random birthday song-related-type fic yaaaaay!
So I'm a lazybutt and I'm not great with birthdays, but when lj informed me that not just one but two flisties were born on this day, that seemed as good a reason to celebrate as any. So, to tahirire and workerbee73, I say: I am delighted you were born and that you ended up on my flist. You both made my sojourn in fandom a rich and strange and wonderful thing, and my life that much more interesting. Have some song-related-type fic that's mostly your fault(s) anyhow. (And to everyone else I say: enjoy, hopefully, maybe. Also, nothing's beta-ed, because I'm a lazybutt and deadlines and stuff.)
Each one of these fics were inspired by, found encouragement from, or were kidnapped in a van by a song. In a virtuoso display of the multimedia equivalent of a child's hand-drawn misshapen birthday card, I have included them in some form with the fic under the cuts. Also, the first two are Avengers fics more for workerbee73, thus with a mild Clint/Natasha leaning. They are ones I drafted before, and only needed a bit of polish. She's seen them both in draft form before, and there might be another, more actually shippy one coming for her later on, once I can put a decent finish on it. Also they wouldn't all fit in this post.
The last one, for tahirire, is also more by way of a deposit than a full present. Hopefully the fact that the others are Avengers fic is something she can enjoy as well, even if they weren't written specifically for her and because the last one is written exclusively for her because it will very likely make no sense to anyone else. Also all the evol-steeple-handsing she can do in the course of the remainder of it being written and delivered.
Title: out to get me
Ficverse: The Avengers
Series: one shot
Rating: Gen / PG
Length: 1400 ish
Characters: Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Clint Barton, Natasha Romanoff
Teaser: It was remarkable, the amount of sheer diva snit Tony managed to pack into two words.
Notes: I hate kid!fic. But the song is too adorable and the image was too funny, so. Steve and Tony discover they have a problem, haha for them.
Disclaimers: anything you recognize is probably not mine. The title is from the song, by Domini Forster.
Warnings/Spoilers: kid!fic? Set an indetermediate time after The Avengers.
Feedback: go for it. The good, the bad, the ugly....
The only place I can find this song is on the myspace page, grrr. Here's the [player]
“About time!”
It was remarkable, the amount of sheer diva snit Tony managed to pack into two words, and frankly a bit rich since Steve had been less than a minute out from the safe house when he saw Tony land there ahead of him. However, any answer Steve might have made died at the sight of him.
Or rather, at what he was holding. Children. Two young children, one per arm, clinging to the suit; one set of tiny fingers had even wedged themselves into the mouthpiece. But, as was immediately apparent from the dark shock of red hair on one side and the pair of cool, steely eyes above a snub nose and small, set mouth on the other, these were not just any two young children.
It was a bit difficult to know the polite thing to say in a circumstance like this. He stepped forward. “Tony...?”
“Get my helmet off!”
“Yes, of course. Er - excuse me - er, Miss -” he said. He hoped he sounded reassuring - and wasn’t too rough - while disentangling her little fingers; her face was too white and too fixed to tell him anything. “There -”
Tony, when revealed, was if possible more unkempt than his two passengers. An altogether more disheveled and wild-eyed - yet oddly domestic - trio it was barely possible to imagine.
“Honey, I’m home,” Steve said, keeping a straight face only with the most heroic effort.
Tony’s eyes narrowed to a familiar expression, which was good; annoyed Tony was always better than semi-panicked Tony. “Sweetie,” he drawled sarcastically, “you just will not believe the day I’ve had.”
Steve looked from one small face to the other. “Do you ... perhaps want to put them down?”
“Uh, hello, yes? They won’t let go! Every time I try, Nat starts to - uh - C-R-Y....”
Familiar green eyes turned to Steve with unfamilar tears, the frozen mask cracking as she began to tremble. Steve was no hand at guessing children’s ages, but she couldn’t be older than four. And Clint didn’t look more than a year or two older than that. “You didn’t fly them all the way here?”
“What the hell else was I supposed to do?”
“Tony! Language!”
“You - argh!”
Whatever Tony had intended to say was lost to his pained yelp; Clint released his goatee with visible satisfaction as Natasha’s little heart-shaped face lit up with a peal of laughter. Steve’s own grin would not be suppressed this time, and Tony glared. “Do something!”
“Clint, that wasn’t nice,” Steve said solemnly, taking advantage of Clint’s excellent work to lift a now-pliant Natasha off Tony. Perhaps it was the protective surge he felt at her small weight in his hands, or the way her arms automatically went around his neck, or the way Tony hesitated before letting go, or the unprecedented tears and laughter in those eyes, but whatever it was, he found himself not quite ready to put her on the ground yet. He hitched her up on his hip, and gave Clint a no-nonsense look. “Get down from him this instant, little man. And - apologize.”
Clint slithered down, before sizing up the metal man towering over him with a grin and an unrepentant shrug. “Sorry.”
Steve looked expectantly at Tony until Tony noticed, and received an affronted “What?!” in return. He only raised his eyebrows firmly, which Tony did not withstand for very long.
“Fine, yes, me too. Or I forgive you, or something.” He goggled at Steve in a put-upon sort of way, clearly indicating he’d done the best he could. “What?!”
Well, perhaps he had. Steve nodded approvingly. “That’s better. Clint, you and Natasha sit over here on the couch while Uncle Steve and Uncle Tony talk, alright?” He relinquished Natasha’s trusting clasp with some reluctance, then waited until they seated themselves before turning to Tony with a half-whisper.
“What in the world -”
“I have no idea. One minute, I get an SOS from Barton on the secure secure channel -” Tony’s expression was so pointed he could have had someone’s eye out “- the next, I turn up to the co-ordinates, a small crater, the Toddler Avengers over there, and half a goon platoon closing in. I didn’t stick around to play 20 Questions. Also, seriously, man - Uncle Steve and Uncle Tony? What are we, friends of the parents they haven’t outed to the kids yet?”
Steve was finding that ignoring Tony’s nonsensical babble was becoming second nature. “Barton didn’t say what they were going after?”
“A Star Tack,” came a clear, piping voice from the couch, and the two men turned with the instinctive furtiveness of adults overheard by children.
“A Star - what?” asked Tony.
“A Star Tack,” Natasha repeated firmly. “All the lights came on, and then the machine went beep, beep, beep - BOOM!” Clint was nodding along, and added his voice to hers on the BOOM. Then both of them returned to huddling intently over the laces of his shoe. “Then it goes back in the rabbit hole,” she said, demonstrating awkwardly. “See? Now you do it.”
“Even their clothes shrunk with them,” Steve noted; stating the obvious was one of the ways he had developed to cope when nothing made sense. Tony took no notice, repeating A Star Tack over and over under his breath. “And she’s showing him how to tie his shoes. Did you know how to tie your shoes at that age?”
Tony glanced up. “Yes. A Star Tack, A Star - A Stark? A Stark ... Tech?”
Steve’s ears rearranged it for him. “Asgard Tech?”
Tony’s face cleared. “Asgardian Tech. So not in the world, then. Yeah. That makes as much sense as anything. We need to get Thor on the party line, see if his people know anything that can help us.”
“Not Fury?”
“Secure secure channel, man! If Barton didn’t trust anyone at SHIELD, you’re not about to see me giving them the benefit of the doubt, my friend, and you better not either.”
Steve conceded the point.
“And let’s find him fast. Playing house with Pepper is a barrel of sexy adventure fun; playing house with baby assassins and you is a barrel of a word which shall not sully the ears of said baby assassins. You I don’t care so much. JARVIS? Start compiling data on interdimensional communication options. Start with Einstein-Rosen Bridges, I hear they’re all the rage right now.”
Steve grinned, and glanced over at the couch, where the two children were in a world of their own, absorbed in their shared task. Clint had just successfully pulled the uneven loops of his knot tight, tongue stuck out the side of his mouth. “Come on. Don’t tell me you don’t find that a little bit sweet.”
Natasha was nodding her approval of Clint’s efforts, saying matter-of-factly, “That’s good. Because you need to do up your laces to run fast, because you need to run fast to get away from them when they come and if your shoes are loose they come off and then they catch you. So you have to run, always run when they come. And when you can’t run anymore, you have to hide.”
Steve felt like someone had punched him in the stomach; Tony was frozen mid-denial beside him. Clint, on the other hand, draped an easy arm around her shoulders. “They won’t catch us,” he said, with a confidence that wasn’t the cockiness of a little boy. “Because you can be my best friend and I’ll be your best friend, and we’ll protect each other.” He grinned, wide and impish. “Besides - I know how to sneak us into the circus.”
Natasha gasped, her entire tiny being lighting up like a Christmas tree. Tony half-turned, cleared his throat, then cleared it again before he was able to quietly say, “Okay. Maybe a family outing or two before we turn them back. But that’s all. And if we say no more ice cream, then that’s a rule we stick to, no matter what. Not even when she gives you those big pretty doe eyes, is that understood? And then we’ll turn them back.”
Steve could still feel the tightness where she’d held onto him. “And hugs. Lots and lots of hugs.”
Tony nodded quickly. “Right. Lots and lots of hugs. Then we turn them back.” He cleared his throat once more. “JARVIS, new priority - get me all circus times and events within a three state radius.”
Title: you're a wolf
Ficverse: The Avengers
Series: one shot
Rating: Gen / PG
Length: 500 ish
Characters: Steve Rogers, Natash Romanoff
Teaser: "You remember your selection process?"
Notes: Inspired by this scene in Captain America, which honestly just made me want to write things in Steve's voice all the time, except I don't know how. It became a quick musing on Clint Barton's journey to becoming a SHIELD agent. Set somewhere in the first half of The Avengers movie.
Disclaimers: anything you recognize is probably not mine. The title is from the song, by Sea Wolf.
Warnings/Spoilers: for that scene in Captain America, I guess?
Feedback: go for it. The good, the bad, the ugly....
Steve sat off to the side, finding the sensation of being peripheral to the action just about as enjoyable as ever. The Black Widow stood further along, looking as happy as he felt, all her stunning looks twisted up in a scowl that he could swear was somehow worried.
"So - this Agent Barton," he said quietly, catching her attention. "Sounds pretty dangerous. What are we dealing with here? Was he given any kind of serum, too?"
She looked at him, but it seemed to take a moment or two to focus on what he was asking. When she did, she arched an eyebrow. "No. No one in their right mind even considered it."
Steve frowned. "What do you mean?"
She didn't answer, just leaned over and did something to the display on the desk, then spun the frame image toward him. "You remember your selection process?" she asked, pressing play. He nodded, recognizing a security-camera angle on a group of recruits on a training ground. It wasn’t hard to find Barton among the men standing at attention. The man wasn't tall, or physically exceptional compared to the others, but there was something in the way he stood that, had it been 70 years ago, Steve would have asked him to join his squad on the spot.
There was no sound to go with the black and white footage, but the drill was familiar enough. Then, off to the corner of the screen, he saw the movement - it was Fury, reaching into a crate, then throwing something into the middle of the group. He could remember the short sharp bark - Grenade! - and the reaction ripping through the squad, bodies diving for cover impressively quickly.
Except for one.
Steve was watching for it, or he would have missed seeing the split second tension in the man, the reflex to respond to the threat. He would never have seen the flicker of eyes, tracking the trajectory, taking in the tableau in a single beat. But what was impossible not to see was the way Barton stepped forward, calmly picked up the dud explosive, and walked it the thirty-odd feet over to where Fury had not bothered to duck for cover either.
Steve didn't read lips that well, but he was pretty sure Barton said I believe this is yours, sir, as he handed it back to the man. The expression on Fury's face, on the other hand, needed no translation whatsoever. Steve grinned a little to himself. Whatever the brainwashing situation, he liked this guy.
An aside glance at Romanoff's perfectly schooled face convinced him that she did too. He politely turned his attention back to the screen, the familiarity of it all causing a painful tug somewhere inside. He swallowed. "I hope we can get him back," he said honestly.
She gave him an indecipherable look, then nodded once, turned on her heel, and walked away.
Title: d'youknowwhatI'msayn?! (working title)
Ficverse: LeveragePlus (crossovercrack!verse)
Series: possibly, at some point
Rating: Gen / PG
Length: 600 ish
Characters: the team
Teaser: Nate put his hand to his ear. “Eliot? Sophie? Get back to the office. Code Orange.”
Notes: Yeah, okay. I can't really help you here. Basically, this is an unhinged and self-contained-logic pop-culture mash up, strained through the team of Leverage. It began rather tamely as an all just a dream? fic here, and with tahirire's involvement, spiralled magnificently out of control. It appears she and I have now attained a looped state of MAT: Mutually Assured Trolling. This is a response to her post here, where the music video has to be seen to be believed. Full list of these crack!fics at the end. Also, yes, there is in fact a longer plot associated with this in my head. I do not know when it will be written, but I couldn't find the beginning until this happened.
Disclaimers: anything you recognize everything is probably not mine. For this one, I'd like to thank baffling Korean pop, Party Rock, Dark City, Neil Gaiman, and the Fruity Oaty Bar commercial. And of course tahirire, without whom I would most certainly not be sane but might have a better chance of living outside a van passing for normal.
Warnings/Spoilers: SERIOUSLY. I MAKE NO PROMISES THAT THIS WILL MAKE ANY SENSE IF YOU ARE NOT tahirire.
Feedback: go for it. The good, the bad, the ugly.... only if you understand the above warning.
Parker charged through the door, a flicker of relief on her face when she saw him hunched at his desk, etched against the darkness by the coruscation of the computer screen. “Hardison? Where have you - what’s - Hardison?”
Nate wasn’t far behind her. “Is he there? What’s wrong with him?”
Parker shook the hacker harder, but it only left him slumping backward instead of forward, a vacant smile on his face. She pulled the headphones off him, and an insidious, rhythmic buzzing issued from them into the room. Nate twitched, then snatched them from her, and held one to his ear. After a second of listening, his face went ashen. He did a lightning-quick scan of the room, then gently tilted Hardison forward again until he was face-down on the desk, and pulled Paker back to the doorway.
“How long has he been here?” he whispered.
“I don’t know. All night? He was playing with his make-believe orcs.” Parker shrugged, expressing her non-culpability in the matter. “You know, we really could get him some real ones, it wouldn’t be a big deal. Eliot hasn’t been big-game hunting for a while....”
Nate put his hand to his ear. “Eliot? Sophie? Get back to the office. Code Orange.” He turned to Parker. “How are your audio/visual filters?”
She shook her head. “Not as good as Sophie’s.”
“Do what you can. Put a deep-sleep filter on him, and Parker - don’t let him see you.”
She gave him a searching look, but when he didn’t say anything else, flexed her fingers and bent over Hardison’s prone form.
By the time Sophie and Eliot both arrived a few minutes later, Hardison was sporting the thickest filters Parker could fashion over his eyes and ears, and had been moved to the conference room table. They took this in with a glance, then turned their attention to the image filling the big screen.
“What is that?” Sophie asked.
Nate held up his hand. “Sophie, reinforce Parker’s filters. Make sure nothing can get in or out.”
They waited in silence until Sophie nodded that she was done. Then, without preamble, Nate pressed play on the cloudy, distorted image. A few seconds later, the buzzing beat kicked in, and Eliot stiffened, exchanging looks with Nate.
“I’ve been seeing this pop up everywhere,” Nate explained as the music video intensified over his shoulder. “I had no idea what it was, it made no sense. I’ve never seen anything like it. The patterns are unbelievably complex and specific, but they didn’t seem to do anything - until I saw Hardison like this. From what I can tell, he’s been here watching it on repeat for hours.”
Sophie looked from Nate to Eliot’s grim expression, then to the screen where a Korean man was singing and dancing his way through a bizarre kaleidescope of mundane settings and people. “That’s why he’s in a trance? Should we be watching it?”
“We’re fine,” Eliot said. “There’s a general addictive motif to make people play it over and over again, but that’s just to aid the viral spread. It’s a very distinctive motif. But it’s not very strong; it won’t do much more than dumb someone down a bit, and it wears off pretty quick.”
Nate nodded. “Best I can tell, this video is a highly customized neural attack.” He looked down at the motionless hacker. “Single target.”
Parker tilted her head, then reached over and poked Hardison in the face. His only reaction was a languid exhalation, a few words sighing out of him. “Heyyyy ... sexy ladyyy....”
She darted back. “Ugh!”
Horrified, Sophie put her hand to her mouth. “Are you saying that our hacker ... has been hacked?”
crack addiction (LeveragePlus) series:
guys' night - "Come with me if you want to live," Hardison intoned happily in unison with the Governator.
girls' night - Deciding what to do for a girls’ night - because the boys had gone off to watch some stupid mutant movie completely lacking in emotional depth and resonance - turned out to be more difficult than anticipated.
get in for free (pt 1 of 3) - Eliot pulled out his earbud before replying. “It’s James. He says he’s got a bead on Ke$ha and he’s going in.” - “Alone?” Parker’s expression contrived to indicate that even she thought that was crazy. - “That’s what I said!” He showed her the message. “Can you get us there?”
drink that koolaid (pt 2 of 3) - A screech of car tyres outside the back entrance reached his ears, and for the first time since he received the text, a grin appeared on Eliot’s face.
now you're one of us (pt 3 of 3) - "Ke$ha’s virtually untraceable if she wants to be, and I never thought to put a tracking device in my head. What are we going to do?"
wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle - I keep saying I won't do more of these but now I know I'm lying. Originally posted in comments at tahirire's because it's ALL HER FAULT.
Each one of these fics were inspired by, found encouragement from, or were kidnapped in a van by a song. In a virtuoso display of the multimedia equivalent of a child's hand-drawn misshapen birthday card, I have included them in some form with the fic under the cuts. Also, the first two are Avengers fics more for workerbee73, thus with a mild Clint/Natasha leaning. They are ones I drafted before, and only needed a bit of polish. She's seen them both in draft form before, and there might be another, more actually shippy one coming for her later on, once I can put a decent finish on it. Also they wouldn't all fit in this post.
The last one, for tahirire, is also more by way of a deposit than a full present. Hopefully the fact that the others are Avengers fic is something she can enjoy as well, even if they weren't written specifically for her and because the last one is written exclusively for her because it will very likely make no sense to anyone else. Also all the evol-steeple-handsing she can do in the course of the remainder of it being written and delivered.
Title: out to get me
Ficverse: The Avengers
Series: one shot
Rating: Gen / PG
Length: 1400 ish
Characters: Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Clint Barton, Natasha Romanoff
Teaser: It was remarkable, the amount of sheer diva snit Tony managed to pack into two words.
Notes: I hate kid!fic. But the song is too adorable and the image was too funny, so. Steve and Tony discover they have a problem, haha for them.
Disclaimers: anything you recognize is probably not mine. The title is from the song, by Domini Forster.
Warnings/Spoilers: kid!fic? Set an indetermediate time after The Avengers.
Feedback: go for it. The good, the bad, the ugly....
The only place I can find this song is on the myspace page, grrr. Here's the [player]
“About time!”
It was remarkable, the amount of sheer diva snit Tony managed to pack into two words, and frankly a bit rich since Steve had been less than a minute out from the safe house when he saw Tony land there ahead of him. However, any answer Steve might have made died at the sight of him.
Or rather, at what he was holding. Children. Two young children, one per arm, clinging to the suit; one set of tiny fingers had even wedged themselves into the mouthpiece. But, as was immediately apparent from the dark shock of red hair on one side and the pair of cool, steely eyes above a snub nose and small, set mouth on the other, these were not just any two young children.
It was a bit difficult to know the polite thing to say in a circumstance like this. He stepped forward. “Tony...?”
“Get my helmet off!”
“Yes, of course. Er - excuse me - er, Miss -” he said. He hoped he sounded reassuring - and wasn’t too rough - while disentangling her little fingers; her face was too white and too fixed to tell him anything. “There -”
Tony, when revealed, was if possible more unkempt than his two passengers. An altogether more disheveled and wild-eyed - yet oddly domestic - trio it was barely possible to imagine.
“Honey, I’m home,” Steve said, keeping a straight face only with the most heroic effort.
Tony’s eyes narrowed to a familiar expression, which was good; annoyed Tony was always better than semi-panicked Tony. “Sweetie,” he drawled sarcastically, “you just will not believe the day I’ve had.”
Steve looked from one small face to the other. “Do you ... perhaps want to put them down?”
“Uh, hello, yes? They won’t let go! Every time I try, Nat starts to - uh - C-R-Y....”
Familiar green eyes turned to Steve with unfamilar tears, the frozen mask cracking as she began to tremble. Steve was no hand at guessing children’s ages, but she couldn’t be older than four. And Clint didn’t look more than a year or two older than that. “You didn’t fly them all the way here?”
“What the hell else was I supposed to do?”
“Tony! Language!”
“You - argh!”
Whatever Tony had intended to say was lost to his pained yelp; Clint released his goatee with visible satisfaction as Natasha’s little heart-shaped face lit up with a peal of laughter. Steve’s own grin would not be suppressed this time, and Tony glared. “Do something!”
“Clint, that wasn’t nice,” Steve said solemnly, taking advantage of Clint’s excellent work to lift a now-pliant Natasha off Tony. Perhaps it was the protective surge he felt at her small weight in his hands, or the way her arms automatically went around his neck, or the way Tony hesitated before letting go, or the unprecedented tears and laughter in those eyes, but whatever it was, he found himself not quite ready to put her on the ground yet. He hitched her up on his hip, and gave Clint a no-nonsense look. “Get down from him this instant, little man. And - apologize.”
Clint slithered down, before sizing up the metal man towering over him with a grin and an unrepentant shrug. “Sorry.”
Steve looked expectantly at Tony until Tony noticed, and received an affronted “What?!” in return. He only raised his eyebrows firmly, which Tony did not withstand for very long.
“Fine, yes, me too. Or I forgive you, or something.” He goggled at Steve in a put-upon sort of way, clearly indicating he’d done the best he could. “What?!”
Well, perhaps he had. Steve nodded approvingly. “That’s better. Clint, you and Natasha sit over here on the couch while Uncle Steve and Uncle Tony talk, alright?” He relinquished Natasha’s trusting clasp with some reluctance, then waited until they seated themselves before turning to Tony with a half-whisper.
“What in the world -”
“I have no idea. One minute, I get an SOS from Barton on the secure secure channel -” Tony’s expression was so pointed he could have had someone’s eye out “- the next, I turn up to the co-ordinates, a small crater, the Toddler Avengers over there, and half a goon platoon closing in. I didn’t stick around to play 20 Questions. Also, seriously, man - Uncle Steve and Uncle Tony? What are we, friends of the parents they haven’t outed to the kids yet?”
Steve was finding that ignoring Tony’s nonsensical babble was becoming second nature. “Barton didn’t say what they were going after?”
“A Star Tack,” came a clear, piping voice from the couch, and the two men turned with the instinctive furtiveness of adults overheard by children.
“A Star - what?” asked Tony.
“A Star Tack,” Natasha repeated firmly. “All the lights came on, and then the machine went beep, beep, beep - BOOM!” Clint was nodding along, and added his voice to hers on the BOOM. Then both of them returned to huddling intently over the laces of his shoe. “Then it goes back in the rabbit hole,” she said, demonstrating awkwardly. “See? Now you do it.”
“Even their clothes shrunk with them,” Steve noted; stating the obvious was one of the ways he had developed to cope when nothing made sense. Tony took no notice, repeating A Star Tack over and over under his breath. “And she’s showing him how to tie his shoes. Did you know how to tie your shoes at that age?”
Tony glanced up. “Yes. A Star Tack, A Star - A Stark? A Stark ... Tech?”
Steve’s ears rearranged it for him. “Asgard Tech?”
Tony’s face cleared. “Asgardian Tech. So not in the world, then. Yeah. That makes as much sense as anything. We need to get Thor on the party line, see if his people know anything that can help us.”
“Not Fury?”
“Secure secure channel, man! If Barton didn’t trust anyone at SHIELD, you’re not about to see me giving them the benefit of the doubt, my friend, and you better not either.”
Steve conceded the point.
“And let’s find him fast. Playing house with Pepper is a barrel of sexy adventure fun; playing house with baby assassins and you is a barrel of a word which shall not sully the ears of said baby assassins. You I don’t care so much. JARVIS? Start compiling data on interdimensional communication options. Start with Einstein-Rosen Bridges, I hear they’re all the rage right now.”
Steve grinned, and glanced over at the couch, where the two children were in a world of their own, absorbed in their shared task. Clint had just successfully pulled the uneven loops of his knot tight, tongue stuck out the side of his mouth. “Come on. Don’t tell me you don’t find that a little bit sweet.”
Natasha was nodding her approval of Clint’s efforts, saying matter-of-factly, “That’s good. Because you need to do up your laces to run fast, because you need to run fast to get away from them when they come and if your shoes are loose they come off and then they catch you. So you have to run, always run when they come. And when you can’t run anymore, you have to hide.”
Steve felt like someone had punched him in the stomach; Tony was frozen mid-denial beside him. Clint, on the other hand, draped an easy arm around her shoulders. “They won’t catch us,” he said, with a confidence that wasn’t the cockiness of a little boy. “Because you can be my best friend and I’ll be your best friend, and we’ll protect each other.” He grinned, wide and impish. “Besides - I know how to sneak us into the circus.”
Natasha gasped, her entire tiny being lighting up like a Christmas tree. Tony half-turned, cleared his throat, then cleared it again before he was able to quietly say, “Okay. Maybe a family outing or two before we turn them back. But that’s all. And if we say no more ice cream, then that’s a rule we stick to, no matter what. Not even when she gives you those big pretty doe eyes, is that understood? And then we’ll turn them back.”
Steve could still feel the tightness where she’d held onto him. “And hugs. Lots and lots of hugs.”
Tony nodded quickly. “Right. Lots and lots of hugs. Then we turn them back.” He cleared his throat once more. “JARVIS, new priority - get me all circus times and events within a three state radius.”
Title: you're a wolf
Ficverse: The Avengers
Series: one shot
Rating: Gen / PG
Length: 500 ish
Characters: Steve Rogers, Natash Romanoff
Teaser: "You remember your selection process?"
Notes: Inspired by this scene in Captain America, which honestly just made me want to write things in Steve's voice all the time, except I don't know how. It became a quick musing on Clint Barton's journey to becoming a SHIELD agent. Set somewhere in the first half of The Avengers movie.
Disclaimers: anything you recognize is probably not mine. The title is from the song, by Sea Wolf.
Warnings/Spoilers: for that scene in Captain America, I guess?
Feedback: go for it. The good, the bad, the ugly....
Steve sat off to the side, finding the sensation of being peripheral to the action just about as enjoyable as ever. The Black Widow stood further along, looking as happy as he felt, all her stunning looks twisted up in a scowl that he could swear was somehow worried.
"So - this Agent Barton," he said quietly, catching her attention. "Sounds pretty dangerous. What are we dealing with here? Was he given any kind of serum, too?"
She looked at him, but it seemed to take a moment or two to focus on what he was asking. When she did, she arched an eyebrow. "No. No one in their right mind even considered it."
Steve frowned. "What do you mean?"
She didn't answer, just leaned over and did something to the display on the desk, then spun the frame image toward him. "You remember your selection process?" she asked, pressing play. He nodded, recognizing a security-camera angle on a group of recruits on a training ground. It wasn’t hard to find Barton among the men standing at attention. The man wasn't tall, or physically exceptional compared to the others, but there was something in the way he stood that, had it been 70 years ago, Steve would have asked him to join his squad on the spot.
There was no sound to go with the black and white footage, but the drill was familiar enough. Then, off to the corner of the screen, he saw the movement - it was Fury, reaching into a crate, then throwing something into the middle of the group. He could remember the short sharp bark - Grenade! - and the reaction ripping through the squad, bodies diving for cover impressively quickly.
Except for one.
Steve was watching for it, or he would have missed seeing the split second tension in the man, the reflex to respond to the threat. He would never have seen the flicker of eyes, tracking the trajectory, taking in the tableau in a single beat. But what was impossible not to see was the way Barton stepped forward, calmly picked up the dud explosive, and walked it the thirty-odd feet over to where Fury had not bothered to duck for cover either.
Steve didn't read lips that well, but he was pretty sure Barton said I believe this is yours, sir, as he handed it back to the man. The expression on Fury's face, on the other hand, needed no translation whatsoever. Steve grinned a little to himself. Whatever the brainwashing situation, he liked this guy.
An aside glance at Romanoff's perfectly schooled face convinced him that she did too. He politely turned his attention back to the screen, the familiarity of it all causing a painful tug somewhere inside. He swallowed. "I hope we can get him back," he said honestly.
She gave him an indecipherable look, then nodded once, turned on her heel, and walked away.
Title: d'youknowwhatI'msayn?! (working title)
Ficverse: LeveragePlus (crossovercrack!verse)
Series: possibly, at some point
Rating: Gen / PG
Length: 600 ish
Characters: the team
Teaser: Nate put his hand to his ear. “Eliot? Sophie? Get back to the office. Code Orange.”
Notes: Yeah, okay. I can't really help you here. Basically, this is an unhinged and self-contained-logic pop-culture mash up, strained through the team of Leverage. It began rather tamely as an all just a dream? fic here, and with tahirire's involvement, spiralled magnificently out of control. It appears she and I have now attained a looped state of MAT: Mutually Assured Trolling. This is a response to her post here, where the music video has to be seen to be believed. Full list of these crack!fics at the end. Also, yes, there is in fact a longer plot associated with this in my head. I do not know when it will be written, but I couldn't find the beginning until this happened.
Disclaimers: anything you recognize everything is probably not mine. For this one, I'd like to thank baffling Korean pop, Party Rock, Dark City, Neil Gaiman, and the Fruity Oaty Bar commercial. And of course tahirire, without whom I would most certainly not be sane but might have a better chance of living outside a van passing for normal.
Warnings/Spoilers: SERIOUSLY. I MAKE NO PROMISES THAT THIS WILL MAKE ANY SENSE IF YOU ARE NOT tahirire.
Feedback: go for it. The good, the bad, the ugly.... only if you understand the above warning.
Parker charged through the door, a flicker of relief on her face when she saw him hunched at his desk, etched against the darkness by the coruscation of the computer screen. “Hardison? Where have you - what’s - Hardison?”
Nate wasn’t far behind her. “Is he there? What’s wrong with him?”
Parker shook the hacker harder, but it only left him slumping backward instead of forward, a vacant smile on his face. She pulled the headphones off him, and an insidious, rhythmic buzzing issued from them into the room. Nate twitched, then snatched them from her, and held one to his ear. After a second of listening, his face went ashen. He did a lightning-quick scan of the room, then gently tilted Hardison forward again until he was face-down on the desk, and pulled Paker back to the doorway.
“How long has he been here?” he whispered.
“I don’t know. All night? He was playing with his make-believe orcs.” Parker shrugged, expressing her non-culpability in the matter. “You know, we really could get him some real ones, it wouldn’t be a big deal. Eliot hasn’t been big-game hunting for a while....”
Nate put his hand to his ear. “Eliot? Sophie? Get back to the office. Code Orange.” He turned to Parker. “How are your audio/visual filters?”
She shook her head. “Not as good as Sophie’s.”
“Do what you can. Put a deep-sleep filter on him, and Parker - don’t let him see you.”
She gave him a searching look, but when he didn’t say anything else, flexed her fingers and bent over Hardison’s prone form.
By the time Sophie and Eliot both arrived a few minutes later, Hardison was sporting the thickest filters Parker could fashion over his eyes and ears, and had been moved to the conference room table. They took this in with a glance, then turned their attention to the image filling the big screen.
“What is that?” Sophie asked.
Nate held up his hand. “Sophie, reinforce Parker’s filters. Make sure nothing can get in or out.”
They waited in silence until Sophie nodded that she was done. Then, without preamble, Nate pressed play on the cloudy, distorted image. A few seconds later, the buzzing beat kicked in, and Eliot stiffened, exchanging looks with Nate.
“I’ve been seeing this pop up everywhere,” Nate explained as the music video intensified over his shoulder. “I had no idea what it was, it made no sense. I’ve never seen anything like it. The patterns are unbelievably complex and specific, but they didn’t seem to do anything - until I saw Hardison like this. From what I can tell, he’s been here watching it on repeat for hours.”
Sophie looked from Nate to Eliot’s grim expression, then to the screen where a Korean man was singing and dancing his way through a bizarre kaleidescope of mundane settings and people. “That’s why he’s in a trance? Should we be watching it?”
“We’re fine,” Eliot said. “There’s a general addictive motif to make people play it over and over again, but that’s just to aid the viral spread. It’s a very distinctive motif. But it’s not very strong; it won’t do much more than dumb someone down a bit, and it wears off pretty quick.”
Nate nodded. “Best I can tell, this video is a highly customized neural attack.” He looked down at the motionless hacker. “Single target.”
Parker tilted her head, then reached over and poked Hardison in the face. His only reaction was a languid exhalation, a few words sighing out of him. “Heyyyy ... sexy ladyyy....”
She darted back. “Ugh!”
Horrified, Sophie put her hand to her mouth. “Are you saying that our hacker ... has been hacked?”
crack addiction (LeveragePlus) series:
guys' night - "Come with me if you want to live," Hardison intoned happily in unison with the Governator.
girls' night - Deciding what to do for a girls’ night - because the boys had gone off to watch some stupid mutant movie completely lacking in emotional depth and resonance - turned out to be more difficult than anticipated.
get in for free (pt 1 of 3) - Eliot pulled out his earbud before replying. “It’s James. He says he’s got a bead on Ke$ha and he’s going in.” - “Alone?” Parker’s expression contrived to indicate that even she thought that was crazy. - “That’s what I said!” He showed her the message. “Can you get us there?”
drink that koolaid (pt 2 of 3) - A screech of car tyres outside the back entrance reached his ears, and for the first time since he received the text, a grin appeared on Eliot’s face.
now you're one of us (pt 3 of 3) - "Ke$ha’s virtually untraceable if she wants to be, and I never thought to put a tracking device in my head. What are we going to do?"
wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle - I keep saying I won't do more of these but now I know I'm lying. Originally posted in comments at tahirire's because it's ALL HER FAULT.