#tony being such an asshole to peter because hes not gone through all the character growth yet and isnt soft tony yet

[opal-earrings]

Me: no I'm over my Avengers obsession actually, I've moved on to other things and am no longer interested in the characters

*stays up until 2am rewatching clips from all the pre-Endgame mcu movies*

Me: oh no

[stuckybarton]

Manifestation of Happy Endings

SUMMARY: "Everyone deserves a happy ending, even you." CHARACTERS: Stephen Strange x Reader; Wong. Cloakie [Cloak of Levitation], Wong. Asshole Tony Stark. WARNINGS: Slight Angst. Brief Description of A Kiss. Toxic Way of Moving on from An Ex(for Tony, not the reader) WORDS: 2,704 MASTERLIST || Join the Taglist

~

Part 4 STREETLIGHT

One of the things Stephen Strange had never thought he would ever have in his life again was a woman he loved--loving so much that he was willing to endure what he was in this very moment.

Nothing scared him more than having to think of the perfect way to propose to his girlfriend. Nothing scared him shitless than the idea of you rejecting his proposal and the crack begins to form in your stable relationship.

You were doing alright, for the past few months since you started dating Stephen--or at least that was what Stephen had gotten out of Wong whenever the two of you would be deep in conversation in either the library or the kitchen.

With his responsibility as the Sorcerer Supreme and helping saving the Universe on a daily basis, he never had a perfect opportunity to propose. And when he did found the momentary courage, you would be pulled into a book tour all around the country, leaving him to device a plan with Wong on how to actually propose.

"Maybe a candlelit dinner?" Wong had offered, attention still focused on the new book you had given him--the very reason as to why you were gone for well over a month now.

"Too predictable." Stephen snorted.

Candlelit dinner was already a common occurrence between the two of you, with the rare free time, you'd often find yourself just making a hearty meal for the two of you while Stephen was in charge of setting the mood in the dinner table. It was better than heading to a restaurant, getting recognized, and having to deal with the news still circulating about you and your separation from Tony Stark all those months ago.

"Then do something you won't usually do." Wong continued on turning the page to your book.

You loved going on walks. Even with the daily chaos of New York Streets could offer, you always loved being able to go outside, look around and get as much inspiration as you could for any upcoming books you were writing. Outside to some fresh air and sunlight you often tease Stephen of not having enough of because of his duties.

Maybe taking you out on a hike somewhere could be good. A good change of pace, then he could find a perfect spot to just bend on one knee and asked you to be his wife.  Easier said than done when he comes to think more through with the plan. He doesn't know any good hiking trails in New York and it looked more taxing for either of you.

"She says she always wanted to go on road trips across the country." Wong finally made a suggestion. "Why don't the two of you drive to Vegas or something else hedonistic for once."

The suggestion doesn't sound too bad. You did enjoy car rides, Stephen had come to realize. Since his accident years ago, he tried his best to avoid car rides, mostly not needing to since he could create portals to travel to different location his mind can conjure. The first time he had actually enjoyed being inside a car that wasn't his own was with you, as you two made your way to lunch.

He could still remember the way you would allow him to pick the song for the quick ride and how you would jam to whatever was on the radio. It brought a smile on his face now, remembering the patience of a saint you had whenever he would act like a backseat driver if you turn into a different route.

A thirty hour drive would be a nightmare for him, but if he had you, it doesn't sound as bad.

Before he could conjure up the plan, the simple ding of his phone brought his attention away from his plan. A text from you, from a phone you had hesitantly brought under your agent and manager's insistence.  It also meant Stephen had more use of his own and Wong somehow found himself with one as well thanks to you--not wanting him to be left out.

Stark is here. I don't know what to do.

"I'll be right back." Stephen told his friend before conjuring a portal with his sling ring to bring him to California where you were currently having your Open forum.

~

In an audience capacity of a thousand, Alex Theatre was full pack. But among the faces in the crowd. A handful had stood out the most. Tony Stark, Happy Hogan, and one Peter Parker. It was hell and sending Stephen a quick text about it was the only solution you could think of at the moment.

You were to be talking to the audience for a good hour and a half and be open for a few questions, but just the fact that the people you wanted nothing to do with anymore was in the room had you scared.

You no longer had the feelings you once had for Tony, but you were simply scared of the repercussions that would come with Stephen knowing about it.

You knew that Stephen would try confronting Tony, but that would complicate the situation more than it should. Knowing you refused to let any of them know your whereabouts or the fact that you were closer than any of them had actually thought you would be.

"Y/N?"

At the familiar voice of your boyfriend, you were momentarily felt at ease as you tried your best to calm down and stop the possible mental breakdown you were having knowing your ex was in the building. The backstage looked smaller than it really was.

Wrapped in his arms, the fear was placed at ease. You rested your cheeks on his chest, arms sliding around his waist as he pulled you closer to him. Hands cradling the back of your head.

"You okay?" He asked.

You didn't respond, instead pulling him closer to you. Fearing that if you let him go now the man would make his way to the audience and talk some sense to Tony.

"I'm nervous about this, even if he wasn't here." You muttered.

This was the first tour you had done in years. Having lost inspiration in writing because of the stagnation in your relationship, you were still worried about what the world would react to your new book, how they would think of you now that you were no longer the woman constantly attached to Tony Stark's side in public events.

As much as your team had constantly hyped you up, with colorful reviews on your latest book, it was still different from the last one you had done, the difference was caused by this man in front of you, holding you into him like you were made of fine porcelain.

It was difference you always needed in your life, but you fear the reception of it wouldn't be well received by your supporters and your fanbase.

"Let's drive to Vegas after your tour." Stephen's suggestion had surprised you.

You were expecting his usual dry humor, but you were welcomed with something entirely different from the man. Driving across country was something you always wanted to experience, but knowing Stephen's accident, you never suggested the activity.

"I'm driving." You were quick to volunteer.

"I expecting nothing less." He smirked looking down at you. For a moment, you couldn't help but just look down at him. How his blue eyes could look at you like they did, adoration and love. "Want to get married in Vegas?" He offered.

The last question had you shoving him away and glaring at him. The hell was he talking about.

"That's not funny, Strange." You warned.

"It's not a joke." Stephen assured with a smile.

And just like that, the man had fallen to this knees in front of you. The people backstage were witnessing and squealing on your behalf as you stood stock still in front of the man.

"I was planning on proposing on our drive to Vegas, but now is a good time as any to do so. Y/N Y/L/N, you had turned my world upside down the moment you fall face first in the café all those months ago, how you had repaid me with coffee and a deli sandwich when it was my cloak that saved you. How you made the sanctum a home, how you became a part of the team in your own special way. I love you and I wish to be able to spend the rest of my days with you. "

You were left dumbfounded and before you could do anything, you fell to your knees in front of the man even before he could ask you the question, you had said yes. Over and over you had accepted his proposal even without hearing the question. You were happy with Stephen, more than you had ever thought you would ever be since.

"Yes. A million times yes." You muttered wrapping your arms around him and kissing him square on the lips. After a moment of clapping from the people backstage, the momentary embarrassment had settled you but Stephen was quick to make the situation better.  Standing the two of you back up to your feet, he had finally opened the velvet box to a sight that took your breath away.

A vintage, emerald cut diamond ring. Plucking the ring with his shaky hand he had slid it onto your ring finger before kissing your hand. An affection you were so used to seeing from Stephen at the privacy of the sanctum or your apartment.

"I can't be like Tony and give you the world, but I'll be me and give you my life and the time I left when I'm not saving the world to you."

You smiled at his promise. It was reasonable, a part of him that you will never make him choose between.  Knowing he was going to be making an effort was enough for you as you nodded and kissed him once again before you were finally announced to head out.

"I'll be waiting here, break a leg!" Stephen smiled breathless as you finally stepped out to the crowd, a quick round of applause had sounded as you made your way to the podium. Hugging the MC for the event before turning to face everyone, including the likes of Tony Stark in the crowd.

"Sounds like something important happened backstage." The MC smiled knowing how he had to drag the introductions longer than needed because of what Stephen had done.

"My boyfriend proposed to me." You beamed showcasing the ring that now wrapped around your finger to the crowd.

"Congratulations. Who's the lucky guy?" The MC inquired and for a moment your eyes turned towards Tony, and for once you finally saw something you had never thought you'd see in his eyes. Regret. It wasn't satisfaction that you felt, more like this closure you never thought you could have left after all was said and done with him.

"He's a private guy. But I'm happy, the happiest I had ever been in my life." You responded before turning your eyes back towards the curtains where you saw Stephen was watching, a beaming smile was on his face. "He's actually watching backstage," you turned back to the crowd. "So if by any chance I stop mid sentence throughout, it's still the adrenaline from his proposal manifesting, so blame him okay?" You teased earning a laugh from the crowd.

"So I don't need to ask it then, who is your muse for your new book?"

You blushed hesitantly turning to Stephen as the humor lingered on his features. It was an open secret that he was but it's weird having to say it with him in attendance. Easier when he was miles away from you.

"If you're happy, you become inspired." You shrugged hoping that is enough explanation for it. "And from the reviews I've gotten since the book's launch, everyone could see that." You beamed.

"So before we get started in the plotline and the theme of the story, can you tell us about the process of this book from your head to the printing press?"

You cleared your throat knowing that this question would be coming. It wasn't long before you needed to address it and knowing now would be the best time to do so before you finally close the chapter in your life for good.

"I've been in a slump for over a year and a half, my agent and my editors couldn't bring me into writing anything substantial, I blame myself and what my previous relationship had done to me." You spoke honestly, eyes momentarily focusing towards Tony before lingering back to the listening crowd. "It's one thing to be in a relationship filled with arguments and resentment; it was another when you're the only one trying in the relationship that everything else in your life seems--meaningless."

You could still remember the life you had wasted for the years of being with your ex. How you had loved finally gaining your independence and being able to be happy again without needing to think about him and his well being most of the time.

"I found myself out of that environment and found myself in a much different one. I met this man in the café, saved before I face planted onto the floor in front of the bustling crowd. And the rest as they say is history." You added. "Because of this said man, I've found myself writing more than I thought I'd actually do since moving on from my ex. I'd be in his library for hours on until I could see the moonlight glowing below the two of us. And I just found myself writing a love story instead of a story about moving on."

You somehow found yourself chuckling at the last bit as you had come to realize something about your relationship with Stephen.

"I'm actually going to marry my rebound." You had announced somehow far too proudly earning a laugh from the crowd in the process. "So ladies and gentlemen, if you think the most serious relationship you have right now had failed, there is always someone out there meant for you. You just need to get out of your comfort zone."

~

"You two look ridiculous." Wong was quick to point out as the beaming smile on both of your faces lingered.

An hours previously, you had been officially married to Dr. Stephen Vincent Strange. Wearing the same dress you had on during your talk and only now adorned in a small veil you've purchased in the Vegas strip as you and Stephen had looked for a semi-decent individual to officiate your wedding.

You made it evident that Wong should also be joining, not just as a witness but as part of the family. The man had been there throughout the start of your relationship and it was only fitting to have him in this new chapter as well. Married and whatever the universe would throw the two of them from this day forward.

"We can always go to a strip club to celebrate." Stephen had teased, arm wrapped around your shoulder as the three of you had walked around the strip, caring less at this point if anyone would recognize any of you.

You smiled agreeing playful just to see Wong stutter and try his best to change the subject.

"We promise that the bigger wedding would be more tame than this." You had assured your friend. "And Stephen will make you his Best man." You had pointed out to your--husband.

The word felt still as foreign in your tongue but a welcome change it seems. Holding onto Stephen's free hand, the rings you've picked from the nearby jewelry store was perfect in it's own special way. The streetlight glowing all throughout made the rings sparkle and the smile on your face growing bigger than ever.

"Why do I think he will go more bridezilla than you?" Wong teased earning a glare from Stephen but the lack of a genuine retort made it evident between the three of you how right Wong's word were.

[spidercakes]

Prompt: Tony is a teacher at a public school that Peter also happens to go to. They meet on Peter’s first day of high school and Tony knows Peter is his soulmate because his words to that Tell Tale Thing where they go from grey to black. Peter’s too, and he’s excited at least until Tony all but flat out rejects him. At first Peter is hurt, but then he’s determined. 

Fast forward 3 years and it’s the beginning of Peter’s senior year and by now he knows Tony pretty well seems how he’s gone out of his way to take all Tony’s classes. This year he’s determined to get Mr. Stark to look his way and this year he’s sure he’s got it all figured out. Tony, on the other hand, hadn’t counted on Peter figuring out fashion over the summer so he’s a little stunned when Peter walks into the room with a look on his face that suggests he knows exactly what he’s doing.

Warnings: underage characters (Peter is 17, Tony is in his late thirties), A/B/O, soulmates, alpha Tony/omega Peter.

*

When Peter got dressed this morning he did it with purpose, intent, because he’s going to get his soulmate’s attention whether or not Tony wants to give him that much. And he knows Tony wants him too, that somewhere over the last three years Tony took more than a passing interest but he always keeps things appropriate and Peter is bored of it. He was when he’d run into Tony on the first day of school ago and Tony has been nothing but polite with him ever since.

And Peter, he’s tried everything he can think of to get Tony’s attention and none of it worked, not really. Yeah, Tony isn’t put off by his babbling, and yeah Tony is obviously attracted to him, but none of those things make him act on it and Peter wants his alpha, damnit. Plus Tony needs his omega, Peter can tell and he’s tired of Tony denying Peter and himself. The problem is that three years of trying has led Peter to believe he'd never be able to do it, catch Tony’s attention in the way he wants. The way he figured it out was a total accident too, all he’d done was throw on a skirt that happened to be a little bit too small before running to the store to get fuzzy peaches but he’d noticed the way people looked at him.

Maybe its because he’s never really considered himself good looking that he never considered that just dressing a different way could get someone’s attention. He’d spent the rest of the summer experimenting with outfits, occasionally flirting with people who approached him just to figure that out too. Now he knows exactly how to dress to get people to stare at him as he walks by, how to flirt, tease. Now, finally, he might stand an actual chance of getting Tony’s attention before he leaves for college.

He can’t wait to see Tony again because its been a little more than two months and he misses his alpha. Maybe they don’t spend tons of time together while Peter is in school, but they spend some time together at least and that’s better than nothing. He’s got Tony for his first class, and for his last class, so he’s got lots of opportunity to tease Tony, to try to get a rise out of him. He’s chosen a pretty pink skirt and a crop top, something simple but sexy, not like he’s trying too hard. Peter knows he looks good because more than a couple people give him a once over as he makes his way to class.

By the time he gets to class he’s feeling extra giddy because its been so long since he’s seen Tony. He’s even a little early, just enough to beat everyone else and maybe get a more honest reaction from Tony when he sees Peter. When he walks into the room he does so without saying anything, waiting for Tony to look away from the board he’s writing on to see him. Its so worth it to see his face when he turns, watching him go from his Regular Teacher face to awed in about two seconds. He stands there and smiles, letting Tony take him in as he looks Peter over slowly, taking his time to appreciate what he’s looking at, Peter assumes. 

“Peter,” Tony breathes out softly.

He can’t help but smile wider, watching the way Tony looks even more lustful as he does. “Hi, Mr. Stark,” he says, enjoying how Tony swallows hard, watching Peter walk to a desk in the third row and sit down. He casts a quick glance to the door and Peter’s heart skips a beat as he sits up a little straighter, daring himself to hope that Tony will finally give in to him. He doesn’t though, he just gives Peter a somewhat desperate look before he turns back around to face the board. He deflates but only a little because that’s the best reaction he’s gotten in... ever, actually.

*

Tony keeps having to tell himself not to stare at Peter, who seems to be attempting to politely fend off Flash’s not at all subtle attempts to flirt with him. It grates Tony’s nerves hard to watch that irritating little shit- he stops the train of thought for what feels like the millionth time this morning and reminds himself that he likes Flash. Yeah, the kid has a chip on his shoulder that’s a mile wide and he’s kind of a dick, but he’s smart and underneath his penchant for being kind of an asshole he’s pretty funny too. Except he keeps talking to Peter, leaning slightly into his space and- “Pay attention, Flash,” he snaps, sounding far angrier than the situation calls for. The tone of the classroom changes fast and Tony sighs as Peter raises an eyebrow, quickly casting a glance around before settling back into his seat looking pleased with himself.

He wants to think that Peter has no reason to look that way but Tony knows he’d snap like that again in a heartbeat if someone- He stops that train of thought too because Peter isn’t his, and he looks so delicious with that short skirt of his ridden up his thighs in his seat. Tony has wanted to bend him over since last year and-

Fuck he hopes this is a one off thing, that Peter just happened to look exceptionally appealing but a quick glance over at Peter’s smug expression tells Tony that this is calculated. By the time Peter leaves the classroom, last because he made sure to take his sweet ass time getting his stuff together, Tony can’t help but stare at his ass as he walks out of the room. Peter moves like he’s aware Tony’s eyes are on him, graceful and sexy and when did he learn to walk in heels?

Peter rounds the corner out of the room, leaving Tony blissfully alone, and he walks over to his schedule hoping that he doesn’t have to sit through another class with Peter distracting him the entire time. A quick glance tells him he doesn’t have that kind of luck, he’s got Peter at the end of the day and that’s just great. There’s no way... god, he’s going to have to figure out a way to not drag Peter off somewhere and-

Yeah, and he thought resisting his scent was bad enough, of course Peter had to figure out a way to make himself all the more tempting. 

[hale-13]

Detached

By Hale13

For the Summer of Whump Day 25 Prompt - Isolation

Truth is, Peter didn’t do the best alone. He was an extrovert at heart and probably had some repressed abandonment issues he’d rather not think about right now but this was fine. He was fine.

Words: 3213, Chapters: 1/1 (Complete), Language: English

Fandoms: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)

Rating: Gen

Relationships: Peter Parker & May Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark

Characters: Peter Parker, May Parker, Tony Stark

TW: Depression, Delirium, Panic Attacks, Paranoia, Descent into Madness

Read on AO3 or below the line break.

Peter groaned, squinting his eyes shut further instead of trying to open them. His head was throbbing and his thoughts were sluggish and dizzy. He could tell he was lying down but everything seemed to be spinning around him making him feel nauseous – he swallowed down the bile attempting to rise in his throat and took deep breaths through his nose. Mind over matter and all that. Once he felt a little more steady, Peter took stock.

The floor he was lying on was hard and cold and he was positioned awkwardly with his arms folded under him, tingles running through them painfully from the compression of veins and arteries. Carefully, Peter cracked his eyes open. The room he was in was dark and the air had the damp quality of somewhere underground and Peter blinked his eyes shut again. Yeah he had no idea where he was or how he got here.

With effort, he rolled over to lie flat on his back but made no attempt to try and sit up yet. The last thing he remembered was getting up for school. It was Friday and he was looking forward to going to Ned’s after school and spending the weekend having movie marathons and building the newest Star Wars Lego kit Ned had picked up with his birthday money. He remembered getting ready to leave, pulling his Spider-Man suit from his bag and hiding it in his closet (he had promised to take a break since he had been overdoing just a little over the last few weeks), he thumbed past a text from Mr. Stark – he didn’t want to read anything from him right now, fighting stressed him out and he didn’t want to deal with it…

He left his apartment. He was going to walk to school instead of taking the subway because it was hot out and he was feeling a little sensitive today and he wasn’t sure he could handle the smell. His Spidey sense had been tingling since he had gotten up that morning but it had been doing that off and on for days since his fight with…

He was walking to school. Everything was fine.

But now he’s here? How did it happen? Peter’s head throbbed lowly and threateningly as he tried to wrack his memory for the answer so he stopped and tried to make himself relax. He was probably kidnapped right? He had been kidnapped a couple times before and he knew how this worked. Once his assailants realized he was awake and semi-aware they would come in to highlight their terms, probably rough him up a bit and then Mr. Stark and Colonel Rhodes would track him down and break him out.

But… would Mr. Stark really come to get him now? After everything.

‘Don’t think about that Peter,’ he told himself. He was already about five seconds from a panic attack and that just wouldn’t do. He needed to keep it together. If his captors thought he was breaking so early things could get so much worse. He was fine. Just some deep breaths.

Peter opened his eyes again. The room was almost too dark to see anything, lit only by a small red emergency light in one corner that left strange shadows and distorted shapes and colors. The room was small – maybe ten feet by ten feet if he was lucky – and mostly empty. There were three large cases with water bottles and a few boxes of crackers in one corner and a metal toilet was in the other. A haphazard pile of ratty looking blankets that smelled like mildew were a few feet away from Peter.

This was new. He was almost never provided water or food in the few times he had been taken before, not that he was gone long enough to need anything.

Something felt off.

Using every bit of strength he had left, Peter levered himself up and leaned heavily against the wall while his vision span in circles and nausea crept back up his throat. Whatever he had been dosed with must have been pretty potent to leave him feeling like this. So plans. He would wait to see what the people who took him wanted. He would let his metabolism work off the drugs. Maybe he would crawl over and grab a bottle of water once he felt a little more steady and hope that they hadn’t been tampered with.

It was all a waiting game.

————————————————

Okay so this was weird.

Peter took another sip of his - up tampered thank god – water and swirled it around in his mouth. It had easily been at least a few hours since he had woken up and no one had come through the solid metal door that Perter had yet been able to break through. Someone always came in to monologue.

And it just proved that whoever took him knew he was Spider-Man since he wasn’t able to break out.

“This is fine,” Peter said out loud just to hear something. “They’re just working on a longer timeline is all.”

Truth is, Peter didn’t do the best alone. He was an extrovert at heart and probably had some repressed abandonment issues he’d rather not think about right now but this was fine. He was fine.

More time passed.

And more time.

Pulling one of the blankets around his shoulders and wedging himself into a corner Peter curled tightly around his legs. He was tired and he wasn’t sure if it was because of the drugs or if it had been that long he had been trapped here. Regardless he figured he may as well take a nap. Hopefully it would encourage some asshole into bursting into the room to wake him up and, if it didn’t, maybe sleeping would help clear the remaining fog from Peter’s head.

His sleep was anything but easy though. He woke up continuously as if startled and it took forever to relax enough again to doze. He had nightmares; little nebulous things that made little sense and faded the second he woke up but left his respiratory rate elevated and his heart thudding in his chest. It took time but he eventually was tired enough to sleep deep enough not to dream.

When he woke up the room was completely unchanged and Peter gulped. His mind was spiraling and taking him to dark places and it wasn’t the time to go there yet. He hadn’t even been here for that long he didn’t think. Maybe not even a full day. It wasn’t time to freak out yet.

Peter distracts himself by grabbing another water bottle and a pack of the peanut butter crackers. He eats three of them and saves the rest of the pack for later. Washes it down with a few sips of water and tries to ignore the aching and cramping in his stomach as it growls. Something is telling him to ration his food and water. He doesn’t know how long he’s going to be stuck here after all but it can’t be that much longer right? Mr. Stark will come to get him. He wouldn’t leave him here.

The ‘day’ passes slowly. Peter paces the full length of the room, he searches every nook and cranny for cameras or microphones. He tries to take apart the emergency light but its completely sealed and he doesn’t want to tamper with it and potentially leave himself in complete darkness. He counts his water bottles (one hundred forty-eight since he already drank two) and his crackers (forty-nine and a half packs) and organizes and reorganizes them. He paces some more and practices his breathing exercises.

He falls into an uneasy sleep.

“Okay time to come up with a plan,” Peter tells himself the next day. “A feasible plan.”

He comes up with nothing. He likes brainstorming but he’s always needed to write things down to properly organize anything and he has nothing to write with but blood and nothing to write on but the wall. He’s not desperate enough to do that.

Instead he does fifty push up and sit ups. It feels good to do something physical so he jogs around the room for what’s probably a few hours. He stops when he drains a full bottle of water in a second and he can’t do that. He doesn’t know how long he’s here and he has to ration and what if no one comes to get him and he’s stuck here forever and he runs out of food and water a human can only go without water for a few days and…

Peter gasps and collapses to his knees, bowing his face down to rest his forehead on the cool stone floor as the room spins from lack of oxygen and he tries to control his breathing. Four-Seven-Eight. He remembers that from his, very few, therapy appointments after Ben. Four-Seven-Eight. Four-Seven-Eight.

It’s not working.

Peter sobs brokenly and his throat feels like its closing, his vision is spinning and dimming his muscles are weak and-

He wakes up with a gasp and a cough some untold amount of time later. His head hurts from the panic attack and he lets himself cry quietly for a few minutes. He’s alone. He hates being alone.

How long has he been here?

The laugh that bubbles up from his chest is a little unhinged and that just won’t do. Peter needs to lock it down and get his shit together because he can’t just sit here and lose it because that is flat out unacceptable.

So he gets up and walks around the bare room. He does some yoga that he had been learning from Pepper and May and focuses on his breathing since breathing is important in yoga. When he’s done he does some cool down stretches and feels a lot better. More steady. He eats the other three crackers in the pack he opened up and drinks some water. He’s tired so he curls back up in the corner with his blanket and pillows his head on his arm.

He wakes up and the room is unchanged.

Again.

How long has he been here?

Peter’s stomach feels like its actually eating itself so he eats a couple crackers and indulges in half a bottle of water. It does nothing to make him more full but he pretends it does. He feels a little weak and out of it this ‘morning’ and he stumbles as he walks laps around the room. He hasn’t gone this long without a decent meal since he was bitten and its freaking him out a little.

The yoga worked yesterday. He’s going to do more of that he thinks.

His limbs are shakier than yesterday and he gets out of breath on some of the more advanced poses so he slows down and really takes the time to work through each new position and hold it before slowly transitioning to the next. He’s exhausted when he finishes and can barely do a short cool down due to his painful muscles so he just lies flat on his back for a while and breathes through it.

His head itches from the sweat he’s worked up and when he scratches at his scalp his fingernails come away with little balls of dead skin and blood under them and he crinkles his nose. He hasn’t gone this long without a proper shower in… a long time and he hates it. He wants to be clean. His hair is greasy and flat and flopping into his face.

He could use some of the water. He doesn’t have soap and its not the same as a shower but…

No. He needs to save the water. He can handle being dirty for a few more days. A week tops. He’ll be out of here soon. Maybe he should take a nap to pass the time? He is kinda sleepy from his workout, a nap would be nice.

When he wakes up again he doesn’t bother moving. He’s really tired and its not like he has anywhere to be so what’s the point?

He closes his eyes again.

He’s only eaten two full packs of crackers since he got here so Peter decides to gorge himself and eat a full pack of six and drink a full bottle of water. His throat is dry and his tongue is sticky and tacky in his mouth from dehydration so the food and water are like nectar and ambrosia to him. But…

He had more water right?

Peter counts the bottles and comes up two short. That’s impossible, he’s alone and he didn’t drink two extra bottles so where did they go? His breath is coming out in hasty pumps as he panics and counts again. No! He’s missing three bottles! How is this happening?

Peter stumbles up and goes to the door. Someone has to have come in while he was asleep and taken the water so that means the door was opened. He scrabbles at the edges, tearing his nails to shreds and smearing blood everywhere as he tears at the hinges to try to get it opened. It has to open!

His breath is coming too fast and his lungs are burning and his eyes are burning and he’s choking and falling to the floor and-

He wakes up curled in a ball by the door feeling out of it but more in control. He drags himself back to his pile of water bottles and, very carefully, counts them again.

And once more.

He isn’t missing any after all, he just didn’t count correctly. Peter wants to laugh. Peter wants to cry. He does neither. His muscles are tight and on the verge of cramping so he does some light stretches to try to work everything out. It helps a little but he feels too tired and out of it to do laps around the room or yoga and he’s afraid to meditate so he curls back up in the corner again. He’s hungry but he doesn’t dare eat anymore crackers since he had a full pack already today.

Or was it yesterday?

He decides it doesn’t matter – he can’t eat them right now. What he can do is sleep so he does.

His dream is about May. About sitting in the kitchen and listening to classic rock and pretending to do his homework but really gossiping about his classmates and her about her coworkers while she burns pork chops in the oven. They laugh while they fan the smoke away from the blaring fire alarm and out the open window and pull out a take out menu at random from the drawer. They aren’t picky eaters and they’re curled up on the couch watching Stranger Things with tacos. May jumps and launches her taco toward the ceiling and they spend the rest of the night cleaning avocado off the popcorn ceiling.

He wakes up with silent tears leaking down his face and a feeling of desolation eating up his insides. It feels like his heart is clenching and like his chest is closing in painfully and his stomach doesn’t ache from hunger for once but feels like a tightly clenched back hole instead. Peter doesn’t bother wiping his face, just turns over to face the wall and curls up even tighter. It’s too hard to move.

It’s a few days later that his legs start cramping whenever he moves them too suddenly and he feels like screaming from the resisting burning pain. He isn’t really hungry anymore but he forces down a couple of crackers everyday and tries to drink at least half a bottle of water. He’s losing weight as his metabolism eats at his minimal fat stores before starting on his muscles and he panics again when he notices his stomach is starting to become concave.

How long has he been here?

Peter supposes it makes sense though. Why would Mr. Stark come for him now? After what he did? His mentor may be the very definition of a helicopter parent but he wasn’t strict and if Peter would have just listened to him… but now he’s alone.

Peter sniffs loudly. He’s cried a few times since he’s been here but he hasn’t let himself break down. He’s tried to keep it together but is it really worth it? He’s alone. No one’s coming for him.

He’s going to die here. Alone.

He sobs. He wants to cry but the tears won’t come so all that’s left are painful, hitching breaths and horrible whining sounds. He doesn’t think he even sounds human anymore and maybe he isn’t. He doesn’t feel human.

He doesn’t make the effort to eat or drink that day and the next time he wakes up he’s too weak to even crawl over to the pile of water bottles and crackers. He decides that it’s a good thing. He can feel himself losing it, can feel himself falling apart and at least this way he’ll go quicker. He can’t stand this. He can’t stand being alone. He wants May. He wants Ned and MJ. He wants Mr. Stark. He doesn’t want to die and he really doesn’t want to die alone.

This isn’t fair.

It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair it isn’t fair it isn’t fair it isn’t-

He didn’t even get the chance to say goodbye. He hadn’t seen May in two days before he was taken due to her schedule and now he’d never see her again. He was the last of her family and he was being selfish and leaving her alone. He’d already taken away he husband and now look at him? He breaks everything he touches.

He’s tired. He’s so tired. Peter lets his eyes close. He’s just going to nap.

“Kiddo? Rhodey he’s not responding he looks… fuck Rhodey clear me a path I’ve got to get him out of here! Peter, its me kid. You’re okay I’m going to take care of everything now so you just relax alright? Rhodes I swear to god if you don’t handle it.”

Peter frowns in his delirium. That voice sounds like Mr. Stark but that’s impossible. Peter’s dead. He was dying. He gave up right?

“I’ve got you buddy you’re going to be just fine,” the voice says again and it sounds a little robotic – just like Mr. Stark does in the Iron Man armor actually. He feels like he’s floating. “You’re aunt and I have been worried sick Petey, you didn’t even send a postcard!” The voice is trying to be humorous but is falling flat. It’s nice though. It’s been a long time since Peter has heard anything but his own thoughts.

“Just a quick little flight Webs,” he’s told, the ground rocking under him. It almost feels like being carried and it warms him just a little. His brain has been sabotaging him at every turn but at least its making his death peaceful.

“No no buddy,” the voice sounds a little frantic but its like listening through a pool of water. “Stay with me Peter, you’re going to be okay just stay with me.”

He hates disappointing the voice but he’s tired.

So tired.

Peter drifts.

[mshermia]

LYKHIW Timeline - WIP Page

Welcome! This post records the status and progress of my work expanding my Post-Endgame (MCU) series to “Like You’d Know How It Works”.

I left the cinema post-Endgame incredibly mad and disappointed. After I aired my immediate frustration with the movie in two One-Shots, I decided for my own peace of mind, I had to try and salvage the mess that was Endgame somehow, because I simply like the characters too much, not to. A week after I started writing, I published the first chapter on AO3. About a year later, I felt the need to expand on the original fix-it. I have and will continue to add to this timeline, writing different adventures that will mostly focus on Tony Stark and Peter Parker.

Genre: MCU fanfiction

The Fix-It

Like You’d Know How It Works (completed)

Setting: sets in right after the battle at the Compound is over, supersedes the concluding events of Endgame.

Premise: Straight after the battle is won - or lost, depending on your perspective - Peter tries to convince the Avengers to save Mr. Stark by going back into the Quantum Realm.

Tropes: time-travel, quantum realm, protective Peter

Mood: grief & loss, hope, family

Someone had organized this room at Metro General hospital for them to sit and talk. Sitting was not an option for Peter though. He couldn’t bear to sit. He couldn’t bear to have anyone look at his injuries either, not when there were more pressing matters to attend to.

“You said that whatever we do in the past will not change our present!” Peter’s fist hit the table with a crash. They simply weren’t listening. His face felt grimy and tight in places where the dirt from the battlefield stuck to the tears he had cried over Mr. Stark’s body. Maybe he should have thought of washing the traces off his face before confronting a few of the Avengers and Doctor Strange. It might have made him seem a little more collected. A little more rational. “That’s what you just said!”

Chapters 9/9 | 42 K | Teen and Up

Follow-up Shorts and Multi-chapters

Just Outside The Door (completed)

Setting: Days after Tony was brought back from the multiverse

Premise: Peter did it. He found his mentor and brought him back, but sometimes it all just seemed too good to be true. Sometimes, his mind played tricks on him and he just couldn’t sleep, wondering if he had really brought Mr. Stark back or if it had all just been a desperate dream.

Tropes: nightmares, PTSD, protective Tony, Whumptober 2020: No. 23

Mood: fear, working through trauma, comfort

There was only silence in his room now unless you were to count the frantic beat of his heart and the deep shaky breaths he sucked in and blew back out. It hadn’t even been a nightmare this time, not truly. He hadn’t really fallen asleep in the first place. Exhaustion was tugging at the edges of his consciousness and that’s where his thoughts had started to spiral.

Mr. Stark was okay. Peter was… he was pretty sure of that. He had succeeded, had brought him back home and now he was okay. But there was a little voice in the back of his head that kept nagging, that kept telling him that maybe… maybe he was wrong. Maybe it had all been a delusional dream, too good to be true, Peter wishing something into reality that was unobtainable. He had seen his mentor die after all. He had died right in front of him, the memory etched into his memory, right there whenever he closed his eyes. Dimensions, time travel… was that really real?

Chapters 1/1 | 4.2 K | Teen and Up

Nothing Left To Lose (in progress)

Setting: 2 weeks after Tony was brought back from the multiverse

Premise:

The reversal of the Snap added an additional 3.5 billion people back to Earth’s population. 3.5 billion more people to house somewhere, 3.5 billion mouths to be fed, 3.5 billion people who return to a world that was not expecting them to ever come back.

Tropes: food shortage, starvation, looting, blurred lines of good and evil; Whumptober 2020: No. 3

Mood: anger, desperation, conflicted who to help 

Tony groaned, rolling his stiff neck from one side to the other as the gate clicked shut behind Pepper. “Remind me again… Why did we agree to this?”

Pepper didn’t bother to send him a scolding look as she wrapped the security seal around the gate’s locking mechanism. “Because we’re good neighbors?”

“We are?” He smelled like damp fur. When did wet fur and barn animals become his life? “Since when exactly? Was there a house meeting? Did I miss it?”

“Mh… do you need a reminder of the process of negotiation?” She took a step towards him, one hand twisted in his shirt pulling him close against her, their lips almost close enough to touch. “You smell like wet alpaca.”

He pulled in an affronted gasp. The hand that was still holding his shirt pushed him away from her, her lips stretched wide in amusement. “Come on, Cesar. Maybe I’ll remind you after a hot shower.”

Chapters 1/2 | 3.4 K | Teen and Up

Unnamed WIP (unpublished)

Setting: 4 months after Tony was brought back from the multiverse

Premise:

For months, Peter has been commuting between the city and the Stark’s remote cabin in the woods. But now that life in NYC has regained some normalcy, he really wants to show Morgan what the greatest city in the world has to offer.

Tropes: power outage, panic attack, PTSD; Whumptober 2020: No. 27

Nope. “Not going down that rabbit-hole, Parker,” he muttered to himself.

“What rabbit-hole?” Morgan was sitting opposite him, munching on the cookies Pepper had put out.

“Nevermind.” Peter scooped two tea spoons of sugar into his coffee, then added another one just to be safe.

“Mommy says coffee corrupts the soul.”

“Please, like you even know what ‘corrupt’ means….”

Morgan tilted her head to the side, just like her mom would do. “I know it’s not nice.”

Peter gave her a look. “Well, your dad says it’s the elixir of life.” And Mr. Stark would know. Peter gave his head one hard shake. Tony. Tony would know. One sip of the black brew and Peter’s teeth hurt. Definitely too much sugar. “Okay, remember what we talked about?”

Morgan sat up straight, her eyes wide. “Ask mommy first!”

“That’s right! Make sure you use those puppy eyes, too.” Morgan nodded along enthusiastically while he quickly nicked her glass of milk and poured a generous potion of it into his mug. “We wait till, you know, till Tony’s gone downstairs or something and then—”

“And then you’ll ask me what?”

Chapters -/2 | - K | Teen and Up

Christmas Eve - At Peace (completed)

Setting: 5 months after Tony was brought back from the multiverse

Premise:

Just a couple of months after they defeated Thanos, Tony and Pepper throw a Christmas party. Instead of a partying kid, Tony finds his Spiderling outside in the snow at the grave he has been trying to ignore ever exists.

Tropes: anger and grief, blame and fear, no prompt

Mood: wholesome, family, frustration

Tony narrowed his eyes at him. "I mean it!" For good measure, he took a healthy gulp from the cup, positively burning his throat in the process. But it wasn't until Harley threw his hands in the air and turned his back in defeat - for now - that Tony allowed his face to cringe at the sting. Those little trouble makers were not helping with his heart condition. Speaking of trouble... "Where is Peter?"

Harley crossed his arms in front of himself, his mind clearly brooding on a new strategy. "No clue."

Tony's next sip of the hot wine was a lot smoother than the first. "What do you mean, no clue?"

"It generally means that the person doesn't have any information about the subject that you are—"

"Alright, short stuff..." Tony's eyes were searching the room but the little spider was nowhere to be seen. "A bit less of the asshole routine please?"

"Listen, if you want me to babysit, same rules apply as they do for Morgan." Brazen in his brattiness, the little shit ladled a good helping of mulled wine into a new cup. "I'll need a heads-up and generous compensation that I'm happy to re-negoti— Hey!"

Harley tried to hold on to the cup that Tony once again just plucked from his hands. "You've had enough of this!"

"That one is for Rhodey," the boy scowled.

Chapters 1/1 | 3.8 K | Teen and Up

The Winter Air (completed)

Setting: 6 months after Tony was brought back from the multiverse

Premise:

Tony, Peter, and Morgan spent a winter day outside the Stark residence.

Tropes: accident, hurt Tony, hurt Peter, Whumptober 2020: No. 13

Mood: fun to fear, injury, accusations, blame

Well, it wasn’t that easy. Because things were apparently never just easy in the life of one Peter Parker. Turned out, there were still some assholes out there. Not the Thanos-kind. Not for now at least. The regular kind though and Peter for one saw absolutely no reason as to why anything should have changed in his responsibility to stop them from being assholes.

His aunt somehow disagreed more often than she didn’t. Annoyingly now though, she managed to drag Mr. Stark to her side a lot more than she used to, too.

Peter shook his head at himself. Tony. T-O-N-Y. It wasn’t that hard, was it? He still slipped up every so often. But as much as that bugged him, it was the others who bugged him even more. Colonel Rhodes and Hawkeye among them the most willing to tease Peter about it. Him, and Tony too, for his mentor never commented on it with more than a crooked smile. When it was just the two of them, that was often the only indication for Peter, that he had said it again.

It made the times when it really was just them so enjoyable. A new ease between them. They had never had this, this kind of bonding. Sure, they’d spent time together before everything had gone downhill on their little space adventure, in the lab or on a normal earth-bound mission. Not like this though, not like Peter staying over at the Stark residence for a few days at a time. Not like him sliding along-side Morgan on the ice on the lake, trying to catch Tony. Not like Morgan falling over and taking Tony right with her and the way Peter’s stomach hurt from laughing so hard when Mr. Stark’s sweet little Morguna drowsed him with two full hands of snow and he just hadn’t seen it coming.

Chapters 3/3 | 14 K | Teen and Up

Unnamed Multichapter WIP (unpublished)

Setting: picks up where The Winter Air ended, 6 months after Tony was brought back from the multiverse

Premise:

First time all of the Avengers come together after the Snap was reversed. With Tony retired, Peter has to find his place in the team and learn to work with the other Avengers without Tony. Tensions are running high with the events of Civil War still largely unresolved and lingering resentments stemming from Peter’s multidimensional rescue mission to save Tony.

Tropes: Avengers mission, mistrust, growing as a team; Whumptober 2020: No.7

Tony’s eyes went wide. Was it possible that…

“Hey, FRI?”

“Good morning, boss. It’s 10:16 am on February 5th, 2024. The temperature outside is—”

“Yeah, just… can you stop for a moment?” He waved her off. “Send Dory out to the lake, would you. There’s some stuff still lying out there on the ice.”

“Right away, Sir.”

Tony watched as the little blue drone circled the lake, getting closer and closer to what he was sure were the Spiderling’s clothes still lying out there, where he had taken them off to—

“Hey, what are you doing out of bed!”

Despite himself, he twitched as Pepper made her way into the room. She had pushed the door open with her hip, balancing his breakfast on a large wooden tablet.

“Here, let me—” Tony stepped towards her, arms at the ready to take the tablet but she held it out of his reach.

“What do you think you’re doing? Get back in that bed!”

Chapters -/- | - K | Teen and Up

There... And Back Again (in progress)

Setting: about a year after Tony was brought back to life

Premise:  The Starks drive upstate to the old Mansion where Tony grew up. To Tony’s horror, the trip takes him and the kids a lot further down memory lane than anyone could have predicted.

Tropes: time travel, Howard Stark’s A++ parenting; Febuwhum2021 Day 12 - Who Are You

“Pete, seriously…” Tony looked up into the review mirror trying to catch his eye. “Can you not? I don’t want Morgan up all night, terrified of some dumb ghosts.”

“Come on, it’s just a story, Tony. Morgan knows I made it all up, right?” Peter winked at her, then wiggled his eyebrows in a way that seemed kind of familiar.

“Yeah, daddy.” But Morgan was full-on ignoring Tony, her eyes on Peter trying to imitate the wink and wiggly eyebrows he had just sent her way. “It’s just a story.”

He could do little more than groan as Peter continued to spin a tale of spirits and witches, ancient pacts and promises that had to be kept, ransoms that the spirits had vowed to retrieve.

“It was a night very much like tonight,” Peter continued, his voice low and full of dreadful foreboding, “that the witches broke that pact they had signed with the blood of the innocent…”

“Morgan’s gasp morphed into a giddy giggle while Tony could only rub a hand across his brow and mumbled, "Blood of the innocent, give me a fucking break…”

Chapters 1/3 | 4,4 K | Teen and Up

Are We Out Of The Woods Yet?, (completed)

Setting: 4 years after Tony was brought back from the multiverse

Premise:

 Peter takes Morgan into the depths of a National Park so she can collect samples for a biology project.

Tropes: Peter & Morgan, protective Peter, hurt Morgan, hurt Peter, Whumptober 2020: No. 12

Mood: disappointment, mistakes, anger, angst, comfort

“There are so many reasons why online classes are better than going to school.”

Peter shook his head. “And there are plenty of reasons why learning in school with other students is preferable. How it helps retain the material better than—”

Morgan groaned without even looking at him, her nose in the air, eyes on the leafy trees above them. “You can learn the same things at home, only then you could have dinner at night with us instead of in your stinky room in Boston.”

“Hey,” he craned his neck to see where she went, then walked after her. “My room doesn’t stink.”

“It’s a boy’s room.” She said it like that alone was a valid argument, when it couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, the girl’s dorms he had been in—

He stopped himself. Not the time and place.

Chapters 2/2 | 8 K | Teen and Up

[aurorawest]

I'd really, really like to hear more of your thoughts about Stephen Strange's character in his own film (and in Ragnarok), vs. his appearances in IW/Endgame. "Doctor Strange" is in my top five fav Marvel movies, but I didn't realize how little thought I'd given to his IW/EG appearances until you mentioned the difference in the character between portrayals. (In hindsight, I think this is because Strange feels a bit ... flatly written in IW/EG?) So I'd love to hear your thoughts on this!

Thanks for asking! You nailed one of my chief problems with his characterization—Strange is flatly written in IW/EG. With the exception of his opening scene with Wong in IW, he’s boring, has little personality, and is just sort of a Generic Superhero. Ben Cumberbatch does his best—that ???? look on his face when Drax says, “I’ll do you one better—what is Gamora?” is one of the funniest parts of IW—but there’s only so much the guy can do when they basically gave him nothing to work with.

This got long and possibly salty, so, more after the break:

IMO, it’s pretty obvious that the Russos and the writers of IW and EG had little interest in Strange. And I get it! Every character is not interesting to every person! That’s why certain characters never show up in my writing, because I don’t care about them. But like, if you sign on to do a big ensemble movie, can you at least like, try to write the characters’ personalities the way they’ve been established? It just seems painfully, painfully obvious that the people making these movies didn’t care enough about Strange to try at all.

I have two really specific problems with the way Strange is written in IW/EG:

1. He tells Stark that if he has to choose between saving Peter and him and stopping Thanos, he’ll choose stopping Thanos and let them die.

...

This man is a doctor. We repeatedly see him, prior to IW, doing no harm. In his initial fight with the zealots at the Sanctum in Doctor Strange, he sends one of them through a door in the Rotunda of Gateways, and, of course, uses the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak to trap Kaecilius. And when he does kill one of them, he’s really upset about it and brings up the fact that he took an oath to do no harm. The final fight preceding his battle with Dormammu is more focused on reversing time and saving everyone’s lives than on stopping Kaecilius and his zealots. In fact, he only fights them when they break out of the spell. The whole plan is to reverse time far enough so that they can stop Kaecilius before the Hong Kong Sanctum falls.

Even the way he defeats Dormammu is about the least violent way he can do it—he never tries to attack Dormammu. And yeah, he does make a deal with Dormammu to send Kaecilius and the zealots to the Dark Dimension, which is probably his most ‘violent’ moment in the movie. He still doesn’t get his own hands dirty, haha.

We even see this in Ragnarok. Strange doesn’t hurt Loki. Here’s a guy who has done considerable damage to Earth. Strange has him on a list of threats to the planet. And yet, all he does is trap Loki in a 30 minute fall. Clearly, Loki is totally fine.

He emphasizes over and over that he’s a doctor—this is an important part of him, so important that he won’t let go of it, even though he’ll never practice medicine again. He sees himself as a healer, as someone who fixes people and makes them better. So the fact that he has that line in IW infuriates me. I get that if he has to choose between saving the universe and sacrificing two lives, yeah, he’d probably sacrifice the two lives. But like, where’s the guilt, where’s the regret at having said this? UGH.

I actually really love the choice between saving one life versus saving the universe—I think it’s endlessly interesting. It’s a thread that’s woven throughout Loki’s arc in the MCU, for instance, and it’s well done. But it was poorly done with Strange. I was talking to @mareebird about this and she rightly said that Strange just wasn’t the character for this particular arc in IW. Even his choosing to save one life (Tony’s) is only because he knows that Stark is going to be the one to defeat Thanos in the end ( @mareebird also reminded me of this).

2. It’s hard to avoid the feeling that they made Strange boring and flat because they already had one snarky genius with a beard, and the MCU has always been about Tony Stark.

So, full disclosure...I really dislike Tony Stark. I didn’t used to, and now I do. I fully admit that this second point influenced my dislike of Stark. The more I came to love Stephen, the more it irritated me the way he gets shunted to the side in IW in favor of Stark. It really feels like because Strange is also snarky, sarcastic, super smart, and kind of an asshole, that they felt it would take away from Stark. And because you can’t do that, instead Strange gets turned into this boring, one-dimensional, humorless character. Don’t get me wrong, he gets a few good lines here and there. But in Doctor Strange he makes jokes all the time! He literally says to Wong, “People used to think I was funny,” which tells us that joking around is part of his personality. Even though the situation we see him in in Ragnarok doesn’t give him a lot of opportunity to be funny, he’s still funny there. His reactions to Thor are comedy gold. That’s almost all gone in IW and EG. Remember how I said that with the exception of his opening scene with Wong, his character has little personality? I think it’s pretty telling that he shares almost every scene with Stark after that.

And just a general point of irritation: they made him so powerful in IW that they didn’t know what to do with him in EG. Instead of fighting, he has to hold up a dam for 90% of the final battle. Here’s a hot take: don’t make your characters ridiculously powerful just for the cool factor, because you’re going to have to deal with nerfing them later. I’m not saying this can’t be done well, but this is not a case of it being done well. It’s really transparent what’s going on (Carol falls prey to the exact same thing). Incidentally this is why I despise Loki stans going on about Loki not being powerful enough in the MCU because guess whaaaaaat, really powerful characters get taken out of the action since there’s no drama when you can just...win.

Thanks again for asking! Haha hopefully this didn’t get too salty.

[strawberrysoup]

Let’s Review || Chapter 6

Peter Parker knew that his big sister would do anything for him to be safe and happy. She’d given up everything for him twice over already and would do it again in a heartbeat. And that’s why, when the criminal mastermind Tony Stark started inextricably following him around, he didn’t say a word. Because he knew without a doubt Penny would do whatever she had to if it meant keeping Peter safe. He had to protect her, just like she always protected him. He never considered what would happen if Stark decided both Parker siblings were worth taking. Never considered who else in Stark’s inner circle would agree. He just wanted to protect her and yet somehow, they both ended up with needles in their necks.

relationship: Steve Rogers/Original Female Character/Bucky Barnes, background Peter Parker/Tony Stark rating: Explicit warnings: Dark Steve Rogers, Dark Bucky Barnes, Dark Tony Stark, Dark Avengers, kidnapping, non-con/dub-con elements, underage Peter Parker, emotional and psychological abuse, very dark. extra warnings for abduction and creepy interactions with a minor. 

God, Penny had a brutal fucking headache. The light coming through the window meant that once again she’d forgotten to pull the curtains shut before passing out on the couch. She must’ve fallen asleep crying again, it would explain the serious dry mouth and pounding head.

“Peter?” She called out, groaning in pain immediately after, “augh… Peter, are you getting ready for school?”

There was no reply and she couldn’t hear him shuffling around in his room, which was a bad sign. She must’ve forgotten to set her alarm and Peter had probably slept through his own. Swallowing hard, she raised her arms and dug her palms into her closed eyes.

“Peter, you gotta wake up babe,” trying to raise her head made a wave of nausea roll through her body and she clapped a hand over her mouth just in case.

She might’ve been sick, could it be food poisoning? If she was sick, Peter was probably also sick. That must’ve been why he wasn’t getting ready for school. Oh, fuck she needed to call into her job at the daycare, there was no way she’d be able to deal with screaming babies with low immune systems for six hours. Blindly reaching down over the edge of the couch, she furrowed her brow in confusion when her hand didn’t hit the floor. The couch was low and uncomfortable, she was barely off the floor at the best of times.

Prying her eyes open was going to hurt and she really, really didn’t want to invite that level of pain into her life. Assuming her sense of space was off because of her sickness, she just reached further down. And further. And further. Until she reached too far and pitched herself off the edge of the couch. Hitting the ground was bone jarring and stirred a memory just out of reach, of falling and slamming her head into the hard wood flooring. It wasn’t an usual occurrence, she fell and hit her head all the time, but the carpet she landed on was weird. Super weird, they didn’t have carpet in their apartment.

Penny’s eyes snapped open, letting in the brutal light and also the terrifying revelation that she wasn’t in her apartment. She hadn’t fallen off her couch. She’d fought with Tony Stark in her apartment and smashed her head against the ground before they stuck a needle in her neck. They, there had been a second man who’d come out of nowhere.

Immediately she forced her knees under her and pushed up to her feet. She didn’t know whether it was the blow to the head or the drugs but her entire sense of balance was off and she went careening into the wall, smashing her head for the second time in what she assumed was a single day, against a shelf. A yelp and a crash later she was on the floor again, both hands clutching the side of her head that had gone into the corner of the wood. Was she bleeding? Fuck she was probably bleeding.

“Oh sweetheart,” she hadn’t heard a door open or any footsteps but suddenly a pair of heavy arms came around her, lifting her carefully off the ground and setting her on what she now realized was a bed, “stay still, you’re bleeding. J, call Bruce, Penny might need stitches.”

“Right away, sir. He asked me to inform you he must run to the medical wing to retrieve supplies but will be in shortly. ”

Her eyes were clenched shut, against the pain and the fear, but Penny recognized Tony Stark’s voice immediately. He was sitting next to her, holding her tight to his side with a towel or something pressed to her bleeding wound. He was making a hushing sound, petting her head with his unused hand.

“Off,” she choked, squirming in his hold, “fuck—get, get off of me.”

“Calm down, Penny—”

“No!” it came out as a shriek and she curled her hands into fists, lashing out in his general direction, “get off of me you fucking bastard! Get away from me!”

One of her hits must’ve landed because he yelped abruptly, arms going slack from where they’d held her and she launched herself off the bed. Once again she realized her entire sense of equilibrium was gone and collapsed on the floor, forcing her eyes to stay open despite the nausea and started to crawl towards the only door she could see.

“Damn, Penny, that’s one hell of a left hook,” arms wrapped around her waist and hauled her up and backwards, causing her to screech in fury and indignation, “Don’t make me tie you up, sweet girl, cause I will.”

“So, I take it she’s not a docile kidnapping victim?”

Her head snapped around, eyes landing on a man now standing in the doorway in shock. He was about Stark’s age, hair graying slightly about the temples and some wrinkles on his forehead and around his eyes.

“She’s a spitfire, Brucie bear, a real shit kicker,” Tony grunted as he forcefully manipulated her onto the bed again, this time keeping her in his lap with her extremities restrained by his own, “you’re so small, where is all this force coming from—Jesus!” he ducked his head to the side swiftly, just barely avoiding the back of her skull slamming into his nose.

He brought his arms up, still holding her wrists, and tucked her head tightly between his shoulder and neck while keeping her wound exposed for Bruce to look at.

“Her head went into the corner of the shelf over there, I’d show you the spot but my hands are full at the moment.” The bastard was making jokes . She had been drugged and kidnapped and was being bodily restrained after waking up in a strange room and he was making fucking jokes .

Penny hadn’t considered ‘murder’ to be a logical solution to her Tony Stark problem but maybe it should’ve been her go to. Actually, now that she thought of it, there was still time.

“Wow, I can literally hear how badly you want to kill me right now,” Stark pressed the side of his face against hers, “what kind of expression is on her face right now Bruce? Does she look like a murder kitten?”

“She definitely doesn’t look happy Tony,” he rolled his eyes, leaning against the bed to get a better look at Penny’s scalp, “I’m sorry we’re meeting like this Penny, I’m Bruce. Any bumps and bruises around here go through me, anything serious needs to go to medical though. Other than this, how are you feeling? Dizziness, nausea?”

For a moment, Penny almost answered just based on instinct. She hadn’t been to the doctor in ages, but he gave off the same vibe as a pediatrician. Instead, Penny pressed her lips together and averted her eyes, not that she’d been able to see him well with her head pinned against Stark’s neck anyway. Bruce hadn’t been one of her kidnappers but he was obviously, painfully complicit. He knew everything and wasn’t trying to help her escape.

“Come on baby, you can tell Bruce,” Stark tucked both of her wrists in one of his hands and brought the other up to cup her face, stroking his thumb along her jaw line, “he just wants to make sure you’re okay. It looked like she was having trouble staying on her feet—J, any observations?”

“ Ms. Parker seemed to wake in acute pain, movements suggest nausea and light sensitivity. Potential for dizziness and vertigo, and a loss of balance. ”

“Hm, she might have a concussion. Tones, you said she hit her head, right?”

“Twice now, once at her apartment and just now off the shelf.”

“Let’s get her to medical, I want to run a CT scan just in case,” Bruce shifted to bring himself into Penny’s line of vision, “I’m sure you have a concussion. Usually, I wouldn’t bother with a CT scan at this point, but since you hit your head twice in such a short period of time I want to make sure there’s no bleeding in your brain. Have you ever had a CT scan before?”

A moment of silence passed before Tony sighed, pressing his thumb firmly into the joint of her jaw, “answer, Penny.”

The threat in his movement was clear and Penny swallowed heavily, “no.”

“Good girl,” a slow, victorious smile crossed Tony’s lips at her response and he moved his thumb, continuing to stroke her face softly, “J, call the soldiers, we’ll need help to transport her safely and I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to assist.”

“They’ve been pacing the living room for the last three hours, I’m sure they’ll be here in half a minute, tops.”

Soldiers. Tony Stark employed soldiers. Of course he did. He had the government and the police in his pocket, why not the fucking military too. It was all a goddamn conspiracy and holy mother of God, Penny’s head was throbbing so bad.

She must’ve made a noise or something, because Stark was back to cooing at her a moment later, turning his head to nuzzle his face against hers, “we’ll get you some medicine soon, angel, just hang on.”

Penny pressed her eyes shut tightly, wishing he’d stop with the pet names. What was it with assholes and pet names? They’d been effectively ruined for her, if she ever got out of this she’d make everyone call her Penelope forever, no exceptions.

The door to the room opened with so much force it crashed into the wall with a bang. If she hadn’t been so tightly restrained in Stark’s grip, she would’ve jumped. Instead her muscles just went rigid and she prepared to be manhandled further as they brought her to ‘medical’.

“Oh, doll,” why was that voice so familiar, why did it feel like she’d been electrocuted by a 50-volt battery, “our poor baby.”

“Just wait until she tries to beat the shit out of you, Barnes, you won’t be cooing over her then,” Stark snorted, turning Penny’s face again and tapping her nose, “she’s a Hellcat.”

“She’s tried to beat the shit out of you multiple times now, Tony, and you’re still ‘cooing’ over her,” Bruce shot back, his voice fond.

He laughed and stood up with her still clutched in his arms, causing her eyes to pop open as her equilibrium shifted for the 80 th time that day. Penny’s head lolled slightly, until her eyes caught sight of the two men moving towards her.

She wasn’t sure when the culmination of her bad luck would come, when it would all wrap up in a grisly end. Soon, hopefully, because as the blows kept coming she wondered if she was going to be able to keep up.

Bucky and Steve, from the fucking coffee shop, were apparently the soldiers Stark had summoned to assist with her transit. If she’d been rigid before, it was nothing compared to the way her muscles pulled taught at the realization. A complete, overwhelming sense of fight or flight began pulsing through her veins—it had been a setup, everything at the coffee shop had been staged.

“So, the bad news is that I think she recognizes you,” Stark’s voice was full of laughter as he felt her begin gearing up for a throw down, “the good news is I think if I let go she’d hit the floor before she managed to hit one of you.”

No, Penny thought carefully, the bad news was that she might’ve been a dumbass but she wasn’t stupid enough to try to fight four men at the same time while half incapacitated. The bad news was that Penny had been a real shit kicker when she was in high school and maybe hadn’t grown out of it quite as well as she thought. The bad news was that at some point, they were going to let their guards down.

Penny was a little ball of chaos, but every inch of her was patient. She could wait.

***

The paranoia had started setting in around noon, when Penny had stopped answering his text messages abruptly. It would’ve been one thing if she’d been at work, but Peter knew she’d called out.

She was unusually available even at work, so it was extremely weird of her not to answer when she had the day off. By 1pm he’d placated himself by deciding she must’ve been getting her nails done like she’d said earlier and couldn’t answer because her hands were busy. But it didn’t take that long to get a manicure and when another hour passed without an answer, Peter felt his chest begin to tighten.

It was their last real day together for what could be forever. She should’ve been glued to her phone the way he was, desperate to live in his pocket for just a little while longer. He wanted to tell her about the gross apple he’d bought during lunch and how the soap dispenser was out in his favourite bathroom and ask if she knew about geomagnetic reversal.

By the time school was out, he heavily considered skipping academic decathlon practice to just go straight home. He’d be shipped off to Oregon in a few days anyway, so what was the point? But he forced himself to go anyway, if only to spend a little more time with MJ and Ned. And Flash wasn’t there, since MJ had punched him so hard in the stomach earlier that the asshole puked. Peter’s cheek still twinged from where Flash had punched him over the stupid chemistry test.

Practice had stretched on half way past forever and he’d hugged both of his friends for a solid minute before literally running away. The idea of really saying goodbye to either of them made him want to throw up and he couldn’t look at them any longer without breaking down. So he’d ignored Ned’s shouting and bolted for the subway as fast as he could.

Penny’s solution to his Tony Stark problem was insane. Peter wasn’t even sure if it would work, or if Tony would somehow intervene. He had so many connections, it was like running from an entire army instead of just one man.

Peter hadn’t actually seen Tony since Penny had caught them walking near the apartment complex. He almost wondered if Tony had been scared off by someone seeing them together, as if worried about being caught. Caught. Because Peter was 17 and there was no reason for a 40-year-old man to have any interest in him unless it was creepy and Stark needed to be caught .

But he knew that Tony wouldn’t be dissuaded by something so simple. If Penny was right, and he was almost sure she was because she always was somehow, then Tony was immune from the law. That’s why they were going to such extreme measures to get out of his grasp, because there was no other way to stop him. There was no way Tony had stopped following him, had stopped watching him. He was simply doing it at a distance now.

For some reason.

Peter really didn’t want to think about what that reason was.

A bone deep chill ran down his spine as he buzzed himself into the apartment and started up the stairs. He kept his phone in his hand, still hoping it would vibrate with a text message any second now. It was almost 5 o’clock, why hadn’t she answered his texts for 5 whole hours?

All three locks were done up on the door when he arrived at his apartment, which eased his tension somewhat. Penny was either still out and about for whatever reason, or she was safely tucked away in the apartment. Maybe she’d laid down to take a nap and not set an alarm— her schedule was so irregular she could sleep for hours and hours whenever the opportunity arose.

Another reassurance came when he saw her purse and keys sitting on the table just inside the doorway. She was home safe, her phone was probably just in her purse and she’d forgotten about it. It would bother him if she just hadn’t answered, but at least she’d be okay.

“Pen?” He called out, dropping his backpack onto the floor under the table and quickly digging into her purse, “are you awake?”

No phone in her purse, Peter sucked his lip into his mouth and worried it with his teeth. She must’ve fallen asleep on the couch and her phone was on the floor charging. He stepped swiftly down the hall and into the living room, crossing the hardwood floor quickly and peered over the back of the couch. Panic began to shoot through him when she wasn’t there. She might’ve been in the bathroom, maybe, or she could’ve laid down in his bed to rest instead—

“You lied to me, baby.”

Icy terror dripped down Peter’s spine, every hair on his body rising in unison. He wasn’t sure if it was the statement itself, or the tone, or the implication. Half a dozen apologies stuck to the roof of his mouth, spicy like cinnamon. Suddenly, a single thought began to race through his brain on repeat: Where is Penny?

“You told me you lived alone, off of an inheritance. Made me think you were all alone. Did you want me to think you were vulnerable, Peter? Did you think it would make keeping my attention easier? Because if you just wanted more attention, you should’ve told me baby boy,” the swish of fabric betrayed Stark’s otherwise silent movements as he shifted around in the kitchen, directly behind Peter.

“I… I told you I moved here after my aunt died, with money from family.”

“Do you really want to argue lies of omission with me, baby? I’m really good at arguing,” he was much closer now, Peter could almost feel the taller man’s body heat against his back.

“M-Mr. Stark, where is—”

“Penelope?” Stark cut him off before he could even ask, sending another nauseating spike of terror through his entire body, “does she prefer Penny or is that just what everyone calls her? She seems pretty averse to sweetheart.”

“Where—”

“She asks a lot of questions too, Petey,” his arms wrapped around Peter’s torso and pulled him back against his chest, carefully running his palm over the teenager’s sternum, “like ‘how did you get into my apartment?’ and ‘why won’t you leave my brother alone?’ That last one threw me for sure, baby. She was so scared but would hardly say anything but ‘please leave him alone’ half the time.”

“What did you do with her?” He could barely breathe, there was ice in his lungs, was he having an asthma attack?

“Nothing you need to worry about, baby boy. Why don’t you explain why you didn’t tell me about Penelope Parker, big sister extraordinaire?”

“P-please, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, j-just tell me she’s okay first,” tears were welling in Peter’s eyes, threatening to spill out at any second accompanied by loud sobbing.

“It’s cute you think you’re in a position to negotiate, precious. You’ve already earned yourself a punishment for lying, are you going to dig this hole deeper by being naughty? Answer me, now.”

Fuck, fuck he’d alluded to punishments and rules before but it had never seemed real. It all seemed like a bad dream most of the time, something that gave him nightmares but hadn’t actually happened. Wouldn’t ever lead to anything happening.

“I didn’t want to you know about her,” he whispered after a moment.

“Why Peter?”

Another hesitation, swiftly brought to an end by Tony’s teeth near his ear, “a-at first because she’d just… she’d just been hurt really bad and I didn’t want anyone near her. But later—later it was because I didn’t want you to have any leverage over me. Any more than you al.. already did.”

“Leverage, huh?” The man hummed quietly, both still very close to Peter’s ear, “You think I would’ve, what? Threatened to hurt her if you didn’t do what I said, threatened to kill her if you told?”

Peter nodded, a few tears escaping over his lash line to run down his cheeks. He’d been right too, Tony had taken advantage of Penny’s existence to hurt him. Where ever Penny was, she was there because of Peter. Whether she was hurt or scared or please not dead it was Peter’s fault because Tony Stark should’ve never been in their lives to begin with.

“Well naughty boy, you’ve earned yourself at least one and a half punishments, by my calculations. Silly thing, thinking I would hurt the person who took such good care of you for me. Now it’s my turn to take care of you, baby boy.”

“Please, where is she?” Peter sobbed, curling over the arm around his waist slightly, “is she okay?”

“Penny hit her head pretty hard, so she’s getting a CT scan right now and some medicine to help her sleep it off,” Tony’s unused hand began carding through Peter’s hair, tickling the back of his neck carefully, “You can see her sometime tomorrow, if she’s up for visitors. Cap might get over protective, we’ll have to wait and see.”

“W-Who is Cap, why can’t I see her now—”

“Uh, uh, uh, baby,” long fingers suddenly grew uncomfortably tight against Peter’s scalp, pulling his head back in one slow drag, “no more questions from you. It’s time for your punishments, and the only words I better hear from you are ‘thank you, sir’.”

[eatsockss]

Irondad and SteveTony Fic Recs!!

I decided to do a fic rec list bc i always see them and am So Grateful for them, esp rn bc everybody’s quarantined so what else is there to do but read fanfic. these are some of my favorite fics/some of the fics I read recently and just have open in safari rn. they’re mostly angst or whump ngl bc that’s my favorite but,,,, enjoy!

Irondad

ever in your favor by @iron--spider

Summary: Peter startles awake when someone shakes him. “Sorry, honey,” May says. Peter blinks a couple times and she comes into focus, her hair pulled back from her face. She’s trying not to look a certain way, but he can see it in her eyes anyway. She clears her throat, keeps talking. “But it’s…” She glances away, wets her lips. “You gotta get ready.” He remembers what day it is, and his heart beats like a drum at someone’s execution. But he tries to put on a mask, make it all seem normal. It’s everything but, despite the fact that he’s been dealing with reaping day since he was born, between himself, Ben and May. That fear that one of them could be taken away. Sent to surefire slaughter. But now Ben is gone, taken despite never having his name drawn from a bowl, and May’s finally safe. Now Peter’s name is in there alone. The last Parker sitting on the chopping block. He doesn’t know how to be. He doesn’t know what normal is, when the Hunger Games are looming on the horizon.

Note: this is probably my favorite ever irondad fic so like ,,, ummm ,,, Please read this

lay your weary head to rest by @the-great-escapism

Summary: “Please.” He means to say it loudly, with confidence, but it comes out as nothing more than a raspy whisper. His ears are ringing painfully, and his head feels like it’s going to explode. It hurts and hurts and hurts. “M-May,” Peter cries out to no one, feeling like a child. “Tony. Please, ‘m so tired.” He inhales and chokes on his tears. He can’t tell if it’s his imagination or not, but he’s pretty sure he hears a laugh. In which Peter gets kidnapped, and that's not even the worst part. The worst part is he's not allowed to sleep.

Priorities by JLMonroe1234

Summary: Tony had been in the cave for a month. Waiting. Planning. Healing. Biding his time until his creation would be ready and durable enough to get him home. With Yinsen's help and Tony's expertise, he would save them both. But when an injured teenager is brought into the mix, Tony must reevaluate his priorities and decide what's more important; a speedy escape, or rescuing the boy with the spider tattoo?

Return to Normal by Singing_Sirens

Summary: On his first day back, he didn’t expect the stares. Well, he expected some stares, but he didn’t think the entire hallway would just… stop. But that’s what they did. They froze, jaws hanging open, eyes wide, as he lowered his head and curled in on himself. He pushed through the attention. He set his jaw and marched forward, because he had been through worse in the last year.

Patient by alifetime

Summary: Just because Tony has retired as an Avenger, does not mean he still doesn’t have a business to run with Pepper. Since both his oldest children cannot always babysit for Morgan, he hires a babysitter. Harley didn’t really know what to think of the babysitter, and always kept a protective eye on Morgan. But she had told him that Skip was nice. She always seems to be smiling and happy whenever Skip comes to stay. It didn’t filter his concern. So when he goes college, he demands that Peter keeps an eye on him. Peter liked Skip. Until he didn’t. However, he will do anything to keep his brother and sister safe.

Identity Theft by KitCat992

Summary: It's been months since the events of Civil War, and the Avengers are doing their best to remain a team, having promised to forgive and forget. Unfortunately for them, Tony Stark's latest invention has been stolen and recovering it causes tension to reappear. Meanwhile, in Queens, Peter Parker has two main priorities on his plate — complete his midterm finals, and track down a fishbowl wearing criminal that may or may not lead him right into the hands of the Avengers. Somehow between all of this, Spider-man's identity is revealed to the Avengers, Steve and Tony's friendship may permanently be damaged due to continued hidden secrets, and Happy struggles to buy a youth-sized casket for Peter's funeral. Things were a lot easier when they were fighting over Bucky Barnes. (Or: The Avengers welcome Peter into their crazy superhero family and will do anything to protect him.) Shameless Peter whump and Protective Tony Stark.

the second law of thermodynamics by fourleafchloe

Summary: It happens the same way it always does. (It's just discipline. It's not that bad. It's fine, Peter is fine, he'll be fine--) Except he really isn't fine, and Tony knows something's up, and Peter's house of cards is falling apart, and so the story goes. — separate from other fics in the series. a recovery story full of soft irondad, found families, and (eventually) tons of fluff.

Note: this is part of a series of separate irondad fics, each one of them is incredible, so go check out this entire series.

how can the body die? (you tell me, everything) by @madasthesea

Summary: Tony felt panic creep up his spine. Something was occurring to him, slowly percolating in the back of his mind. “You said the stinger got you. Is Scorpion’s stinger venomous?” “I don’t—” Peter cut off as he groaned, the muscles in his jaw tight. “I don’t know. He upgraded—he was faster. Bigger. I—I thought I could beat him.”

oh, darling. by luna_e_stelle

Summary: "Peter?" Tony’s voice wavered with an urgency that cut through the thick haze in Peter’s mind. There was so much emotion in that one word that Peter wondered how he had ever doubted that Tony loved him. They had never said it out loud, just showed it in a way that spoke louder than words ever could. — Peter is taken, and he tries to find his way back home.

whumptober series by @iron--spider

Summary: 10 fics that fulfill whumptober prompts (i could many choose one so just go read the whole series)

Pieces of Echoes by @geekymoviemom

Summary: this is like a rewrite of the MCU integrating most of the storylines So Seamlessly with SuperFamily. Amazing series.

uneasy lies the head by @tnyystark

Summary: Two thoughts come to Peter, both at a breakneck speed he can barely handle. One: the world now thinks he is responsible for the attack in London. And Prague. And Venice. And the murder - murder; as if the man is really dead; as if the universe is kind enough to let that happen - of Mysterio. And two: the world now knows who he is.

Long Shadows by Black_Briar

Summary: Peter comes into contact with a foreign substance on a mission, and things only get worse from there.

I’ll Be Your Home (Forever and Always) by ScarletPotter

Summary: Peter didn't plan on being kidnapped, it all just sorta, maybe, happened? Peter was on his way to meet Ned when suddenly everything goes dark. When he wakes up he's restrained to a table and a man introduces himself to be Quentin Beck, and that he's going to kill him.

god did not craft us as alters, but as dying gods by helloitisafellowgay

Summary: Peter Parker is not immune to trauma. Far from it, in fact. (With great power comes great responsibility, Peter.) So when the building collapses, when the dilapidated remains of metal and concrete, and later searing scraps of plane, fall around him? Well, this is practically nothing. Practically. He’s fine, really. It just gets a little hard to breathe sometimes. Like, when he follows Happy into Stark Tower through the parking garage. Or when he turns on the news while doing homework and sees reports of a plane crash. And sure, the small fire that broke out in the chemistry lab had sent his heart racing and caused sweat to bead on the back of his neck until even Ned asked if he was okay, but it’s nothing to worry about. Regardless, he knows where those come from. But this? In which Skip Westcott is a repressed memory, until he returns.

Note: favorite fic title!

Stony

my heart is driftwood, floating down your coast by @kapteniron

Summary: Tonight, there’s a stranger in his backseat. That’s not unusual. He’s also sad. That’s not unusual either. What is unusual is that the stranger is silent. (One night, a stranger enters Steve's taxi. Nothing is the same again.)

Forever Linked by ashes0909 and athletiger

Summary: Before the door even clicked shut, he opened his mouth to let the pink petals flutter to the ground. In the center of all this mess was a single rose, not yet bloomed, but Tony knew, deep down, what this meant. But they were only teammates for sure; nothing else will go further. — “You have Hanahaki?” she asked, barely more than a whisper. He fisted out the petal from his pocket and held it out to her. “If that’s what would cause this to come out of my throat.”

Steve Rogers’ Guide to Wooing Tony Stark by Tonks22

Summary: Steve tries to woo Tony. Steve is not very good at it. Tony is oblivious.

Blue Lips, Blue Veins by @romanoff

Summary: Tony Stark is Iron Man. Before that, he was an man with bigger heart than brain. Before that, he was an asshole with a bigger mouth than sense. And before that, he was was a scared little boy. Not that it matters. Stark's always have had iron in their backbone.

Note: this is more of a character study of Tony Stark but it’s Incredible. Cannot recommend this enough.

The Butterfly Effect by @itsallavengers

Summary: While fighting with Loki, Steve Rogers from 2012 hears the two simple words: "Bucky's alive." And the whole universe ripples with the aftershocks.

Going Steady by @itsallavengers

Summary: Steve has a soft spot for the sound of Tony's heart

Hide A Heart Of War by RayShippouUchiha

Summary: “You’ve got war in your heart boy,” Howard sneers, “don’t ever try and pretend to be anything but what you are.” Tony feels the familiar burn of a flower mark being etched into his skin but he doesn’t look, doesn’t try and check to see what it is. Instead he keeps his eyes on Howard and his hands cupped around his bleeding mouth and nose.

Note: this is technically Stuckony but,,, it’s rly good so it’s going on the list.

Assorted

a primer for the small weird loves by babyloveparkner

Summary: “What are you—?” “Hold on,” Peter says, tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth in concentration as the pen moves across the page. He rips out another page, then seems to grow frustrated and just opens up his notebook to start writing in it rather than stealing pages out of it. Harley feels stuck, flabbergasted and frozen, and he doesn’t know how long he sits there and watches before Peter lets out a huff and finally leans back, satisfaction in his eyes as he hands it all to Harley, all the scribbled writing and torn pages. “Read these.” Harley blinks once, slow, as he takes the offered notebook with the ripped out papers on top. “What…?” And Peter just smiles and shrugs. “They’re poems,” he says. “I looked some up, wrote down the good parts. Maybe those’ll give you that hopeful feeling that you were looking for.” or: harley runs from a homophobic town and finds solace in poetry and peter parker

the spider-man conspiracy by @tempestaurora

Summary: WHO IS SPIDER-MAN? The screen showed Peter Parker, sixteen years old and determined to prove the identity of Spider-Man over the course of the three-part documentary he was making, unknowing that it would become viral within days of the first part being released. Behind the camera, way off screen, was Harley Keener, Tony Stark’s other prodigy child, grinning like crazy as Peter started the documentary. Only a few people knew what was to come, and those few people were about to have a great few weeks. “My name is Peter Parker, and with the help of my friends, Ned Leeds, Harley Keener, and my Aunt, May Parker, who provided me with a lot of red yarn for this project, we’re going to uncover the identity of Spider-Man.” OR "what if peter just decided to fuck with everyone who didn’t know he was spider man and make a documentary about him trying to uncover the Truth."

5 times Tony kissed Rhodey and the one time Rhodey kissed back by lomku

Summary: Exactly what it says in the title.

Note: I wish I had more Ironhusband fics to rec bc i love them but they aren’t as abundant as Stony fics and the ones i’ve read most recently are Stony.

[tonystarkbingo]

Tony Stark Bingo Party Prompt Meme

http://generatorland.com/usergenerator.aspx?id=25057 -- we took tags from this random generator and then made up more detailed prompts from them. These prompts are open use, even if you’re not participating in the bingo, but please tag us if you write one, we’d LOVE to see what you did with it! nonsense + everyone is gay + denial : Tony+harem - Tony, while an incorrigible flirt, does not believe that anyone actually likes him, let alone as many as do. They come up with increasingly ridiculous ideas to ask him out or at least let him know they like him, while he innocently thinks they're all just such awesome friends superpowers + bodice-ripper + sad Stuckony - something set in the Regency(ish) era but with secret superpowers as an added bonus. Let’s of angst over trying to hide their secret powers, and wanting to save people without revealing themselves and also cause they’re gay. clones + nighttime + wishes Coulson/Strange (StrangeAgent? AgentStrange? DrAgent?) - Coulson ends up spending the night in the NY Sanctum. Some of the artifacts happen to be particularly sensitive to subconscious fantasies... and isn't it lucky that cloning himself happens to be one of Strange's powers? cruising + flashbacks + bad boys Winteriron possible future Stuckony - small warning for drinking mention - Tony is driving around to distract himself so he doesn't get drunk. He gets in an accident because he is not actually in a state to drive. The accident is comparatively harmless, the flashback to his convoy being attacked in Afghanistan is less so. When Tony wakes up in the hospital he learns that the person who dragged him from his car to safety is one James "Bucky" Barnes, resident motorbike riding bad boy heartthrob and friend/visitor of Steve "regular ER customer" Rogers, who's his hospital roommate. room service + lifeguards + sharing Tony is a lifeguard who takes his job very seriously. He's attending a convention-slash-training seminar at a posh uptown hotel, but then there's a knock at the door. He opens it to find two room service carts, both with order slips on them that indicate they're actually destined for another room. Rather than call the obviously harried and beleaguered bellboy back, he pushes them down the hall himself and knocks on the door... which is answered by none other than the hot beefcake fellow-lifeguard that's been distracting Tony all day. They end up sharing the enormous amount of food... and then maybe some more. :wink: overthinking + pity sex + customer service Tony just turned 40, he's been friends with Bucky and Nat for forever, and they'd been each other's marriage backups for the longest time, like, if they weren't married at 40, they'd marry whoever wasn't married either in their little trio. Only, two years prior, Buckynat became husband and wife and so he's having a little pity party on his floor at the Tower, drinking virgin mojitos and seriously consider a particular customer service to cheer himself up in one way or another - might as well get an orgasm, as shitty and sad as it may be, it's his birthday ffs - but then Bucky and Nat appear in his elevator, and they pull him off the couch he's been sprawled on for three hours, and Nat is the first to kiss him, and he's too stunned to react much but when he does question wtf is happening, Bucky shushes him and Tony lets him. The next morning he is evidently convinced it was all just pity sex, or a kink of theirs or whatever.... certainly nothing to do with the fact that they've been courting him forever and got tired of waiting for him to step out of ObliviousStarklandia. Of course not. wolves + romantic friendship + wigs Okay, so, someone has been doing an excellent job of hiding his baldness from someone else, with whom he's been in a long term best-friends-but-in-love not-quite-relationship. He's got an elaborate series of wigs, and over the years he's gradually been replacing them with slightly more grey ones so that someone else doesn't realise. Aaaand then someone gets bitten by a werewolf, and when he shifts for the first time he is completely bald and the secret is out. accidental relationship + butt dialing + warlocks Tony Stark is not happy with today's mission, not like there's an occasion to enjoy dealing with magic. But now he's in a relationship with Bucky, which is not bad, that man is gorgeous, but this is not the way. He's ranting about it to Jarvis and doesn't realize that he sat on his phone nor that he dialed the other supersoldier in the team until he hears a muffled laugh beneath him. He's going to kill that warlock smuggling + fear + road-trip okay, a Star Wars AU. Farmboy Peter is fleeing from stormtroopers who found out his parents were Jedi. He runs into smuggler Tony and they take off in Tony's ship for an extended road trip in space. possession + loving marriage + gardens & gardening Pepperony, Morgan insists there's a spirit possessing the garden because she's seen the plants dancing. Turns out they've accidentally created sentient plants and Tony is like nope, call somebody else, I do mechanical engineering and they call Dr. Cho to fix it. The marriage is in there somewhere I promise  idiots in love + bonding + resurrection Ironhawk - Clint tries to get Lucky back after he goes over the rainbow bridge, but he can’t actually read latin and ends up bringing back Tony from the 18th century.  And poor Tony gets Clint as his guide to the 21st.  Shenanigans and eventual fluffy ending improv + cultural appropriation + shield maidens After the Battle of New York, Tony's interviewing Thor about Asguardian tech and learns that they have all kinds of shielding devices, and gets interested in trying to replicate what Thor describes just in case aliens decide to pay a call on Earth again. Thor, for his part, is kinda shocked that Earth doesn't have any such shields, though on the other hand it is Midguard, so. You know. Tony gives it a shot and a couple weeks later he's launching the satellites into orbit for a preliminary test of the shields. He intends to test them with SI tech developed from seized Chitauri tech, but before he can get the chance an alien army shows up, guns blazing and very mad about something. The shields hold, thankfully, and the aliens send a strongly worded letter informing him that he has infringed upon their religious and cultural traditions by putting the Stark logo on them. Their planet was visited centuries ago by time-travelers that greatly influenced their culture, religion, government, etc. These time travelers carried devices with that same Stark Logo on them. The Stark Logo has become a complex cultural symbol over the centuries, and they don't appreciate him using it on war tech, even if on shields. Eventually, they figure out that the time travelers' tech was Tony's tech, and agree to leave in peace, but only after Tony spends a terrifying couple of days trying to improvise his way through a diplomatic disaster with an alien power. vampire family + slapstick + loss WinterIronWidow: So, Natasha's been a vampire for a long time, and she's lonely, so she decides to take on some mates, enter established relationship WinterIron. She vampirises them, which leads to Tony having fits about GARLIC and my god, I'm ITALIAN, you horrible woman!  And Bucky's like "I'm... CATHOLIC?? OM-- I can't even say G-- now??" awkwardness + chatting & messaging + shyness Tony doesn't understand why everytime Bucky comes into the lab, Dum-E tends to drop whatever he's holding and go hide in his charging station. Dum-E's always a bit clumsy and silly but this is more than usual and Tony's worried that Dum-E doesn't like Bucky or something like that. Anyway after much discussion, with JARVIS as translator and go-between, it turns out that Dum-E has developed a bit of a crush on Bucky's fancy robotic arm. Which ends up of course being a hilarious & awkward situation for all involved. candles + explosions + blind date tony gets bullied by pepper to go on a blind date to get out of his funk, she insists that this Matt Murdock character is the perfect date and Tony will like him. reluctantly tony goes to fancy restaurant and meets Matt Murdock and they hit it off instantly the little snarky assholes. they have a nice dinner by candle light and it's all going so well up until dessert when they order some kind of chocolate lava cake which was tragically not cooked properly and ends up exploding on both of them and bam they fall in love and live happily ever after skeleton puns + reincarnation + deus ex machina A snap, that was all it took to snuff out something so bright amidst the rubble of what was once New York City, and, with Tony gone for good, the living seem rather, well…dead. Until, one day, someone they all thought long dead returned to them, a blue cube glowing in his grip and a sweet promise of a new beginning dripping from his lips. But of course, no new beginning comes without a price laundry + tenderness + dialogue “I hate laundry,” Morgan declared after trying to refold her sweatshirt for the seventh time. “Me too kiddo,” Tony whispered back, sneaking a glance over his shoulder to Pepper who was putting clothes into the wash. “But that’s why we do it together. It gets done and we don't have to do it alone.” world domination + paranoia + everything hurts Tony knew what was coming, he knew. He’d seen the future and he knew. The Kree were coming - why would no one believe him? Not his husband, not the team, not even his own son. He kept convincing them they had to suit up and defend the planet and Steve and Peter kept telling him that a engineering professor from Cal Tech can’t do that, that this suit he talks about is only in his delusions. But he’s not paranoid. Or crazy. Or any of those other words. He is Iron Man. He just has to convince everyone else. feels + useless lesbians + Santa's workshop Toni doesn’t think anyone could accuse her of overflowing with Christmas spirit. That hasn’t stopped the rest of the Avengers from turning the “festive cheer” dial up to eleven, and Toni thinks she might just have to spend the whole next month hiding in her workshop. (Hey, she let DUM-E wear a Santa hat – that has to count for something.) Too bad Jamie Barnes – cyborg superassassin extraordinaire, Captain America’s best friend, and Toni’s big gay crush – has gotten the exact same idea. Now the rest of the team thinks they’ve got a “thing,” and Toni can’t decide which is worse: putting up with the Avengers’ not-so-subtle attempts at matchmaking, or spending all her time with the woman she loves and who she is absolutely, 100%, totally certain doesn’t reciprocate. Getting through this holiday season without having her heart broken might just take… a Christmas miracle. shapeshifting + secret organizations + nurses “C. Barton - Orderly.”  That’s what his tag said.  But only a very few people knew exactly what kind of hospital Saint Natalis actually was, and just how busy they could be during the full moon. kissing games + pirates + book stores Tony always thought that the shop had a mind of its own. The books were one thing, whispering their secrets to patrons who managed to find their way to it. Jarvis always did warn him not to touch any of the artifacts. The "DO NOT TOUCH" signs plastered all over the crates. So maybe it was his fault that he managed to summon 'Buccaneer Barnes' after touching the shiny pirate sword. "Let's play a game. If you win, I'll help you put all those runaway monsters that jumped out of the books. If I win, you owe me a kiss. Whatdaya say Stark?"

[iron--spider]

Okay, I just saw FFH

I’ll say right off the bat, it was a million billion times better than Endgame, despite the lack of Tony Stark. I’m already planning on seeing it again. But I do have both positive and negative feelings, which I will discuss in full spoiler openness, under the cut.

It’s very strange. I did....I would say I liked it a lot. Almost loved it. But it also makes me feel strangely empty. I guess this links with the fact that I feel very separate from an MCU that doesn’t contain a living Tony Stark. It feels very, very weird to think he’s not alive anymore. My brain still doesn’t compute it even though I know it’s a stone cold fact, and it’s like I’ve built a glass wall between myself and this new world they’re living in. I see it, but I don’t feel like it’s the same world I’ve been in love with for eleven years. And while I can say it was a very good movie, it’s hard for me to connect with it the way I previously would have.

I’m gonna do pros and cons, and start with the cons, so I can end this post on a positive note. But I do have more pros than cons! So that’s good.

CONS:

- I know the MCU is not known for its nuance or it’s emotional content, but I would have liked a lot more personal details about Tony from Peter. We know they were close. A few lines would have done it.  - Brad. We didn’t need a love triangle, and he added nothing to the plot. - What EDITH stands for. I think I’m the only person who thinks that’s out of character. It feels like what people believe Tony is, that facade he puts on, but it’s not who he actually is. Maybe we can take it as he’s making fun of what people think of him? I don’t know, but it felt off to me. - The timing of the MJ/Peter romance. There will be more about them in the pros section, but the timing still feels wrong. I don’t know why this sudden romance needed to be the focus of this movie. I understand that he was distancing himself from his grief, but the grief felt.......barely present. It was good, when it was there, but it wasn’t there enough. I wish we had gotten more friendship between MJ and Peter, or at least a rundown of what they’d been through in the year we missed? And am I getting that right? Did a year pass? Is that what they were telling us in the beginning bit? - Going off that, I wish we had seen Peter deal with losing five years like....at all. Even a little bit, lol. He was essentially dead. That would have been an amazing focus, along with dealing with losing Tony and his want for a normal life/girlfriend. Why can’t they balance this shit? - I wanted more about the world and what was going on, obviously. But I knew we weren’t gonna get that.  - Peter shouldn’t have walked right by that one gorgeous Iron Man mural with the candles. He didn’t even spare it a glance and that was weird to me. - I really wish we had been able to see Peter’s actual face during the horrifying Iron Man illusion. I love the Spidey suits but I really wanted to see his face. - Take off your clothes scene was very uncomfortable lol, and it was even worse because PETER was uncomfortable.

PROS - Tom. Tom Tom TOM! He was just......incredible. He does so much with what he’s given, he brings everything to the next level and he’s our best Spider-Man. I can’t even say enough about him. I love his face, I love his inflections, I love how he moves, I love his expressions, I love every single thing about him. He has wonderful timing. He’s the best. - Happy. He was so great. He added to every scene he was in. I loved his interactions with Peter’s friends, especially when they were hiding with the crown jewels lol. I loved him handing it to “Nick” in the end, saying Peter would call him :) - MJ. She got so much more to do in this and it really makes me wish we had seen more of her in the first movie.  - Going off that, MJ and Peter. Despite the terrible timing of their romance, it was surprisingly cute. I really liked how MJ was softer and changed when she was alone with Peter. They felt genuine and I wasn’t expecting it and I really enjoyed it. They were sweet together. I will say I preferred when they were physically together as opposed to Peter talking to Ned/Mysterio about her. - Ned. Amazing, as always. So funny, so sweet, the best friend. I loved his and Peter’s hug. - Betty and Ned. Really funny kind of critique of teenage romance, lol. - Jake G. I wasn’t really feeling him, but then....THE TURN. He was incredible. One of his best performances, for real. - And going off that....he was so insane. So, so insane. All the music cues helped too. I don’t think Tony’s legacy or character is tarnished AT ALL because this dude was so, so cuckoo bonkers. He was ordering hits on kids and nonchalantly talking about casualties and he was just a LUNATIC. I’m not worried about Tony. And anyone who uses Beck as their source for their Tony hate? Doesn’t look good, fam. He had his crazy eyes on from the bar scene forward. Insane person. He was willing to kill all his pals. He was the worst, lol. - Annnnddd in relation to that, MJ giving Brad the business in the end and specifically using the phrase about how “Peter isn’t here to tell his side” or whatever it was. I think that totally was meant to go along with all the Tony/Beck stuff. It felt purposeful. - I liked the ‘I Will Always Love You’ tribute - The Tony murals in every damn city? They were gorgeous. I hope they release images of those because I wanna see them lol. He was so loved. - I’m glad they had May talk about ‘blipping’ back into her apartment and someone else was living there. They actually addressed something! - Peter having a panic attack at the beginning when Tony was mentioned? Really good. Really sad. - I like that Tony trusted Peter enough to give him the glasses. It shows just how much he trusted him. And this is nothing like project insight, because Tony isn’t Pierce. He has good intentions. It is for protection. People need to chill, lol. Peter was acting like a bit of a moron on the bus, but I believe by he end he has a handle on it and will be much, much better about it. Him jumping out of the bus and destroying the drone was cool. - Bar scene was really good. I know Peter saw Tony in Beck when he put on the glasses :( And his self doubt is so painful. Tony had such trust in him and Peter just can’t believe it. HURTS. - The illusion scene had such magnificent visuals. I want to see it again in 3D, but it was awesome. I said earlier I wanted to see Tom’s face, but he did a great job with all his body movements. He���s just so great, lol. - Iron Man zombie shook me, made me jump, got me upset. As did Mysterio’s taunting in that moment. What an asshole. - I liked the “stakes” in terms of how Peter got so, so messed up in this movie. Poor thing. He was still limping in the scene at the airport! Seeing him get hit by the train was so hard. - The plane scene was my favorite part of the whole movie, from the tulip field to the suit getting built. I loved the hug, Happy trying to be soft and dealing with Peter’s outburst. Peter crying, their talk, “i miss him so much”, Tony never, ever second guessing Peter. THE ONE THING. That hurts so bad lol. And Happy watching Peter make the suit, fondly, seeing Tony in him. It makes me cry thinking about it. Peter carries Tony with him always, because he’s part of him, he’s in his heart, he was his protege and even if he doesn’t believe it, Tony believed in him. He knew he was the best of them. GODDAMN THEM. I love seeing Peter and Happy interact as they did here because they really remind me of Happy and Tony. Peter’s Tony’s kid. There’s no denying it at this point. - MJ and her mace. Chef’s kiss. - The whole final battle was fucking amazing. Some of the best shit in the MCU. I loved seeing Peter get to be a BADASS, get to show his smarts and his strength and use that Spidey sense. He was amazing. - Stopping Beck from shooting him? Incredible. One of my favorite Marvel shots. I loved Peter angry and standing up for himself here. So good.  - The kisses were pretty cute. The holding hands was definitely cute. Swinging was very cute, as was how excited Peter was about it. - I really like Happy and May and I hope it goes somewhere. C’mon May! - I’m of two minds on the reveal. It pisses me off that fucker did this. He was obviously planning it and now he’s painted a target on a 16 year old’s back, and once again, anyone who tries to use him as a source is a SOCIOPATH. I feel so bad for Peter, and it makes me really sad because this would be an amazing thing for Tony to be involved with. Peter definitely needs Tony right now, and I hope SOMEONE reliable helps him. I know Happy will, but he needs a powered person too. PLEASE. I worry about where they’ll take this. It could be cool, possibly seeing him on the run, but if they have any ideas about killing May or any of his friends because of this, I’ll kill them. - Skrulls thing was funny and it also explains why Fury felt so off. SLJ did an amazing job with that, lol.

In conclusion, I really loved a lot of what they presented to me. Mostly because Tom is truly spectacular. But a world without Tony Stark will always have a certain amount of emptiness to it, and I won’t be following any other Marvel films save for Spider-Man. I’ll follow Spider-Man because I love Peter/Tom. But it’s always gonna be really painful knowing Tony is gone and they’ll never give us the amount of emotional content that we deserve when it comes to him.

But I will recommend FFH. I give it an 8/10, and I think I’ll enjoy it even more on a second viewing. For being in ‘the bad timeline’, this was a good film. 

[barnes-belle]

Beauty and the Barnes (12)

FANDOM - MARVEL MCU

PAIRING - Bucky X Reader

WARNINGS - Lots of Smut, Light Hints of Non/Dub-Con, Prostitution, Swearing, Dark Bucky. (I can’t stress enough that this is kinda dark, Buckys an asshole and the kind of behavior that goes on in this fic is in no way acceptable in the real world)

When your father falls deathly ill you fall into a lifestyle you would have never predicted for yourself. Selling your body as a high-class escort isn’t ideal but it’s the only way to find the money you need to help your father, until your first client offers you another way.

Bucky’s mean, coarse and gets a kick out of watching you squirm but he is willing to help your father. All you have to do is sign yourself over to The Winter Soldier, body and soul.

Trapped in The Avengers compound, serving as a PA to a man who’s an absolute beast you find yourself wondering if there’s such a thing as a happy ending?

Masterlist

Chapter Twelve 

Your fingers tentatively probed at your throat, marvelling at the accelerated healing. Tony had injected something into the skin that had made the bruising fade in a matter of hours. When you woke up you looked like a horror show and now, only a few hours later you were good as new. You could still feel a slight ache, but it was manageable.

Physical trauma had been dealt with and now you were taking on the phycological side of things. The snow had continued to fall and the grounds of the compound were a pristine white. Not a drop of red in sight. You wrapped your scarf around your neck tightly and tugged your gloves on before slipping out of the door, hesitantly making your way through the snow.

 “What are you doing?”

 You yelped and spun around, nearly slipping on the icy ground in surprise. Bucky moved quickly, his arms grabbing your hips and keeping you upright while he looked almost apologetic about scaring you.

 “I’m sorry.” He said softly, letting go of you.

 “It’s alright, you just surprised me.” You said, grinning at your own clumsiness.

 “My question still stands, what are you doing?” He asked, frowning at the bag in your hands.

 “It’s birdseed!” You exclaimed, holding up the bag for him to study.

 “Why?” He asked, utterly perplexed.

 “Well with all the snow and the ground being frozen solid, the birdies can’t find food very easily so I wanted to help them out.” You explained.

 “Is there anyone you’re not kind to?” He asked in awe.

 “Hydra agents.” You said with a grimace.

 Your quick answer drew a surprised huff of laughter from him before he looked sheepish for laughing at the obviously painful memory.

 “Sorry.” He said, running his hand through his hair nervously.

 “It’s not your fault.” You assured him, linking your arm through his to his astonishment.

 “What are you doing?” He demanded.

 “Trying to stay upright.” You said innocently.

 “Oh.” He said, with a hint of disappointment.

 You untied the bag of birdseed and carefully sprinkled some on top of the snow before pulling Bucky back a few feet to wait. It was only a few moments before one or two birds came to investigate, chirping happily as the pecked at your offering. You watched them happily, glancing at Bucky from time to time. He seemed strangely fascinated by the birds, watching them carefully.

 “Can.. I mean, could…” He stammered, looking at the bag of seed you were holding.

 You smiled and pulled his metal hand towards you, palm facing up and tipped a small pile of seed onto his hand. He closed his fist around it and looked at the birds, deciding against throwing it and scaring them. He silently crept closer and knelt down, slowly extending his hand to drop the seed on the ground when one very brave and curious birds chirped loudly and hopped across the snow to perch on his hand, eating the seed directly from Bucky’s metal appendage. Bucky made a huffing sound of surprise and looked at you helplessly.

 You had to cover your mouth to stifle the laughter at the sight of the big bad Winter Soldier knelt in the snow, too afraid to move lest he scare the robin perched on his metal hand. More and more birds fluttered over, seemingly unbothered by Bucky’s presence and gratefully pecking away at the seed he was holding for them. Slowly, the tension and surprise faded and he actually smiled softly at the strange turn of events.

 Your laughter dissipated into awe and admiration at the sight before you and you felt something like butterflies in your stomach. This was the Bucky who had been hidden beneath the mean and coarse, unrefined man you’d first met. The tender way he held himself was so sweet and kind, you honestly wondered how you had never seen it there before.

 Bucky glanced over at you to see if you were laughing at him and his heart faltered at the way you were gazing at him. Like he was something worth gazing at and not something to recoil from. Even when you’d poured the seed into his metal hand, you hadn’t so much as shuddered at the cool metal despite it having been wrapped around your throat the day prior. You had always been so patient with him, so kind but this was different, It was almost like lo… no, he was imagining things. He turned away, determined to ignore you. Still, you’d never looked at him this way before.

 “Are you seeing this?” Sam asked, peering out of the window.

 “What?” Peter asked, running over, trying to push between Steve and Sam to see what they were looking at.

 “Well who’d have thought?” Steve said, grinning at the sickeningly sweet sight.

 “You did, you can gloat.” Sam sighed.

 “What are you looking at?” Peter asked again.

 “Yes, but I didn’t think they’d come together on their own. I thought they would have needed more of a push.” Steve admitted.

 “What’s going on?” Tony asked, wandering over to see what the fuss was about.

 Steve moved over so Tony could see.

 “Aww, come on!” Peter protested.

 “Well, this is new.” Tony remarked with clear amusement.

 “WHAT’S NEW?” Peter demanded.

 “Nothing your young, innocent eyes needs to see.” Tony joked.

 “But..”

 “They’re gone now.” Steve said apologetically.

 “Who’s gone?” Peter asked.

 “I’ll tell you when you’re older.” Tony said, ruffling Peter’s hair obnoxiously.

 When Bucky finally tore himself away from his new friends he came over and straight away offered you his arm again.

 “Did you want to go inside or, maybe walk a bit?” He asked.

 “We can walk.” You said, trying to hide a shiver.

 “You’re cold.” He of course noticed.

 “I’m ok, I have a coat on.”

 “Have mine.” He insisted, shrugging it off and draping across your shoulders before you could protest.

 “I don’t need it, really… what’s that?” You asked, noticing the heavy weight in the inside pocket.

 “Oh, that’s your book.” He said, blushing slightly.

 “You’re reading it?” You asked delightedly, pulling it out.

 “Yeah. I actually liked it.” He admitted.

 “Liked, you finished it?” You asked, flipping through it.

 “I’m re-reading it, now I know how it ends I wanted to go back and pick up on all the bits I might have missed the first time.” He explained.

 You looked up at him in surprise.

 “You really did like it.” You said softly, not trying to mask the happiness in your voice.

 “I did. The main character was interesting, he started out kind of unlikable. He was naive and foolhardy but I liked how he grew and changed the more he saw of the world and his friendship with the slave grew.” Bucky said eagerly.

 “Yeah, he was a bit stupid at first. So consumed with how everyone else saw him and selfish really but he changed so much as it went on. I really liked how his entire perspective changed as it went on.” You agreed.

 “Why did you lend me that one? How did you know I would like it?” Bucky asked.

 “It’s actually one of my favourites. The author writes a lot of kind or creepy teen fiction stories I grew up with but this was the first thing of his I read that was more grown up. It still has that almost childlike wonder feel to it though.” You gushed.

 “You grew up reading creepy teen fiction stories?” He laughed.

 “I grew up reading just about anything and everything I could get my hands on. When I was about six I was upset because I didn’t have many friends. My grandmother gave me boxes of books she spent weeks collecting from charity shops and second hand stores and told me that ‘as long as I could read, I would always have a friend’.” You admitted.

 “She sounds like an incredibly wise woman.” Bucky noted.

 “She was. She really was.” You sighed wistfully, smiling at the memory of her.

 “I can’t imagine anyone not wanting to be your friend.” He told you honestly.

 “You didn’t want to be my friend.” You pointed out.

 “I did. I do.” He whispered.

 “You say that like you had a chance of refusing.” You smirked.

 “How foolish of me.” He snorted.

 You smiled up at him until you remembered what you’d spent the morning doing and dug through your pockets.

 “Here.” You told Bucky, smiling sweetly and holding out a slip of paper.

 “What’s this?” He frowned, looking over the list of numbers.

 “Phone numbers for physiatrist’s who specialize in working with veterans and people with PTSD. All of them were checked over and recommended by Sam and then thoroughly checked out by Tony and Friday before Steve and I called them all personally and removed any we didn’t think you’d like. If you crumple that piece of paper up, you and I are going to have a problem.” You told him sternly.

 His mature response was to snarl at you.

 “I know you’re from the 40’s where people didn’t talk about the mess inside their minds but if you can bring yourself to accept colour television then you can try therapy. All you have to do is meet them, you don’t even have to talk at all until you want to, even then you can say as much or as little as you like. If they give you advice, it’s your choice as to whether or not you take it. Just pick a name, call them and go sit in an office for an hour a week. Or we can bring them here.” You pleaded.

 “No.”

 “I’m sorry, I’m not explaining this very well. You’re doing it. Once you meet with them it becomes your choice but you are meeting somebody.” You ordered.

 “No, I’m not.” He growled.

 “James Buchanan Barnes so help me god I will drag your snarling ass there myself if I have to.” You huffed.

 Bucky looked confused by your attitude, like a puppy who had just been scolded for the first time. It almost broke your resolve, it was that adorable.

 “No.”

 Adorable or not, bionic arm or not, you were going to start throwing things at him.

 “Look Bucky, you can agree to it or….” You trailed off.

 “Or what?”

 “Steve and Tony want me to move out of your suite, I argued them down on the agreement I would get you to see a professional.” You admitted.

 “NO! They can’t take you away from me.” He said possessively.

 “Then go sit on a couch and glare at a stranger for an hour. Please?” You begged.

 Ideally, therapy would be something that someone would do willingly. Blackmailing him into going was a very last resort though and you weren’t lying when you’d said Steve and Tony had tried to move you into a different room. They were at the end of their ropes with him, the bruising on your throat being the final straw. If this was the only way to get him to speak to someone then so be it.

 “Fine.” He huffed.

 “Really? You’ll do it?” You asked hopefully.

 “For you, I’ll do it for you.” He promised, slipping the paper into his pocket.

 You felt bad that you’d spoiled the good mood but you’d done it with the best of intentions. You knew he needed help, he needed to be able to learn to live with the pain instead of letting it consuming him. But maybe there was a way to get him to smile again… or get yourself in trouble. Either way it was a distraction.

 “What’s that?” You said, frowning at something on the ground.

 “What?” He asked as you pulled your hand from his and ran over to check, bending down for a closer look.

 “Belle what is it?” He demanded, following you.

 Just as he approached his question was answered in the form of a face full of snow and your laughter ringing loudly in his ears. He brushed the powdery white flakes from his face in disbelief and watched with narrowed eyes as you scarpered away, running for cover. You ducked behind a tree and bit down on your lip to stifle a laugh. You nervously peeked our from behind the trunk but he was nowhere to be seen.

 “Looking for me doll?” He whispered in your ear, arms ensconcing your waist to stop you escaping.

 “If I beg for mercy, what are my chances?” You asked timidly.

 “Slim.” He admitted, picking you and carrying you over to a large pile of snow.

 “Bucky no! Please! MERCY! UNCLE! I SURRENDER!” You shrieked to no avail.

 He unceremoniously dumped you into the ice cold pile of snow and chuckled at your shocked spluttering.

 “Cold!” You yelped.

 “It is frozen water.” He shrugged.

 “I hate you.” You huffed, struggling to get up.

 He laughed freely at your pathetic attempts before he finally took pity on you and helped you up. During your struggles, his coat had slipped from your shoulders and your scarf had loosened and you saw his eyes snap to your throat. His hand gently brushed your hair away from your neck and he frowned at the remarkably clear skin.

 “You’re healed.” He said in wonder.

 “Tony. Well, the famous Doctor Banner actually. He gave Tony something to speed up the process and honestly, it was only light bruising anyway.” You explained.

 “Tony did this for you?”

 “Well, I asked if there was anything he could do to speed it up.” You admitted.

 The unspoken confession, that you wanted it gone so he would touch you again, was heard even though you didn’t say it out loud. He leaned in, his lips brushing over the skin in the hollow of your throat and it wasn’t the freezing cold surrounding you that had you shivering. He tenderly kissed every single centimetre of your neck, an apology in every light press of his lips and you basked in the affection. When his mouth traced your jawline you sighed dreamily, cold forgotten.

 He moved up, his lips dangerously close to yours and you sighed softly. That was when your body decided to remind you of how cold you were and a painfully violent shiver rippled through you.

 “You’re frozen!” He exclaimed, fixing his coat around you securely again and pulling you towards the building.

 You didn’t say anything, still affected by what had just transpired. Or almost transpired. There was no denying that something had shifted in the dynamic between the two of you and where there had once been anger and attitude, there was now tenderness and… maybe joy? Whatever it was, it was new and a bit alarming.

A/N - The thing Belle's grandmother said to her was actually something my wonderful granny said to me when I was a little girl and she was right.

Sam: I don't like him. Belle: That's a shame because your family loves him. Sam: What? Belle: *Points at Bucky sat on the ground, covered in birds*

@spnqueen02 @nogardsoahk @chipilerendi   @youwerespared��@jessieray98@nochampagnesocialist@scarlettswxtch@dropthepizza346@jsmith509@musingpredilection@shirukitsune@dragonrosegardens@sexyvixen7@spicymagz @teh-nerdette@nerdy-bookworm-1998@australianhorrorstory @thejourneyneverendsx@mysweetcookie99 @likes-to-smell-books 

[hackedmotionsensors]

Here we go Endgame lets talk about it! 

BELOW THE CUT

So I’ll say this!!! Over all!!! I liked it a lot. For a lot of reasons.

I also HAAAATTTEEEEEEEDDDDDDDDD a lot of some of the choices. That’s okay. We can have mixed feelings about movies especially the end of a saga. I think they did a good job of getting nods where they needed nods, bringing in storylines from previous movies and conversations that needed to happen.

And they fucking whiffed it on at least THREE REALLY IMPORTANT THINGS!!!

So lets start with what I liked.

1) STEVE TONY EVENT. DO YOU HEAR ME IT WAS A STEVE TONY EVENT  aaaah oh my god. From the second Tony lands back on the planet and Steve RUNS to him before even Pepper and he’s holding him and just the look of agony as Pepper takes him away and the fight where Tony says ALL THE SHIT WE HAD BEEN SAYING!!!! WHERE WERE YOU! YOU LIAR!!! and he RIPS HIS HEART OFF OF HIS CHEST AND GIVES IT TO STEVE BECAUSE YOU FUCKING BROKE HIS HEART YOU FUCKING FUCKED UP STEVE!!!!! FUCKK!!!! And then reconciling because “Resentment is corrosive” UGHHH!!! And Steve just barely containing himself when Tony shows up ughh!! UGHHH!!!!!!! AND THE ASS JOKE!!! THERE’S NO HETEROSEXUAL EXPLANATION ABOUT THAT!!!! TONY SAW STEVES ASS AND WAS LIKE TAN FRANCED IT LIKE BITCH YOU NEED AN FRENCH TUCK OF MY DING DONG IN YOUR BUTT!!! and Steve over the intercom being like “omg tony not in front of the kids” AND A STEVETONY SOLO MISSION!!!!!! 

A STEVE TONY...

SOLO

MISSION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TONY CALLING STEVE MY MAN  WOW. WOW. FUCKING EXCELLENT ON ALL ACCOUNTS THANKS SO MUCH!! I was given some bread thank you I will eat this stevetony bread nom nom nom nom nom.

2) Tony’s arc in this story was really beautiful. He finally got what he wanted, some perspective and closure with Howard. And I know initially you want to go “Hey Howard was really abusive” and yeah he was. But its complicated. Because Tony even says in Homecoming he was trying to break the cycle of abuse and he DID with Peter and Morgan. You can see just HOW MUCH he cares for his daughter and he was willing to say fuck you to the UNIVERSE in favor of not losing her. Its always a different perspective when you see your parents as people and not as YOUR PARENTS. 

Also Tony lying on the table with Natasha UuU. A lot of the interactions with Tony and the other characters were so good. Tony and Rocket. Tony and Nebula. Tony and Carol (tho brief). Tony arguing with Pierce like his little gay senses were like “This guys a nazi I bet”

3) I genuinely liked the Time Heist. I DID  NOT LIKE THE RULES OF TIME TRAVEL IN THIS MOVIE BUT I’LL GET TO THAT. But I looooved the Time Heist. From the New York stuff with Steve fighting Steve and knowing his dumbass loses his shit when he hears things like “Bucky’s still alive” and being done with his own stupid shit “I can do this all day” “YEAH I KNOW” (which btw at this point was basically the last thing he said to Tony in Civil War so maybe that doesn’t have its plucky little fire anymore and now is a sore spot). I loved Loki running away with the Space Stone (even tho as of now I’m still not sure what the FUCK THAT MEANS!? more on that in a sec) Loki making fun of Cap. Loki rolling his eyes at Odin. Tony dressed in a shield outfit screaming Medic!!! The gang all on the elevator and Hulk screaming about it and LOKI WAVING HIS HAND AT THE HULK AS THE DOORS SHUT!! TONY SITTING ON THE BRIEFCASE! SCOTT GOING “how the FUCK did you not know they were Hydra LOOK AT THEM They’re a COP!” Then jumping forward to the 70s and Steve’s legs that went all the way up to his asshole and Tony dressed as a doctor

I drew a doodle of it here you go lol I’ll post it properly later

oh did this not happen? Idk what movie you were watching.

4) The big battle at the end was SO FUCKING COMIC BOOK I WAS LOSING IT. Also I keep calling it the Battle of Five Armies or Return of the King lol T’challa BATHED IN A HALO OF LIGHT LIKE YES WE STAN A KING. MY WIFE

MY.

WIFE!!!!!!!!

VALKYRIE!!! ON HER BEAUTIFUL WHITE HORSE!!!! (also not being given an actual name and called Valkyrie is the funniest goddamn thing. Like that’s like going into a Footlocker and talking to the manager but calling them Manager)

CAROL!!!!!! WITH HER BUTCH ASS HAIRCUT PUNCHING THANOS IN THE MOUTH AND WRECKING HIS SHIT

WANDA FINALLY FUCKING FLYING. LIKE. F L Y I N G. THAT is what the Scarlet Witch is SUPPOSED TO DO!! SHE’S SUPPOSED TO BE SO POWERFUL IT TOOK EVERYONE TO TAKE HER DOWN CMON!!!!!! And she almost got him too. Honestly if it were down to Carol and Wanda they probably could have ended Thanos alone. 

Korg coming back for more comic relief AND PUTTING HIM IN TAIKA’S PINEAPPLE ONESIE!!!! ARE YOU KIDDING.

5) This is controversial. And I know it won’t age well. And that’s okay and feel free to disagree with me entirely. 

But I liked Fat Thor lmfao. I know it was played as a joke for the wrong reasons but I laughed. I was like fuck yes his belly looks like mine and that’s not why it was funny and it SHOULDN’T BE but I laughed lol. But on the other hand I think it had partially to do with Hemsworth constantly being like “no no we don’t need a shirtless scene” or just sort of a gag at how Marvel always has a shirtless scene and its just kind of funny to have it not be someone cut. EVEN THOUGH its a fat suit and I can’t take off my fat suit but Hemmy can and that’s kinda shitty. 

but I laughed. I can’t help it. He was a whole ass mess and I thought it was funny. And I know there are Thor fans out there who wanted more for him but like I said before this was a SteveTony event. This movie and this win worked because it was Steve and Tony finally coming together again.

It felt honestly the most comic book Avengers of the entire series. 

And true to comic book events

it whiffed the landing.

Before I get into dislikes I’ll say that I liked this movie more than I disliked it. I cried H A R D at the end of the movie. Because its not a movie that’s an on its own kind of movie. You had to have gone through the journey to get here. The pay off is completely lost if you only watch this movie. Or you only watch one or two of the MCU. Or if you’re like a few people I’ve talked to where they only like Steve and Tony. Or they only like Thor and Loki. Or they only like the Guardians and hate the avengers. If you have hate in your heart for any of these characters the payoff of this movie is pretty much lost.

The theme of this movie is clearly about moving on when things come to an end. When things stop or end or we lose people we love you have to move on. Steve says that at the beginning of the movie to our apparent gay representative straight director Joe Russo.

But like Tony said before.

Steve’s a fucking liar lmfao

But lets not start there. Lets start with the fucking timeline.

I hate.

I H A  T E EEEEEEEEE TIME TRAVEL!!!!!! AS A PLOT!!!!!!! WITHOUT ANY RULES!!!!!!!!!

I enjoyed what we SAW of the Time travel but the rules itself DIDN’T MAKE ANY FUCKING SENSE.

So when they’re suiting up Hawkeye for the test run Bruce explicitly says that all these movies that say “if you go into the past and fuck up the past you fuck up the timeline and the present/future is fucked because you’ve changed things”

ARE WRONG. HE SAYS THEY ARE WRONG. He says “If you go into the past. The past becomes your present. But the present then becomes your future. So you can’t go back and un fuck your parents to make you. Or kill baby Thanos. because that happened and you can’t change that but you can change youre present”

WHICH DOESN’T

MAKE ANY

FUCKING

SENSE. BECAUSE THEN YOU AREN”T TIME TRAVELING!!!!!!!!! 

If you go into the past yes YOU are in your present but the world is still being written around you STILL so you go into the past and change something (loki making off with the space stone) that’s CHANGED. You’ve created a new reality.

THEY EXPLICITLY SAY THIS IN DOCTOR STRANGE AND Y’ALL I KNOW DOCTOR STRANGE WAS BORING AS HELL BUT IF YOU’RE GOING TO USE TIME TRAVEL AS YOUR STORY DEVICE THEN YOU CAN’T SAY THAT SHIT IN DOCTOR STRANGE DOESN’T WORK WHEN YOU’VE ESTABLISHED IT AS THE RULES OF TIME TRAVEL.

THE ANCIENT ONE EVEN SAYS “you create a new reality. And it fucks shit up”

LIKE!?!?!??!

WHAT THE HELL!!!

So now Loki has the time Stone in reality B, in reality A Steve goes back and puts the stones back where they belong (and I guess.....gives the soul stone to Red Skull????????? wouldn’t you try to get Natasha back????like that itself is a whole movie of Steve going back and putting things away but ??????) 

And then we get to the end of the movie where Steve says Fuck you to Peggy’s reality A family and now on this timeline where they’ve time traveled he lived an entire life WITH Peggy but like.......you were Captain America and you just said “No don’t worry about JFK being assassinated. Or the Civil Rights movement. Or stopping Bucky in any capacity. Or maybe saving MLK. Or Peggy continuing to join SHIELD. Or stopping ACTUAL NAZIS from infiltrating SHIELD.

Because if you go with this idea that Steve went back and “lived a life” What did he DO then. What did he FUCKING. DO?

You’re not Steve from 1940s going back to 1940s. You’re Steve form 2019 going back to 1940s. No wifi. No medicine. No cell phones? Gays are still being persecuted. You can’t drink from the same fountain as black people (or rather they can’t drink from your white fountain). 

You are.

CAPTAIN.

AMERICA.

and you just said nah fuck it its fine? This shit can all happen but I don’t super care because I get to dance with Peggy. Peggy who on her own had this whole life. Who did all this stuff IN YOUR NAME IN YOUR HONOR. Who married someone else. Who had a FAMILY. Who had a NIECE that you made out with. And just..... wha....

Like if he had gone back and danced with her but came back with Natasha in exchange for the soul stone but during his travels had aged. Or met someone else.

Like movie wise and story wise I get wrapping up Steve’s story. And maybe the person Peggy is talking about in the video of her in TWS is actually Steve from 2019. Maybe that’s it. But it still doesn’t make sense because they FUCKED UP THE RULES OF TIME TRAVEL SO WHO THE FUCK KNOWS.

So. lol I wasn’t a huge fan of Steve at the end of the movie. I know they needed to do something to end the movie with a finality. With Steve being DONE. But instead of finality or closure I just have so many goddamn questions. And I don’t hold it against Evans or even really the directors per say. But I’ll blame Markus and McFeely because they were writing since TWS. They HAD the Cap STORYLINE to write about and that was how they ended it.

its like when you pack for a very important trip and you plan out all your outfits but then wake up late and end up throwing whatever you can find into your suitcase and run out the door.

It felt final and not final.

But I’ll tell you this. From my perspective and obviously I’m going to skew it this way because its me and FEEL FREE to disagree with me.

He left because Tony and Natasha were dead. The two people that he felt the closest to (sorry Sam, Bucky and Sharon [who we didn’t even see as dusted wow]) were gone. Natasha and Steve had become a brother and sister. He would always come back for her clearly. Trying to cheer her up as she’s crying. Natasha understanding Steve’s feeling of being lost. Tony inspiring and fighting with Steve. Like that’s part of what I liked about this is taht you could really feel how Steve and Tony needed each other for this to work but also they needed to not hate each other. 

Also I kinda knew the second Scott said “That’s a one way trip!!” before the 70s bit that Steve was going to stay in the past lol What an asshole.

Also I don’t think it was very UN-Captain America because I think people don’t always realize that a lot of the inspo for the MCU came ALSO from Ultimates. And if Ults Cap was able to go back to the past he would have in a heartbeat. Who was a more depressed Cap? Ults or MCU? I just don’t know.

Now.

Natasha.

This was another one I kind of saw coming from a mile away as soon as it was just the two of them on Vormir. I was kind of hoping they’d Hawkeye a way out of the deal by like throwing his daughters picture or something like that. Or that it would be Hawkeye. But they both had an upcoming movie/series so I didn’t know which way it went.

And then there was that big jump. And I was like oh my god they did it right

AND THEN THEY FUCKING DIDN’T.

Wow. Wowwwwwwwwww

Markus and McFeely 

REALLY DID THAT

THE RUSSO BROTHERS REALLY DID THAT

THEY DID THE SAME FUCKING SCENE TWICE.

The first time you get because Thanos is a dick and abusive and he would absolutely throw his favorite daughter into the soul pit (which I guess Isn’t picky because she didn’t love him back she hated him but I guess its a one way street with the ol’ soul stone)

And they don’t say during that one (far as I remember) that its a permanent exchange. 

But they sure emphasized this time. And they sure killed the original avenger who was the only girl on the team. Who never got a chance to live.

Who Whedon made herself call heself a monster because she can’t have a family and then she gets a found family and then SHE DIES. THEY KILL HER. AFTER HAVING A FAMILY.

WHAT THE FUCK. Like...my problems with Scarjo aside (which are similar with my problems with Paltrow) You DID. BLACK. WIDOW. FUCKING. DIRTY. I don’t care that there’s a movie coming out that was her story. You were supposed to give her a fucking story. And now her story is only how she relates to her TEAM OF MEN.

And now to my last point that I didn’t like. And I don’t hate this one as much as Steve’s ending or Natasha’s ending.

I don’t like that Tony died. I know this is wrapped up in a lot of emotions I have about Tony Stark the character. Robert Downey Jr the person. Tony Stark the character in all his forms is very important to me and I love that he has many forms. 616, Ults, AvAc, Avengers Assemble, the MCU. But his story is important to me. And its heartbreaking. I’m tearing up a bit now writing this out. 

I’m just the type of person that hates that a character, in a fantasy setting where you have wizards, valkyries, robots, talking raccoons and trees, Dave Bautista, a giant green rage monster wearing chinos, that you have to take this one part and make it realistic. That we have to keep realism kill this character off because it doesn’t make sense if someone doesn’t die. Because the stakes aren’t high if you don’t make them personal as well.

Which is true like you don’t have high stakes (the planet or universe getting dusted) if you don’t are about some of the people in that universe personally.

I just would have rather he had retired. Moved onto his little farm with Pepper and Morgan.

I think they did right by Tony. Storywise, ending...all the stuff the dropped the fucking ball on with Natasha and Steve they gave to Tony. And on one hand I get it and I appreciate that because (sorry to nat and steve fans truly) I care more about Tony. Tony started this whole thing. In a miracle of accidents they got the right actor, the right story, the right character, the right director, the right timing technology wise, the right social mood and made solid gold. And none of this would have happened if it weren’t for that amazing accident that happened.

And I think it has more to do with not wanting to let go or move on even though i can always go back to Iron Man 1 at any point and start the journey over again and have a laugh but there’s always going to be that ending where its final. Its done. Its over. And in the simplest of terms. I don’t like it. You have to know when to bow out and I respect and appreciate that. I don’t wanna see Iron Man 8 with geriatric old RDJ trying to fumble into a mocap suit.

I understand. I appreciate. But I don’t have to like it as a person. And that’s okay.

Its all about moving on isn’t it? That’s the theme of the movie. Moving on.

Even if you’re steve and your moving on wipes out the existance of a whole other family lmfaaoidnsfasfada sorry sorry. 

Okay. yeah that’s all I think I can think of. I’m sure there’s a ton more other people have mentioned aside from what I wrote. Like its a LONG movie and I think its hard to say hey “they fucked this up” or “they got this right” for EVERY SINGLE THING. There were so many characters. Nebula’s story could have been better. Thor’s story could have been more involved. Hawkeye could have been more important throughout the series. Janet could have come back for the final fight and healed Tony. Like there’s a ton of “this COULD have happened” But it didn’t. And that’s okay. It may not be right but its okay. I think they wrapped it up as best you could while still making a good movie. I think you probably can go back after a long while and look at the Endgame and go yeah that wasn’t so bad for an ending. Endings are hard to do with any sort of skill. Its why the joke that the third movie always sucks. 

There’s still a ton of stuff to look forward to.

Falcon/Winter Soldier, Loki, Hawkeye, Wanda and Vision (i GUESS??? lol), Black Widow’s movie. 

Maybe Steve solved more than he let on who knows. WHO KNOWS. Maybe Mjolnir left him haflway through the journey when she knew he was going to ditch his 2019 family (who again....mostly dead now)

I love Tony 3000. Which I found out is more than a ton which makes Morgan Stark a lot smarter than I am lmfao

[awesome-timtams]

Avengers: Endgame Spoiler Review/Thoughts and shit

(if you want me to add more tags to this, just comment or something and I’ll get on it ASAP)

Alright, so I saw Avengers: Endgame this morning. I guess this is going to be a review of sorts? Mostly just me typing out all my thoughts. So yeah, review, theories (ish?) and other things amongst all that.

 I did this last year for Infinity War and it was a huge mess. I decided to actually properly capitalise my words this time so it’s a bit more readable lmao. I’ve sort of had all day (12 hours) to really think about this so hopefully it’s a bit more coherent than my last year’s mindless rambling? I’m already rambling. Welp ;-;

 MAJOR SPOILERS UNDERNEATH CUT!! DO NOT PRESS READ MORE IF YOU DON’T WANT TO READ MORE.

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Everybody who doesn’t want spoilers gone? This is your last chance.

  Ok, first things first, the movie is fucking amazing. There were so many instances where I cried, or laughed, or just really wanted to fucking scream because holy hell this movie was really intense. Honestly, I thought the humour managed to flow into the dramatic scenes really well. There was never a moment where I felt like a joke fell flat or came in at an inappropriate time.

 The feels. THE FEELS. The emotions. I can't. I was already sobbing by the time the first 20 minutes were over. A character appears on screen? Tears. Every single time there was a team shot? Tears. Somebody even opens their mouth to say something? Tears. But yeah, this movie made me an emotional wreck and I can't even.

 The movie starting off with Clint, and his family turning into dust? Expected, but still incredibly cruel, and still hurt a lot. Like, damn, I knew Endgame was going to be intense, but being reduced to tears in the first five minutes was incredibly unfair and just goddamned hurtful. Clint's dedication to his family was really sweet and I just garghhhhhhhhhh I loved it.

 So yeah. Character deaths. Natasha dying just about ruined my century, so thanks Marvel. I first started panicking when they said they were gonna get the stones, and Clint and Natasha were heading to Vormir. And then it kinda hit me that one of them was gonna have to sacrifice the other for the stone. And then the whole scene with Clint and Natasha trying to beat each other into throwing themselves off the cliff. Dumbasses. Why couldn't they both just live and nobody has to sacrifice anybody? And now I feel depressed again ;-; . On the other hand, I'm sort of happy that Natasha at least died feeling like she'd made amends for her past (she didn't have to she was already amazing :'(( ). Her character arc finished with her sacrifice and wow that's so depressing ;-;;; At least we get to see her in the Black Widow movie one last time? ;-;

 And Tony. I honestly didn't really think Marvel was going to go through with Tony's death tbh. I think it was probably one of the most depressing scenes I've had to witness with my own two eyes ever, and I definitely wasn't ready for it to happen. I fucking broke when Peter started crying and calling him 'Tony' because like, have we ever seen him refer to Tony as anything other than Mr Stark? I fucking lost it man. And Tony had Pepper, and he was married to her, and they had a little house by the lake, and a daughter (his daughter is so precious omg). And now he's dead and she'll grow up without her father I just fucking arGHHHHHHH. Honestly I just feel really attacked and hurt and this movie has ruined me. At least he got closure with his father. That was kinda a really sweet scene, and I cried at that too. I cried at fucking everything in this movie ;-;

 But yes, depressing scenes aside, can we just. Take a moment to talk about the final battle? Because that scene was absolutely splendid. I loved how every character got a couple seconds to themselves to just have a little hero moment, and how they did the whole girl power thing with the whole squad and they were so badass and I sort of teared up at that part too because they were all so amazing and I just love them so much and the only thing that would've made that scene better would be if Natasha had been with them but she can't because she's fucking dead oh my god.

 But when the portals opened up and all the characters stepped out of them. It looked fucking magical. I swear to God I had So Many Chills. It was just so fucking amazing to watch them all step out as one and yanno…”Avengers, Assemble!”. God bless them all. The audience lost their shit at this bit. Screaming and clapping and it was just absolutely breathtaking to see this scene. Like, there's just this energy, yanno? And the group shots. T’Challa leading his kingdom into the fight. Tony and Pepper’s really cute scene in their armour together. And, can we just take a break to talk about our fucking lord and saviour Steve Rogers? I love that boy so much holy shit. When Thor was about to die, and Mjolnir had flown in and hit Thanos, before flying off to the person who had thrown it. And it’s Steve Fucking Rogers, standing there holding Mjolnir? And he starts walking down the battlefield with his half broken shield in one hand and Mjolnir in the other? That was such a powerful image have I mentioned I fucking love Steve Rogers? But yeah, I love how they carried that on from AoU. But then that sort of begs the question: was Steve really able to lift Mjolnir in AoU but didn’t because he didn’t want to draw more attention to himself, or was he just not able to because he hadn’t reached peak worthiness yet?

 Also, the whole New York scene was just amazing, fucking hilarious and just amazing. Who knew that all we needed to make a sequence great was to have a 100% necessary focus on Steve's ass? Jokes aside, it was really nostalgic seeing the whole 2012 New York battle again. I especially loved how they let us see parts that actually weren't in the movie, like the whole 'Avengers running into Pierce' thing. And how HYDRA got their hands on the sceptre. Seeing Steve do the whole 'Hail Hydra' thing to blend in kinda gave me chills lol. And Steve's fight with 2012!Steve was also really amazingly done and I fucking loved that sequence. The whole "I can do this all da-" "yeah yeAH I kNow I knOOW" was fucking hilarious tbh. (And also: "That is America's ass…")

Also, can I say that Steve was just really done with everything in this movie lmao. He was a solid fucking mood honestly. (”Are you shitting me??” “...he’s a baby.” “-.-”) And then his scene with Bucky at the end oh my goddd. “Don’t do anything stupid.” “How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you.” And honestly I sort of died right there...It’s also this moment I’m realising Bucky probably knew about Steve’s plans, because otherwise they wouldn’t have said goodbye like that if Steve was only going to be gone for a bit. And Bucky wasn’t panicked at all when Steve missed the jump back. So what, does that mean they planned for Steve to have his dramatic ass entrance back into the present by appearing besides the lake? Kind of a funny image lol. Anyway, I’ll stop talking about Steve lmao.

 Thor was fucking amazing in this movie tbh. His first scene in the future is hilarious, with the whole drunkard attitude and the beer gut and Korg playing fucking Fortnite Jesus Christ. His scene with Frigga in the movie also made me cry so much. It kinda made me realise he never really managed to get a proper goodbye with his mother before she died, yanno? And now he's finally getting it, and he can go on to the future with the knowledge that his mother is proud of him and believes he's a hero and afilajiopklgskl. Also, the pure joy when he finds out he's still worthy of Mjolnir? Such a sweet happy wholesome character despite all the losses he's gone through ;-; . Although, since he has decided to join the Guardians, does that mean he's going to be in Guardians of the Galaxy 3? And we know how there's been talk of a Thor 4 recently, right? It's probably just code for GOTG3 lol.

 And finally, Bruce Banner. It was really funny to see him emerge as a mix of himself and Hulk together, I'm not gonna lie. A lot of people in the audience started laughing when we saw the Hulk emerge in a sweater and jeans or whatever the hell he was wearing. But yeah, Bruce was great. When he volunteered himself to wield the Infinity Gauntlet v2.0? Legendary. But yeah, I honestly don't have much to say about Bruce honestly. Other than the fact that he dabbed at the beginning of the movie. Legendary. And when Scott spilled his tacos so Bruce offered him more with the purest smile on his face? I melted. Legendary.

 Anyway, miscellaneous thoughts time. I'm lowkey sort of kinda disappointed Nebula didn't get to kill Thanos? Like, I feel like, if anybody really deserved to kill that asshole, it was Nebula. She's suffered an entire life of torture and abuse from this dickhead, and has been manipulated by him so many times to do his dirty work. And how she still couldn't stop seeing him as a father figure in the end, despite all the terrible shit he's done to her? Actually, that's probably why she didn't get to kill him lol. And also, Sam Wilson is the new fucking Captain America bitches. I really fucking hoped that, if under any circumstances Steve had to give up his shield, it would go to Sam Wilson, because he fucking deserves it. Of course, I wouldn't have minded it going to Bucky, but my poor baby's already been through enough ;-; . Let him rest ;-; (but then, there's the whole Falcon and Winter Soldier show coming up fuck I'm so excited for it lmao).

 And also, Valkyrie. Is now. The new Queen of Asgard. I can't even. My baby girl deserves fucking everything :') She deserves the title of Queen so much and I'm so glad that's a new development. Hopefully we get to see more of her in the future and how she fares with the title of leader in Asgard :'D

 But yeah, I think that's about it for what I have on characters. So, moving on to theories and sort of plot holes I suppose?

 So, have we had any news on what the Loki show is going to focus on? I haven't really been paying enough attention to news on the shows tbh. But if nothing's been confirmed yet, I sort of have a theory. So we know how, when they're trying to get the Space Stone in New York, they fail and Loki gets away with the stone? I'm wondering if the TV show might potentially focus on what he does after he escapes New York with the stone. It's a possibility, I suppose.

 And now, finally, one of my biggest…annoyances (? I'm not sure this is the word I want to use but the only other word that's coming to mind is iffs which isn't even a real word so moving on) (edit: issues! I found the right word :D . The word I want to use is issues lol) with the movie is the last scene. 

Steggy is a fucking blessed ship, and I love them, don't get me wrong. The plane scene in TFA and the hospital scene in TWS never fail to reduce me to a big sobbing fucking baby. And I'm so fucking happy that they finally got the dance that's been promised to them for so many decades. But the whole thing just doesn't really make sense to me.

 So basically, in the earlier parts of the movie, Bruce has already stated that time travel does not work like how we've all been trained to understand from other parts of pop culture. It's not quite travelling to the past, as nothing they do there will affect their future. What I interpreted from that (and I could be wrong, but this is my understanding) is that when they travel to the past, they end up creating a separate branch of events and shit that diverges from the timeline of events that will lead to their present. It doesn't erase their present, but just sort of forms a permanent branch, you feel? So, Steve travelling back to the past in order to live his life with Peggy only to end up in their present again brought in a huge amount of plot holes.

 For Steve to have lived a life with Peggy and marry her, that would mean events would change drastically. I doubt they got married in secret, so people must've known 'Steve' was alive and OK. Would that mean the search for the past Steve that's still frozen in the Arctic stop, since they're all assuming he's alive? If that happens, that means the Tesseract would've never been found, and that would've led to a whole bunch of other events that would definitely not allow for grandpa Steve to join up again with the MCU's present timeline, as it would've brought him into a different branch instead.

 But, hypothetically, let's say Steve lives with Peggy in secret. They get married in secret, nobody knows he's still alive, they continue with the search, yadda yadda. Now, since Steve is from the future, he would know that SHIELD is being infiltrated by HYDRA, and that Bucky would still be alive and is currently being the Winter Soldier and doing assassin-y shit. And I really, really, highly doubt that Steve would just live a life with Peggy and not interrupt with any of this shit. It's just so against his nature to ignore all of this? So, let's say he does root out HYDRA. That would affect the future. TWS, and everything afterwards would've never happened. So it definitely wouldn't be possible for Steve to return to the MCU's current, present timeline if he lived out his life, as he would've been, once again, on a different, permanently separated branch.

 Let's say, hypothetically, he lived with Peggy in secret. Nobody knew he was alive. He knew HYDRA was growing inside SHIELD and didn't do anything. He knew his best friend was being tortured and brainwashed for decades and didn't do anything. Even then, him just living with Peggy and marrying her would've changed all the events and wouldn't have allowed him to just let his branch converge with the present MCU timeline without messing around with some serious science and shit (which is all highly unlikely tbh).

 So basically, what I'm trying to say is, the whole last scene is fucked and can't have happened without saying 'fuck-it-all' to the rules established in the movie. But yeah, that was just the one and only glaring issue to me I couldn't stop thinking about. But either way, I loved the way the movie ended with the Steggy scene. It was really beautiful and sweet and just everything we could've wanted for their dance :')) . It was also a really bittersweet sort of tone to end the film on? Absolutely gorgeous. 

(edit: wow OK so I made a whole separate post just for this scene because a couple days after I posted this, I realised my thoughts and feelings towards this scene had changed and I had a lot more to say about it. So. Yeah. Here it is.)

 But anyway. Shit. That's it. I've spent this whole past year thinking about this movie and waiting for it, and now that I've watched it and it's over, I don't know what I'm going to do with myself. This whole day, I've been feeling incredibly empty honestly. I'm still not quite over Natasha and Tony, and I don't think I'll ever be (which, by the way. Marvel, I'll be sending you the bill for all the emotional trauma you've caused.) But this movie was a bloody masterpiece, and I fucking loved it. The trip down memory lane with the time travel was honestly so incredibly implemented. I was really worried when I realised time travel was going to be involved with this movie, because it introduces a device that can retcon everything and just basically takes away the emotional impact of every event that happens because you can just time travel. But the fact that they introduced the mechanic where you can't affect the past by travelling there does close that issue up. Well done. Very clever.

 But, yeah. Fuck. It's over. 11 years, and it went out with a bang. I honestly have no idea how Marvel is gonna top this for the next era. It seems almost impossible, honestly. I just really hope they do, because I would hate to have a franchise as amazing as the MCU end up fizzling out because their most impressive movie came years before the end and they end up never being able to top it. But these are probably just irrational worries.

 Anyway, final score. 14000605/1. Would definitely watch again. Just not immediately. I still haven't fully digested the movie, and I still feel really empty and full of emotions at the same time even though it's been more than 12 hours since I've seen the movie. So yeah. Imma wait a bit, and then I'll probs rewatch it.

 Anyway, rant over. Hope you enjoyed, I guess? I nearly burst into tears so many times trying to write this fucking thing. If you've seen the movie, feel free to DM me. I'm always up to chat with people lol. And if you haven't seen the movie, what the fuck are you doing reading this? Go watch the damned movie. Christ.

 I might end up making edits to this if I think up of more things to talk about. Or maybe I'll make a separate post. I'll probs make a separate post. But anyway. Farewell, y'all. Time to go hide under my blankets and cry until Far From Home comes out.

 (Also, this thing is 3069 words. Wow. Jesus Christ. If I put this amount of effort into my assignments, I’d be bringing in straight As. Oops.)

[fathercharlesoffdensen]

In Defense of Fat Thor

I not only enjoyed Thor’s portrayal in Endgame, but found it to be a productive and well-developed(/acted, DAMN, Chris Hemsworth) characterization that has been steadily building up across each consecutive movie. Caveat: I do not fault anyone for being skeptical that the directors, etc. had it in them, considering the clunky nature of some of their previous creations, to say nothing of some of their interviews, etc. I am also not 100% surprised to see people maligning Fat Thor, and/or saying they don’t understand his trajectory and/or that they felt some of the humor at his expense took away from the legitimacy of having a fat, depressed, anxious character able to accomplish the same feats as when he had more physical prowess, etc. I disagree with this as well, in part because Fat Thor feels very personal to me, though not exclusively, and at the very least would like to propose a reading of many of the scenes in Endgame that offers a considerably more well-intentioned and good faith portrayal of Thor, with my own caveat that at least the anti-Ragnarok people using Fat Thor to further their agenda that Thor’s characterization sucks because Chris Hemsworth and Taika Waititi spent each day on set shaking Tom Hiddleston down for his lunch money and laughing at their own fart jokes are still wrong, which balances out everything else, because balance is still important, even if Thanos’ fuckboy interpretation of it is ridiculous. Anywho, apologies in advance for how messy this ends up being, I feel like my thoughts are very roundabout right now, but getting it out of my system will really help.

Thor has been ~emotionally fat~ for a while now, folks. As far back as Thor (2011), we see him disassociating, aka spending at least a few moments staring off into space in the midst of dealing with sudden upheaval, often because his angry outbursts have failed to be satisfying or get him what he wants/needs. One of the things that made me so excited to see a physical fallout to this in the MCU is that it actually ties into a bunch of other canons, too, including a recent spell in the comics leading up to the War of the Realms, wherein Odin sort of admits to his own role in breaking Thor, as far back as being “too drunk” to be there for his birth, as well as his being dubbed the God of Thunder because baby Thor used to wail whenever there was a storm, and Odin used to make fun of him for it because you don’t get a #4 Best All-Father coffee cup from your kids for nothing. @thishereanakinguy and I are even reworking parts of our Thorki paper for publication to put forth even more evidence that the pressure on Thor to be the Golden Child was too much, and that he’s been unraveling for a long time.

Again, none of these reactions to turmoil are new for Thor, though it’s fascinating that the conversation between Frigga and Thor in Endgame is largely focused on her assuring her son that it’s okay for him to fail, and/or for him to delegate tasks (there’s a recent comic that’s gone viral where Mister Rogers visits with Thor, and it has a similar bent), or realize that he has to shift his perspective on Who He Is. In part, it’s lowkey hilarious that Frigga, aka “send Loki some soup and some library books he’ll enjoy after our big fight because I still love that little asshole, never mind that he’ll probably receive them after she has been killed omfg,” is so blatantly ignoring Odin’s decrees to basically withhold basic affection from their children so that they’ll toughen up on their own, because fuck that noise. At the same time, Frigga imparts words that Thor (and Loki) should have heard and taken to heart a long time ago, and it’s painful to realize that Thor has felt as though he hasn’t been allowed to express his feelings, but so God damned great that that’s what Frigga hones in on. Notably, Thor isn’t trying to botch his trip to 2013 Asgard, either; he has a panic attack when he and Rocket arrive, and Frigga sneaks up on him because Frigga knows her babies no matter how much they are made of pizza or in Loki’s case magical artifacts. (Sarah read something saying that in households where the Golden Child and Black Sheep co-exist, statistically it’s common for the Golden Child to turn to alcohol and food, whereas the Black Sheep is more likely to turn to drugs/more illicit substances wherein they opt not to feel their feelings as much, and I was really floored by that because that really fits a couple of different scenarios that I’m familiar with for one reason or another.)

SO ANYWAY, we see Thor disassociating in previous movies. In TDW, even Odin comments on Thor’s confused heart, which Thor assures him has nothing to do with Jane Foster, even though it would be very easy for him to pretend he’s not actively thinking about Loki a thousand times a day and spending so much time stalking Heimdall and the broken Bifrost remnants that dude is like holy fuck please talk to your kid or I am going to commit treason again so hard. Thor reaches out to Odin for guidance/arguably comfort once Frigga dies, and his inability to provide either sends Thor immediately to Loki, who at the very least can help him properly realize the revenge he seeks, while also saving Jane. In Ragnarok, we get that great moment where Loki is talking directly to Thor, and Thor simply stares straight ahead; Loki doesn’t seem all that surprised by it either - he and Thor have different triggers and whatnot, but he knows the emo fuck who ends up at his cell in a fucking black poncho and handcuffs isn’t a new creation by any means, and he is into it fwiw. Even stuff like Korg admitting at the end of Ragnarok he carried around Miek’s presumably dead body because he felt so bad that he was dead warrants a little nod of understanding from Thor. Likewise, we see Thor stress-eating a bowl of bread at the beginning of Endgame, before the focus on his weight became a thing. Thor doesn’t run outside to see Tony Stark come home; whenever possible, he’s barely there, even before his five-year hiatus.

The use of well-placed humor in a three-hour sob fest does not seem all that weird to me. Shakespeare does it in all of his tragedies; and to continue this egregious metaphor, a lot of his comedies contain tragic bits, aka loss of family identity, which is arguably something that underpins how good Ragnarok is, as well. Being able to laugh at stuff has always been very important for me personally, though I realize it’s not for everyone. Still, I think there’s an additional caveat with Endgame regarding who the ‘fat jokes’ are coming from, aka arguably all of the Avengers have their own significant traumas to work through even before The Snap, and are also just trying to survive, even if they seem to fare physically better than Thor at this particular point in time. So Tony Stark calls him “Lebowski”; but as soon as the musical cues and Hemsworth’s amazing acting switches over into Thor being triggered by thoughts of all that he’s lost only minutes later, we see Tony, who canonically has major issues with being touched, putting his hand on Thor’s shoulder and allowing himself to be grabbed and held because he knows that is what Thor needs from him. Bruce, too, has to set a boundary for his own personal safety about being grabbed, but still gives in to Thor’s need for physical touch. One of the tragic touchstones of Ragnarok is that Thor doesn’t touch Loki once, even though in the first two Thor films and Avengers 1, he is constantly pawing at him. Thor wants to make a point in Ragnarok that he has decided he must let Loki go if that’s what Loki truly wants, and so he withholds his own instinct for physical contact - which Loki gives back to him, however briefly, in Infinity War by knocking Thor out of the way of Thanos and the Tesseract, to say nothing of how all Thor can do when he arrives at Loki’s corpse is to mewl and cling and bury his head and wait for everything to explode, himself included.

In any case, the other 'fat jokes’ come from Rocket, well established as being caustic in the face of personal tragedy, and having been put in the position even back in Infinity War of sort of making sure Thor keeps going, and Rhodey, who is probably just trying to deal with all these new people hanging around, and the fact that all of the structure in his life pretty much has been upended in a really short amount of time. Regarding Frigga’s “eat a salad” remark, as his mom, she seems to understand how much his physicality comes into play for him, and how devastating it is for him to see how others react to him seeming both physically and emotionally diminished. This is why it’s so powerful for him to still be 'worthy’ of Mjolnir, I think, and why that moment book-ended Frigga’s admonishment. Likewise, we don’t get a suspiciously fast glow-up wherein Thor’s all muscley again. He has to hold his own against Thanos in his current form, and he fucking does. Sometimes, life happens, and you have to respond to it as you are because you don’t have the time or energy to get everything in order first, and so you do the best you can. IMO, Thor did a pretty fucking good job.

I also find it completely understandable that Thor went off with the Guardians at the end of the film. (P.S.: Peter Quill is still absolutely intimidated by Fat Thor.) For one thing, I don’t think he’s going to stop trying to find a way to bring Loki back, regardless of what Clint said about the Soul Stone’s magic not being able to be reversed. For another, Valkyrie deserves her own glow-up into becoming Queen of New Asgard, as much as Sam deserves to be the new Cap. I’m of the mindset that Steve likely wouldn’t have gone back in time to be with Peggy if Tony had lived, and that doing so was him honoring Tony’s legacy by taking the advice that he gives several times in the film to go and live life while you have it. Likewise, as sad as it is for Tony to have died, I’m not sure he would have been able to rest, post-Thanos. You also can’t tell me for a second he hasn’t left all sorts of little messages and trinkets and whatnot around for his loved ones to find, cough AI Tony in Peter’s next suit or something cough.

Overall, I thought Endgame was a good send-off. It was well-acted, well-scripted, beautifully scored (Thor’s Pink Panther-esque theme when he’s trying to explain the Aether is amazeballs, as well as the theme that plays when everybody gets to the battlefield), and really just surprisingly, suspiciously good. I am glad that if we have to see this leg of the MCU end that it did so in such a way as to leave character arcs open to further interpretation, and I’m legitimately excited for a lot of them. While I don’t think everybody is required to be fake-positive all of the time, I do think that in fandom spaces, if one’s sole focus is how disappointing something is all the time, it’s not a productive or soul-enhancing use of one’s energy, and it makes me sad to see it. Nuance is important; the MCU has more of it than it’s given credit for having, and I hope more people realize that as it continues into Phase 4, or at the very least, that they find something they enjoy and keep coming along for the ride.

[avengerscompound]

Home - Chapter 8

Home: A Captain America Fanfic

Masterlist PREVIOUS //

Buy me a ☕ Character Pairing:  Bucky Barnes x Steve Rogers

Word Count:  1572

Warnings:  Angst, parenthood, sexual manipulation, action, injuries, underage drinking and drug-taking.

Synopsis:  16 Years after the death of Daisy, Steve and Bucky have successfully raised two teenage kids with telepathy. Teens are never easy to live with though. Sarah in particular likes to test boundaries. Now on top of all the usual challenges of parenting, they have to deal with troublemaking demigods, a daughter who just wants to be accepted for who she is and running the Avengers. That’s when the children of other super-powered individuals start going missing.

Chapter 8

Sarah woke groggy, with her head pounding. It took a minute for her eyes to focus and for the confusion of what happened to clear. When it did she was first aware of how quiet her mind was. It had never been so clear before. It scared her and made her feel so alone that it hurt. She started to cry without even knowing what she was crying about.

She then became aware there was the sound of someone else crying nearby. She sat up and the room span. When everything finally steadied she looked around her. She was in a cell. It was modern and white. The bed wasn’t so much a bed as a white metallic bench. There was also a toilet. Three of the walls were solid white, no window just a small vent on the top of the back wall. The front of the cell was made of white bars.

Sarah staggered towards them and tried to used her strength to pull it open.

“Don’t bother.” A voice from the cell opposite. A young girl of around twelve stepped forward. She wore simple white cotton pants and a matching singlet. Her curly black hair hadn’t been brushed in weeks and it made her look wild.

“Danielle?” Sarah said.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Danielle replied.

“I thought you were dead.”

“Shit. So they’re not even looking for us?” Danielle snarled. Whoever it was that was crying started crying louder. “Shut up, May Day.”

“May Day?” Sarah called out, peering down the side of the bars as best she could. She couldn’t see much but there were other cells in the hall. At least five on each side of a hall.

“Sarah?” May Day called back. “I want my Mommy.”

“I know. We’ll get back. I promise.” Sarah said.

Danielle let out a sarcastic laugh. “How do you think that’s going to happen? Haven’t you noticed? They turned off our powers. If everyone thinks we’re dead, who’s coming for us?”

“They turned off our abilities?” Sarah asked confused. “How? Who did?”

Danielle shuddered. “They put something in our necks. I was awake the whole time because of what I am. They shot me and I didn’t think they could do that. It hurt so much. Then they cut me open while I was still hurting from the bullet. When they put the thing in my neck, my powers just shut off and they knocked me out. When I woke up the bullet was gone.”

“Who are they, Dani?” Sarah asked.

“How am I supposed to know?” Danielle shouted. “There’s so many of them. They keep telling us they’re going to hurt us more if we don’t do what they say. They make us watch these videos and they do all these tests on us. Is this our life now?”

“We’re going to get out, Danielle. I promise. My dads run the Avengers. You think they will give up looking for me? Even if they can’t find us, we’re far from helpless. I can fight even without my powers.” Sarah said.

Danielle started laughing and Sarah could hear May Day’s sobbing pick up in the cell next to her.

The door opened at the end of the hall and four men marched to Sarah’s cell.

“Step back from the bars.” One of the men barked.

Sarah took a step backward and clenched her fists. The men slid the door open, one pulled out handcuffs and went to grab Sarah’s wrist. Her training went into action. She flipped him over her head and kicked him in the throat. Two of the other men came for her one hit her with a taser and while she tried to shake it off he shoved her face-first into the wall.

“Oh, you gotta little fight in you, princess.” He growled into her ear. His hand slid up her side and squeezed her breast. “I’m going to like taking that from you.”

Sarah lashed out, hitting him in the chest. As he staggered back she kneed him in the groin. He dropped to the ground and she kicked him. “Touch me again, asshole.” She screamed.

The butt of a rifle struck her on the back of the head. Everything went black.

The Avengers briefing room was buzzing. Steve sat at the head of the table rubbing his eyes.  Carol, Tony, Peter, Bruce, Wanda, Sam, Jessica, and Luke all sat around it arguing with each other, while Bucky and Jamie paced up and down the room.

“If someone says we look at the known Hydra bases one more time I’m going to lose my shit.” Sam snapped. “There are no known Hydra bases. We thought we’d wiped them out already.”

“A fully operational Hyrda base would be using a lot of energy,” Bruce said. “If we were to use the satellites to find any anomalous energy hotspots around the globe?”

“FRIDAY?” Tony barked.

“Right away, Mr. Stark.” The building’s AI responded.

“What if she’s already dead? I can’t feel her anymore. I’m really scared.” Jamie said, rubbing his temple. Ever since he lost contact with Sarah he’d felt like a part of him was missing. It made him feel sick and he’d been fighting off low-level nausea ever since.

Bucky put his hand on Jamie’s shoulder. “We’re not going to give up looking for her either way.”

Steve looked over at Bucky. “Buck, when you were in Hydra, how did they control Daisy?”

Bucky collapsed down into one of the chairs and ran his hands through his hair. “I wasn’t even awake for most of that, Steve. I’m not sure I can help.”

“Whatever you can remember. Anything at this stage could help.” Steve said.

“Well, I think a lot of it was she was worried about me. I know she kind of did what she wanted a lot. I don’t think she was in complete control of her powers back then and you know she wasn’t ever as powerful as Sarah is anyway.”

“Well, that was helpful.” Jessica scoffed.

“I told you I couldn’t remember much.” Bucky spat back.

“Buck, is there anything else?” Steve asked.

Bucky closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. The memory of waking up in her room and how thick the door was. How Daisy had said she was a prisoner too, but she wasn’t strong. So why was the door so thick? “I think they must have kept her in a room that was lined in something that damped her powers. The door to her room was so thick. I couldn’t break it open. Why would it be so thick for a girl who wasn’t even particularly strong.”

“FRIDAY, narrow your search to structures with unusually thick walls at least somewhere within them,” Steve said.

“Right away, Captain Rogers.”

Sarah came to sitting upright. Her head was pounding again and when she went to move she realized her hands were locked down to the arm of the chair she was sitting in. She opened her eyes and tried to struggle free from her bonds.

“Hello, Sarah.” A warm female voice said from behind her. She craned her head around to see who was talking. A beautiful woman with pale skin and black hair walked around the front of a desk and sat down opposite her. She wore a green bodysuit that hugged her figure. “I’m sorry for the way that Agent manhandled you. He is being reprimanded. You won’t see him again.”

“Who are you?” Sarah asked.

“My name is Viper. Have you heard of me?” Viper answered.

Sarah shook her head. “Where am I?”

“Why my dear, you’re with Hydra. You know your mother grew up with us, don’t you? I met her a few times. She was very powerful. You are stronger am I correct?” She spoke like she was bored and had an accent that Sarah couldn’t quite place. Like she’d never spent long enough in one country for an accent to take hold.

“You’re going to regret taking me.” Sarah seethed. “I’m going to kill you personally.”

Viper laughed. Sarcasm dripped from the sound. “Oh, darling. What do you think you’re going to do? I turned off your abilities.”

“You think that’s going to matter? Even if my fathers never find me. And you know they will. You think I need my powers? I am going to tear your throat out with my teeth.” Sarah spat.

Viper laughed again. This time it sounded genuine. “So full of fire, young Sarah. You remind me of me. I don’t want to take it from you, but don’t think I won’t.” Viper pressed a button on a console in front of her and electricity surged through Sarah. Her jaw clenched, her teeth narrowly missing her tongue. There was so much pain, she wondered for a moment if this was how she died.

It stopped quickly and Sarah sat panting in front. “What do you want from me?”

“Just your compliance. I know it won’t come quickly. Don’t worry about that. It will come. As it will with all your little friends.” Viper replied. “You aren’t going to be found here. You can’t escape. You will break.” Viper hit a button in front of her. A group of guards filed in. “Get her out of here.” She barked at them.

Sarah struggled with them as they wrestled her into cuffs.

“Get some rest, Sarah. Your re-education starts tomorrow.”

// NEXT

[ty-talks-comics]

Best of Marvel: Week of August 21st, 2019

Best of this Week: Tony Stark: Iron Man #15 (Legacy #615) - Dan Slott, Jim Zub, Juanan Ramirez, Francesco Manna, Edgar Delgado and Joe Caramagna

Tony Stark may not be the man he says he is anymore.

Since the landmark 600th issue of Iron Man, Tony Stark hasn’t been entirely sure that he is actually himself and not just a strange collection of nanobots and machines strung together in the form of the billionaire tech wizard. After the horrible incident surrounding eScape, Tony Stark’s virtual reality world, leads to the deaths of a few people and millions or more in property damage, Tony has to take the stand and address what exactly happened. 

He’s grilled pretty thoroughly on what an AI is and how much was his responsibility vs. how much can be blamed on Controller, the supervillain who hacked into the supposedly secure network and caused all of this damage. Overseeing the hearing is a surprising character from another mechanical superheroes past. Senator Miles Brickman, a character that originally appeared as something of an anti-machine/anti-AI character in the pages of Machine Man’s original series, it livid and irate at Tony Stark. Showing a bit of prejudice in his questioning, he asks has Tony Stark ever made any changes to his body using technology, then follows by asking “Can you prove that you’re not some form of artificial intelligence?”

Tony initially tries to dance around the question, but upon being reminded that he’s under oath, reveals that it is actually quite possible as his body was put back together cell by cell while he was in his coma. This shocks everyone, from Rhodey to Bethany Cabe, his head of security at Stark Unlimited, and even his brother Arno Stark who is watching the hearing from his office at Baintronics, the rival technology company.

AI Tony calls for a recess after a few snarky lines as we cut to Vision and Wonder Man arriving at Avengers mansion, thinking they’ve been called to assist in Tony’s hearing. Immediately some red flags might want to be set off with the characters involved, especially when Jarvis lets them in and soon after betrays them with a large piece of metal embedded in the back of his head with a familiar design. 

Things start to heat up as Brickman produces the Tony Stark AI that was used by Riri Williams while Tony was in a coma and asks does this fully functioning, autonomous copy have legal rights and responsibilities. What makes me so uncomfortable about this scene is that it plays on the fear of the unknown.

Brickman has tried to have Machine Man destroyed in the past and even knowing that Tony Stark has saved the world in the past, he’s not willing to consider that he still has right once it’s admitted that he may not be fully human anymore. In a way it mirrors some of our own discussions as it pertains to AI and whether or not we’ll allow them autonomy once they become advanced enough for it. There’s a whole discussion for sex robots that no one is qute ready for just yet.

The Wasp, Janet van Dyne, flies through a robot protest on her way to meet Tony for lunch and catches him talking to Tony AI. Tony AI agrees to be loaded into the Iron Man suit and they all fly off when suddenly they’re met with a gross amalgamation of Vision and Wonder Man fused together. Ramirez’s art makes him look so horrifying with only half of Wonder Man’s luxurious hair and cracking skin that’s as red as Vision’s. He rushes at Tony in a rage and promises to rip the human and AI halves of him apart, displaying an anger that neither character has ever presented. 

In the middle of their fight, Jarvis appears and zaps Janet, who was knocked out of the fight during the initial rush. He places her in his pocket and leaves thereafter. Tony and WonderVision continue their fight, destroying the robot protestors in the process. Tony realizes that they only way to stop them is to use a localized EMP which will also kill Tony AI. The technological Tony isn’t fazed and just tells Tony to kiss Jan a bunch and feel vaguely bad about it later.

Unfortunately, this leaves Tony in the middle of the carnage. He’s surrounded by broken robots, likely to take the blame for all of it and realizes that Jocasta was right, he only sees everything as data. He breathes a small sigh that he’s still alive and that WonderVision didn’t take Janet… until he can’t find her. We then cut to the surprising return of The Avengers greatest enemy as his new gambit to destroy Tony Stark and spark a new machine age is in full effect.

What I liked most about this issue is that Tony’s mistakes really catch up to him in a bad way. He’s always managed to skate by the skin of his teeth when his machines have gone haywire. While Brickman was being an asshole for the trial, he made a good point in that we don’t quite know if we can trust this Tony. Given what we as the audience know thus far, he’s falling hard. Almost going back to the drink, questioning his own existence, not even having the trust of the brother that’s been by his side since his appearance in the mid 2000s (in this universe).

And that ending, finally seeing the seeds of what’s been sewn for months now starting to take form, is always fun. I had wondered what happened to this character since Infinity Wars (2018) and I can’t wait to see where exactly this story is going to go and what the repercussions of that event will be. I also can’t wait to see how exactly he’ll scar Tony and his extended family now that he’s returned. High recommend!

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

Things were looking up for Otto Octavius. He had found a nice woman and was slowly falling in love, he had mended fences with Anna-Maria in a way. After the events of War of the Realms, he was a respected and loved hero in San Francisco and then it all came crashing down.

Runner Up: The Superior Spider-Man #10 (Legacy #43) - Christos Gage, Mike Hawthorne, Wade von Grawbadger, Jordie Bellaire and Clayton Cowles

After taking the lovely Emma on a swing through the city, The Spider-Man of San Francisco goes on to visit the child he saved all the way back in issue #4 and help his new adoptive parents get custody of him. These small moments of warmness are a far cry from the maniacal nature that we were once accustomed to from Octavius. Bellaire colors most these scenes in a nice, warm orange. Giving us this feeling of joy and some happiness for Otto… at least until he’s discussing having a child with Emma and she alerts him to the news report that asks if the SF Spider-Man is really Otto Octavius. 

Things start to spiral even further as Spider-Man is interviewed and dances around the question and the Brothers Grimm acknowledge that he hired them for some temp work if they went straight, alluding to the first arc of the book. Otto is furious, Anna-Maria gives him snark and Emma tells him that he needs to face things head on, getting in front of it all. He can prove that he’s changed. Unfortunately, Anna-Maria brings up the kid as an example of someone who he’s helped and he swings to the apartment to find the foster parents angry and the child sad that he lied. Normally Otto wouldn't think twice about lying to someone or omitting information, but looking into that child's eyes as he began to cry, Otto reveals that he lied because he wanted the kid to like him and they hug. 

Soon after, Otto is called back to Horizon University where he is known as Professor Tolliver. Max Modell is waiting for him as he's received an email telling him that Tolliver is actually Otto Octavius. Surprisingly to Otto, Max already knew. Max Modell may act like a goof, but he's not considered one of the brightest minds in Marvel for no reason. He ran a DNA test to confirm soon after his emergence and gave "Tolliver" a chance to prove himself a changed man and given that he has, he's been trying to help clear his name. 

With Max's security footage and his own enhanced suit, Otto is able to determine that it was actually Spiders-Man that sent all of the incriminating data to everyone. Once Spiders-Man realizes he's caught, the thousands of spiders that make up his form reconstitute until Ock defeats him and compresses the former Peter Parker's consciousness into one Spider-Body. After some pushing, Spiders-Man reveals that it was Norman Osborn's idea. This Norman Osborn, however, is from another dimension where he's the Spider Totem and his main enemy was a Green Goblin Peter Parker, if I remember right. 

Spiders-Man also tells Otto that Norman is in his own dimension, safe from harm. During the events of Spider-Geddon, the Web of Fate was destroyed, making dimensional travel much harder for Spider people. Octavius hits a wall until Anna-Maria comes out that she's saved a bit of Terrax's energy from the first arc in the Living Brain robot, in case Otto ever reverted. This makes him sink even lower, but ultimately he understands and tries to use the power to make a portal...only Norman planned for this and over loads the machine, causing it to destroy the building almost killing everyone inside if not for Otto. 

Otto manages to save Max and Anna-Maria, but is swiftly defeated and left for dead by Norman who was there the entire time. When Otto asks why Norman is doing this, he responds in the most Norman Osborn way possible by saying, "You insulted me."

Just when Otto Octavius was finding his place in the world as a hero, forces mostly belong his control have made their move in an effort to derail him. Otto finally seems happy, even helping out a young child that he absolutely has no obligation to and starting a budding new relationship with an older woman that's just as smart as he. Things were going well, he even got a key to the city for crying out loud!

But, as fate befalls all Spiders, his terrible actions in the past are coming back to haunt him. Who's to say that Mephisto doesn't have a little bit of a hand in this as well? We can only hope things turn out well for Otto in the end, but not before Norman makes things much, much worse.