

Fred put his arms over his head and brought his knees up to his chest as if trying to make himself as physically small as he felt. Hiro just had to laugh at the sight in spite of himself.

"It's okay Fred. You're not going to upset me just by talking about Tadashi."

Fred peaked his head out from between his arms. "I'm not?"

"No. I mean he was your friend too."

"My best friend! Man, Tadashi and I, we got up to all sorts of trouble. He was always down for anything. I mean, did he tell you about the time we crashed my cousin's bar mitzvah? As in, we literally crashed. He drove the sport's car into the buffet table by mistake… We couldn't find the parking and then there was this wet patch in the parking lot and we skidded… Oh and then there was the time Mole dared us to a drag race using scooters and Tadshi had the idea to attach rockets to mine and I went flying.. I tell ya, man, Mole wouldn't live it down for a whole week after. He kept demanding a rematch, but I mean it was fair. He was using his butler to ride for him in his place."

Hiro could barely contain his laughter, "Wait… wait… you and Tadashi did all this?"

"Yeah."

"Why have I never heard of any of this before?"

"I don't know, but he's the whole reason why I got the mascot job in the first place. I knew I could never get into the school myself, but I thought we could hang out together more if I went. He's also the one that introduced me to everybody else."

"Then how did you two meet?"

"Oh at the grocery store."

Fred said this as if it was the most obvious of explanations but Hiro looked as confused as ever. So Fred continued on.

"He was there getting chewing gum and I was buying a shopping cart. Like an actual shopping cart."

"Why?"

"Yeah that's what he asked too. So I told him, 'I'm going to ride down Dead Man's Hill in one.' And he said, 'Dude, that's so rad. You're totally going to die.' And I said, 'Yeah, I know. You wanna join?' And he did. We rode all the way down from the top of Lumbar Street to the docks… and landed right in the bay. It was awesome! We screamed our heads off the whole time. It was so awesome, in fact, that we walked back to the store and bought another cart just to do it again. That was back when we were both still in high school, and we've been best buds ever since. You know… until…"

Hiro looked at Fred sadly. There so much about his brother that hadn't known about, hadn't even thought to ask. What else had Tadashi not shared with him? Probably a lot, I mean why tell your kid brother about your social life? And there's no way that he'd have brought those crazy stunts up around Aunt Cass.

"I never knew any of that… Those are some really cool stories. Thanks for sharing them."

"Really?"

"Yeah, and you know, you don't have to drag me on some superheroing mission just to hang out and talk."

Fred looked guilty at that.

"I… I know… but it's like what you and Wasabi have been saying. Everyone else has something… something to motivate them, and y'all all do all these really cool things and I'm… I'm just me. I don't really have anything but superheroing. Unless you just need someone to make a mess."

"That's not true. Fred, you're great at a lot of things. You could go to school or get a job, if you wanted to. I just thought superheroing was all you wanted."

"Hiro, I can't even do laundry without messing up. I mean all you do is throw the clothes into a machine and push a button, and yet somehow I managed to screw even that up. All I know is comic books, and superheroing, and I'm not even the best at that! What would I even go to college for? I can't… I'm not a genius. I'm not a businessman. I'm not an accountant, or an artist, or an athlete. I'm not anything. I've no talent. I'm not even good at being rich. I've never fit in with the socialite crowd."

"Fred."

"Yeah?"

"You're good at being a friend, and if I have to sit here list off everything else you're good at then we'd be here for another three hours or more. So how about we head home and tomorrow I'll show you how to work a washing machine, and you can teach me how a stake-out is supposed to really go cause we're not getting anywhere here."

"Or are we?"

"What do you mean?"

Fred was no longer looking at Hiro but past him. He pointed to the window behind Hiro, and Hiro turned around to see for himself.

An elderly gentleman, dressed in an old fashioned military outfit, complete with a monocle, was entering the warehouse. He had a giant mechanical arm and a steam boiler strapped to his back.

"Baron Von Steamer."

                                               ---------------------------

Fred and Hiro found themselves standing in the alley peering through the warehouse's dirty windows for a second time that day. They saw Baron Von Steamer stomping around inside. He seemed irritated as he grumbled to himself and knocked boxes out of the way, as if searching for something.

"What's he doing?" Fred loudly whispered.

Just then Steamer found what he was looking for, a tea cup. He poured himself a cup out of a teapot he had placed on an old fashioned stove that was hidden towards the back and then sat down on top of a crate to sip his drink.

"It must be 'tea time' for him." Hiro said dryly.

Fred narrowed his eyes, "I bet he's just hatching his next nefarious scheme. Planning on how to take us and the city down. What do you think he wants with portals?"  

Just then Steamer stood up and ruefully kicked away a busted up robot that had fallen out of a storage crate in his previous hunt for the tea cup.

"I don't think Steamer is our guy." Hiro said, "He hates modern technology, so why would he build ninja robots? Also, like you said, what would he want with portals? All he's after is your dad, and so far the Bosu hasn't gone after Boss Awesome yet."

"But they might. Remember what Roddy said? That Kensei guy used to be active during Dad's heyday but never got caught. What if, it's because Steamer had two villain identities!"

"That seems like a stretch."

"Okay, well, what if Steamer works for this Bosu? Like Sue and Sparkles?"

"That's more plausible, I guess."

Hiro turned to peer through the window again, but Streamer was gone.

'Wait, where did he go?'

"Well, well, well, what do we have here? A pair of interlopers." A curt British voice  came from behind them.

Steamer must have noticed them and snuck around the back, cutting them off.

Hiro grabbed his phone in order to call his super suit, but Von Steamer nabbed his hand and yanked him off the ground, causing him to lose hold of his phone.

Fred was just as unfortunate, as Steamer held him in a choke hold in his metal arm.

"Waaaait," Steamer said as he eyed them both up closely, peering at them through his oversized monocle, "I know you two. You're friends of Boss Awesome's baby child!"

"I am Boss Awesome's baby child!" Fred protested before Von Steamer gave him a hard squeeze with his cyborg arm. Fred wheezed in pain.

Hiro reacted quickly and kicked the steampunk baron in the shins.

Von Steamer howled in pain and dropped Hiro in surprise, though he managed to keep his grip on Fred. He also had stepped on Hiro's phone while nursing his injured leg.

Hiro ducked and ran as Steamer regained his senses and pulled out a brass gun that was connected to the boiler on his back with a hose. He pulled the trigger and scalding steam shot out. Hiro ducked again to avoid it.

As he ran out of the alley way he heard Steamer shouting after him, "Yes, run back to Boss Awesome little one. Tell his baby child I have their friend, and either he, or they, must show up to face me or else!"

Hiro spared a glace backwards and saw Baron Von Steamer dragging Fred back into the warehouse.

"Fred!"

"Hiro!" Fred called out to him before being pulled into the darkness.

Hiro panicked. What could he do? Finally, he decided that getting help was the best option. He ran as fast as his legs would carry him, fighting back his worry.

[actiongrrl]

−−−¨༺ "Did- Did you not watch the cartoon?" Sam sputtered out upon being called out about Krypto. "Like, when we were kids. There was this cartoon and they were superhero animals. Batman has a dog, too. Maybe you can be Batman if that's more your speed?" she offered. Dark and mysterious didn't really give the Mike vibe. Brooding didn't really, either, even though he would be extremely entitled to one good brood session. Granted, what he did on his own time was his own business. Likely, he brooded just a little. She did, herself. "It was super cute and I loved it when I was a kid. Definitely my own nerdy moment. Hold it over my head only when you need," she commented, giving him some ammo for later.

−−− With a sidelong glance, she noticed his smile (More a grimace if she had anything to say about it), and gave a shrug. Parents were hard to navigate. She had a great relationship with both of hers and she still had issue. Taking care of her dad, but also realising that her mother's ambition wasn't really a bad thing. Expecting either of them to be anyone they weren't was a quick lesson in frustration. But in that same thought, she didn't have a parent in the spotlight breathing down her neck and never would. It was one more thing that set her apart in that group. Sam couldn't pretend to understand what it was that Mike was going through, or what was going on in his head. But she could be there for him while he was. And it seemed that this outing for ice cream was just as much for him as it was trying to get her out of the house.

−−− "Right," Sam prompted when the conversation turned to Jess. She was glad Mike had been in contact because a large part of Sam was concerned that she had been monopolizing his time. And that wasn't fair to Jess. With the silence after he gave the update, the blonde found herself absent-mindedly nodding. There was an urge to reach out to everyone, but a knowing that they needed to heal on their own time. And she might hinder that. "It's probably better that she doesn't remember much," she admitted.

−−− There was silence once more. It seemed that was the thing nowadays. Her friends were splintered apart, each of them broken. Burnt. Trying to mend. All Sam wanted to do was run. Run away from everything. From the memories, run from the loss. Leave. But she couldn't. Not really. But an idea was planted in her head. It was surely too soon, but maybe, just maybe, Mike was feeling similarly.

−−− "Do you want to go somewhere?" she asked, quickening her pace to catch up with him after slowing down while lost in thought. "I don't mean to get ice cream. I mean, like, away. I know we just got back but everything feels.. Stifling, almost. Like things are closing in. Not far, and not long. Just.." Sam trailed off, looking up at Mike and pleading with her eyes. "Somewhere to clear our heads.."

ㅤ”Okay, he’s definitely a nerd,” he conceded about Chris, a grin offered up because she was absolutely not wrong and okay, so Mike knew some nerdy shit from proximity to Josh and Chris, but he was not the nerd of the group. He just absorbed information surprisingly well, even when he didn’t seem to be paying much attention or let on that he’d noticed. It was how he wasn’t a comics fan or even much of a Superman fan, but he knew who was playing the guy in the movies lately and some basics, and honestly, there were so many superhero movies coming out that it was hard not to know things about them. “Why are you asking me? You’re the one over here casting Krypto.”

ㅤHe figured he had her on that one because he didn’t know who Krypto was besides apparently a dog, but he took the poke to his forehead and being called ‘stud’ with a wink and slid his sunglasses back on in the sun once they were outside. It was a good act, and maybe he should have come up with more superhero stuff to talk about, anything to keep that angle going, something that didn’t feel forced. It was easier than the media, his mother or any of that, and he glanced sidelong at her when she summarized the issues rather succinctly and then hit the actual point that he’d have never voiced. There's nothing wrong with you, y'know.

ㅤHow the hell she'd realized that out of what he'd said, he'd be wondering over for awhile, though the truth was probably just that she understood him better than she really had any right to, and maybe they could relate on a few too many things. He put on a smile, and if she could see him well enough to know that comment would land, she'd be able to see that the smile was a little too forced, but it was grateful. He was pretty sure there was a lot wrong with him after that mountain, not least of which were the physical marks he had now, but talking out insecurities wasn't on his list of things to do that day. He was dragging Sam out and getting them both some fresh air and company, so they didn't need his issues hanging over their heads because his mom was too caught up in her bullshit.

ㅤ"Rainbow it is," he agreed easily, and he though he was going for the nice, safe angle rather than the hard shit because ice cream was fantastically easy, and so was a nice, sunny day, even if the chill of the wind was more than either of them probably wanted. Then came the question, and Mike winced a little, feeling guilty for no good reason because spending time with Sam certainly had no bearing on his situation with Jess, but feeling it all the same. "She's uh...well, we're all fucked up, right? She's healing well, but the doctors told her there'd be scarring and she's pretty messed up about it on top of everything else. She mostly just remembers being attacked and dragged off by some monster, hurt bad and then when she woke up, she hid from it until she could get outside, so I don't know if she ever got a good look at them? Probably a good thing, honestly. They've got her on some anxiety meds, and they seem to be helping."

ㅤWhat he didn't tell Sam outright was that Jess also remembered him coming after her, how she wanted him around and said she felt safer with him there, but he looked at her and struggled not to think about how he'd been too slow, how maybe he could have saved her all of that if he'd gotten there faster. If he'd pulled her off of the elevator right away, she might not have fallen, or maybe he could have pulled her back up - there were a dozen what-ifs, and all of them seemed to be better than how he'd done.

[boop-le-snoot]

masterpost ☀️ main masterlist ☀️ taglist

previously on...

We meet Lucy, we meet Samantha and her twins & Mother Nature gets a little bit mad. But on the upside - she loves Tony :)

Kind reminder that this story will have horror/thriller elements & graphic descriptions of blood, gore and all the nasty stuff associated with superhero battles described in some detail. This chapter contains some of that.

Honestly, this story is getting- uhh- 8-12 notes on Tumblr. It's got a decent following on AO3 which brings me joy because I truly do enjoy the worldbuilding to a, perhaps, guilty amount. So if you like it too - please reblog :)

The fabric of my skirt was suddenly yanked and I jumped, dropping my phone and startling out of my daze. Two big, blue eyes stared up at me, curiousity mixed with impatience in them. I crouched down to pick up my device, coming face to face with a tiny blonde girl about nine or ten years of age.

"Lucy, hi!" I squeezed out a smile at the child. She looked pale, as if she'd never seen the slightest bit of sunlight, chubby cheeks contrasted by an overall spindliness of her body. Her dress was a puffy, long-sleeved, red and white polka dotted monstrosity with at least two petticoats that made her seem bigger than she actually was. "Sorry, didn't see you there. Long day at work," despite there being a worm of anxiety crawling deeply in my chest, I heeded the warnings on the list of rules and swallowed any unease I had.

Which was a hard feat. The stairs had gotten confused and I lost ten minutes of time going back, over and over, after encountering floors "5", "8" and "19" instead of my third floor, in a five story building. The building providing extra floors shouldn't have surprised me that much but the worst was fighting with the desire to explore them, my rational brain unhelpfully supplying that if this building was truly dangerous, nobody would be living in it.

The pull was almost unnatural in its strength yet my protection charms remained unaffected. Too tired from returning to work, I decided to distract myself with my phone - and nearly ran poor little Lucy off her feet.

"You are new," she signed to me slowly, carefully observing my reaction to her using ASL.

I had been truly unsettled by the rule list, perhaps more than I wanted to admit to myself, so I spent a night wide awake brushing up my meager sign language skills. "Yes, my name is Star," I replied, not quite sure if I wanted to shake her hand or simply make myself scarce as soon as possible.

Lucy gave me a closed-lipped grin, swooshing her puffy skirts in what I perceived to be a calculated amount of shyness. "Can I play with you, please?" Her hands moved a little more rapidly as she side-eyed my apartment door.

I briefly ran a mental checklist of the contents of my fridge. "Sure," I figured that two leftover steaks in it would be more than enough for the little girl. I'd splurged and gotten four prime pieces of meat to treat myself after a hectic moving process, cooking only half of them on the first day. "Come on it. You hungry?"

The door swung open as I led Lucy in, her bright dress and pale skin standing out in the twilight of my apartment. She nodded her head seriously, looking at me from head to toe as shivers ran up and down my spine. My bag was unceremoniously dumped on the couch, my socked feet shuffling into the kitchen and beelining for the fridge.

Lucy followed me quietly, taking a seat at the dinner table and folding her thin arms atop it, expectant blue eyes following my every move. As I plated the meat and reached for the roll of paper towels, I felt like I was being examined under a microscope. Somewhere in the distance, a quiet hissing noise was beginning to rise.

Lucy politely declined the fork and knife I attempted to give her so I just set down the plate in front of her, leaving the kitchen to change out of my dusty, sweaty clothes, too tired to really worry about the loud, sloppy and wet chewing noises and low growling coming from the dining area. I decided as long as she wasn't attempting to have me for dinner, I was going to be just fine.

I found Lucy on the carpet of my living room, flipping through a fashion magazine she'd found somewhere after I was done with scavenging some sweatpants from my mostly-unpacked closet. Her blonde curls bounced as she looked up at me with another tight smile, this time looking calmer, friendlier somehow. "I like those dresses," she signed, pointing at a few pictures with models wearing ballroom gowns in all kinds of colours. "And these..." She pointed out a tiara, probably not knowing how to sign the words.

"This is a tiara," I spoke slowly, signing the last word with my hands carefully as she observed. And then a few more times, until she repeated her last sentence perfectly. "Good job, Lucy," I praised her as she beamed at me. The river of quiet, scratchy giggles never stopped as she pointed out various things and I tried to sign them to the best of my ability, Lucy not showing any signs of upset whatsoever if I couldn't get the name for something right.

After some time, it was beginning to get very dark outside and a couple of pointed glances at the clock was all it took for her to stand up and carefully dust off her skirts. "Thank you for playing with me, Star," Lucy signed excitedly. "I like you. Do you want to know a secret?" She leaned in conspirationally, bursting into my space bubble with a lack of care only a child could posess.

I nodded, not trusting my mouth whatsoever. The closer she leaned in, the more overwhelming her smell became. Her pretty dress reeked of mildew and stale water, her breath - of dried blood and something earthen, like moist soil and cold cobblestone.

Lucy's eyes widened dramatically. "If you need answers, go on to the seventh floor. Bring some warm milk and cookies, they won't bother you too much, but be careful and don't stay for too long. You look tasty," I struggled to keep up with her rapid signing, my eyes firmly trained on her. Lucy's hand carefully patted my cheek and in my frozen state, I could only wave back as she skipped to the door and unlocked it, giving me one of her closed-lipped smiles before disappearing behind it without a noise.

The lock slid shut on it's own after the girl's departure. My heart briefly jumped up into my throat, trapping my jerky inhale in-between my throat and my esophagus. Coughing, I went on to double check the door lock before scrambling for the TV remote to add some background noise to the suddenly eerily quiet apartment.

The sit-com that popped up wasn't any of the ones I knew so I sat helplessly watching unfamiliar people get themselves into more and more absurd situations as the grating noise of pre-recorded audience laughter mocked the characters actions. A sudden shriek pierced the late night stillness, followed by a sound of breaking dishes and a woman's voice tiredly chastising the miscreants.

Samantha.

I'd seen her a few times as she smoked her strong cigarettes in front of the entrance, her twins running in circles around the large pothole in the middle of the driveway. She'd been friendly enough, the dark circles under her eyes and the unkempt state of her clothes telling me more than her words, "I love them, I really do. But I just want some sleep," she rasped as she sighed and attempted to gather her two kids.

I didn't examine them too closely but on first moment's notice their eyes and teeth appeared... Wrong. Samantha had taken them inside after that, clutching a coffee thermos of a size truly impressive, and I went on my merry way, trying not to think too much of the poor, single mother and her two mutant kids. I felt a little proud, even, as she didn't just abandon them like many other people did after discovering their children had an active X-gene.

It didn't take me long to cave in and offer my help with watching the twins, Anya and Arman; one noisy weekend bled into the next and I began to genuinely feel bad for the overtired woman. Inviting the two terrors into my apartment was a choice I had made mindfully: having asked Odette about advice on hyperactive children, she had proposed a puzzle or two.

The thrifted, wooden items weren't able to hold the twins' attention for long, and Anya was the first one to begin gnawing at the hard blocks, covering the area around her in splinters. Arman was a quiet boy compared to his sister: he'd stare at the TV or at the walls, avoiding eye contact and conversation at great lengths.

My couch was jumped on, my dishes were taken out and my houseplants rearranged chaotically; it was almost as if they purposefully tried to get a rise out of me without doing any actual damage. I spent the remaining few hours of my Sunday putting things back in their places - all that pent up frustration had done wonders for the state of my apartment; it sparkled, looking cleaner than the day I moved in.

The babysitting became a somewhat regular occurrence, more often than not with me popping in for a couple of hours so Samantha could run some errands and the odd weekend when the twins came over to me so Sam could get some much-needed sleep.

She was a kind, gentle if chronically overworked woman. We clicked pretty quickly over our shared desire for comfortable stability and some fucking peace; neither I nor she had it in sights for the foreseeable future. Sam's reaction to me being a witch was a shrug and a top up to her wine glass as she pointedly looked at her daughter who was busy chewing on a door handle, leaving small, jagged marks all over the dull metal.

I just had gotten sorted with a bunch of complicated orders when the radio interrupted Eric Clapton with an emergency message and instructions to steer clear of the next few blocks over. Something had hit NYC again and Avengers had been called but nobody knew exactly what it was or when it was going to be dealt with.

As soon as I shot a text to Sam, explaining the situation, I immediately retreated to the back rooms, setting up my healing station over the noise of Odette preparing her office for visitors. For some time, I waited with baited breath, jumping at every little noise coming from the outside. The people tickled in slowly, mostly one by one and all were covered in foul-smelling sludge that evaporated with a loud hiss when the concentrated light of the UV lamp in my office touched it.

"Some kind of aliens, I think," a man with a face somewhere between a human and a hedgehog told me, wincing as he retracted his spikes back into his skin. "There's a hole- a portal, right on a crossroads and there's these things coming out. They kinda look like dragons, or flying snakes maybe," the more light breached the surface of his skin, the more relaxed he became. "The Sorcerer and the Witch are trying to close the portal, unsuccessfully might I add, and the muscle is just," he paused, scratching his chin. "Just killin' 'em, I guess."

I nodded enthusiastically, prompting him to continue to rely the state of the affairs as I applied the thick, viscous ointment on a gash on his leg. "It's hammer and Frisbee time," I mumbled to myself sarcastically.

"Yep," the man popped the 'p'. "Most of us are trying to keep the creatures contained to that one block. I saw Iron Man blasting off some of the creatures off of some of my friends," the last sentence contained a great deal of puzzlement. "Though you won't be seeing much of us this time. These things... They're vicious. They've got claws the size of my foot. A lot of us are going to die where they gut us," the sentence was spoken so matter-of-factly, my hands paused on the man's leg, bringing my eyes to his unblinking dots of black.

"What do you mean?" I swallowed in an attempt to chase away the dry, rough feeling in my throat.

"Those beasts... They're smart. One of my friends - she's a... Telepath of sorts... Says they're an intelligent hivemind," the man's broad, warm palm closed over mine. "The beasts leave only the ones that won't get help in time. They can smell death from a mile away. That's how they hunt," his voice was gentle, soothing over the sudden ringing of my ears.

"I..." My mind stuttered, a sticky ball of anxiety, fear and sorrow gathering up in my chest. "I'm so sorry. I..."

"We know what we're doing, out there, we know the risks," his smile was tight and full of grief. "You're doing your part here, makin' sure our babies have parents. We're out there makin' sure our streets are safe. Such is life," the grin acceptance in his pitch-black, small eyes set fire to the tension in my chest.

I exploded, inside out. The sudden burst of decisive, clear-headed energy made the objects around me vibrate, metal resonated my sorrow and my determination, the wood heated up with the force of Mother Nature itself responding to an act of cruelty bestowed upon her creations.

As soon as the man's bandage was finished and he headed out, I grabbed my old, ratty backpack, hastily shoving things into it in a semi-organized fashion. Clean linen strips, bandages, some premade elixirs and draughts, a few jars of salves, carefully tucked in-between the cloth. As I knocked on the door of Odette's office to retrieve the last few items I would need for my reckless journey, the door handle turned on its own, letting me observe her tending a woman who's skin was peeled off most of her back.

"Can't you see I'm..." Odette exclaimed, throwing her free hand towards the door, which did not budge. She turned on her heel, eyes widening when she observed my wide, solid stance in the doorway, lips immediately curling into a small grin. "I understand. Take what you need. It's not wise to resist Her call," the words were spoken carefully, as if not to spook me, before Odette resumed her delicate work of putting the injured woman back together.

Without a word, I finished packing and left through the front door, not needing more than my scarf and my light sweater to keep me from the freezing gusts of wind. My very core was the centrefold of an active volcano, bursting with white-hot bursts of energy as I approached the injured people on my way towards the terrible screeching noise.

This far out, most of the injured were able to make it to Odette's or to the other healer, who's name I had found out only then, but they were thankful for the water I offered them. Not once did they question me: my star-patterned scarf, out of all things, had become somewhat of a symbol for me among the different folk. Mutants approached me fearlessly, giving generous updates on the direction of the battle and the hotspots I probably should have avoided.

The louder the screeching noises grew, the more people needed my help. The stops took longer, my painkillers were becoming a short supply, the main relief provided by a couple of mid-range, mid-strength energy manipulating mutants that began to tail me after I offered to patch them up in exchange for help with the injured.

It was as if I instinctually knew where I was most needed, my decisions were seldom my own. Me and the two mutants bid a haste goodbye after loading up their truck with the injured, although deep inside, I knew that the amount of corpses, bloody and messy, littering the streets had begun to get to them. In a normal state of mind, I would not have been able to look at them either: then, each mangled, broken body only added fuel to the fire within me.

As I stepped foot in an intersection where someone had piled up bent and broken cars, the shadow flying over my head shrieked, taking a fluid nose dive towards another, smaller flying figure. I dropped flat on the ground, the contents of my backpack clattering, watching the small figure in the sky blast the beast with an off-blue ray of concentrated energy. As soon as the creature began it's graceless drop, Tony turned around and flew off, looking none worse for wear.

At the very centre of my chest, a faint feeling of fondness and hope blossomed into tiny little flowers that soothed the aching sorrow for the dead. Each warcry of the beasts from another world fed the anger, the anguish Gaia seemed to exhibit at their intrusion; the revolt I felt upon laying my eyes on one of them made me sweat, hands clenching into fists until my skin crawled under my nails.

The last part of me that wanted to pretend I was in control was gone; my soft, untrained body a mere vessel for a force stronger than me, stronger than anything. Noise around me grew in pitch, some of the creatures circling around my hiding spot cluelessly, aimlessly, as if they could not find what they were looking for.

I moved spots in a daring series of runs, bringing me almost to the portal itself, and the hellish lizards dived into my previous sanctuary, shattering the concrete and the wood of the house under the amused black stares of glassless windows.

The realization set it - they could not see me. Or perceive me properly, I deduced, inspecting the creatures for any sort of orifice except for their mouths and finding them to lack eyes and ears.

My own stare fell onto Sorcerer Supreme, floating amongst a variety of moving golden circles; I was close enough to hear him talking in a language I did not know. Wanda was hovering nearby, holding up a wall of red energy, protecting the chanting sorcerer.

A united screech invoked a shiver from every living being within it's reach, the creatures circling the portal for the last time before flying off in haphazard directions as the portal slowly began to close. I was prepared to cheer, yet, something stopped me; not a second later, the circles surrounding Stephen dimmed as the man himself jumped up onto his feet in alarm, screaming something unintelligible at the Scarlet Witch.

The overturned food cart I was hiding behind slowly began to creep towards the portal. A couple of rats, a pigeon - the animals flew in front of my eyes, rapidly, as they struggled against the unseen force. My hands grasped the handlebars of the cart in vain, I struggled against the force, seeing a moment of confusion on Wanda's face as I floated- no, rocketed past her as Stephen's golden magic forcefully pushed her out of the portal's reach.

It's size no bigger than a doorway, the vile thing blew cold, dry air under my sweater, muffling Stephen's cursing as we briefly collided during our violent expulsion into another world.

And then, there was darkness.

Taglist! @couldntbedamned @mikariell95 @letsby @sleep-i-ness @toomanyrobins2 @mostly-marvel-musings @persephonehemingway @schemefrenzy @lillsxd @bluecrazedandbeautiful @slothspaghettiwrites @xoxabs88xox

[jojolu]

Mom’s Weekend and The Winter Soldier

Chapter 4

Pairing: James "Bucky" Barnes and Sarah Wilson

Summary: Sarah Wilson, Connie Caro and Avery Vance were the only three of Sarah's friends that were still here after the blip. They have a monthly girls day before having a kid free weekend. Normally Sarah has nothing to talk about...but not anymore.

Word Count: 4.1K (sorry)

Rating: Mature

August

August:

“Well, well, well....look who finally decided to show up." Avery says as you sit next her and Connie at Ms Taylor's Bakery.

"I'm not sorry. This is his first mission back………don’t look at me like that."

"I'm just wondering how you're going to survive 2 weeks without him." Avery says to get under your skin.

You give her your deadliest stare.

"Buck taught you 'the murder stare' I like it."

"Shut up, Avery. Anyways the boys are nervous too. Let me just pout for a little bit. Have we ordered? I need two slices of Mrs. T's strawberry pie."

You all started to chat and Maggie brings over coffee and pie. You are 3 bites in when your phone starts to ring, its Sam.

'Yesssss Samuel?"

"Its me babe." Bucky responds

“Oh hi…is everything going OK?" You ask trying to keep the panic out of your voice.

"Everything is perfect......take that breath your holding........and exhale........there you go."

You take two deep breaths and relax.

"I'm just checking in on the boys. I know Cass has video game camp and AJ has fishing camp."

"I drop them off in two days. Well, I'm glad you called to ask about the boys James."

"Ohhhh so it's like that? You know I can't talk about missing you....especially with the person who's phone I'm using is standing so close to me........move back like 5 steps, please."

"Excuses, excuses...." You say laughing.

"I love you, don't miss me to much."

"Ugh gross. And DON'T call! You almost got us killed last time." Sam shouts 

"I don't know why you had your PERSONAL phone with you while you are doing superhero stuff.......I'm really sorry about that."

"I forgot about it! It happened one time!" Sam shouts again.

"Again, I love you and we are landing....thank fucking God. I'm not jumping out of another plane again."

You start to giggle then immediately try to stop.

"He showed you! I'll kill him."

"Sorry! I love you too. Bye!"

"Byeeee!" Avery and Connie say.

You hang up and start eat your pie, but you quickly notice that you are being watched.

"What?" To ask the two women staring at you.

"So all the boys know....is he still staying downstairs?" Connie asks.

"Umm technically he is...."

"But you spend every night together.".

"Not every single night."

"But most nights?"

"Sure....why are you asking me this? You're about to ruin my pie."

"Sorry, it's just me being controlling. That whole blip thing kinda gave me PTSD. Jules moved out and hearing anything about other people's love life helps." Avery says as she drinks her coffee.

You and Connie just look at each other in shock.

You turn your full body towards her and take her right hand as Connie mirrors your action.

"We are here for you and will always be.” You say hugging her.

"I know. She is New Orleans and I'm not sure what to do. She got a great job offer and didn't really even consider asking the family to go with her. But enough about me! How was Brooklyn?"

"Well, hope everything goes the way you want it. I almost forgot about New York! Your first couples trip."

"Yes, what Con said, we love you. It wasn't a couples trip he was busy most of the time. He finally finished his mandated therapy and we packed up his apartment."

"Its official Delacroix is the new home of The Winter Soldier. Ethan was so excited to help him unpack." Connie says laughing.

"Sooo how's Sam been? He seems fine but every time you two kiss or even look at each other he sighs heavily." 

"Well.......honestly.....he's driving me crazy. If Buck and I are behind a closed door he wants to know what we are doing.

2 Weeks Ago:

You had just followed Bucky into his room to help him sort out his clothes to put in storage.

"Well as sad as I am to see this leather jacket get stored away, I'm definitely enjoying you in this tank top. It's doing you all the favors." You say as you ran your hands up his chest.

"I would probably die if I wore this jacket here. Well, my beautiful girlfriend bought it for me so I'm sure she knew actually what she was doing." He says pulling into his arms.

"A girlfriend? James Buchanan Barnes has a girlfriend? What a lucky lady." You say smirking.

"Yep, he does and he moved away from a crowded and noisy place just to be with her. It's the best decision he's ever made."

 You close the gap between you two and lean up to kiss him. He slides his hand to your ass and pulls you closer to him. You pull back slightly as he kisses down your neck.

There is a quick knock and Sam opens the door and walks in.

"Stop that. Your kids are here. No kissing. Barnes, take your hand off her ass."

"Get out." You both say not moving from your position in his arms.

"I live here! I don't want to see this."

"Then stop BURSTING into our rooms! You wouldn't see anything if your weren't looking for it. We've been doing this since he's been here and you had no idea. No fucking clue. We were having sex EVERYWHERE." You shout say pulling out of Bucky's arms.

"Ughhhh gross! I didn't need to know that. EVER. Then go back to hiding it."

“Hey Sam, fuck off." You say walking past him and heading up the stairs.

Sam and Bucky just stare at each other until Cass shouts at AJ.

"I literally asked you to not do ONE simple thing. Just that one thing and now you're living in my house sleeping with my sister. I swear on God if you hurt her I'll....."

"Never. I'll never hurt her. I'd die first. I didn't think she would ever want to be with me. I've never felt this way before. I'm not sure what you want from me but I'm not going anywhere."

Sam steps to the side as Buck walks past him and straight upstairs.

Sam sighs and heads out to the kitchen and starts to make dinner.

You were sitting on your bed staring at your off TV when Buck walks in.

"Hi."

"Hi. You ok?" He asks as he sits next to you.

You put your head on his shoulder.

"I am. Are you? I'm sorry he's so annoying.  He is just so protective but he needs to know I'm happy. You make me happy. I'm kinda obsessed with you." You say looking up at him smiling.

"I'm perfectly happy. You have given me a new life. I had no idea what I was going to do after I crossed off every single name in the book Steve left me. Following you unto the boat was the best decision I've ever made."

You just needed a minute to gather your thoughts and stop thinking about that incredibly hot old man outside.

"It was one night and you were both in your feelings so that night was just a great memory. But damn he kisses so so good.” You mumble out.

"I really hope your talking about someone I know." A voice says from behind you.

You turn quickly and James Buchanan Barnes is slowing walking towards you.

"Uhhh." Your mind goes blank this is the first time you've been alone with him since that night he was sitting on your porch.

"I'll just leave you alone." He says as he turns to walk out.

"Buck wait." You say walking towards him.

He turns slowly and walks up to you, you have to look up at him to see his face.

He licks his bottom lip then leans down and kisses you deeply.

You pull back slightly and look into his eyes.

"I'm sorry I should have....." He starts to say.

"Don't apologize. I want you..."

You weren't even able to finish your words before he kissed you again.

He pulls you flush against his body, you can feel him breathing.

You run your hands up his back and into his hair.

He pulls you in for a kiss then puts his hand on your chin and holds you to his mouth. 

You immediately moan.

He slides his tongue gently into your mouth which you accept happily. 

He starts to move down to your neck. 

"Ohhhh Buck you know what that does to me." He goes right to your spot and kisses and sucks on your neck and you can't keep the moan in.

"Trust me, I remember." 

He slowly walks you to the nearest wall as his hands start to roam.

"Oh yeah....I was very loud that night." You say giggling.

You were about to kiss him again when you hear your name being called.

“Ugh…this sucks. Are you staying on my couch tonight?” You ask before kissing him one more time.

“If you’ll have me?”

You give him your sexiest smile and head back onto the dock.

“That was definitely the night I knew I wanted to be with you.” You say nonchalantly.

“Well you had me hooked the second you smiled at me, you fidgeting with the clipboard was the sweetest thing I have ever seen.”

You lean up for a kiss, when someone (Sam) knocks on your bedroom door.

“What Samuel?”

“Just wondering if you want me to grab the tomatoes from the garden?” He says in a small voice.

“Yes. Thank you. I forgot to grab them earlier. We are just talking.”

“Gotcha.”

~~~

“Well, that’s annoying as fuck. But you two are constantly inside each other.” Avery says as you all walk outside.

“Well, excuse me! That’s it! Not another Hoe Tale from me.” You say heading to your car.

“Fine! I don’t need it. I’ll just use my imagination.” Avery shouts as she walks the direction in her house.

“Wait! I didn’t say anything about you two. I wanna hear what happen in New York.” Connie say following you.

“I changed my mind. I wanna hear it too.” Avery shouts as she suddenly turns around.

“Nope. Avery ruined it. It was good too…….so…….good.”

“Don’t be like that. I’m sorry! I’d love to hear every single detail. Hell, I’ll even watch! I mean you two are a bi’s wet dream.” Avery says as she grabs your hips and stops you from walking.

You turn around and Avery pulls you into a hug.

“Love you, bestie!”

“Excuse me?” Connie says looking at this hug.

“Aww a threesome! “ Avery shouts just as Mr and Mrs Devereaux walk by.

“Tell your brother we are so proud of him! And that white boy too.” Mrs Devereaux say as she waves.

You pull out of the hug and wave.

“Thank you! I will definitely tell them both.” You say with a huge smile on your face.

“I see that smile on your face……hmmmmmm.” Mrs. Devereaux say again.

Connie and Avery burst out laughing as they walk in the Ms. Taylor’s.

“Fuck you both.” You say turning around.

“Yeah, yeah….Let’s get a drunk!” Avery says.

“It’s 11:45am on a Friday…and I have to get my boys”

“In like 2 hours! All of our kids are at the same swim class. My wife left me!”

You and Connie just look at each other.

“Fine! But I’m only having 1 drink.”

*3 shots and halfway through your 3rd Hurricane*

“Sooooo. I don’t know if I told you but……I used to have sex with your brother!” Avery slurs out.

“I know!  It's so very gross plus EVERYONE knew and you told me.”

“Yep, we been knew.” Connie say.

“Hey DT! Can we have Po boys! We are hungry."

The slender bartender turns to you three again.

"For the THIRD time Ave we don't have Poboys but LaKeith went to grab you some. Thank God, he just walked in. You three are cut off until Curtis get here."

"There was so much in that but I just care about the food now!" Avery says turning to see LaKeith.

You three to devour your Poboys and then quickly remember you had to pick your kids 

 5 minutes ago.

"Fuck! Fucking fuck! The boys! Your kids! Our kids. Dammit Ave!" You say trying to get off the stool.

"I called E he has the kids and is taking them to your house, Con." DT says to you three.

"Oh thank God!" You say taking another bite of your food.

You get text alert and you know exactly who it is.

Buck: Well, thank you very much for that voicemail.

Sarah: oh no.

Buck: yep.....not going lie the memory was great

Sarah: hi Buck. I got your gurl drunk. Ave.

Sarah: Sorry. I literally put my phone down for a sec

Buck: I'm glad you're having a great time. I love you. I gotta go.

Sarah: k. Come back to me.

Buck: nothing could stop me.

"Stop trying to read my texts Avery! Ohhhh look what he said." You say turning your phone to Connie and Avery.

"Ohhhh my goodness....." Avery just burst into tears.

"He loves you like so much. I just can't...." Connie says also bursting into tears.

"You guys.....stop......."You say bursting into tears over your two best friends being so happy.

"You three are a mess." Ethan says behind you.

"Thank God you're here.. Come get them."

You three are just a crying mess, Ethan pays the tab and LaKeith and herds you three to his car. You three all sit in the back row and finally stop crying.

"I love you three heffas so much." Connie says.

"Three? We are three. You mean two dummy. I love you three too" Avery says.

"Aww I love us three heffas too." 

You all start laughing hysterically and keep it up the whole way to your Avery's house.

"Oh wait my car is.....here? Wait huh? Y'all see my car right?!"

"Yes, Sarah that's your car Mr. Devereaux dropped it off."

"How? I have my.......how? When? Oooooh LaKeith." You say realizing your keys are gone.

"You are absolutely amazing. I love you more and more each day Ethan Michael Caro." Connie says leaning towards him.

"That's nothing, my love. In the trunk is a bag for Ave and Sarah you three are chillin at Avery's for the weekend........don't start the crying again."

You three just cry the rest of the way.

Before you know it your three are all lounging in the den texting your children.

"Well my boys are perfect."

"Same." They both say.

"I believe you owe us that Brooklyn Hoe Tale." Connie says.

"You Constance? Ughhhh fine. It's a good one. So we sorting through his clothes.....

Last weekend:

"What about this one?" Bucky says to you holding up the third of the same black henley.

"As I said before, 'no long-sleeved shirts' show that arm." You say getting on his bed, you scoot to the edge.

"Really? You think it's a good idea?" He asks as he tosses it in the donate box.

"Yes. I do. Not sure if your know this but.....that vibranium arm is kinda working for you and if I say so kinda hot........just a bit." You say smirking at him.

"Just a bit? I definitely remember you having some words for a nice young lady." He says walking up to you.

"Oooh you mean the heffa that gave you her Instagram account? You want me to go find her for you? I'm sure she waiting online for you." You say trying not to sound super jealous.

"I don't want anyone but you......ever." He says as he walks up to you.

"You sure? She was really pretty and her ass was amazing." 

“Very sure. I didn't even notice. I was to busy looking at you. You are the only woman I see no matter what. I'm absolutely in love with you and your ass is amazing." He says as pulls you closer to him.

Your legs are now around his legs and he moved you even closer so you can feel him against your ever increasing heat.

He leans down to you and brings you into a fiery kiss and while kissing you his hands are all over you. He slides his tongue in your mouth and caresses your tongue. You pull back a little from the kiss and he goes right to your neck and he is very close to your spot,

"Oh my goodness Buck....." He moves down to that spot on your neck that will seal the deal. You moan his name so loud, you can feel him smile against you.

"I love hearing you moan my name." He says as he kisses back up to your mouth. 

He leans you the back unto his bed and pushes you gently down. He reaches behind his head a pulls his shirt off and then leans over to unbutton your jeans and slides then down your legs.

"No panties" Hey quirks his eyebrows.

"No pantie lines." You sit up, take off your shirt leaving your bra on and then grab him by the belt and slowly start to unbuckle his jeans and reach your hand into his boxer briefs and start to massage him.

"Fuck, don't stop." After you get him right where your want him do you finally pull his dick out. You take him in your hand and start to pump him slowly while licking the tip like an ice cream cone. You remove your hand and lick him from base to tip a few times just to him moan your name. You finally end this torture any take him in your mouth as far as you can take him, you hollow your cheeks and start to bob up and down on his dick. Faster than slow to just licks, then you start all over. You cups his balls gently while focus on his head.

"Okkkkkk OK stop." You look up at him while slowly sucking the tip. You take him out of your mouth, "Are you sure?" You take him back in your mouth and swirl your tongue around him. 

He practically pulls you off of him and has you on your back, with his fingers dip into your pussy, gathering up your sweet nectar and bringing to his mouth. He lick his fingers clean and kisses you and slips his tongue in to give you a taste, he can taste himself in your mouth too. He pulls back and says,

"I just knew your pussy was dripping and I wanted some." He slides down your body and spreads your legs so wide and then pushes them up towards you. You are staring down and him as he take his tongue and swipes up your entire pussy.

"Buck...."

He does it again, but this time slower and when he get to your clit he takes it in his mouth. Your head falls back and you can barely stay up on your elbows.

"Hey look at me baby, I want you to watch me eat my pussy." You swear you are going to burst into tears, horny tears.

"I don't think I can." You choke out.

"Please, can you try, please."  You bring your head back up and try to scoot up so you can lean against the headboard. He releases his hold on your legs and the second you are touching the headboard he get you right back in that same position. Then starts the same way again he swipes up your pussy 3 times and the 4th time he swipes up he sucks on your clit. You have lost all abilities to talk or moan you are just whimpering as he keeps doing it over and over. He opens his mouth sticks his tongue out and starts at the back of your pussy and swipes up the whole thing until he flicks your clit, he finally starts doing it faster and faster sucking on your clit a little bit longer each time.

"Please, Buck.....please, please make me cum. I can't do it any longer." You cry out. 

He finally stops and the whole bottom half of his face is drenched in you. The sight alone could make you cum.

"Are you begging me to make you cum?"

"YESSSSSSS I am begging you to let me cum, please."

"But aren't you enjoying this," he leans over and sucks your clit in his mouth slowly waiting until its out of his mouth before slurping it back in, you moan out his name.

"Yes, always but....please."

You thought you had seen the many side of naughty Bucky but damn this whole new side was down right nasty. He says no words he just dives back into your pussy and is finally taking you to the finish. He has let go of your legs and now has his hands on your ass bringing you closer to his mouth. 

"Oh fuck thank you........thank.........mmmmm."

The pre-orgasm tension from all that build up snaps like a rubber band and you are cuming so hard are are practically fighting against his mouth that hasn't stopped attacking your clit. He grips your thighs so tight.

"Holy shit I am cuming......... I'm cuming.....Ohhhh my God........"

You are finally able to get away from his mouth.

"Holy shit I have never in my life cum like that, I thought it was never going to stop." You say giggling.

He just smiles at you as he wipes his mouth with his left hand.

You scoot up to the middle of the bed as he gets up and follows, you roll on to your stomach and get on all fours.

"Wow.........." He says as you look back at him.

He runs his hands over your hips and leans down and kisses your back.

he then unhooks your bra and tosses it. He stands up to take off the rest of his clothes and  quickly comes back to you. He then grabs your hips and presses himself against your folds  and slides into you as you moan and immediately clench around him.

"Ohhhh my God, Buck" 

"You feel amazing." He is thrusting into you so deep.

This position will having you a crying mess soon, you try to clench around him to help him cum and his steady pace is about to have you cuming already.

"Oh god right there...........right there.......... I'm cuming."

"Again, can you do it again." He keeps his same pace and hitting that same spot. He can feel you start to clench again. 

You barely have any time to recover before you are clenching around him again.

"Oh my goodness........ oh, oh....I'm.....cuming."

His grip on your hips tightens as he leans back and brings you with him, he is now thrusting up into you and has right hand on your hip and his vibranium hand is on your left breast. He feels you start to tremble around him again and this one brings him over the edge with you, he continues to thrust into you until he is empty. You both fall to the bed exhausted.

"I have no words for how amazing that was....." He says as a sigh.

"Right....we definitely can't do this position at the house."

"Nope. Not at all! Sam would move out." 

You both laugh as Bucky grabs his blanket over you both.

~~~

"I.......Um.........I.......damnnnnnnnn. I don't think I'll look at Buck ever the same." Connie says.

"Right!? He had me walking funny that whole weekend." You say staring at the ceiling.

You both look over at Avery who has her eyes closed.

"Your ass better not be asleep." You say.

"I'm not. I just mentally restarted your story.........damn.........get it girl........hold up........." Avery sits up immediately.

"Are you you two not using condoms?!"

"Say what?” Connie say.

"Umm....well...."

[braveclementine]

Chapter 11

Warnings: None

Copyright: I do not own any Marvel characters or locations. However, I do own a few OCs like Elizabeth, Katherine, Stacy, and Jessie. I do not condone any copying of this.

"Hello My Queen." Loki said, coming up behind you to kiss you on the cheek. You turned to face him and he knelt in front of you, placing his hands on the bulge of your stomach, kissing the bump. "Hello my little Princess."

You smiled, brushing his hair back from his face. "Hello Lokes."

He got to his feet, pressing a sweet kiss to your lips. "How was your day today?"

"It was good." You said, turning back to the stove where you were in the middle of making dinner.

Dinner was going to be hamburgers and cheeseburgers. Pork and beans along with green beans as vegetables. Dill pickles were in a jar on the table already since you were almost done cooking the meal. Chips were also a part of todays meal and you also had pigs in a blanket for the kids.

"Is the table already set?" You asked as you started to load up the circular patties onto a larger platter.

"Yes, and I've got this." Loki said after you placed the last one on top. He picked the platter up to take it outside.

You grabbed some of the condiments, carrying them out after Loki.

Steve, Clint, Bucky, Sam, Thor, and T'Challa were running around on the grass with Marcel, Vincent, James, and Lloyd shooting water guns at each other. Lloyd wasn't really shooting guns. Thor was showing him how to shoot one though. Lloyd was only two and he was Thor's son. Lloyd Heimdall Marvel. Although his last name could also be Thorson.

And then there was Lloyd's twin-fraternally- sister: Vera Shuri Marvel. T'Challa's daughter. First to have more than one child to his blood.

Of course, all of them treated all of their kids like their own. And to distinguish between fathers, they simply called all of them 'daddy' and then their name. Lucy had a fun habit of calling T'Challa 'Daddy Allalalala.'

Minerva was still living with you guys, though it had been about three years since they had left. Wanda and Vision had twin boys of their own now by the names of Billy and Tommy. So Minerva had been left with you guys while Pietro, Jessie, and Katherine never even came back to visit.

It frustrated you beyond belief, but there wasn't really anything you could do. Minerva was probably better off in your guys' home anyways. She had grown and she really did seem like she was a part of the family.

At the moment, Minerva was sitting at the outdoor eating table next to Tony. He was showing her something he had made and she was listening attentively- or maybe she just liked that it was shiny. Stephen sat next to Tony, a small smile on his face while he rocked Vera in his arms.

Minerva looked up to give you a radiating smile when she saw you. You smiled gently, before moving back into the house.

Once everything was on the table, you took a spot on the other side of Stephen, putting Temperance on your other side and then Fury.

You loved the summer months. It was some of the best times that you had with the family. Plus, it meant you were in the best time of the business.

The others hadn't exactly taken a break from being superheroes, however, they were trying to back away from it, especially with how many kids you guys had now. So, Steve had pitched the idea that they get somewhat normal jobs.

It came from the fact that it just didn't seem fair for Tony to have to pay for everything- even if he didn't mind. And Steve said if they were going to start retiring their weapons, then they needed to get some sort of job to make money.

But you had pitched the idea for running a farm. It had been Elizabeth's original idea and you decided to give it a shot.

The others agreed, and now you were all running a full fledged farm here in Ohio. You had chickens, pigs, cows, sheep, even a couple of goats and some horses. You had both meat and egg chickens, milk and meat cows, and then the goats were for goat milk. The sheep were simply there for wool.

You were growing all sorts of crops like fruits and vegetables. There were also plenty of herbs, along with wheat and a few other products.

For the most part, you turned a lot of the stuff you collected into food or clothing for your own family. But there was still a lot that you ended up sending to market, which was where you made a lot of money.

Tony was good at branding and instead of calling it food from 'Stark Industries', it was known as the 'Avengers Farm'. And wouldn't you rather buy your butter from the Avengers instead of Kroger? 85% of American said yes.

So yeah, quite a bit had changed in your life. A few more kids, less missions, less fighting. Things just seemed more peaceful. Everyone was less stressed out, and it seemed as though everyone was enjoying their lives even more.

Loki was extremely excited about having his own kid. The baby girl in your stomach was the only one in there but Loki couldn't care less. His excitement was enough to kindle your own whenever he was around.

"Come on Tempy, you've got to eat the vegetables." Fury said to the little girl who was turning her nose up at the peas.

"Don't wan pwes." Temperance scrunched her tiny nose up.

"Peas are good for you." Fury said. "All superheroes eat peas, right Tony?"

"Yep!" Tony lied enthusiastically as he despised peas. "Peas are delicious Tempy."

His words worked at least and Temperance reluctantly opened her mouth to let Fury feed her.

Minerva was starting to fall asleep at the table and Tony pushed back to take her to her room.

"I've got her." You said, pushing back from the table, picking her up in your arms.

"You sure?" Tony asked.

"Yeah, of course." You kissed him on the lips and then made your way back into the house. Minerva hadn't quite fallen asleep when you laid her down in her princess bed.

The rooms had been slightly redone with the growing number of kids and the fact that they were growing older. This room was all of the girls and it was designed like a large castle, each small 'tower' having a bed in it.

"Aunty?" Minerva mumbled sleepily as you were going to leave the room again.

"Yes Minnie?"

"Will you tell me about my mama?" She asked.

You smiled sadly and came to sit down on the end of her bed. "What do you want to know?"

"Was she pwetty?"

"She was one of the most beautiful women I ever knew." You responded. "You look a lot like her. She had brown hair and brown eyes. She was a very strong woman, but she was also very free with her emotions. You knew exactly when she was in a bad mood because she would show it and you knew when she was happy because she would sing and dance. She loved to cook. She was full of love and joy and she loved Harry Potter. And most of all, she loved you and your father very, very much."

"Did she sing to me?" Minerva asked.

"She did. She had two very special songs that she would sing to you every single night." You responded.

"Can you sing them for me?"

Tears pricked your eyes. "Of course."

You slowly got up off the bed, turning off the lights, setting the purple night light in instead. You tucked her in with the sheets and then sat next to her, hugging her into your side.

"London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down, London Bride is falling down, My fair Lady. . ."

***

"How is she?" Tony asked as you settled into his and Stephen's room last night. He was very attentive towards Minerva, whether because she reminded him of himself a little bit, or just because he was a very sensitive man, you weren't sure. Your other soulmates didn't pay her the same attention as the others and both Tony and Stephen tried making up for it.

It wasn't their faults, of course. That was the bond. They took care of their soul kids first. It just worked that way. But you had taken care of her since she was young and that was how it was. But still, every night when you tucked her in, you cursed Pietro for his stupid decision.

"She asked about her mother again." You sighed.

Minerva knew her parents were gone, but she wanted to know all about them. You supposed it was fair.

"I'll have F.R.I.D.A.Y. find some pictures for her." Tony promised, sliding into bed next to you. Stephen was just finishing up in the bathroom.

"You know she hasn't even met any of her brothers?" You asked angrily. "Skylar, Billy, Tommy, and we both know that they just had a new little girl! It's not fair to her!"

"I know Y/N." Tony sighed, pulling you into a hug.

Stephen came out of the bathroom, turning the lights off as he made his way to the bed. "We'll figured something out darling, you don't have to worry. Besides, Minerva fits into the family well. I don't think Elizabeth would mind us taking care of her daughter."

"I know but. . . I'm afraid when she grows up she'll feel the difference." You admitted.

Neither of them said anything. It was to much to hope that the others would treat her as their own. Soulmate bonds. . . well they just didn't work like that.

***

Minerva stumbled along on her tiny feet, trying to help you with the laundry as you hung it up on the line. She would pick up a towel out of the basket by your feet and hold it up to you. You'd take it, hang it on the line, and then take the next towel from her.

She was quiet as she helped you, and you enjoyed her presence and her help. It was really adorable to watch, like a baby duckling or something.

You finished hanging up the laundry and then picked up the basket to go back inside. Thor approached you, kissing you and saying, "Do you want to watch something later?"

"I would like that." You said with a smile.

"Up!" Minerva said excitedly. She really liked being on Thor's broad shoulders.

Thor lifted her up to put her on his shoulders before turning back to you. "Do you know what you want to watch or do you want me to pick?"

"Something funny." You said with a smile. "Adam Sandler probably. Or something with Kevin Hart in it."

Suddenly, Thor's hammer shot skywards into Minerva's hands. She lifted it in one hand, grabbing Thor's hair in the other and proclaimed, "mew mew charge!"

Thor just stood there in shock, trying to figure out what had just happened. You gaped, staring at the sight in front of you.

"Well. . . that was interesting." You said. "But Lloyd can pick up the hammer too."

"True." Thor said. "I just did not expect this."

You smiled. "Minnie, give Uncle Thor his hammer back, okay?"

"Mew mew!" She cried happily, before lowering it, "Here Uncwle Twhore."

You giggled quietly as Thor took the hammer back and then lowered Minerva off his shoulders. She ran off on the farm and you and Thor looked at each other again.

"I'll be in the basement at eight." You said, kissing him on the cheek.

"I'll see you later Princesse." Thor smiled, before chasing after Minerva.

***

"That's awesome!" You said with delight through the phone while you stirred the spaghetti in the pot. "I'm really happy for you guys Y/S/N! So where do you have to move to?"

"Idaho." Y/S/N said glumly. "I mean, the job is great and of course, everything's cheaper there so Ben will make even more money since we won't be spending as much, but still- Idaho?"

"I don't know. It sounds kind've peaceful. Like my house." You said with a smile. "You might like it."

"I'm more of a city girl." Y/S/N sighed. Suddenly, there was loud crying in the background of her phone. "Well, she didn't want to sleep for long."

You laughed. "I'll talk to you later. If you want any help with the move, just let me know. I love you."

"Love you too."

You hung up, placing the phone on the counter as you finished off cooking dinner. You dished out the plates, setting the table, and then called everyone down for dinner.

"Look at these." Steve said with a grin, pulling you back into the kitchen as the others started to sit around the eating table.

He showed you one of the old milk jars that you guys had. He'd tied brown string around it into a bow and then filled it with wild flowers. "Thought you'd like to put these in the bedroom."

"Thank you." You whispered, taking them from him and kissing him.

"Let's eat!" Clint shouted from the other room.

You giggled and the two of you went back out there to join the others.

The kids made a mess, eating the spaghetti and you loved watching their fathers clean then up.

"That's it!" Sam declared, lifting Lloyd out of his seat. "You need a bath."

The two year old squealed, kicking his feet, but Sam wouldn't let him go as he disappeared out of the room.

"So, anything exciting happen today?" Clint asked the kids.

"I lifted mew mew." Minerva stated simply.

The others looked at Thor. "She did what?" Steve asked in surprise.

"I'm so proud of you sweetheart." Tony said, winking at Minerva. "Means you're worthy."

"But did she actually?" Loki asked, a huge grin on his face.

"She did." You confirmed. "It was actually quite adorable."

"I wanna lift mew mew!" Lucy squealed.

You bit your bottom lip. Yeah, that was going to be a problem if they all argued over it.

"Are we weally starting school in Augwust?" Vincent asked excitedly.

"Yeah, but it's a sort of home-school project." T'Challa said.

None of you had felt comfortable about putting the kids in a public school setting, but you had also wanted them to interact with other kids. The win-win solution was a home-schooling program where they met with other home-schooled students three days a week for five hours at a church nearby.

"Alright, c'mon, you guys gotta wash up and then get ready for bed." Fury said twenty minutes later.

They grumbled, but they were good about getting up and doing as they were told- especially if Daddy Fury was the one telling them.

"Mama, come tuck us in!" Lucy begged you.

"Alright, if you're in bed when I come upstairs, I'll tuck you in and sing to you, okay?" You said. She scampered off and you looked over at Thor. "Maybe more like eight thirty."

Thor grinned, "I'll be waiting."

"I thought you were with me tonight." Loki glared at Thor.

"We're watching a movie. I'm still with you tonight, don't worry Lokes." You grinned, before you got up from the table and headed upstairs to where the girls were all waiting in bed.

"Now will you sing to us?" Lucy begged.

"Of course Lucy Loo." You smiled, brushing back her black hair. "Do you know what you want me to sing?"

"The one with the bears!" Temperance giggled from her bed.

"Yeah!" Lucy and Minerva agreed.

'That one is kind've creepy.' You thought, but you didn't say that aloud.

"Alright." You said, turning out the lights.

You headed over to where Vera was already falling fast asleep, kissing her forehead and started to sing,

"If you go down in the woods today, you're sure of a big surprise If you go down in the woods today, you'd better go in disguise For every bear that ever there was Will gather there for certain because Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic

Every teddy bear who's been good is sure of a treat today There's lots of marvelous things to eat and wonderful games to play Beneath the trees where nobody sees They'll hide and seek as long as they please That's the way the teddy bears have their picnic

Picnic time for teddy bears The little teddy bears are having a lovely time today Watch them, catch them unawares And see them picnic on their holiday

See them gaily gad about They love to play and shout They never have any cares At six o'clock their mummies and daddies Will take them back home to bed 'Cause they're tired little teddy bears

If you go down in the woods today, you'd better not go alone It's lovely down in the woods today, but safer to stay at home For every bear that ever there was Will gather there for certain because Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic"

They were all fast asleep. You smiled, leaving the room, and closing the door behind you. Then you went downstairs to join Thor and Loki for the movies.

I don't know. This Chapter was kind've everywhere. I was kind've trying to explain what they were doing with their life and also trying to keep the story moving. But I also really wanted to explain why Minerva was still there, etc. I don't know. This wasn't the best chapter. I'll do better- promise.

[elzifelzi]

Honestly adding to this Dean is infact just lazy but he thrives when it comes to fighting and the hero stuff whereas Lilith is smart asf super popular and capable but she sucks at the hero aspect of it..not necessarily because it's hatd but because she over thinks it.

And both of them are doing about a decent a job at keeping their powers a secret as Danny did.

Like Sam sees these knew ghost teens showing up on the scene and she's instantly like yup..those are my kids but they'll tell me when they're ready..whereas Danny is so busy in the ghost zone keeping order that for awhile He doesn't even know that there are new ghost superheroes.

Sam also just bonds better with Dean than Lilith not in a stereotypical he's her favorite or mother babying son way but in the "he's different " she knows his different and he knows his different but unlike his sister he doesn't know how to make being different work for him.

So any moment where Sam can get him to feel like he's not different he's just a Fenton..she takes it.

Lilith doesn't mind and Danny also tries his best with Dean but because Danny and Jacks father son relationship wasn't very normal Danny doesn't know how to be a father to a son aside from just trying to relate to what he went through as a kid

But Danny isn't a bad dad by any means and as long as he's able he always makes time for them.

Danny Phantom future AU where Phantom Planet doesn't happen, Dannys secret identity is still intact and he gets married to Sam.

Sam is now an author who publishes books about the supernatural along with Danny's help.

They have 2 kids.

Dean Fenton and Lilith Fenton.

Both Dean and Lilith are unaware of their Dad's identity as Phantom but are no strangers to their families history of ghost hunting since even in their advanced age thats all Jack and Maddie talk about.

Usually in most AUs where Danny has kids both kids inherit his powers but in this one it's kinda different.

Dean has the more standard ghost powers,he can fly, turn invisible and intangible and his powers lean heavily into the ghostly side of things. So anything that a traditional ghost can do he can do just at a smaller scope,he can't fire ghost rays but he can charge his punches with ecto energy for an extra kick out of the 2 of them Dean is the only one who CAN go ghost.

Lilith inherited the ghost sense and the bulk of the ecto energy, she can't release ecto energy directly from her body but she can expell it through different items, kinda like Gambit and while she can't make herself invisible she can make other things invisible.

So Deans whole thing is that his ecto energy affects his body directly, while Liliths thing is that her ecto energy affects other things.

[words-writ-in-starlight]

I'm a little late to the party but for the ask meme: Danny Phantom 5, 13, 14, 18, 20 + Trans!Danny headcanons. I know that wasn't on the list but I have a feeling you'll do it for me anyway ;)

MY NEWEST BOY.  For this ask meme!  Also thisgot long so I made a separate post about trans Danny because I care about it alot byeeeeee.

5)  Guilty pleasures

Barring times where he’s being, A, imprisoned, or, B, hunted forfun and profit, Danny actually—really likes the Ghost Zone.  It’s soothing in a way that he’s pretty sureis not quite right, in a way that Sam and Tucker and Jazz do not seem toagree with, but he likes it there.  Theslow, billowing curls of green drift through the air like nebulae, currents of energyrather than wind that he could drift on like thick water if he wanted, dottedwith doors and islands that orbit whatever passes for gravity wells in a skyscapeof ectoplasm.  Almost every touchstone inthe Ghost Zone moves, although most have a predictable pattern—about once everyten months, Danny tries not to use the Fenton portal if he can avoid it, onaccount of how it comes out practically on top of Walker’s prison—and learningthe rhythms of it is sort of like a hobby, at this point.  Danny doesn’t have a ton of time to kill, buthe’s figured out that, as long as he’s in ghost form, he can go for a longtime without feeling hungry or thirsty or tired, in the Ghost Zone, so onetime he told Jazz he was going to try his hand at cartography and spent theentirety of his parents’ five day out-of-state conference coasting on ectoplasmand trying to plot the place.  It cameout looking kind of like a star map, full of arrows trying to indicate movementdirection and a lot of scribbled notes like Pretty sure Clockwork moved thisand AVOID and Possibly Vlad’s portal, maybe close this.  

Danny doesn’t talk about it much, because the Ghost Zone makes hisfriends, his family, jittery.  He’s prettysure they’re worried he’ll decide not to come back some day.

13) What gets them flustered

One time a reporter manages to get a camera intoDanny’s face before he can book it after a fight, and she’s smart enough toalready be asking her first question before he realizes what was happening.

She’s also smart enough to start her first questionwith “Excuse me, Inviso-bill–”

“It’s Phantom,” he snaps,looking around in annoyance, and the reporter smothers a triumphant smirk.

“Yes, Phantom.  What made you become a hero,Phantom?”

Phantom just hangs there in the air for a moment, gapingat her, and then squeaks, “Excuse me?”

“You’re a ghost,” the reporter says, keeping aprofessionally straight face and a neutral, friendly tone.  “Whatmade you decide to be a hero?”

“I–didn’t?”  Phantom scratches a hand backthrough his hair, and the reporter silently thanks whatever quirk of ghostlyfunction is bringing a green glow like a blush to his cheeks and throat andears.  She’s going to lock down a raise with this interview, even if heflies off right this second–the first person to interview Amity Park’s ownsuperhero.  And he’s blushing.  “I’mjust keeping things under control, you know?”

The reporter grins.  “Well,” she says withfalse nonchalance, “would you mind answering a few questions?”

“Uh,” Phantom says.  “I have to–go.”

He turns invisible and makes a break for it,and the reporter’s fifty-second clip of a conversation runs on the local newsfive times in the next seven hours.  She gets a reputation for being ableto snag the neighborhood super for a few seconds, sometimes even multipleminutes.  She discovers real quick thathe’ll blush pretty reliably the second she drops the H word.

14) Ingrained habits/forces of habit

Danny works hard to seem helpless at school.  It kind of makes him crawl the walls, but he workshard, okay?  He lets himself getpushed around, he occasionally gets punched in the face, he does his best toconceal it when a year or two of ghost hunting as a full time job starts toshow in his human form, he spends a lot of time and energy projecting a façade oflocal hopeless wallflower.  He can’thelp seeming like a delinquent, given that he’s been living the C-average lifestyleby the skin of his teeth and misses about three class periods on a good week,but at least he can seem like a delinquent who would never, ever be a candidatefor competence.  He’s protecting a secretidentity out here.  Official Team PhantomPolicy, much as everyone might hate it, is that no one intervenes with Danny’scharade.  It gives Tucker hives and Samhas a hit list of bullies, but Danny’s always quick to smile off their concernand get on with his life.  He has ahealing factor and it’s been years since Dash was actually concerning tohim except as a potential stalker, Danny can stand to bite his tongue and take it.

Aaaaaaand then when he’s sixteen, Dash punchesTucker, instead.  Over some pettynothing, something that Tucker doesn’t even remember afterward—refusing to makea fake ID for him?  Laughing at Dash forfumbling a catch at the game on Saturday? Joking about how Dash’s grades were even worse than Danny’s?  It could’ve been anything.  It didn’t really even register with Tucker assomething worth getting punched over, whatever it was, but he guesses thatbullies can have bad days too.

So Tucker says whatever he says, and Dash whipsaround and sucker punches him, a swift hidden jab that only someone alreadywatching would see.  And then–

And then Danny dislocates Dash’s shoulder.  It’s not on purpose and it’s not subtle.  Tucker doesn’t really remember what happened—hewas a little busy gasping for air. Mostly he just remembers the crash of someone being slammed into a locker,and Danny’s voice, deep and un-Danny-like, snarling You don’t touch them,and a shout, a howl of pain and shock. By the time Tucker can stand upright, wheezing and clinging to Sam,every kid in the silent hallway is staring wide-eyed at Danny, skinny weakDanny Fenton who isn’t really so skinny and weak anymore.  Danny’s stepping back from Dash, who’sclutching at a shoulder that looks wrong under his letterman jacket, andDanny looks mildly horrified with himself, but he’s still standing betweenTucker and Dash.  

When the teachers show up, Danny goes quietly to theprincipal’s office, and gives a plain-spoken explanation of what happened—Dash punchedhis best friend, Danny slammed him into the wall, and somewhere in there hepopped Dash’s shoulder out of place.  He getssuspended for two weeks and detention for the next month, which he cooperateswith, and non-negotiable anger management counselling, which he mostly just…doesn’tattend.  Danny has decided that he doesn’tdo school counselling anymore, thanks.

After he comes back, Danny slips back into therhythm of things without any change in his behavior, but—it’s hard for everyoneto forget that they watched Dash’s favorite punching bag nearly put the king ofthe school through a wall.

Sam and Tucker enjoy a very peaceful remainder oftheir high school career.

18) Things they’ll never admit

Danny has not and will not talk to anyone about the accident withthe portal.  The actual events, yeah.  But he’s thought about it, and—they just don’tneed to know.  Sam already frettedherself blue over the Lichtenberg figure lacing up Phantom’s left arm to hisheart.  They don’t need to know how clearhis memory of being electrocuted is.

(Jazz watches Danny skirt around the Specter Deflector with abouta five foot radius of nervous respect, and she makes some educated guessesabout why, exactly, her brother doesn’t like being shocked.  But if he doesn’t want to talk about it, for once,she’s not going to wring it out of him.)

20) What Ifs/Alternate Timelines

I’m sure everyone and their cousin has done this but…I love Jazz and Danny’s relationship.  

So.

Jazz has been keeping an eye on herbrother for…ever.  This is partly becauseshe’s a worrier by nature and partly because their parents are both brilliantand affectionate and completely hopelessly scatterbrained.  Jack and Maddie are fine and all, but alsoJazz is frequently awestruck that she and Danny lived long enough to be able totake care of themselves.  Holy shitis she ever going to write a memoir.  TheChristmas I Re-killed the Turkey or something.  So when their parents are out for the day andshe wanders through the living room into the kitchen to see if the Nilla Wafershave been contaminated yet, and she realizes that she hasn’t seen Danny in fourhours, she starts looking around.  

Sam and Tucker’s bags are in hisbedroom, and all three of them have left their jackets by the door.  It’s a cool autumn, and Tucker complainsconstantly that he’s not built for the cold, he’s built for indoor rooms fullof computers, so they wouldn’t have gone out. The TV is off.  Danny’s room isempty.  It’s not dark enough yet forDanny to have dragged them up to the roof for stargazing.  

It’s about this point where Jazzstarts to feel like something is about to go horribly wrong.

She passes the door to the lab andhears Sam’s voice echo up the stairs, and then—

“Fine, fine,” Danny says from thebasement.  “It doesn’t even work.”

Jazz opens the door, already composinga lecture about not poking around in the lab (for Danny) and a lecture aboutremembering to lock the lab when they’re going to be out all day (for herparents), and starts down the stairs.

The crack-boom of the portalkicking on hits like a thunderclap, and then there’s a scream, someonewailing like they’re being killed.

Jazz never does remember how she gotdown the rest of the stairs, but she makes it just in time to see her brotherstumble out of the glowing green portal and fall straight through Sam’s armsand collapse into a pile of black-clad limbs and shocking white hair.

[tartt9]

Jamie let Roy talk about Batman, trying to let the other man get some of his nervous energy out through his speech. He twisted out his hips, his shoulders, his arms, trying to make sure he stayed loose, all while Roy grappled with... well, whatever it was that he was grappling with at the time. "Not sayin' you can't talk to people, man. Just sayin' that I'm willing to help if you want it," he finally replied. Losing Keeley was one of the hardest things that had happened to Jamie's romantic life, if not the hardest thing that had happened to Jamie's romantic life. He still couldn't understand why Roy had let her go, but that was none of his business. Their relationship was their relationship, and it had never been to make Jamie jealous, no matter what Jamie had thought for the first few weeks... or months after figuring out that they were dating. "Alright, Batman, I'm not sayin' you need help, I'm just offerin' it to ya if y'might want it," he finally replied once he was sure Roy was done rambling about superheroes.

At the tug to his shirt, Jamie looked towards Roy's hand, biting back a grin - it wasn't very intimidating; if anything, the movement was endearing, something that Jamie would've laughed about if the situation were any lighter. But Roy seemed genuinely upset, and Jamie understood - ending a relationship with Keeley was a difficult thing to do, whether you were the one being left or the one doing the leaving, whatever Roy had to leave for. And, in any other situation, Roy growling into his ear may have been enough to do something for Jamie, but his body seemed to know that this wasn't the time for any of that, and, thankfully, his physical reactions were next to none. "I'm not tryin' to fix your sex life, Coach. I promise. We all have our paces for these things, and yours is different than mine, and it's fine," he tried to reassure him the best he could, though he wasn't really sure if it was working. "I was just taking the piss, mate. Just making a joke. We're okay - really." Jamie wasn't exactly the most emotionally intelligent person on the team - they had Sam for that, thank god - but he was trying his best. He patted Roy on the back a few times before standing up again, looking down at him. "C'mon. You wanna make me run an extra lap or two for your entertainment? 'S just us now, nobody to bother us anymore."

JAMIE

Opening his mouth to answer the question, Jamie quickly closed it again as soon as Roy told him not to answer it. “Dunno. I’m talented at talkin’ to people. Flirtin’s kinda my second game, other than football, obviously. And you just… stand there all… menacin-like, like… hairy Batman. So maybe thought you’d want me to be less-hairy… dunno, fuckin’… Superman, or some shit.” Jamie jogged in place for another moment before taking the seat beside Roy on the bench, figuring that he earned a break, and he’d just get shouted at if he hadn’t – nothing he couldn’t handle. Roy practically shouted at him every waking hour of the day. At his sincerity, Jamie looked over at him, nodding. “I’d say the same thing happened for me, but the night Keeley broke up with me, I slept with some girl I met at a pub round the corner from the theatre.” He figured that Roy could use some honesty from him - what good would lying do for anyone? “Told her I weren’t meant to shower alone. But… really just didn’t want to spend the night laying in bed thinkin’ about her all night. So… I get it.” He had never been good at emotional vulnerability, but there was something about Roy that had made Jamie be much more open with him this past season, and Jamie wasn’t sure what it was. But it was nice, having someone to talk to that wasn’t Dr. Sharon, even if that someone was his childhood hero turned team enemy turned coach. “But if you change your mind, I’ll get up and head over there for ya.”

“I can -- talk -- to -- people,” he grunted, sounding pretty unconvincing. “And Batman doesn’t need any sort’uf help with the ladies. And he certainly doesn’t need it from goodie two-shoes boy scout Clark Kent. He’s -- He’s Bruce fuckin’ Wanye,” Roy ranted before he could stop himself. Arms crossed tightly over Kent’s chest. Stop fucking talking, Roy groaned to himself. Why’d he always have to make a fool of himself if he felt awkward or nervous or anything like that? Fucking annoying. Not mint. Jamie’s vulnerability moment with him just now had him feeling weird. The hell was that, Tartt? They’d been having these sorts of mini heart to heart moments lately and Kent was not any better at them. Even if a part of Roy felt a bit better knowing he wasn’t the only one who’d found himself in a fucking mental mess after not being in a relationship with Keeley Jones anymore, it was still so easy for him to get himself worked up. Poor Jamie, who seemed to genuinely be trying to be helpful here, didn’t deserve it when Roy couldn’t work through his own shit in his head. 

Kent suddenly gripped at the back of Tartt’s shirt and tugged him closer like a kitten by the scruff in about the most intimidating action he could manage while they were seated on a bench. “Let’s get something straight, yeah?” He growled softly near the footballer’s ear. “Jus’ cuz we both found out we weren’t good enough for Keeley, don’t mean we’re in some special club toget--” Roy cut off, realizing how much of an ass he was being and he immediately released his grip and brought his hands together between his knees as he came to rest his elbow on his legs. He looked a touch ashamed for a moment before forcing himself to take a slow breath. “Look. I know you’re tryin’ to help, Jamie. But --” But what? Roy only looked more frustrated, hand rubbing at the side of his jaw. “Fuck. I don’t know! I’m your coach. I’m not your problem. You don’t hafta try to fix --- this,” he struggled out, gesturing in the direction of the fangirls as they were leaving. 

[breckstonevailskier]

@oneday-23 Yeah they really were trying to make Nico's death be analogized to police brutality deaths. Nevermind a few things like:

"Unarmed" doesn't mean "harmless". And that's especially the case when the "unarmed" person in question has superstrength. Which means their whole body is very much a deadly weapon.

John's a soldier, not a cop. If we're being technical, he probably didn't do anything wrong per his rules of engagement.

Homicidal violence in reaction to the death of a loved one is par for business with superheroes in the MCU. As @captainwidowspring outlined above, that's what Tony was doing in Siberia. And it's what John is doing here to Nico. In fact, let's be real: if Sam was in this same situation, he'd have done the same things as John. And it would've played out something like this: the Flag Smashers (knowing who Sam is and where his sister lives) take Sarah hostage and use her as bait to lure Sam into an ambush. He goes to the location, gets subdued by Nico, who holds Sam in place while Karli moves to stab him. But before she can do so, Sarah frees herself and tackles Karli. In a rage over the murder attempt being thwarted, Karli turns and kills Sarah instead. Everyone runs, Sam chases down Nico, subdues him. Nico tries to shout "It wasn't me!" and Sam takes out his guns and empties them into Nico at close range, killing him. That's how it would go if Sam was in John's position. And no doubt Steve would've gone through with killing Tony had Tony succeeded in killing Bucky in Siberia.

On Nico's Ability to Defend Himself

An often-overlooked aspect of Nico's death scene in TFATWS is that there was literally nothing preventing him from thwarting John's attempt to kill him, and keeping it from being a death scene; he just didn't so that there would be a reason for the Captain America title to be stripped from John and given back to Sam. I feel like a major reason why a lot of people don't pick up on this fact, and instead perceive Nico to be defenseless (aside, of course, from the shamelessly manipulative framing) is that in the Siberia incident, the incident Nico's death scene is frequently compared to, Tony, after he lost the upper hand, didn't really get a chance to do much before Steve disabled his suit. It thus didn't stick out too badly when Nico also didn't do much before John attacked him with the shield, even though there was a lot more he could have done. Therefore, let's examine the two situations to see how they are different.

This is how the shield incident played out in Siberia. Near the end of the battle, Tony had managed to gain the upper hand and inflict serious damage on Steve. After Steve refused to stop defending Bucky, Tony prepared to straight up blow Steve out of the bunker and down the mountain: but right before he got the repulsor shot off, Bucky grabbed his leg. Irritated, Tony turned and kicked Bucky in the head with his metal boot. Then, before Tony had the chance to do anything else, Steve grabbed Tony and hoisted him into the air; Tony tried to use the jet packs on his boots to get out of the situation, but too much damage had been inflicted on them at that point for them to be of use, and Steve threw him to the ground. Steve then immediately rushed on top of Tony and punched his face mask three times out of sheer fury, after which he broke the helmet by hitting it twice more with his shield and then tore it off. He subsequently raised the shield, which caused Tony to frantically raise his arms to cover his face, and this allowed Steve to have a clear shot at the arc reactor, which he brought his shield down on and broke.

Now, considering how thoroughly biased Civil War is against Steve, and how much it sought to act like he was the one in the wrong—even though the entire Siberia fight was literally just Tony having a temper tantrum and Steve and Bucky trying to survive it—the creative team certainly wouldn't have minded if Tony had cried out in fear like Nico did, as it would be quite useful for the propaganda efforts. Therefore, there is clearly some reason why he didn't.

And it appears that there are two main reasons for this. The first reason seems to be that everything simply happened too fast. Indeed, the entire incident, from Tony preparing to shoot Steve to Steve disabling the arc reactor, took place in the span of about fifteen seconds. And Tony totally wasn't expecting Steve to grab him; presumably, he assumed that Steve was injured enough that taking his attention off him for a few seconds in order to kick his friend in the head wasn't a big deal. He underestimated the strength that poured into Steve's limbs when he saw Tony so callously abusing Bucky, as well as the fact that Steve is a supersoldier, so he can move really fast when he wants to.

So there was the element of surprise, and there was also the fact that Tony probably would have been a little stunned, both from the impact of being thrown to the ground, and from being hit in the head multiple times. It must, of course, be remembered that Tony was wearing a full-body metal suit, so no actual harm was inflicted upon him, but Steve is a supersoldier, so even with the layer of protection the impacts would certainly have been felt. These factors combined to produce the effect that, when Steve raised his shield, rather than take the time to yell anything, Tony simply prepared himself to face what was about to happen, which he thought would be Steve attempting to end him. But fortunately for him, he was wrong. Steve wasn't trying to kill Tony; Bucky was still alive, so Steve was able to contain his fury enough to refrain from a killing blow, and he hit the arc reactor instead.

Now, let's look at how Nico's death scene played out. After John pursued Nico for a bit, and managed to fend off a concrete trash can that Nico threw at him, he was able to hit Nico with the shield as Nico ran into a square. This forced Nico to stop to keep his balance, which allowed John to hit him again, and this finally knocked him over. Nico then tried to get back up twice; the first time John hit him with the shield again to keep him down, and the second time he put his foot on Nico's chest to pin him to the ground and stop his escape attempts. Then, since he couldn't try to get away anymore, Nico waved his hands and nervously insisted, "It wasn't me." He said this because, given the role he played in Lemar's death, he was well aware of why John might be mad at him specifically, for more than just being a friend of Karli. John, for his part, had been preparing to interrogate Nico about Karli's whereabouts, but this clear falsehood evidently filled him with rage, and he raised his shield in a fury. Rather than make an effort to block the imminent attack, Nico simply repeated, louder, "It wasn't me!" even though it was clear that John was not about to accept his garbage. And then, of course, since Nico wasn't about to actually do anything, the beating with the shield commenced.

Nico just lay there and was obediently killed, even though there was literally nothing stopping him from simply catching the shield and keeping it off his chest. His arms and hands were not at all restrained—indeed, he was waving them around—and unlike John, who had acquired a gash on his head, Nico was completely uninjured, so there wouldn't have been any pain distracting him either. And as we saw earlier, Nico is just as strong as John—he was able to restrain John so effectively that Karli would have been able to easily stab John if Lemar hadn't stopped her—and his evident fear would likely have given him enough strength to cancel out John's rage. So he would certainly have been able to keep the shield off his chest until Sam and Bucky, who appeared shortly afterwards, could save him if they wanted to.

Indeed, Nico didn't save himself even though, as evidenced by the fact that he did actually have a chance to cry out, he was dealing with a much less challenging situation than Tony was. For one thing, John bringing down the shield on Nico's chest was not at all a surprise. After John had pinned Nico to the ground, Nico had time to say, "It wasn't me" before John made any sort of move: and after John registered what Nico had said, he shifted his shield, which had been on his arm, into a two-handed grip, and then raised it. Nico clearly saw this coming; indeed, this is what caused him to shout "It wasn't me" a second time. And John's intentions at that point were obvious, so it's not like what happened with Tony where Tony thought that Steve was going to do one thing but he did another; it was pretty clear where John's shield was going, and this would have been plenty apparent to Nico since terror tends to make time slow down. So he had ample time to catch it.

Additionally, Nico would not have been stunned in the way that Tony was. Tony was slammed to the ground and then received five forceful rapid-fire close-range blows to the head, which is several hard impacts in a short span of time. Nico, by contrast, was hit once with the shield, then was knocked by John to the ground. This was a much shorter distance to fall than the overhead bench-press position that Tony was thrown from, and there were even stairs to break Nico's fall. Thereafter, Nico was hit with the shield again—and he hadn't gotten very far up, so he didn't fall very far back down—and then John thwarted Nico's final attempt to get up by pushing him down with his foot. In addition to the fact that the push was much gentler than getting hit with the shield again would have been, as before Nico hadn't gotten very far up, so he wouldn't have hit the ground that hard.

Therefore, in contrast to Tony, who received six sharp blows pretty much back to back, Nico received three fairly spread out blows—after the first hit with the shield, John had to close the distance between them and wind up again before hitting him a second time to knock him over, and then Nico fell to the ground and started to get back up before he was hit a third time—as well as a kind of shove. Nico thus did not receive nearly as harsh a pummeling as Tony did. And on top of that, he is a supersoldier: so even if his treatment had been rougher, Nico would have a much higher tolerance for pummeling than normal human Tony would.

Hence, Nico would not only have had plenty of time to see what John was doing, but he also would not have had to contend with the disorientation that Tony experienced. There is no excuse for why his only reaction to John's attack was yelling.

And here's what makes the fact that Nico didn't try to defend himself even more ridiculous. Even though Steve's attack was much more rapid, forceful, and unpredictable than John's was, Tony STILL did the logical thing and was ready to try to catch Steve's shield. Indeed, you can actually see a bit of strategy in his response to Steve raising the shield. Tony knew he wasn't strong enough to entirely keep the shield off his face since his suit was failing, so rather than try to stop it from hitting him, he was instead planning to try to grab the shield during its descent in order to slow it down and cushion the blow. As Steve brings the shield down, you can even see Tony open his fingers as he expects to encounter the shield. Nico did not do anything of the sort, he just aimlessly shouted as he passively lay there and waited for John to kill him. But come on! If Tony, who was just a normal human encased in a suit of rapidly failing metal, and who had been completely taken by surprise with a harsh walloping, could make an attempt to stop Steve from killing him (even though, as it turned out, he didn't need to), then Nico, who was a supersoldier, and who had received far less of a thrashing, could definitely have tried (and succeeded) to stop John from killing him. Especially since, unlike Tony, he actually would have been able to completely stop the shield from hitting him.

There is another difference between the two situations that is very interesting, however. Tony, for his part, was well aware that he was acting dishonorably. For instance, a little after Tony began his assault, when Bucky was trying to run away and Tony was intent on pursuit, Steve stood in front of him and said, "It wasn't him, Tony. Hydra had control of his mind." But Tony already knew this, so he simply responded "Move," in a way that clearly indicated that he didn't care and didn't want to hear it. And a short time later, when Tony prevented Bucky from escaping, Steve tried again to get through to him and said, "This isn't gonna change what happened," but Tony replied, "I don't care, he killed my mom." Tony knew that Bucky wasn't to blame for his parents' deaths, and that killing him would not help anything: but since he was angry with Steve for refusing to accept the Accords and all their rights-violations, he saw the revelation as an excuse to attack both Bucky because he knew it would hurt Steve, and Steve himself because Tony knew that Steve would not just stand by while Bucky was being assaulted. He ignored Steve's attempts to reason with him because he figured that he had enough power to be able to do whatever he wanted, and he also correctly guessed that Steve and Bucky would continuously hold back against him, even though they shouldn't have. And because of these things, before Bucky's intervention, Tony had been about to do something that could have quite possibly ended Steve's life. So when Steve regained the upper hand and Tony was at his mercy, Tony was aware that he had no right to ask Steve to spare him, because when he had been in Steve's position, he had been ready to potentially end Steve's life without a second thought. Therefore, he said nothing; his only response was to see if he had enough strength left to hold off Steve.

So Tony, in the face of Steve's attack, didn't yell anything because he knew that what he had done was indefensible: and it is due in part to this modicum of contrition that Steve was able to contain his rage enough to spare him. Nico, meanwhile, had been doing something similarly heinous. He had been actively engaged in trying to kill John because John was Captain America, and when Lemar frustrated the attempt on John's life, Nico was also the reason why John was unable to protect Lemar from Karli's subsequent death-blow. And just like Tony, Nico had been relying on his strength to protect him from repercussions. So what he had done was just as indefensible as what Tony did: but instead of taking the smallest bit of ownership of this, he tried to completely absolve himself of responsibility for what had happened, and this resulted in his downfall. For while John had clearly been intending to just interrogate Nico, the fact that the person who had held him helpless while his best friend was murdered was trying to act like he was not at all responsible for what had happened caused him to lose it, and this resulted in the shield incident. Now, Nico definitely should have made it clear that he was surrendering if he intended to, and even apologized if he genuinely regretted what had happened to Lemar: and again, when the attack did happen he could have easily fended it off. But if he had simply recognized the fact that he was not worthy of John's mercy since he had not been prepared to show mercy to John, and remained silent like Tony did, the shield-attack would never have happened in the first place.

But in any case, as mentioned above, Nico didn't try to defend himself because John needed to kill him, so that the show would have an excuse to take the Captain America mantle from John and give it back to Sam without it seeming too dubious. (Though considering that the incident ended up resulting in Sam and Bucky attacking John for the shield a very short time after he literally lost his best friend, the show completely failed at that.) Not to mention, if Nico had put up a fight, this would have highlighted how much he was still capable of threatening John, and put lie to the show's attempt to act like he was helpless. Particularly since, again, if he had tried to save himself there is no reason why he would not have been successful.

Now, it is important to also remember that Nico was definitely not surrendering, the other widespread misconception about his death scene. He kept trying to fight John until he literally couldn't—he threw a concrete trash can at John while he was running away, and tried to get back up twice after John initially knocked him over, which is not something someone who wanted to surrender would do—and then after John had him pinned, all he did was try to disingenuously absolve himself of responsibility for Lemar's death, rather than trying to apologize or making it clear that he was surrendering. But on top of the fact that Nico wasn't trying to surrender, and refused to own up to what he had done, he was perfectly capable of surviving John's attack when it happened. These things make his death scene, as well as the subsequent reaction to it, completely ridiculous and utterly nonsensical.

[morgoonasstark]

I didn't really want to get involved in the discourse on this post but I just gotta correct a few things.

Tony did not "look the other way because he was too busy partying". He legitimately did not know his company (ie, Obadiah) was dealing under the table. "Those are my guns. How did they get my guns?" is one of the first things he says after he's taken hostage. He did not know this was happening; he thought he was only selling his weapons to the military. ("I saw young Americans killed by the very weapons I made to defend them and protect them.") He immediately shut down the weapons manufacturing division of his company when he got home. Then when he found out Obie was still dealing under the table he took his suit and personally flew to Afghanistan to destroy his weapons owned by terrorists.

Steve & Sam: There's a huge difference between fighting for your country and intentionally releasing the Hulk on a civilian population. Sam was also pararescue, not a soldier on the ground if I remember correctly. And Steve was taking out Nazis.

Natasha: She was taken against her will as a child to be raised as an assassin in the Red Room. Wanda VOLUNTEERED for Nazi experiments. Sure, Natasha is still responsible for much of her actions, especially when she became an adult. But she didn't CHOOSE to be an assassin; she was forced to be one. She also takes responsibility for her actions and is committed to making up for her past as much as she can. She has expressed this on screen multiple times.

Thor: Again, big difference between killing in battle and intentionally releasing the Hulk. He was rather violent at the beginning of his first movie but he has changed and grown from it, and now only fights when absolutely necessary.

Wanda IS part of the creation of Ultron. She planted the idea in Tony's head that the earth was in danger and knew what he would try and do. Remember, she can read minds. She knew his motivations. ("He'll do anything to make it right.") Wanda, Tony, and Bruce are all partly responsible for Ultron's creation.

She was also way out of line during the airport battle in Civil War? She brought down a whole parking deck of cars on Tony, enough to significantly injure him even though he was inside the suit. She flung Natasha violently against a crate, which would have seriously injured her if it wasn't a superhero movie. They're both squishy humans, with no enhancements, who were only trying to prevent a firing squad from coming after her and Team Cap.

The main issue I think a lot of us have with Wanda is her lack of responsibility and apologies. (This is partly the writing's fault too, I'll give you that.) She never says sorry for what she's done to the Avengers. She just suddenly becomes one. And she never faces any consequences for what she did to Bruce.

Peter Parker, a fifteen year old kid, takes more responsibility than a grown-ass woman. When he fucked up, he did his best to make amends and become a better hero. He also didn't force the Avengers to see their worst nightmares or kill anyone. :)

remember when wanda fucked up bruce so much by forcing him to hulk on a civilian city that he left the avengers, but fandom shrugs bc she decided she was Good Now™