#so if she *was* alive and the doctor wasn’t literally a widow… she’d have no problem with rogue ��😭

[rystiel]

i keep seeing people say the doctor shouldn’t have feelings for rogue because he’s married to river…? river song… who has also married multiple people… one of the most polyamorous characters in the show…?

[caranfindel]

Take these broken wings and learn to fly (15.20 coda)

het, but Wincest-compatible | about 2300 words | PG-13 for language | characters: sam winchester, sam’s blurry wife |

Julia has been widowed (God, what an awful word, widowed) for three years when she meets Sam. It’s a work-based friendship at first. She’s kind of lonely and sad, he’s kind of lonely and sad, and they gravitate toward each other. And then one evening they’re at a bar, the last ones left from an after-work happy hour, both of them drinking more than they should, and she thinks he’s kind and thoughtful and smart and he may be 10 years older than me but he’s still hot as hell and I enjoy being with him and I look forward to seeing him and maybe I should just… and she kisses him. He’s shocked; shocked enough to confirm that he wasn’t just hanging around hoping to make it out of the friendzone. And then he’s holding her face in his hands and he’s kissing her too.

It’s good. They’re good together. It’s not the earth-shattering, all-encompassing romance she had with Shaun. Julia knows she’ll never have anything like that again. Most people don’t even get one soulmate in their lives; no one gets two. And she knows Sam doesn’t have that same desperate love that Shaun had for her; she knows she’ll never have his whole heart. (She knows the woman he intended to marry was killed in a fire, she knows another woman he loved went back to her ex. She doesn’t know which of these women still owns that last piece of Sam’s heart.) But she loves Sam, and he loves her, and they get married.

(The sex is amazing. Sometimes he’s gentle, almost reverent, as if he’s afraid he’ll break her, and other times he’s fierce and passionate and almost tries to break her, and she loves both ends of the spectrum.)

She suggests they melt down her old wedding band to make a new one. It was an heirloom from her grandmother, a plain wide band of yellow gold that she loves, that she thought she’d wear for the rest of her life. But Shaun is the one who put it on her finger the first time. It doesn’t seem right to ask Sam to accept it now. A new band from the old gold seems like a good compromise. No, Sam says, I couldn’t ask you to do that. I know a way we can make it ours. He has the inside of the band engraved with the same symbol he wears tattooed over his heart, and makes her promise to never take it off. Bad luck, he says.

He’s such a contradiction. Scary smart, but as superstitious as an Appalachian grandmother. Calm and unflappable, but with a weirdly hyperactive startle reflex. Kind and empathetic, but capable of extreme violence when pushed to his limits (seriously, don’t walk your drunk ass up to Sam Winchester’s wife and lay hands on her, and don’t get mouthy when she tells you to back off) and just really, frighteningly skilled at that violence.

(A little frightening and also very sexy. Julia’s always had a thing for the hero type.)

They both have nightmares. One night Julia watches Shaun’s face melting under his gear and wakes with a cry of horror. Sam holds her as she tearfully describes living on the knife edge of constant fear that comes with loving someone whose job is literally running into burning buildings. I know, he says, over and over, even though he can’t possibly know. The irony of their first loves both dying in flames is not lost on her, but it’s not like his college girlfriend was a firefighter. It’s not like he watched her go to work every day and prayed she’d make it home alive.

Julia’s pregnancy is a wonderful surprise. She and Shaun had tried for over a year before she was widowed, and she just didn’t count on it happening with Sam. They agree not to name the baby after anyone they’ve lost. Let’s not name him after our pain, she says, and Sam is okay with that. (Or he isn’t. But ever since she showed him the positive pregnancy test, she’s known she could ask him for anything. She’s known he would rip out his heart and serve it on a platter if she asked for it.)

But they haven’t decided on a name yet when her water breaks four weeks early. When their perfect baby boy is born at 12:10 a.m., the nurse announces the date and time and Sam looks up at her in shock and blinks away happy tears and says it’s the 24th. It’s my brother’s birthday. Julia is flying high on endorphins; she loves this baby and she loves this man and she even loves his dead brother she never got to meet, and she says it’s got to be a sign; let’s name him Dean.

She takes off her wedding ring, just this once, to have Dean’s birthdate engraved on the inside. Sam does the same with his own ring. He insists they go to a jeweler who will engrave while they wait, rather than leaving the rings there. She waves a hand at her lumpy postpartum body. You afraid someone’s gonna make a move on all this if you don’t keep a ring on it?

He laughs at her and says you’re onto me, even though he’s the one who needs to be locked away, still with that long lean runner’s body and the amazing shoulders and the goddamn dimples. I just don’t like us being without them, he says. He is a sweet, sentimental fool and she adores him. He bends down to kiss her, carefully maneuvering the baby he’s wearing in a sling, and Julia looks at this man and this baby and this life she didn’t think she was get to have and knows she’s happier than she has any right to be. And she’s relieved when Sam slips the ring back onto her finger, this ring imbued with the men she loves, so maybe he’s not the only sentimental fool.

(One thing she loves about Sam is that he understands why she feels guilty that Shaun didn’t get to share this life with her.)

In July they light a little candle for Dean’s six-month birthday. When Julia wakes the next morning, Sam’s side of the bed is empty and cold. She finds him cuddling their sleeping baby in the living room. I got up to give him a bottle, Sam says. I guess I just fell asleep out here. His red-rimmed eyes and empty coffee mug suggest he didn’t actually sleep at all, but, well. They’re both battling their own private demons. If a night cradling the baby gives Sam some peace for whatever reason, she’s glad of it.

Sam’s fierce love for their child takes her by surprise. If Julia has 90% of his heart, his son has 110%. He parents with a vengeance, is the only way she can think of to describe it. Like he’s making up for something. She doesn’t feel slighted, but it’s impossible to ignore that ever since Dean was born, Sam’s prime objective has been to make sure the boy is happy and safe. Everything else comes second.

(When she notices Sam has been carefully marking his tattoo symbol onto Dean’s clothing, hidden near seams and always in a color that almost matches the fabric, she decides not to say anything. He gets a little funny about his superstitions sometimes.)

Sam desperately wants Dean to have a sibling, and they try for another one, but it doesn’t happen. Julia reminds him that they’re lucky to have even one child. That having a sibling is not a lifetime guarantee of companionship and love. She should know, after all, since Stephanie cut her off after she married that asshole Scientologist and decided she couldn’t have a relationship with anyone who wasn’t also in their stupid cult.

Dean has plenty of friends and tons of activities, which Sam encourages with an almost religious fervor, but he never pulls away from his parents. They have so much in common, Sam and his son. Instead of rebelling as a teenager, Dean seems to grow even closer to his father. They spend hours together, paging through the ancient books in Sam’s study (she hates them, they smell musty and make her sneeze) or driving in the old Chevrolet. They even travel together sometimes, visiting those friends of Sam’s that live up north somewhere. Julia met them at the wedding and they were perfectly nice, thrilled to death that she and Sam had found each other. But she always feels like an outsider when they’re around, like they’re part of something she’ll never understand. So much history, with Sam and the brother she never got to meet. They absolutely dote on Dean though, and he seems to love them too, so the boys’ trip to Sioux Falls becomes an annual event.

(Dean is 14 years old when he comes home from one of these trips with his own version of the tattoo.)

When Julia is diagnosed with cancer, Dean is 16 years old. Sam does his best to ensure life goes on as normal for their son but somehow never neglects Julia’s needs. He throws himself into research and is always on top of the latest treatment, always at her elbow with the top internet-recommended remedy for her side effects, making sure both she and Dean have everything they want and need, all the attention and support they can tolerate. She doesn’t know when, or if, Sam actually sleeps. When she feels up for it, he arranges experiences for the three of them. A week lying on the beach, a weekend in New York City, a night in the mountains looking at the stars. When we look back on this time, he says, I don’t want us to only remember how much it sucked. I want us all to have good memories too.

(She doesn’t know why he’s concerned about her memories. There’s a good chance she won’t have much time to enjoy them. But it’s good for Dean. She doesn’t want this to ruin Dean’s childhood.)

Sam insists Dean go away to college as planned. Julia agrees, although she’s kind of surprised he’s willing to let the boy out of his sight. Aren’t you going to miss him? she asks.

So much, he answers. But this isn’t about me, and what I need. It’s about him. They drive Dean to school in the ancient Chevrolet. Supposedly because the trunk has room for all of his stuff, but Julia is pretty sure it’s just one last sentimental road trip in the old thing before Sam retires it. When they pick Dean up at the end of the school year, it’s in her SUV. Dean promises his father, more than once, that he’ll restore the Chevy someday.

Five years after Julia’s diagnosis, she’s sitting in the doctor’s office learning that her last remission was her last remission. There are no more options. She has months, not years. Sam clutches her hand and nods, once, as if to say I should have known this would happen; I should have expected something like this. Then he takes her home.

It’s a blessing in a way, he says late that night, after a little too much to drink. Knowing what’s coming. Having time to say goodbye. You don’t always get that. And yes, she knows this as well as anybody does.

Sam has always been supportive of her choice not to contact Stephanie, but one day he says Jules, I promise I’ll never bring it up again. It’s just that I don’t want you to have any regrets. I don’t want you miss the opportunity to say things that you’ll wish you’d said. Julia isn’t sure Steph will speak to her. She’s not even sure she’ll have the same phone number — they haven’t spoken since Dad’s funeral, a year after she was widowed — but she makes the call. And Steph answers. And cries. And comes to visit, where she hugs and cries some more. Sam watches it all with a sad smile for a while, then disappears into the garage to sit in the old Chevy.

When Julia takes her last conscious breaths, Dean is holding one hand and Sam is holding the other. She squeezes her son’s hand and thinks I love you, dear boy, and I’m sorry I have to leave you. She squeezes her husband’s hand and thinks thank you for giving me this, thank you for taking care of me, thank you for loving me and letting me love you. Then she closes her eyes and lets the soft, warm darkness take over.

And then. Then she wakes to a cool breeze and the sound of chirping birds. She’s standing at a lake she recognizes. It’s Shaun’s favorite fishing spot. And Shaun is there, waiting for her. And everything is okay.

Sam does show up eventually. Julia’s sitting on the porch of the cabin with Shaun, enjoying the perpetual nice day (sometimes a spring morning, sometimes a fall afternoon, but always nice) when she hears the familiar rumble. It cant be, she thinks. It can’t be that old car. But it is.

I’m glad you found someone with good taste in cars, Shaun says, as Sam unfolds himself from the driver’s seat. He looks exactly as he did the day she met him; no glasses, only a little grey at his temples. Still tall and strong and beautiful. She runs to meet him and embraces him as Shaun watches from the porch.

You found Shaun, Sam says. I’m so happy for you, Jules. I really am. He doesn’t seem to have any intention of joining her (their) Heaven permanently, but he doesn’t seem to have anyone else with him either. Where is the dead girlfriend? How is this fair?

They talk about Dean, and Julia’s heart swells with pride over her strong, smart, kind, brave son. He’s like you, she says. He’s just like you.

Sam shrugs. He’s a Winchester.

But what about you? she says. You’re not — you’re not alone here, are you?

Nah, he says. I’m good. I promise.

(Eventually Julia meets the first Dean, and she understands.)

===

I know a lot of people have mocked Sam's blurry wife, but I actually have grown to love the concept. Because it means she can be anything we want her to be. And yeah, initially I liked the idea of her being Dr. Cara, or Eileen. But now I don't think that would happen. I think Sam would have to start fresh to have that kind of relationship. And I also like the idea of Sam's wife having her own soulmate somewhere, waiting for her, so she's not a huge part of Sam and Dean's shared Heaven. I mean, they're gonna visit, obviously. And then they'll go home to their soulmates.

The title is from "Blackbird" by the Beatles.

[moontheoretist]

Notes from tie-in MCU comics:

Part 1:

[DISCLAIMER: I was making those notes without actually writing down from which comic they come from, so now I am... well... confused about the proper placement of them, but I tried to discern them anyway.]

CAPTAIN AMERICA THE FIRST AVENGER:

Lol, Zola was developing exo-skeleton looking like Iron Man suit and Vanko's suit in 1934. I kind of think part of Steve's dislike of Iron Man was because of that exo-suit. Also, Steve just saved the guy in a suit.

"The chain is only as strong as its weakest link" said twice to Steve, once by military doctor and second by Schmidt.

Poor Erskine, his family was taken as hostages.

Howards says "carefully open the casing". Steve does smash instead.

Oh no, Red Skull said that weapon can always be taken from you so you have to become the weapon. It echoes the sentiment behind the creation of Iron Man too closely.

Lol, Roosevelt ASKED for Howard PERSONALLY.

"Car is bulletproof!" "and a convertible!" is a funny joke xD

Lol he has bulletproof car because of cigarette's girls angry boyfriends.

Ok, so Howard joined SSR because he HAD BEST FUN IN MONTHS.

Howard has rockets in car and "leaves best toys for himself".

First Steve saves a Nazi from a tank, now he obliterates them with said tank. Pick a side, Steve. I know guy in the armor was helpless, but c'mon. You either don't kill or kill. You cannot just willy nilly choose. BTW does it echo saving Iron Man or smth?

Call back to floating car by a joke about floating tank.

Aw, no, Erskine's family died in concentration camp from typhus. (Those camps were awful, but are not shown in the comics. You better believe that they weren’t very nice places to live even without being overworked and killed by the Nazis).

Oh no, Bucky was nearly killed by SSman! But Howling Commandos stopped him.

Bucky doesn't like his name lol. Also no Jimmy nickname for this guy.

Ok so Howard Stark was based on Hughes and Tony was based on someone Howard hated - Oppenheimer.

Ok, now Phillips made a foreshadowing for Cradle in the AoU. It even looks similar to Project Rebirth.

Oho my theory that Erskine heard Bucky talk to Steve and that doctor knew Steve lied is proved in this comics. They knew, they had a file on him and Erskine just picked him, saving his stupid ass from consequences.

Cap just threw a knife.

IRON MAN 2:

In the comics it looks more as if Obadiah sold Vanko instead of Howard, because Howard looks so surprised at what Vanko did, that it is impossible to assume that he was the one who sent the agents after Vanko. He looks surprised at the whole incident, Vanko betraying him and agents being there to apprehend him. One agent acts as if it was Howard's idea all along, but that line could be also read as just informing a bystander that they will deal with the issue instead.

Tony projected a drone which could clean whole desert full of mines with 100% accuracy and 0% detonation.

Also comics confirm that Tony cannot even have 12h break without Howard coming at him and demanding him to work when he is just a goddamn teenager.

Tony was just fighting for 19h, got a shower and has to go out again.

"If I hear of another innocent being put in a harm's way just to advance some pointless military agenda... there will be consequences" sounds like call back to Hulk.

Hm, Tony made 12 people work on one job? Also Natasha hates being called Nat and she drugged Samantha (the actual PA which applied for Stark Industries) to take her place.

 [As of now those comics confirmed to me that Captain America joined army out of selfish reasons and that Tony was overworking himself as Iron Man and when he wasn't he was either partying, probably to relax in that way, or making new tech which saves lives.]

Lol, Coulson was so excited to look for Captain. Nick even made a joke about finding his fav action figure.

Lol, World Security Council wanted to get Tony's weapons and nearly fired Fury for trying to make Avengers.

Fury is like Tony. He hates his superiors. He will do as they say but won't stop doing what he does.

Lol, Fury got a call Tony will be dead and he jumped out of his goddamn bed asap.

Fury was actively stopping Stern from getting Iron Man by scheduling his meeting with Department of Defense "when Stern is busy" xD

Lol Fury says no to Ross before he hears what he wants. This is so funny.

Ok, so Fury got Lithium Dioxide for Tony, asked if it could be made into permanent cure, how sweet of him, but also learned that it could INSTANTLY KILL HIM instead and still made Natasha basically inject Tony with it WITHOUT CONSENT! So I dunno if he really cared about him when he asked about permanent cure or it was just more optimal for his plans. Also he got the cure during Tony's and Rhodey's battle at the mansion, so we cannot say he had a cure and didn't give it right away when he could.

"Don't blow your cover unless Stark is going to kill himself". Hm. So he wants him alive.

And yeah, he ordered Natasha to stick him with lithium dioxide when he distracted him.

Lol, Fury yelled at Coulson for letting Tony leave the mansion xD

THOR??? (I got lost in my notes, I didn’t write which comic was which)

LOL CLINT CANNOT EVEN TAKE VACATION. Also the speed with which he responded to possible alien crashsite, epic. He jumped and went as if it was Christmas, aww Clint.

Why Clint is giving money back to some store which suffered due to their operation? I mean it was nice and all, but who will give the money back to Clint? Fury?

So it was Hawkeye's idea to let Thor loose.

In the meantime Loki was on scene and tried to get Mjolnir but it didn't respond.

AVENGERS PRELUDE:

Oho, poor Fury, didn't sleep in a few days.

Oho, Fury yelled at Natasha.

"Do not let Ross take Banner, dead or alive". How cute of you, Nick, to confirm that you do not care.

Blonsky is suicidal. Going at Hulk and kicking him in the face? That's a death wish.

Ah so Blonsky is enhanced.

Hahaha, joke about lifting a hammer but applied to the Asgardian sentinel, lol.

Ross literally accessed SHIELD databases.

Natasha was raised in Stalingrad lol.

After seeing Hulk, Abomination and The Leader Natasha finally says it is too much to handle for SHIELD.

Oho, so making Tony finish Howard's project was an objective, not saving his life. He wanted it for Tesseract.

I dunno if he is lying or really was doing this whole shit for the Tesseract. Also points for sticking in WSC's face that Ross nearly destroyed New York thanks to them.

Shield has whiplash suit and it's arc reactor!

THEY ACTIVATED THE SENTINEL AND THEN THEY WANT TO DISMANTLE IT AND MAKE DOZENS SMALL ONES!

Huh, implication that Natasha may beat the whole bunker of SHIELD agents up, because they're men, lol.

So Selvig used the element Stark invented to kick-start the Tesseract after all.

"Good for a laugh from time to time" lol. Clint the comedian.

Why that machine holding a Tesseract looks like Arc Reactor?

Huh so Selvig was Loki and he made a comment about Tony being strange for "badassium".

BLACK WIDOW BACKGROUND IN ONE OF THE COMICS, DUNNO WHICH:

Natasha talks about her cover personalities like vtubers about their avatars.

Fjodorov knows something about stolen bootleg technology of Tony Stark which he managed to acquire?

Natasha really likes narrating her story. Time slows when you have a training? Like roller coaster on first ridge?

"With some small regret, I bid farewell to Tatiana. She's outlived her usefulness" thinks Natasha after she took off her wig and no longer plays Tatiana. "If she were real. She'd be dead". "It's nice though, to pretend while it lasts... that I was ever as innocent as her".

Natasha really likes playing those roles.

Haha, Natasha holds one mission over Coulson's head forever even though he never failed as her control again.

"Part of the reason why I am so good at the undercover work is that I actually like being other people. There is a lot I've done that I regret. When I leave that other identity behind, whether I slip out from underneath it voluntarily or it's ripped away from my grasp, it always hits me like a shock. Like being awakened from a deep sleep, back to who I really am". "It's good to be home". Is she speaking about her slip into Black Widow again as home or is she referring to Russia?

Natasha left a guy dangling from a building and said it could be worse, he could be naked.

"Good man" says Natasha as if she was training guys to obey her will.

Oho, Natasha is interested in someone who wants to be her.

Also she is narrating that police in Russia would not suspect Tatiana to be so resourceful.

Natasha wants to save that girl from herself, because nobody did that for her when she was in the same position.

I mean, Natasha killed some people that day already so I don't get the point of her not killing those guys and saying that she changed, when in the club she killed a few of the goons already and later too. Where is the point of her change if she kills anyway? What is this change about Black Widow - Natasha Romanoff if she kills people but just not always? She cannot claim to change for the better just because she didn't kill two goons. And Sofia should see that not killing all of them doesn't mean she doesn't kill at all. But I guess leaving so many alive still counts for Sofia as Natasha going soft.

Coulson, you idiot, I am happy you came to save Natasha, but Sofia thought those guys were Natasha's back up. It all wouldn't happen if not for you making them appear there. You fucked up everything for Natasha, Coulson.

Uh, Natasha has the same weird shtick Tony does. She blames herself for the decision of her superior? Yeah, she enabled him to make that decision, but it was still his decision to send those men to find Natasha, so their death is on him, not on Natasha.

Huh, so Natasha's model persona Konn feels empty when nobody looks at her, because her whole life was being the centre of attention? It's kind of sexist cover.

She is a hand model and this guy is disgusting. Natasha I agree with those YUCK.

Natasha doing tehee is so weird.

Also playing a "he sent me here so hours would fly by" is so gross, but inner Natasha voice says nothing yet.

Lol the guy just assumed she is stupid, because she made tehee sounds. Like, goddammit, men are so easy to fool. Condescending little creep indeed.

Ok, so Natasha doesn't have any computer knowledge to say what those lines of code are, but she knows Stark can.

Ugh, Natasha, that line about telling his friends that they did something he imagines is so not feminist of you. It just enables creeps like that to objectify women more and treat them like idiots and fucktoys.

Sofia killed the agent even when Natasha gave her what she wanted.

Natasha wants to save lives and often fails at it too.

She jumped off the yacht to save the guy even though she knew he is dead? I mean shot in the head usually means instant death.

She doesn't get lines of code but can upload tracking device on it. Good. Also she wanna kill Sofia now.

"When I go in for the kill, there's no one I'd rather be than who I really am".

Ah so they had a targeting software for the copy of the Jericho missile manufactured by Hammer.

So they were moving Jericho in parts around the world. They should be happy Tony didn't notice. (Because then they would all just go boom and be dead lol).

"Berserk bots a girl's best friends!"

Frampton wants to have space tourism.

Ten Rings again.

Why Frampton wants to strike Korean DMZ?

Aha, global destabilisation for Ten Rings, gotcha.

Oho, so the info about Natasha busting the trafficking ring comes back. It turns out she accidentally trapped the girls inside when she busted the place. She basically says she didn't know they were there but even if she did she wasn't nice back then.

So Natasha says that Sofia was more her than she ever was, meaning the Black Widow, meaning that Natasha always had softness in her which Sofia didn't have and that Sofia got her just reward for wanting to be the perfect Black Widow.

Still sexist move to make a victim of sex trafficking ring become a morally corrupt murderer who would destabilise world for free if she could, but does that for money, because money is nice addition to her new hobby of fucking humanity up.

"Some people are not worth saving" Not so long ago plenty would say that about me".

AVENGERS:

Oho Stark Tower is the first fully clean-energy powered skyscraper.

Pepper thinks inside the box and Tony thinks outside the box.

Oh, so Tony still says that Rhodey had stolen the suit, but then he admits that it could give him heart attack, because it was not calibrated for him, so I wonder if he really wanted Rhodey to have it or never wanted Rhodey to have it at all.

"I got them to agree that all starktech remains proprietary to you as long as War Machine is on loan to the department of defense".

Lol wow, War Machine was an insult? Anyway he means that Rhodey won't be using Mark II because Tony has new suit for him.

"I am not Iron Man" people yell Iron Man at Rhodey "Ah, forget it" xD

How is Tony saying that he couldn't find anything to go after Gulmira when he was literally busting Ten Rings in Iron Man 2 tie-in comic?

Hahaha, Rhodey wanna get a publicist so people would recognise he is War Machine, not Iron Man.

Rhodey is so vicious. "I could have taken your hand with it but not doing it is more fun".

Oho so Tony THREE MONTHS after Tony was putting S on Stark Tower there is Battle of New York and Rhodey is in Hong Kong.

Incoming call: Martini, seriously? You call Tony MARTINI?

Also for some reason this Tony has blue eyes.

Rhodey is so cocky lol. "I haven't seen anything that can take me down".

"When am i gonna learn to keep my mouth shut?" xDDD Rhodey cursed himself.

So after Iron Man 2 Tony realised that he couldn't be iron solder alone anymore and made Rhodey an armor? Still, trust was a huge factor here.

Lol did he just make a joke about being so beat up as after clubbing with Tony to a commanding officer? Rhodey, you vicious little shit lol xD

"Battle tank that's about to make me street pizza! But only if I stand and take it, which I have never done in my life". That's useful info. It gives me some insight into who was protecting who at MIT. Rhodey never was taking a crap of other people, so he probably was used to fighting bullies. And I can imagine him standing up to bullies who targeted a kid - Tony Stark.

Rhodey chooses to fight smarts with smarts.

DID HE JUST MAKE HIS WAY OF LANDING A FRIGGIN MISSILE STYLE? XD

His commander asks if he is crazy. He definitely friggin is lol.

Rhodey just gave his superior a scare when he let a tank run him over. They thought he died.

OMG Ten Rings assumed War Machine is easier target to get tech from and Rhodey feels offended, but happy they know who he is.

Rings had stark tech in that tank, oh no. Tony will be pissed even if those are old black market stuff.

AWWW RHODEY WAS WORRIED ABOUT TONY WHEN HE DIDN'T RESPOND!

"Don't do this to me, man". "Holy...! That was SOME situation" says Rhodey when he saw chitauri flying whale dead. Ok so Avengers met Rhodey in that shawarma place.

Pepper decorates according to feng shui?

So Ten Rings scanned Rhodey's armor with any scanner available and collected a lot of data on the armor anyway.

[katblu42]

The End?

This is something I wrote for a creative writing competition. The challenge was to write something (within a week) starting at the end and working back to the beginning. For some reason the prompt/challenge sparked this little piece, which is pretty much non-fiction. I guess it came at a time when the subject matter was on my mind. I wanted to post it now because a related anniversary is coming up.

There are warnings!!! Please heed the tags. Death, Sickness, Hospitals, Cancer. (If more warnings/tags are needed please let me know so I can make appropriate edits!)

Below the cut for length and warnings.

This was not how their story was supposed to end. There were still so many chapters they had hoped to write together, so many journeys toward possible futures that they had imagined spending side by side. She never anticipated being a childless widow before she had even turned forty-two. She’d never considered being faced with a hopeless situation, or the unenviable decision to allow them to stop treatment and let him slip away. Treatments that could prolong his life a little, but not fix him. Their plans had never included his hand desperately clinging to hers as she tearfully told him it was okay for him to let go and leave her behind.

He had wanted to fight. It broke her heart that there was nothing the combined efforts of all the medical staff could do to support his fight. It was a losing battle. His body was giving up on him, organs shutting down even though his mind was not ready to give up. The three weeks he lasted in the ICU had left him battle-scarred and exhausted, but he had still not wanted to give in, or let her down.

His Forty-second birthday was less than a week before the end. It was spent with family, visiting two by two according to ICU visitor limits. He was barely able to communicate by then, his lips scabbed and bloody, and a ventilator tube in his throat inserted by tracheostomy. The medical team had not wanted the tube to remain in his mouth any longer, but he was too weak to breathe on his own.

He had been off the ventilator for a while, during one of the hopeful moments. They’d been able to remove the breathing tube, and they had been able to reduce the blood pressure medication for a while. His temperature had stabilised and she’d focused on the improvements, encouraging him to think positive. Facing the alternative had been unthinkable.

She had put such hope in the drug she’d had to sign permission for them to administer – one that had to be shipped urgently from interstate, that had approval for use in the US, but not here. They had told her it was possible too much time had passed for the reversal drug to be fully effective. It had been more than five days since the chemo treatment which now needed reversing had ended.

Hope was all she’d had at that point. Seeing him finally settled in Intensive Care with all the monitors and their beeps and alarms, the ventilator with its click and hiss, the hum of the heat pump regulating his temperature, the blood transfusion and IV lines all keeping her unconscious husband alive, she had to cling to every scrap of hope she could. His immune system was so compromised she had to wear the gown and gloves and mask just to sit in the corner of the room and let the silent tears fall.

The ICU waiting room was deserted during the wee hours. She and her Mum stayed until dawn before buzzing the door intercom to enquire about seeing him. His Dad had left after the surgeon had spoken to them all some hours before, explaining that in his current state surgery was not a viable option for the infection in his gut. The previous wait in Emergency had been shorter, and the waiting room slightly more comfortable, but the constant worry and the lack of information had been excruciating.

Two ambulances had attended their tiny unit in answer to her call, such was the seriousness of his condition. Despite having four uniformed people fussing over her husband, she had not been given much information about what was happening. She’d been instructed to get all his medication together to bring with her to the hospital, then left to change out of her pyjamas while they loaded him into an ambulance. All this happened in a blur of action and confusion. Less than 20 minutes before they all headed to the hospital she had been performing chest compressions on him on the tiled floor of their cramped bathroom.

The Emergency Services operator on the other end of the phone had talked her through the CPR procedure. She’d learned it years before in first aid training, but having to actually perform the chest compressions on someone she loved was still horrifyingly daunting. He hadn’t stopped breathing, but the ES operator had assured her CPR was necessary because his gasping breaths had been so far apart.

She had never had to call an ambulance for anyone before, but it didn’t take a genius to see she needed help. His level of responsiveness had decreased so rapidly after she’d found him slumped forward sitting on the toilet, unable to sit up unaided. The yellow tinge to his skin had startled her. He had cried out to her in such a way that instinct had brought her rushing from the loungeroom without taking a moment to process anything more than the feeling that something was very wrong.

He had just wanted to sleep, so she tried to give him space to do that, sitting quietly in the loungeroom while he stayed in the darkened bedroom. He had refused to let her bring him something to eat, which had concerned her. She’d offered to call the hospital for advice, knowing he was uncomfortable and wanting to make sure he was okay, but he had refused to let her, insisting that there was no need to make a fuss. She’d arrived home from work around five, and suspected he had been in bed all day, “just feeling a bit yuck.” Later she would feel so much guilt for not trusting her instinct to get help for him then.

For the first couple of days after his chemo treatment ended he had seemed okay, feeling upbeat, acting normal. He had been in high spirits despite the prospect of months of treatment still ahead. There had been a little grumbling about feeling a little bit off, but that was to be expected, right?

His first (and only) round of chemo had been a five day affair. Three medications, two of which had been administered within a day at the clinic and the third he had carried around in a little pack while it slowly released over the five days. The plan had been laid out by the oncology team, with lots of consultations and discussions during the preceding weeks. He was to have two or three rounds of the chemo drugs, then radiation treatment would begin. Combination therapy to treat the cancers in his mouth and throat.

There had been months of discomfort, reducing his ability to eat properly, or enjoy food. He had lost a considerable amount of weight before she had been able to convince him to finally go and see a doctor and find out what was wrong. He’d always been the type to avoid going to a doctor unless he was literally at death’s door. She knew that part of what had held him back for so long was the fear that it could be something serious.

He didn’t want to ruin their holiday, but he promised he would see someone about the sore throat when they got back from the Gold Coast. It was only a week spent away, but they had visited all their favourite haunts. This was one of their regular holiday spots during their ten year marriage. They always felt like big kids, visiting the theme parks and the beaches, playing mini golf, messing about in the resort pool.

The two of them had been lucky to share many little trips away over the years. They’d had many more days of laughter and smiles than they’d had of tears and troubles. There had been precious gifts exchanged between them – but not many in a physical form she could lay her hands on. Each of them had broadened the other’s horizons, sparking interest in new experiences, sharing the activities and pass-times they loved.

Their wedding day had been filled with fun and friends and family. She had seen then how many people his bright and generous personality drew to him. So many people had wanted to share in their joy, and had told her she would never find a more loyal and loving mate. All the elegance and finery, the colour and music, the celebration of their union had been a wonderful way to begin their journey hand in hand to the future.

His proposal on the beach, early in the morning in a place he had been holidaying with his family every year since he was tiny, had taken her by surprise. He had asked her to come with him for a walk. They had travelled quite a long way up the beach, just watching the waves crash on the shore, listening to the shrieks of the gulls and making small talk. Then he had dropped to one knee and asked the question. She needed a moment to take in what was happening. His heart just about stopped, thinking she was hesitating. She had said yes, and put him out of his nervous agony.

Their first “proper” date was a walk to the local McDonalds for burgers and sundaes. Neither of them had much money, so neither had wanted to go anywhere fancy. She had been happy with the little things – like the way he always walked beside her on the footpath placing himself between her and the busy road. He was not rich, nor did he have impressive style or a brainiac’s intelligence, but he was open and funny and kind and she wanted to spend time with him.

She hadn’t ever been to the trivia night at the local bowling club, so she wasn’t sure what to expect, or how it all worked. The lady who hosted the quiz gave her an answer sheet and steered her towards a table, telling her the young man with the twinkle in his blue eyes, and the dimpled smile would look after her. That was the moment their story had begun.

[mayraki]

Ok so it took me a whole day to find myself after that episode.

WHAT WAS THAT?!?!!

First best thing about that episode was Kang/he who remains/jerk or whatever you’re calling him HE STEAL THE SHOW! We’re gonna enjoy his other evil variants so much I believe. The acting was 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

I felt so broken when Sylvie betrayed Loki at the end. I mean did you see the look in his face? For the first time in his entire time he just wanted someone’s well being and he talk out loud about that. We felt all alone again. And when he thought he found Mobius turns out it’s not HIS Mobius WTF WHOS CUTTING ONIONS 😭😭😭

And that kiss was … weird??? Unnecessary??? Like wtf I expected something like a hug it would fit way much better than a weird baby kiss

But I understand Slyvies position in this case. She’s taken away when she was just a kid and runaway for her whole life. Just bc some guy think that’s the best way? That anger that feeling of revenge is probably grow with her, she think she’d feel satisfied when she killed him but we saw she didn’t. Maybe bc of her betrayal to Loki or maybe deep down she know Kang was right, and she just caused a multiverse. Sylvie literally cause something that we’re gonna have in marvel for coming 10 years I mean we were right loki series effected mcu BIG TIME.

SO MARVEL WE JUST WANTED MOBIUS WITH A JET SKI BUT WE DONT EVEN KNOW WHERE HE IS WHERE IS OUR ORIGINAL MOBIUS TELL MEE

Btw I can’t stop thinking about what possibilities happening right now in this other universes I CANT stevebucky canon??? Tony and Natasha alive???? Maybe even pietro???? and those are just simple things what about other complicated things I can’t even think of I CANT I WABT THEM ALL PLS MARVEL DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT I KNOW WE ARE GONNA HAVE ‘WHAT IF..?’ BUT I WANT MORE

I guess all I need is to see doctor strange 2 ???

What do you think of this episode? Miss reading your opinions bestiee ily 🤟

what the fuck was that?

his acting was so good omg that loooong monologue, he killed it 👏🏼👏🏼

ALL WE ASKED WAS SOMETHING GOOD FOR HIM, at least SOMETHING. but no, not even a little good thing for him in the end i swear to god- when mobius said who are you? my heart just DROPPED LIKE?!?? nonono. THE KISS? i mean she obviously did it to change the position they were in to push loki but they could’ve hugged or something, i literally went 🤨 when it happened.

sylvie had revenge growing inside of her for YEARS, it wasn’t gonna get fixed on one episode or just by killing him. her journey isn’t over 🤲🏻 AND YES WE’RE GONNA SEE A LOT OF THIS IN OTHER MOVES AND SHOWS AND I LOVE IT!! all of these just because hulk doesn’t like stairs omfg-

GIVE ME MY MOBIUS RIGHT NOW MARVEL 💳💥💥💳💥💥💥

i want my pietro back!!!!!! also we don’t have to forget about peter from the x men appearing on wandavision, i don’t think they just paid the actor just to make a joke??? i hope not. we’re gonna have SO MANY NEW THINGS AAAAAH I CANT WAIT FOR THIS PHASE. doctor strange is gonna answer a lot of questions i guess (or i hope so because bestie i am so confused)

i’m going to see black widow tomorrow!! did you see it?

[queenharumiura]

"Good evening, are you Mrs Miura Haru? Oh, so we request your presence at the hospital, your husband is in comatose and we wanted to talk about this with you." The hospital nurse told in the phone, as Haru knew that Hayato did really went to work in a dangerous mission, he was missing for a few days now, as it seems the first news she received. [TYL Hayato]

[Unprompted ask]- You wanna hurt me this way? FINE. Let’s see what I’ll do. //rubbing hands like a fly

Warning: Death mentions for sure, violence? 

It has been days since she’d been told that they lost contact with her husband after he’d gone on a particularly dangerous mission a while back. It was an understatement to say that she was a mess. In front of others, she made sure to keep a strong front to keep them from worrying, but once she closed the door behind her, she’d always collapse to the ground.

From a young age, Haru had always known about Tsuna and the others playing a mafia game, but she also knew that the ‘game’ was all too dangerous sometimes. That much was evident in the way Gokudera and the others would sometimes disappear for a period of time and return injured.

She also happened to know that Tsunayoshi Sawada was dead. This wasn’t common knowledge as it was kept under wraps to prevent mass-hysterics, but it was hard to hide the news from the wife of the right hand man. Sleep? She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept. Even if she tried, she’d find herself waking up every 20 to 30 minutes to check for messages on her phone.

Did they find him? Was he okay? Was he--? She always stopped herself from thinking too far, too afraid that her thoughts would bring it to reality. It was slowly killing her, keeping secrets from people. Kyoko and Hana had no idea that Tsuna had died, and she couldn’t tell them anything as this was highly confidential information. She only found out by accident.

It still upset her to this day to think that such important information was going to be kept from her, but she could understand why. After hearing about his death, she would have the occasional nightmare of the others succumbing to the same fate.

It would be a lie to say that she wasn’t afraid of dying a painful death, but she was even more terrified of dying before Gokudera and being the source of further grief. He was already tormented over failing to protect his boss and now he had the extra pressure of filling in for the boss.

His work load had doubled… maybe even tripled, and she couldn’t bring herself to nag at Gokudera like she used to. How could she when she knew why he had to do all this extra work now that Tsuna was gone? All she could do was support him from the side, making sure he took some time to eat some food.

Now days she found herself spending time in his office, where he spent most of his time. It smelled a lot like him (and his cigarettes) and she kept this room tidy if nothing else. That way, this room would be ready for him to work at the moment he arrived. She used to joke about how he was married to his desk, affectionally nicknamed ‘desk-chan’.

Haru would try to distract herself by doing other things, but she never could bring herself to finish anything as her thoughts would always drift back to her missing husband. The weight on her ring finger felt heavier each passing day with no word about his whereabouts. If you asked her, she couldn’t begin to tell you how many times she’s cried since being told Gokudera went missing.

Did she try to go out to find him? You know her, she did try. Was she stopped before she could begin? Yes. The others knew her too well. She was in effect kept on house arrest to ensure she wouldn’t do something ‘stupid’. It wouldn’t be good if Gokudera comes back and finds out Haru died because she was rash.

In her sleep deprivation and the stress over what was happening all around her, Haru found herself sinking deep into her thoughts, reflecting on her life. She could’ve had a simpler life. One where she could be married with kids by now. One where she wouldn’t have to worry about getting a call that her husband died, being a widow at not even her 30’s. Did she regret it? Not as much as you would think.

Regardless of all the hardships, she loved her husband and she was here for the long haul.

This was something she didn’t speak to others very often, but there was a time when Haru thought that she was useless and unnecessary. It wasn’t necessarily anyone’s fault but her own. She was weak. It wasn’t Kyoko’s fault that Tsuna liked her and only seemed to have eyes for her. Likewise, it wasn’t his fault for liking Kyoko, she’s perfect, after all. No matter how hard she tried, he wouldn’t ever look her way, not in the way it mattered most, anyways.

She found herself comparing herself to Kyoko and started to think that she was lacking. Maybe she was being a bother. It’s simple to say her self-confidence was hurt, but the self-loathing was far worse. She loved her friends too much to ever blame them for anything. Even a whisper of a thought for such a notion would send Haru reeling with self-hatred. Her relationship with Gokudera did help her build herself back up.

Sometimes, she wondered if she was really right for him. She was holding him back, wasn’t she? He always had to worry about her safety and stress about what would happen to her if she were ever caught. (Simple, Haru would sooner kill herself then let herself be used as a hostage. Of course, he knew that, and that’s why  he worried.)

More than that, she started to fear that she was something like a bad luck charm. Maybe it was that if she loved someone, she had sentenced them to death.

Ring Ring

Ri- “Hello?” Haru immediately answered the phone that was on Gokudera’s desk.

Haru listened to the woman speak on the other line, and she almost forgot how to breathe. Gokudera… was alive… but he was in a comatose? How bad was his situation? Her whole-body breaks into shivers as the fear surged, chilling her blood.

“Yes, I’m his wife. I-I��ll be right there.” She couldn’t help but shed tears in relief upon knowing that he wasn’t dead at least. How dark, to find relief that your husband is in a comatose. No longer able to jump into dangerous situations.

At least, he’s alive.

-

                                                  [time skip bc I can]

-

Haru rushed into the hospital and she was directed by the nurse at the front desk on where to go. She spoke to the doctors before she rushed to his room to see him laying there, looking as if he’s sleeping peacefully. She doubted that to be true. She subconsciously touched the base of her neck.

She’d experienced it first hand, how when he sleeps for too long, his nightmares come to plague him and he is prone to lashing out violently at the nearest person in his perceived sense for danger. That… was a cause of a meaningful conversation with him. At the time, he was more shaken than she was.

If it was her, she’d be willing to die for the sake of her husband. There was no doubt in her mind, but in that situation, it’s different. She would die for her husband, but she wouldn’t die by her husband. He already tormented himself over failing Tsuna, but to add on almost killing his wife by almost strangling her to death because of his trauma?

She sat beside him silently, taking his one hand in her own, sobbing for who knows what number it was that day. He felt warm.

“You promised you’ll come back, but I didn’t think it’d be like this, Baka-dera.” She sobbed quietly, clutching onto his hand for dear life. “If you die too, what do you expect me to do?” What would happen to the Vongola? She knew very little about his work as he kept his work private, but she was a learned individual.

If she had to, she could read the backlogs of all the paperwork and get a feel for what needs done. Don’t underestimate your wife who only attended the most prestigious schools in her younger years.

A bitter laugh escapes her, “Who am I kidding. If you die, I don’t know if I could live on without you.” She meant this both emotionally and literally. If even the right hand man were to die, the Vongola was on a fast track to death, and as his wife, she would surely meet a gruesome end.

Well, if she were to die, at least she’d be with her husband. That’s something to look forward to if push comes to shove.

“Bad man, by the time you wake up, my head will be full of white hair from all the stress you gave me.” She could only crack a joke in a situation like this because that’s how she coped.

Taking a deep breath, she exhaled slowly wiping her tears away with her hands. “Right, your wife isn’t weak, is she? If you’re out of commission, then I have to take over. I’m sure you’d yell at me for this, but guess what? You can’t speak up to stop me.” She paused, as if hoping he’d wake up and call her stupid like he always would.

Biting her lower lip to stop the quivering, “I knew what I was marrying into. Let me take on the responsibility this time. Who knows? I might even do a good job. If not… don’t keep me waiting too long.” The unspoken words being that she intended to do her best to help the Vongola while he was out of commission. If she died in the process, she could at least say she did her best and feel no regret.

Sparing one last look at him she pulled out her cellphone to dial a few numbers. First and foremost, the others needed to be notified of his condition and they needed to move him to a more secure location.

You know? The duty of the wife is to look after her husband in sickness and health.

I’m your wife until death, and death may come for one of us sooner than we thought.

I’m sorry for being selfish, but I hope it comes for me first.  

After all, people still need you here.

More than me.

[missizzy]

Fic: The Klingon’s Mate, Part 3 (Star Trek: Deep Space 9)

Worf went on shift before her the next morning, which made that easier. She ate breakfast with Turink, and listened to him talk about the previous day. There at least she found one mercy: he’d had a good day yesterday. He’d met with two other boys about his mental age on the starbase, including one from a silicon-based species whom he’d found it fun to wrestle with, and so far they were getting along, or so he claimed. “I like it here,” he said. “I know not everybody likes that I’m half-Klingon, but it’s no longer the case that everyone sees me as weak and inferior because of I’m half-Trill, you know?”

“I know,�� said Jadzia softly, wishing Worf had been there to hear his son confirm what she’d always been pretty sure of, though she wasn’t sure he would’ve admitted to it in front of his father, that he had received that treatment on Qo’nos.

The medical exam has obviously been more stressful, but at least he had been told he was in good health. It seemed to Jadzia, as she listened to her son talk about it, that he viewed himself as having conquered that exam, and so now was ready to conquer any academic exams too.

It was good to see him adapting well. Especially, she couldn’t help but think, because of what might happen with him if she didn’t avert this disaster. If worst came to worst, he did have two sets of grandparents who were both willing to take him in, although Jadzia’s parents had never seen enough of him for either their or her own liking. She supposed he might do better on Earth than on Trill, where they were more used to aliens, although obviously that he was half-Klingon was going to be a problem anywhere he went outside Klingon space.

His determination to conquer the exams also meant she had no trouble getting him to take up the right padd and buckle down to study before she went on duty. She left him hunched over it and quietly repeating to himself what sounded like a Vulcan scientific equation.

The lab overnight had received a shipment from the planet of newly discovered fossils from Martisheva’s arctic regions, and that kept Jadzia nicely occupied throughout her shift. Had she not had the most dreaded event of her life hanging over her head, she would have been very happy that day. Even as it was, she could not help but marvel over a couple of them that were millions of years old, containing evidence of some of the earliest life that evolved on the planet, forgetting everything for a moment or so.

Two hours before her shift ended, she was just entering the results of her analysis of one of the newer ones, which had a lot of information attached to it, when Commander Sand came in. He was not someone Jadzia would’ve expected that day at all, and nor was he something she at all wanted to deal with, not before she knew which way her entire life was about to go.

He first looked around to see if they were alone, then said, “Unfortunately I have bad news. Yesterday when I offered you a position as my first officer, you asked if I could bring your husband on board as well. I asked about this, and I now can confirm the answer is no. The Admiral who has the charge of the command is insisting I take one of his people for head of Security, as well as for Engineering, and your husband is too high-ranked to be under him either. He would’ve been overqualified anyway, honestly.

I know you’ll probably turn the position down now, but I would still ask, Commander, that you not do so this moment. Please take the extra day?”

Had he asked this the previous day, her superior or no, Jadzia probably would have officially given him her refusal right then anyway. Aside from the knowledge that she couldn’t take it, it displeased her when superior officers made these kind of pressure-filled requests to her, and it also raised the question of how happy she’d be serving under him, even if the position was in every other way what she’d always wanted. But now she was aware she might just need what that new position and rank could bring her. She could write Nerys her recommendation, for one thing.

“Very well,” she said. “I’ll give you my answer tomorrow night.” If for any reason Julian failed her, she doubted Nerys would take that long to act. In fact, she was hoping she at least would give her time enough and not act sooner.

She went back and forth about comming her as she went to Julian’s. But she ultimately decided against it. Best not to give her any hopes until they could be fulfilled. Besides, Worf might or might not be too busy to talk to her anyway.

When she rang the bell, she heard Julian’s, “Jadzia? Is that you?” which sounded nervous and unlike him. When she called out, “Yes, it’s me,” the door slid open to reveal him still in uniform, but in his blue undershirt; he even still had his boots on. “Come in quickly,” he said.

He’d been on the starbase a little longer than Jadzia and Worf had, which made it shocking that he hadn’t unpacked. His suitcases sat by the table, one of them opened out on the floor with its contents scattered and spilling over. The rest of the room was bare; he hadn’t even set up the holo of his family that had been taken after his father had finally been released. “Wow,” she commented, “have they been keeping you extra busy or something?”

“No,” said Julian. “It’s a little more complicated than that. Or maybe simpler. Sit down.”

Something was wrong, obviously. In fact, when she took a close look at Julian now, Jadzia saw other things, like that it didn’t look like he’d been sleeping much, and, more than that, he looked almost ill. “I suppose I should get you a drink,” he said. “You might want it too, I’m afraid.”

“No,” she said, because she couldn’t afford it for her side of this conversation. Although vital as that was to her and Worf’s future, it was getting harder to concentrate on that, when all she could think was a desperate What’s wrong with him, please…

He looked over at the replicator, then shook his head. “I should be sober for this conversation myself,” he said. “I suppose after it I can drink all I want now, until…”

“Until what?!” That sounded like…No. No, please no…

“Well,” he took a deep breath. “Remember when I once said I was glad that the person who did my genetic resequencing knew what he was doing? Well, it turns out, he made a mistake. A tiny one, which for over thirty years didn’t matter, but in genetic engineering, even the slightest thing off will spell disaster sooner or later, and later has become now. Became it a few months ago, actually, when I started having memory issues. Took me most of the time since to find out what the problem was.”

“And the prognosis?” Jadzia asked. Please, let the answer be anything but…

“It’s not an absolute one yet,” sighed Julian. “I might not even get that; it’s not like there are many examples we doctors can look to in order to get one. But given what’s breaking down in here?” He sadly tapped his forehead. “Death might be what will happen if I’m lucky.”

“No, that can’t be true!” Jadzia protested. “And can’t they go back in and fix you, like you did to Sarina?”

“I’ve looked into that.” He sounded so, so tired. “But my brain issues aren’t the same as hers. If I had a year, maybe I could come up with a version of the operation I performed on her which would work on me, or some colleague could. But in a year, if I’m still alive? I’ll be a blubbering idiot unable to remember what happened a few days ago if I’m lucky, and even less capable of doing anything if I’m not, and probably beyond the kind of help that Sarina had. They’ll have to take me to the institution they still keep Jack and Patrick and Lauran in, and what will they think, seeing me as in worse condition than even them-though they might not even be allowed to see me, to keep them from being traumatized.”

“But it’s not absolute.” Jadzia felt herself grasping at what she could.

“It’s over a 90% chance.”

As Jadzia still sat there, trying to face what she was realizing was the unfaceable, he said, “I made what’s going to be the closest I’ll get to a full diagnosis a couple of days ago. Right now I’m trying to settle my affairs, and taking care of a few last things. Tomorrow morning I’m going to hand in my resignation. I’m going to go home, go see my parents, then probably do some more traveling; there have been some places I’ve always wanted to see. I probably have at least a couple of months before I really start to degenerate. If I have time I’ll come see you again, but once I really start to go, I don’t want any of you to see me like that.”

The thought that this might be the last she ever saw of Julian made Jadzia burst into tears, rough, fast ones that nearly ripped themselves out of her eyes. And now he was moving around and giving her a hug, he, who should be the one crying, not her, but she was just feeling so weak and worn, and she wanted to just spill everything, not even for the sake of making her request, but just so Julian would know, so there wouldn’t be that awful barrier between them.

“Oh, Jadzia,” he sighed, and pressed the chastest of kisses into her hair. “You know, for the first time, I’m happy you married Worf. I think…maybe you know why I wasn’t before this. But imagine if I was your husband, and now this was happening to he who you’d been planning to spend the rest of your life with. Now you’ll cry for me, but you’ll still have him, and your beautiful little boy…”

“Beautiful!” Even under the circumstances, Jadzia couldn’t help but snort through her tears. “You know most wouldn’t describe it that way.”

“He’s your son. Of course he’s beautiful.”

“You shouldn’t be talking to me like this,” sobbed Jadzia. “You shouldn’t feel like that about me. You should feel that way about…”

“About who?” It was his turn to snort. “About someone else that in a year’s time I’d then either make a widow or burden with a literal idiot husband who she’d have to divorce is she had any sense? No, I think things have worked out for the best.”

But you should never feel that way about yourself. Not even if he was about to die, not even then, because as far as Jadzia was concerned, Julian deserved the love and devotion she had never been able to give him, and the woman who would travel with him and nurse him to the bitter end and be thankful even in her grief that she’d gotten to have him.

Besides, if she’d married him, she wouldn’t have committed the sin she had. There wouldn’t have been a need, probably. But then again, she’d always known that marrying Julian would have led to her having a much easier life, even if she’d never given too much thought to it. She’d never made her choices based on what was easy.

And she wasn’t going to now, either. It would be easy, she thought, to explain everything. She thought if she did, Julian would give up the last months of his life, take the promotion and use it to save her and Worf. It was the logical thing to do, he would say; they had their entire lives to live out preserved from disaster; what was one year compared to that? Jadzia could tell herself that as well, repeat to herself that Julian had willingly made the choice, and also that she’d done what she’d had to do. She could do that every day for the rest of her life, and eventually, she thought, she wouldn’t even feel that guilty anymore.

But thinking about doing all that, taking advantage of this man, who had loved her for years, quietly and resignedly after he had been forced to give up all hope, who had acted as her friend and often confident, listening without complaint whenever she’d been mad at Worf, even helped them have Turink…it made Jadzia feel ill. She wasn’t going to do it, not even for this.

Except now Julian was looking at her and saying, “Is there anything you need to tell me? It looks to me like there is.” Nothing in his voice besides concern; he wasn’t even hoping for a declaration of feeling or anything like that.

“Nothing you need to worry about now,” she said. “Or should.”

“No, Jadzia,” he said. “I know you. You’re trying to spare me something, and please, don’t do that out of pity.”

“I can’t,” she protested. “I can’t take advantage of you. I’d be a monster if I did.”

“Jadzia, please, if you need my help…you ought to have known already I’d do anything for you, and that’s even more true now, when what would I lose by doing it?” He was getting up from his seat now, moving to kneel at her feet, and that sight was not one Jadzia was ever going to be willing to see. In a desperate move to stop him she grabbed him to pull him up, a desperate tiny please escaped her, and next thing she knew they were kissing, hard and deep.

It felt good, better than Jadzia had ever thought it might. Her hands found Julian’s face; his skin was soft. He didn’t even flinch from how cold she knew her hands were. His arms were around her, and he was kissing without shame, making tiny sounds into her mouth that Jadzia thought just might wreck her.

Some tiny voice in the back of her mind was yelling at her to pull back, but she wasn’t listening, not right now. Now instead she heard the blood roaring in her ears, the shifting of cloth against cloth, the overwhelming part of her brain that just wanted to go on kissing this man forever.

She didn’t even know how long they’d kissed for when they finally parted, foreheads still pressed together. She kept her eyes and hands on that flushed, panting face, tried to memorize the feel of it beneath her hands, since she knew she’d certainly never touch it again, even if she perhaps might again see it.

“There’s no one in my life who’s meant to me what you have,” he finally breathed. “Even if I had longer to live, I don’t know if there ever could be, though that doesn’t really matter now.” He shook his head. “I shouldn’t be troubling you with this part.”

“Quit acting like you’re now just a burden on the universe!” she cried, feeling even worse when he gently but firmly pushed away from her. “You never were and you never will be.”

But Julian was shaking his head. “If you don’t want my help, you should go. Before you possibly do something you’ll regret for the rest of your life.”

The crazy thing was, while she’d no doubt feel guilty afterwards, Jadzia wasn’t sure she would actually regret it. She knew she ought to, but some instinct warned her the feeling wouldn’t come, at least so long as Worf never found out.

So much where it would all be fine, just as long as her husband never found out.

It was that awareness, and the fear, that got Jadzia to do as he had said, to turn around and start walking out, the door barely getting open for her in time, fast enough there wasn’t time to feel any temptation to look back. For ten more minutes after even that she strode down the corridor, at least one ensign scurrying out of her way, putting more distance between herself and the man she still wasn’t sure she wouldn’t want to run back to if she stopped to think.

Eventually she began to tire; it had been a long day of worrying even before this. She slowed her pace down, but continued walking, making her way back to her quarters.

By the time she got there, she had relived that kiss three times, each time pushing it from her mind, knowing she needed to forget it had happened, even though she also knew she never would. Worf wouldn’t be in, she reminded herself. Turink wouldn’t either. No one would be in their quarters, and she would be safely alone to break down and cry and figure out how she was going to live even with losing Julian like this, let alone the even worse thing happening at the moment.

Except Nerys was there. Jadzia hadn’t even known she knew how to break through Starfleet locks. She was so shocked she was completely unable to speak as she just stood there, then at Nerys’ impatient gesture finally stepped forward just enough for the door to close behind her.

“I just had another exchange of messages with Worf,” she said. “I won’t even repeat what he said. Honestly, I’m starting to lose a lot of my respect for him. Enough that I really don’t feel bad about doing what I’ll have to do now.”

That just made Jadzia know what she herself now had to do. She wished she had a knife on her. Then she could’ve done it right away. But instead she could only hiss, “You won’t. I won’t let you. In fact, you’d better contact Worf right and now and tell him you’re about to lose all your power over him, because it’ll be gone with me!”

She hadn’t even finished talking before she started a purposeful stride towards the kitchenette, but before she could get more than a couple of meters Nerys, her resistance-fighter reflexes undulled by all the years that had passed, was in front of her, with a, “No, Jadzia, you’re not killing yourself.”

“You,” Jadzia growled, “do not get to act like you’re my friend anymore, especially not when you’re driving me to do this to protect my husband.”

“Fine, then. You kill yourself right now and I’ll frame him for murder.”

She obviously could, and at the moment, Jadzia couldn’t think of an immediate way to off herself which would make it impossible for Nerys to make it look like she’d been killed. She sagged, and said, “Well, I know what he said to you when you told him.”

“Told him? Oh,” Nerys shook her head. “Actually, I haven’t told him anything yet. He didn’t give me a chance. But the minute I get back to my quarters, I’m going to start writing a message to him. I don’t know if I’ll finish it tonight, but I’ll try. Do you know, if you kill yourself after I walk out of here, and I still go public with the story, anyone who even slightly believes in any of the Klingon stereotypes will find a way to blame him for it, even if they don’t think he did it himself?”

“You don’t get the chance to frame him, then what does that matter?” Jadzia could have laughed, had she felt less devastated. “He won’t care what any of them think.”

“But I think you would. And I’m pretty sure, sooner or later, that your son would.”

That last one stopped Jadzia’s thoughts in their tracks. Nerys could tell, too, and she pressed on: “You want to condemn him to grow up with two parents disgraced, one dead? And you know Worf needs help when it comes to raising children. Just look at the whole sequence of events that happened with his first son.”

“That wasn’t entirely his fault,” Jadzia growled, repeating the speech she’d made more than once. “His parents struggled with Alexander first.”

“Yeah, Alexander, who didn’t get along with his peers, who struggled with only being partially Klingon, and whose mother died a violent death when he was young. Sound familiar?”

It did, all too much. And then Nerys said, “But I do know one thing Worf would do, what any good parent would do. That’s protect his children at all costs. Even that of his honor.”

“You don’t know what Worf would do.” Not like Jadzia herself did.

“I worked alongside him, much more closely than you did, at times. I know enough. I know that I’ll get even more than my recommendation out of him now. That was all I would have demanded, you know, when this whole thing started. Foolish of me. I’ve thought since, of what will probably await me when I reach Earth. Don’t tell me they’ll want me there. I know they won’t. They might still grant me admission. From what I understand about Federation-Bajoran relations right now, they’ll probably worried Bajor will be offended if they don’t. I need all the paperwork in order, but if I get it, I get that much.

But do you really think they won’t look for any excuse, and I mean any, to throw me out once I get there? Or, if they can’t find one, they won’t make sure I never obtain any rank above Ensign? And I’ve worked too hard and lost too much-”

“Yeah,” Jadzia interrupted, her rage kicking in, “like all of your morals.”

But she was chilled to the bone by the complete lack of change in Nerys’ expression, and the cold way she replied, “You haven’t seen anything yet, Jadzia. You and Worf, you’ll both be dealing with me for a long time. I get expelled, it all comes out. And after I graduate, you’ll get me up to my old rank as fast as possible. Since the start of this, by the way, I’ve been hoping I might eventually get myself into a position where I can help Bajor, but then, I was worried the way things go at Starfleet, I might be old before I got that far. But you two, you’re going to get me there within a few years.”

“Are you truly going to try to justify yourself?!” Jadzia demanded, even more appalled. “When once, the Kira Nerys I knew…”

“The Kira Nerys you know had a history of doing sometimes violent things indeed when her planet was at stake,” she retorted. “Things that sometimes pushed the boundaries of interplanetary law, at the very least. I know you don’t like to remember that, of course, didn’t like to think of the fact that at one time I was a terrorist.”

“Only because you had to be. Bajor’s not going to be in that situation again.”

“You don’t know what’s going to happen on Bajor.” There was a very real resentment in the way she said that. “Even if the Cardassians aren’t really in shape to do what they once did to it again, no society recovers that quickly. And you saw what happened a year after the Occupation ended, and what’s happened most recently. For the record, Jadzia, I would give my life to prevent that from happening again.”

“That’s your life, not mine,” Jadzia protested. “That’s still at stake here.”

“Didn’t I just point out how killing yourself will do Worf no good? I’ll get what I want either way. And in fact, speaking of your marriage,” and there was something new her tone here, some hint of genuine regret, “don’t you think you should’ve told your husband about all of this, long ago?”

“You really don’t understand…”

“Maybe I don’t. But you know what, Jadzia? I’m going to do you one last favor, explaining this to him. I’ll even try to emphasize that you really felt you needed to do it to keep him alive. I do feel he ought not to be angry with you, though I suppose it’s too much to hope for he won’t be. At least you won’t have to keep any dark secrets from him anymore.”

Had she said only an hour ago, of course, that would’ve been true. And Jadzia certainly wasn’t telling her now why it no longer would be.

So instead she remained silent, as Nerys turned and walked out. The door was in the process of closing behind her when she turned and said, “You have six hours to tell him before I do.”

After stumbling into the nearest chair, for a few minutes, all Jadzia could do was cry. She thought of the life she’d planned to have, the things she might now not get to see, such as her son growing up. When she thought of what Nerys had just said, she found she wasn’t sure which option would be worse, Turink growing up with a mother who had committed suicide, or him growing up with parents disgraced by his father’s race, and both of them probably struggling to live with everything that had happened.

Anger kicked in next. Jadzia wanted to go out and yell at everyone. Nerys, Worf, the Klingon who had refused to not kill him when anyone with either sense or decency would’ve backed down, and everyone else she could even partly blame. She even thought uncharitably of Odo, of how if he hadn’t left the woman he’d supposedly loved so much and for so long, she might have avoided much of the downward spiral she’d gone down that had led them to this.

But then again, she found herself thinking, maybe she should be nicer to Odo. Because as she sat there, she came to realize that her next course of action had to be to disclose everything to someone, make a statement of truth they could attest to, and Odo was pretty much the only person she had for it.

So when she pulled herself up, her tears mostly dried, she went to comm him, to ask him to please come as quickly as possible.

Much to her relief, he answered only a couple of minutes later, saying he was on his way. But when Jadzia checked the chronometer, she discovered enough time had passed that Worf would soon be back as well.

And, unfortunately, it was her husband, rather than Odo, who walked in first. Somehow Jadzia found herself blurting out, “Nerys just said to me the two of you talked again.”

“Jadzia,” the warning tone in his voice was unmistakable, “I do not wish to further discuss this matter, and you ought not to waste your time when I will not change my mind.”

She shouldn’t have hoped for otherwise. But she still asked, “Just tell me what she said in response. I’m kind of worried she’s mad at me, but she didn’t give me anything to go on.”

“She ought not to have become that foolish. And she said very little in response, at least then, though she did indicate she might soon send me a message.”

Before Jadzia could even react to that, the doorchime sounded. “That’s probably Odo,” she said. “I just need to talk to him about something that came up in the lab today.” She’s in front of the door when it opens, and before he can speak she says, “Odo! So glad you got here so quickly. Let’s talk about the readings off those weird quartz stones out here; I’m not sure the commander wants me talking about them around anyone else, even my husband.”

When they were safely out in the corridor, he hissed at her, “And what if he happens to hear there aren’t any ‘weird quartz stones’ on the Starbase?”

“He won’t,” she replied. “He rarely pays attention to what I’m doing in the lab if something hasn’t given him a reason to. Do you have a communicator?”

“They gave me a handheld.” He pulled it out of a side pocket. “Who do you want me to contact? I…I don’t think I could do this with Nerys over a comm.”

“Noone. I just want you to record this and be able to testify to its veracity later, if that becomes necessary.”

“What? Commander, you…”

“Five years ago, when Worf and I escaped Dominion custody, he was asleep when we received a distress call from Yarmok III.” She told the entire story, holding up a hand whenever a shocked-looking Odo tried to interrupt, finishing, “Since then, Worf has never had any idea that any of this has happened. I hearby make it my dying declaration that all I have just said is true and accurate to the best of my knowledge and memory, and that Mr. Odo, who is making this recording, can attribute that it is not in any way doctored.” She then reached over and turned the communicator off.

“Your dying declaration?” Odo now sounded horrified.

“That makes it admissible in all Federation courts. I don’t know about Klingon ones, but I don’t think they’d be all that likely to outright charge Worf with anything; the biggest danger he’d be in legally would be a court-martial-and one look at this recording and they’d never go forward with it, what with all the other circumstances involved.”

Odo just shook his head. “Jadzia, you don’t intend to die, do you?!”

She has to explain this now, which she never thought she’d have to do, or maybe just really hoped. “Odo,” she said, “Nerys knows what happened; I don’t even know how she found out, but it doesn’t really matter. And she’s…” This is really going to break his heart. “The things she suffered while you were gone, the state it reduced her to…she is now threatening to make this public. In which case…” Here came the part she could only really half explain. “Worf would do something wonderful, and miraculous, and that I couldn’t stand to live with him having done, because he would do it for me. I couldn’t stand to live with it.”

“And yet it’s wonderful and miraculous?” Odo was just shaking his head.

Maybe she could’ve explained it if she’d had more time. But it was only so long before Worf would come out to check on them. Even now, she was trying to figure out what to say to him when they came back in.

After another moment, Odo said, “Listen, Jadzia, maybe it still doesn’t have to come to that. I may know that Nerys went through a good deal, but I still can’t believe she truly wants to do this to you, that she wouldn’t maybe listen if I tried to talk to her. It’s worth a shot, I think."

Normally Jadzia would’ve hesitated, would’ve not wanted to put Odo through that if he still wasn’t ready. But at this point she was truly desperate. And anyway, it might ultimately be very good for them both to finally talk.

“All right,” she said. “She’s given me six hours before she contacts Worf.”

As if this last utterance of his name had summoned him, the doors to their quarters slid back open, and her husband peered outside. Before he could ask, Jadzia quickly put her smile back on, saying, “Odo and I are just wrapping up the serious business for the day, and now if you want to have him over for dinner…” Probably he’d say no.

But to her surprise, he said, “Very well.”

It was all right, she told herself. It would only be a couple of hours. After that he’d still have time.

[xbadusernameherex2]

(TL;DR is here if you want to read something shorter. None of this is written in stone and none of this is assumed if any of your characters are involved, either. Will plot it out with you, absolutely. Any IW or Endgame plots are decided on a case to case basis)

Shane was created in a Red Room lab from genetic information they had on file from his parents, by HYDRA operatives stationed there in secret. It’s not clear if his parents were even aware they had the information or that Shane was being created but for the first seven years of his life, Shane was conditioned from the beginning to be a weapon like both his parents were and had once been. It became a lot easier to make what one wanted when it came to molding a human from birth.

Placed with “parents” in a remote home in Siberia, he was raised to fight for HYDRA. As he was isolated and kept alone from any other influence from literal birth, he lived his life with their doctrine ready on his lips at any moment. People would be brought in daily for him to practice torture or murder on, and he did it all willingly. The one thing he ever fought them on, was his gender identity. It didn’t win him any favors.

He was the perfect soldier otherwise, at the age of seven, and they had guards stationed in the woods that he didn’t know about. His parents were commanded to abuse him for fighting them on his gender identity - as if he wasn’t in the middle of the road in general, he wasn’t really useful and he needed to be female as he was born that way.

Shane didn’t need much to kill, he did it all willingly. A person a day for approximately five years adds up. He started to resent his parents, mostly because of the abuse he suffered from them - but never the FSB. Why would he blame the FSB for misdeeds his parents had done? The FSB didn’t hurt him, the FSB was good. His parents were just wrong. Clearly, the FSB would help him and let him serve them as a man.

Oh, the naivete of youth.

One day, though, when he was seven - a woman with red hair showed up and took down everyone and stole him away. He tried to fight her, and for his age - he was damn good - but she was much older and much more trained. She left him with two new parents who were nice enough, who respected his gender identity, even. But, he wasn’t with the FSB anymore. He was hard to convince, ran away from home a lot, but after some time in the woods alone, they got him to see how he’d been manipulated.

But then, came the depression. He blamed himself for everything. As a youth, he became obsessed with bettering himself - doing better, being better, never becoming that again. He couldn’t let that happen. His parents tried to get him into sports, he wasn’t interested until he found competitive marksmanship. Something he could use his skills for rather than harming people. But, as a transgender boy - he met some opposition. Still, competing gave him a sense of calm - and the idea that he could turn his skills into something good was born.

He should have been allowed to skip many grades the moment he got into school, but his social skills were atrocious - so they chose not to. So, unfortunately, Shane was bored. as. fuck. His grades were horrible, but he aced every test he ever took and got insane scores on any standardized test and his SAT test.

When he was sixteen years of age, he’d been in the car with his parents when a drunk driver took out their car. He was trapped in a cocoon of metal with their mangled bodies for four long hours as they tried to cut him out, walking out of the crash with nothing more than some broken bones, cuts, and contusions.

His extended adoptive family would only help him if he lived as female, so he told them to fuck off and had been planning emancipation when the red haired woman showed up at the hospital, having not aged. She revealed herself to be his biological mother, and she’d answer what questions he had later. They needed to go.

He recuperated at her home, got into a nearby high school. She tried to get him back into competitive marksmanship, revealing she’d kept her eye on him, but he wasn’t interested. His Dad had helped him with that and he was gone. So, she settled for the next best thing - continuing his training. He needed to know how to survive in the world he lived in and hopefully she’d be able to do so while still enabling him to be a young man as well.

Once TONY STARK came into the picture, he got access to proper tutors who could handle his hyperintellegence, as Tony pointed out that Shane’s inability to handle college had been because of a lack of interest in High School where he’d formed poor study skills. He’d been bored. Once he was at the right level study ethic, he was able to focus, able to do what he needed to do, and succeed.

He got a degree - a doctorate - in astrophysics and promptly did absolutely nothing with it. He just liked having gotten the degree and learning - this was easy when he knew how to do it.

He also began to get really involved in activism, using his platform as the Black Widow’s son to further the causes he was passionate about. Shane began to make youtube videos that he hoped would get his generation and others to think, to question the world they lived in, and be better.

He also, in this time while he was in college, discovered he wasn’t going to hold himself to gender norms. He began wear whatever he wanted and dress however he pleased. He grew his hair out long and wore it often in various wayss, wearing makeup as well as men’s and women’s clothing. His gender expression became more fluid than his gender identity was. (Or so he thought at the time.)

Shane was in the middle of starting a new round in the Linguistics PhD program at UCLA when HYDRA was revealed and his mother sent him a coded text that told him to get the fuck out of dodge. Not one to really second guess his mother at all, he dropped everything and ran.

He could pick it up later.

Trained for this his entire life, he knew how to run and knew the locations of every safehouse he had and his mother had (at least that she’d told him about) all over the world. So, he colored his hair, put in contacts, changed the shape of his face at times, did everything he was ever taught to do. He was forced to use his own life as a bargaining chip at times, and carried a large knife at his belt most days for that very purpose as he was prepared to follow through with it if need be - the FSB or HYDRA would never take him alive.

By the time things started to calm down for him, his mother found him and took him to the Avengers compound. It was secure and safe. There, he spent a lot of time training and hanging out with his extended family.

When Ultron happened, Shane was once again told to head to a safehouse. He found his way to his Siberian safehouse, watching the events from safety. He rushed to Sokovia to help with the recovery efforts after the battle, though, as he was a field medic and could help anyone who was hurt. He spent a lot of time there trying to help anyone and everyone.

Things quieted down once more and he returned to the compound only to have the Sokovia Accords come into play after a bad mission happened for the Avengers involving Crossbones in Nigeria. His mother had signed the accords - for reasons he could not say - and they wanted him to publicly sign as well. He agreed to it - as it would be after the avengers and others were to sign and he had a fairly large social media following after that and was well known as The Black Widow’s son. But, at the last moment seemingly out of nowhere (it was planned) - he made a scene and it took six guards to remove him from the room.

He found his uncle and met his father in the process, fighting hard for his rights and also to protect the man - winding up on the Raft for a short while. He was not nearly as restrained as Wanda, but did wind up with a muzzle and some cuffs that kept his hands together. (He’d been biting people.) It was terrifying for all - and Shane was sitting there just certain he was going to disappear elsewhere in some black ops program where the US government could use him as a weapon.

They were freed and went to Wakanda. His father chose to be frozen again but Shane left to Siberia shortly after. He spent a little time there but he had no intention to overstay his welcome. Taking a small amount of time to recover from the fight and the trauma he endured thinking he was going to he weaponized again possibly - he left a note thanking T'Challa profusely for all he’d done for him and all he’d be doing for his father and left.

He now lives in Siberia, making youtube videos again thanks to an endless amount of tech he jerry-rigged together to hide his location. He doesn’t intend to leave anytime soon unless something or someone draws him out of hiding.

Since being able to just focus on wilderness survival and physical labor, he’s had a lot of time to just…think. And he’s realized very recently that he is non-binary (will eventually come to the realization that he is Maverique.) It’s been a journey to get there mostly due to internalized phobia, but he’s glad he has the time to just introspect.

[thedancingcow]

I have a lot of feelings about Natasha meeting the Bartons and struggling to relate to them and finally feeling comfortable being accepted as a part of the family, and I released those feels into something that resembles a fic thing. Also, I found this sitting in my drafts, and it’s been there for like a year and a half? Sorry to keep such a literary masterpiece from you, world. 

Read on AO3.

Clint Barton is sent to kill the infamous assassin known as the Black Widow, and instead he finds a barely out of her teens waif named Natalia Romanova, and honestly, what the fuck, Nick? But Nick just shrugs, knowing if anyone would disobey orders and find the humanity in a made-man monster, it would be Clint Barton, and if that works out to everyone’s advantage, especially to the little monster girl’s benefit, then that suits him just fine, but he certainly hadn’t planned it that way, no, sir. Of course, it’s not as easy as a “Welcome to SHIELD” orientation tour and handing out a badge and top level security clearance. Natasha, that’s what she’s going by now, please, has got a lot of shit to work through before anyone will leave her in a room without armed supervision, let alone put a gun in her hand.

Clint might have seen good in her and trusted her enough to bring her in, but he keeps some level of professional distance. He’s not about to trust her with anything personal, certainly not his family, not until he’s sure she’s stable and in control of her actions, has been thoroughly deprogrammed, is fit for duty, and has shown her reliability and commitment in the field. He leaves the deconditioning and resocialization to the professionals, but he visits on the regular, giving his support.

After she’s cleared for duty, she proves herself to him quickly. She's dependable, efficient, trustworthy, all the things you need in a partner. She regularly cracks his ass up with her wicked sense of humor and, most important of all (or so he's been told), calls him out on his shit. For all her darkness and damage, there's an inherent goodness in her, a compassion that survived in the worst conditions, finally given a chance to thrive. He couldn't imagine making a different call. 

He eventually makes a decision to tell her about his family, something only a select few know about, and he sees a storm of emotion in her eyes. Caution, confusion, gratitude. Wonder. That he would trust her with something so precious. She promises his secret is safe with her and that nothing will happen to his family on her watch. If possible, she becomes even more diligent in making sure he gets out of missions alive and unharmed.

A year or two in, she’s saved his ass so many times, and he thinks it’s time to show her what it means, what she’s making sure he goes home to. He figures it would do her some good since, understatement of the year, she isn’t exactly the most well-adjusted person he’s met. Which is saying something, because most of his interactions are with people who work for a top secret government security organization (in other words, a breeding ground for dysfunction), and a lot of them think he's the crazy one. What does that say about Natasha, who still subtly tests her food for poison every time she eats in the SHIELD cafeteria? He guesses it says a lot, because many of the agents and staff still tread carefully around her. She's got a reputation, and it suits her purposes in her work, but it can't be beneficial to her personal life or mental health. He wants her to see that her life doesn’t have to only be about the next mission. And she could use a few more people in her corner, especially people that aren’t paranoid secret agents.

He doesn’t spring it on her, because he knows she wouldn't find that to be the good kind of surprise, mostly because she doesn’t find any surprises to be the good kind, but he finally gets her after she’s been injured. He talks with her doctors, and they give her the choice to either stay in the medbay for another few days or to leave under his care. He knows it isn’t exactly a fair choice, she hates medical, and it still takes a lot of convincing, but he’ll take what he can get.

After spending a week in medical, Natasha is more than ready to take any opportunity to leave, even if it means finally giving in to Clint's incessant pestering. She regrets it the moment she limps through the door of a cozy farmhouse. Clint is at her side, more relaxed and content than she's ever seen him, and she's greeted by a gentle looking woman with a kind smile and a toddler tucked in her arms, and she is terrified. Clint, she thinks, is the biggest idiot of all for letting her anywhere near his family, and this Laura must be so utterly naive to trust his fool’s judgement. Don’t they know she will hurt them? 

It’s easy to turn the recriminations towards them: what kind of parents would let her into their home, near their child? How could they do that knowing what she was capable of? How could they be so irresponsible? There’s paranoia too: it’s a trap, they must want something from her, Clint isn’t who she thought he was, SHIELD isn’t what she thought it was. It passes, she knows this is real, couldn’t possibly be some conspiracy, but she remains on edge. She knows they aren’t to blame. 

They aren’t the problem. She is.

The Bartons are nothing but jovial and attentive. Cooper becomes less shy and more curious, Laura keeps the conversation flowing, and Clint is all smiles having his favorite people together. They eat meatloaf and vegetables fresh from the garden, and it is the first home-cooked meal Natasha can remember having. Clint puts Cooper to bed, and then they sit on the front porch after dinner, chatting and drinking beer and watching the sun set. It’s all very domestic.

Natasha retires early, claiming exhaustion from the drive and her injuries. She doesn’t sleep that night. Instead, she lays awake in the guest bedroom wishing she had handcuffs. She thought she’d grown out of it, this safety blanket. But it’s a different feeling driving it now, it’s not about making her feel safe, it’s about feeling like others are safe from her. So she fashions a restraint with the lamp cord to tie herself to the headboard, though she knows it can’t stop her from walking into Cooper’s room and smothering him. If they only knew what was in her head, the sick, violent thoughts that flashed through her mind, they wouldn’t be smiling at her across the dinner table. They wouldn’t want her there, wouldn’t allow her near anyone’s children. They would lock her away or put her down like she deserves.

And yet, Clint always invites her back, and Laura always smiles at her, and Cooper always tugs on her hand to come play. And she can’t help but find herself wanting to go back, wanting to be surrounded by the comfort and support and love in this family.

Natasha thinks Laura Barton is open and kind and generous, and she is right, but Laura is not naive. As much as she trusts Clint and Nick’s instincts and intuition, she would never let an infamous assassin into her home and near her child without making up her own mind first. She wasn't pleased to learn that her husband risked his career, his freedom, and possibly his life to bring in a fearful feral stray, but that’s also the kind of reckless compassion that made her fall in love with him. Clint tells her stories of his mission misadventures with his new partner, and she likes what she hears, finding herself respecting and admiring this woman she hasn’t met but that looms so large in her life. It helps that she’s saved Clint’s finely sculpted ass on numerous occasions, sometimes quite literally. Laura is very fond of that ass and would like to keep him around for a while longer. Natasha may not know it, but she earns herself brownie points with Laura long before they meet.

When they finally come face to face, Laura doesn’t find a callous monster or a spitting animal or even an irreparably broken human, just a guarded but vulnerable young woman trying to find herself after escaping a very cruel life. She doesn’t know the specifics of Natasha’s past, Clint hasn’t shared much out of respect for her privacy, and he doesn’t know everything either. But Laura knows enough, and she is sympathetic and happy to play a part in helping her, not out of pity and not just because it’s important to Clint, but because she grows to love Natasha for Natasha, her humor and intelligence and tenacity and her decency and goodness in the face of overwhelming odds, and she wants her to find some peace of mind. Maybe she doesn’t know all of who Natasha is, maybe Natasha doesn’t know all of who she is either, but Laura is glad to help her find out.

Clint says Laura has a way with her, and he marvels at how effortless it seems. For Laura, there’s nothing effortless about it. She’s helped care for the strays Clint’s brought home before, for Clint the stray himself, but this isn’t the same. Natasha in her natural state, or the closest thing to it, feels deadly in a way Clint never has. Laura never feels threatened, never thinks Natasha will hurt her or her family, but her presence can sometimes be unnerving and strange, no matter what mask she’s wearing. She feels guilty when the thought crosses her mind, that there’s something unnatural or robotic about her friend. 

Most of all, it’s Natasha’s vulnerability and humanity that unnerves Laura the most, because she knows that’s where she can cause the most harm. She wants to help, but she isn’t a professional. She knows she makes the wrong move sometimes, crosses a line and drives Natasha away. It can be exhausting. It’s not that she feels as though she has to walk on eggshells around her, and she thinks she’s getting better at recognizing the fault lines and cracks, but she doesn’t want to make it worse. Is she causing more harm than good? Is it clear she’s acting out of empathy and love rather than pity? What if she’s giving off the impression that Natasha is some kind of fix-it project to her? Clint tells her Natasha is so much more at ease at the farmhouse, and she keeps coming back to them, so Laura can only hope she’s doing something right.

Natasha is uncomfortable around Laura at first. Though she does it quietly and seemingly without judgement, Laura is perceptive and shrewd and has a talent for reading people’s moods and anticipating their needs sometimes even before they realize what they need themselves. This seems to include Natasha, and it makes her uncomfortable, makes her feel like she’s failing. Has she really become such an open book? People shouldn’t be able to read her, but suddenly the list is growing: Clint, Nick, Laura. Sloppiness was always punished where she came from, and for good reason. It could get her and other people killed. The always creeping but no longer strangling paranoia in her questions if it’s part of a long con, an effort to lower her guard, but the rational part of her knows it’s ridiculous to think she’s worth so much effort. Perhaps this is just what it’s like to be surrounded by good people, to feel no need to hide anything because good people don’t take advantage of your vulnerabilities.

Natasha knows Laura can read when she’s faking, putting up a mask or relying on a previous cover to interact and socialize rather than just being herself. It comes to her naturally, like sliding into a well-worn jacket, and it’s disconcerting, the way Laura can recognize how something has changed sometimes before Natasha realizes she’s slipping. But it’s worse when Natasha trips into memories that couldn’t possibly be hers. During one dinner, as they laugh over stories of Laura’s Nana and her never-ending supply of pocket horehounds, Natasha finds herself wistfully describing the comfort of her grandmother’s cocoa on crisp winter days. While cleaning up, Laura takes her hand and says, “you know you can be yourself with us, right?” After the dishes are dried, Natasha walks out and doesn't come back until she's sure she never had a grandmother. 

Laura doesn't say a word about the slipping again, goes along with the change or a story that doesn’t quite fit, but her brow furrows and expression darkens in concern. A small, strange part of Natasha almost worries she’s disappointing Laura when she reverts like that, and she wishes she could do better for her. But she doesn’t know how to tell her that it isn’t on purpose, that she isn’t trying to hide herself from Laura, she just isn’t sure who the real her is.

Laura reads her in other ways. Natasha often hesitates at simple questions, the kind that involve making a choice or having a preference. She could tell you Nadine Roman’s favorite color or Anastasia Shostakova’s cocktail of choice, but Natasha, just Natasha, has only begun to learn her likes and dislikes. Just Natasha has very little practice making choices for herself, and she sometimes finds herself overwhelmed. Laura seems to instinctually recognize this and changes her approach, moving away from open ended questions towards more direct, focused ones. “What would you like to drink?” becomes “would you like orange juice or milk with breakfast?” It’s a subtle shift, but Natasha sees what she’s doing and is grateful even through her embarrassment. A grown woman, she knows, should be able to decide what she wants for breakfast without hand holding, but it relieves some of her anxiety. Laura allows her to make an active choice without paralyzing her with options. Natasha learns that she prefers her orange juice with so much pulp it might as well still be surrounded by the peel and that she does not like nuts in baked goods.

Laura can also see that Natasha has no understanding of the meaning of downtime. She shakes her head, sighs as she finds Natasha sharpening knives at the dining room table, muttering that she’s worse than Clint and “at least he has his house projects to distract himself, as much as it drives me up the wall, assuming there’ll be any walls left when he’s done” and “c’mon, let’s get you to work” as she takes her outside and gives her tasks. The farm only produces enough to feed the family and barter with the folks in town, but it’s still a big job, and Laura says she'll gladly take another hand where she can get it. So she teaches Natasha how to fix the tractor and plant vegetables and milk the cow and feed the pigs and chickens. It helps ease some of Natasha’s restless tension, and Laura has more free time to work on her writing.

Laura’s there on the worst days too. When Natasha is laid out on the bathroom floor, shivering and feverish and nauseous, trying to remember things they clearly don’t want her to remember, it’s Laura that finds her, strokes her hair, keeps her grounded, as she struggles to distinguish who and where she is. When Natasha wakes up screaming at night, Laura doesn’t say a word about it in the morning, only asks if she’s ever painted before and would she like to try.

One day, Laura calls her a sister and were she not so well-trained, Natasha might have flinched. Natasha had sisters once, of a sort, but they were as much competition as a comfort, locked as they were into deadly rivalry. She’s laid awake at night waiting for a sister to slip her cuffs and stick a knife between her ribs. She’s killed her sisters, felt their bones break under her hand, washed their blood off her skin. But Laura doesn’t know that. Natasha thinks maybe she should, then they could both stop pretending. So she tells her, anticipating disgust and fear, but Laura only offers her love and understanding and a quiet fury towards the people who hurt her.

The Barton family grows a little bigger as the years go by. Natasha has a special bond with Cooper, because he’s there through it all, from the start when she’s at her worst, even if he doesn’t remember it. He helps her learn that she can be trusted with more than she ever thought she should. That she’s safe enough to hold a child. That she’s gentle enough and good enough and human enough for a child to love. For Cooper, Auntie Nat’s been his auntie for as long as he knows, reading him bed time stories and sneaking him sweets and being his trusty sidekick on adventures to save dragons and, when he gets a little older, geeking out over Minecraft with him and teaching him to code and even showing him some cool spy tricks that he’s tried at school to rousing success but to less success at home because his mom has the mom superpower of omniscience.

Natasha’s there for Lila Nicole Barton’s birth when Clint can’t be, off on a mission he can’t be pulled out of. Instead of her husband, Laura gets her other two favorite spies, alternatively pacing the room and holding her hand in nervous excitement. Laura tells her, ”this one is for Nick, but you’ll get the next one,” and Natasha scoffs and mutters something about pain-induced delirium, and she’ll never admit that her heart stutters at the thought. It’s different with Lila than it was with Coop when he was that young, because Natasha’s more settled in her new life and isn’t in the middle of growing pains and an identity crisis, and because Lila adores her from the moment her eyes open, and the feeling is mutual. For Lila, Auntie Nat gives warm hugs and scares the monsters away, she brings her pretty trinkets from around the world, and she jumps in the pond and catches frogs with her and holds her tight when they watch Disney movies, and if she’s too sad and quiet when they watch Lilo and Stitch again, Lila knows a sloppy kiss on the cheek will brighten her up.

It becomes both easier and harder for Natasha to be around the kids as they grow older. Easier, because she is more comfortable in her skin and more trusting of herself. Harder, because they reach the age she was while in the Red Room. Hardest with Lila, because sometimes when she looks at this innocent child, all she can think about are the ways people take little girls and use them and break them. She desperately wants to protect these children, but she sometimes has to stop herself because her threats aren’t their threats. The things that would have hurt her in the program, that would have gotten her punished, the weaknesses and vulnerabilities and imperfections, are just normal childhood things, and it’s something they’re allowed. It’s okay to let them cry and laugh and be loud and make mistakes and take up space and just be.

What the Room did to her was not okay, and she’s still struggling to break those habits. She wants to be better, and she’s trying, sometimes failing, and that’s allowed too, isn’t weakness. It’s strength. Or at least that’s what Laura tells her when she finds her curled up behind the tractor after she snapped at Lila for crying over a scrapped knee. Laura sits with her until she’s ready to go back in, holds her hand as they walk to the house. Clint smiles and puts a cup of tea in her hands. When she apologizes to Lila, the girl sniffs, hugs her, and refuses to be extracted from her lap for the rest of the night.

This is the feeling Madame meant, the feeling that could make an operative lose sight of obedience and duty. The feeling they thought they could cut out of her. The feeling they tried to erase by replacing it with guns and knives and calloused hands and the broken bodies of little girls at her feet. It’s love.

She still struggles with it sometimes, with the idea that she deserves it, even as she’s surrounded by love. After the Battle of New York, Natasha brings Clint back home to his family safe, though not entirely sound, and then she keeps her distance, not wanting to intrude on their healing. Laura is fed up with it, and that Christmas, she won’t take no for an answer. Natasha finds herself sitting by a tree with two kids clinging to her arms and tears in her eyes and an arrow around her neck, because arrows are a Barton family tradition, and when will she finally get it through her thick skull that she couldn’t possibly intrude on their family when she’s part of it?

Some days, Natasha thinks she’s more than earned a little peace, and she’s confident about who she is and her place in the world. The Barton family is her greatest comfort, and on good nights, she dreams of them smiling and laughing. Other days, she doubts she can ever be more than what she was manufactured for, and she wonders how anyone can love her when she was not made to be loved. The Barton family is her greatest fear, and on bad nights, she dreams of the farm burning and their screams as she lights the match.

But whatever kind of day she’s having, the Bartons are there, waiting for her, loving her, even when she’s not sure she deserves it. When Clint puts his arm around her shoulder and she has to slip away before it turns into a noogie, when she’s laughing with Laura as they run through the rain and mud after an escaped chicken, when Coop gives her a big wet kiss on the cheek even after she handily beats him at Mario Kart, when Lila creeps into her room after being put to bed because she has to tell her one more fact about butterflies before she can fall asleep, or when Nate blows spit bubbles at her and giggles. Those are good days, and they make the bad days better.

[sara-naked-blog]

Emilia

This was my great grandmother on my mother’s side. I.e. my grandmother’s mother. I vaguely remember meeting this woman a few times but i was very small, even then she seemed a harsh and cold woman.

My grandmother often told me how ruthless her mother was. Emilia met Jaime (My great Grandfather) through a family member. They had a 10 year gap. 

Emilia’s brother-in-law met Jaime on a trip to Lisbon. Once he came back home he spread the news to his family about this great person he met who was very well off and a kind, honest, hard working man. 

After a year of courtship via letter not once meeting each other, Jamie convinced Emilia to married him. I am told it wasn’t for love, she merely saw it as a way out of her miserable life in the farm. They soon moved to a neighborhood in Lisbon.

Jaime had a heart of gold, everyone loved him. He always went out of his way to help others. He was a 1st class carpenter in the navy boats, he often worked hours extra and built furniture for his poorest friends at no cost. Well... the only cost he’s require would be a glass of wine...

Jaime was an alcoholic although never a violent one. My grandmother always told me how they would argue as Emilia treated the children badly but that he would often let it go. 

“Jaime always said to Emilia if you touch our children i will never forgive you! Children and animals only have what you give them they are innocent beings please don’t mistreat them. I can’t and won’t ever forgive you.” 

But she did not listen. They had 4 daughters. Olinda, my grandmother, was the eldest. She took care of them all. At 7 she’d get up at 5am to cook breakfast and dress her sisters ready for school. After school she’d then spend the rest of the days cleaning and washing clothes and dishes whilst her younger siblings did what children do... play. 

Soon after they had their 3rd child Jaime lost his job and therefore they lost their house. In a moment of despair Jaime found a quiet spon on the street where he builts their new home made of bed sheets and a wooden  carving with the family name. HE got accosted by the police to remove it all to which he told the police officer: “what am i to do with my 3 daughters if I have no home?” If by pity or what the police officers let him be. 

Jaime was lucky enough to get yet another job  working with the navy vessels where they then managed to secure a home in Campo pequeno, Lisbon.

Emilia worked as a fishmonger and she would go every morning to the local park and sell fresh fish to the people passing by. This is how she made her money. 

On top of this Jaime gave her all of his wages as she was the head of the household taking care of the children... supposedly. He worshiped Emilia, no matter how horrible she was to the point where she hit him and hurt him in every way possible he loved her. No one is entirely sure why she wasn’t a very nice person nor was she a beauty. He on the other hand could get any girl he wanted. He was tall, with a chiseled jaw lane, and green eyes. Because Portuguese people have very dark features, i.e. dark hair and dark eye color anything deviating from the norm is the most amazing thing. So people who are ginger, blond and have light eyes are almost seen as unicorns there... In fact he had had previous relationships, one of whom he dated a widowed woman who was raising a daughter alone. Although they separated and a few years after the woman died leaving her daughter orphaned he took care of the girl as if she was one of his own. 

It’s suspected Emilia was doing the same as her mother once had. When Emilia’s dad died her mother, Maria Canhoto or canhota as known to her friends, found herself as a widow with 4 small children to take care of  in total disbelief and despair she ripped her hair out literally. However, she did not let it crush her she used the money she got from her husband’s death to buy further lands. The lands were so vast that many lands were forgotten about and taken over by others without the family ever noticing. There were many grape and orange fields and miles and miles of pine tree fields.

Although we will never really know how much money and lands were left over, Emilia told my Grandmother that she did not include her in her will as she was afraid she’d take it all in a selfish act. My grandmother would never do such a thing as she always took care of everyone without complaining, if anything she even offered to get punished instead of her sisters. Often she’d go without food for them too...

Emily’s final act of ruthlessness is the one that marks everyone’s memories of her. Jaime had  a fall and injured his knee, being selfish as she was she refused to buy any good medication to combat infection or even pain. Olinda begged her to call the doctors or nurses to come have a look at her dad as he was weaker by the day... Emilia refused saying that the house was in a mess and she’d have no one to come and judge her for it. My grandmother cleaned the house every day the house was pristine. She just didn’t want him alive anymore. Jaime died from blood poisoning. When he died over 200 people came to his funeral, his friendship and love for others clearly made an impact.

Emily’s story ends with her dying alone. She died an alone and miserable death, with herself being used for her money and conveniences as she used others. No one attended her funeral with the exception of my grandmother. Her dear daughters had excuses not to go, now that they had inherited everything they were made. My grandmother did inherit some lands... but that’s another story...