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t4ct1c4l-fluk3 · 12 days

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Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out

Every morning the maple leaves.

Every morning another chapter where the hero shifts

from one foot to the other. Every morning the same big

and little words all spelling out desire, all spelling out

You will be alone always and then you will die.

So maybe I wanted to give you something more than a catalog

of non-definitive acts,

something other than the desperation.

Dear So-and-So, I'm sorry I couldn't come to your party.

Dear So-and-So, I'm sorry I came to your party

and seduced you

and left you bruised and ruined, you poor sad thing.

Your want a better story. Who wouldn't?

A forest, then. Beautiful trees. And a lady singing.

Love on the water, love underwater, love, love and so on.

What a sweet lady. Sing lady, sing! Of course, she wakes the dragon.

Love always wakes the dragon and suddenly

flames everywhere.

I can tell already you think I'm the dragon,

that would be so like me, but I'm not. I'm not the dragon.

I'm not the princess either.

Who am I? I'm just a writer. I write things down.

I walk through your dreams and invent the future. Sure,

I sink the boat of love, but that comes later. And yes, I swallow

glass, but that comes later.

And the part where I push you

flush against the wall and every part of your body rubs against the bricks,

shut up

I'm getting to it.

For a while I thought I was the dragon.

I guess I can tell you that now. And, for a while, I thought I was

the princess,

cotton candy pink, sitting there in my room, in the tower of the castle,

young and beautiful and in love and waiting for you with

confidence

but the princess looks into her mirror and only sees the princess,

while I'm out here, slogging through the mud, breathing fire,

and getting stabbed to death.

Okay, so I'm the dragon. Bid deal.

You still get to be the hero.

You get the magic gloves! A fish that talks! You get eyes like flashlights!

What more do you want?

I make you pancakes, I take you hunting, I talk to you as if you're

really there.

Are you there, sweetheart? Do you know me? Is this microphone live?

Let me do it right for once,

for the record, let me make a thing of cream and stars that becomes,

you know the story, simply heaven.

Inside your head you hear a phone ringing

and when you open your eyes

only a clearing with deer in it. Hello deer.

Inside your head the sound of glass,

a car crash sound as the trucks roll over and explode in slow motion.

Hello darling, sorry about that.

Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we

lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell

and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud.

Especially that, but I should have known.

You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together

to make a creature that will do what I say

or love me back.

I'm not really sure why I do it, but in this version you are not

feeding yourself to a bad man

against a black sky prickled with small lights.

I take it back.

The wooden halls likes caskets. These terms from the lower depths.

I take them back.

Here is the repeated image of the lover destroyed.

Crossed out.

Clumsy hands in a dark room. Crossed out. There is something

underneath the floorboards.

Crossed out. And here is the tabernacle

reconstructed.

Here is the part where everyone was happy all the time and we were all

forgiven,

even though we didn't deserve it.

Inside your head you hear

a phone ringing, and when you open your eyes you're washing up

in a stranger's bathroom,

standing by the window in a yellow towel, only twenty minutes away

from the dirtiest thing you know.

All the rooms of the castle except this one, says someone, and suddenly

darkness,

suddenly only darkness.

In the living room, in the broken yard,

in the back of the car as the lights go by. In the airport

bathroom's gurgle and flush, bathed in a pharmacy of

unnatural light,

my hands looking weird, my face weird, my feet too far away.

And the the airplane, the window seat over the wing with a view

of the wing and a little foil bag of peanuts.

I arrived in the city and you met me at the station,

smiling in a way

that made me frightened. Down the alley, around the arcade,

up the stairs of the building

to the little room with the broken faucets, your drawings, all your things,

I looked out the window and said

This doesn't look that much different from home,

because it didn't,

but then I noticed the black sky and all those lights.

We walked through the house to the elevated train.

All these buildings, all that glass and the shiny beautiful

mechanical wind.

We were inside the train car when I started to cry. You were crying too,

smiling and crying in a way that made me

even more hysterical. You said I could have anything I wanted, but I

just couldn't say it out loud.

Actually, you said Love, for you,

is larger than the usual romantic love. It's like a religion. It's

terrifying. No one

will ever want to sleep with you.

Okay, if you're so great, you do it—

here's the pencil, make it work . . .

If the window is on your right, you are in your own bed. If the window

is over your heart, and it is painted shut, then we are breathing

river water.

Build me a city and call it Jerusalem. Build me another and call it

Jerusalem.

We have come back from Jerusalem where we found not

what we sought, so do it over, give me another version,

a different room, another hallway, the kitchen painted over

and over,

another bowl of soup.

The entire history of human desire takes about seventy minutes to tell.

Unfortunately, we don't have that kind of time.

Forget the dragon,

leave the gun on the table, this has nothing to do with happiness

Let's jump ahead to the moment of epiphany,

in gold light, as the camera pans to where

the action is,

lakeside and backlit, and it all falls into frame, close enough to see

the blue rings of my eyes as I say

something ugly.

I never liked that ending either. More love streaming out the wrong way,

and I don't want to be the kind that says the wrong way.

But it doesn't work, these erasures, this constant refolding of the pleats.

There were some nice parts, sure,

all lemondrop and mellonball, laughing in silk pajamas

and the grains of sugar

on the toast, love love or whatever, take a number. I'm sorry

it's such a lousy story.

Dear Forgiveness, you know that recently

we have had our difficulties and there are many things

I want to ask you.

I tried that one time, high school, second lunch, and then again,

years later, in the chlorinated pool.

I am still talking to you about help. I still do not have

these luxuries.

I have told you where I'm coming from, so put it together.

We clutch our bellies and roll on the floor . . .

When I say this, it should mean laughter,

not poison.

I want more applesauce. I want more seats reserved for heroes.

Dear Forgiveness, I saved a plate for you.

Quit milling around the yard and come inside

2 notes · View notes

waterlys · 1 year

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Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out

Every morning the maple leaves. Every morning another chapter where the hero shifts from one foot to the other. Every morning the same big and little words all spelling out desire, all spelling out You will be alone always and then you will die. So maybe I wanted to give you something more than a catalog of non-definitive acts, something other than the desperation. Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I couldn’t come to your party. Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I came to your party and seduced you and left you bruised and ruined, you poor sad thing. You want a better story. Who wouldn’t? A forest, then. Beautiful trees. And a lady singing. Love on the water, love underwater, love, love and so on. What a sweet lady. Sing lady, sing! Of course, she wakes the dragon. Love always wakes the dragon and suddenly flames everywhere. I can tell already you think I’m the dragon, that would be so like me, but I’m not. I’m not the dragon. I’m not the princess either. Who am I? I’m just a writer. I write things down. I walk through your dreams and invent the future. Sure, I sink the boat of love, but that comes later. And yes, I swallow glass, but that comes later. And the part where I push you flush against the wall and every part of your body rubs against the bricks, shut up I’m getting to it. For a while I thought I was the dragon. I guess I can tell you that now. And, for a while, I thought I was the princess, cotton candy pink, sitting there in my room, in the tower of the castle, young and beautiful and in love and waiting for you with confidence but the princess looks into her mirror and only sees the princess, while I’m out here, slogging through the mud, breathing fire, and getting stabbed to death. Okay, so I’m the dragon. Big deal. You still get to be the hero. You get magic gloves! A fish that talks! You get eyes like flashlights! What more do you want? I make you pancakes, I take you hunting, I talk to you as if you’re really there. Are you there, sweetheart? Do you know me? Is this microphone live? Let me do it right for once, for the record, let me make a thing of cream and stars that becomes, you know the story, simply heaven. Inside your head you hear a phone ringing and when you open your eyes only a clearing with deer in it. Hello deer. Inside your head the sound of glass, a car crash sound as the trucks roll over and explode in slow motion. Hello darling, sorry about that. Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud. Especially that, but I should have known. You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together to make a creature that will do what I say or love me back. I’m not really sure why I do it, but in this version you are not feeding yourself to a bad man against a black sky prickled with small lights. I take it back. The wooden halls like caskets. These terms from the lower depths. I take them back. Here is the repeated image of the lover destroyed. Crossed out. Clumsy hands in a dark room. Crossed out. There is something underneath the floorboards. Crossed out. And here is the tabernacle reconstructed. Here is the part where everyone was happy all the time and we were all forgiven, even though we didn’t deserve it. Inside your head you hear a phone ringing, and when you open your eyes you’re washing up in a stranger’s bathroom, standing by the window in a yellow towel, only twenty minutes away from the dirtiest thing you know. All the rooms of the castle except this one, says someone, and suddenly darkness, suddenly only darkness. In the living room, in the broken yard, in the back of the car as the lights go by. In the airport bathroom’s gurgle and flush, bathed in a pharmacy of unnatural light, my hands looking weird, my face weird, my feet too far away. And then the airplane, the window seat over the wing with a view of the wing and a little foil bag of peanuts. I arrived in the city and you met me at the station, smiling in a way that made me frightened. Down the alley, around the arcade, up the stairs of the building to the little room with the broken faucets, your drawings, all your things, I looked out the window and said This doesn’t look that much different from home, because it didn’t, but then I noticed the black sky and all those lights. We walked through the house to the elevated train. All these buildings, all that glass and the shiny beautiful mechanical wind. We were inside the train car when I started to cry. You were crying too, smiling and crying in a way that made me even more hysterical. You said I could have anything I wanted, but I just couldn’t say it out loud. Actually, you said Love, for you, is larger than the usual romantic love. It’s like a religion. It’s terrifying. No one will ever want to sleep with you. Okay, if you’re so great, you do it— here’s the pencil, make it work . . . If the window is on your right, you are in your own bed. If the window is over your heart, and it is painted shut, then we are breathing river water. Build me a city and call it Jerusalem. Build me another and call it Jerusalem. We have come back from Jerusalem where we found not what we sought, so do it over, give me another version, a different room, another hallway, the kitchen painted over and over, another bowl of soup. The entire history of human desire takes about seventy minutes to tell. Unfortunately, we don’t have that kind of time. Forget the dragon, leave the gun on the table, this has nothing to do with happiness. Let’s jump ahead to the moment of epiphany, in gold light, as the camera pans to where the action is, lakeside and backlit, and it all falls into frame, close enough to see the blue rings of my eyes as I say something ugly. I never liked that ending either. More love streaming out the wrong way, and I don’t want to be the kind that says the wrong way. But it doesn’t work, these erasures, this constant refolding of the pleats. There were some nice parts, sure, all lemondrop and mellonball, laughing in silk pajamas and the grains of sugar on the toast, love love or whatever, take a number. I’m sorry it’s such a lousy story. Dear Forgiveness, you know that recently we have had our difficulties and there are many things I want to ask you. I tried that one time, high school, second lunch, and then again, years later, in the chlorinated pool. I am still talking to you about help. I still do not have these luxuries. I have told you where I’m coming from, so put it together. We clutch our bellies and roll on the floor . . . When I say this, it should mean laughter, not poison. I want more applesauce. I want more seats reserved for heroes. Dear Forgiveness, I saved a plate for you. Quit milling around the yard and come inside.

Richard Siken

#poem #Richard Siken

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spyshop1989-blog · 1 year

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Why Buy Power Bank Spy Camera?

The technology, design, look & feel, and features of spy cameras in Delhi NCR have improved a lot in the last few years. Thanks to the constant efforts of industry experts and some budding minds who are trying their best to offer the most exciting range of spy gadgets, particularly spy cameras to people so that they can make safety and monitoring an easy thing.

This is why you will be noticing more small yet effective cameras available on the online as well as offline stores. In case you are also someone who is looking for a versatile safety camera, you can have countless options to explore. One such highly used and recommended option is spy power bank camera.

Keep on reading to find out more about this safety camera.

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Easy to install

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Best device for covert operations and personal safety

You can use it like a normal power bank to charge your mobile phone and other compatible devices

In addition to features, you should also pay attention to the specifications while checking the spy camera price list in New Delhi. And this device comes with the following:

AVI format for the videos

Clear videos with high-quality sound

Built in and sensitive microphone

Motion detection

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Expandable memory

Power battery life

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Closing remarks

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#spy camera price list in new delhi #spy camera in delhi ncr

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nat-20s · 3 years

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Part 8 of the wonderful! Au: the boys answer some questions! Up to you to decide if they actually clarify anything!

(also on AO3)

~*~

Martin: Hey everyone! I know what some of you are thinking right now: it's not Tuesday, why is this episode in my feed? I know significantly more of you are thinking: I don't consistently keep up with podcast releases, how much free time do you think I have, buddy? To answer your queries: this is a bonus episode! We're answering listener questions to clear the air and/or have fun. Also, I don't know, around 20 to 40 minutes a week, as that is the average amount of time per episode? Maybe during your commute? My husband's omnipotence has been gone for five years, we just have to guess at that sort of thing now.

Jon: For legal reasons, that last statement was a joke. In fact, to cover all of our bases, we do not guarantee that any of our responses are genuine.

Martin: Just because we say we'll answer things doesn't mean we'll answer truthfully. Though, honestly, I think we might make it more enjoyable if we do tell the truth. Like, I don't necessarily have a fun lie prepared for our first question from konspiracyking97: "What's their fuckin deal anyway?"

Jon: Is this referring to the oblique references we've made about being from a parallel reality and only ending up here as a consequence of ending one apocalypse and potentially starting another or the general premise of the show?

Martin: Oh, it's gotta be general premise, yeah?

Jon: In that case, I'm Jon, the other voice you're hearing is Martin, we're married, and we talk about things that are..nice? Good? Usually generally but occasionally rather specifically pleasant.

Martin: That pretty much covers it. It's not a complicated show. Uhh, next question comes from Shane: are either or both of you aliens? Nope!

Jon: Well..

Martin: No. We are 100% human people from Earth, we are under no definition extraterrestrial.

Jon: Eh..

Martin: Okay, first off, I know the tone of that 'eh' and "not fully human" is not synonymous with alien, so even if 100% is being a bit generous, we're still from the same planet as our listeners.

Jon:..

Jon: But. We sort of aren't though. Technically speaking.

Martin: No no no no no. I don't care if it's parallel, Earth is Earth is Earth, regardless of whatever nonsense metaphysics might be occurring.

Jon: So what you're saying is that if you got sucked through a portal and landed on an Earth where dinosaurs were still the predominant species, you wouldn't consider yourself to be an alien?

Martin: Nope!

Jon: I'm certain that they would consider you an alien. All of their mammals are probably shrew sized.

Martin: Sounds like a them problem.

Jon: Sounds like a-?! You know what, no, this will be an off the record debate, for now, I suppose I concede that the two Earths and our physiologies are similar enough that we might, maybe, not count as aliens.

Martin: Thank you. Anyway, our next question is from anonymous, and asks, "Is all of this an ARG?"

Jon: A whomst?

Martin: Alternate reality game. It's a method of storytelling that's interactive with audience, and usually has, I dunno, a certain suspension of disbelief to it where it pretends to be something actually happening in the real world until a dramatic reveal. A lot times it was used as a marketing gimmick, but others have done it just for fun. I can show you some examples after the show?

Jon: So it's in essence a more involved creepypasta?

Martin, delighted: Aw, babe, I'm never going to have a handle on what pop culture you are and aren't aware of, huh?

Jon: We were born within a year of each other, and I've told you that I was a deeply morbid teenager, you should probably be able to intuit some of things, love.

Martin: This coming from a man who has yet to see "It's a Wonderful Life", but has seen every film in the "Banjo Cannibals" franchise, including the Easter special. Jesus doesn't exist in the Banjo Cannibals universe, why does it have an Easter special?

Jon: The movies are rather shoddily translated from Russian, so I'm fairly certain the Easter component of that special was invented wholesale in the English version.

Martin: You say that like it answers more questions than it raises.

Jon: Yes, because it does. Oh, and to answer anonymous's question, no, this isn't an ARG. From my understanding of it, if it were, it'd be a poorly constructed one, as there's no real game element to any of this.

Martin: Hmm. Well, sometimes the game component is just trying to figure out what's going on with the story, or if there's any deeper content, and people are definitely doing that with this show.

Jon: That's not by design though. It's more a side effect of us having poor brain to mouth filters, I'd say.

Martin: Harsh, but fair. Oh, this next one is from Zac, no K, who asks, "Are you two actually even married?"

Jon, flat: We are, but it's under false names because this whole thing is an elaborate insurance scam.

Jon, incredulous: Yes, obviously, we're married. What did you hear in this podcast that would make you wonder otherwise, and how do we rectify it?

Martin: Clearly we need to up our quota for how "disgustingly in love" and "horrifically sappy" we are per episode. Which segues nicely into the next question from Gwen, "What's your favourite wonderful thing you've brought so far?" My answer: my husband. He's kind of my favourite in most things, you know?

Jon: Boooooo

Martin: Why, what's your favourite thing?

[Jon reluctantly sighs]

Jon, indulgent: being married.

Martin: A: serves you right for trying to pretend you're the less horrifically sappy and romantic one even though earlier today someone put a love note in the lunch they packed for me-

Jon:- Lies and slander! I have never, in my life, done that, even once.

Martin: Oh, sure, not even once. And you definitely don't reserve the lilac sticky notes specifically for my lunches because you know I like the colour.

Jon: I..I don't.. you're rather ruining my image here.

[Martin snorts]

Martin: Can't have the audience think that you are, on occasion, an incredibly doting husband-

Jon: -A title I would argue we both share-

Martin: - which is obviously why, even with it being your favourite thing you've brought, being married to me is just a small wonder-

Jon, audibly rolling his eyes: As I already explained-

[A Pause}

Jon: Actually, you're right-

Martin: Wait-

Jon:- I really should have brought it as a larger wonder-

Martin: Wait-

Jon: though I should warn you, I think I'd have far too much material for just one little segment-

Martin: No no no no no-

Jon:- In fact, I think I might have too much material for just one little episode-

Martin: Joo-oon-

Jon: I might have to do a whole series! Where would I even start? I mean I could talk about how every day I get to watch the early morning sun highlight your curls when I get up first, or hear you quietly humming and shuffling around the kitchen when you do, or I could talk about how the lunch notes only started in the first place as retaliation to the notes you would leave on the mirror for me to find, or how every time I get to see you at ease in a way that you aren't with anyone else, it takes my breath away, or I could talk about how cute I find the lines between your eyebrows that you only get when you're thinking something petty, but you know it's petty so you don't want to say anything-

Martin: Okay, okay, Christ, I give !up I surrender, and will cease my teasing on this particular topic.

Jon, probably making the :3 face: You don't have to stop. I mean, I could also discuss how very, very attractive I find your voice when it takes on a teasi-mmph!

[There's a pleased hum, then a pause.]

[The audio quality is slightly changed, as if the recording has been stopped and then started later]

Martin, giddy: Uh, heh, anyway, Eric asked what the least favourite thing we've brought was, and because of Jon's attempt to embarrass me live-

Jon, overlapping: It's definitely not live-

Martin:- on air, I'm gonna say it's my husband.

[Jon scoffs]

Jon : If the past few minutes are any sort of indication, I'm going to go ahead and saying that you are lying.

Martin, sighing contentedly: Maybe a bit, but how was I supposed to resist when your indigance gives you that adorable little nose scrunch? In reality, my least favourite thing was probably, um, mini golf? Which, I still don't think is inherently bad, definitely superior to regular golf, but when it's the only thing a next door two year old wants to do with you, the charm begins to wear off a bit.

Jon: Wow. A rather scathing review of a toddler.

Martin: Not so much a scathing review of a toddler as it's a scathing review of minigolf's inability to keep its appeal after the third time in the same week.

Jon: Mmm, the sound effects rather quickly go from part of the atmosphere to part of the irritation, don't they?

Martin: So what's your least favorite thing we've covered here?

Jon: Oh, love, I'm not going to pretend to have nearly enough memory of what we've covered so far to have a least favorite.

Martin: Really? Nothing that you regret or rescind?

Jon: Well, regret, certainly. It was one of the weeks where you went first, and your second item was mutual aid funds, and what they can do for marginalized communities, and I had to follow it with fucking Slapchop.

Martin, poorly suppressing laughter: In your defence, Slapchop, or whatever offbrand we have, is pretty useful, especially when either your scar or my arthritis is acting up.

Jon: I'm still not convinced you didn't somehow see my notes for the recording and decided you get revenge for the first year that we knew each other.

Martin, no longer suppressing his laughter: Yep, you got me! This marriage wasn't an act of insurance fraud, but it was a near decade long con to humiliate you on a podcast that about twenty people listen to. I'll draft up the divorce papers immediately, and then we can finally go our separate ways.

Jon: I'm glad you've at last admitted it. Such a weight off of my shoulders. Goodbye forever then.

Martin: Right.

Jon: Right.

[A beat.]

[There's a pfft from one of them, before both dissolve into giggles that lasts a good 30 seconds.]

Martin, slightly out of breath: I can't believe we're the kind of people that talk this much about speciality kitchen gadgets.

Jon: Sorry about that.

Martin: God, don't apologize. I'm, like, deliriously happy with our varying degrees of useful cooking ware filled life. If you had told 25 year old me that one day he'd be debating the merits of getting a tortilla press with his husband, he'd have wept, I tell you.

Jon: Funny, if you told 25 year old me the same thing, he would've said "You don't know the future,piss off" and then quietly have a bit of a panic at 3 am that night.

Martin: I bet you were insufferable in your mid-twenties.

Jon: First of all, who isn't, secondly, I was fresh out of Oxford, and third, I was insufferable in my late twenties, as you can attest to, and I'm insufferable now, as you can further attest to, so extrapolation would indicate that, yes, I was insufferable back then.

Martin: Probably a different kind of insufferable, though.

Jon: There are different kinds?

Martin: Of course! You used to be "prick boss" insufferable and now you're "smug in a way that I can't admit I find hot or it will go straight to your head" insufferable.

Jon, in the aforementioned smug tone: Oh, really?

Martin: See, see! Straight to your head.

Jon: Well straight is probably the wrong descriptor-

Martin: Oof, 4 out of 10 joke, babe.

Jon: That would be a far more convincing rating if you weren't grinning right now.

Martin: It's a genuine review, I'm just well known to be a sucker.

Jon: You and me both, darling.

Martin: Okay, if you're pulling out darling, you're clearly in too giddy of a mood to be focused on recording. Last question, from Jess, "You two mentioned meeting at work, but how did you actually end up together?" That's easy, Jon pulled me out of a hell dimension and then we went on the lam together to Scotland.

Jon: If that's not the way to tell a cute boy you like him, I don't know what is.

Martin: All right, that wraps up this bonus episode, and as the old saying goes, hiding from murderers in a cottage is more conducive to romance than suggesting you gouge out your eyes together.

Jon, cut off: Hey-!

#tma #jonmartin #jon sims #martin blackwood #post canon #wonderful! au #my fic

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redrobin-detective · 3 years

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Delayed Mourning

Going Angst Day 5: Death

_________________________________________

It was 3pm when there was a knock on Maddie Fenton’s door. She huffed and set down the meal she’d been working on. Of course the one day she had time to pre-plan a nice meal from her family was the day she’d get interrupted.

“Yes? May I help you?” Maddie asked, opening the door. She had expected a salesman. Possibly even a neighbor coming to complain, again, about the noise or the smells that came from Fentonworks. Instead she found a small woman who couldn’t have been much taller than 5 ft with dark brown hair tied up in a tight bun. She was wearing a sharp white shirt and suit jacket with a matching white skirt.

“Mrs. Fenton, hello,” the woman gave a polite little head nod. “I’m from the the Government Institute of Interdimensional Warfare though I hear the locals like to call us the Guys in White.” She said with a knowing smiling, “of course, as you know, it’s not only the guys who are interested in ghosts. May I come in?”

“Oh yes, hello,” Maddie blinked, opening the door to let the agent in. The petite woman stepped inside, her heels clicking on the hardwood floor. Her small frame, her oversized glasses and soft nature seemed so at odds with the meatheads Maddie usually found in the GIW. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“Perhaps,” the agent demurred. “It’s more there was something I wanted to inform you of. If you’re not too busy, may we sit down and talk? Your husband and children are not home.” Maddie thought that last statement was a bit odd, framed as a statement of fact rather than an inquiry but moved on.

“Yes, Jack’s out of town visiting a relative and my kids won’t be back for a little while,” Maddie said. “Let me just finish putting this roast together, I’m almost done. Can I get you anything? Water? Tea?”

“No, thank you,” The woman said quietly. “And please, continue while you’re doing. Let me give you a little bit of background.” The agent adjusted her large glasses with her tiny hands. “Let me introduce myself, you may call me Agent S. I work primarily out of Washington for the Institute but sometimes I am deployed on site for... special cases. And, as I’m sure you’re aware, your town is very special.”

“Now, as you may have noticed, I am not particularly built like the normal Institute agents you have probably come across. That is because I do not work in the field but behind the scene in Investigations. My job is study the history and happenings of hauntings and spectral entities.”

“Oh that sounds fascinating,” Maddie beamed as she finished with her final preps and put the roast in the over. She looked over her shoulder at Agent S while she washed her hands. “Jack and I dabble a bit in history and folklore but we’re more versed in the hard sciences of ghosts.”

“Yes, I’ve read some of your papers, you and your husband truly are the frontrunners in the field,” Agent S nodded. Maddie preened at the praise and sat down, delighted to have a sophisticated conversation with someone in her field who she wasn’t married to. If more of those GIW agents were like Agent S then Maddie would get along a lot better with them. “So, Maddie, may I call you Maddie? What date and time did your portal start working?”

“It was August 28th,” Maddie said proudly. “It didn’t work at first when we first plugged it in. I’m afraid I don’t have an exact time it started up as we weren’t here. Jack was convinced one of the electrical conduction pieces wasn’t fully connected and was preventing ectoplasmic distribution. We ended up driving 4 hours to Springfield and back for some specialty parts only to find the portal working when we returned.”

“I can help you there,” Agent S said with a soft smile reaching into her white briefcase and pulling out several thick folders. She laid them out gently on the table and Maddie was unnerved by some of the information: schematics of Fentonworks, past and present financial records, transcripts of public statements. Her shoulders tensed when she saw Jazz and Danny’s names on some of the files. “Toll camera captured your vehicle on the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway at exactly 1:26pm on August 28th. We can confirm you and your husband’s vehicle traveled to Springfield and back via video feeds and credit card statements at 10:45pm that same day and were therefore out of the city all day.”

Maddie suddenly felt very trapped by the woman’s sharp grey eyes as she plucked a piece of paper and pressed it towards Maddie.

“At 3:18pm, the majority of the residential power in town went out for a period of 2 and a half hours. The cause was determined to be from a massive power surge that blew out the transformer. You may recall being blamed for this outage given your history with previous outages but the news that you were out of town settled that argument. However, I was not convinced.” She pulled out another piece of paper and Maddie bristled to see it was a Casper High attendance sheet.

“Your daughter, Jasmine was at her final summer cram session which ran from 2pm until 5pm. I spoke to her tutors and she never left the whole time and, in fact, stayed late to help a fellow student work through her study materials. But what about your son?” Agent S asked with with a curious smile but her eyes belied the fact that she had her own answers.

“How dare you spy on my family, on my children,” Maddie hissed, crumpling one of the papers in her fist. “Get out of my house, I will sue the pants off of your organization for this invasion of privacy! Get out!”

“Now Maddie, don’t you want to know how your son started up your Portal?” Agent S asked coyly, that drew Maddie up short. Danny? No, he couldn’t have possibly. He had no interest in their work, in fact, now that she thought about it, Danny had been sick that day. Agent S pulled out a set of blueprints for the Fenton Portal. Some small component inside the Portal was circled.

“You left at approximately 1pm and your daughter presumably left not long after. Phone records indicate Daniel called both Tucker Foley and Samantha Manson. Your neighbor, Mrs. Benson, saw them coming into your house not long after but before the 3pm power outage which I was able to triangulate did in fact originate from your home.” Agent S tapped the circled part of the inner portal mechanisms. “Now did you happen to push the on button in the Portal before plugging it in?”

“On button?” Maddie asked with a dry mouth, overwhelmed by the amount of information being thrown her way. All she could think about was how Danny hadn’t seemed sick when they’d left that afternoon but had looked awful when they returned. Would he have really gone downstairs and messed with the Portal? Had he gotten hurt? Been contaminated down there? Images of Vlad’s sickly visage after his accident flowed through her head. She should have paid more attention but she’d been so excited about the Portal working...

“It’s right here in the blueprints you submitted to the patent office, buried under dozens of other hardware bits. Its small, such a little thing compared to all the moving parts required to open up a dimensional portal. Daniel was a bright boy, his middle school records prove it. A bright mind, friends to impress, no parents around to chastise him... I think you can see where I’m going with this.”

“No, no,” Maddie said, burying her hands in her hair. “No, I’m not. You’re saying -what? - that my teenage son turned on the Portal when we were gone? No, my Danny wouldn’t lie to me about that... Why wouldn’t he say anything?”

“I don’t blame him for not mentioned in because, if my hunch is correct, he was inside the Portal when it turned on, killing him instantly,” Agent S said with a carefully neutral face. “I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news but I’m afraid this haunting has gone on long enough.”

“My child is alive!” Maddie screeched, standing up in her chair. “Danny is alive and healthy and he is not a ghost!”

“I will admit the evidence of how he died is circumstantial but the fact that Danny Fenton is deceased is not.” Maddie fell back into her chair as he legs gave out underneath her.

She watched the agent put paper after paper in front of her and detailed all sorts of data about her son that Maddie, who lived in the same house as him, had missed. Unusually high ectosignatures picked up by GIW (and their own) detectors, Danny being spotted in some form before most ghost attacks, faked signatures of hers getting him out of nurses’ visits. Maddie barely felt alive herself as she stared at a red light camera photo of her baby sitting atop a light post late, late at night. His eyes were a toxic green color.

“I know this must be distressing as a mother but your child never left that basement, never attended high school and will never achieve his dream of working for NASA.” Agent S said with carefully measured sympathy as she gathered up her papers and put them back in her case. “But you are a brilliant scientist, unlike your husband, you should be able to look past your emotions and see that your child is gone and the ghost he left behind is dangerous.”

“My husband?” Maddie asked blankly, running a finger down Danny’s unnatural photograph.

“I approached Jack two days ago, mistakenly believing he would be the most understanding of you both. He refused to believe the evidence and was, in fact, going to warn your son’s ghost that we planned on taking him. He is safe but he presently being held at one of our facilities until the capture is complete.” Maddie should feel outraged at her husband’s kidnapping but all she could think about was the fact that her son was dead, dead, dead, killed by her own invention over a year ago and she never noticed. How could she not have noticed?

“Daniel’s ghost is extraordinary, not only able to pass as human so accurately for so long but immensely powerful. We need to make sure he doesn’t harm anyone else. Think of his friends who are probably being forced to aid him and keep his death quiet. Think of your husband, your daughter, living in the same house as a dangerous ghost.” Agent S dropped some of her professionalism and plucked the photo of Danny out of Maddie’s hands and replaced it with her own tiny hand.

“I know this is impossible thing to ask but I must do it anyway, will you help me capture what remains of Danny? There is a chance with his charade exposed, he will be able to move on and so will you. You have been wronged, Maddie. You have been denied the right to process and grieve your child by his own ghost. But a delayed mourning is better than none. Danny’s death is a tragedy but please don’t let it become someone else’s.”

“Maybe he’s not-” Maddie’s breath hitched, “he’s never shown any signs of aggression. Jasmine spoke of benevolent spirits... maybe-” Agent S sighed roughly and retracted her hand to grab another photo from her case. Maddie was surprised when she held up a picture of Phantom.

“Ignore the glow,” Agent S instructed. “Change his white hair to black, his green eyes to blue. Think of how often Phantom is spotted in your neighborhood, around Casper High. Remember how he always has his hands on your technology,” the agent frowned. “Think of how he grins when he sees you, like he knows something you don’t. Like it all just a big joke you’re not a part of.” Maddie felt like she’d been slapped.

“Your son is dead,” Agent S said more forcefully, throwing the picture of Phantom next to the spooky one of Danny. “And his ghost has taken his place, taunting you, stealing energy from your family, from the portal that killed him. Phantom’s power is increasing too rapidly and soon we won’t be able to contain him. It’s why I was brought in to identify his haunt so that he could be stopped before anyone else died.”

“I will state this plainly, I am giving you the chance to participate in putting your child to rest but you are not required for this operation. If you refuse, you will be confined with your husband until Phantom is taken down. Do not let this monster with your son’s face trick you any more. So I ask again, Maddie Fenton, will you help us stop Phantom from making a mockery of your son’s memory?”

XxX

“Mom! Jazz! I’m home!” Danny announced, kicking off his shoes and grabbing a paper out of his backpack as he walked into the kitchen with a grin. “And I have a present! Jazz’s tutoring paid off, look at this A I got on my history test! Well A- but a solid A-!”

“Oh... that’s great,” Mom muttered quietly. She was sitting at the kitchen table, not cooking or tinkering with some gadget. Just sitting there quietly, twiddling her thumbs and not looking at him.

“Is everyone okay?” Danny asked, dropping his bag on the floor and walking over to his mother. “I saw Jazz at school but is Dad okay?”

“No, everything is not okay,” she said turning and looking at him with tear-filled eyes. “Someone died, someone I love dearly and I’m not ready to let them go,” she sniffed and wiped at her eyes. “But they've been gone for a long time, even if I’m just hearing about it now. I’m upset but it’s better to know and be grieve than to go on in ignorance, living a lie.”

Danny was about to ask who had died when something was jammed into his neck and he was shocked within an inch of his half life. His body spasmed to escape but his mother was gripping his arm to hold him in place. He transformed unconsciously but that only made it worse. He fell to the floor, ectoplasm leaking off his form as he could barely hold himself together.

“Mom,” he croaked, reaching for her despite everything. She stomped on his hand which was practically goo from such a vicious, destabilizing ectoplasmic shock.

“Don’t you ever call me that,” she hissed through angry tears. “I didn’t want to believe it but the proof is right in front of me you horrible, selfish ghost.” She kicked him in the side and half of him ended up on her boot. “How dare you, how dare you impersonate my son! How dare you string me along all this time, make me look like a fool who had to told that her own child was dead! I bet you just laughed and laughed at our stupid, human ignorance of what your were!”

“‘lease,” he begged through the ectoplasm in his mouth. “I’m still your....”

“My son is dead and he has been for a while,” Mom said, throwing the ecto-taser away from her. Danny vaguely heard the door being kicked in and in his rapidly diminishing vision, he saw black boots and white suits. “With you gone, I can finally come to terms with it and not be tormented by an inadequate replacement.” She turned her back to him. “Get that filth out of my house, I never want to see it again.”

“Of course,” a quiet feminine voice said as his goopy arms were restrained with ghost proof cuffs. “I know this is hard, Maddie but you made the right choice for your family and Danny’s memory. Jack will returned to you within the hour. I spoke to my superiors, for your cooperation, the Institute will take care of declaring Danny dead as well as covering costs for your boy to be laid to rest, the first step in moving on.”

“No, the first step will be removing that duplicitous monster from my home. It’s stolen enough of my baby’s life. Now please leave, I have - I have a funeral to plan.”

#going angst week 2021 #*jazz hands* I uh finally contributed #this is another interesting thing that just sorta happened #I was actually rereading and writing more for Side Effects when I realized that someone could follow the paper trail of the accident #which led me to a tiny lil GIW Investigator who blew Dannys secret wide open #which *then* led me to the tragedy of Maddie learning of her child's 'death' second hand but over a year after a fact #there's something about delayed tragedy... thinking everythings ok only to learn it hasn't been for a while #Love Mads but btw her an Jack shes the one who seems the more likely to take offense to her son's ghost haunting his own life #to keep playing along and pretending to be alive #him secretly being Phantom was the final straw #Both pretending to be Danny then *teasing* her when he saw her as a ghost #(obviously thats not the case but Maddie believes was Made To Believe it was)#Oh I wanted to strange Agent S this whole time typing #the blatant.... manipulation #Maddie may feel free to grieve now but her child's torment was only beginning #haha good times see ya

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6peaches · 2 years

Text

Richard Siken - Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out

#poem #poet #Richard Siken #Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out

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longitudinalwaveme · 3 years

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Arkham Files: Weather Wizard

Hugo Strange: From the patient files of Dr. Hugo Strange, director of Arkham Asylum. Patient: Marco “Mark” Mardon, also known as the Weather Wizard. Patient displays symptoms that suggest Borderline Personality Disorder, but I have not had the time to give him a full psychological evaluation. Session One. How are you feeling, Mr. Mardon?

Weather Wizard: Fine. I guess. Not sure what I’m doing in an insane asylum, though.

Hugo Strange: I am afraid that the blame for that can be laid at the feet of endless bureaucratic red tape, Mr. Mardon. No one could decide where to house you and the other ‘Rogues’ while Iron Heights Penitentiary is being rebuilt, and so someone, in their endless wisdom, decided to simply send you all to Arkham Asylum, most likely because we are perceived as the logical dumping ground for all costumed criminals.

Weather Wizard: Oh, okay. Good. I was getting worried that I’d lost my mind without realizing it or something.

Hugo Strange: So, Mr. Mardon, you call yourself the Weather Wizard.

Weather Wizard: That’s right. Why?

Hugo Strange: And you use a device called the Weather Wand in order to manipulate the weather?

Weather Wizard: That’s also right. Why?

Hugo Strange: It’s quite an astonishing piece of technology you wield, Mr. Mardon. Did you make it yourself?

Weather Wizard: Me? Make the Weather Wand? (Laughs) I’m not smart enough to do that.

Hugo Strange: So who did invent it, Mr. Mardon?

Weather Wizard: My older brother, Clyde. He was better at science than me. (Pause) Actually, he was better at everything than me.

Hugo Strange: Clyde Mardon? I remember reading about him in the papers many years ago. From all appearances, he was a very promising young scientist.

Weather Wizard: Yes, he was. My folks were really proud of him.

Hugo Strange: What about you, Mr. Mardon? Were you not proud of him?

Weather Wizard: Of course I was proud of him! Clyde was a genius! (Pause) And I...wasn’t.

Hugo Strange: Your records indicate that you spent your entire childhood in your brother’s shadow, Mr. Mardon. You could never learn as quickly or jump as high or run as fast as he could, and your parents viewed you as an afterthought at best. He was their golden child, and you? You couldn’t measure up, so you became the scapegoat. Whenever things went wrong, you were the one who got the blame. It would be only natural for you to resent your older brother.

Weather Wizard: Resent him? (Pause) Yeah, I guess I did. Sometimes I hated him so much that I wished he was dead...but at the same time, I loved him. Clyde...he was the only good thing in my life, you know? He wasn’t like Mamá and Papá. He knew what a screwup I was, but he stuck by me anyway- me, worthless, stupid, pathetic Mark Mardon. It used to make Mamá furious. Clyde was important; he was going places. He couldn’t have his worthless little brother dragging him down for the rest of his life; better just to get rid of me. But he never listened to her. Even after I became a thief, he still didn’t cut ties with me. He said he wanted to help me; that I wasn’t just the worthless waste of space that Mamá and Papá said I was. I didn’t really believe him, but it was...it was nice to know that at least one member of my family didn’t wish that I had never been born.

Hugo Strange: Your parents told you that they wished you had never been born?

Weather Wizard: Uh-huh. I don’t remember what exactly led up to it-I think I’d failed an important exam or something like that-but I remember their reaction to whatever it was clear as day. Mamá and I got into a shouting match over whatever it was that I’d screwed up that time, and about a minute in, Mamá looked me dead in the eyes and said “No sé qué te salió mal, pero eres un fracaso, una vergüenza para la familia. ¡Ojalá nunca hubieras nacido!” And then she burst into tears, and Papá grounded me for making her cry.

Hugo Strange: That is terribly unfortunate, Mr. Mardon. No child should ever have to hear that from their parents.

Weather Wizard: (Trying to play it cool) It wasn’t that bad, really. I was pretty much used to being insulted by that point. Besides, I still had Clyde. I knew he loved me. Even if he was better than me at everything.

Hugot Strange: So your relationship with your older brother was more complicated than one might have expected. Fascinating. (Pause) You know, Mr. Mardon, there are rumors that say you killed your brother in order to get the Weather Wand.

Weather Wizard: Killed him?

Hugo Strange: Certainly you understand where the rumors come from, Mr. Mardon. An escaped convict, who has lived his entire life in his brother’s shadow up until this point, stumbles into his brother’s isolated lab, only to find that said brother has conveniently dropped dead, having just finished a device that will grant the convict unimaginable power? I have to say that it does sound rather suspicious.

Weather Wizard: Are you saying that I murdered my brother to get the Weather Wand?

Hugo Strange: Well, did you, Mr. Mardon?

Weather Wizard: No! Clyde died of congenital heart failure. The coroner even said so.

Hugo Strange: And your first instinct upon finding your older brother dead was to steal the Wand he had worked so hard to build?

Weather Wizard: Well, he wasn’t going to be using it. He was dead; it couldn’t help him anymore. But it could help me. I was so tired of being stupid, lazy, worthlesss Mark Mardon-and being the Weather Wizard meant that I didn’t have to be him anymore. With the Weather Wand, I could finally be someone important!

Hugo Strange: In other words, you stole the Wand so that you could finally be special, like your older brother had been.

Weather Wizard: Exactly! Clyde invented the Wand...but I was the one who would use it to master the weather. Oh, Dr. Strange...you have no idea how wonderful it felt to finally be important; to wield the kind of power and know that no one...no one...would ever ignore me again.

Hugo Strange: And you used this great power to...rob banks and jewelry stores?

Weather Wizard: What else would I have used it for?

Hugo Strange: Humanitarian aid comes to mind. Or, if you’re insistent on using the Wand for evil, world domination. You can control the weather, Mr. Mardon! There is virtually no limit to the things you could accomplish!

Weather Wizard: World domination? Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not smart enough to run the world...and besides, it sounds like way too much work. No, I’m happy to stick to the small-time. Less work that way...and less chance for me to screw things up.

Hugo Strange: For a man who can bend the weather to his whims, Mr. Mardon, you are disturbingly lacking in both self-confidence and ambition.

Weather Wizard: You should see me when I’m fighting the Flash. I don’t lack self-confidence then.

Hugo Strange: Ah, yes, your city’s costumed vigilante. I was wanting to talk about him, actually. What sort of relationship do you have with the Flash, Mr. Mardon?

Weather Wizard: Adversarial, I guess? He’s always getting in the way of my robberies, and that’s pretty annoying, but I’m not obsessed with him or anything. I’m not, like, gonna go out of my way to get his attention. I happen to like being able to successfully escape with my loot.

Hugo Strange: And he had no influence on your decision to put on a green leotard and start calling yourself the Weather Wizard?

Weather Wizard: I don’t think so. I mean, I guess it’s possible that he had some influence on my costume design or something without me realizing it, but I didn’t put on a costume because he wears one.

Hugo Strange: So you wouldn’t stop being the Weather Wizard if the Flash were no longer around?

Weather Wizard: Of course not! If I’m not the Weather Wizard, I’m a nobody: stupid, pathetic, worthless, useless Mark Mardon. I’m never going back to that life. Never. (Pause) That being said, I do have to admit that there’s a part of me that hopes that the Flash won’t go away. Crime wouldn’t be half so much fun without him around.

Hugo Strange: First you say that you would prefer to avoid the Flash if you could; then you say that crimes wouldn’t be half so much fun without him. Which is it, Mr. Mardon? Is he a nuisance, or an enjoyable challenge?

Weather Wizard: (Long pause) I...I don’t know.

Hugo Strange: Then allow me to offer my theory, Mr. Mardon. I think you have Borderline Personality Disorder.

Weather Wizard: I have what?

Hugo Strange: Borderline Personality Disorder. It’s a mental illness characterized by mood swings, impulsive behavior, feelings of boredom or emptiness, an unstable, distorted self-image, and, perhaps most relevantly to this conversation, unstable interpersonal relationships. Your relationship with your brother was like this-you claim that he was the best thing in your life and that you wished that he was dead-and so, I think, is your relationship with the Flash. When you are in a relatively good mood, he is a fun challenge; when you are more stressed, he is an inconvenience you would prefer to avoid. Either way, he exacerbates your condition.

Weather Wizard: (Muttering) So my parents were right. I really am a lunatic. Great.

Hugo Strange: You are not a lunatic, Mr. Mardon. You are a man who needs to learn how to properly manage life with a difficult disease. But don’t worry. I am here to help you.

#flash rogues #dr. hugo strange #flash comics #batman comics #weather wizard #fanfic

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notcanoncompliant · 4 years

Text

I See You

So I finally got the writing bug again. This is pretty much PWP. It’s decent, I hope those of you who are into this stuff are into this fic. lol

Trigger Warnings: blood, implied cannibalism, non-con.

The FBI has been after Anthony Stark, serial killer-slash-mob enforcer, for a long time. Peter, special agent and analyst, dips into places he shouldn’t. There are consequences.

And away we go...

*************************************************

“Good morning, Starshine.”

Peter tries to swallow, his mouth and throat fuzzy from whatever had been used to knock him out, his head stuffed up and aching.

He opens his eyes, winces at the light. Shuts them.

His wrists are secured together high above his head, and everything is cold, chilly air on bare skin--bare. God. He’s naked; stuck in stirrups, strapped down. But, aside from the headache and the discomfort of waking up in bindings and completely exposed...he doesn’t hurt.

He lifts his head, forces himself to squint in the light at the figure standing off to the side.

“What did you give me?” he asks, voice thick.

“Standard knock-out cocktail. Painless,” says that familiar voice.

Peter swallows again, drops his head back against the headrest of the chair and shuts his eyes. “Thanks for that, I guess,” he rasps.

A soft, familiar chuckle issues from the right side of the room. He’s too tired to look.

He drifts in and out for a little while longer in the wobbling in-out of slowly returning consciousness.

Footsteps click behind him and then further back. A quiet humming lilts through the air, and then the rush of water--a sink--and the sound of something being filled. More footsteps, this time growing closer along with the humming.

Something pokes at his lips, and he opens without thought.

A straw.

He sucks, moans at the cool rush of water down his parched throat.

“Good boy,” the figure says.

Peter shivers involuntarily at the praise, heat curling lazy-sweet in his gut. Danger, a deep part of him whispers.

He takes another pull of water and then the straw slips from between his lips.

He opens his eyes.

Anthony “Tony” Stark moves away to stand off to the right, setting the glass of water down on the desk and sitting back against the edge. The enforcer looks good; dressed to the nines as he was in every fruitless interrogation video on record, a suit that probably costs as much as Peter’s rent, goatee immaculate, thick salt and pepper hair styled in a casual mess. He watches Peter with a pleasant look on his face that doesn’t match the emptiness of his pitch-dark eyes.

The room is small, an office, maybe. They’re in a warehouse; through the window behind Stark, Peter can see closed bay doors, concrete and metal and beams and silent, unmoving machinery. A quick glance around the immediate room tells Peter there’s no tray of instruments, nothing lined up on the desk. Nothing to do the kind of rip-and-tear damage Peter had seen in any of the crime scene photos.

“You look confused, Pete,” Stark says. “Were you expecting something?”

“I’m just well-versed in your usual, and this isn’t it,” Peter says. He tugs a little at the bindings around his wrists--leather. Stiff, but exponentially more yielding than the steel cuffs that left cuts and torn skin around the wrists of the bodies in the morgue, in the photos.

Stark smiles, and cold trickles down Peter’s spine. “You’re a special case.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“You got a little too close, all on your own.” Stark smiles again, looks...proud. “A real go-getter. You’ve got enemies in high places, Petey-pie. Kept poking your nose in all the wrong places.” He shrugs. “Or the right ones, as it were.”

The first unpleasant sensation prickles through whatever it is Stark gave him (definitely not standard knock-out; an unsurprising lie), and his stomach sinks.

Someone did this. Someone sent him right into the jaws of the monster--why ‘jaws’, why do jaws matter--and now he’s going to die in some creative way, some way that doesn’t include scalpels or knives or cattle prods or any of the endless list of horrifyingly inventive tools Anthony Stark has allegedly used to ruin human beings.

That ‘someone’ was probably--most likely--Rumlow, head of the task force and a first-class asshole. He’d warned Peter not to get involved, and Peter hadn’t listened, because...well, because he noticed the inconsistencies in the original ME reports versus what was included in Stark’s official dossier, inconsistencies made all the more suspicious by how tightly the originals were locked down.

Maybe Peter had ‘noticed’ them when he’d ‘stumbled upon’ the confidential files.

Maybe Rumlow noticed. Maybe someone above Rumlow noticed.

And now Peter’s shoulders ache from how his arms are suspended and there are straps wrapping his thighs and calves, keeping his legs spread in the stirrups of this medical chair.

“What are you going to do to me?”

Stark tuts. “Boring. Try again.”

Peter wets his lips nervously. “Do you take requests?”

“Better.” Stark pushes off from the desk, and comes to stand in front of him. “And no. But you’re free to beg for whatever you want.”

“Boring,” Peter says, a touch breathless, real fear finally beginning to worm its way through. “You know I’ll beg at some point.”

Stark smirks. He walks back to the desk, pulls a rolling stool out from underneath and moves it between Peter’s spread legs, shucks his jacket and tosses it onto the desk. He begins meticulously rolling his sleeves up to his elbows.

“Tell me something,” Stark says as he sits down, rolls a little closer. “Why would someone send a pretty little hacker into the jaws of death?”

Peter winces at the phrase, twitches back away from Stark’s nearness before he can catch himself. Too many sensitive parts on display, too close to that shark-like smile.

“Analyst,” Peter corrects inanely. “And I don’t know why you’re asking, why do you ca--fuck, okay,” he gasps, a bolt of pure panic shooting, short and electric, through his limbs at the sudden grip of Stark’s hands high up the backs of his thighs. “Okay. I saw some things and I knew they were wrong and I guess I went to the wrong people.”

“What was wrong?” Stark asks, faux-curious, trailing his thumbs back and forth along the sensitive inner skin of Peter’s thighs. His gaze is dark, flat, fixed on Peter’s eyes instead of all the flesh in front of him, and Peter can’t tell at this point whether that’s a (relatively) good thing.

“They...fudged the ME reports,” Peter says. “Doctored the photos.” He struggles not to squirm when Stark’s hands slide down to his ass. “They…”

Peter freezes. “They know who you are,” he breathes. “They know. They hid the marks because they know, and they…”

“They like to toss me a good meal every now and again,” Stark supplies casually.

That’s why there are no tools. No knives, no blades. Stark’s smile is a weapon, and Peter is beyond fucked.

Maybe it’s the drugs, maybe it’s just the intensity of the understanding, but Peter can practically see blood between those immaculate teeth, painting Stark’s lips. Can see those teeth cutting, pulling, ripping, tearing, chewing--

The grip on his ass tightens, and he lets out a strangled sound when Stark’s eyes drop from his in favor of the places between Peter’s legs.

“They gave you to me for disposal, Mr. Parker,” Stark says, distractedly. “A pretty little troublemaker about to throw a wrench in all their plans.” He leans in, and Peter jerks at the brush of lips against the inside of his right thigh. “I should send them a thank you card.”

Those lips part and teeth scrape Peter’s skin, not nearly hard enough to break through, but roughly enough to startle him into trying, futilely, to pull away.

“I can make it all disappear,” Peter blurts. “I’ll wipe everything. Every file, every scrap of anything that has anything to do with you. I could do it from my phone, right now.”

“Mm. I know you can,” Stark murmurs. He kisses Peter’s thigh again, squeezes his ass. Smirks up at him. “My job isn’t all wetwork. I know all about you, Peter.”

When he leans in toward the center, towards Peter’s most sensitive places, Peter squirms in earnest, leather straps biting into his limbs, across his middle. “No, wait, please--”

And then all he can do is moan, startled and loud, when Stark dips down between Peter’s cheeks and kisses him, open-mouthed, tongue thick and hot and wet, probing at Peter’s hole, alternating between long, dragging sweeps and penetration, slick muscle working its way inside Peter’s body.

“What the fuck,” Peter gasps, yanking downwards, flinching and struggling between the sharp tug at his wrists and the non-stop stimulation of Stark’s mouth. “What the fuck are you--oh, God, stop, you can’t--don’t, please,” he begs, tears springing to his eyes.

It feels good, scary good, his hips arching and bucking to the extent allowed by his bindings, but that all encompassing pleasure is going to stop at some point and turn to unimaginable pain and terror.

Images flash through his mind--the real photos; missing pieces, torn flesh, the mangled crescents he couldn’t--hadn’t wanted to believe--were bitemarks--

Stark drags his tongue from Peter’s tailbone over his hole and laves attention on Peter’s balls with a loud, satisfied groan.

“Fuck, that’s good,” he growls, grinning up from between Peter’s legs. Peter makes a high sound, a whine, at the sight of those teeth so near his thinnest skin. Stark nuzzles at his sack, sucks one of Peter’s balls into his mouth, rolls it around and releases it, takes in the other for the same treatment.

Still no pain. Still nothing but sparking heat prickling through Peter’s hips, low in his spine, his body aching for more even as tears free themselves and roll down his cheeks. He squeezes his eyes shut and slams his head back against the chair, unwilling to keep looking down at his traitorous cock, jutting up stiff and leaking on his stomach.

“Please,” Peter says, voice cracking. “Please don’t--” he cuts himself off, bites down on the words. Please don’t hurt me. Please don’t stop.

“Peter,” Stark croons, pressing a soft kiss to the base of Peter’s cock. “Baby. Sweetheart. Light of my life.” Peter flinches and moans, low and frightened, at the press of teeth against his erection, faint, sharp pressure. “Look at me.”

Peter swallows, steels himself, and looks down his body.

“I lied,” Stark whispers conspiratorially, breath washing warm across Peter’s stomach

The fluorescent light flattens everything, brings out the shadows in Stark’s eyes and the faint hollows under his cheekbones, monstrous and hard and beautiful.

“No one sent you to me.”

Peter stares, uncomprehending--unwilling to comprehend. “What?”

Stark smiles, slides his hands around to pet and squeeze the tops of Peter’s thighs.

“You’re here because I wanted you here. You’re here,” he kisses the tip of Peter’s cock, and to Peter’s shamed arousal, it twitches, a bead of precome leaking and rolling down the shaft, “because you’re better than all of the idiots who believe they have me cornered. My pretty little hacker, my little genius. Scooped up by the Eff. Bee. Eye.”

“Wha--” Peter starts to ask again, numb, but Stark sucks him down.

Down, down, into the hot, tight, pulsing heat of his throat, down to hell and farther, past any hope of return. Lost in the dark, reverent satisfaction of Stark’s gaze, and the stretch of Stark’s lips around his cock.

When the sharp edges of those perfectly straight, perfectly terrible incisors close around the base of his flesh, press in hard enough to hurt, Peter comes with a choked cry, straining against his binds.

Stark sucks and licks him through it, brushes open-mouthed kisses the slick, too-sensitive head until Peter twitches and moans from too much.

When Stark releases him, nuzzling at Peter’s trembling thighs like a lover, murmuring sweet, possessive nothings into his skin…

...Peter might as well have died here, in this warehouse. Lost, consumed. Gone.

“You’re mine, Peter Parker,” Stark says softly, watching him with pleased, victorious heat. “You have been from the moment you cracked the encryption on those reports. You saw me. And I saw you, sweet thing. I see you.” He smiles. “And I’m never giving you back.”

Peter stares down at him, breath slowing as the sweat begins to cool on his body. Slack against the chair, shoulders aching, muscles twitching from exertion, he gives up.

He nods.

*********************************************

Everything Tag List:

Feel free to untag yourself or request not to be tagged!

@the-amazing-spidertwink, @silkystark, @starkercrossedlovers, @hoeforthegays, @problematic-sofatini, @starkeroverlord, @starker-reader, @mrstark-please, @aoifelaufeyson, @fastenyourseats, @starkerhowlter, @smidnite, @starkeristheendgame, @readysetstarker, @awesomeimportantfan, @darker-soft-starker, @vanillapeter

#starker #starkerflowers fic #tony stark x peter parker #ironspider #nff #tw: noncon #tw: blood #tw: violence #tw: cannibalism #dark!Tony #FBI!Peter #serial killer!Tony #cannibal!Tony

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fantasticstoryteller · 3 years

Text

New Amsterdam Chapter 28

Tony looked at his two helpers. Right now all he had were Natasha and Clint, but they’d be all he needed. And Pepper was out doing something else, so she wasn’t going to barge in with her “logic.”

Natasha poked a small, perfectly manicured finger towards the cat basket on Tony’s desk. Puddles (what a stupid name for a cat; could he change the name? Of course he could change the name; he was Tony Stark, all he had to do was figure out a better name) lazily batted at the finger with a paw. The kittens were, once again, nursing.

Clint looked around at the transformed office. There were scratching posts in all the corners, tucked up against the desk, and one with a basket right under the window. There was a small, working fountain that was just at the right height for an adult cat, with a slightly wider (though shallower) pool under it at the right height for a wandering kitten. The cats themselves were situated in a huge, plush doggie bed.

Clint let out a low whistle. “Damn, Tony. You’ve gone crazy cat lady on us.”

“Pepper should be proud,” muttered Natasha before turning to Tony.

Who was, once again, reminded that their first loyalty was to SHIELD, their second was to Pepper, and he came third. Which was fine. He had no problem with that; SHIELD had taken in the two of them and Pepper was amazing. “I didn’t call you here about the cats.”

Natasha merely quirked a small smile, pulled out her phone (one of his Starkphones, he was pleased to note), and pulled up a text that read, see me about naming kittens.

Tony rolled his eyes. “It was a cover,” he explained.

Clint glances around the room again. “You sure?” he asked.

One of the kittens rolled to the flat portion of the bed and Tony caught it with a massive hand (compared to the kitten) before gently rolling it back to its mother, who groomed it like nothing had happened. “I’m sure,” he said grimly. “When’s the last time either of you saw Spiderman?”

Natasha shrugged. “Couple days ago. He was last seen working with Deadpool.”

Deadpool—who had taken over patrolling the city for the human spider. Deadpool—who was single-handedly reducing the crime rate of the city. Deadpool—who was an insane murderer to everyone who wasn’t Spiderman…or Peter. For some reason the merc was obsessed with the lab assistant.

“Right.” Tony tapped the top of his desk, the computer part, to bring up a hologram of a building. On the side of the building was what looked like a giant spider egg sack. “This popped up about an hour ago.”

“You think that’s him.” The comment was flat. An observation, nothing else.

“Okay, Spiderman spins webs,” said Clint, “but we’ve got no evidence that he spins—whatever the Hell that is.”

Natasha’s eyes snapped from the image to Tony. “You think he’s hurt and spun the cocoon to protect himself.”

Tony snorted. “I think Deadpool is unpredictable.”

Clint leaned against the wall as he looked at the image. “Did you try running back the tape, or whatever you call it, on your computer thing to see what made it?”

“Oh, why didn’t I think of that?” demanded Tony. He sighed. “Computer thing” indeed. Sometimes he wondered if the reason he liked Spiderman so much was that the vigilante had a way with technology that rivaled his own. “The camera that image came from is a special time-lapse camera set up to take pictures of the sky against the city over the course of a day.”

“Why?” asked Clint.

“Not important. The important part is that it takes one picture every two hours, so according to this camera one moment the side of the building was clear, and the next this was there.” Tony gestured to the hologram.

“Okay.” Natasha looked at the image again before focusing on Tony. “What’s the plan?”

“The plan is to get him out of the cocoon and see how badly hurt he is.”

“Uh—I’m no expert,” Clint said looking at Tony, “but if he is badly hurt—won’t forcing him out of the cocoon hurt him more?”

“Nothing Bruce can’t cure,” Tony said firmly. He was certain of it; he’d run all the algorithms to predict every possible scenario.

“And why are we here?” demanded Natasha grimly. “It sounds like you have everything figured out. Why don’t you just suit up, go down there, and break into the cocoon?”

“Three reasons. One; it’s broad daylight and there’s a clear sky. The moment I show myself all suited up, Paparazzi will surround me wherever I go, and if Spiderman is that badly hurt, I don’t want to risk his identity becoming public knowledge. Two; you may not believe it, but there are actually things that need to be done to keep a company like this running.”

“I believe it,” offered Clint. “I just thought Pepper was doing it.”

Natasha wouldn't be distracted. “And three?” she asked.

“Three; the gray kitten keeps rolling out of the basket and someone needs to be here to catch it. Pepper’s busy and I have been forbidden,” a twist of his mouth showed how he felt about that, “to call any of the assistants or people below the ranks of Bruce and Gwen, and they have their own shit to do.” Before Clint could accuse him of being a crazy cat lady again (rude) he quickly pulled up another image. Deadpool, on the roof of the tower, having what appeared to be a cozy lunch with Peter, the lab assistant. “I also,” he added firmly, “don’t like the thought of leaving my Tower undefended while that maniac is taking lunch on the top of it.”

“Could have led with that,” muttered Clint.

Natasha’s eyes tracked to the moving image (it was being shown in real-time, unlike the picture), and Tony had no doubt that she was memorizing every detail of the scene just in case it might be relevant later. “Why do you let Deadpool into your Tower?” she asked.

Tony snorted. “Have you ever tried to keep him out of someplace? Guy takes ‘Go away’ like an engraved invitation.” Which sounded better than admitting to the two of them that he’d basically hired Deadpool to stalk one of his staff.

Natasha was still taking in the scene while Clint laughed. “He seems awfully cozy with that kid.”

Tony’s gut twisted. Peter was still a kid. A kid who had been inflicted with Deadpool for days now. Sure he seemed fine, and Pepper had assured him that the kid actually enjoyed Deadpool’s company (seriously—how?), but still—he was a kid. He should be playing video games, making insane inventions in the company’s big labs—not having to play host to mad mercenary. And that was Tony’s fault. He’d fix it—somehow. He just had to figure out how.

Which wasn’t helped by the fact that Tony hoped Deadpool would find out why Peter didn’t want to get his own lab.

Tony focused on the two in front of him and spread his arms. “There you have it. Will the two of you go investigate, since I’m stuck here for the time being.”

Clint grinned at Tony. “Sure—cat-mom,” he said sweetly.

“We’ll find your spider for you,” Natasha agreed before walking out, Clint close behind.

Tony waited until the two of them, the only two people SHIELD had in the Tower, were long gone before he pulled up his computer program JARVIS. “What did you find out?” he asked the computer.

“Sir, there is no recorded information as to why SHIELD wants Spiderman’s identity,” the program replied. “However, I could only go so deep without alerting them to the intrusion. Should I dig further?”

“No,” said Tony firmly. “I don’t want SHIELD knowing even a hint of what you’re capable of. Anything else on Spiderman?”

“No, sir,” JARVIS replied. “It would appear that the vigilante knows all of my blind spots. He disappears into them, but always at times when it is impossible to check the people around to see who appears. Should I continue to keep an eye out?”

“Please,” said Tony. There was the electronic beep of the program disengaging the communication mode. He didn’t really believe Spiderman was in the cocoon—but it made a good excuse to get the two SHIELD agents out of his Tower so that he could interrogate JARVIS.

Tony had been hired to find out who Spiderman was. He would do it—there was no question of whether or not he would find out the identity, but when. However he was—curious, so to speak about how desperate SHIELD was to have the information. There had to be a reason.

He was going to find out what it was.

#Spider-Man #Deadpool #Spideypool #interlude

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imposterellie · 3 years

Text

Imprisonment - Febuwhump Day 3

Peter doesn't know where he is, or why his powers aren't working; all he knows is that he's desperately hungry, and that Tony doesn't know he's missing.

Will he be found in time?

**TW - violence, swearing, description of vomiting, pain infliction, food being withheld from characters, passing out, panic attacks**

@febuwhump

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

The air was bitingly cold as Peter swung among the streets in Queens. This patrol had been quiet, and he’d spent most of it sat on the rooftops, trying his best to keep himself warm. Even with the built-in heating system in his spiderman suit, it was still bitter outside, and he was beginning to consider calling it a night. He harboured too much guilt to go inside sooner than was absolutely necessary; what if he woke up and there was a story on the news about someone who had been robbed and he wasn’t there to prevent it! So no, he would brave the weather until he could barely feel his fingers, just so that it was still safe to swing home.

He sighed in relief, upon deciding it was best that he went home, and leapt off the side of the building he’d landed on 20 minutes earlier. He swung towards his apartment building, looking forward to getting out of his suit and snuggling up in his bed. It was the weekend so he could have a nice lie-in in the morning whilst he let May sleep in from her night shift. Peter was invested in the thought of a hot shower and his cosy bed, so invested that he didn’t pay attention to his spidey senses. He didn’t notice the drone until it was far too late. By the time he realised something was wrong, the drone had fired a shot of electricity at him that was specific to his suit and powerful enough that it short circuited the systems. He lost control of the web shooters and dropped like a stone. Plummeting towards the ground, Peter tried everything to get Karen back online but to no avail. He hadn’t been too high off the ground when he was shot but he hit the street head-first and it was enough to knock him out.

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

Peter woke slowly, his head throbbing fiercely. He groaned, thinking his enhanced healing would take care of it soon enough, before realising with a jolt that he was not at home as he had expected to be. The room felt wrong, even laid down with his eyes closed, he felt off balance somehow. He fought past the pain in his head to open his eyes carefully and was surprised when his vision was blurry. He squinted and tried again but his sight didn’t change. He couldn’t see anything clearly much further than a metre away. It was like his sight before he had been bitten by the spider.

“What the…?” He mumbled to himself, confused, and becoming a little worried. It was then that Peter came to a little bit more and realised his wrists were restrained. But it was weird, the cuffs didn’t feel like the ones he was usually tied up with (he’d think about being concerned how normal being tied up was once he was out of the situation). He spent a few minutes messing around with them, seeing if they had any mechanism, he could use to get out of them but he had no luck. They were staying on until he was let out of them. He felt that they were digging painfully into his wrists, so he shifted to try and dislodge them, but a bright flash of white, hot pain seared in his head. He paused to let the pain subside, breathing heavily. The second he halted his movements, the pain stopped.

“Ah shit.” Peter whispered as it dawned on him just what the cuffs were doing to him. Somehow, someone had figured out a way to dampen his abilities and had practically reverted him back to his pre-bite self. Ah shit indeed. This was not an ideal situation at all. Especially as he remembered the massive hit to the head he’d gotten which he was very, very aware was not healing itself.

He sat up gingerly, careful not to worsen his headache, and took a look around him. The lack of windows and only a bed, toilet, and iron bars in the room indicated to him that he was very clearly in a cell. Where though, he had no idea. He also had no idea why. From what he could remember, he hadn’t pissed off any bad guys recently so he couldn’t fathom why anyone would have cause to kidnap him. And yet, here he was.

Peter spent what he assumed was a few hours just sitting there, waiting for someone to come into his cell and start torturing him or something but no one did. He just sat there, wallowing in self-pity and boredom. After the first few hours he realised just how desperately hungry he was. And yet no one came.

At one point, he tried to bend the bars, but with his power dampened it barely even creaked. He was well and truly stuck. And no one was coming for him.

He lost track of time. What could have been days was merely hours. The lack of sunlight to track the time meant he just had to sit there, getting hungrier, thirstier and more frustrated as the time went on. He tried to yell out, but his voice just became hoarse without a drink to keep him hydrated, it also made his headache worse as his voice echoed around the small chamber. Without his enhanced eyesight, Peter didn’t see the camera in the darkness. It was in the corner of the chamber outside his cell, just recording consistently and that recording was being streamed directly to a phone. It was a good thing Peter didn’t know about the camera because if he knew who the footage was going to, he’d want out faster.

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

Tony Stark was sat in his lab tinkering away at one of his newest inventions. It was 6am and he had not yet ventured to bed. Pepper would be furious, but he was so excited to show Peter, that he couldn’t possibly sleep until it was done. The hours following passed by quickly, Tony periodically checked the clock and ate food every so often before finally stopping at around 4:30. It was Friday, the day Peter came up to the compound to spend the weekend with Tony. As much as tony wouldn’t admit it, he counted down the days until Peter would be coming over. He loved that kid as if he was his own, but again, would never tell him that.

There had been radio silence from Peter the past few days but that wasn’t concerning, Pete’s finals were coming up and Tony knew he would be busy so just sent a quick check-up text and left it at that. The next two hours dragged by slowly and Tony began worrying. Peter was often late but he’d usually text to let him know. Nothing. Until FRIDAY said,

“Sir, there is an incoming video call from an unknown number. Would you like me to answer it?”

Tony felt his stomach drop. Usually that meant Peter was injured or in hospital or something. He knew he should better answer it in case it was the kid’s friend Ted. Ned.

“Yeah, patch it through to the tablet.” Tony said as he picked his iPad up off the table, preparing himself for the worst.

“Already done sir”

The image that came through was worse than the worst that Tony could’ve possibly prepared himself for. It was video footage of Peter, trying to yank apart the bars of a cell he was in, yelling. Tony turned to the side of the desk and vomited straight into his bin. Peter looked awful, malnourished, bruised, and he was squinting as though he either couldn’t see or had a horrendous headache. Why couldn’t Peter get out of the cell? He had superstrength, Tony couldn’t help but wonder what was going on. It took Tony a minute of staring due to the grainy footage to notice the cuffs around Peter’s wrists. They were menacing looking things, causing blood to trickle down his arms if he moved and Tony immediately realised they were dampening Peter’s abilities. He vomited again.

“FRIDAY?” He said quietly. “Can you trace the IP of the stream?”

There was a moment of silence.

“I’m sorry sir, the IP has been heavily encrypted. I cannot get through.” Tony wracked his brain, trying to come up with another way to find the kid.

“See if you can find locations in a 30-mile radius that fit the specs from the stream. Anything with basements that are in a quiet area where no people walking past would hear a kid shouting. And do it quickly.” Tony stood, clutching the tablet in his hand. He brought up a large hologram map of the area, watching as FRIDAY indicated locations that matched the description.

“Sir, there are 5 possible locations that Peter could be. I’ve also scanned his condition and it appears as though his metabolism is still intact, despite his main powers being dampened. There is no evidence that this video is live so there’s a high possibility that Peter will be very dehydrated and malnourished when he is found.” Tony paid very little attention to the information his AI was presenting him with. His logical brain had shut down, panic starting to take over. He retrieved his phone from the desk and tapped on the speed dial. The phone rang several times before someone picked up.

“Tony?”

“May.” Tony sighed a little in relief to hear her voice.

“What’s the matter? Has something happened to Peter? Do I need to come and get him?” May asked, suddenly frantic. Tony was confused, it sounded like May already knew Peter was in danger.

“May, where is Peter? Is he at home?”

“No. He left a note saying he was spending the next past few days with you. Has he not been at the compound?” May panicked further, “What’s going on?”

Tony settled himself, knowing that if he panicked too it would only make things worse.

“I think you should come over here as soon as you can, that note wasn’t from Peter. He’s in trouble.”

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

FRIDAY barely had time to announce May’s presence when she burst in through the doors. She looked a mess. It was clear she had just finished a long shift and she’d spent a lot of the drive over crying, due to the tear tracks staining her face. Tony met her in the communal room, it was a slightly more welcoming environment than the entrance lobby.

“Where’s my nephew?” She demanded as soon as she saw Tony. Tony didn’t say a word, just pulled up the footage that had burned itself into his memory. When it finished, May’s face was grey.

“Oh god.”

“I know, we’ve narrowed down the places he might be and I’m getting the team together to go looking for him right now.”

“He looks so ill.” May’s hand covered her mouth, she was swaying on her feet so Tony took her arm and guided her gently to a seat. He crouched down in front of her, meeting her eyes and grasping her hands in his.

“I promise I will find him May, whatever it takes. I’ll find him and I’ll fix this mess.” She nodded blankly and stared into space, as if she had lost the ability to function in her grief. Tony’s phone rang, the name ‘Steve’ popping up on the screen. He took one long look at May before leaving the room and answering.

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

Time was nothing anymore. Nothing but pain filled his senses. He could barely breathe without pain in his head, in his chest, in his everything. He’d been tortured before, sure. But this was a whole different level. He’d never been starved before and he’d decided very quickly that he never wanted it to happen ever again. Peter had no energy at all. His injuries weren’t healing and he could barely keep his eyes open. He’d given up shouting for help what felt like years ago.

His throat was dry and every time he swallowed, it felt like knives raking down into his lungs. Is this what it felt like to die? Alone and hungry in a tiny cell, drifting in and out of consciousness with nothing but the ever-present darkness as company.

He closed his eyes as the pounding in his head grew louder. He just wanted it all to go away.

“Tony. ‘m sorry.” He mumbled, letting himself finally start to drift off.

“No you don’t kid, we’re gonna get you out of here.”

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

They had found him. It took the whole team and several breakdowns from Tony to pinpoint Peter's exact location. They fought the guards enough for Tony to get through and find Peter. The rest of his team were upstairs, dispatching the culprits. He got to work lasering through the bars with his suit.

“Ben?” Peter whispered, “Tha- you?”

“No kid, it’s Tony. You’re not dead, not if I have anything to do with it.” Tony felt his heart shatter, he knew they were running out of time. His lasers were struggling to get through the cell bars; It was very slow progress but it was working.

“Good.” Peter smiled softly, “knew you’d come for me.”

Tony spoke past the thick lump in his throat, “Always Underoos. Always.”

Peter didn’t respond, he’d finally passed out.

“We’ve dispatched all the guys upstairs; Nat is interrogating the ones who are still alive now.” Steve spoke from behind Tony.

“Good.” Tony replied grunting with the effort of keeping the lasers steady, he was almost through the thick metal, almost had his kid back in his arms. The metal split with a groan and Tony leapt into action, attempting to yank the bars apart where they’d been split. He kicked it hard in frustration when it refused to budge, even with the suit’s extra strength.

“Here. Here Tony, we’ll do it together.” Steve interrupted before tony injured himself. He positioned himself on the other side of the bars to Tony and braced himself to pull them apart. “Ready?” Tony nodded, barely concentrating but a new set of determination in his eyes. “Pull!”

The bars groaned as they bent apart, Steve’s muscles straining. They reached a point where Tony could exit his suit and squeeze through the gap. He rushed straight to Peter’s side. The boy was out cold, thin and shivering. Tony bundled him into his arms and squeezed straight out of the cell, dashing up towards the Quinjet. Steve was covering his back as they ran through the building, though there were no men left to fight. Their shouts could be heard throughout the area as Nat went to work extracting information. Tony had no idea what they were doing to them, and quite honestly, he didn’t want to know.

They reached the aircraft in record time. They could’ve flown home in Tony’s suit but Peter’s condition was too severe. A medical team met them on the ship, Bruce Banner at its lead, as they took Peter from Tony’s arms and got straight to work.

They took off immediately. Tony collapsed against the wall, sliding down onto the floor. He felt the panic rise up in his chest, the fear a tight ball in his lungs. His breath became sporadic and short as his vision became fuzzy. His jumped as a hand rested gently on his shoulder.

“Breathe Tony.” Steve said quietly, crouched down in front of the man. “They’re looking after him, he’s safe.” Tony continued to hyperventilate.

“Tony.” Steve said more forcefully, “look at me.” Tony managed to look at him, his vision still blurry but he focused on Steve’s face. “I need you to breathe with me, I’ll show you look, breathe with me.”

Steve started to breathe loudly and steadily, focusing on Tony’s chest. His breathing slowly started to even out as his panic subsided. They sat in silence for several minutes, both using each other’s company to combat the fear.

#febuwhump2021 #febuwhumpday3 #peterparker #peter parker whump #tony stark #whump #injury

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charliejrogers · 4 years

Text

The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Or, Sorkin’s attempt to show you how nothing has changed in 52 years)

If you know anything about Aaron Sorkin, the much-acclaimed writer/creator of television shows like The West Wing, The Newsroom, you know that subtlety is not his strong suit. So, I was rather hesitant going into his newest film, The Trial of the Chicago 7, the infamous trial of eight gentlemen accused of conspiracy to incite violence/rioting in Chicago during the notorious 1968 DNC riots. Without diving too deep into the history, August 1968 was not Chicago’s finest hour. When the protesters chanted as a warning to the police, “The Whole World Is Watching!”, they weren’t wrong. Years ahead of the 24-hour news cycle, people all across America (and across the world) were glued to the TV watching the Chicago police beat the ever-living snot out of young folks protesting the Democratic Party’s decision to support the ever-controversial war in Vietnam. The film’s subject matter is sure to draw parallels to and resonate strongly with both the protests and civil unrest that took place this past summer following the death of George Floyd and countless other Black folk at the hands of police. So despite it’s appropriate timeliness, I was hesitant to watch this movie because I really wasn’t interested in watching Aaron Sorkin (who not only wrote but directed this film) try to mansplain to me that the trial of the Chicago 7 was all about injustice! Without knowing anything else about the trial beforehand (and I really didn’t), I already knew it’s a famous case of injustice. I wanted to watch the movie to learn about the people, the humans involved, and the nuance of the situation.

The film gets off to a rough start in the nuance department. After an effective montage introducing us to six of the eight members of the Chicago 7 (we’ll get to why there’s that numerical discrepancy), we meet the character who will be the lead prosecutor of the case: a straight-laced, clean-cut lawyer played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. In an attempt to plant the seed early on that the eponymous trial is a sham, the first real scene of the film sees Gordon-Levitt meeting with Nixon’s newly appointment Attorney General John Mitchell who is pissed off that the prior AG didn’t resign from the office until an hour before Mitchell was confirmed. As retaliation, and in line with history’s understanding of Nixon’s pathologic paranoia, Mitchell decides to re-open the case exploring whether there was any conspiracy to incite riots in Chicago 1968. As JGL explains, this was something which Johnson’s AG as well as prior FBI investigations already decided did was not a viable case. The conversation that ensues is a little too on-the-nose. JGL shares his concerns that he doesn’t believe that the Chicago 7 are actually guilty, but Mitchell tells JGL, “then imagine how impressed I’ll be when you get a conviction.”

Of course, this conversation is largely a Sorkin invention, as is the weird decision to try to humanize the prosecutor played by Gordon-Levitt. I say "weird" because the film doesn’t do anything with it. We don’t get a real sense beyond that initial scene that JGL feels guilt or remorse for being a cog in the Nixon machine. The beginning of the film sets him up to be a similar character to David Schwimmer’s fascinating turn as Robert Kardashian in The People vs. O.J. Simpson. But in the end, it’s clear that Sorkin uses him just as a way in the beginning of the film to provide the thesis statement for the film, as if he were writing this script as a college term paper. This bothers me so much because it makes a late-film surprise appearance by Michael Keaton as Johnson’s AG lose a good deal of its impact. It would have been so much better if we as the audience came to the same revelation about the political origin of the trial at the same time that the defense lawyers did.

Sorkin’s lack of subtlety reared its ugly head in a few key moments that caused me to audibly groan while watching this film. Towards the end of the film, one of the more dramatic defendants, the merry prankster hippie Abbie Hoffman (played very well by Sacha Baron Cohen), is on the stand and is asked a particularly difficult question by the prosecution. He pauses. The prosecution asks what’s taking so long. Hoffman responds in a serious tone that runs opposite of his usual character, “Sorry, I’ve never been on trial for my thoughts before.” The film then slowly fades to black. I half-expected to hear the famous Law & Order “chun-chunn” sound next. That’s how cheesy and self-righteous the scene was.

The film’s ending too, where the defendants read off a list of all the fallen soldiers from Vietnam prior to their sentencing, felt a little too Hollywood to be believable… and indeed it didn’t happen that way. Elsewhere in the film, one of the more “prim and proper” defendants, the young head of the Students for a Democratic Society Thomas Hayden played by Eddie Redmayne, reflexively stands in honor of the judge’s exit as is court custom, forgetting that he and the rest of the defendants agreed not to stand. That’s not the bad part. The bad part comes later when Redmayne’s character travels to someone’s home and the Black maid who answers the door says to him, “I heard you were the only one to stand for the judge,” and then the camera just sorta lingers on her disappointment. We get it! The judge is a bad dude! Let’s move on!

Seriously, let’s move on. For all my griping, this is a very good movie. Those instances where Sorkin’s moral heavy-handedness is plain to see are so glaring because for the most part, the movie does a fantastic job of addressing the film’s (sadly still) politically controversial themes (police brutality, the culpability of protesters in starting riots, systemic racism, etc.) with a good deal of nuance. This mostly happens when Sorkin just sticks to the facts of the case, like when dealing with the whole saga of Bobby Seale, the eighth and only Black man of the Chicago 7. The day before the trial begins, Seale's lawyer required emergent surgery. Seale’s motion to have the trial postponed till he receive proper counsel is denied, as is his request to represent himself. Therefore, on trial without counsel, he frequently interrupts the court arguing about the unconstitutional nature of his trial, until the judge, played to chilling perfection by Frank Langella, becomes fed up with the interruptions and orders that Seale be bound, gagged, and chained to his chair. It’s a crazy powerful and uncomfortable scene, among the most haunting images I’ve seen in cinema. Finally, Seale’s case is determined to be a mistrial, changing the number of defendants from eight to seven. Hence, the Chicago 7.

But, the most inspired sequence of the film comes late in the movie when the defense gets wind of the prosecution’s plan to play a recording from the night of the riots where the prim and proper Tom Hayden can be (arguably) heard urging hundreds of listeners to “let blood flow all over the city.” Tom still believes that he would do well on the witness stand, but his defense lawyer (Mark Rylance as William Kuntsler) insists on showing him why this would be a bad idea. The ensuing scene sees Rylance role play the part of the prosecution cross-examining Hayden while the film intercuts scenes of a flashback of the actual events. the “truth” of that night, significantly muddies the water for this case. It by no means proves that the Chicago 7 are guilty of a conspiracy, but it certainly highlights the more human aspect of their situation. How is one expected to keep their calm when their best friend is beaten? And to what degree are people to be held responsible for decisions made in the heat of the moment?

The movie also has also interesting commentary on who should be the “face” or progressive politics, even today: the well-to-do and respectable Hayden or the in-your-face hippie comedian Hoffman? It’s an interesting question that never seems fully explored or resolved. Sorkin seems to land in the camp that Hayden’s respectability merely maintains status quo whereas Hoffman’s flagrant anti-establishment views is required for real change. But I don’t know how much of that is me just loving Cohen’s performance as Hoffman and finding Redmayne’s Hayden to be (appropriately) insufferably pretentious. Sorkin certainly gives Cohen the better lines.

Overall, this is a movie held up by its two primary strengths: its cast and its film structure. Aside from general inconsistencies of the script’s tone and the notable weakness I mentioned previously about overplaying the political motivation for the trial in the film's first 5 minutes, the film is nearly perfectly structured. We are sort of dropped in medias res into the trial and only get the facts of those few days shown to us in carefully placed flashbacks that help to flesh out the drama of the trial. It helps maintain pacing in what could have been a drag of a legal drama.

But really, it’s the cast and their performances that sell this movie. Sacha Baron Cohen is the star in my mind, so perfectly cast as Abbie Hoffman, but Frank Langella as the septuagenarian, prejudiced judge of the case is equally powerful. Yahya Abdul-Manteen II as the Black Panther Bobby Seale lends an air of desperate seriousness to the film, Eddie Redmayne shines as that white liberal dude who takes himself way too seriously, and Mark Rylance is wonderful as the courageous lead defense attorney, particularly in scenes dealing with Bobby Seale. While the whole trial weighs on him heavily as the film progresses, his genuine concern for Seale is palpable.

I spent much of this review telling you the things that were odd about this film, and I stand by that. But as I said, those things stand out because this is such a slick production that the cracks become that much more obvious. It largely avoids Sorkin’s penchant for blunt lack of nuance and offers a story that helps to greatly contextualize the very world we live in. It’s interesting that a story that sees ten men (including their lawyers) fail to win a fight against The Man still feels like an inspiring underdog tale. It resonated well with this viewer, especially as the ending makes clear that justice is eventually served. Yet, I recognize this may be a dangerous tale to tell these days, and why I think the movie is so successful is that it gives plenty of sobering evidence to suggest that justice (both then and now) is by no means guaranteed.

***/ (Three and a half out of four stars)

#trial of the chicago 7 #aaron sorkin #sacha baron cohen

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hellokelsea · 4 years

Text

Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out

By Richard Siken Every morning the maple leaves. Every morning another chapter where the hero shifts from one foot to the other. Every morning the same big and little words all spelling out desire, all spelling out You will be alone always and then you will die. So maybe I wanted to give you something more than a catalog of non-definitive acts, something other than the desperation. Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I couldn’t come to your party. Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I came to your party and seduced you and left you bruised and ruined, you poor sad thing. You want a better story. Who wouldn’t? A forest, then. Beautiful trees. And a lady singing. Love on the water, love underwater, love, love and so on. What a sweet lady. Sing lady, sing! Of course, she wakes the dragon. Love always wakes the dragon and suddenly flames everywhere. I can tell already you think I’m the dragon, that would be so like me, but I’m not. I’m not the dragon. I’m not the princess either. Who am I? I’m just a writer. I write things down. I walk through your dreams and invent the future. Sure, I sink the boat of love, but that comes later. And yes, I swallow glass, but that comes later. And the part where I push you flush against the wall and every part of your body rubs against the bricks, shut up I’m getting to it. For a while I thought I was the dragon. I guess I can tell you that now. And, for a while, I thought I was the princess, cotton candy pink, sitting there in my room, in the tower of the castle, young and beautiful and in love and waiting for you with confidence but the princess looks into her mirror and only sees the princess, while I’m out here, slogging through the mud, breathing fire, and getting stabbed to death. Okay, so I’m the dragon. Big deal. You still get to be the hero. You get magic gloves! A fish that talks! You get eyes like flashlights! What more do you want? I make you pancakes, I take you hunting, I talk to you as if you’re really there. Are you there, sweetheart? Do you know me? Is this microphone live? Let me do it right for once, for the record, let me make a thing of cream and stars that becomes, you know the story, simply heaven. Inside your head you hear a phone ringing and when you open your eyes only a clearing with deer in it. Hello deer. Inside your head the sound of glass, a car crash sound as the trucks roll over and explode in slow motion. Hello darling, sorry about that. Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud. Especially that, but I should have known. You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together to make a creature that will do what I say or love me back. I’m not really sure why I do it, but in this version you are not feeding yourself to a bad man against a black sky prickled with small lights. I take it back. The wooden halls like caskets. These terms from the lower depths. I take them back. Here is the repeated image of the lover destroyed. Crossed out. Clumsy hands in a dark room. Crossed out. There is something underneath the floorboards. Crossed out. And here is the tabernacle reconstructed. Here is the part where everyone was happy all the time and we were all forgiven, even though we didn’t deserve it. Inside your head you hear a phone ringing, and when you open your eyes you’re washing up in a stranger’s bathroom, standing by the window in a yellow towel, only twenty minutes away from the dirtiest thing you know. All the rooms of the castle except this one, says someone, and suddenly darkness, suddenly only darkness. In the living room, in the broken yard, in the back of the car as the lights go by. In the airport bathroom’s gurgle and flush, bathed in a pharmacy of unnatural light, my hands looking weird, my face weird, my feet too far away. And then the airplane, the window seat over the wing with a view of the wing and a little foil bag of peanuts. I arrived in the city and you met me at the station, smiling in a way that made me frightened. Down the alley, around the arcade, up the stairs of the building to the little room with the broken faucets, your drawings, all your things, I looked out the window and said This doesn’t look that much different from home, because it didn’t, but then I noticed the black sky and all those lights. We walked through the house to the elevated train. All these buildings, all that glass and the shiny beautiful mechanical wind. We were inside the train car when I started to cry. You were crying too, smiling and crying in a way that made me even more hysterical. You said I could have anything I wanted, but I just couldn’t say it out loud. Actually, you said Love, for you, is larger than the usual romantic love. It’s like a religion. It’s terrifying. No one will ever want to sleep with you. Okay, if you’re so great, you do it— here’s the pencil, make it work . . . If the window is on your right, you are in your own bed. If the window is over your heart, and it is painted shut, then we are breathing river water. Build me a city and call it Jerusalem. Build me another and call it Jerusalem. We have come back from Jerusalem where we found not what we sought, so do it over, give me another version, a different room, another hallway, the kitchen painted over and over, another bowl of soup. The entire history of human desire takes about seventy minutes to tell. Unfortunately, we don’t have that kind of time. Forget the dragon, leave the gun on the table, this has nothing to do with happiness. Let’s jump ahead to the moment of epiphany, in gold light, as the camera pans to where the action is, lakeside and backlit, and it all falls into frame, close enough to see the blue rings of my eyes as I say something ugly. I never liked that ending either. More love streaming out the wrong way, and I don’t want to be the kind that says the wrong way. But it doesn’t work, these erasures, this constant refolding of the pleats. There were some nice parts, sure, all lemondrop and mellonball, laughing in silk pajamas and the grains of sugar on the toast, love love or whatever, take a number. I’m sorry it’s such a lousy story. Dear Forgiveness, you know that recently we have had our difficulties and there are many things I want to ask you. I tried that one time, high school, second lunch, and then again, years later, in the chlorinated pool. I am still talking to you about help. I still do not have these luxuries. I have told you where I’m coming from, so put it together. We clutch our bellies and roll on the floor . . . When I say this, it should mean laughter, not poison. I want more applesauce. I want more seats reserved for heroes. Dear Forgiveness, I saved a plate for you. Quit milling around the yard and come inside.

#Richard Siken #poem #poetry #Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out #shut up I'm getting to it #poet

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oneweekoneband · 4 years

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youtube

I’m slightly nauseous already with knowing I’m going to say this, but what does “self-awareness” even mean? In modern parlance, as a descriptive phrase, as a comment on art? I’m asking in earnest, like, I’ve been Googling lately, which for me is basically on par with doctoral study in terms of academic rigor. The self is king, anyway, tyrant, so where is the line of distinction between material that intentionally is nodding at some truth about the artist’s life and what’s just, like, all the rest of the regular navel-gazing bullshit. I mean, I’m all self, I am guilty here. I can’t get it out of my poems or even make it more quiet. This is the tenth time I’ve invoked “I” in the space of six sentences. Processing art has always necessitated a certain amount of grappling with the creator, but the busywork of it lately grows more and more tedious. Joy drains out of my body parsing marks left behind not just in stylistic tendencies and themes, but in literal, intentional tags like graffiti on a water tower. This feels an age old and moth-holed complaint, dull, and I am no historian, or really a serious thinker of any kind. I’ve now complained at some length about self-referential art, but didn’t I love how Martin Scorsese nodded to the famous Goodfellas Copacabana tracking shot with the opening frames of last year’s The Irishman? Didn’t I find that terribly fun and sort of sweet? So there’s distinctions. I’m only saying I don’t know with certainty what they even are. I’m unreliable, and someone smarter than me has likely already solved my quandary about why self-knowledge often transforms into overly precious self-reflexivity in such a way that the knowledge is diminished and obscured, leaving only cutesy Easter eggs behind. Postmodernism has birthed a moralizing culture where art exists to be termed either “self-aware Good” or “self-aware Bad”. Self-referentiality in media is so commonplace, so much the standard, that what was once credited as metatextual inventiveness often feels lazy now. In 1996, Scream was revitalizing a genre. Today, two thirds of all horror movies spend half their running time making sure that you know that they know they’re a horror movie, which is fine, I guess, except sometimes you just wanna watch someone get butchered with an axe in peace.

This is all to say that in 2020 Taylor Swift looked long and hard upon her image in the reflecting pool of her heart and has written yet another song about Gone Girl.

“mirrorball” is a very good piece of Gone Girl —feels insane to tell anyone reading a post on a blog what Gone Girl is but, you know, the extremely popular 2012 novel about a woman who pretends to have been murdered and frames her husband for it, and subsequently the 2014 film adaption where you kinda see Ben Affleck’s dick for a second—fanfiction. It would be a fine song, a good song, really, even if it weren’t that, if it were just something normal and not unhinged written by a chill person who behaves in a regular way, but we need to acknowledge the facts for what they are. When Taylor Swift watched Rosamund Pike toss her freshly self-bobbed hair out of her face and hiss, “You think you’d be happy with some nice Midwestern girl? No way, baby. I’m it!” her brain lit up like a Christmas tree, and she’s never been the same. If you Google “taylor swift gone girl” there waiting for you will be a medium sized lake’s worth of articles speculating about how Gone Girl influenced and is referenced in past Swift singles “Blank Space” and “Look What You Made Me Do”. This is not new behavior, and if anything it’s getting a bit troubling to think that it’s been this long since Taylor’s read another book. Still, while the prior offerings were a fair attempt at this particular feat of depravity, “mirrorball” has brought Taylor’s Amy Elliott Dunne deification to stunning new heights. And most importantly, Taylor has done a service to every person alive with more than six brain cells and a Internet connection by putting an end to the “Cool Girl” discourse once and for all. By the power invested in “mirrorball”, it is hereby decreed that the Cool Girl speech from Gone Girl is neither feminist or antifeminist, not ironic nor aspirational. No. It’s something much better than all that. It’s a threat. I ! Can ! Change ! Everything ! About ! Me ! To ! Fit ! In !

Gone Girl (2012) by Gillian Flynn

“mirrorball” (2020) by Taylor Swift

When the twinkly musical stylings of Jack Antonoff, a man I distinctly distrust, but for no one specific reason, whirl to life at the beginning of this song I feel instantly entranced, blurry-brained and pleasure-pickled like an infant beneath a light-up crib mobile or, I guess, myself in the old times, the outside times, three tequila sodas deep under the disco lights at The Short Stop. Under a mirrorball in my head. I know very little about music, as a craft, and I really don’t care to know more. I’m happy in a world of pure, dumb sensation. I’m not even sure what kind of instruments are making these jangly little sounds. I just like it. I am vibing. We may not ever be able to behave badly in a club again, but I can sway to my stupid Taylor Swift-and-the-brother-of-the-lady-who-makes-like-those-sweatshirts-with-little-sayings-or-like-vulvas-which-famous-white-women-wear-on-instagram-you-know-what-I-mean song, pressing up onto my tiptoes on the linoleum tile of our kitchen floor and can feel for a second or two something approaching bliss. “mirrorball” is a lush sound bath that I like a lot and then also it’s about being all things to all people, chameleoning at a second’s notice, doing Oscar worthy work on every Zoom call, performing the you who is good, performing the you who is funny, performing the you who draws a liter of your own blood and throws it around the kitchen then cleans it up badly all to get your husband sent to jail for sleeping with a college student... Too much talk about making and unmaking of the self is way too, like, 2012 Tumblr for me now, and I start hearing the word “praxis” ring threateningly in my head, but I’m not yet so evolved that I don’t feel a pull. Musings on the disorganized self—on how we are new all the time, and not just because of all the fresh skin coming up under the dead, personhood in the end so frighteningly flexible—are always going to compel me, I’m afraid, but that goes double for musings on the disorganized self which posit that Taylor Swift still thinks Amy Dunne made some points.

Because on “mirrorball” Taylor is for once not hamfistedly addressing some “hater”, in the quiet and the lack of embarrassing martyrdom it actually offers an interesting answer to the complaint that Taylor is insufficiently self-aware. This criticism emerges often in tandem with claiming to have discovered some crack in the chassis of Swift’s public self, revealing the sweetness to be insincere. My instinct is to dismiss this more or less out of hand as just a mutation of the school of thought that presumes all work by women must be autobiography. And, regardless, it is made altogether laughable by the fact that anyone actually paying attention has known since at least Speak Now, a delightful record populated by the most appalling, horrible characters imaginable, and all of them written by a twenty year old Taylor Swift, that this woman is a pure weirdo. To accuse Taylor Swift of lacking in self-awareness is a reductive misunderstanding, I think, of artifice. Being a fake bitch takes work. Which is to say, if we agree that her public self is a calculated performance—eliding the fact that all public selves are a performance to avoid getting too in the weeds yadda yadda— why, then, should it be presumed that performance is rooted in ignorance? Would it not make more sense that, in fact, someone able to contort themselves so ably into various shapes for public consumption would have a certain understanding of the basic materials they’re working with and concealing? Taylor Swift, in a decade and a half of fame, has presented herself from inside a number of distinct packages. The gangly teenager draped in long curls like climbing wisteria who wrote lyrics down her arms in glitter paint gave way to red lipstick, a Diet Coke campaign, and bad dancing at awards shows. There was the period where she was surrounded constantly by a gaggle of models, then suddenly wasn’t anymore, and that rough interlude with the bleached hair. The whole Polaroid thing. Last year she boldly revealed she’s a democrat. Now it’s the end of the world and she’s got frizzy bangs and flannels and muted little piano songs. Perhaps this endless shape-shifting contradicts or undermines, for some, the pose of tender authenticity which has remained static through each phase, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t been doing it all on purpose the entire time. I’ve never been a natural, all I do is try, try, try...

In the Disney+ documentary—which, in order to watch, I had to grudgingly give the vile mouse seven dollars, because the login information that I’d begged off of my little sister didn’t work and I was too embarrassed to bring it up a second time—Taylor referred to “mirrorball” as the first time on the album where she explicitly addressed the pandemic, referring to the lyrics that start, “And they called off the circus, Burned the disco down,” and end with “I’m still on that tightrope, I’m still trying everything to get you laughing at me,” which actually did made me laugh, feeling sort of warmly foolish and a little fond, because it never would have occurred to me that she was trying to be literal there. I suppose we really do all contain multitudes. Hate that.

#taylor swift #folklore

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tarotindabox · 4 years

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How does Tarot work?

There is a category of people who will never adress to a tarot reader. There are many reasons: either they had a negative experience, having come to an inadequate tarot reader, who invents the meanings of the cards, pretending to receive information from some unknown chakras; or they are too misguided about the tarot practice, and even having no experience of communicating with any tarot specialist, they associate the consultation with some kind of devilry. On the other hand, skeptics who came to a good tarot reader even just for fun can change their opinion about the divination so much that their life will never be the same. For a long time they usually cannot understand why the cards show everything so precisely and then many things also come true.

How do cards work? There are many theories, but no one can say exactly which one is correct. Everyone believes in the one that is the closest to his/her essence. Someone imagines cards as living beings,that they have a spirit, and communicate with them as if this is an omniscient person who has answers to all questions. In this case, such tarologists have a certain fear and respect for cards, cards are even said "thank you" at the end of fortune-telling. Someone believes that the cards are associated with the noosphere (an intelligent shell that is formed by human consciousness). There is also a theory that tarot cards are guides to the Akashic chronicles (mystical knowledge encoded in the non-physical realm of being). I like the idea that there is a certain field in which the entire experience of mankind is recorded. If such a field exists, then it means that it is elastic, since it contains the options for the future, which can change depending on the events taking place in the present.

One of the theories that I find the most appealing is the principle of synchronicity. K.G. Jung spoke about this term and that the coincidences are not accidental. There is a resonance between the psyche and the outside world - this is synchronicity, the simultaneous occurrence of events of the physical and non-physical plan. Synchronization denotes coincidences that have no explanation but make sense. When working with Tarot, synchrony is manifested in the non-accidental drawing of cards, the coincidence of their meanings with the picture of reality. Thus, when the questioner or the fortuneteller shuffles the cards, the sequence of cards in the deck is synchronized with the existing situation and with the mental state in which the person is.

I believe that cards are first of all a tool that "speaks" the language of symbols. And the main task of an adequate tarologist is to be able to see these symbols, to know and understand their meanings and to interpret them, or in other words "translate" the card message to the questioner, as if you translate a text from a foreign language. And “thank you” should be said to the higher powers, God / Gods, the universe, if you like. There’s no doubt, we must be careful and respectful to cards, as well as to any instrument, keep them clean, safe and sound. Images from different traditions and principles from various esoteric disciplines such as numerology and astrology coexist in the tarot cards. A lot of symbols are encoded in them. I would say that the whole universe is encoded in them. And the debate about the origin of these cards will also never end, since there are even more theories about this than about how they work.

On the picture is the card back of the Cosmic tarot

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stovetuna · 5 years

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Stony for 30 or 40? I LOVE U SO MUCH UR FICS GIVE ME LIFE 💛💛👏

AHHHH YAY LIFE!!! you and an anon both requested #30, so here’s some classic tony!angst and protective!steve :3 — I PROMISE THERE IS A VERY MUSHY, VERY HAPPY ENDING

#30: “You’re not worth it.” (TW: child abuse, references to alcoholism, Howard being a shitty human being [but what else is new])

***

It’s Wednesday, and Wednesday means movie night at the mansion. A time-honored tradition that goes all the way back to the Avengers’ inception, back when Steve was still finding his way out of the ice—literally and figuratively—and Iron Man and Tony Stark were two different people.

It’s been a long time since those early days, Tony thinks, watching the new team assemble on the couches, loveseats, beanbag chairs, and blankets strewn around the in-home movie theater. The screen isn’t excessively massive, per Steve’s wishes, but the sound is as good as it gets, per Clint’s; Tony updates the hardware year over year to keep up with the times, especially as film goes the way of digital (much to Steve’s chagrin).

But tonight is Steve’s pick for movie, and Tony wonders if it was planned that way the moment Luke Cage asks what they’re going to watch and Steve gets that glint in his eye. The one that Tony can recognize from a mile away now without even trying, the one that screams “Steve Rogers is a little shit” and that very few people seem to be able to hear.

Tony groans the moment Steve grins and says, “Home movies!” while revealing two armfuls of reels from behind his back, some of which are so dusty and small, Tony wonders if they’re Steve’s.

The team settles in with enough snacks to put a rhino in a coma while Tony and Steve head to the back of the room where the vintage projector Tony pulled out of storage for the occasion awaits.

“Next week, you can pick the movie,” Steve whispers conspiratorially, bumping Tony with a friendly elbow. Tony has to hold himself back from leaning into Steve in response, the way his body feels primed to do and has done for literal years, ever since—god, since always. But Tony knows his interest and affections are very much one-sided, and Tony doesn’t need to flagellate himself over it any more than he already does with everything else in his life. Plus, watching Steve with each of his girlfriends is more than taxing enough.

He’s had years of practice keeping his feelings for Steve from the man. He can handle an elbow and a wink. That shit’s practically child’s play.

“If footage from my sweet sixteen made it into this lineup, we’re watching all three Die Hards,” Tony replies with a saccharine smile that makes Steve blanch.

“Tony, no.”

“Tony, yes.”

“The last time we watched Die Hard, Clint wouldn’t stop talking with a fake German accent for a week.”

“I know! It was hilarious, and I want to get it on camera this time so I can send it to Alan Rickman. He’ll hate it.”

Tony giggles at Steve’s huff, which is really a laugh disguised as exasperation, another one of Steve’s tics Tony knows by heart. The pain and joy of knowing that secretly splits Tony right down the middle—the joy of knowing Steve is a much bigger troll than anyone realizes, the pain of wanting to grab him and kiss him for it—but he hides it all with an elbow to Steve’s ribs and a muttered “jerk” under his breath.

He’s spent the past ten years and change like this—halved by a love that makes him feel whole, which is an equation that shouldn’t work, but does, because Tony’s math is always right—so what’s one more night? In the grand scheme of things, not much, and every second of it is more than Tony could have ever hoped for.

Together in the darkest part of the room he and Steve work in tandem to load the first reel onto the projector and let it run: it’s early footage of the first Avengers team, recorded off of a news broadcast. Down in front, the rest of the team throws popcorn and jeers, laughing themselves hoarse at the costumes, the villains, the dialogue—“‘He’s a real ball of fire!’” Clint wheezes from his beanbag before Natasha pelts him with Milk Duds—while Steve and Tony sit back behind the projector, shoulder to shoulder, running their own private commentary all the while:

“I miss that armor.”

“Shut up, no you don’t.”

“It’s true! Anyways, isn’t vintage all the rage these days? You should bring it back.”

“I’m not bringing back Pointy-Faced Iron Man and his Roller Skates of Doom, Cap.”

“Not even for me?”

Tony slides Steve a look out of the corner of his eye, face still directed toward the screen, a classic are you fucking kidding me? if there ever was one. Steve bats his eyelashes in response, because of course he does. Unfortunately for Steve, Tony is mostly immune to that tactic by now.

Mostly.

“Let us watch Die Hard next week and I’ll consider it.”

“Ugh, Tony…”

“Hey, heart-eyes! Next reel!” someone (see: Bucky) shouts. Not for the first time, Tony’s glad to be concealed in relative darkness back here—even Steve’s enhanced vision won’t be able to make out the blush Tony’s knows is all over his face right now. He also gets a reprieve from sitting so close to Steve, hyperfocused on his warmth and all of the sensory trappings of home that come with it, while he swaps out the old reel for a new one. New-er, rather. He doesn’t look at the case or look at any frames before feeding it through the projector.

“Alright, you rabble-rousers, pipe down,” he shouts as the image on screen flickers to life.

“‘Rabble-rousers’?” Steve quirks an eyebrow at him as he sits back down. Tony folds his arms over his chest and shushes him.

“Don’t start.”

“Ooh, is that you, Tony?” Wanda coos from her place on the loveseat next to Vision.

“Look at all of that hair! Danny Zuko’s got nothing on you, Stark,” Clint laughs. Tony nails him with a popcorn kernel right in the ear.

The footage unspools, harmless—albeit embarrassing—at first: it’s a home movie from when Tony was young, no more than eight or nine. He’s wearing what looks like the remains of what was once a nice suit, something his parents forced him into, probably, but devolved into undershirt and slacks and suspenders hanging down past his knees. He really was a gangly kid, wasn’t he?

Tony laughs along with everyone else, warmed by Jarvis’ voice offscreen telling “Young Master Anthony” to show off his latest invention for the camera. He feels Steve’s eyes flicker over to land on him whenever young Tony smiles at the camera or laughs at something Jarvis says, but Tony ignores it. Mostly.

“He reminds me of Steve,” Bucky tells the room when young Tony is shown with a replica of Cap’s shield, posing triumphantly to the sound of Jarvis’ delighted laughter. Jess aww’s.

“He does, kinda, doesn’t he?”

“How have I never seen these before?” Steve whispers, leaning closer as he does. Tony swallows hard against the shiver that ricochets down his spine hearing that low voice in his ear.

“A lot of things of mine you haven’t seen, Cap,” he replies, too late to stop the innuendo from slipping out. He looks at Steve after he says it and almost, almost lets out a gasp: when did Steve get so close? And why is he looking at Tony like that? All intense and considering?

“Oh, here’s someone else I remember,” Bucky laughs. Tony turns away from Steve, grateful for the excuse, and starts to release the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

It gets caught in his chest the moment he sees himself filling up the screen, young Tony standing alone in Howard’s office, having perched the camcorder on the big oak desk to record himself with Cap’s shield—the real one this time, not a toy. On screen, Tony has his back to the camera, the vibranium shield clutched in his too-small hands. He has to perch it on the floor, its weight just enough to counterbalance Tony’s, but holding it…even now, he remembers the thrill of that first time. The cool touch of vibranium humming under his fingers, the knowledge that he was holding his hero’s greatest treasure…his adult fingers clench against his thighs at the memory.

But then, the image shifts into a sharper memory still, and Tony feels something old and awful claw its way from somewhere deep in his chest, remembering all too well what comes next. It tastes like bourbon and cigar smoke and the metallic taste blood leaves on the tongue after you’ve been smacked in the mouth. Tony’s hands fly out to clutch the sides of his chair and stick there; he can’t move them to stop the projector in time. It just keeps playing out, each frame worse than the one before.

Of course he remembers this moment. He remembers it perfectly, because it was the first time Howard really hurt him. Not with his hands, although the bruises did linger longer than usual, after.

This was the moment when Tony, so tender and impressionable even at that “advanced” age, learned what his father really thought of him.

That old, awful feeling feels a lot like drowning when he thinks of Steve seeing what’s about to happen, let alone the rest of the team.

“I’m Captain America and I’m here to save you!”

“You’re not saving shit, boy.” Howard stumbles into frame like a bad Vaudeville performer, slurring Tony’s name like an expletive. “Put that down, you fucking brat. You’re not worth it.”

The blood rushing in Tony’s ears drowns out the sound of voices past and present. All he can see is Howard filling the frame in that horrible tan suit, gripping a bottle of bourbon by the neck. The image catches on young Tony’s terrified expression, the way he hides behind the shield that’s almost as big as he is. He watches his own mouth move—Cap will save me, he’d cried, so confident, so certain that his hero would come and put Howard through the wall and carry Tony away to safety—and then down the bottle comes…

“Turn it off! I said turn it off!”

Something hits the projector hard enough to not only knock it off the table it was sitting on, but send both hurtling across the room. They smash to pieces against the far wall with a noisy clatter that almost stops Tony’s heart in his chest.

For a moment, the only sound in the room is the thwap-thwap-thwap of film smacking the floor as the reel spins on and on until coming to a feeble stop. He can hear breathing, heavy and labored and sliding quickly toward panic, and he realizes with a shuddering gasp that it’s him making that sound.

Tony looks up and sees Steve standing where the projector once was, cradling his bleeding hand. The man looks stricken, pale and horrified, worse than if he’d seen a ghost; behind him, the team has inched closer, all of them wearing varying expressions of distress and pity and guilt and sadness, and suddenly Tony can’t bolt out of his chair fast enough. He can’t get away fast enough. He follows his feet out of the room into the corridor and down, down, down to the workshop where it’s safe, where he can’t get in, no one can, not unless Tony lets them.

Someone is calling his name, but Tony disappears down the stairs before he can figure out who. He bursts through doors he can’t see and staggers over to the closest workbench, sucking in deep, ragged breaths like he can’t catch up to them. Is that a screw loose in his chest cavity, he wonders, gasping, because that rattling sound seems to indicate something has come undone that shouldn’t have. Howard’s dead, Tony reminds himself, over and over again. It’s a fact as true as any algorithm, so why won’t it take?

JARVIS’s voice moves gently through the noise in Tony’s brain: “Sir, Captain Rogers is asking permission to enter.”

Steve.

Tony can’t decide if the thought of Steve seeing him like this helps or worsens the rattling in his chest. Either way he feels like shit, but only one of those ways ends up with Captain America pitying him, or worse.

He’s so caught up in thinking about all the ways this could backfire he doesn’t realize JARVIS has let Steve into the workshop, regardless of Tony’s feelings on the matter. The realization sets in when Steve’s voice appears close to his ear, soft and low with a frisson of urgency, like he too is slightly out of breath.

“Tony, it’s just me. It’s okay. I’m going to put my hand on your back.”

Warmth spreads from Steve’s fingers through Tony’s shirt and into the skin high up on his back between his shoulders. Steve can probably feel how fast Tony’s heart is racing, but spares him his overt concern and instead keeps telling Tony what he’s going to do before he does it: a hand on Tony’s forehead, an arm around his back, asking JARVIS to turn the lights down to thirty-five percent.

“I’ve got you, it’s okay.”

Tony sags into Steve’s touch, his large, warm hand cradling Tony’s head like something precious; the deeper dark quiets the room around them, makes it less overwhelming, less full of ghosts waiting to cast their own opaque shadows on the empty walls. Tony and Steve are left standing in a dim light Tony knows makes him look sallow; he wavers on his feet, left to borrow from Steve’s strength because he can’t find his own. Lucky for Tony, Steve is right there, braced and ready for anything. Like always.

The rattling has settled somewhat, but Tony still has to rely on Steve to tell him when to breathe and how deeply. He forgets, sometimes, that Steve has experience dealing with panic attacks, which so often came before an asthma attack. Steve once told him that even years removed from his sickly days, he still remembers what it’s like to lose that grip on reality, feeling the heart too acutely as it beats against too-brittle ribs.

While Steve draws on those memories often enough with others on the team, it’s a rare occasion for Tony to be on the receiving end of Steve’s nursing hand like this. Jokes or angry silence over cuts, breaks, and bruises, sure, but this? Tender hands and a voice pitched low and soothing, lullaby-soft, speaking words of gentle encouragement? Tony’s head feels light with it.

“Do you want to sit down?” Steve asks. Tony shakes his head against his palm. “Okay,” Steve whispers, his voice the only one in the room, which makes for a funny kind of one-sided conversation. Then, before he can think better of it, Tony turns toward Steve, wraps his arms around the man’s impossible waist, and hugs himself close to Steve’s radiating heat. He’s too gone for shame, and too weak; a soft, gentle Steve is hard to resist, even on good days. And this just became a no good, very bad day.

Fucking Howard.

Steve, for his part, takes the hug in stride like they do it every day. Tony likes to imagine it, touching Steve like this whenever he wants to, but that’s all it is—a fantasy. Just like being with Steve is a fantasy, one Tony has entertained for far too many years to count. He satisfies himself with Steve’s friendship, tells himself it’s enough, and if he happens to sleep with the occasional look-alike, that’s nobody’s business but Tony’s (and JARVIS’s, and in one deeply unfortunate instance, Pepper’s).

Strangers want Tony Stark, the celebrity; Steve wants Tony as a friend and teammate. That’s all. So Tony steals his nice, platonic hug as he trembles and breathes his way out of a panic attack, being careful to avoid nuzzling the soft notch at the base of Steve’s throat the way he wants to. Badly.

He’s so preoccupied with holding all the disparate parts of himself together and hiding them so Steve can’t see, he doesn’t notice Steve’s hands start to rub his back in long, soothing strokes until Tony is half-melted in his steady arms, weak-kneed at how comforted he feels. Steve doesn’t say anything—just keeps moving his hands, up and down Tony’s back, across his shoulders, along his arms, and over again. He can’t remember the last time someone touched him like this, without motive, ulterior or otherwise; his skin feels warm down to his toes.

“Better?” Steve murmurs. Tony nods against his chest. He doesn’t let go. Neither does Steve, who seems to fold himself over Tony until they’re more like one person than two, standing there breathing together in Tony’s darkened workshop.

Slowly, thoughts of Howard, of hurt, start to melt back into the shadows. In their place is Steve, filling up all of Tony’s empty spaces with light, even some of the ones he didn’t know he had. For such a strong man, Steve is unbearably gentle, handling Tony the way he might handle spun sugar or thin glass. Tony has never felt so genuinely cared for, and the fact that he can’t pull back and thank Steve with a kiss smarts a little in the face of it.

That is, it does, up until the moment he feels Steve brush a kiss against where Tony’s hairline meets his forehead, soft and uncomplicated, but lingering, like Steve wants to stay there. To do more. Tony knows that move because he’s imagined doing the exact same thing to Steve, god, thousands of times.

Tony wants so much. Too much. Asking Steve for this would tip things precariously toward the latter. But the question is taken out of Tony’s hands the moment one of Steve’s perches itself under his jaw and tilts his face up.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says.

“It’s ancient history,” Tony replies, maintaining eye contact through sheer willpower when all he wants to do is look at Steve’s mouth, now so close to his.

“Not to you, it isn’t,” Steve counters, and there’s not much Tony can say to that. “I’ll talk to the team. They might have questions, and you shouldn’t have to answer them. Not tonight, anyways.”

“I know you’ve got big shoulders, Steve, but you don’t have to take on my baggage on top of everything else.”

As they talk, their bodies never move an inch apart; chests pressed flush against each other, Steve’s fingers splayed along the side of Tony’s neck. All of it—the proximity, the tenderness, the intimacy—feels as natural as the breathing they just did together. Ten-plus years of friendship will do that. But then, the way Steve is looking at him doesn’t really scream friendship.

It kind of screams I love you.

Steve gives him that little smirk and says, “Maybe I want to.” Tony scoffs, flicking one of the shoulders in question for good measure.

“God, how are you still such a horrible liar, Cap? Is there something in the serum that makes it impossible for you to keep a good poker face?”

“This is my good poker face,” Steve replies, and there it is again, the same look Steve gave him earlier before the night spun out like a race car with its wheels blown off: intense, considering, and so, so close.

Tony swallows nothing but air. Steve, never breaking eye contact, cards his fingers through the hair on the back of Tony’s head and holds them there.

“If I kiss you right now, will you have another panic attack?” he asks quietly. Not even a blink. The part of Tony’s brain—a scant centimeter, at best—that isn’t currently blasting a hundred sirens at full volume is actually kind of impressed.

“I doubt it,” Tony replies evenly. “I’ll probably just pass out.”

The smirk becomes a full-blown grin. Steve squeezes his other arm around Tony’s lower back and hums, deep and resonant, in his chest as he leans down to brush his lips feather-softly against Tony’s.

“You fall, I’ll catch you,” he whispers before dipping in for a proper kiss that floods Tony’s head with incandescent light. It’s chaste and measured and burning with mutual restraint, tastes faintly of the buttered popcorn Steve ate earlier, and the only way it could be better is if it never ended.

Tony tightens his arms around Steve’s waist, and when Steve pulls away to speak, he doesn’t go far, seemingly content to stand there in Tony’s embrace in the middle of the dimly lit workshop.

“Still breathing?” he asks. Tony smiles; Steve smiles back.

“Takes a lot more than that to knock the wind out of me, Cap.”

The way Steve’s eyes darken at that little remark is definitely something Tony intends to investigate further, later. For now, he leans into the hand now resting on his cheek and sighs.

“We’ll test that theory another time,” Steve husks before leaning forward to press a kiss to each eyelid. Tony hums happily, sinking further into Steve’s arms. “Can I carry you to bed?”

Tony gives him a look. “I’m heavy,” he says.

Steve just smiles, kisses Tony like he’s been doing it forever, and replies: “You’re worth it.”

- - -

see? happy endings. fuck howard.

#I'm sorry it's been so long!!!#work has been bonkers and then travel happened and now I'm trying not to get sick #so here's fic #stevetony #stony fic #superhusbands #steve rogers #tony stark #avengers #616 fic #howard stark is an asshole #young tony stark #avengers movie night #prompt fic #responses #rachel writes fic

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