#wilson (haunted by his mind) (as in the threat is internal and the threat is Him)

[willyhoos]

"shadows are inverted flames" -> wilsons hair is made of shadow -> YOUR BOYFRIEND'S HAIR IS MADE OF FLAME??? PETPETPETPET

also wilson can't leave the throne so he just has to deal with her doing this 24/7

[anika-ann]

WINSoD - Pt.4

What You Need (Is What I’m About)

Type: series, soulmate AU series  (part 1, part 2, part 3)  

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader, one more ;)  Word count: 3400

Summary: In which fate has a strange sense of humour, the Maximoffs appear and... well. 

Warnings: brief violence, mention of death, messing around in one’s brain, language, cutesy and fluff (yep, it’s all there)

Part 3

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You watched the kettle quiver as the temperature of the water climbed towards the boiling point. You’d like to say your blood was reaching it too, but despite the warm hoodie (Steve’s, naturally), you were feeling coldness seeping into your very core.

You hated waiting for him. You had never been a fan of it, sitting on your ass and stressing until he returned from a mission, bruised and usually bloody, but this time it was something else. This time, you had more than just a vague idea of what he was fighting; you had witnessed it first-hand. An army of fucking robots.

The team had left 43 hours ago, but who the hell was counting, right? Certainly not you. And you had certainly not been feeling the urge to ask Jarvis (R.I.P., my beloved A.I.) like every half an hour for any updates. You weren’t that desperate. You weren’t that scared-

Yeah, not even you were having your bullshit anymore.

You were shivering in cold from losing sleep, terrified and over all out of your mind. Nothing helped to ease your worries. Definitely not the fact they hadn’t made any contact ever since they had left.

They consisted of the usual Avengers team; Nat, Clint, Tony, Bruce and Thor, plus Bucky. All of them under Steve’s attentive command.

Surprisingly, Matt Murdock – also known as a freaking vigilante (a blind lawyer!!) – did not join the quest. He had said that robots were way outside his territory. You would beg to differ, because he punched the robot like a champ, yet you didn’t quite blame him for refusing. Bottomline, you still thought he was pretty swell (not to mention easy on the eyes, but that was beside the point). He had saved your life though, so you might be a bit biased. A lot biased.

Sam Wilson might have fought once too, but he would sit this one out as well. It was not helping your anxiety.

The soft click of the kettle brought you back to reality and you grabbed the handle to pour water into your mug, only to see you failed to actually put a teabag in it.

To be fair, you would have sworn you had done it, but that was just another prove of you losing your mind. At this rate you were about to burn the kitchen down – not that you felt like cooking… or eating for that matter. Steve was out there, in his own sci-fi movie that had somehow become reality and-

You sighed and set the kettle down, reaching for the box with chamomile tea. Taking one bag, you felt a strange gust of wind and curled into the hoodie as a shiver ran down your spine. Was the air-conditioning misbehaving…? Perhaps it was an aftermath of what they called the Ultron mess-

You shook your head, scolding yourself for getting paranoid and went to finally finish the simplest task of making yourself tea.

Only for your blood turning to ice when you noticed the teabag was missing. You had just put it there half a minute ago, you were sure of it. Your heart started hammering in your chest as you spun on your heels, your eyes scanning the room.

The cupboard behind your head clacked and your head swiftly snapped back to it. Feeling your own pulse pounding in your temples, you forced your brain to come up with a rational explanation.

You were losing your mind, you were imagining things, you hadn’t slept in almost two days, your mind was playing tricks on you-

Another gust of wind and the kettle disappeared from your hands, a shriek escaping your lips. On instinct, you opened the drawer and pulled out a knife. You were probably useless with it, basically offering it the potential attacker as a weapon, because they would be able to disarm you and use it to their advantage, but you didn’t give a shit. You felt better being armed.

What the fuck was happening?!

A man suddenly appeared by your left hip, like a hurricane inside of the room, and your body acted on its own, driving the knife in his side.

Or you attempted to; the knife met something solid that could not have been a body and the blond – he was a blond man, younger, hell, looking younger than you, dressed in a jumpsuit – stared at you with his mouth hanging open.

It was only then when you registered a strange red matter--- no, something unsubstantial, like an energy, swirling and changing, hovering around the blade that had stopped an inch from the man’s torso.

“Taka se ubivate, kolibri,” a female voice sounded from the other side of the room, nearly sending you into a cardiac arrest.

Yet, you couldn’t tear you gaze away from the strange man, whose face was now twisted in annoyed grimace as the woman seemed to be scolding him.

What kind of a language was that anyway?

Really not relevant.

There were two strangers in the Tower, in the very same room as you, they could be talking about how to kill you the most painful way and you wouldn’t even know, and for fuck’s sake, why couldn’t you catch a break-

“Ne ti e zabavno, foĭerverk,” he hummed back, his lips spreading in a smile, baffling you to no end. “Zdraveĭ, krasavitse.”

Your hand still on the handle of the knife that was no longer under your control, of which you refused to let go though because you were not a complete idiot, you had no idea what to do.

The man sounded almost friendly, but then again, villains often did. Sleazy. You would know.

A tremble ran through your body and out of nowhere, you made a lightning-fast decision of kicking the man in the crotch.

Your knee only brushed his manhood when your leg was no longer yours. With horror filling every cell in your body, you realized it was caught in the freaky red spiderweb of energy and you couldn’t move it no matter how much you tried.

Tears filled your eyes and suddenly you were free, the man several feet from you. A gorgeous young woman, dressed even more strangely than him – crimson leather jacket, black and half-torn leather leggings with high boots with way too many straps, her outfit completed by sleeves peeking from under her jacket –, stood next to him, cuffing him in the back of his head.

“Idiot!” she hissed and in the back of your mind, the one tiny corner that was not occupied with the fact you might die in the next second, you thanked god for some words being international.

Then, the girl with long wild red hair smiled at you apologetically, her eyes twinkling with excitement.

“Hello. Sorry for startling you,” she spoke with thick accent which you identified as Eastern-European and shot her companion a murderous look. “My brother is an ass and doesn’t know the difference between being funny and scaring people.”

She didn’t sound menacing at all; in fact, you saw every responsible older sibling annoyed at their younger family member in her. You blinked away the sting in your eyes and attempted to focus despite the ringing in your ears.

“Huh?” slipped from your lips intelligently, utter confusion gradually replacing your despair.

The blond rolled his eyes, which only earned him another clip round his ear.

“See what you’ve done? This is all your fault!”

“I was just messing around!”

“Do you have any idea what she’s been through? You scared her to death!” the woman hissed, effectively sending you back to the spiral of dismay, your slowly calming heartbeat skyrocketing again.

What did she know about what you had been through?!

With your knees wobbly and not to be trusted to keep you upright on their own anymore, you gripped the counter behind you with such force your muscles cramped.

“Who- who are you?” you breathed out shakily, catching the attention of the supposed sibling duo once more.

The woman smiled warmly, patronizingly almost.

“My name is Wanda and this is my brother, Pietro. We are of Sokovia. Your Captain and the other Avengers found us, showing us that we were fighting on the wrong side of things. Would you like to see?”

Her words echoed in your suddenly dull skull, the meaning escaping you.

And because her last sentence was what made sense the most and yet the least, you nodded.

Later, you would realize just how stupid and trusting you had been when agreeing, mostly because Steve gave you his look of disappointment and horror, but at the moment, it seemed right.

Somehow, on a level you couldn’t quite comprehend, you already understood they weren’t a threat to you.

“See how?”

Wanda smiled.

*Like this,* a ghost of her voice sounded somewhere deep in your mind, making you dizzy. What the hell-? *Please, don’t judge me. I thought I was doing the right thing.*

Before you could question such statement or the fact her lips were not moving while you heard her voice crystal clear, you were thrown into a vortex.

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Ultron had been sure they were coming; he left a bait for them, an easy track to follow. The track they could follow towards their end.

Wanda wasn’t one to enjoy killing or hurting people in general, no. She hadn’t even considered herself a strong person once, but that had all changed with their parent’s deaths. She had had to rely on herself – on herself and on her brother. Where an opportunity had risen, to step up their game and possibly to get revenge on the name still haunting them in their worst nightmares, they hadn’t even hesitated.

Wanda had once been a weakling. It had been the tempering in fire, in a burning pain of experimentation with the sceptre that had made her the woman who she was now.

And she had a mission; she and Pietro had a mission, their chance at revenge finally gaining a shape.

She had already played with Stark’s mind, with the scum only interested in money and destruction; now she could do the same to all of them.

Bursting in with a crash, they clearly hadn’t expected such livid counterattack. A response so… nightmare-like.

Just a flick of wrist and a little concentration on Wanda’s part and they were dropping like dead, trapped in their own minds.

Black Widow, locked in a scary base, ballet dancers, martial art training and merciless killing, her fresh fears creating a horror picture of aiming her gun at her current lover’s head, at her soulmate.

“I should have known you’d never change. You’re nothing but human reduced to a murder machine…”

Thor, oh so mighty God, travelling back to his home planet to a feast, legends messing with his headspace, confusion and helplessness, thunder and lightning all around and out of his control.

“You’ll kill us all! See, son of Odin, close your eyes and see!”

The righteous captain, trapped in his own mind, folded like a house of cards under his soulmate’s dead eyes, anger and accusation blossoming into hate and finally indifference.

“You cared about your 40’s sweetheart more, anyway, didn’t you? If it was her in my place, you would have chosen her before the thousands. You wouldn’t let her blow up… but if I’m nothing to you, then you are nothing to me…”

Satisfied with her work, with only a nudge to their consciousness and their own brains doing the work for her, Wanda smirked as she noticed the busy archer. Now what tricks his could mind come up with? What hardship would he get caught in?

As she slowly sneaked behind his back, a voice snarled behind her, causing her heart to stop from more than a simple fright.

“Kak mozhe neshto tolkova malko da prichini tolkova nepriyatnosti?”

Her first reaction to her blood crystallizing in her veins with horror and rage towards the whole fucking universe, was a snarky reply.

How dared he to call her small? Implying she was weak? Underestimating her and saying that she couldn’t cause any real trouble? Oh, she would show him… that arrogant bastard! She would show him trouble-

“Laĭna…ti mi narichash nepriyatnosti?” she hissed back, carelessly losing the sight of the archer, not interested in him in the slightest all of sudden. “Vie ste strana s greshni khora!”

This stranger, this—this man-machine radiating pain as her powers barely brushed the surface of his mind on instinct… he was the real trouble as she didn’t hesitate to tell him. He was on the wrong side of things! Fraternizing with a mass murderer, with her parent’s killer-

“Pone te sa kho—” he wanted to argue, but they his mind stopped before it started screaming, punching her telepathic powers she seemed suddenly unable to turn off.

Memories, a dozen of his own memories, the way he looked at his soulmark in a mirror, the pain, the sorrow, the torture… his encounter with the Avengers, living with them; with the band of heroes she just put down, one by one, teasing and laughter, compassion and acceptance, even from the man who was supposed to be nothing but a cocky heartless bastard-

“What the hell did you just say?” Bucky rasped, astonished and horrified.

He realized it too then. Everyone always did, didn’t they? Because every person with a soulmark awaited a moment like this; the moment someone would finally say the words matching the ones on their skin, met their expectations or not…

But Bucky Burnes was the farthest from Wanda’s dream when it came to a life-long partner.

Strength is tempered in fire, she remembered reading once. She had once found a special irony in the fact that the treatment by the sceptre felt exactly like that. Wanda’s soul turned to steel with the games the fate had played with her.

So why did her hands fell from their defensive position to her side, limp and drained of all strength and determination they had known, tears stinging her eyes.

Her life was shit and she thought she had made her peace with that. But judging by the deep ache in her chest, she had been holding out for her soulmate more than she had thought. Because why else would it hurt so bad when she found out he was an enemy?

“And I thought Romeo and Juliet was just a lot of crap,” she chuckled bitterly, switching to English when he did.

His thoughts scream at her, disbelief, caution, pain, confusion, regret and hope— ambivalence. He had no idea what to do and he hated her for what she had done to his friends, but the knowledge of her being his, supposedly, it torn him in half, reaching out with willingness to forgive her if she fixed it, because if anyone understood fighting at the wrong side it was him--

Unable to resist, she dug deeper into his mind, baring his very soul, fascinated.

Pietro was still fighting with the archer and Stark, dodging the lame attempts at attack of the Avengers lost in their minds, but for two people, the time stopped.

They stood against each other, staring and motionless, and Wanda was confident she saw more than him. His mind was a tangled mess of emotions and desperate desire to get a hold of them and think rationally, bundle of memories and hopes colliding with reality and rock-solid facts and Wanda felt a pang at her heart, a crushing sensation in her chest when she finally embraced everything his headspace had to offer, getting lost in it.

Lost in him.

James Buchannan Barnes had a beautiful soul. Torn and glued together with little kind gestures from his friends, sweet memories of his sister and everlasting friendship with Steve, his no-longer-little-but-equally-stubborn Steve, Steve’s soulmate, his teammates that accepted Bucky with surprising ease and less judgement anyone would deserve… and the careful way he was giving away the pieces of the very same heart that was barely together, in gentle smiles and good-natured teasing, silent self-declaration of giving his whole life for every single one member of his new-found family.

And Wanda understood. In a fraction of second she looked under the illusions she had helped to build in the Avengers’ minds and saw the truth.

*Pietro, spri!* she cried out straight into his mind, begging him to stop fighting. With another flick of her wrist, her enemies were free of her handiwork, shell-shocked from the experience, too lost to find their footing. “Brat, spri! Pietro… greshim. They are right.”

The battle froze as if the time did and for a second, Wanda felt like she was in her brother’s skin, moving so fast that the world around her stopped turning. The stunned silence was only broken by a soft gush of wind when Pietro appeared by her side.

The Avengers seemed so baffled at her admission they didn’t try to attack them.

She exchanged a look with her twin, hoping her face spoke volumes as tears gathered in her eyes. She was far from convinced that Anthony Stark was a good man; but she knew he was better than the creature they had sworn to assist. And her mother always used to say that a man should be judged by the company he kept. From what she had seen in Bucky Barnes’ head, Stark had one bunch of fine people around; and their imperfections seemed to be balanced by the good they all wished to do.

Pietro understood. Of course he would. More than he could read her expression, he must have felt the change in Wanda’s aura, the transformation touching their bond as well.

He graced her with a reluctant nod of agreement. Via their mental connection, he whispered he trusted her. Her lips curled up in a tender smile.

“Are we just gonna stand here? Are we fighting together or against each other or what?!”

No, Tony Stark was by no means a man she would call good. In fact, she already found out he was an ass. But now, he had become her ally.

From all the eyes on their duo, she chose to meet her soulmate’s.

“Together, Anthony. Because there’s bigger malice in this world than you are.”

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Wanda nearly cut you off right then. The rest of what she showed was a blur of images, fear, pain and determination, destruction and cooperation, all of that leading to this very moment. It all resembled waking up from a very intense confusing dream, being pulled away into consciousness by the first sunrays of the dawn.

You blinked heavily as the world swayed off its place, the counter seemingly in a peculiar angle from your point of view.

Why was the lamp not up, but on the side? Why was it spinning?

“Oops. Sorry. Never made the connection for such a long period of time-“ a voice reached you, breaking through the hush of blood and your own heartbeat in your ears.

You squeezed your eyes shut, trying to get a fucking grip on both your body and thoughts.

Bucky had a soulmate?

No, not relevant, the images were too unclear for you to be sure everyone made it out alright, you needed to see Steve first, you had to-

By the time Steve’s figure appeared in your field of vision, you were certain you were steady on your feet and finally managed to control your mouth.

“Steve!” you cried out excitedly as you sprang his direction, relief mixing with delight, because he was alive, he was not bleeding visibly, he-

-was suddenly graced with an identical twin, two loving tired smiles blending into one and splitting into two the next moment, swimming in your vision and you felt something solid grabbing your body and positioning it right into his strong arms.

You gazed at him in haze, melting into his warm and firm embrace, spotting a swirl of red energy flow around you.

Oh. Wanda’s work, no doubt. Sweet.

“Are you okay, doll? Are you sick? What happened?”

Wanda’s guilt was nearly solid in your reach, but you only let your head lull onto Steve’s shoulder, plunging into the fluff of love that his presence provided.

“Nah. I’m fine… just drunk on you…” you mumbled.

The girl’s bubbly relieved laughter rang in the room, bringing a satisfied smile on your face.

Steve’s kiss landed on your forehead, corners of his own lips upright despite the concern in his voice.

“Alright, sweetheart. Let’s just get you to bed…”

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Part 5

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Thank you for reading!

I chose Bulgarian, just to avoid traditional Russian this once. Bucky is a Winter Soldier after all and he should know how to speak 30 languages or so :D just thought this would work. Google translator used; apologize for any mistakes.

I hope you had an okay start to 2021 :-*

[fulcrumahsokaamidala]

Saturday Spectacular #12

Happy Saturday!!! So this is me thanking awesome fanfic writers for their amazing work and all the time they put into their fics. ♥️ I want to recommend spectacular fanfic stories I read this week! ♥️ They are posted in the order I read them. All posts will be tagged #saturday spectacular fic rec

When Did It All Go Wrong by @wrldtravler | Arrow | WIP

Summary: After a mission with A.R.G.U.S. goes south, agent Oliver Queen learns something he shouldn’t about Director Amanda Waller. Sent on the run when A.R.G.U.S. turns against him, he’s forced to seek out the one person that never wanted to see him again but whom he trusts with his life: his ex, Felicity Smoak. Putting their past behind them, the estranged pair come together along with John Diggle and Lyla Michaels to stop the looming threat. However, the past never stays buried for long. With their renewed connection comes great strength. But where there is strength, there is also great weakness – one that may cost them everything they worked to prevent.

“Time for a story” Drabble Series by @smkkbert | Arrow | WIP

Summary: This fic shows Olicity and their life as a (married) couple with family. Although Olicity (and their kids) are the protagonists, other characters of Arrow and Flash make appearances. It started as a drabble series, but developed more and more into a full domestic AU.

Providence by @so-caffeinated | Arrow | WIP

Summary: Will Queen has struggled in silence in the year since he was shot. But when a shadowy crime lord known as Domino targets the only woman Will’s ever truly loved, fate forces him to confront his demons in ways he never could have imagined… Whether he wants to or not. Amelia Prescott has fought to take control of her life since learning two years ago that her personal and professional worlds were manipulated by others. But nothing can prepare her for just how hard she’ll have to fight to set her own course, especially when her heart belongs to a damaged man and a crime lord threatens her every professional move… And her life. Destiny brings them together, but as chaos reigns and personal demons haunt Will and Amelia both, it may also threaten to tear them apart.

(i want to) save that light by @callistawolf | Arrow | WIP

Summary: What if one little thing changed in the history of Arrow? What if, instead of going to Laurel’s apartment after discovering the extent of Merlyn’s plans for the Glades, Oliver stayed at the foundry and talked to Felicity instead? This series of short vignettes explores some of the ripple-effect changes that could take place throughout the next season as a result of this one, fortuitous change.

Semper Fidelis by @oliversmuse | Arrow | Completed

Summary: Oliver Queen is a member of the Bravo Squad, a team that specializes in search and rescue, covert infantry and translating foreign documents. He is known as one of the best and even though he is one of the youngest recruits he advances quickly. While serving he meets Lance Corporal Felicity Smoak, a young woman with skills in hand to hand combat. Despite the fact they butt heads they fall in love and soon start to talk about a future together. However, when her plane disappears on a mission in China and she is presumed dead, Bravo Squad searches frantically for her, only to find her plane and her bloody dog tags. Five years later Oliver runs into “Megan” at a coffee shop near that gym he has been running with his friends. She has lost her memory from the plane accident but has had dreams of Oliver and the Bravo Squad. With the help of his friends and team mates, can he help her reclaim her past and fall for him once again?

grade 2 right shoulder subscapularis strain by @alexiablackbriar13 | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: Oliver Queen is an Olympic archer with a shoulder injury who hates sports therapy with a passion. Dr Felicity Smoak is his new physiotherapist. Sparks fly. Perhaps Felicity can change Oliver's mind.

Aftermath by @realityisoverrated-fic | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: Malcolm Merlyn has laid waste to the Glades. Laurel Lance is dead. Moira Queen is in jail. Thea is hiding away in her brother's nightclub. Oliver is licking his wounds, who knows where. Tommy would like nothing more than leave town and never look back, but someone needs to stick around and be accountable for his father's murderous undertaking.

Mothers know best by @smkkbert​ | Arrow | WIP

Summary: Since they have been kids, they have been best friends. Since they have been friends, their mothers wanted them to be together. After coming back from the east coast, Felicity takes over a position at Queen Consolidated, the company her best friend will soon take over from his father. Their mothers still push for them to be together, and they seem closer to that goal than ever because wedding bells are ringing. The only problem is that they both plan to get married to someone else.

Alpha by @oliversmuse | Arrow | WIP

Summary: Oliver Queen was a powerful vampire that was captured by a group experimenting on hybrids. Turned into a hybrid that is half vampire and half wolf he is strong, fast and deadly. While in captivity he meets Dr. Felicity Smoak a hermatologist who is called in to monitor his feedings. All Oliver wants is to be free, away from the experiments and being in a cage, and strangely he feels he can trust Dr. Smoak. There is also an unspoken attraction between them that is forbidden. Can he convince her to set him free or will her attraction to him tempt her to keep him close?

Artemis by @laxit21 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: When the Queen’s Gambit sank, two people were stranded on Lian Yu. Five years later, four came back.

Daughter of the Demon by @laxit21 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: What if in 1988 while traveling through Las Vegas Ra’s al Ghul bumps into a nice waitress named Donna Smoak and they have one-night stand together? A little bundle of joy named Felicity Smoak is the result. In 2014, the Demon Head becomes aware of his youngest daughter’s existence.

The Ravager by @laxit21 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: Slade Wilson’s plan for revenge against Oliver took time, money and no shortage of lives to pull together. His plan didn’t anticipate Felicity Smoak. How will his plan change now that his lost-lost daughter is working with the very man he’s trying to destroy?

Felicity of Themiscyra by @laxit21 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: Years ago, Donna Smoak left the island of Themiscyra and her sister Queen Hippolyta behind to live in man’s world. She never told Felicity the truth about where she came from. As a result of the Undertaking, Felicity discovers some of her Amazonian abilities and makes an interesting new friend: Diana Prince.

The Daughter That Was Left by @laxit21 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: Before the Gambit, Oliver Queen met QC intern Felicity Smoak. When he boarded the Gambit, he left something behind. Now, five long years later someone is waiting for him.

I Scream But No Sound Comes out by @laxit21 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: When Oliver returns from Lian Yu after five years, he comes back different. What happened there damaged more than just his body. How will his friends and family deal with this new Oliver?

| ONE | (Oliver The Footballer) by @someonesaidcake | Arrow | Completed

Summary: Felicity Smoak had a plan; to save enough money to kick her monotonous job and start up the company of her dreams. She made good plans, solid plans, attainable plans. He was never part of her plan. His name was Oliver Queen, the reclusive Brazilian football star with a broken smile and a story to tell He’d never planned on her either.

Did I Forget to Mention That My Dad is a Supervillain? by @laxit21 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: When Felicity told Oliver about her father, she wasn’t lying per se. She wasn’t completely honest either. It’s just that ‘my dad left us’ sounded better than the truth.

Or: A Series of one shots in which Felicity’s dad is a supervillain and we see how Oliver and the team finds out.

little wonders (twists and turns of fate) by @alexiablackbriar13 | Arrow | WIP

Summary: Oliver and Felicity's drunken mistake of a hook-up in the bunker comes with unexpected consequences in the form of a... souvenir. Deciding to remain romantically uninvolved, the two of them will have to battle all the trials and tribulations of maintaining a platonic relationship while Felicity is pregnant and the two of them are living together, coping with all the emotional baggage that they both bring to the table - and dealing with the fact that they are still very much in love with each other, but scarred by the events that broke them apart in the first place.

Winds of Change by Nerdofmanytalents | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: Tommy finds an unexpected visitor hiding under the bar. [This segment takes place before the events of "Whats the Matter, Baby."]

The Road Not Taken by @oneofthosecrazygirls-fics​ | Arrow | WIP

Summary: Canon divergence/fix-it AU. Everything that happened in the series up through 4x11 happens as it did in the show and this fic diverges from there.Direct sequel to “Swear This One You’ll Save” and “Have Your Cake (And Eat It Too)” so make sure you read those first before reading this one.This fic is part of the What Should’ve Been ‘verse.

A Hidden Life by @realityisoverrated-fic | Arrow | One-shot

Summary: It's Oliver, Felicity, and Tommy's first Thanksgiving together. Their plans for a shared meal are upended by the unexpected arrival of Donna Smoak.

The Cat, the Canary, and the Dinosaur by stick2theplan | Arrow | Completed

Summary: Nyssa and Sara are visiting Oliver and co for the week. Of course, this means they'll at least have to endure a semi-awkward pseudo-family brunch. Fighting bad guys is easy compared to answering awkward questions from Oliver's too-perceptive son.

ink stains and dumbbells by inlovewithimpossibility | Arrow | WIP

Summary: "Hey Dynasties, Oliver here coming at you with another video!"

"Hi guys, welcome back to Ghost Fox Goddess, I am Felicity Smoak."

When one half of YouTube duo, Queen-Merlyn Dynasty, lands himself in hot water with Principal Wilson due to failing grades, Oliver knows that he needs to step up his game. The principal recommends a tutor but little does Oliver know that she's also a successful YouTuber. The two of them set out on filming a collab but neither anticipates how popular their videos will be or the insane reaction the sight of the two of them on screen together will gain from the fans.

[ironstrange-is-the-endgame]

Steve Rogers And Peter Parker play matchmaker with them because they’re sick of the pINING (also I’m tired of the Steve Rogers hate :()

I got terribly carried away with this. Also, I can’t write getting together fics, apparently. That said, this is also for the anon who asked Steve makes ironstrange happen. It’ extremely long and filled with a lot of ships of mine, I’m sorry, I just carried away. 

Also tw for Bucky’s past internalized homophobia (is just mentioned but still).

Steve Rogers had been a lot of things in his life. A symbol, a legend, a man behind time, a teammate, a friend, a threat for the world, an outlaw, a lover, a hero, again, but he had never been the kind of person who minded others’ business.

Steve Rogers was an observant man as well, and while he didn’t really care about what was going on between Tony Stark and the Supreme Sorcerer, he couldn’t deny that something existed.

It all started once they managed to revert the Snap and the ones who had been dusted came back to life. Steve and Tony had to work together, and they did it, trying to suppress all the unsaid things that had been between them in the past two years. Not speaking about that was better. They had more important things to focus on, and both of them were avoiding the specific topic concerning Siberia and Bucky. This until Thanos’s body laid on the dusty floor of the Wakandan battlefield.

Well, even after, considering that Steve had been very, very busy in trying to speak Bucky into the entire “I’ve always been in love with you” ordeal. Steve cared about Tony, but he would have chosen Bucky over and over again, and that was clear to all the people involved.

So, when the majority of the Avengers headed back in New York, Steve and Bucky decided to stay in Wakanda a little bit longer, to help T’Challa in the rebuilding of his own kingdom, take some time for themselves, and figure things out. Nat’s malicious smile, when he said that loud, was still haunting Steve’s memories, but once his friend all but threw herself in Bucky’s arms whispering something which Barnes still didn’t want to tell him in his ear, Steve realized his life was going on the right path, for once since 1945.

But, of course, despite Wakanda being a literal paradise, Steve knew that he still had things to do, back home. He wasn’t a coward, he wasn’t going to hide forever in Africa in order to avoid his old friend. They needed to speak, and they needed to work together, again, in case some looming threat was waiting for them at the corners of this universe. Or a different one, if Wong wasn’t a liar. And considering that the man didn’t give Rogers that kind of vibes, he was pretty sure the Avengers couldn’t just retire.

So, thanks to T’Challa’s help, who all but bought their pardons to the UN, Steve suspected - but it wasn’t like he could be picky about his coming back in the US - they managed to land at the JFK, journalists and photographers miraculously interested in something else, apparently.

Natasha and Fury were the only people standing near the airstrip, along with a blonde woman that Steve had never seen before.

“Captain, Sergeant,” The woman gathered them. “Major Carol Danvers. It’s a pleasure to have you back. Director Fury will update you on the new version of the Accords you’ll be asked to sign. Agent Romanoff and Tony Stark went through them which is the reason why she’s with us today.”

Steve wondered why the woman was there, to be honest, but decided to keep his questions for another time; and while he felt Bucky’s body straightened uncomfortably at the mention of Stark, the soft squeeze his boyfriend gave him was enough for Steve to understand that he would have been fine, for the time being.

During the car ride, they both understood that they were heading to the Avengers Compound, that Carol Danvers worked with the team of New York during the planning of the strategies that lead to the defeat of the Mad Titan, that Phil Coulson was still alive (Steve was sincerely relieved by that information. He really liked the man and felt like his death was on him), and, most important, about the New Accords. Which contained a lot of restrictions for him (and, surprisingly enough, not for Bucky).

Apparently, being very likely the next queen of Wakanda brought Nat to have more freedom than everyone else in the so-called “Team Cap”, or maybe Stark was just being petty toward him. Not that Steve could blame him, but every hope to go back to Brooklyn needed to be stored away for the time being, apparently.

--

“Stark wants to see you,” Sam told him, and for a moment Steve found himself looking at his friend, wandering with whom he was speaking. Since Bucky and he came back from Wakanda, the man had been a sort of ghost. They met a couple of times, of course, during meetings both with the Avengers and the New Accords Commission, but it wasn’t like they really spoke in those occasions. Stark wanted to see him came out of nowhere.

“Did he mention why?” Steve asked. Sam shook his head, moving closer and looking over Steve’s shoulder to meet Sharon’s smile. Skype was the greatest invention of the century if you asked Cap. He and Peggy’s niece were still in more than good terms, and with the fact that she worked with Everett Ross and spent half of her time in Wakanda anyway, she really helped him with the entire Bucky question.

“No, but he’s with Strange, so if you need back-ups just tell me,” But he was looking at Sharon and probably Steve had to leave the two of them alone. Oh yes, Steve was also a good observer.

“It’s fine, thanks,” He said, instead, leaving the ‘Rogues common room’ and following Friday’s voice to reach her creator. Tony was seated on one of the couches, half curled up against the Supreme Sorcerer. At Stark’s other side there was a redheaded woman that Steve had never seen before and Bruce. The four of them seemed to be invested in some conversation that Steve couldn’t hear from where he was and that didn't want to eavesdrop.

He found himself asking how much he missed from not coming back from Wakanda. After the Snap, he went back to the Compound just to see what was left of the City he loved, and then came back in Africa leaving Bruce, Rhodey and Tony (once he came back from the space) to coordinate the scientific resources while he took care of the search for Thanos. Natasha was looking for Clint all over the world, and Thor was in the middle of the space, searching for the remains of his people along with someone called Valkyrie. Most of the people he knew in that span of time, were from Wakanda or from the Army, and none of them was the woman in the common room.

But, anyway, introductions should be postponed because the moment the four of them acknowledged of Rogers’s presence, Banner and the woman left, and Tony straightened up on the couch. Steve recognized that behaviour. It was the one Stark showed when he was speaking with politicians or lawyers, fake smile and all. Being at the other side of that was slightly uncomfortable for the super soldier, and he couldn’t even imagine how it was for the people who wanted to ask Stark some favour.

“Sam told me you wanted to speak,” Steve said, looking at the two men in front of him and questioning why Strange was there. He met the man’s companion and trusted Wong, but he knew too few about the Sorcerer Supreme to understand why he was around. If Tony wanted to speak about Siberia, which was highly probable, involving the other man meant that the genius had someone ready to agree with everything he was going to say.

Maybe he should have asked for Wilson to join him.

“Oh, yeah. It’s more Stephen’s, here, idea. Like, I agree on everything, almost, of what he said and we need to speak, and considering that every time is just the two of us we blow up. Well, Stephen is Switzerland.”

“Did you really just quoted Twilight?” Strange asked, mildly offended, apparently. The sorcerer was a different book to read from Tony, and Cap was just too surprised to do anything else but nodding, listening to what the younger man was saying. “Anyway, I came to know about the Siberian ordeal, and while I suspect both of you are trying to pretend it never happened, you are still working together, and living in the same place, so I think it’s better if you figure it out once for all. We are all tired of your passive-aggressive behaviour.”

Steve nodded. He tried to speak with Tony when Stark came back, but that wasn’t the right moment, he understood that much too late. The man gave him a small smile and told him that they were good. They weren’t.

“I’m sorry,” Tony let out before that Steve could say anything. He didn’t even understand what the man in front of him was sorry for. There were tons of things Steve blamed him, before. Now he couldn't bear himself to think about those. They both were wrong. Steve still didn’t believe to let others decide for their intervention was a good idea, but this didn’t mean that he wasn’t sorry for having tried to kill Tony.

He didn’t want to blame his boyfriend, because it wasn’t Bucky’s fault if he couldn’t keep his punches when he was involved, but he knew that seeing the man he loved being beaten by one of his friends drove him crazy.

“When I saw the video, I lost my control. I should have seen that was what Zemo wanted. I should have trusted you, back at the airport. If I did, Rhodey…” His voice trailed off, and Strange’s hand was on his shoulder a moment later. Tony rose his eyes to look at the Sorcerer and a moment later both of them nodded. Steve couldn’t help but noticed a sort of tenderness in Stark’s glance. “I’m sorry.”

Steve shook his head. He wasn’t ready for that. Once he walked into the room and understood what Tony wanted to speak about, he thought it was going to end in another fight. Not Stark telling him he was sorry. That changed the perspective of things.

“I was scared that you could kill him,” He said, who he was speaking about went unsaid. “What they did to him… Bucky would have never, he knew Howard, they were friends. And I know this doesn't justify what I’ve done. I knew he was alive, and I knew what he did. It was my call to take. But I just couldn’t... Hide what I knew about Bucky because I wanted to save him,” That was the reason why he deleted the file before giving the flash-drive to Nat. That was the reason why that video wasn’t among the other files spread in the world after the SHIELD downfall. “But I had other ways to stop you from killing him.”

He ran a hand in his hair. Steve was exhausted by simply stand here and speak and it wasn’t something that ever happened to him. He knew whatever kind of friendship he could have built with Tony was as good as dead, but Stark needed to know. He must give that much to the man.

“Thanos killed Gamora, and when Quill understood that, on Titan, he blew our only opportunity to take the gauntlet off from him,” Tony said, and that was the last thing Steve expected to hear. Nobody but the people who were there knew what happened on Titan, nobody knew how he got the Time Stone. Bruce, Wong and Thor, the people who knew Strange, said that he wouldn’t ever give the thing up, so everyone suspected blood had been spread on the planet. Once Tony and Nebula did come back, they said the others turned into dust and gave no further explanations. “He snapped, and I knew how he was going to react. I did the same. I screw up because I was a twenty-one-year-old kid again,” Steve tried not to think that Tony just put Bucky and Thanos on the same plane. I was a metaphor, a figure of speech. “And in front of me, there was the person who killed my parents. I came here as a friend, as your pal Sam told me to do and… What I’m trying to say is that we both had been jerks, and I can understand why you did what you did. This doesn’t make it easier to accept, but, whatever. We might not be friends again, but no bad blood, ok?”

And when Tony extended his hand, Steve shook it. He hoped that, with time, things could go back to normality, but, for now, he wasn’t going to complain. “No bad blood.” He said.

“See, doctor, Cap and I are grown-ups, don’t need a babysitter,” Stark said, walking past the Sorcerer and smiling at him. Steve had been around Tony long enough to recognize that smile.

--

Harley Keener backed off the moment Steve walked into the penthouse main hall, not that the Captain was surprised but the kid’s behaviour. The last time the two of them had been in the same room, the blond teen told him that, considering that Tony said they need to be nice which each other, it was better if their paths didn’t cross. He simply couldn’t be civil with “fake Cap”. Because, apparently, Carol Denver was now Captain Marvel and “the Real Cap”.

Whatever, Steve never met the kid before and considering that he was one of Tony’s kids he didn’t hope for him to understand how they managed things to work out. And he, anyway, was trying to speak with Peter who was speaking with the other teen for a moment before.

The point was that, even if he wasn’t Natasha, he noticed things. And he had to admit that Strange wasn’t as half an asshole as he appeared. They sort of getting along well. Like, not best pals, not even what Steve expected and wanted to, but in more than speaking terms. Of course, he was an ironic prick, but he was Tony’s friend or whatever, he couldn’t hope for nothing different. Anyway, he was sure not to be the only one to notice that there was something weird between Strange and Stark. And, maybe, involve a teenager wasn’t the best thing, but still.

Perhaps it was because he had never been there for a long time, but how could the other go through their constant banter-flirting every couple of days? He didn’t pretend to know so much about love stories, but they weren’t supposed to be excruciating for everyone around them.

Honestly, Steve spotted Strange looking at Tony a couple of times and if stares could strip clothes, Tony would have found himself naked in the middle of the training room more than once. But, apart from that, the Doctor was imperturbable. And Rogers had no idea about what he and Tony spoke about for hours. Every time he and Strange spoke, the Captain found himself with the greatest headache ever. Just as it happened when he spoke with Banner, to be honest.

Anyway, back on the matter in question, he was sure whatever there was between the two of them was more than what it met the eyes and wanted to be sure about that. “Peter,” He said, seating on the couch opposite to the one the teen was occupying. Differently from Harley, at least Parker tried to be civil with him. It didn’t exactly work, but he didn’t walk out any room Steve entered either so he was going to count it as a win. “Can I ask you something?”

“I suppose I can’t forbid you to speak, Mr Rogers,” Peter said, looking at the man in front of him for half a second before going back to his StarkPad. “So, yeah, shoot.”

“That thing between Tony and Strange,” He said, unsure about how to finish the sentence. Maybe ask a teenager wasn’t the best thing ever, but Steve found himself at short of allies and the only two people in the Compound who he would have asked told him to mind his own business. Steve regretted the times when his boyfriend and his friend used every possible occasion they had to argue. At least, one of them was always by his side. But nope, he had to plead Bucky and Sam to try and get along. His words, anyway, caused some sort of reaction in Peter because Parker lowered his tablet and looked at Steve, brown eyes wide with attention.

Good, I’m not seeing things, then. He thought, before continuing. “Do they know?”

“Believe me, Mr Rogers, the only people in the Compound that don’t know that Mr Stark loves Dr Strange are Mr Stark and Dr Strange. I thought they would figure out when they helped Dr Palmer and Dr Banner, but nope, I’m delusional.”

Steve tried to remember who Dr Palmer was, then the image of the redheaded woman he saw a couple of times with Bruce and Strange crossed his mind and he decided she must be the person Peter was speaking about. “Anyway, why did you want to know?”

“It’s just… I can recognize the weird way Tony has to flirt. Been there, both with Bruce and Nat. And I think he honestly deserves happiness.”

Peter’s glance was enough of an answer to that, but, again, it wasn’t like Steve could complain. He messed things up. It was his fault in the first place if Tony’s last couple of years before Thanos hadn’t been his happiest ones. But the kid had a good heart and he cared about Stark, which meant that he also was the best person to ask help to. And maybe he didn’t need to know about Bruce and Nat, but it wasn’t like it was something someone couldn’t find on Tony’s Wikipedia page.

“Yeah, he does. And Stephen does, too,” Peter said, and there was a glimpse of sadness in the deep of his dark eyes. “If that’s a way of yours to buy Tony’s pardon, I don’t think will work, but I’ll help you. Because I want them to be happy.”

Steve nodded, again, he knew things with Tony couldn’t go back to be the same because of that, but he didn’t care. They weren’t going to solve the problems from their past, but Steve could understand how it was to have someone who cared for him in his life, to have someone to speak with, and while he was sure either of the men was so found of opening up, they’d probably find their own way to do that. Again, apparently, it was clear in the sun, so it wasn’t like Steve was going to risk something, wasn’t him?

--

“Not exactly subtle,” Bucky said, looking at the decoration someone put around the main hall of the Wakandan Royal Palace. Apparently, Peter convinced Shuri and Nat to organize Valentine's Day party, of which T’Challa knew nothing, pretending it was an Avengers’ team bonding dinner. As in, everyone was pretty much obligated to take part in it. Bucky had a point or a hundred of those, but every other try they did (including hacking Friday's system to block the two of them in one of the lifts of the Tower, again, not the best of the ideas, but they were running out of those) ended in nothing, so it was time to call the big guns.

“And you aren’t even sure that Strange will show up,” Sharon added. Sam said she was in Wakanda because she was working on something with Everett Ross, but Bucky suspected that the real reason was that she and Wilson had started to date and Steve was more prone to believe in his boyfriend’s explanation. He gave his not-quite-Uncle seal of approval to the relationship, not that he said it loud, but still. If he’d dared to, well, Sharon could kick him in places he might need if he wanted to be a good boyfriend.

“You are just worried that if those two finally get together and even decided to take over the world, we will all have huge problems in not being enslaved,” Sam answered, and, yes, maybe that was a valid concern at which he hadn’t thought about enough. “I mean, I understand you, but still. Seeing Steve and Peter’s plans fail is funny enough to take the risk.”

Sharon rolled her eyes to the ceiling and walked away with Sam before he could say something else, leaving Steve alone with Bucky. “You know I’m always by your side, but what’s your plan, exactly?”

“It’s Peter’s idea,” Steve answered. “He thinks that if one of them gets drunk enough he will spill the bean, and we just have to been sure that this happens in front of the other.”

“You know that this is the dumbest plan I’ve ever heard of? And it’s coming from the man who fought guys three times his size, jumped without a parachute from an aeroplane and crashed another aeroplane in which he was when he could have said to anyone where he was going to do it,” Bucky’s smile softened a moment later. “You are lucky I love you, Steve Rogers, because that’s enough dumbness for me to walk away with another pretty super soldier.”

And Steve was glad when he felt Bucky’s metal arm around his waist, dragging him closer to his body so that he could place a kiss against his cheek. It took longer than he would have imagined, especially because Bucky had always been open about dating back in the 40s — and he confessed to Cap after a long time that he was just pretending, that showing himself with a different woman every night was the best way to hide the fact that he was attracted by men —, but now that his boyfriend was keen to public manifestations of affection Steve couldn’t help but smile like an idiot.

It took more than two hours before one between Stark and Strange showed up at the party, half dragged by the Cloak through a shining portal in the middle of the room. Strange was wearing what looked like a bodysuit, total black with details in charcoal grey and gold and white lines that crossed his chest and backs. Steve had never seen the Sorcerer wearing anything different from his robes or, on some rare occasions, casual clothes. And definitely, that suit wasn’t either.

The Doctor looked at his surroundings with a questioning glance, the Cloak disappeared a moment before he stepped into the room and everyone else around him acting like nothing was weird. It was supposed to be a team bonding event, not some kind of stupid party, and it was clear Strange didn’t appreciate the surprise.

This, at least, until Peter ran in front of him and started to speak about something that Steve couldn’t and didn’t want to hear. What was important was that the Sorcerer was that. Now the plan became more complicated, but, at least, part of it was accomplished.

--

Tony froze, the moment he walked past the doors of the main hall of the Wakandan Royal Palace. He had spent the entire day in the labs with Shuri — but for a fast lunch break because the princess seemed to be very much aware of the passing of time, differently from another teen Tony knew and kicked his ass out of her reign at half-past twelve — listening to her lessons about all the stuff he didn’t know about vibranium. Which were a lot, and the most important one was “do not use vibranium to create a giant frisbee with the only purpose to do propaganda” which was, well, legit.

She showed and kicked his ass in the process, how to use it to create little marvellously for which his father would have sold Tony himself, and also things that would have helped the population (in which Stark was more interested in) worldwide. She also agreed on a collaboration with Stark Industries and asked Tony about his nanoparticles. He had been more than happy to share that information with her, his mind yet on how to combine those and the Wakandan technology to create suits for every one of his teammates. And only when Shuri suggested that they could bring back the old Ultron's project and trying to recreate it, Tony decided to be interested in the mandatory dinner.

He had no idea if the princess understood the reason behind that, but was positive that she was smart enough to never mention Ultron again in front of him.

It was theoretically possible, that was true. He had better technology nowadays and with the help of both Bruce and Shuri he could recreate the entire thing without the part in which he decided to kill the superheroes. But the lives of the people who died because of that error of his were still hunting his sleep even more than Thanos.

He shook his head and decided that needed something to drink, which was why he went straight for the open bar once he reached the hall, only to stop himself mid-way, his dark eyes following infinite legs wrapped in dark fabric. Which eventually ended in a fine, fine ass. And whatever the thing Strange was wearing was, well, Tony appreciated it very much.

The bastard had gold details, and white stripes on the pitch black fabric of it placed there with the sole aim to have people looking at his ass, Tony was sure of that, his own suit had shining lights on that very same spot.

And well, maybe, just maybe, he had been very vocal with a certain other doctor and a US Army Colonel about how frustrating was the fact that Stephen couldn’t understand that they banter was Tony’s way to flirt with him (and the totally negligible fact that he found the Sorcerer attractive and smart, and dreamed about kissing those lips and having them on other parts of his body as well), but still. The only result had been that his two closest friends started to laugh.

And Tony was the one they should thank if they were very much taken with two women who could take over the world without crack a nail. Well, still, he could do without their help. Except that he couldn’t. Because he spoke with them something like six months before and nothing happened since then. Or better, nothing different from the same snark and flirtatious interaction he always had had with Strange.

“Stark,” Stephen’s voice reached him through his thought and, for a moment, Tony went back to be a thirteen years old kid in front of his first crush.

“Oh, nice outfit,” Was the only thing was able to say, and being him Tony Stark, well, he said it. Thank you so much brain which didn’t stop him in time. “I mean, it seems more durable than your temple robes.”

He flashed him his trademark smile but noticed how a pinker shade spread over Stephen’s cheeks. It lasted just one second, the time Tony needed to see that there was no opinionated piece of outerwear around Stephen’s shoulders. That was as weird as the fact that everyone around them seemed to be invested in dancing instead of, well, team bonding activity.

Also, there wasn’t the entire team there either. He spotted Bruce and Christine when he entered the room and if his attention hadn’t been catalysed by a certain Sorcerer in a very thigh bodysuit he would have understood that there was something weird. Stephen’s best-friend was a consultant for the Avengers, but she wasn’t forced to take part in the Commission for the Accords events. Rhodey and Carol were a more familiar sight, considering that both of them lived in the Compound and both were Avengers, but Ned who wall all but flirting with Shuri, well, technically he and MJ shouldn’t even know about Peter’s secret identity.

Thor and Loki weren’t around, probably hidden somewhere with their warrior friend and the Grand Master of something - Tony didn’t ask and nobody explained to him, he was just happy to know that Stephen didn’t have a relationship with neither of the Asgardians because the Sorcerer’s interactions with the gods gave him that kind of vibes. While for the others, T’Challa wasn’t trying to kill Ned only because he was giving heart eyes to Nat (who was even more beautiful than usual and was wearing typical Wakandan clothes), Steve and Bucky were very much busy in trying to occupy the very same space and Wilson was trying to get killed by Sharon. Tony didn’t saw Wanda and Vision yet, but probably they were together and - and then something hit him.

Strong, in the middle of his brain: it was fucking Valentine's Day!

And he was behaving like a crazy in front of the man he had a crush on. Fucking great! Which was why he smiled when Peter called him. “Yeah, Pete?” He asked, turning completely to face the kid in front of him.

“The ice is finished and I was wondering if you could go and take some, like, King T’Challa is busy and…” Tony nodded. It wasn’t like he knew where they kept ice (also, they probably had butlers for that, but Tony wasn’t going to point it out now), but at least he would have enough time to think about the fact of being cornered during Valentine's Day party.

“Yeah, I’m going,” He said and walked toward one of the hallways. The last thing he expected for, though, was to see a red flash of something in front of him and, a moment later, to hear Stephen’s voice.

“I’ll help you,” He said. “It’s not like there’s something more I can do there anyway.”

Yeah, and maybe he could use his magic mumbo-jumbo to lead them to where ice was kept. What Tony didn’t notice, though, were Peter and Steve following them down the hallway.

--

“Are you sure they won’t freeze to death?” Peter asked, looking at the door they just locked. Steve’s cerulean eyes ran on T’Challa by his side. The King of Wakanda nodded.

“They just entered the first room they found, this is a conference room,” He explained. “And, anyway, Strange can always portal them outside. Now, do you want to look at the camera feeds, considering that we are closing two adults in a room so that they could speak? That I don’t think will work, but still.”

“And, anyway, are you telling me that I should have closed Bucky and you in a freezing room so that you would have kissed without forcing me to hear you pining over him?” Nat asked, looking deadly serious at Steve. Who had, at least, the decency to blush. “Now, why don’t we just project the feed in the main hall?”

T’Challa’s wicked smile matched his fiancé’s.

--

“What’s wrong with you?” Stephen asked again, looking at the Cloak which was blocking them to reach the door and find another room. In that one there wasn’t ice, apparently. The Cloak didn’t move, and it wasn’t like there was something Strange could do but stare at it.

“I can try to shoot at…” Tony wasn’t really serious, but the glance Stephen threw at him was enough to make him never finish that sentence. And the fact that he was the only person capable of doing that said a lot about the one Supreme Sorcerer. “Ok, bad idea. I was joking, by the way.”

“I know,” Stephen said, deciding to ignore the Cloak for the time being. “I’m just exhausted and kind of protective with it. The Cloak saved my life more than once.”

Tony nodded, Stephen wasn’t giving any intonation to his words, those were simply facts. Though he couldn’t help a smile to form on his lips. “It’s fine. Do you know something we can do to make it move, though?”

Stephen looked at the relic which decided it was a good time to stay perfectly still while floating in front of the door. They both know that if they try to move toward the exit it would wrap around them, pushing them back. The point was why it was behaving like that. “Not really. It does what it wants to.”

“Crazy clothes,” Tony said, glaring at it. “It makes me questioning if all the Artificial Intelligence thing I’m trying to achieve is for the best. What if I give Fri a body and then she starts to act like a little bitch?”

“She already is,” Stephen said, and it was barely a whisper, but Tony could hear him. “But she probably took after her creator so she can’t be blamed.”

Tony smiled, looking at him. And ok, that suit was illegal. Whoever created it (which was still a huge question mark in his mind) should have been sued for crimes against decency, if something like that existed. Nobody could give something so provoking to a man like Strange. A man who was able to make loose robes sexy on top of everything.

“Do you like what you see?” Stephen’s low voice reached him, and Tony should really stop to stare at the Sorcerer, apparently.

“You can’t just walk in there wearing this and pretend people won’t look. That thing is unfair,” He decided to be honest, at least with himself. Again, it wasn’t like there was something different he could do.

--

“Everyone goes home; I won!” Shuri said, her dark eyes focused on the holographic image of the two of them speaking. Steve and Peter shared a confused expression for a moment, looking at each other before the princess continued: “Do you really think you are the only one tired of those two acting like teenagers around each other? The difference between you and me is that I didn’t even need to kidnap them.”

And ok, maybe Steve had to admit that his and Peter’s plans were based on the fact that if you close them somewhere they would eventually speak to each other, which resulted in nothing all the previous times. But, at least, they tried.

“And how should this be your victory? We closed them in the room.”

“You shouldn’t be proud of that, Steve,” Carol said, smiling, but it was clear that she was more curious about Shuri’s answer than everything else.

“Who do you think created Strange’s suit? He asked me something practical, and I’m pretty sure it is.”

“Am I the only one who doesn’t want to know how far practical goes?” Peter asked, focusing back on Tony and Stephen on the screen in front of them. They were still speaking, and seriously, for being friends it seemed like they didn’t speak for ages. “I mean, we are speaking about my mentor and a man I really appreciate and look after, I’d really like to think they will speak with their clothes on all the time, ok?”

“Yeah, Pete, whatever,” MJ said, and, yup, Parker totally blushed at that.

--

The Cloak let them reach the door only after both of them admitted that they had feelings for each other. It was a long and excruciating process considering that none of them really wanted to ruin their friendship, but, in the end, they managed to speak also about that.

“We can try and see how this works, we don’t have to rush things or something,” Stephen said, a soft smile on his lips, content with Tony squeezing his hand a moment later. Neither of them was ready for a relationship different from a very close friendship. Their lives and their pasts having proved that they weren’t ready for romantic stuff. But knowing what they felt for each other was enough, for now.

Tony nodded, a more relaxed smile while he let his eyes ran on Stephen’s arm, stretched between them. “Thank you. For understanding and, well, thank you.”

Stephen shook his head before walking pass the Cloak, which decided that it was enough to let them go. The door, though, seemed to be of a completely different opinion, considering that it didn’t move once Tony tried to open it. A moment later, they heard someone running at the other side of it.

But, at that moment, something different starting to emerge in Tony’s mind. “Wait! That’s Rogers and the kid’s doing.”

Stephen’s eyes looked questioning for half a second, then he seemed to realize. “It’s the same as the elevator and the London situation? And all the other times we found ourselves looked in some place”

Tony nodded and a soft laugh started to rise on his lips. “Yeah, I’m going to kill them.”

“I have a better idea,” Stephen said, moving his hand to open a portal in the middle of the room. “And, honestly, I’m not even sure that’s their doing, but we should thank them.”

Tony said nothing but crossed the Portal still holding Stephen’s hand, and that was good. Yeah, he should probably thank the two of them. Even if it was sad that him, Tony Stark, a former playboy, needed the help of a teen and a hundred-years-old man with his love life.

[karenpage]

you’re honest. you never lie to me

an essay (?)  about Karen Page + the importance of the truth.

I’m going to preface this with yes, I ship Kastle, but a lot of the details, the facts and the principles that will be shared throughout this post are some of the primary reasons I do, and not intended to necessarily change people’s perspectives to their own romantic pairings. 

We’re going to open with Daredevil s1, where it all began.

The introduction of Karen’s character is flanked by ‘guilt’ by ‘the truth’ and what it means depending on where you’re standing when you look at it. She’s framed for murder (an ultimate act of dishonesty), because she was investigating the truth - she lost her job, lost everything, in her pursuit of what was actually happening behind the smoke and mirrors of Union Allied. And at this point, it just looked like money being moved around, which, while illegal and immoral, wasn’t as violently criminal as say, organized drug trafficking and gang-related violence (like the Italians or Kitchen Irish). 

She relies on Matt and Foggy trusting her. She relies on that blind faith. And the few times Karen lies to them (and she does lie initially) was rooted in her paranoia. Her fear. Especially when you continue further on and she’s almost killed in her holding cell, and she doesn’t know who to turn to, who she can place her trust in.

Enter: Daredevil. (that’s a fine looking high horse)

He’s representative of good, working along the margins of the law (vigilante justice), but it is absolute. Of course, she has no way of knowing the shape of his moral code, but he’s the first person shown to save Karen so she latches onto that ideal fiercely. A continued theme of her thinking that Daredevil is the end all be all; he’s saved her, he does what’s ‘right’, or at least what the man beneath the mask believes to be.

Karen’s story arc through the entirety of season 1 is the pursuit of truth. It starts with Union Allied. It starts with Ben Urich. And then it twists into the guilt of Karen feeling the weight of the truth she unearths - doing what’s right, what’s just, starts to come at an incredibly high price. Karen’s life is threatened ROUTINELY, and she persists. She doesn’t stop. 

I don’t think it’s necessarily a death wish so much as it is: people have died on this journey and to stop? To give up because she’s scared? Would be an insult to them directly.

And then she’s at the business end of a gun. And then she’s got so much blood on her hands she can’t breathe. 

We now know (with the release of dds3), that Wesley wasn’t the first person she shot. That Karen Page has always been perfectly capable of handling herself but Wesley’s death is important in the shift of her reality.

It isn’t black & white any longer. 

Because self-defense has a very narrow threshold and while her life would continue to be in direct danger if James Wesley was allowed to live, right then, and after the first shot into his shoulder, he wasn’t an immediate threat. 

Karen emptied the clip into him and buried that trauma, that guilt, way down deep. 

But his isn’t the first life she’d taken. It isn’t the first ghost that sits in her shadow.

So why is Karen so interested in the absolute truth, every inch of it laid bare even if it makes her look bad? Even if it’s ugly?

Cut to Daredevil s3e10: Karen.

After two seasons of Daredevil and one season of The Punisher teasing the tragedy of Karen Page’s backstory, we’re given insight into what’s clearly a defining set of circumstances for her later behavior, for her grief.

Karen made bad choices, and bad things happened; her brother dies in an accident caused by her addiction, by her abusive boyfriend and it’s an absolute, soul-rending ache that we see reflected throughout her adulthood thereafter.

But her dad, a man who had no sense of responsibility, culpability, let his denial of their circumstances make decisions for them and was emotionally abusive -- he took away her ability to grieve. Her ability to take the blame in guilt.

He made the death of her brother about him.

Karen was CLEARLY upset when he told her that she wasn’t ‘there’, that the sheriff was going to call it a one person incident because their family didn’t need more suffering. After her mother’s death, now her brother’s, what would that do to her father if she ended up in prison? It was exceptionally manipulative on his part to phrase things the way he did and that stuck with Karen.

A lie. Not the first but the one that defined her relationship with the truth. With honesty. With justice and vengeance.

A lie that blamed her brother for his own death and a lie that haunted her each and every day, and will continue to until she’s able to come to terms with the truth of it.

We see a scene of her looking at the newspaper (a clipping about the accident), and I think there’s a deliberate parallel there to a scene in dds2, which we now segue into. (we’ll come back to dds3 after, I just thought this was a necessary bit of past information that ties into .. well .. pretty much everything). 

Onto dds2, or; the inevitability of Frank Castle.

The theme’s that tie Karen to Frank are constant, and, in my opinion, needfully heavy-handed. 

Karen learns there’s a man killing criminals, a man who sees the wrong in what people have done and is taking them out with military precision. He doesn’t miss his targets, so why is she lucky enough to get away from The Punisher? What if he knows what she’s done? What if he, like Ben or Ellison, dug a little too deep and saw why she’d come to New York in the first place? Or caught the scent of James Wesley, the gun at the bottom of the Hudson. 

What if she deserved it?

The guilt complex manifests tenfold after she kills Wesley, and continues on throughout season 2 with Karen believing that the reason Frank Castle exists as a concept, is due to the nature of the city. That really, these vigilantes are a product of circumstance. When people like Wilson Fisk rise to power, when there’s a wound in a city of that size, it doesn’t just go away. It leaves a permanent mark and Karen’s literally dedicated her energy to defending the downtrodden. To helping those who need help.

To learn the reason ‘why’ behind every defense sentencing. 

It starts with: he has to have a reason. He knows who his targets are, it’s not a madman gunning down randoms. So there’s logic to what he does, however, distorted by perception, but logic nonetheless. 

We see Karen throw herself headlong into this internal, isolated investigation BEFORE they have reason to dedicate their time and energy to finding a probable defense for Frank.

Karen goes digging before she’s obligated. 

Because she needs to know. Her truths (how many of them now?) are all buried, all dead, all six feet under so that desperate endeavor for honesty and absolution drives her to break into Frank’s house after seeing the files. After seeing what happened to him.

And it grows from there.

Karen finds the truth, wants the truth, and starts to see her grief in the haunted flint of Frank’s eyes and while all of this is happening, her relationship with Matt Murdock has shifted into something romantic. She trusts him. Gets girlish and sweet, maybe even a little vulnerable in his company. 

And in the middle of Karen talking to Frank, in the middle of Karen rooting around in a past that so many have tried to cover up, to hide, Matt is routinely and repeatedly betraying that trust.

Truth. Honesty. Integrity. Components to the walls that Karen keeps up around her, why she keeps most things, most people, at an arm's length.

They either hurt her. Or they die. 

And she wears plenty of guilt for that. Karen’s her own worst critic, her own judge, jury, and executioner. 

Now, Matt’s odd behavior is initially explained by Foggy as ‘drinking’, which wasn’t meant to be a lie that’d hurt Karen ultimately. Foggy did as Foggy does; he protects his friends, and maybe he’d panicked a little and that felt reasonable, right? Better than telling Karen Page that the vigilante she’d been enamored with is actually the blind man that she’s grown separate, and intimate feelings for. 

Again, we look into Karen’s past and we see that she struggled with addiction; pills, powder, alcohol - she’s been there. And her empathy towards Matt, all those hours spent worrying .. are housed in betrayal, ultimately. And he can phrase it like he’s protecting her but really, they both know better, they knew better, and Matt was probably afraid of what would happen if she knew.

A lie is still a lie, no matter the intentions behind it. 

Now Frank’s this sort of ... emotional lifeline for Karen after that first act of heartbreak is echoing around in her mind. Walking in on Matt and Elektra (which, and while I personally resent pitting two women against each other, I recognize the significance and circumstances of; this is all meant to dialogue about Karen Page, not to paint or argue opinions).

She turns to Frank, finds comfort in HIS justice, and it’s definitely an act of emotional projection. Her family is dead. Her family did not, and cannot receive the justice they deserved but Frank’s? That’s an honest to god tragedy (nobody comes out of that okay).

Their relationship continues in such a way that’s built on bald honesty. Even if it’s ugly, maybe especially then. Regardless of whether or not it’s chosen to be read romantically, it is significant, the line Karen has with Frank is probably one of the most important of her character: You’re honest. You never lie to me.

We know why that trait stands out among the rest. After all she’s learned about Frank, knows the skeleton’s in his closet; she doesn’t judge him. Not when the dust settles and the blood on their hands runs the same color red. 

Guilt and grief are hard to differentiate when you’re in the thick of it but Karen’s always drawn a pretty distinct line. 

No matter what, above and before all else; we are our truths. 

And when she collapses in front of her wrecked car (Ben’s, car, isn’t it?), she’s faced with two ghosts: Kevin’s, and Frank’s (he’d told her he’s already dead, what difference does another bullet through another skull make?)

And then he’s dead for real, she thinks. She’s grieving a dead man, loving and mourning him all at once. The scene with Matt hearing her heartbeat? It was done deliberately; he knows what hell he’s put Karen through by then, he knows she’s come to care about Frank in a way that he fundamentally disagrees with, but can’t talk her out of.

But Frank lets Karen know. It’s a pointed scene, on the rooftop. What is it, to be a hero? 

It’s not Midland Circle. It isn’t dying, and staying dead but living in the margins and letting your friends hurt.

It isn’t telling her: I’m Daredevil, and letting the mortification and pain and rage of the last year wash over Karen Page.

So we’re at Daredevil s3 (with an inclusion of The Punisher s1, and how loving dead men makes Karen Page switch to espresso)

We’ve already touched on her backstory, so I’m not really going to reiterate that here and now. 

But the big Lie. The big HURT for Karen this season is Matt. 

He died, but she refuses to believe it (even if she can’t know absolutely either way. Matt’s her friend. As angry as she gets at him, as dumb as he gets, Karen loves her friends fiercely). 

He’s ‘back’, but not really. Karen feels absolutely and fundamentally betrayed; if Matt was back, he wouldn’t let us think he was dead.

So much for him promising he’d stop lying.

And at this point? There’s no degree of self-preservation to it, he doesn’t mask it as keeping them safe. He just cannot live with what he’s become. Matt Murdock dies with the love of his life under midland circle and Daredevil’s fit-together broken pieces.

Karen’s don’t fit with his, but she cares, and she persists. Because that’s what Karen Page does.

She helps. In spite of or despite the circumstances, Karen Page does the right thing in the face of all the wrong. 

Her forgiveness to Matt is slow coming and hell, her defense of Frank to him at the very beginning communicates volumes as to where her headspace is. 

Karen’s tired of grief. Tired of being tired. Tired of people dying in the name of her truth; look at the Bulletin. She’d pushed the Jasper Evans lead, she’d pulled on that thread KNOWING it’d bring Fisk’s wrath -- she still has nightmares -- and that’s because discrediting her, the agent of honesty and truth, is imperative for the liars to keep good in the business of lying. 

So Karen uses her truth as a weapon when she goes to Fisk herself.

No one else gets caught in the crossfire because of her. No one else dies. this is the shape her justice takes and it is as brave as it is stupid, admittedly. 

We close the season on transparency; all seems well with Nelson, Murdock & Page. Truth sits behind her teeth at all times but lying doesn’t go away, it sheds it skin and it grows and Karen Page values honesty. Values justice.

Not how it looks to her alone. But how it fits into the to City they call home.