#king of Ai woke to trouble!

[granonine]

The Ruse

Joshua 8:14-17. And it came to pass, when the king of Ai saw it, that they hasted and rose up early, and the men of the city went out against Israel to battle, he and all his people, at a time appointed, before the plain; but he wist not that there were liers in ambush against him behind the city And Joshua and all Israel made as if they were beaten before them, and fled by the way of the…

[thefearandwonder]

Truth

An old friend of mine has retreated into social isolation, which I could have taken personally. But we've been through a lot together in our lives and I refuse to take anything he does personally. Have to give grace if you want to get it.

He said he wants to get away from the self so influenced by other people and find his center. I think that's a great idea. I'd like to do it myself, but it's a scary thought; even when I'm alone, I'm not truly alone. I reach out to people, I meet new people in virtual spaces, I write stories with others, and always look for social stimulation.

How much of me is 'me'? But, is 'me' something worth defining?

Because for a long time, I've seen myself as a hollow shell battered around by the world, filled up with its energies, emptied, charged up, wrung out, and again and again. I don't like to see myself, because myself is a dragon, a towering egomaniac, a striving and suffering lunatic who hurts herself with the intensity of her ambitions.

The only thing chasing ambition has ever gotten me is pain; I slam into walls and doors, and the faster I'm running, the harder the impact. The smarter I'm being, the further into trouble I get.

My forays into the jungle of American civilization are never productive. They start out hopeful, then end in mutual misery.

You know, I was driving through San Francisco at night last week. I saw billboards advertising not just AI, but digital solutions for AI-generated-image-detection services. Anti-AI. In a sea of lights and concrete, I saw a targeted advertisement as I sat in rush-hour traffic, telling me that I could literally 'find truth' with a product.

And earlier that day, I'd been walking through Yosemite, where the ravens flew by the dozens like bands of kings, with their hooked beaks and proud eyes, their manes of spiky feathers on their chest -- they looked at me and I looked at them. We saw each other, and there was truth there.

And the people who call themselves 'realists' will tell me of the meaninglessness of that experience, that the creature is somehow beneath me, and my deranged mind is deriving meaning from nothing.

Or, if my interpretation of the raven's symbol pleases their vanity, they will feed me scraps and lift me up like a treasured Bug a la some Jack London-esque short story and make me their favorite poet-propagandist. I'll be their truth maker.

And I woke up this morning with the insulin catheter in my abdomen ripped free, something that's never happened before. It was 4 AM. I replaced it without making too much noise and went to write a poem about wanting to sleep that made me cry -- a poem I wish I could share here, but it's going into a collection I intend to publish and therefore in order to sell the rights to print it exclusively it cannot appear in other media.

Well, after writing that poem, and crying, I went back to bed and held my wife. We slept in each other's arms and that's the truth.

Then we were woken up by a call from an unemployment benefits adjudicator who asked very pointed questions about why I left my previous job, opened up old wounds around confusion, anxiety, discrimination, being targeted by malicious parents, and feeling unprotected by admin or HR.

I told my story (again). I told the truth. They, who agreed not to 'contest' unemployment benefits (I suppose that means not filing an appeal for the approval decision) will also tell their truth. But they did not tell me the whole truth when I made the agreement to resign in grace rather than work somewhere I was made to feel so unwelcome. They kept many truths to themselves.

So what is the truth. The truth is that more and more I feel like a gasping animal caught in a net of buzzing light that Just

Won't

Stop

My truth, the thing I know inside me so true and deep, is that when I die, I will hear the sound of wind in trees. It will get louder and louder, until it overtakes me. It will transport me. It is the holiest sound I know. It sounds like the sea. It sounds like the hushings of a loving Universe.

It sounds like the Moon waking me with her light, to kiss me on the brow, and guide me back to sleep, to let me know I am safe and small. Truth.

[soft-serve-soymilk]

ASHJSKDSDKSK Dolphin I woke up randomly at 2am to this and I was HOWLING and kicking my legs like a giggling schoolgirl-- You have a knack for these kinds of posts. you really do. The perfect amount of confidence. The perfect amount of sheer incorrectness. I love you. Never change, Dolphin, never change. But now the onus is on me to, perhaps, elucidate the truth for your amusement. Here we go: 1) I was so tempted to give you a clue here. But then I thought 'hey the hair might be enough' and the fun is in seeing, well, your provided paragraph. Anyways, this is Sophia! She is the equivalent of Atlus going to Bandai Namco 'hey, can I copy your homework (Sophie, Tales of Graces)' and they said yes. She is a sentient AI-- the only one that matters-- and is a quiet, cheery soul who needs to learn about hearts and emotions <3. Sophie and Sophia would be actual besties I swear :'). Eating crablettes together, perhaps bonding on their shared character development of seeing themselves as more than a mindless machine... I've always wanted to see art of them together (maybe not at the expense of my head children but the thought is there that it would absolutely adorable) Also the bit about 'i'm going to beat you with cuteness' is going to live in my head forever. I died when I read that (positive, greatly amused) and would also make an animatic of it if I could She's from P5 Strikers! 2) This is Rei! And you are right in that she's from the Q games-- a party member and key story character in the first one, actually :D. She is quiet at the start, but she opens up to the group and is such a ray of sunshine afterwards. Well, until what is essentially the end of "arc 4" of that game. :(. Don't look anything up. And yes, the braincells DO go out the window when food is involved. Which also is :( when you know. This seems like a fair time to bring up her flower motif, which really is spoilers in plain sight if you know your hanakotoba/flower symbolism. To give you a clue, think of Idyllia, who she is similar too, and her last name Asteraceae ^^ Also when I read the 'is she romanceable' bit this immediately flashed through my head (it's a 10 second clip)

Well, she's iirc 14 but still. Dolphin please 😂 3) It's Jun, and yes, you did just slander my fav from the old gen of persona games 😂. Please do it again sometime, it's great. You're on point about his grade of antagonism! If I had to explain it to you, imagine an even more troubled Archie, who is now attempting to murder Dism. Also he's kind of going around doing this to people, so yes, he is part of some grand scheme:

Yes, there's two Jokers in the series. This one's for the elitists ^^ But yeah you literally do fight him several times like, y'know, Dism fights Archie. The Angel-Joker fight lived in my head for a while, and there was a time where I patterned that ONTO my son, in an older version of canon which has since been replaced. The more you know~ And then he becomes like, a regular party member. Did you know that Tatsujun is the most canonical queer ship in the entire series? Anyway here you go! I hope you learned something :>

So. Dolphin. Tell me about these little guys :3 (Persona edition) What are they like? What are their names? Backstory perchance? Mwehehe

Bonus:

*johnny yong bosch voice* PERSONA! thanks for getting me into this franchise btw, though my knowledge is still limited to the 60 hours we've played of P4 Golden so far and the bits you've shared about 3 and 5. Thus I can say with tenuous confidence that these guys aren't from those games at least? 😅

So who are they? Well first there's Psychic Chie aka, uh, Rosalind. I can see her filling a similar role as Chie though, being sorta loud and easily flustered and probably has a mad crush on whoever the protagonist is. She's got those Leia Rolando/Lynne from Ghost Trick vibes of being very cheerful and trying her best but oops! Problems instead! And maybe trauma!

I like the floating heart shaped beads around her, I hope she uses them as her weapon 💓 She's probably like "teehee I'm gonna beat you with cuteness!" and then it's like 'oh no Rosalind, you made the Shadows fall in love with you instead!' 'Oopsies!!' *canned laughter*

Next is a character whose art style looks like Q or Q2, and the pattern on their skirt suggests they go to Yasogmai High too? So either this is from a social link I didn't do (I never did join the drama club did I 😅) or they're a Q-exclusive character who is part of the same world as the P4 guys.

But that's all I got for the Naoto-esque deductions, time to make stuff up. This is Linette, a level-headed but quiet sophomore. She's not shy, she just doesn't speak much unless prompted. She probably has all of the braincells of the group, unless corndogs are involved, and then all sense goes out the window (I'm assuming you chose this picture for a reason and it's not just a coinidence she's eating one 😅).

She's probably an NPC who like helps you measure your social links or something, but occassionally she also shows up during plot events to say a couple helpful lines and then dip so the player cans solve the problem themselves. Or maybe she is a social link herself in a community garden or something, she does have a powerful (and adorable) flower motif going. Very cute. I think I'd like this character. Is she romanceable?

And then finally we have this sexy evil looking guy. I'm not sure if he's actually bad or just likes to look morose and debonair but I'm gonna say he's an antagonist at least, probably not the final boss though. You're not important enough for that.

Since he's bad he probably has a name like Eddelgard or Evangelion or something that starts with an 'E' because all bad guys have 'E' names, right Pav? ;) EXCEPT in Persona, where they all have 'A' names instead, so naturally this guy's name is Avangelion.

[It has occurred to me that Persona games usually give their characters Japanese names so I have a 0 percent chance of getting these names right. oh well.]

So Avangelion here has the swept back hair and the corsage because he wants to look like a ladies man and all the NPCS love him BUT the protagonist and party know his true nature, that he's actually manipulative and cunning (I'm probably slandering this guy sorry hope he's not your favorite 😂). He has some grand egotistical schemes where he's in charge of everything because he should be because he's better than everyone else and he says this aloud and somehow the NPCs are still like 'aw isn't he such a gentleman??💗'

It's either that, or he's a perfectly normal party character who like. Uses swords and magic and stuff. That's a possibility too.

And that's them! Thanks for letting me ruin these characters, I had heaps of fun making shit up 😂 feel free to send more if you'd like! Also feel free to take this chance to infodump the truth in the notes.

(Oh, and the bonus, Crazy Dancin' Mark. We all know and love him, beloved character of the Dancing All Night spinoffs.)

[lightsonparkave]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LIGHTS ON PARK AVE! WE’RE OFFICIALLY A ONE-YEAR-OLD BABY (our birthday was on the 22nd). Join the celebrations by submitting a work! There’s one week left until Round 12 closes on August 31, and you have 80 prompts to choose from. There are no minimum work requirements or limit to how many works you can submit.

Not sure you can finish your work in time? Little messages are great presents too. What has the past year of Lights on Park Ave been like for you? Do you have a favorite prompt or round? A favorite LoPA work? Want to make a rec list of your favorites or wax poetic and show some love for a specific work and/or creator? Go for it. Let the Steve/Tony community know! The LoPA askbox is open or if you want to make your own Tumblr post or tweet, you can mention @lightsonparkave or tag #lightsonparkave. Whatever method you choose, I’ll make sure to share your message/post on here and Twitter.

Or maybe you’re not up to making anything this time. In that case, let’s take a walk down memory lane. Here are all 46 Lights on Park Ave works for previous rounds.

ART

3490 & 616

A comparison between 616 Civil War and universe 3490 where the war was averted by the marriage of Steve Rogers and Natasha Stark - @jarvisuanddumetoo​

ANY UNIVERSE

A framed portrait of a smiling Tony, drawn and signed by Steve - @hundredthousands

Steve steals his husband’s helmet and gives his king a springtime crown - @starksnack

AU

Tin soldier Steve and ballerina Tony dancing - @jarvisuanddumetoo

BATTLEWORLD

Steve watching Tony flying in on the battlefield - @thingexplainer

MCU

Old Steve holding flowers and seeing a blue butterfly after Tony’s death - @hundredthousands

So much of life feels like drowning... but when I’m with you my troubles recede like waves on the shore - @jarvisuanddumetoo

Stranger Things AU where Steve is the one who was experimented on in a lab and doesn’t understand pop culture and Tony is the guy with no powers who is still doing his best to fight these weird new aliens - @jarvisuanddumetoo

Steve and a dandelion that represents him weathering all his hardships over the years - @jarvisuanddumetoo

Tony on fire and Steve’s reaction - @jarvisuanddumetoo

Steve crying while holding Tony’s helmet after Tony’s funeral - @noririna

I wish you could see yourself the way I see you. You’re a hero. - @starksnack

ULTIMATES

Steve and Tony leaving marks on each other’s bodies that are only visible in the dark - @sirsapling Ults Steve and Tony are tragically bound to one another. They can always feel the trace of each others hands, it leaves an invisible mark they will cary with them till there is nothing left. Only a ghost of something lost in the chaos of the past.

FIC

1872

Say My Name - @citsiurtlanu Steve reminds Tony that there's more to him than the war his weapons were used in.

616

Snow Day - @captainneverever The Avengers think that Steve and Tony got engaged at the annual holiday party. It’s news to Steve and Tony.

Kiss me rough before you go - erde Tony is dying. His life is slipping away and Steve wants to be better than this, but he can't quite manage the feat. Tony's war has made a bitter man out of him, a lesser man.

Boys, boys, boys - Missy_dee811 (@viudanegraaa) (AU) Steve keeps putting off his oil change. Finally deciding to see the mechanic in town.

Without the rusty music of my machine - Missy_dee811 (@viudanegraaa)  Tony was lying on the hood of his car. He had taken off his leather jacket, gently folded it in half, and draped it across the windshield so he could rest his arms on the supple leather.

Muddy Waters - RossKL (@but-damn-is-he-lovable) (also on Tumblr) Tony bleeds. It's not real.

ANY

(A Dream is) A Wish Your Heart Makes - @helovedyou Cool evenings together and laughing free and all the nice things Tony never thought he’d get

Afternoon Off - Neverever (@captainneverever) Freedom is just another word for getting with your boyfriend on the downlow during a mission.

BULLET POINTS

Those We Were (For A While) - sadisticsparkle The blueprints hadn’t prepared Tony for the light bouncing off the battered metal, for the empty stare of its empty eye sockets or the dim circle in the middle of the chest. He traced its lines with his gaze, remembering every day he had spent hunched over the schematics picking its inner workings and every night he had spent sprawled under its pilot letting him take Tony apart.

MCU

border state - @areiton (also on Tumblr) They exist in the in between.

star crossed - @areiton (also on Tumblr) "The gods made the stars,” you whisper, a lifetime ago, a heartbeat ago, now, “and they were so bright, so beautiful and strong, that they ripped them in two. And half of ‘em fell to earth, and woke from the dust and walked as men.”

this is how - @areiton (also on Tumblr) This is how the world ends: Gaps in the code.

kiss me hard before you go - duckmoles​ & starxreactor (AU) “I love you, you know that?” Tony says just after popping another grape into Steve’s mouth. He watches as Steve’s jaw works, chewing and then swallowing. Steve smiles up at Tony with a bright, toothy grin. “I love you, too.” “I’m going to miss you,” Tony continues. “I’m going to call you everyday, okay? And—and, during the holidays I’ll show up at your house and we can—we can—sit together on the balcony, and—” The last day of summer, and it's time to hold on to what you might lose.

No Winter Lasts Forever - Fluffypanda (@ayapandagirl) Steve stopped, white breath clouding the air around him, to look at the little shoots of green and purple peeking out from the scant layer of snow left on the ground.

snippet of a post-apocalyptic A/B/O AU WIP - Fluffypanda (@ayapandagirl) Steve’s fingers traced the bite, a half-moon of red marks, from in front of the largest mirror he’d ever seen.

the first blush of morning - Fluffypanda (@ayapandagirl) (AU) The sun rises on the Atlantic ocean and Steve isn't alone - or is he?

Santa Paws - @heartsandmuses [I]f there were two things the public couldn’t get enough of, it was cute puppies and shirtless Captain America — and Tony, ever the philanthropist, decided to give the people exactly what they wanted, right on Christmas morning.

Philautia - @helovedyou Tony dies and Steve keeps on living. Well. He doesn’t die. Living might be a bit of a generous term

To the Victor - @helovedyou There are rainbows flying and people hugging and others ranting and raving, spittle flying, he thinks this. We have won this, this tiny victory.

Snippet of a WIP set post-IW - @ishipallthings The numbers keep climbing, for hours, in the aftermath.

Shuffle Off This Mortal Coil - jellybeanforest (@jellybeanforest-a-go-go) (also a Cap-IM Bingo 2020 round 1 fic) Tony hadn’t been a cruel man, but he had been a practical one. Or: In his twilight years, concerned about how his slow-aging possibly-immortal husband will adjust to his death, Tony builds an AI version of himself that he updates nightly, intending for it to keep Steve company after he’s gone. When the inevitable comes to pass, Steve doesn’t know what to make of the AI or whether its presence lessens his grief or makes it significantly worse. He’s leaning towards the latter.

Five Bells - @lazywriter7 (also on Tumblr) After returning the Stones, Steve takes a detour through time.

if we’re gonna heal, let it be glorious - @littlemissstark forgiveness. The salty air was intense enough to wake Steve up completely, snapping any left over drowsiness away. He was alert despite the sky still being a shade of navy that tapered into a purple at the sea’s horizon. The world was still dormant, but Steve couldn’t stay asleep – not when he woke to coldness on the right side of the bed and empty arms.

In My Hands and Gone Again - @nostalgicatsea (also on Tumblr) Memories were like fish, Tony had explained, or the tease of one. A flash of silver, and his hands would plunge down. Sometimes he would catch one; other times, it would dart out of reach. He wouldn’t be sure whether it had been real or just a trick of the light, after.

Leaving You Forward - @nostalgicatsea (AU) It would be easy, staying here like this with Tony. But Steve knew he couldn't—because he had never taken the easy way out and because he loved Tony.

i choose: me, you, us - @onlymorelove (also a Cap-IM Remix Madness 2020 fic) “We, uh. We’ve been together five years, and you’ve never— I’ve never let you see it. I told you I’d let you see it on our wedding night.” In which Tony and Steve marry, but Tony hasn't let Steve see the arc reactor—and the scars around it. Yet.

best of summers gone - rosycheeked (@lovelyisthedawn) Tony's favorite month has always been August.

when we all fall asleep - rosycheeked (@lovelyisthedawn) Tony wakes up and questions why Steve loves him. It's a surprisingly complex question for such a simple answer.

you anchor me (back down) - rosycheeked (@lovelyisthedawn) Steve still loves Tony, no matter what mask he’s wearing. He’ll never tell Tony that, though. He’s read enough books and watched enough movies to know that it only ends well when it’s just a story. Or, everyone needs an anchor sometimes, and Steve and Tony just happen to be each others’.

take me to the feeling - smalltonystark (@theotherwasdeath​) Steve looks gorgeous in the lights. He always looks stunning, but here, late at night, in the faint glow from the streetlamps underneath them and underneath the stars, he looks magnificent.

POETRY

A Toast to Cold, Hard Facts - @onlymorelove (also on Tumblr) The world is brutal and coarse, but...

Love was fading stars - @onlymorelove (also on AO3) Blackout poetry based on “Failing and Flying” by Jack Gilbert on top of an original print.

not married - @onlymorelove (also on Tumblr) Grief works in mysterious ways.

[arcticdementor]

Warning: a longpost

Tensions between the social effects and "imperatives" of technological developments and elements of our human natures are not new — people have been debating it as far back as Diogenes, Confucius, and Laozi. But in recent discussions, I note a rather stark polarity.

On the one end, you have the people for whom the human must be subordinated to the technological. Issues created by technology cannot be fought, only individually adapted to, mostly via more technology. The people who will admit — or even go on at length — about the toxicity of social media… and yet for whom the idea of actually doing anything about it — other than individually tuning out if you can — is anathema, and they react with horror when you raise the possibility. People whose response to widespread obesity, particularly among the poor, as a result of modern lifestyles is pushing bariatric surgery (like some doctors friends and family have dealt with). Or at further extreme, singularitarian or singularitarian-adjacent ends, the people who look at our society's increasing difficulty producing future generations, and say either that it's no biggie because Any Day Now™ we'll cure aging and no longer need future generations, or it's no biggie because Any Day Now™ we'll figure out the tech for mass-manufacture of future generations like Brave New World or Battletech's Clans. At the furthest, you have the people who take the Marxist arguments about the "inherent contradictions" between industrial "capitalism" and human flourishing… and say 'so much the worse for humanity; time to start engineering the AI corporations to replace us dumb monkeys' like Nick Land.

Then you have the people at the other end, who go Luddite. Again, you can go back to filthy hobo Diogenes for this one. You've got the "environmentalists" who see anything more advanced than being a hunter-gatherer as the "rape of Mother Nature" and who unironically quote Agent Smith. Then there's the Right-wing primitivists who note that preindustrial societies cannot afford much leftism, and therefore argue that giving up electricity, indoor plumbing, medicine that works, etc. (let alone escaping this small, fragile planet) are all a small price to pay to Own the Libs.

But Confucius, while acknowledging that the creations of the Sage Kings, in bringing us from the "Greater Harmony" to the "Lesser Peace," created a certain tension between societal requirements and our human nature, pointed out that such things, like buildings, and clothing, and fire, and agriculture, and writing, et cetera, are worth the trade-off as opposed to a more natural lifestyle as naked cavemen. But, accepting the trade-off doesn't mean we can't do things to ameliorate those tensions and try to reduce the negative impacts.

Tyler Cowen posited his future Average Is Over dystopia of the vast majority of the population relegated to being impoverished, packed into overcrowded favelas eating beans and bugs, pacified by VR, drugs, and omnipresent government surveillance and enforcement… and when confronted about the undesirability of such and how we might avoid it, simply proclaims it inevitable: the Economy has spoken, and we humans can only obey its dictates. Whatever happened to the idea that our tools and our economy exist to serve us, and our human needs, rather than us existing to serve their needs? Okay, probably most people who held that view from a secular perspective likely ended up embracing Marxism as the means of doing so, and then Marxism failed. (This links in to my unwritten potential post about how Wokism is neither Marxist nor postmodern, despite drawing partially from both.) And those who did so from a religious perspective ended up divided by their various specific sectarian views and given to "solutions" that boil down to unsupported individual piety — or else, being the Amish.

There's that whole bit about "unless you're over 60, you weren't promised flying cars. You were promised an oppressive cyberpunk dystopia." And plenty of people have covered this ground before, about how our visions of technological progress used to be about how it would make our lives better and allow us to better pursue our various human ends, but now are all about how it will make our lives worse and force us to pursue its various inhuman ends. Even the few "optimistic" visions are hyper-individualist, and when confronted about man's nature as a social animal, either insist that said needs will be met through "relationships" with individualized AI surrogates (the whole "2d > 3d," yay sexbots view), or else that the need for human connection will prove yet another "flaw" to be engineered out in whatever manner of "posthuman" creatures replace us.

I look back on those more optimistic visions. At what past societies considered a better future, before we gave up on it. And I note how even the utopian visions of 19th century socialists are, compared to our day, rather spectacularly un-Woke — and definitely better than 'soypunk dystopia, but at least with rainbow flags and nobody being misgendered while they toil for Amazon.'

And, of course, if you go further back, you eventually end up before any serious ideas of progress. Then, ideas about a better world were not speculations about the future, but about the afterlife. I recall a couple of discussions about Bleach, Soul Society, and the average Tenth Century Japanese peasant's idea of Paradise; or (IIRC, prompted by some terrible "humanity curbstomps the invading Legions of Hell who are wielding Bronze Age weapons against modern militaries" story on SpaceBattles) what a Bronze Age goat-herder would consider Heaven?

Are subordination to technological imperatives or Luddism really the only two choices? Are we really left with either the poor afflicted with starvation or the poor afflicted with obesity? For those of us who find the society "progress" has created increasingly alienated, and who prefer older visions and modes of living more attractive, is total renunciation and "going full Amish" really the only alternative?

I look at writers like Chesterton and Lewis and Tolkien, and their ideal social structures, and I think, isn't there some way that technological progress can be channeled towards allowing us — or, at least those of us who want to — to achieve a better, more comfortable, more broadly-available, less labor-intensive version of the Shire Hobbit lifestyle, rather than better digital circuses to numb us while we all eat bugs in our dorm tubes in Scat Francisco?

Or, for those of you so inclined, a better, more comfortable, more broadly-available, less labor-intensive version of the Oscar Wilde lifestyle? After all, I note that a perennial condemnation of aristocrats has been about what big, degenerate perverts they are behind closed doors — that de Sade got in trouble, more for atheism, but also for the "writing publicly about it" part? I mean, aside from maybe @ponteh2dhh1ksdiwesph2tres, where are the people trying to work out, instead of "Fully-Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism," how we might create "Fully-Automated Decadent Space Aristocracy"? Where are the people trying to use computers and AI to create a better version of the Imperial court of Elagabalus without all the slavery and need for foreign conquest to pay for its orgies?

Is there even a term for this idea, of using technology to create better versions of the past, rather than simply letting "progress" take us wherever it will, and all negative consequences treated as simply things we must each individually struggle to avoid and cope with, with all of us in competition against one another to become one of those chosen few ultra-rich tech overlords wealthy enough to escape living in the favelas, the few powerful enough to avoid ruination should one end up on the wrong end of Twitter cancelation?

Wow. Look at me, gloomy pessimist that I am, actually calling for some optimism and hope for the future. Yeah, I probably shouldn't have even bothered with the effort of writing this post. Because of course the only possible futures are all terrible.

[elisaphoenix13]

Everlasting Spirit (Ch.1)

"Mama!"

Stephen groans softly when Valerie continues to call for him from her crib. "Tony...the baby." Without opening his eyes, he reaches out toward Tony's side of the bed when his husband doesn't answer, and his hand meets cold sheets. "Tony?"

The sorcerer cracks his eyes open to look on the engineer's side of the bed and frowns when he finds it empty. He grabs his phone from the nightstand to check the time and his eyebrows shoot up into his hairline when he finds that it was past ten in the morning. Stephen stretches out the kinks that had formed while sleeping and then asks Victor to open the blinds that Tony no doubt asked Friday to keep down until Stephen woke up on his own.

"Ma!" Valerie repeats.

Stephen sighs. "Yes cub. I heard you the first time."

He sits up groggily before slipping out of bed, motioning for Athena to stay when the wolf lifts her head curiously. He steps over to the crib and lifts Valerie from it, and lays her on the bed near Athena while he grabs some diaper supplies from the closet. The wolf noses the baby curiously and Valerie coos when Athena starts to lick her, and Stephen gently grabs her muzzle to push away with a click of his tongue.

"Stop that."

Stephen ignores the wolf's annoyed huff as he changes his daughter's diaper, and then he picks her up and holds her in one of his arms before he heads out of the bedroom. Athena follows dutifully once she hops down from the bed and the sorcerer puts his youngest daughter in her high chair so he can give her some cereal puffs to snack on while he makes breakfast for him and Tony. He naturally asked Victor if his husband even ate breakfast just in case by some miracle he had, but his AI confirms Stephen's go-to assumption. Tony only had coffee.

The doctor cooks bacon, eggs, sausage, and hash browns after feeding his wolf her breakfast, and looks over to the elevator when it opens and Sam walks onto the floor.

"Hey Mama Bear. Have any orange juice up here?" He asks.

Stephen points to the fridge with the spatula in his hand. "We should if Scott hasn't gotten to it. Late breakfast?"

"More like a second one. I worked up an appetite while I was working out with Steve and Bucky."

"You're more than welcome to join us. I always make extra." Stephen offers as Sam walks over to the fridge and grabs the carton of juice.

"Thanks. Beats the cereal I have."

Stephen fills a plate for Sam as he sits at the island, and just as he sets the plate in front of the darker male, the elevator opens again. Tony walks out with Tibbs on his shoulder, and makes a beeline for Valerie to kiss her all over her face and earning a quiet giggle from the baby. Stephen had to partially tune out his husband when he started speaking to their daughter fondly in Italian, but still found himself smiling regardless. Tony constantly spoke to their children in different languages so they could learn them (Peter and Harley being fluent in quite a few because of it), but also just to show affection. Italian was his primary language for that. For the kids and Stephen, although some things were kept behind closed doors when it came to the sorcerer since the three older kids were fluent.

"No topolina, those are for you." Tony kindly rejects Valerie's silent offer of her cereal puffs as the engineer sits in the chair closest to the highchair. "Get down furball."

Sam snorts when Tibbs hops down to the floor from Tony's shoulder. "Your older trolls at school?"

"You know, I think they're possessed because Friday didn't wake me up to make sure they got up and all that jazz." Tony starts. "I woke up by myself and she told me they got up, ate breakfast, and left for school."

Stephen gives Tony a look. "The boys took Diana to school?"

"They walked Cassie to school too. I called their schools to make sure and they all said the kids were accounted for." Tony confirms and Sam swallows his mouthful of food before responding.

"I agree with the boss. They're possessed."

Stephen chuckles as he turns off the stove and fills a couple more plates with food for him and Tony, and then carries them over to the table. While possession was a real thing, Friday eased Stephen's mind when she told them they the kids were acting like they normally did, but Harley wanted to give their parents some time to sleep in. It was one of the times he stepped into a mature role so Tony and Stephen could take a well deserved break, and the sorcerer was already trying to think of a way to thank their oldest son.

Peter did similar things to Harley when he wanted to help his parents relax, but cooking was not one of them. Stephen was almost positive the spiderling gave up on cooking after he burnt that casserole so long ago and had Dum-E bury him in fire extinguisher foam. Diana just played quietly until Cassie was awake and then went downstairs to play with her until Tony or Stephen called her back upstairs.

He didn't know how they got so lucky, but they were. They had amazing kids, and even though they all fought like typical siblings and got into some trouble (especially superhero trouble when it came to the boys), there were days they behaved long enough to let their overworked parents rest. Other times they saved each other's lives, like Harley had done for Peter when he was impaled by the Rhino. They fed and changed Valerie sometimes, built and played in pillow forts with Diana and watched endless amounts of Disney movies, and Harley sometimes helped Peter on his patrols.

Speaking of patrols.

"Tony." Stephen says softly to get his husband's attention.

"Yeah?" The engineer responds as he feeds Valerie some eggs.

"Can you take a look at my suit? Last time I was dimension hopping, one of my legs didn't get covered properly."

Tony looks over at the doctor and holds his hand out until Stephen removes his nanotech bracelet and hands it over. "Did it stop altogether or did the nanites try to cover your leg…?"

"They tried, but there were still holes."

"Some of them probably just need repairs. I'll give it a look once we're finished eating." Tony promises.

Stephen nods and watches his husband return his attention to their daughter once he pockets the bracelet, and they both find her patiently waiting for some more of Tony's scrambled eggs. They were pleased to find that she was not a very picky eater and generally enjoyed anything they offered her with the exception of green beans and lemons. They only knew about the lemons because Harley one day decided he wanted to see how his baby sister would react after chewing on a lemon wedge, and Valerie had the typical response. A puckered mouth followed by a look of betrayal that had her three older siblings (and even Cassie) howling with laughter. By some miracle, Valerie wasn't put off from orange slices because of it, but she would still eye them warily if her brothers were the ones feeding them to her.

Just like she watched Quill carefully whenever he fed her something green. She still hadn't forgiven him for feeding her green beans.

Sam finished his breakfast and thanked Stephen before heading back downstairs, and Tony thanked the sorcerer with a kiss after putting his plate in the dishwasher. The engineer went back down to the lab to take a look at Stephen's suit, and the doctor himself cleaned up the kitchen and his daughter before allowing Levi to take her. The cloak coddles and swings the baby while Stephen sits on the couch to read, and Athena joins her master on the couch and lays her head on one of his thighs. Stephen enjoyed the periodic coo from Valerie as he read his novel and gently pet his wolf's head, and when the giggles and coos die down into silence, Levi gently deposits her into the nearby playpen. It wasn't quite time for a nap, but she would play with her teddy bear until she either fell asleep or demanded her mother's attention.

Of course, today was a day for Stephen's attention. Valerie called quietly for him and the sorcerer had Levi pick her back up and bring her over to him, and he grabbed one of her books through a small gateway after he got her situated comfortably against him. Valerie had a full belly and a clean diaper, so now all she wanted was for Stephen to read her a book before she took a nap. It was an early afternoon ritual for her.

Stephen had to stop Athena from nosing the baby when Valerie fell asleep halfway through the book, but the wolf simply laid her head back on the sorcerer's thigh with another annoyed huff. The doctor ignored her as he carefully situated his daughter so that he can read again, and subconsciously listened to her soft breaths as she slept. It was one of the things that helped him relax...listening to his kids breathe. He mostly heard Valerie, especially since she slept in the master bedroom with him and Tony, but every once in a while he would catch one of the three older kids napping.

Whenever he had a nightmare concerning the kids, he went into their rooms to check on them and listen as a quick way to ease his conscious so he could go back to sleep. Then there were those rare mornings Stephen and Tony woke up to all four kids in their bed, and one time he woke up to find Valerie's foot in her father's face. Diana was comfortably snug next to Stephen, Peter had draped himself across both parents with his head on Stephen's hip (the sorcerer had been sleeping on his side that morning), and Harley laid across the end of the bed with Athena.

Tony and Stephen had never been so thankful for a king sized bed, especially when another one of those mornings found Cassie in their bed too. That only happened when Scott was out of town and Quill was off earth, and she usually saved Tony from a kick to the face by laying next to him and putting Valerie in between her and Diana.

Friday took a picture each time the kids were found on their bed.

"Doctor, Diana will be getting out of school soon." Victor suddenly says and Stephen gently nudges Athena so the wolf could get up. Once she jumps off the couch, the sorcerer carefully puts Valerie in her playpen.

"Is Tony still in the lab?"

"Yes. Should I ask him to come up or pick up your daughter?"

"No, I'll go pick her up. Who's currently in the tower?" Stephen asks his AI. "Actually, is Wanda here?"

"Yes."

"Ask her if she's willing to watch the baby for a few minutes, and if she is, have her come up."

There really was no if. There were only two reasons members of the team wouldn't watch Valerie, and one was if they were just about to leave, or if they were sick and contagious. Natasha had been sick a few weeks ago and had been grumpy the entire time because she loved spending time with the baby of the family. Especially when Quill wasn't hogging her. Of course, the god rubbed it in her face every chance he could, and when Nat was feeling better, she got sweet revenge.

All Stephen knew was that it had to do with sending Scott away to a fake meeting. Just after Quill returned from two weeks out in space. They had a very irritable god on their hands until Scott came home.

"You called?" Wanda says, interrupting Stephen's thoughts as she walks over to join him at the playpen.

"Yes. I just need you to watch her for a few minutes while I go pick up Diana. She's at the end of her nap so she might wake up while I'm gone."

"No problem."

Stephen thanks her and disappears through a portal, leaving Wanda with his daughter and an irritated wolf. He would be back in five minutes, the wolf could deal with not being able to come with him.

=============

"Tony."

The engineer looks up from Stephen's nanotech bracelet and finds Wanda standing by the door with Valerie on her hip and looking concerned.

"What's up Red?"

Wanda opens her mouth to respond, but Friday interrupts her. "Boss, you have a call from the elementary school. They're asking if anyone will be by to pick up Diana."

"Tony…" Wanda starts. "Stephen left to pick her up half an hour ago."

The engineer drops his tools and straightens. "Friday, where's Mom? Track his phone."

A few moments pass. "I can't find him Boss."

Tony stares at the nanotech on his workbench and tries to keep himself from hyperventilating. Stephen never made it to Diana's school? How? The sorcerer always portaled to the closest alleyway or empty street whenever he went to pick up their daughter and it was only a block away. Had someone been watching Stephen's movements and grabbed him?

"Oh my god!" Wanda uses her free hand to magically move a chair under Tony when he collapses. "Tony, breathe!" She commands when she rushes over to him.

He did. After he laid his forehead on Wanda's other hip and grabbed the back of her shirt to ground himself. It took him a few moments to gather himself so he could think again, but he didn't move away from or let go of the witch. He was afraid he would freak out again if he did.

"Friday, is Quill home?" Tony wheezes out.

"No Boss. He's currently in the middle of a shift at the station."

"Call him. Ask him to cut it short."

Friday did so after telling the elementary school that someone would be by to pick Diana up shortly, and the AI told Tony that Quill was on his way to the school. The engineer would only feel better once Diana got home, and while he knew there were others currently in the tower that were capable of picking up his daughter, Tony wanted to put a god between her and Stephen's supposed captors. That was the only explanation for the sorcerer's disappearance. He even had Friday send a message to Karen and Sara that the boys were to go home immediately after school, and then finally took a little more time to calm himself. Wanda said nothing as Tony continued to cling to her, she just threaded her fingers through his hair periodically when she wasn't amusing Valerie with her powers.

Her hands didn't shake though.

[endlessstairway]

FREE BOOK! Prince for Sale

My book “Prince to Sale” is free on amazon this weekend!

mybook.to/PrinceforSale

(Excerpt from Chapter One under the cut)

Not this bullshit again, David thought to himself. He ignored the kneeling figure in his bedroom and carried on to the bathroom. He was tired, and he needed a shower and to feel human again before he would trust himself to deal with Vell.

An even more appealing idea was a shower, a stiff drink and for Vell to be gone when he came back, but that wasn’t going to happen. The alien had been in David’s New York penthouse for five days now, and he wasn’t going anywhere.

David took his time in the shower. He ignored the guilt churning in his belly, provoked by the fact that Vell was still waiting for him, kneeling in his underwear, entirely at his mercy. David might have a little more of such mercy if he knew what the hell was going on.

David cleaned his teeth, even flossing, knowing he was lingering too long at the task. Eventually, he ran out of excuses not to leave the bathroom.

Vell was still there. David folded his arms over his soft pajama shirt and glared at him. Prince Vell. Second son of King Covl of Otharn. Commander of the Armies of the Void. Earth’s first alien invader. Whatever he used to be, whatever titles he used to have, he wasn’t that anymore. Now he was an almost naked slave with a gem-studded metal collar around his neck, kneeling before his master. Waiting to be of use.

David shuddered at the thought. He didn’t want any of this. He certainly didn’t want Vell in his bedroom, or even in his home at all. He should be back on Otharn, where his brother, Prince Lonn, had taken him after his defeat on Earth, promising the joint human forces that Vell would be treated for his madness and would be no further threat to the humans.

Some treatment, David thought. Vell had clearly been abused in the two years since they had met in battle. He was no longer the proud, confident commander with wild eyes and a superior smirk. He was thin, malnourished, broken. His ribs showed under fragile skin, bruises bloomed on his flesh, and his back was a mess of lash marks in various stages of healing.

More than his physical condition, Vell’s behavior told his story. He had not spoken a word since arriving, he flinched away from contact, he had not looked David full in the face, he kept his head down. He dropped to his knees at the slightest provocation, as though afraid of punishment.

And there was this nightly display. David sighed and sat on the bed. He had tried to stop it. He had told Vell not to do it, he had yelled at him, he had even locked him out of the room. Despite that, each evening Vell slunk away and presented himself, stripped and submissive, in the master bedroom. David mentally cursed Lonn for leaving his brother there with little information and no clue when he would return.

David thought back to the night the previous week when Lonn had appeared. Lonn’s usually tidy crystal portal had been vibrating wildly, bursting too soon and dumping the brothers out on the ground. Lonn had been bloody, sweaty, his golden spear clutched in his hand. Vell had been unconscious.

Frantic, Lonn had grabbed David’s shoulder, called him shield-brother and pierced him with his electric blue gaze.

“My friend,” he had said, “I must ask of you this favor. My brother Vell needs sanctuary. He has been most grievously mistreated, and I must right this wrong. He will cause you no trouble — he is enthralled.”

David had taken note of Lonn’s bloody spear, his trembling hand, his battered armor, and he had agreed. He and Lonn were friends, it was true, but David never quite forgot that Lonn was an alien prince with the strength of ten men, who controlled arcane powers that David didn’t yet understand. It was wise to agree. Lonn had embraced him in gratitude, smearing his clothes with soot and blood, said he had to return to finish what he had started with the Vaaladir, and was gone. He had left Vell, and David had groaned and dragged him to a room that locked from the outside. Lonn had not explained what enthralled meant, who the Vaaladir were, or when he would return.

David had expected Vell to cause trouble when he woke up. To be arrogant, demanding, to try to escape from the room — but he had done none of that. He had simply knelt on the floor and waited.

Lively, David’s crystal-powered AI, constantly monitored the room, but Vell had not done anything alarming. He had not done anything else at all that whole day. David’s knees ached every time he looked at the screen, as hour after hour passed with no movement from the alien. It was not until evening that Vell had finally collapsed on the floor and lain there, twitching.

Lively had her energy cannons charged but still hidden in their ceiling mounts when David went into the room to check on Vell. He trusted Lonn, but he certainly did not trust his brother.

But there had been no trick; Vell was unconscious again. The only change about him was that the gems on his collar were glowing a sickly yellow. David had had no idea what to make of that, so he left a tray of food, a bottle of water and locked the door again.

To David’s shame, it was Lively who had realized that the yellow glowing of the collar was painful for Vell — that it was a punishment. It happened when he could no longer hold his kneeling position on the floor, and once when David, in his frustration, yelled at him to answer his questions. Lively’s calm voice informed David that the yellow light corresponded to Vell’s elevated heart rate and neural activity indicating high levels of pain. David did not raise his voice after that, but he did not know how to stop the punishments otherwise.

Two days passed before David let Vell out of the room. He had spent that entire time either kneeling on the floor or sprawled out on the rug. David’s conviction grew that, whatever had happened to Vell since they had met in battle, he was not the same person. But still, David was no fool, and he gave Vell a demonstration of the capabilities of Lively’s cannons before allowing him into the penthouse. The last thing David had expected was this nightly half-naked display of submission, and he wanted it to stop.

David rubbed his face and smoothed his tousled hair back into some semblance of order. He was tired and frustrated. “You know, this would be a lot easier if you would talk to me,” he said.

He didn’t expect a reply, and he didn’t get one: Vell had not spoken a single word since his arrival. The man on the floor tried to control his flinch at David’s harsh tone, but he could not hide the trembling of his hands, clasped behind his back. Every day he got paler, thinner. He barely slept, and David never saw him eat. He was wasting away.

David sighed. It wasn’t as though he didn’t understand. There was only one reason Vell would be kneeling, practically naked, next to David’s bed. But he wasn’t about to try the obvious option. If nothing else, Lonn would probably kill him, shield brothers or not.

“Go to your bedroom, Vell,” he said, wanting to be done with this charade for another night. Vell usually obeyed orders, but this time, as he tried to stand, the gems in the collar glowed yellow again. David watched, horrified, as Vell stumbled and fell back to the floor, his back arching, his whole body shaking.

“No!” David grabbed Vell’s shoulder to steady him, unsure what to do, “Enough! Stop!” he yelled. To his surprise, the glow subsided, leaving Vell shaking and gasping on the floor.

“Vell, are you OK?” David asked, concerned. The man might have tried to kill him and invade his planet, but right now he was suffering, and David was not a monster.

Vell’s eyes opened, and as soon as he was able to focus, he seemed to realize where he was. He scrambled back onto his knees and pressed his hands and forehead to the floor. He cringed away from David as though expecting further punishment.

“Hey, it’s OK,” David reassured him. “That wasn’t me. I’m not going to hurt you.”

No response.

David wracked his brain. He couldn’t send Vell away without torturing him, but he was certainly not going to take him up on his obviously coerced offer either. Vell may be presenting himself to David, but he was being forced into it by the torture-collar locked around his neck. David may be something of an asshole, but not enough to take advantage of that.

Instead, he sat on the floor next to Vell’s hunched form.

“What the hell is going on?” he asked the air. He reached out and gently patted Vell’s shoulder, hoping the gesture would be comforting. He realized too late that any physical contact could be misread in this situation and withdrew his hand. He doubted Vell would want his touch, and if he wasn’t able to say so, it was up to David to control himself.

But David was exhausted. He had been working non-stop for months, studying the crystals that enabled humans to open portals and travel between worlds. He needed to create stable portals, not the short-lived little gateways he had been able to sustain until now. He knew it was possible; Vell had created a huge one when he brought through his Void army. If crazy-ass here could do it, David knew he could, too. He yawned. His judgement was impaired by tiredness, and nothing was going to get resolved tonight. They both needed to sleep. He pulled a pillow off his bed and tossed it in the corner.

“You. Sleep there,” he said, in his best commanding voice.

He watched, intrigued, as Vell crawled over to the corner on his hands and knees. The gems didn’t light up. David supposed this did not count as being sent away. After all, if he was in the corner of David’s room, Vell still could be called upon should David have any sudden need for him in the night.

Vell curled up on the floor, his head on the pillow. He was asleep almost immediately, his hair over his face, his knees pulled up defensively. He looked almost peaceful. Much more so that when he had tossed and turned all night in the guest room. David pulled a blanket off the bed. He draped it over Vell’s sleeping form, hiding his too-thin body, and the scattered evidence of abuse.

His prisoner was asleep, and David would be damned if he would be chased out of his own bedroom.

“Liv, keep your guns charged, and wake me up if he does anything,” he said.

Lively had the entire penthouse under constant surveillance, and as powerful as her crystal-powered energy cannons were, she had a few more tricks up her sleeve that David wouldn’t mind testing. Taking a last look around, David got under the covers, and fell asleep to the sound of Vell’s breathing.

******

Get the full book for free until 5/19/20 mybook.to/PrinceforSale

[theherothechampiontheinquisitor]

Avengers Asks

I was tagged by @woodelf68

1. Which Avenger would you recruit to help plan your birthday?

Normally, I would say Tony because he has ALL the money but we all know that man has never planned for anything in his life, so with the advent of Rescue technically being an Avenger per Endgame, I vote Pepper, because she’s the one who really did all the party planning. 

2. Which Avenger would you switch suits with for a day?

Spiderman. He was one of my first favorite superheroes and with his suit now being tricked out by Tony, gah that’s just amazing. I need an AI like Karen too. lol 

3. Which Avenger would you like to train with?

Black Widow! She’d know all the most badass self defense moves.

l4. Oh no, you need help! Which Avenger would you call if you’re in trouble?

Hulk because he’d just smash everyone.

5. Uh oh, you got arrested. Which Avenger were you with?

Probably Tony because he likes to push boundaries and it catches up with him sometimes. lol

6. The Avengers are playing basketball. Which Avenger would you pick first to be on your team?

Thor. He may not be the best at playing but the man is a brick wall.

7. You’re trying to make your ex jealous. Which Avenger do you pretend to date?

Tony because he’s my fav. Or Thor because he’s a literal God. Then again T’Challa is a King and he is also delicious. Or all of the above just because this is my world and I can. 

8. You’re out for a good time and need a wing man/woman. Which Avenger do you pick for the job?

Rhodey!!! He would never steer you wrong. 

9. You woke up with a hangover. Which Avenger did you get drunk with?

Steve, because I didn’t believe that he couldn’t get drunk and I decided to test that theory and lost.

10. You’re going on a road trip. Which Avenger do you ride with?

Tony because he is going to have the nicest ride.

11. Your favourite band is having a concert.  Which Avenger goes with you?

Tony because I feel like he is also a Rolling Stones fan and Rhodey to keep him in line if needed. lol

12. You’re going shopping and need a second opinions. Which Avenger do you trust to help you pick out outfits?

Black Widow. I’m sure Natasha has had to go on missions and disguise herself so much that she would know the perfect styles for just about everyone.

13. Your parents want to meet up with one of your friends. Which Avenger do you take to meet your parents?

Steve. He is a parent’s dream.

14. You get injured on a mission. Which Avenger would you trust to be in charge of your care?

Bruce, even though he’s not that kind of doctor. ;) 

15. Your room is a mess. Which Avenger do you pick to be your butler and clean your room?

Dr. Strange because he can just portal my laundry and trash etc to the appropriate places lol

16. You wanna play a prank on the team, but need help. Which Avenger do you pick to help you prank the rest of the team?

Hawkeye. Clint knows all the best pranks and who to prank with what. 

17. Time to buy Christmas presents. Which Avenger is the easiest for you to buy for?

Peter - because he’s just happy to be there and would instantly love anything that you give to him. 

18. You’re going on a mission, but only one other person can go. Which member of the team do you choose to go with you?

Tony. Because I love Tony and there’s no other reason. 

I tag @takadasaiko and honestly anyone that wants to do it. Idk. lol

[itsallavengers]

Freak Weather Conditions

(Thorbruce, getting together, hurt/comfort)

“You’ve been here a while.”

From across the room, Thor watched as Bruce looked up quickly from his book, turning to Thor and then smiling at him in recognition. He was curled up on the large windowsill, a blanket wrapped cosily around his shoulders so that only his head and hands were stuck out of it, available for turning pages and sipping on the coffee at his side. Thor took him in, feeling the immediate urge to smile upon seeing him. Bruce looked adorable like that – comfortable in a way he rarely did. It was lovely to see.

“Hi, Thor,” Bruce said in greeting, voice croaky from disuse. He shuffled upright on the window sill and flicked a hand self-consciously through his messy hair as his cheeks went a little pink. “I, uh, was just catching up on my reading list. Free day, y’know? Gotta spend some time relaxing in this madhouse.”

Thor grinned, walking further into the room. He resisted the urge to head straight over to Bruce and scoop the man up into his arms, swoop down to kiss his forehead and bury his nose into those soft curls. It was a regular restraint he had to enforce upon himself, and one that he was wearily used to by now. Such was the nature of unrequited love, unfortunately.

But Bruce as a friend was more than enough, and Thor had long since learned to accept that. He instead came down and sat a good, comfortable distance away from the other man, back leaning into the opposite wall of the window-sill as he looked outside into the New York skyline. It was pouring with rain; huge drops that fell straight down and splashed up against the windows with an incessant pattering. Thor could feel the current running through the air, and then a second later they both watched in fascination as a bolt of lightning cracked through the sky as if it were tearing it open.

“I love Thunderstorms,” Bruce said quietly, and Thor turned to him with a small smile and a raised eyebrow, “they’re very… comforting, in a way.”

“I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anyone call a storm ‘comforting’ before,” Thor said with a cocked head. Bruce was a fairly quiet man, but the things that he said never failed to make Thor invariably happy in some way- even when they were mundane things, like ‘can you pass the milk’ or ‘please don’t encourage any electrical storms in the lab’.

The word Clint used often- ‘whipped’- sprang to mind, and… yeah, okay, perhaps Thor could agree with that one. For Bruce Banner, he wasn’t sure if there was anything in the nine realms he would not do.

Across from him, the other man shrugged, the blanket slipping a little off his broad shoulders as they moved. Bruce looked over to him with a soft expression in his eyes. “I just think they’re beautiful,” he told Thor quietly, “power in such a raw form… we’ll build space travel and time machines and control every aspect of life that we can, but not the thunder. We can’t control that.” He paused, before sighing and rolling his eyes at Thor’s dry look. “Okay, well, most people can’t.”

Thor winked at him, and Bruce laughed. It was a truly wonderful sound, and one Thor could never tire of. They watched one another for a little while, maybe just a second too long, until Thor felt his cheeks go a little pink and he looked back to the skyline at his side. Blushing was, regrettably, a universal thing, and he tended to be in a constant state of redness whenever Bruce was near. The man was just so…so…

Hell, Thor wasn’t even sure how to describe it. He was a God who walked among men, and every day he was reminded of the power he held, the knowledge of the universe that he knew humanity would not be able to grasp for another few thousand years- and yet Bruce Banner still managed to make him feel… weak. But the good sort of weak. He was incredible- one of the brightest minds Thor had ever known, and he was beautiful, and kind, and gentle in ways that Thor couldn’t ever understand. He’d been through so much, but that gentleness had never left him. Thor loved that about him. He loved the man’s strength- not the big angry and green kind, but the dedication. The perseverance. There truly was no one else in the world who could compare to Bruce Banner. Not in Thor’s eyes, anyway.

He felt himself sigh, just a little. A God in love with a mortal; this was how all the tragedies went, wasn’t it? And yet, Thor barely even thought it would be a problem. Bruce didn’t look at him that way, and he probably never would.

“I’m sorry,” Bruce said, snapping Thor out of his little spiral of thoughts as he turned to the other man, “I’ve just been a bit caught up in my own world today. Do you want something? Like I said, I’m free today, so,” he spread his arms and smiled, “I’m all yours.”

Thor smiled through the clenching of his heart. God, if only. “Nah,” he shook his head and rested his elbows onto his knees. Sparring could wait.  Bruce was happy here. “Just wanted to come visit you.”

The scientist’s nostrils flares as he blushed and looked down at his lap. The shadows of the rain flitted over his face, speckling him with droplet-shapes. Although not many humans agreed with Bruce, Thor certainly did. This sort of weather was just as beautiful as the sun, if not more so.

Then again- as Thor looked over to Bruce, who’d turned back to gaze up at the sky with a soft, gentle look in his eyes- perhaps Thor just had a bias.

 -

 Mornings in the Tower were a hectic event, and it was always a scramble to the kitchen in order to get to the food first without it disappearing. What with him and Steve and their constant hunger, Clint’s greediness and Tony’s general desire to hoard his food like a squirrel, it seemed it was always a battle to just get a slice of toast. It had resulted in more than one actual battle before.

Usually, though, Bruce was around to keep them in check. He held onto the wooden spoon and smacked any wandering hands that threatened to start trouble, stood vigil by the stove and prepared endless amounts of bacon and eggs, and quickly calmed any bickering with threats of turning green and unleashing his rage upon all of them. It was very effective. Like a delicate ecosystem, the team had found their balance in the mornings, and worked together in order to benefit one another to the utmost. Tony and Steve had formed an alliance in which they shared their food, and Natasha usually just picked at everyone’s plates like a vulture, eating her shares and then handing some off to Clint. Thor himself merely stood next to Bruce, allowing himself first pick of all the things that came off the stove. It worked.

Except for the morning when Bruce failed to show up.

“Touch my bacon one more time, Barton, and I’m going to snap every single one of your stupid arrows and then start on your fingers,” Tony snapped at the man across the table, curling his hands protectively around his plate and snarling.

“You don’t even eat all of it!”

“Yeah, but Steve will! Not you!”

Thor watched from his position near the stove as Natasha snuck in and stole one of Tony’s slices of toast from under his arm. He span around in anger, and then Clint took the opportunity to take the bacon while he back was turned. Thor sighed. “Tony, I’ll just put some more on the-“

“-No, it’s okay,” Steve told him, snatching Clint’s entire plate away from him and then sliding it over to Tony, much to the archer’s distress, “we’ve got some more right here.”

Oh God- well that’d done it now. Clint yelled in outrage, standing up from the counter and leaping onto it with a finger pointed accusingly at the pair of superheroes sat opposite him. Thor took another look at the fast-approaching disaster that was building, and hastily decided to vacate the premises and leave them to battle it out with one another. He was too hungry to have to fight for his food. “JARVIS,” he asked as he grabbed for a sweater that was either his or Steve’s, “where’s Bruce?”

The AI was silent for a moment. “He is in his quarters,” he admitted in the end, “but he wishes not to be disturbed.”

Thor frowned. Bruce usually woke early, and he’d often admit that his favourite time of day was breakfast with the team. However, Thor couldn’t fault him for wanting to stay in bed for once. There was only so much of Tony and Clint’s screaming that one could take, after all.

Thor let it slip from his mind as he went over to the nearby Starbucks and bought himself a sandwich there, having a friendly chat with the Barista who served him as he did so. He thought about maybe buying Bruce one too, but eventually decided against it. Bruce said shop-bought sandwiches tasted like plastic, and if he didn’t want to be disturbed, he was probably busy anyway. Instead, he found himself wandering over to the little shop down in some forgotten street-corner, tightly packed in against other bigger and better buildings. He knew Bruce liked to come here to buy his coffee beans when he had the time. Thor wasn’t sure why. They all tasted the same to him. But all the same, he walked in and looked around on the shelves, wondering what in the hell was the flavour that Bruce liked best. He knew he didn’t even need to buy it just now, really. Bruce had plenty in his shelves. But… well, Thor just liked to see the way he smiled; soft and gentle and surprised, like he wasn’t used to be being given gifts.

If Thor had the chance, he would probably never stop giving the other man gifts. Bruce deserved to be cared for like he was royalty, but he always seemed to think the opposite. It drove Thor insane. More than anything, he simply wished he could make Bruce see himself the way that Thor did.

With a shake of his head, Thor tugged four different packs off the shelves and bundled them onto the counter. He wished for a lot of things, when it came to Bruce. He was wearily resigned to the fact that, though a king he may be, he wasn’t a genie. Some things were just unattainable. But dammit if Thor wasn’t going to try all the same.

By the time he arrived home again, it seemed the breakfast animosity had been resolved. It looked like they’d ordered Chinese food, which even Thor knew was absurd and went against all human etiquette laws. “Where the hell did you even manage to buy this as 10 in the morning?” He asked, poking one of the boxes as he set his bag down on the table. Tony just grunted unintelligibly.

“Know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy,” he said from the couch in the living room, waving an absent hand and then returning to the cartoon program that the whole team were watching. Thor was pretty sure the target audience for said cartoons were five-year old girls, but hey, he wasn’t judging. Instead, he just rolled his eyes and stuffed the bags of coffee into Bruce’s assigned shelf, hoping that they were the ones he liked. Glancing over his shoulder once he was done, he looked over to Steve, wondering whether the other man had remembered the sparring session that they’d agreed to the day before. But Steve seemed to have let it slip from his mind, because he was still in his pyjamas on the couch next to Tony, and from the way that Steve’s arm was wrapped tentatively around the back of the couch and Tony was moving steadily closer into him while Steve just shot him longing glance after longing glance, Thor knew that the other man’s mind was probably…. Occupied.

He huffed in amusement and turned back around with a fond shake of his head. Human affection. Pah. Thor would never be so nervous when it came to his own feelings. He was not from Earth, he did not have the same qualms about love as they did-

“Thor,” JARVIS said, quiet enough that the rest of the team didn’t hear him from the other room, “Doctor Banner is requesting your presence in his quarters, as soon as possible if you can.”

Thor blinked, his heart doing something funny in his chest. “I thought he didn’t want to be disturbed,” he asked dumbly, “is he—why does he—me? Are you. Uh. Sure about that?”

“Indeed,” JARVIS responded, and he sounded the tiniest bit exasperated, “you, Thor Odinson. I am very certain.”

Thor took a moment, and then nodded hurriedly. “Oh, of course,” he muttered, “of course, I’ll be right there. Tell him I’m coming right away. No, wait- does that sound desperate? Tell him… just tell him I’m coming. No wait, that sounds dirty, tell him-“

“Doctor Banner has been informed of your imminent arrival,” JARVIS cut in before Thor could lose himself entirely. By that point, he AI had moved from exasperation to mild amusement. “If you would like to make your way to the elevator, I will gladly take you to his quarters.”

Thor nodded hurriedly and dropped the rest of his stuff on the counter. Bruce probably just wanted him to bounce an idea off or test the tensile strength of something. Usually that’s what he summoned Thor for- although admittedly, it was always to the lab and never to his own quarters. Not that going to his quarters was a world-altering event, really- he’d been there plenty of times, he’d just never been summoned. It felt like a bigger deal. Was it more personal to be summoned to a man’s laboratory or a man’s bedroom? In normal circumstances, Thor would say the latter, but this was Bruce. The guy spent 90% of his time in that lab. Maybe this was just a step down as opposed to a step up in their relationship. Maybe Bruce was trying to establish boundaries here- ‘I’ve decided I no longer want you in my lab, but the room I spend no time in and have barely any attachments to is fine’.

He frowned at his reflection in the chrome of the elevator as he stepped inside. Perhaps he was overthinking this just a little bit.

It took twenty seconds for the elevator to arrive at Bruce’s floor, and Thor could admit that in those twenty seconds he’d probably thought through about a hundred different scenarios that had the possibility of playing out once he arrived. He briefly wished that he’d taken the coffee with him. Then he might have been able to get one of those wonderful Bruce Banner smiles that he loved so much. Maybe he should go back for them? Well, he couldn’t really do that unless he smashed his way back through the bottom of the elevator, and that was just stupid. Plus Tony had warned him that any more unnecessary property damage to his tower would mean that Thor got thrown out and he’d have to live in a cardboard box on the street, and so he was slightly more wary now, because he couldn’t quite tell whether or not Tony was joking.

The elevator doors slid open, and Thor stepped out, head peeking around the corner in search of Bruce. The living room was empty, and the blinds drawn to hide the bright sunlight of the day. He couldn’t see anyone there, but a second later he heard a small clattering from the kitchen and he turned his head with a frown, stepping further in. “Hey Bruce,” he called, “you wanted me?”

A second later, the man’s head popped up from under the counter. Thor blinked I surprise. “Hi,” Bruce said, voice strangely uneven, “hi, I’m just…. Sorry, just looking for my tea-bags, I swore I left them in one of these cupboards, dammit.” He ducked back down and there was another clatter, like the man was pulling the entire shelf out. Thor winced at the noise and wandered forward, his brow furrowed. Bruce was a very organised person by nature, and he always liked to keep things clean- something that had resulted in more than one argument when he was sharing a workspace with Tony, who was a disaster on a good day. But his kitchen was completely overturned now; cooking equipment lying everywhere, whole draws taken out of their racks and ransacked. Thor had a feeling that this wasn’t just about the tea, and his heart sank.

“Bruce,” he began, keeping his voice low and gentle, “are you… are you alright?”

Bruce paused, before clearing his throat and nodding jerkily. “I’m fine,” he croaked, “I just… this stupid fucking tea, green tea, supposed to help calm you down and I can’t find it, I think that’s like some sort of fucking metaphor or something, I don’t fucking know, Jesus, I just—” he broke off, sucking in a sharp, unsteady breath as he fell onto his butt and then palmed a hand across his face. Thor stared at him as he shook. “I need you to watch me,” he choked, “just in case. I’m… I’m really on edge, Thor, if I turn right now I might seriously hurt people.”

The look on Bruce’s face was one that was broken, despairing, and endlessly frustrated. His hands were balled into fists against his face, and Thor could see the effort he was having to expend simply to keep himself from going Green and Hulking out. Thor knew that without intervention, it’d be unlikely Bruce would be able to keep this at bay on his own.

“Hey,” he began, stumbling forward and then getting to his knees next to Bruce, his hands wavering with uncertainty around Bruce’s shoulders before tentatively settling themselves. “You’re not going to turn. I’ve got you, alright? You just need to… find a way to calm down a little. What is it that’s… when did this start?” He tried, looking at Bruce’s strained face and resisting the urge to pull him in for a hug. Humans dealt with stress in very different ways than Asgardians did. They never quite managed to process their trauma quite as well, and it left them with battle-scars in their brains that Thor could didn’t understand much of, but admired them for being able to deal with all the same. Some people liked to be embraced in times like these, but Thor wasn’t sure whether Bruce was one of them yet, and he didn’t want to push it.

“I was mentioned on the news,” Bruce whispered to him, swallowing heavily and looking at the floor, “General Ross, he… was talking about military assets, plans they had- he just mentioned their ‘losses’ over the last few years and I knew… I knew he was thinking about me, y’know? It’s stupid, it’s dumb, I just…” Bruce coughed, hands shaking harder. “once I’d had that thought, I just remembered all the years I spent running, hiding—fuck, I’m never really going to stop having to do that, am I? I’ll always just be their thing, their fucking possession, I—”

“Bruce,” Thor said firmly, “take a few deep breaths, okay? You know what happens when your heartbeat gets too fast. Come on, with me. In and out. You’re safe here, okay?” He sucked in a long, slow breath through his nose, fingers squeezing gently against Bruce’s shoulder. “I would never let anything happen to you. None of us would. I promise.

Bruce shut his eyes and synced his breaths with Thor’s, shaky and jagged, but there all the same. Now words were spoken while Thor focused on merely getting Bruce to breathe with him, find some peace in the easy action. Thor had spent a long while looking up how to help someone who was having problems with anxiety after seeing Steve go through something similar one time a few months ago, and not having a single idea what to do. It had made him feel so awful to just stand there helplessly, but he knew better now. Hopefully. “Bruce?” He asked, just to check, “how’s it going in there?”

Tiredly, the other man laughed, leaning forward so his forehead brushed against Thor’s shoulder. “Fuck,” he responded, which ultimately did not sound promising, “I nearly lost my shit over green tea, Thor. What the hell’s wrong with me?”

Thor frowned, unable to stop his hand from moving to cup around the back of Bruce’s neck. “The only thing wrong with this is that you’ve been hunted across the world for years, and that is something that is bound to affect anyone.” He brushed his thumb across the whispy strands of hair at the nape of Bruce’s neck, his mouth tightening as he thought of the people who had made Bruce feel this way. He’d only met Ross once, but he knew a shitstain when he saw one, and that guy really took 1st prize. He made a mental note to do some serious threatening next time he bumped into the General. Politics and laws be damned; if every time Bruce saw his face he ended up in this state, well… Thor would simply have to strongly encourage Ross into staying very well hidden. “You are a man who has been through hell, Bruce. This is not something to be ashamed of.”

Bruce just sighed, sinking a little further into Thor’s hold as if he couldn’t help himself. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, “you were… probably busy. I just—I can’t deal with the Hulk, not right now, and you’re the only one who—” Bruce cut himself off sharply, taking in another breath. Then, almost nervously, he buried himself further into Thor’s chest. “You’re the only one who I can trust without question,” he whispered.

Thor blinked, hands automatically wrapping around Bruce’s body protectively. He hadn’t expected that to be what he’d come out with. Maybe a ‘you’re tough enough not to get hurt by me’ or ‘you are the only one who can subdue me if I need to be’—but trust hadn’t been something he’d considered. But now he thought about it, he supposed it must be a big deal to a man like Bruce Banner. Thor knew of his bad family history, of the father who’d beaten him and the mother who’d left. He knew that Bruce had spent most of his adult life on the run, helping people wherever he could but never being able to stay for fear of being caught.

To Bruce, trust was pretty much a foreign concept. And yet, here he was, curled up in Thor’s arms and doing just that: Trusting him.

Under his embrace, he could still feel Bruce shake. Feel the tenseness of his body, like he expected Thor to reject him. Shun him for his weakness. But there was no weakness to this, and Thor was just glad that Bruce was letting someone in for a change. Letting someone try to help. And Thor… well, Thor could admit, he had a trick or two up his sleeve that literally no-one else on Earth had.

He squeezed Bruce tight while making sure not to hurt him, and then pulled away just a little, keeping his hands warm and firm against the other man’s shoulders. “Your trust means more to me than anything,” he said softly, wishing Bruce knew just how true those words were. But there was no point in pushing that, not right now, so instead he just smiled slowly and glanced around the room. “I can help you look for the teabags if you want?”

Bruce glanced up, wiping hastily at his eyes. He smiled, lopsided and tight, but there. “That’d… that’d be lovely of you, Thanks, Thor.” He caught Thor’s eyes and for a second, it looked like he was going o say something else, but then he blinked and it was gone. “I swear I put them in the kitchen somewhere, but if I didn’t then there’s always some on the communal floor.”

Thor nodded, getting quickly to his feet and offering a hand to Bruce. The man took it, and as their fingers touched, Thor felt the feeling zip its way up his arm and settle over his chest. They looked at eachother again, just for a second too long, before both of them turned and began to search once more. Thor made sure to keep up casual conversation as he did so, ensuring that Bruce didn’t get lost in his own head for too long and was able to have other things to focus on, and although the conversation was fairly one-sided, he could tell that Bruce was listening to him. That he appreciated it.

They did, in fact, find the tea in the cupboard under the sink, for some reason, stored next to the cleaning fluids. Bruce flushed when Thor held them up, before laughing wearily. “Jesus,” he breathed, “I’m a fucking disaster.”

Thor chuckled as he threw the pack into Bruce’s waiting hands and stood back up. “It’s endearing,” he said earnestly, wiping his trousers clean. “Now on second thoughts, throw the bag back. I’ve decided I’m making the tea and you’re going to go and open the blinds, and then sit over by the windowsill just there, okay?”

Bruce made a small face. “I probably shouldn’t,” he muttered, “got a headache. The light won’t help much.”

“Don’t worry, it’s not sunny.”

“Uh. Yeah it is,” Bruce began, “it’s been sunny all day, that’s why I had to shut the blinds in the first-“

“Well it isn’t sunny any more,” Thor told him firmly, with a small smile as he jerked his head over to the windowsill where he’d seen Bruce perch himself a few days previously. “Just go open the blinds and get cosy, okay? I’ll bring your tea in a minute.”

Bruce looked like he was about to continue arguing, but Thor just stared him down until Bruce gave in and started to walk over to the other side of the room with a small smile on his face. Thor grabbed the kettle that Bruce had chucked on the floor in his scramble to find the teabags and propped it back up onto the stove, hoping that he remembered how to make tea properly this time. The last attempt had ended with something very much piss-like in taste, and Thor would rather not offer that up to the man he loved.

He heard Bruce start to laugh as he pulled up the blinds, and Thor glanced behind his shoulder with a warmth in his cheeks as he observed the man fondly. Bruce was staring out into the New York skyline, a disbelieving grin on his face, while on the other side of the glass window the rain poured from clouds that had rapidly formed up above. A few seconds later, there was a crack of lightning that shot through the sky, and the loud rumble of thunder quickly followed.

Thor felt the thrum of electricity pulse quietly through his body, and he smiled to himself. A neat trick that he’d never thought would come in particularly useful up until now.

He prepared the tea with delicacy and care, and then once he was sure it most definitely did not taste like piss this time, he carried it carefully over to Bruce, who was still looking out of the window with a fascinated gaze. Thor noticed his hands had stopped shaking.

“Here,” he offered the cup over to the other man, and Bruce jumped as he spotted Thor standing behind him, but then took it gratefully.

“You’ve just ruined thousands of New Yorker’s days,” Bruce told him, but it didn’t sound like a chastisement, and Bruce was smiling like he couldn’t stop himself, so Thor counted it as a success and simply shrugged, leaning against the wall.

“But I made one person’s day a little better,” he said, “and it’s one person that I can admit I have a little bit of a bias for. The New Yorkers may just have to deal with some rain while I act upon said bias.” He made an apologetic face out of the window. “My bad, guys.”

Bruce’s light laughter filled his ears, and Thor looked down fondly at him as Bruce sipped from his mug. He was soft like this. Grey skies and rainy weather suited him. Then again, what didn’t? Like Thor had said many times before- he had a bias. But hey, at least he could admit it. 

“You know I meant what I said, right?” He blurted, looking back out of the window when he saw Bruce’s head turn his way. “I’d always keep you safe. Always. I know you’ve spent your whole life running from people who hut you, and I know that’s pretty much all you’ve ever known, but it doesn’t have to be that way any more. And if they ever, ever tried to take you, then I’d do everything in my power to get you back home again.” He paused, feeling suddenly as if he’d gone too far, bared too much. He could feel Bruce’s gaze on the side of his face, and he sure as hell didn’t know what prompted him to say what he did next. Maybe the realization that he couldn’t exactly go back on what he’d said, so he may as well just continue onward.

“I’ve lived a long time, and I’ve encountered a damn lot of people,” he said, finally just plucking up the courage to look Bruce in the eye, “but I’ve never met anyone I cared for quite like you. So. Yeah.”

If it hadn’t been obvious before, it sure as hell was now. He could see from the look in Bruce’s eyes, the way he was staring, jaw slack and mouth open, that the declaration most definitely caught him by surprise.

Well. No one had said Thor was the God of Tact.

He smiled softly at Bruce, the edges tinted with sadness. He knew he’d overstepped, that he shouldn’t have said a thing, but he just needed Bruce to know. To understand how important he was, to Thor, to Goddamn everyone. And hell, if worst came to worst and Bruce started to freak out, Thor could just pull out the ‘ignorant Asgardian’ card- say that he’d only meant it as a friend, a colleague, a good ol- team mate, right? He could make it work- and then after that, he could simply love Bruce Banner quietly and wholly until he eventually died-

“Please forgive me if I’m reading this wrong, my emotions are all out of whack today,” Bruce began, dropping the tea jerkily onto the window-sill and slipping off in order to stand in front of Thor. He looked up at him, his face open and vulnerable and slightly terrified for a moment, but then he shut his eyes and leaned up onto the tips of his toes and-

And then kissed Thor.

His lips were chapped. That was the first thing that Thor noticed. He’d bitten them in his anxiety, and Thor could still taste the tiniest remnants of copper on Bruce’s mouth. It was nervous and soft, and Bruce seemed somewhat clumsy with it, as if he hadn’t had much practise- and it was only then that Thor realised he was so busy analysing everything that he wasn’t kissing back, dammit, wake up Thor.

With a lurch, he lifted his hands and wrapped them around Bruce’s waist, pulling him in and tilting his head in order to give as good as he got. Bruce hummed in surprise, eyes fluttering open for a second before he smiled a little against Thor’s mouth. It tasted like heaven on his tongue.

It was soft, unrushed. They both pulled back after a few minutes, just looking at one another in delight. “So,” Thor said, attempting nonchalance, “are you… was that a ‘thanks for being a good buddy’ kiss, or, uh, a ‘maybe we could be more than that’ kiss?”

Bruce laughed, leaning his forehead into Thor’s chest and then looking back outside. “You made it rain for me,” he whispered, slightly disbelieving, “you made it rain and helped me find my stupid tea and I’ve been in love with you for months, Thor, Jesus Christ.”

He blinked. “You’ve been… for months?”

“For months.”

“Oh.” Thor paused, before feeling a beam break through his face. He stroked a hand through Bruce’s hair and tilted his face back up so he could kiss those chapped, wonderful lips once more. “Me too,” he said, and the happiness leaked uncontrollably through his voice, like a pipe had burst inside his heart. Bruce loved him. Bruce loved him and they’d just kissed, and he wasn’t looking quite so pale any more and that was all Thor could ever want, really. He kissed him again because he couldn’t resist, and Bruce started to giggle against his mouth, making it tickle on Thor’s bottom lip like the brush of a feather.

“You’re gonna have confused the complete shit out of all the meteorologists that are seeing this,” he said to Thor as he raised a hand back out to the window, where rain was pattering incessantly against the glass.

Thor just shrugged, twisting them around then unlocking his knees so he fell onto the windowsill behind him. He pulled Bruce along with him, until the smaller man was sat on his lap with a happy little blush and a skewed pair of glasses. Thor gently corrected them with his ring finger, smiling when Bruce just went even pinker.

“How are you feeling?” Thor asked him, letting his fingers come to settle against Bruce’s neck, checking to see how his pulse rate was doing. A little higher than it should be, but then again, that might be because of reasons that weren’t just anxiety. Thor’s own heart was probably doing the same, because Bruce was just sitting there on his lap like it was the most normal thing in the world, and five minutes ago Thor would have never thought that possibly in a million years. He could hardly even fathom it now, to be honest.

But it was real. It was happening, because he could still taste Bruce’s green tea on the back of his tongue, and he could feel the other man’s warmth seep through into his own skin and those were feeling that Thor could never quite get right in dreams.

Bruce leaned down, kissed him again. “I’m feeling like I want to spend the rest of the day here, with you,” he admitted, his voice soft and tender. “I can’t… I just want to not have to deal with everything else right now. I want to watch the rain fall.”

Thor smiled, watching as another bolt of lightning arced through the sky. Below him in New York, thousands of irritated people were probably running for shelter in sun-dresses and shorts, furious that their days out had been cut short by the freak weather. But Bruce was no longer shaking, and his eyes weren’t as panicked, and Thor would take on a million angry Americans if he got to make Bruce happy at the end of it.

He felt like he was going to wake up any second now and realise that none of this was real, that Bruce wasn’t here, that things hadn’t gone so right. But until then…

“Let’s watch the rain fall,” he agreed, kissing Bruce’s temple and turning to face the window.

[leonawriter]

Spaces Between

Read it on AO3

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Characters: Keith, Lance, Kolivan, others.

Pairings: Keith/Lance, though mostly in subconscious pining.

Summary: A series of missing scenes from S1 and S2 from Keith’s point of view, not always featuring Lance, but often with Lance butting his head in regardless.

...

It's a squeeze, fitting everyone into the shack in the desert that'd been plenty big enough for just one person in all this time - but nowhere near as hard to handle as having so many people on his bike, and being the one in charge of driving it. 

Neither of these things would have happened if Lance, who swears they had some sort of rivalry or close relationship or something in the past at the Garrison, hadn't hijacked his rescue of Shiro. 

Thankfully there's a cot in the side room that they've - and, yet again, it was they, with Lance not letting go of the idea that the rescue was half him, too - put Shiro onto so that he could sleep off the tranquillisers the Garrison doctors gave him. That and the tiny kitchen that only really consisted of a small stove and a couple of cupboards were all the place was good for, considering the attic was full of junk he didn't know how to use.

Keith quietly slips outside. There are too many people, and they're too loud, to boot. Lance relaying yet again just how cool he'd been and how nothing would have happened if it weren't for him one more time was, even though he and the others were trying to be quiet in case they woke Shiro up, just too much.

He closes his eyes once outside, feeling the a cold wind on his face that was usually burningly hot in the daytime, and felt the pull of something tug at him once again, more urgently than before, and sighs.

...

Waiting, he'd long since decided - way back, in fact, back when Shiro was gone and they weren't saying anything, and nothing was adding up, and even back further before that - wasn't Keith's strong suit.

Nevertheless, that was all he could do. For now.

At least this time he had company, even if one of them was busy and couldn't be distracted, and the other was also busy making sure the castle's systems were going back online properly.

It was a choice between pondering all the various things that could go wrong - ranging from 'they take too long and Allura has to shut the wormholes without them', which meant he lost Shiro again, not even hours after finding him again, not to mention the others who he didn't really know but also didn't want to lose either, all the way up to 'they find their Lions, but there's a Galra presence and they end up losing the Lions to the Galra anyway' - or listening to Coran mutter and mumble almost unintelligible things while he works, sometimes even aimed at him on purpose.

He prefers listening to Coran ramble on.

The irony didn't escape him, given how he'd found Lance too noisy not too long ago.

...

He's left waiting again a few days later.

This time, he doesn't even bother holding himself back from pacing out of frustration. 

This is my fault, he thinks sometimes, which is stupid. But knowing that doesn't stop him from thinking he should have somehow known something or been able to spot something before. They'd all just been having fun, and they'd just been played. Taken advantage of, completely.

And to top it all off, Lance was in there injured and with god knows what kind of injuries under that armour, and so was Shiro. 

Shiro, trapped in the castle with the Galra, who'd done this to him in the first place, who'd taken him from them.

Keith's hand twitches at his bayard again, not for the first time.

Come on, Hunk. Hurry up!

Of course Hunk wouldn't be back for at least another hour - or so, or few - but he couldn't help wishing they could be back quicker. That the castle's particle barrier could be taken down quicker. That he could know that Shiro was safe and Lance was being treated and he was going to be fine-

If there was one thing Keith hated, more than anything, it was uncertainty, and this situation was full of it.

...

"Lance...?"

Hunk had called a while ago to say that he and Coran were on their way with a new crystal. The pods would be up and running again in no time once they were back, so it was just a matter of waiting that long. Or so Allura said, at least. She was insistent that the pods didn't just cryogenically freeze people for anywhere up to and over ten thousand years, but heal them, too.

"...huh?"

He tried not to show his relief. Lance's eyes kept drooping, which wasn't a good sign. His head must've been hit just as badly as the rest of him in that blast, and the last thing they wanted was for him to drift off.

"C'mon, you've gotta stay awake. You said we made a good team back there, right?"

Lance blinks, and it's disorienting how slow he's being. Lance is supposed to move around so quickly and loudly he practically gives Keith headaches sometimes, even when he isn't even trying to. Lance like this is just... wrong.

"Huh-? Oh... yeah. All of us. E'en you."

Wow, he really is out of it. Although, considering his last compliment had been along the lines of "I don't hate you right now!", a somewhat slurred "Even you" was something he could work with.

"Ha, yeah- no, keep your eyes open. Stay with me. Hunk's on his way with that crystal. Just... stay with me until then."

Lance's strength seemed to fail him, though, his upper body sliding so that he'd have hit the floor again if Keith hadn't caught him in time.

"S'rry." 

He's getting worse circled around in his head, but he stubbornly ignored anything that said Hunk's not going to get here in time or the pods aren't going to be able to help him because he's human or they'll take too long to get back online or they're broken anyway.

"Don't be stupid. But I'm gonna remember this, you know."

...

A while later, and all the waiting he's doing is that he's waiting to go to sleep. Which is hard enough in a and of itself, because he's still getting adjusted to the castleship's ambient temperatures being so different from the desert.

It's made harder by the fact that his mind keeps running back across the fact that just earlier that day, the entire ship had been overrun by some kind of Galra virus, making everything want them dead. The training drones, the airlock, the cryopods, and according to Hunk and Pidge, even the food machines.

It's almost enough to make him wonder if all the influence really did go along with King Alfor's AI, and if not, then if there was anything in this room that might end up a danger.

He remembers the way one of the kids he'd fostered with at one point had practically cocooned herself in her duvet each night, and he's glad he doesn't do that, or there wouldn't be a need for a malicious AI.

He's just about dropping off, thoughts heading in a more harmless direction, when he hears a cut off cry from the room right next to his quickly followed by a sharp thud.

His heart is in his mouth and he's halfway out of bed before hearing Lance - because of course that's who it is - start to swear just loudly enough to make it obvious that he's not actually in any trouble.

Keith sighs, unsure whether to be annoyed at the disturbance to his sleep or relieved that there's nothing really wrong. He wonders briefly, before putting his head back on his pillow, if Lance had been having nightmares, and whether he say something - but the next time he sees the Blue Paladin, there isn't a hair out of place, his skin is flawless, and he sure isn't acting like there's nothing wrong.

(Unless he's acting. Keith's still not one hundred percent fully sure if Lance is lying about not remembering that moment between them when he cradled Lance's body. Either way, neither of them bring it up, even if Keith does stare enough that the others start to notice.)

...

He couldn't say anything.

More than once, he'd considered bringing things up to the others - asking Coran how a Galran would actually fight, and if anyone had any right to say that he fought like one. Thought of dropping the fact that Shiro wanted him to take over if- and if - anything happened, just in passing.

But he couldn't. 

They'd ask questions, it'd get brought up again, they'd do research, and he wasn't sure he was ready for that. For any of that.

You fight like a Galra. He could still hear Zarkon saying the words to him every so often, enough that sometimes he's caught himself wondering what it was while training against the gladiator. Analysing his own moves.

That, though, in many ways it's something he can work out on his own. He'll either figure out the answers sooner or later, or they'll come to him. He has a vague feeling that they will whether he wants them to or not.

For what Shiro said, though...

He doesn't want to be set apart like that. He likes where he is in the team - he likes Red, he likes being Shiro's right hand, and he actually likes Lance riling him into things the way he's pretty sure he wouldn't get if he were the 'leader'.

He sighs in the silence of his room, back flush against his propped up pillow and knees against his chest, and hoped that he was just worrying over nothing, but couldn't ignore the press of his knife against the small of his back, reminding him of even more unanswered questions.

...

When he wakes up, ready to come out of the cryopod, the first thing he sees is everyone waiting for him. Everyone's there, at least, and most of them even look happy to see he's awake.

But there's curiosity in the way they're looking at him now, too. And Allura's all the way over there, and Coran's at her side instead of with the others.

"Hey, man," Lance says as Keith leans on Shiro while his legs adjust to standing properly again. "Uh, just... forget what I said earlier, okay? It's good to have you back."

Keith blinks a couple or so times while trying to figure out what Lance is referring to, and then just shrugs, not really feeling up to looking him in the eye.

"See? I told you he'd be all hot-headed and get in trouble! But did anyone listen to Lance? No, of course you didn't, and then what do we get, we get Red attacking the base and worrying us all to death!"

Which hadn't been long before he'd explained, bluntly, what had happened. Admittedly less with the details and more like apparently my knife is one of their blades, and I 'awoke' it because I have their blood. I mean, I have Galra blood. But that had been enough. 

In the present, Pidge looks relieved but doesn't stick around long. Allura's vanished the next time he remembers to look. Hunk looks anxious, and keeps making half finished spoken thoughts until deciding to go chase after Pidge.

He sighs, his body remembering how when he'd gone into the pod, he'd had trouble breathing deeply due to a few bruised ribs, and knows it isn't phantom now-healed pains that made his chest hurt now.

He'd been through this before. Unlike so many other things they've had to deal with, it's not as though it's something new to him.

Just... doesn't mean it hurts less.

"I'm gonna go bug Hunk for something other than food goo," Lance says, from much further away than before. Keith doesn't bother looking up. "Oh, and Shiro? I've so got permission to get Pidge to hack his door open if he tries locking himself in, right?"

Shiro laughs, and tells Lance to try knocking and asking first.

...

If he's honest, a lot of what he's known about his knife up until now has been self-taught. If he went to most adults and asked where they thought it might have come from or how to look after it or, god forbid he ask how to use it, they'd worry he was turning antisocial and start... pretending to be gentle and friendly, so that when he wasn't looking, they'd take it away.

Give up the blade, and the pain will stop-

His time in the desert had helped him hone some skills. He'd marvelled at how it didn't blunt like a normal knife, kitchen or craft, not knowing why but not caring as long as it meant that using it for normal, everyday things wasn't going to damage it. 

Getting out into space, thrust into a war he'd only had vague ideas might be out there because of the energy readings he'd picked up and the carvings on the walls of the cave they'd found Blue in, had made it easier. The training room was literally built for practicing how to fight, and when he needed an opponent, he could either use one of the gladiators or ask (rile up, in Lance's case) someone to be a sparring partner.

This wasn't any of those times. This time, he'd come in when it was quiet. 

He held his knife - his Galran blade, a Marmoran blade - out in front of him. It still looked oddly naked every time he saw it without the wrappings he'd used to cover up the odd symbol that had always glowed on its hilt, ever since he could remember. He'd only taken them off to clean it, before now.

What had he felt, when he'd 'awoken' it? Was it something he'd said, or done - an emotion, a thought? He hadn't really been thinking, though. In the end, he'd just wanted to go home. Not to the shack in the desert or to people who might've loved him or might not have but who'd never been there, but to the castle, to the other Paladins, to Allura and Coran and the Lions and Voltron.

I know who I am, is what he'd said, and he remembered how the knife had changed as he'd held it out.

That's it. That's how it goes.

It felt different, wearing his Paladin armour instead of the trial suit they'd made him wear, not to mention the sheer lack of aches and pains from having been fighting through room after room of Blade members all trained to the same degree that Ulaz had been. He swings it once, twice, just to get the feel of it, and then starts falling into the forms he's practiced so many times first with Shiro and then on his own that they've almost become reflex.

"Stop."

The voice rings out clearly through the otherwise empty room, but when Keith turns sharply to see who or what it was, he sees Kolivan walking toward him.

"You continue to grip the blade as though it is still a knife, with the same amount of reach. Here," Kolivan reached out, and changed the way his hand curled around the hilt. "This is more like it."

"Er, thanks." The new grip was different to the one he'd always used, and way different from the one he used for his bayard. "Uh... do most people have this problem when they've awoken their blades, or...?"

"No. However, most do not live with their unawakened blade for as long as you, either."

"Right." Of course they hadn't. "Anything else?"

"Your stance needs adjusting. With your bayard, you move the weapon with your entire arm, but with your blade, there is room for more fluidity of movement. You need to allow for that."

He's barely starting to get the hang of it when a blue-helmeted head pokes its way into the training room, the face inside looking both bored and annoyed.

"So.... are you two going to take much longer or are you done yet? Because other people need to train too, you know. Like me. If we're going off on missions again soon then I want to be in top form. No offence Keith, but watching you dance around doesn't help me do that."

"You... could just try doing target practice on the other side of the room? It's not like this place is lacking in space, Lance."

"No. No no no. Absolutely not. I can't focus on shooting if other people are around!"

"Other people? You focus well enough in battle - I don't see what your problem is."

Keith sighed, but folded, letting his blade revert back to the knife form he'd always known it as before, and muttered a low "Thanks, and, uh, sorry about that" to Kolivan as he left.

He probably wouldn't have been able to focus properly on his own training with Lance in there shooting targets anyway.

...

AN: I'd originally started this with the thought of doing a couple set within S3, but got to more or less the end of S2 and started running out of steam. So I figure, I'll put this up and if I remember/get inspired for those S3 ones again, I'll add those in with another chapter.

Fun fact: what didn't fit in the actual fic itself is that Lance mentions heading off the idea of Keith shutting himself off by locking his room's door because I figured he's probably had a bit of experience with older siblings doing something similar at bad news (even if unlike Keith here, it's something as mundane as being dumped).

I've made mention elsewhere of how I'm considering doing more once S4 comes out, too. So there is that as well.

[originaljediinjeans]

MCU Rewatch: “Captain America: Civil War” (2016)

After everything Bucky has been through, I really wanted him to be doing better after walking away from Hydra. He DESERVED better. I’ll bet I’m not the only person who feels the same way.

The person who really needs to be called out for their behavior is the lady who confronts Tony in the hallway at MIT. I’m sorry, I don’t care about what you’ve suffered, YOU SHOULDN’T DO THAT TO PEOPLE. THAT IS JUST CRUEL.

I don’t think Tony is in a good place at all in this film 

I don’t think I realized how deep Tony’s daddy issues went until this movie came out

I definitely think the Staron kiss was unnecessary 

but other than that Sharon Carter is a Queen(TM) in this movie and deserves respect. She deserves a mini-series/TV show.

Thunderbolt Ross is a pompus twat

Natasha’s hair in this film is her best hair

Redwing is cool, and the fact that Sam Wilson has a drone like that hints that he probably knows a bit about computers and AI--not necessarily as much as Tony Stark or even Natasha, but he knows a bit

the Lagos fight scene is so great

The airport battle is either Feels or literal LOL. there is no in-between

Brock Rumlow is a drama queen. yeah his face could’ve turned out worse but it’s not as ugly as his soul

The dead look in Tony’s eyes when he sees Pepper’s name on the teleprompter

Natasha apologizing to King T’chaka for the deaths of his emissaries was necessary. The Avengers owed him that much even if it was an accident. And it was.

Civil War is the darkest and most intense Marvel film. Partly because some of the fight scenes are filmed in shaky-cam mode.

It was a cute nod to Sebastian Stan to have Bucky be hiding in Romania. But was Atlanta/Berlin/Puerto Rico really the best place to film those scenes? Because I don’t think Romania has that nice of infrastructure.

How much has Bucky been running? The answer is, a lot.

Also, how often has he found himself trying to escape and stuck awkwardly in the middle of traffic?

The demo “memory” in Stark’s simulator at MIT is probably 90% fabricated. Tony probably didn’t interact that much with his parents when they said goodbye IRL. 

“I know that road--” In spite of how much SHIELD/Hydra covered up the real nature of the Stark’s deaths, Tony was still acquainted with what happened. Like, he had detailed knowledge of anything that wasn’t covered up

I love how Vision is still loyal to Wanda even after they choose different sides. I love how he is trying to help her from the beginning, because he probably knows better than anyone that she is really down on herself after Lagos

I’m not sure how much on purpose Rumlow and his thugs chose to go after a bio-weapon kept in a developing country, but (A) he knew the Avengers were going to catch up with him at some point, and (B) collateral damage would make the Avengers look bad--their popularity had been declining since even before Sokovia. I’ll bet Rumlow watched the remainder of the events from Hell laughing at how much trouble he’d gotten the Avengers in. 

Plus the suicide vest: he wanted to take as many people with him as he could. He was already wearing it so he was banking on having to make a quick exit. He was even hoping he would run into Cap so he could get them both. Rumlow is SO evil.

The really unfortunate thing for the Avengers is that the people really responsible for the things that they are getting blamed for--Ultron, Hydra, Rumlow--are dead or in prison. So who do people blame? The people who saved the world from those idiots.

Vision states when explaining his feelings about the Accords that he’s noticed that in the last 8 years the number of world disasters has gone up. He’s right about the Avengers’ strength being challenged from the Universe. It may not look like it to a normal person within the MCU but there is causality. But as much as those events are related or unrelated Vision knows there’s something up. It’s like he knows Thanos is coming without being able to put a name on it

Helmut Zemo may be evil but Vasily Karpov is also a disgusting human being.

Karpov in the flashbacks: he’s deaf to the sounds of suffering but he hears when there is silence

Wanda’s arc in this film is about dealing with growing up

THIS WAS THE PERFECT INTRODUCTION FOR SPIDER-MAN

If Steve Rogers was condescending to anyone, it was Spider-Man

NO ONE of the Avengers was happy to see Secretary Ross show up at their compound. Even Tony looked like he was going to be sick--if he wasn’t already ill from the sheer awfulness of the situation. Like that look he gives to Steve is “I’m sorry, I don’t want this either.”

Tony is just under a lot of stress and he’s desperate to keep the team together. He knows that working with Secretary Ross and trying to make his team sign the Accords is a terrible idea. and he knows Bruce would hate him for it But to him, it’s the only option.

Tony may be acting cooperative but Thunderbolt Ross still treats him like garbage and it burns me. Thunderbolt treats all superhumans like garbage. 

I’m not sure Tony was at all hopeful that the authorities would play nice, including Ross. But if he did, or if he thought he could protect his fellow Avengers, it was a very slim hope, and he was gravely mistaken.

However, Tony is rude and condescending to the Avengers and to Steve the ENTIRE TIME. Except for when he goes to Siberia--but as we all know that doesn’t last long, thanks Zemo

The airport fight, Tony is like “YOU LISTEN TO ME, YOU ARE DELUDED, YOU ARE A PROBLEM, HAND OVER BUCKY”, he practically yells at Steve. Steve’s “You did that when you signed” is a low blow but he doesn’t say it in a mean way at all

Even after Natasha fought on his side in the airport battle, Tony took out his angst over Rhodey getting hurt by talking down to her--a woman he has known and respected for a long time. No wonder she walks away.

So much for Tony “protecting” his friends

I’m not mad at Tony, really. I’m really sad for him, in fact.

It can also be argued that Wanda Maximoff was genuinely mad at everyone except for Vision, she totally meant to hurt people at the airport

But tell me how that justifies the authorities putting her in a straightjacket. If Wanda has an attitude problem, that’s her problem, not an excuse to punish her for being who she is.

One thing that has always bothered me about this film and Doctor Strange is that right before the climax, the leading female characters disappear and it’s all about the men. Not that the climaxes of either film are poorly executed but it still bugs me

okay maybe FRIDAY counts but I’m not a huge fan of Friday

Why the heck didn’t Steve or Tony or Bucky destroy the computer while Zemo was playing the video?

Steve was definitely defensive about the Accords, but he was Woke about how corrupt they were and how Zemo was bad news. True, he was going on instinct for some of it, but his instinct was correct, and experience told him that it wasn’t worth trusting higher authority. He refused to compromise because of how it was unfair to his teammates, and to the world he was trying to save.

I’m still definitely Team Cap. 

But the Sokovia Accords were a no-win situation for anybody no matter which “side” they were on

It’s kind of hard to not be on an Avengers team with Steve Rogers and not at least know that Bucky is kind of a big deal to him

The shot of the inside of Rhodey’s helmet after he gets shot down, there’s no AI or computer projections--that is scary

There’s no reason Natasha wasn’t sitting in the back of the church at Peggy’s funeral. But the funeral may have been limited to just family and friends of Peggy and her family, so how would Nat have gotten an invitation?

The timing of the transition from the funeral to the UN bombing makes no sense, unless it was all happening on the same day and Sharon invited Sam and Steve to fly to Vienna with her. Which still doesn’t make sense.

Look, if Steve Rogers wants to be romantically involved with someone, then it makes the most sense, at least to me, for him to pick Sharon. 

The thing with Natasha is, her inner darkness is a lot different from Steve’s and she knows it, and that’s why in TWS she kept trying to set him up with someone else. They’re friends but in my opinion they don’t have to be romantically/sexually involved. In fact, Steve and Nat not dating makes their relationship stronger, in a way.

The kiss might have made more sense if Steve and Sharon had kept in touch over the last two years, but they’ve both been pretty busy

A Staron mini-series would also be great. IDK, don’t tell me that Steve and Sharon weren’t in touch between Germany and Infinity War.

Also Steve walked Sharon back to her hotel room, he’s not the same man that came off the ice but he’s still there with the old-fashioned manners

The authorities treat Bucky Barnes like an animal. Yes, he’s got issues, but it took Zemo specifically triggering his programming to get him to act out, and when he did the restraints were of no use. Gosh.

Two-on-one Natasha Romanoff and Sharon Carter versus the reawakened Winter Soldier HOW COOL IS THAT? Have they done that kind of thing before? Does Sharon need to be in the Black Widow movie? because she does. Does Sharon need to be a part of a someday all-female superheroes Marvel film? Absolutely.

Zemo triggering Bucky was a nightmare for everyone involved, including Bucky himself.

Call out Tony for whatever else you want but don’t call him a creeper for taking Peter with him to Germany

The beginnings of IronDad are actually beautiful to watch. He may have brought in the Spider-Dad to get an edge over Team Cap but he was still protective of his charge.

I also relate to Peter Parker’s satisfaction with nailing an Algebra test

Zemo probably had a long wait in the old bunker in Siberia. 

During the scene after the Winter Soldier attack Ross comes to chew out Stark. Ross says out loud that he wanted Barnes dead. I don’t know whether to shudder or to throw up thinking about that--and Tony felt the exact same way. Look, Tony is painfully aware of how much Bucky means to Cap. He offered to get Bucky into an American psych ward if Steve cooperated. Tony was willing to give Bucky a chance--until he found out that the Winter Soldier murdered his parents. And that’s when Tony chose himself over Bucky and Steve. 

Did I mention how much I hate Helmut Zemo?

Just a small observation: decisions made on impulse and based on emoton, such as attacking and murdering the person who was brainwashed into killing your parents, are often selfish

Wanda Maximoff was confined to the Avengers compound without her information or consent. How is that right? How is that fair?

Word on the street is that the Civil War comics ‘bent over backwards’ to make Iron Man the villain. The movie...in some ways did that to Captain America.

Part of the reason it LOOKS like Cap is the villain is because the film is structured so that everyone is aware of how much personal and psychological pain Tony Stark is in. And unfortunately Steve isn’t as aware of that. At least enough to be sensitive about it and give Tony the benefit of a doubt and compromise.

But you could also say that Tony Stark is made into “villain”--either because of his suffering or in spite of it

“You could at least recognize me”--I’m sorry, there is no other explanation. The Red Room happened.

“If it is any comfort, they died in their sleep.” No, that is not a comfort at all. That is horrifying.

Wanda Maximoff isn’t literally a “kid” but she’s still vulnerable. She’s been through a lot and she’s sensitive to criticism. Grown-ups can be vulnerable too. Case in point: Tony Stark.

The Raft prison scene: Clint is TICKED.

Rhodey’s argument for supporting the Accords is pretty logical, he’s not doing it just out of support for Tony. But at the end of the day, he’s the only person still there for Tony because Rhodey is the only person that Tony hasn’t been a jerk to.

Vision energy-blasted a line in the pavement in front of Team Cap. I grew up in Texas, just outside San Antonio. So I’ve heard a lot about the Alamo. I know the story about the Line in the Sand. It may be a legend, but I think it was referenced here.

Clint turns his bow into a baton/staff when he confronts Black Panther. How did we not see this as a hint at Ronin? Did anyone?

Can Tony sleep in his Iron Man suits on long flights?

“Oh, this’ll clear things up.” The dynamics between the new Avengers teammates--we don’t see enough of them but the’re fun to watch. Sam and Rhodey having arguments, then Vision cutting in with his uber-logic and them being annoyed with it. Darn, the new Avengers were great.

Sharon reading the quote attributed to Peggy and then looking down at Steve: I do not approve of the Accords and Peggy would not have supported them either

In the comics, the “no, you move” speech was originally Cap’s. The fact that they changed it to being originally Peggy’s words shows that the screenwriters and Kevin Fegie and perhaps other Powers at Marvel think she is important to the MCU

I wonder how much Sharon knows about what’s going down with the Accords? She’s just a CIA lackey, but who knows? Would she have told Steve more about it after the funeral? I’ll bet you she did

But that leaves me wondering what was in the rest of Sharon’s eulogy. And why she was important enough to the family that she gave that speech

Just for the love of everything LEAVE WANDA ALONE!

So did Tony actually want to kill Bucky or just hurt him really badly? It’s hard to tell the difference. 

The end of the fight: Steve really did ALMOST lose it and ALMOST kill Tony. But he caught himself after he broke the arc-reactor. And Steve DOES NOT LOOK HAPPY about what just happened--and what just almost happened.

If Steve Rogers compromised on one thing, it was acknowledging that he didn’t deserve to be Captain America and dropping the shield. 

Rogers didn’t leave Tony to die smh, he and Bucky went to Wakanda with T’challa and Tony took Zemo in the QuinJet to somewhere more hospitable, where he could hand over that son of a camel to the authorities (in my fanfic they go to Japan, bc it’s probably closer to that part of Siberia than central Europe)

The post-credit scene: Aunt May isn’t stupid y’all. She doesn’t know the whole story yet but she knows Peter is up to something.

Mid-credit scene: I don’t think Bucky consulted Steve at all about going under voluntarily. Bucky probably made the decision on his own with the doctors and then Steve was told and asked to come say goodbye ;kjfadslknj

There’s a shot where Bucky looks at the cryo chamber before Steve speaks to him and I wonder what he was thinking

Did Bucky even care whether or not he woke up?

On this viewing, him voluntarily going under does make some sense, his programming can cause him to do pretty bad stuff--but I’d still rather he hadn’t. I think it was partly out of self-loathing. “I’m too dangerous to have a normal life or be loved.” That thought that breaks my heart. Gosh darn it I thought this time I was over it but now I’m starting to collapse again...

There’s no arguing that Steve isn’t very happy about it

“Allow Barnes the dignity of his choice” Great insight. Where is the option for him to have a safe, normal, and happy life? Does he need to be unconscious for his programming to be fixed? Hm?

Oh yeah, I wrote a fanfic about that.

Also, there’s a deleted scene where the other Ross informs T’challa that he got extradition for Barnes. So maybe the “Let them try” line wasn’t necessary. Unless Thunderbolt was so determined to get Bucky’s head on a platter (*shudder*) that he literally did not care. Then again, nobody tries to invade Wakanda and gets away with it. Thunderbolt maybe thought it was a lost cause and he was probably right.

After I get Thanos, I’m coming for Thunderbolt Ross. 

And you better hope Ross got dusted and doesn’t come back because it won’t be pretty.

Steve’s letter to Tony is sincere.

The Raft was already built and operational when the Accords were created, it must have been in planning way far back--this has Thunderbolt Ross written all over it.

I really need more Steve and Bucky fighting together side-by-side and being bros. But I guess that just means I need to work on my fanfiction.

At the end of the day, it’s a tragedy that these wonderful people let their differences get in the way of getting along, but deep down and in spite of everything that happened they are all still friends.

I used to hate Spider-man. Tom Holland as MCU!Peter Parker is cute. And he’s probably one of the best things to ever happen to Tony, after Pepper. He can stay.

[tony-luvv]

You shall be happy. For I am Doom.

“Miss your writing.”

Thank you for this, it was a quick response but it’s helped get me back into the grove of things. I hope you enjoy :)

Tony wasn’t sure why he was up, he had been asleep one moment and then wide awake the next. Although he didn’t move from his spot on the bed where his head was buried in a pillow. Sheets kicked aside, and curled up in his throw blanket he groaned dramatically, “Fri….”

“It’s approximately 6:42 AM, Boss.” Why on god’s green earth did his mind decide to come back online so early in the morning. Not only was it early but he had only gone to bed a little after 2. Declaring it to early he rolled over and got comfortable again, never opening his eyes he settled and let himself fall back asleep.

Later at a more reasonable hour (or at least that’s what Tony was considering reasonable when he woke up again at 11) found Tony sitting in bed staring at the unoccupied side of his bed. Well, it’s supposed to be unoccupied. Laid against the unused pillow on the other side of his king size bed was a bouquet of roses. Which didn’t make much sense cause who would be leaving him flowers? He wasn’t dating anyone and hadn’t been anywhere close to entering a relationship with anyone in the past few months. It wasn’t his birthday or a special holiday so there was no real expectation.

Not only was the random act troubling but also the flowers themselves. Roses, now he’s not an expert in the language of flowers but if memory served him correctly (which it always did) these roses were sending a message. Yellow was the first color that stood out to him, it’s meaning bright and cheerful like the color itself. Mixed in, the pink roses blended nicely and they stand for grace and admiration. Finally, upon closer inspection he realized there was a few white? No, they’re cream colored roses and those are indicative to charm and thoughtfulness.

Why would someone basically send him a message to say ‘I have a crush on you’ in roses? He pondered the question a little longer before deciding he didn’t really care. The present was sweet (and so far doesn’t seem like a threat) and he had a guilty pleasure for roses.

Gently picking up the roses he rose from the bed, “Hey Friday, tell me I have a vase sitting somewhere around here.”

“There’s one under the kitchen sink boss man.” If the AI had a face, she’d be smirking right now, you could hear it in her tone of voice.

“Thanks.”

“Anytime Boss.”

He left his room, bouquet nestled into his arms and headed toward the kitchen. Gently placing his beautiful flowers down, he bent down and opened the cupboard door. “Well hello there.” Resting against the vase that sat in plain site was a little card.

He grabbed the vase in one hand and the card in the other. Seeing as there was no rush to open the letter and his curiosity wasn’t as out of control as some would believe he set the little envelope with his name on it aside so he could fill the vase with water.

Rearranging the roses in the vase and putting them proudly on display on his counter top he redirected his attention back to the little card.

He opened it up and pulled the card out.

Staring at the little card he didn’t notice the smile taking over his face.

“Sorry to interrupt,” She’s lying, “but someone is at the door for you.” Seeing how well his morning had been going he figured there was no reason to question it, might as well go with the flow.

“Hello, I have a Chinese delivery for Mr. Stark. Everything is already paid for.”

“You guys don’t even open for another two hours….”

“I just do what they tell me sir.” Tony snorted but took the food regardless. This was wonderful, it had been sometime since he order take out from that little corner Chinese store that he loved and he was starving. When he went to grab a plate he found another little card, this one wasn’t tucked in an envelope though. The side facing him stated his name in a fancy scroll but the back had a little note when he turned it over.

The norm isn’t for people like us, so enjoy your dinner foods for breakfast and later tonight join me for a plate of scrambled eggs and variety of ‘breakfast’ food related sides.

“Ha, I can’t eat with you if I don’t know who you are.” He jumped when a voice responded to him from behind him.

“Good thing Doom is always prepared.” The (somewhat) villain, his stance on things hadn’t been very clear over the past few months was standing behind him, leaning against the kitchen counter.

“I can honestly say I didn’t expect this….” Doom’s smile only widened. “But I got to ask, why?”

Doom stood from his causal lean and closed the space between them, “You, the great Iron Man, carry a great burden. Sad burden has taken a toll on you.” Tony was still confused, he thought this man to be his enemy but now he stood in front of him, no armor, no magic. Just a man in his pajamas talking to another man dressed the same.

“You shall be happy. For I am Doom.” The taller man leaned down and kissed the back of his hand that he had grabbed moments before.

A light blush dusting across his cheeks and a real smile gracing his lips, he took a leap of faith and said, “Okay.”

Thank You to my followers and special shout out to my beta @akumainoue

[avenging-fics]

Blossom ~ An Avenger’s Story (1/15)

AU Summary: After the events on Bosnia-Herzegovina, Y/N escapes the explosion and meets an unlikely ally and hides away with him. But it’s only a matter of time before the child with her grows up. Will she go back to being an Avenger?

Notes: I’m really excited for this okay. and im sorry if i suck at book summaries lmao. anyway, here’s the next series. i hope you guys like it. 

Previous book | Part 1 | Part 2

MASTERLIST

An old couple found them in the woods. She was passed out, almost dead with the child still clutched tightly to her chest. Her bloody skin almost purple from the cold. Had it not been for the baby’s cries, they would have died in the middle of a forest in Serbia. When she woke up, Y/N was wrapped in a thick wool blanket, all her wounds cleaned and dressed, with the old lady holding onto the child, humming it to sleep with a foreign lullabye. The old couple didn’t speak any English but they seem like they understand Y/N’s situation. They fed them, cared for them and let them stay in their small house near the woods until Y/N was strong enough to travel again. The old hunter who found them in the woods took the both of them into town where Y/N continued on her journey. She thanked the old couple for their help and went on her way again. She made sure not to use any of her abilities in fear that it might draw attention to her and the child.

Y/N and the child reached Belgrade, capital of Serbia, carrying a small amount of money, clothes and supplies given to them by the old couple. There, Y/N found a job on a small pub ran by Englishmen, which also offered her lodging. Throughout their stay in Belgrade, Y/N introduced the child as her own. And when the child is reaching it’s first year, Y/N packed their things and traveled east to Romania.

When they reached Craiova, Y/N struggled with hiding their true identities. They lacked papers and documents. There was no way they could identify themselves. So she kept going east. Hopefully, she’ll find something in the capital.

She was wrong.

No one would take them. There were no jobs for her. At least from the places that wouldn’t attract too much attention. No place to live. No place to sleep. Y/N knows they wouldn’t last long in the streets especially with a baby. How will she feed him? He’s not safe anywhere.

But she had no choice. Her limbs were sore from walking everywhere and carrying the baby. The little money that they have is almost gone. The night is approaching again. Y/N was tired.

Turning to an empty alley, Y/N looked around them. The cafes were closed and there was barely any people on sight. She carefully placed her scarf on the ground of a spot in the deepest part of the alleyway. Carefully putting down the child, Y/N sat next to him and took out a few things from her bag and cleaned the baby up. She was both thankful and sorry that the baby already got used to moving around in her arms so much that a lot of movement and walking doesn’t bother him all that much. The child barely cries as if understanding that it’s harder for Y/N if he did.

Finishing up on him, Y/N stared at the child, watching him as he brought his tiny hands to his mouth, babbling nonsense and seemingly having a conversation with her. He was precious. Looking up at Y/N with his bright eyes, one brown and one blue, Y/N was enamored with this child. It might not be hers biologically but she’s his mother now. Y/N would protect this baby from whatever harm may come.

Using her fingers, she stroke the baby’s cheeks with the softest of touch and sobbed silently.

“I’m so sorry.” she whispered, her voice breaking. “You don’t even have a name.”

“Abababuh” his tiny voice gurgled, as if answering her back. Y/N smiled softly, wiping away her tears.

“You look like a Peter. Or a Jackson.” Y/N told him. And as if he agreed, the child grinned and held onto her finger tight. Opening her bag once more, Y/N saw that there’s only one bottle left of formula for the baby. Where is she going to get more for tomorrow and the next days?

But she didn’t have time to worry about that. A small group of 4 men walked towards them both. One of them had a sneer on his face. Y/N felt uneasy. They brought trouble.

"Papușo,ai nevoie de ajutor?" one of the men said, glancing over Y/N’s body as if it were meat.

(hey pretty lady do you need any help?)

Y/N ignored them and focused on getting the baby out of their way just in case. She can handle them without using her abilities but Y/N had to put the child first. She cannot turn her eyes away from him, not even for just a second.

“Te-ai pierdut?Poți sta la noi.” another one said, chuckling. “O să te facem să te simți bine.”

(are you lost? You can stay at our place. We’ll make you feel good)

Whatever they were saying, even if Y/N understood none of their words, she knew it wasn’t out of the goodness of their hearts. Their tone was dangerous.

“Hei vorbim cu tine,târfo!” the man shouted, grabbing Y/N’s arm and pulling her back.

(Hey we’re talking to you, bitch)

She shrugged off the man’s grip and stood up in between the men and the baby. Y/N glared at the men and saw them walk forward, slightly amused that she was about to fight. They were underestimating her.

The man closest to her went first, swinging his arm for a punch but Y/N blocked it as she ducked down for another blow from his friend. Bringing her legs up, she kicked another one of them hard in the abdomen and then used her knee to knock out one of them as it hit their face. Another man tried to get a hit to Y/N but she was faster and dodged it, bringing her fist to hit him instead. And it was dance to her. Knowing when to block and hit and dodge all hits from three men at the same time. Y/N wasn’t even using her powers.

“Oprește-te.Sau omor copilul. ” the fourth one said after his friends were on the ground. Y/N glared at him as he held the crying baby with a knife pressed to it’s cheeks.

(stop moving. or i will kill the kid.)

“No.” she muttered, focusing her gaze on the child. He cannot just die here.

Suddenly, Y/N felt a sharp pain on her lower back. One of the men on the ground, got up and stabbed her. She was bleeding again and it didn’t stop. It seeped through her clothes as she felt warm blood dripping down. Y/N tried to ignore the pain and step forward to try and save the baby but each step she took sent throbbing pain from her injury, causing her legs to give out. She fell to the ground but Y/N was not letting them hurt the child.

The man holding the baby laughed out loud, watching Y/N as she struggled. But he stopped and suddenly started choking. Y/N looked up and saw a tiny glint of silver from the hand that was currently gripping the man’s neck. Another stranger.

“Pleacă.Sau te voi omorî.” the stranger growled towards the man.

(leave. or i will kill you)

Y/N recognized the the fear in the men’s eyes as it stared at the stranger. And that was the last thing she saw before the stranger with the glinting arm took the crying child away from the thug. Y/N struggled to keep awake but to no avail. There was darkness once again.

HOW WAS THAT FOR THE START OF THE NEW SERIES? 

SHOUTOUT TO @tvseriesobssesed for the Romaniantranslation! Thank you so much!

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