FANFIC: "Shadows Of Wings" Chapter 1/?? - (Avengers- View for Parings)
Title: "Shadows Of Wings"
Chapter One: The Wrong Side of The Bed (Try The Wrong Side of An Era)
Pairings: (Future) Tony Stark (Iron Man) x Steve Rogers (Captain America), (Future) Phil Coulson (Agent) x Clint Barton (Hawkeye), Tony Stark & Bruce Banner/Science Bros (NonRomantic), James "Bucky Barnes & Steve Rogers/ WinterCaptain (NonRomantic)
Writer: black_prophet
Word Count: 1, 850
Genre: Fantasy AU, Angst and Fluff, Humor, Sarcasm, Randomness
Rating: PG13 (to start)
Warning: WingFic!, Frequent Trips to the Department of Backstory, Robots Because the Author Likes Them Damn It, OC Cameos Likely, Largely Marvel MovieVerse AU, Potentially Non-Canon Compliant in Future Chapters
A/N: Not that anyone will read this but this is all Xi's fault. It is. I texted her to tell me not to write the thing, and she started with "Why?" and devolved into "You should write the thing". Obviously I need to find a better FicAA LifeCoach, this bitch/sponsor keeps drop-kicking me off the wagon. I mean HI BABY I LOVE YOU? Dedicated to myeyeswillclose, with all the love I have for her (which is lots). I'm going to co-dedicate to thesilveramazon because when I need a boss-bitch cameo she's who I call, and it's happening. Also it was recently-past her Birthday (4/23) and I have many presents planned for her. HI BABY HAPPY BELATED BDAY ALSO I MISS YOU BUNCHES.
Disclaimer: I do not own The Avengers, Captain American, or Iron Man(though I totally claim calling their pairing "IronAmerica" because I mean really) or any of the Characters therein. This in no way is meant to suggest real or "in character" occurrences. This is a fanfiction, I do own the idea writing and claim all blame for actions and mistakes therein.
Summary: A winged Steve Rogers wakes in the present, a hero and an icon. He fights with the Avengers by day and wades through memories at night, trying to reconcile his past with his present. If the two weren't so remarkably different, he may have had an easier time of it. As it stands, he better work things out quickly, or he'll never be ready for when the two collide.
****
On the days he finds himself wishing for the past, missing the quiet life he had as an artist struggling to make ends meet, Steve usually dreams of back then. Sometimes just in flashes, tinged black and white due to recently-watched movies he’s shared with his team… He tends to wake up with a smile after a night of that, amused by the way his brain mimics Hollywood’s impression of “back then” or replicates the actual films he remembers from his time. Other nights it’s like being there again, like being hungry and small and too dumb to back down from someone bigger than him…
These days, Steve knows things are a little different, even if he can’t tell the dreams that. Knows that when he wakes up, there’s more than enough food in the tower to ensure he’s not hungry. Knows that the serum helped him gain a foot of height along with god knows how much muscle, and he’s more than a match for any of the guys that knocked him down before. Knows that it’s pretty hard to find someone bigger than Captain America, someone that’s also willing to stand against Steve and his team. Most of the time when faced with Steve, proud and unflinching with the Hulk and Thor at his back, they back down pretty fast.
Pretty much there’s only one that won’t back down, no matter who he faces off with, how often he and Steve fight or how mad Steve may get each time they do. That one person being Anthony -call me Tony- Stark. But Tony’s one of those things furthest from Steve’s mind tonight… Because once again Steve’s being trapped a few decades before Tony was even born, in an alley with his own stubborn pride and a bully that just can’t seem to get it through his head: Steve won’t ever quit.
**
Sometimes I think you like getting punched. His best friend’s voice rings in his head as he falls to his knees again, hissing as one wing nearly gets caught between his leg and the ground. The concrete beneath him bites into his hands and abrades the edge of his wings, littered with glass and grit. It tears at the leg of his pants as well, scraping his knee raw as he buckles under a right hook.
For all that he sounds like he’s right there; Bucky’s voice is no more than a memory hidden in a dream. Sgt. James “Bucky” Barnes doesn’t know what it’s like to be sick and thin and rail against the world that’s always set to knock you down. Orphan or not, Bucky’s tall and broad enough to handle himself, confident where Steve is lacking. He’s usually pretty handy in a scrape too, but Steve could make a career out of getting into fights a bit too big for him. Bucky would say its sheer recklessness, or pride, but the truth is Steve’s just good and he can’t stand to let others be anything less than that.
Truth be told, dream or remembered pain or not, Steve wouldn’t mind seeing Bucky show up right about now. He’s once again in a fight that won’t end well for him, outweighed and out skilled as he is; but he sure as hell won’t lose because he quit. Bucky and Steve had been friends since childhood, as close as brothers though they couldn’t look more different. Sarah Rogers used to laugh to see them together; Bucky all dark brown hair and bold eyes, tall and confidant where Steve was blue-eyed and fair, shorter and thinner but just as stubborn. Bucky is not the type to get beaten in an alley, not since his growth spurt; and Steve isn’t the sort to back down from a fight, no matter how badly it goes for him. They made quite a pair, and Steve’s mother always remarked on it.
Half the time Bucky saves Steve without comment, throwing the bully aside and stepping into the midst of the fray, wings flared intimidatingly. His body language is a warning all on its own, but when framed by flared wings that flash like blood-edged shadows, people tend to get the message all the quicker. Steve can’t help but admire him, note how his wings spread like a barrier, a line of defense between Steve and the stranger that he’s managed to get on the wrong side of.
Bucky’s wings are handsome, moderately sized -not like Steve’s, stunted due to poor nutrition- almost glossy and athletically muscled due to exercise and a good diet, even in this harsh time. Steve’s wings are small and a little on the thin side, curled as though they bear the weight of the world. He can’t help but think that they tell the world he knows what it’s like to be hungry, to be sick. Even if he’s not wracked with coughs they telegraph weakness, which just makes him want to fight all the harder.
The color on Bucky’s wings is what always catches Steve’s attention, sending a spike of envy through him. A steely gray that fades to black on both the wingbacks and underside, except on the flight feathers that glint a bold red. Bucky has a warrior’s wings, solid and strong, shaped like a bird of prey, painted just enough to telegraph that he’s fearless. He’s a good flyer too, has practiced hard his whole life to keep the flight muscles in shape. Bucky’s able to pull off dives and stunts with the best of them, even before he goes off to boot camp in preparation for war.
Perhaps that was part of the reason the military took Bucky, even though he had wings. Soldiers with wings don’t tend to last long, unless they’re good; they present too easy of a target. Bold wing colors are a target too; Steve’s willing to bet the military will make Bucky dye the crimson of his flight feathers to a more manageable black.
Most people tend to be touchy about altering their patterns, since its common knowledge the best way to attract someone is by flaunting your pattern and presenting your colors to the best of your ability. Because of the restrictions of the military those with wings tend to stay home and take up a regular job that doesn’t require much risk, the alteration of their patterns, or demand much use of their wings. It is because of this Steve thinks so many lose their ability to fly. Those trapped in a boring life and a regular job let their flight muscles atrophy, failing to do more than posturing and common displays with their wings. In the long run they’re no longer capable of flight, the wings simply something ornamental; something that sets them apart from those who don’t have wings.
Bucky’s not that type. He’s bound to pull dives and rolls for hours, long after dedicated soldiers would quit. He’s bound to attract attention to himself, even if his wings are dyed, because without Steve to rescue out of alleys, he’ll be bored out of his mind.
Or so he tells Steve.
*
Steve figures his best friend will be busy enough in the war that he won’t have time for recreational flying, he’s just trying to make Steve feel better about the fact that he can’t go. Bucky knows how much Steve wants to fight, want to stand up to bullies overseas the way he does at home in Brooklyn. Even if it ends badly, Steve wants to fight, because he believes in the cause.
His wings are small enough they don’t present much of a target, much like Steve himself. To his own mind Steve is almost forgettable beside Bucky; his color drab and pattern unremarkable. His wingbacks start out a weak bluish-gray at the top, interrupted with black barring as they darken to black down on his flight feathers, the tips of his secondary feathers and major coverts dipped in white. It’s little more than an arc of pale against the otherwise unimpressive cloudy-sky hues. The underside of his wings are bluish gray and fade to white; in theory they’re decently colored for camouflage in the sky, though Steve rarely has the energy and strength to truly fly.
He can, but it wears him out. Still, the colors are perfect for a soldier; unimpressive and unassuming. The size of his wingspan is adequate to bear his weight, but unlikely to draw undue attention to him. Still, that’s not what matters to the recruiters. What they notice about Steve Rogers is that he’s young and thin and has more health problems than they can manage to fit on an enlistment form… Instead his appear as an attachment in a file. The doctors look at his file, eye the strange winged kid trying desperately to run off to the war, and tell him they’re doing him a favor as they shake their heads. ’No joining the war effort for you, Rogers.’
*
In the dream Bucky’s suddenly standing between Steve and the loud-mouthed bully who kept disrespecting the soldiers fighting overseas… The same bully that called Steve outside of the theater to fight when he decided that he wouldn’t let some scrawny artist tell him to be more respectful. Now the bully is the one kissing concrete; with Bucky towering over him, proud in his uniform. As the Steve of the past looks up at his friend, a boldly-colored silhouette against a dream-shadowed gray sky and surrounding brick buildings, he misses his brother fiercely in the present.
**
Steve wakes a little quieter on mornings like this, weighted by years lost behind a nap that spans decades. He goes a few rounds with the heavy-weight bag in the gym before taking his early morning run. Some days -like today- he breaks it long before he’s ready to call it quits, and then he has something to drop in front of Tony’s workshop door before he can start on his run. Sometimes it survives him to hang there for another session.
Today the bag is done far too early, the reinforced Kevlar rupturing to spill sand over the floor like pale blood on a battlefield. Steve makes a noise of disgust and annoyance, ripping it down and hanging a second. He’ll drop the carcass at the door to Tony’s shop later, or maybe just inside so DUM-E can drag it around until the sand leaves golden trails over the white floor. It might inspire Tony to mend it faster, or invent something that’ll stand up to an ill-tempered SuperSoldier.
Once he’s vented his fury on the second bag, Steve unwinds the wraps on his hands, grabs his water bottle and stalks out of the room. The boxing didn’t work to improve his mood much, so perhaps he’ll go for a run until the endorphins kick in.
If not, maybe Thor will want to spar after breakfast. He may not have Bucky in the present, but at least he has a friend or two that can help him forget that for a little while.
***
****
Next Chapter: "SOF Ch 2: Contradictory By Nature"
So yeah, that's the first chapter (of I don't know how many) of (yet another) WingFic, this time for Avengers. Anyone here? Any thoughts? Too much detail? Not enough? Feel like drawing me art or making a cover yet? KIDDING. Not Really, Sort Of, that was a joke for a specific person, shhh just go with it. I AM NOT DEAD. Rumors of my demise were greatly exaggerated! Not so greatly, but just roll with this. Hello lovelies, sorry I've been away so long. Can you tell that Wingfic is my Achilles Heel? >.>;; Hope you enjoyed the read and I promise that more is on the way.
Chapter One: The Wrong Side of The Bed (Try The Wrong Side of An Era)
Pairings: (Future) Tony Stark (Iron Man) x Steve Rogers (Captain America), (Future) Phil Coulson (Agent) x Clint Barton (Hawkeye), Tony Stark & Bruce Banner/Science Bros (NonRomantic), James "Bucky Barnes & Steve Rogers/ WinterCaptain (NonRomantic)
Writer: black_prophet
Word Count: 1, 850
Genre: Fantasy AU, Angst and Fluff, Humor, Sarcasm, Randomness
Rating: PG13 (to start)
Warning: WingFic!, Frequent Trips to the Department of Backstory, Robots Because the Author Likes Them Damn It, OC Cameos Likely, Largely Marvel MovieVerse AU, Potentially Non-Canon Compliant in Future Chapters
A/N: Not that anyone will read this but this is all Xi's fault. It is. I texted her to tell me not to write the thing, and she started with "Why?" and devolved into "You should write the thing". Obviously I need to find a better FicAA LifeCoach, this bitch/sponsor keeps drop-kicking me off the wagon. I mean HI BABY I LOVE YOU? Dedicated to myeyeswillclose, with all the love I have for her (which is lots). I'm going to co-dedicate to thesilveramazon because when I need a boss-bitch cameo she's who I call, and it's happening. Also it was recently-past her Birthday (4/23) and I have many presents planned for her. HI BABY HAPPY BELATED BDAY ALSO I MISS YOU BUNCHES.
Disclaimer: I do not own The Avengers, Captain American, or Iron Man(though I totally claim calling their pairing "IronAmerica" because I mean really) or any of the Characters therein. This in no way is meant to suggest real or "in character" occurrences. This is a fanfiction, I do own the idea writing and claim all blame for actions and mistakes therein.
Summary: A winged Steve Rogers wakes in the present, a hero and an icon. He fights with the Avengers by day and wades through memories at night, trying to reconcile his past with his present. If the two weren't so remarkably different, he may have had an easier time of it. As it stands, he better work things out quickly, or he'll never be ready for when the two collide.
****
On the days he finds himself wishing for the past, missing the quiet life he had as an artist struggling to make ends meet, Steve usually dreams of back then. Sometimes just in flashes, tinged black and white due to recently-watched movies he’s shared with his team… He tends to wake up with a smile after a night of that, amused by the way his brain mimics Hollywood’s impression of “back then” or replicates the actual films he remembers from his time. Other nights it’s like being there again, like being hungry and small and too dumb to back down from someone bigger than him…
These days, Steve knows things are a little different, even if he can’t tell the dreams that. Knows that when he wakes up, there’s more than enough food in the tower to ensure he’s not hungry. Knows that the serum helped him gain a foot of height along with god knows how much muscle, and he’s more than a match for any of the guys that knocked him down before. Knows that it’s pretty hard to find someone bigger than Captain America, someone that’s also willing to stand against Steve and his team. Most of the time when faced with Steve, proud and unflinching with the Hulk and Thor at his back, they back down pretty fast.
Pretty much there’s only one that won’t back down, no matter who he faces off with, how often he and Steve fight or how mad Steve may get each time they do. That one person being Anthony -call me Tony- Stark. But Tony’s one of those things furthest from Steve’s mind tonight… Because once again Steve’s being trapped a few decades before Tony was even born, in an alley with his own stubborn pride and a bully that just can’t seem to get it through his head: Steve won’t ever quit.
**
Sometimes I think you like getting punched. His best friend’s voice rings in his head as he falls to his knees again, hissing as one wing nearly gets caught between his leg and the ground. The concrete beneath him bites into his hands and abrades the edge of his wings, littered with glass and grit. It tears at the leg of his pants as well, scraping his knee raw as he buckles under a right hook.
For all that he sounds like he’s right there; Bucky’s voice is no more than a memory hidden in a dream. Sgt. James “Bucky” Barnes doesn’t know what it’s like to be sick and thin and rail against the world that’s always set to knock you down. Orphan or not, Bucky’s tall and broad enough to handle himself, confident where Steve is lacking. He’s usually pretty handy in a scrape too, but Steve could make a career out of getting into fights a bit too big for him. Bucky would say its sheer recklessness, or pride, but the truth is Steve’s just good and he can’t stand to let others be anything less than that.
Truth be told, dream or remembered pain or not, Steve wouldn’t mind seeing Bucky show up right about now. He’s once again in a fight that won’t end well for him, outweighed and out skilled as he is; but he sure as hell won’t lose because he quit. Bucky and Steve had been friends since childhood, as close as brothers though they couldn’t look more different. Sarah Rogers used to laugh to see them together; Bucky all dark brown hair and bold eyes, tall and confidant where Steve was blue-eyed and fair, shorter and thinner but just as stubborn. Bucky is not the type to get beaten in an alley, not since his growth spurt; and Steve isn’t the sort to back down from a fight, no matter how badly it goes for him. They made quite a pair, and Steve’s mother always remarked on it.
Half the time Bucky saves Steve without comment, throwing the bully aside and stepping into the midst of the fray, wings flared intimidatingly. His body language is a warning all on its own, but when framed by flared wings that flash like blood-edged shadows, people tend to get the message all the quicker. Steve can’t help but admire him, note how his wings spread like a barrier, a line of defense between Steve and the stranger that he’s managed to get on the wrong side of.
Bucky’s wings are handsome, moderately sized -not like Steve’s, stunted due to poor nutrition- almost glossy and athletically muscled due to exercise and a good diet, even in this harsh time. Steve’s wings are small and a little on the thin side, curled as though they bear the weight of the world. He can’t help but think that they tell the world he knows what it’s like to be hungry, to be sick. Even if he’s not wracked with coughs they telegraph weakness, which just makes him want to fight all the harder.
The color on Bucky’s wings is what always catches Steve’s attention, sending a spike of envy through him. A steely gray that fades to black on both the wingbacks and underside, except on the flight feathers that glint a bold red. Bucky has a warrior’s wings, solid and strong, shaped like a bird of prey, painted just enough to telegraph that he’s fearless. He’s a good flyer too, has practiced hard his whole life to keep the flight muscles in shape. Bucky’s able to pull off dives and stunts with the best of them, even before he goes off to boot camp in preparation for war.
Perhaps that was part of the reason the military took Bucky, even though he had wings. Soldiers with wings don’t tend to last long, unless they’re good; they present too easy of a target. Bold wing colors are a target too; Steve’s willing to bet the military will make Bucky dye the crimson of his flight feathers to a more manageable black.
Most people tend to be touchy about altering their patterns, since its common knowledge the best way to attract someone is by flaunting your pattern and presenting your colors to the best of your ability. Because of the restrictions of the military those with wings tend to stay home and take up a regular job that doesn’t require much risk, the alteration of their patterns, or demand much use of their wings. It is because of this Steve thinks so many lose their ability to fly. Those trapped in a boring life and a regular job let their flight muscles atrophy, failing to do more than posturing and common displays with their wings. In the long run they’re no longer capable of flight, the wings simply something ornamental; something that sets them apart from those who don’t have wings.
Bucky’s not that type. He’s bound to pull dives and rolls for hours, long after dedicated soldiers would quit. He’s bound to attract attention to himself, even if his wings are dyed, because without Steve to rescue out of alleys, he’ll be bored out of his mind.
Or so he tells Steve.
*
Steve figures his best friend will be busy enough in the war that he won’t have time for recreational flying, he’s just trying to make Steve feel better about the fact that he can’t go. Bucky knows how much Steve wants to fight, want to stand up to bullies overseas the way he does at home in Brooklyn. Even if it ends badly, Steve wants to fight, because he believes in the cause.
His wings are small enough they don’t present much of a target, much like Steve himself. To his own mind Steve is almost forgettable beside Bucky; his color drab and pattern unremarkable. His wingbacks start out a weak bluish-gray at the top, interrupted with black barring as they darken to black down on his flight feathers, the tips of his secondary feathers and major coverts dipped in white. It’s little more than an arc of pale against the otherwise unimpressive cloudy-sky hues. The underside of his wings are bluish gray and fade to white; in theory they’re decently colored for camouflage in the sky, though Steve rarely has the energy and strength to truly fly.
He can, but it wears him out. Still, the colors are perfect for a soldier; unimpressive and unassuming. The size of his wingspan is adequate to bear his weight, but unlikely to draw undue attention to him. Still, that’s not what matters to the recruiters. What they notice about Steve Rogers is that he’s young and thin and has more health problems than they can manage to fit on an enlistment form… Instead his appear as an attachment in a file. The doctors look at his file, eye the strange winged kid trying desperately to run off to the war, and tell him they’re doing him a favor as they shake their heads. ’No joining the war effort for you, Rogers.’
*
In the dream Bucky’s suddenly standing between Steve and the loud-mouthed bully who kept disrespecting the soldiers fighting overseas… The same bully that called Steve outside of the theater to fight when he decided that he wouldn’t let some scrawny artist tell him to be more respectful. Now the bully is the one kissing concrete; with Bucky towering over him, proud in his uniform. As the Steve of the past looks up at his friend, a boldly-colored silhouette against a dream-shadowed gray sky and surrounding brick buildings, he misses his brother fiercely in the present.
**
Steve wakes a little quieter on mornings like this, weighted by years lost behind a nap that spans decades. He goes a few rounds with the heavy-weight bag in the gym before taking his early morning run. Some days -like today- he breaks it long before he’s ready to call it quits, and then he has something to drop in front of Tony’s workshop door before he can start on his run. Sometimes it survives him to hang there for another session.
Today the bag is done far too early, the reinforced Kevlar rupturing to spill sand over the floor like pale blood on a battlefield. Steve makes a noise of disgust and annoyance, ripping it down and hanging a second. He’ll drop the carcass at the door to Tony’s shop later, or maybe just inside so DUM-E can drag it around until the sand leaves golden trails over the white floor. It might inspire Tony to mend it faster, or invent something that’ll stand up to an ill-tempered SuperSoldier.
Once he’s vented his fury on the second bag, Steve unwinds the wraps on his hands, grabs his water bottle and stalks out of the room. The boxing didn’t work to improve his mood much, so perhaps he’ll go for a run until the endorphins kick in.
If not, maybe Thor will want to spar after breakfast. He may not have Bucky in the present, but at least he has a friend or two that can help him forget that for a little while.
***
****
Next Chapter: "SOF Ch 2: Contradictory By Nature"
So yeah, that's the first chapter (of I don't know how many) of (yet another) WingFic, this time for Avengers. Anyone here? Any thoughts? Too much detail? Not enough? Feel like drawing me art or making a cover yet? KIDDING. Not Really, Sort Of, that was a joke for a specific person, shhh just go with it. I AM NOT DEAD. Rumors of my demise were greatly exaggerated! Not so greatly, but just roll with this. Hello lovelies, sorry I've been away so long. Can you tell that Wingfic is my Achilles Heel? >.>;; Hope you enjoyed the read and I promise that more is on the way.