comment_fic 891-895: Avengers, Highlander, Harry Potter
Title: I would change for you but, babe, that doesn't mean I'm gonna be a better man
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from "Sleep All Summer"
Warnings: spoilers for Cap2
Pairings: gennish
Rating: PG
Wordcount:
Point of view: third
Prompt: MCU, Steve/Bucky, sleep all summer.
Bucky Barnes died when he fell; Winter Soldier is his grave.
Steve flinches when he says that, but James knows it's the truth.
He is not Bucky Barnes, can never again be Bucky Barnes, but neither is he the asset anymore. The Winter Soldier died when he went into the water after Captain America; James (whoever James is) is the Winter Soldier's grave.
"I'm doing this for me," he tells Steve, "not for you," and Steve smiles at him.
Title: Sunlight on a broken column
Fandom: Highlander
Disclaimer: not my character; title from TS Eliot
Warnings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 95
Point of view: third
Prompt: Highlander, Mythos, I don't have the slightest clue when my birthday is
Each of his identities has a different birthday, and a different way of celebrating it. Adam Pierson goes out drinking with his mates; the life before that, he stayed in to sketch.
When was his first birthday? It was before years were invented, before months had been thought up, before days had names. It was before time had meaning.
Ask him and he'll lie, of course.
What he knows is this: he was born with the dawn, opening his eyes after his first death to a light creeping across the sky. Does anything matter but that?
Title: supplication of a dead man's hand
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Disclaimer: not my characters; all quotes from the movies; title from TS Eliot
Warnings: spoilers for Cap2
Pairings: gennish with Steve/Bucky leanings
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 285
Point of view: third
Prompt: any, any, "don't go where I can't follow"
Don't win the war 'til I get there, he said, and then he became a supersoldier, and he performed like a dancing monkey, and he thought he was 'doing his part' for the war, and he hated it, he hated every last second of it, but he was doing his part, and -
The 107th was captured, Bucky was dead, but he couldn't, how could he accept that without any proof? Of course he couldn't (you're taking all the stupid with you) (I'm with you to the end of the line) so he found Bucky (alive) and tore the base down around him, and he was finally doing his part, finally doing good -
And. And then.
And then he couldn't reach far enough and Bucky.
Bucky.
Throwing himself after Bucky would be spitting in Bucky's face, would make his sacrifice worthless, and he needed to tear Hydra down and burn it all.
(He could have escaped the plane.
No, he couldn't have.)
He wakes up and they tell him they won the war.
He wakes up and aliens tear open the sky.
He wakes up and there's still battles to fight.
He wakes up and Hydra's still alive.
(He wakes up and Bucky's looking at him with blank eyes, Bucky's attacking him, Bucky's shooting him, Bucky's stabbed him.)
(He wakes up choking on water, and he knows he couldn't have gotten himself out of the river.)
There's only one battle left for him. He's given enough of himself and he refuses to dance to anyone else's tune anymore.
When do we start? Sam asks and Steve looks down at the file.
He let Bucky fall once. Bucky pulled him out of the river.
Right now, he says.
Title: all coming back to me now
Fandom: Avengers moveiverse
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from a song
Warnings: Spoilers for Cap2. All quotes from either it or First Avenger
Pairings: Definite Steve/Bucky leanings
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 180
Point of view: third
Prompt: any, any, it was lost long ago but it's all coming back to me now
Don't do anything stupid 'til I get back, his voice says.
How can I? Captain America's voice says back. You're taking all the stupid with you.
He is sitting in an abandoned building in Virginia, eyes closed, straining what little memory he has. He remembers missions, handlers, how to kill and how to hurt, how to evade authorities, how to pretend to be harmless, how to pass unseen. He remembers how to speak eighteen languages and read five more.
He does not remember what he likes, how food tastes, if he ever enjoyed anything at all.
He does not remember Captain America, but Captain America had said, You've known me your whole life.
Don't do anything stupid 'til I get back, his voice says.
How can I? Captain America's voice says back. You're taking all the stupid with you.
His memories cannot be trusted; he knows he has been wiped and remade. Who is he? Who was James Buchanan Barnes? Captain America loved him.
Captain America loves him still.
He lets his head rest against the wall and keeps trying to remember.
Title: slow to wake
Fandom: Harry Potter
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Ursula K. Le Guin
Warnings: AU for Half-Blood Prince
Rating: PG
Pairings: none
Wordcount: 380
Point of view: third
Prompt: Harry Potter, Draco (+/any), deny thy father and refuse thy name (Romeo and Juliet)
Note: The title is from this quote - The hunger of a dragon is slow to wake, but hard to sate.
Father has told him all his life that Malfoys bow to no one.
Why, then, does Father grovel to this mad lord, this dark lord, this lord once beaten by an infant?
Father has told him all his life that Malfoys will rule when the old days return.
Why, then, does Father listen to this mad lord who kills his own as easily as he kills the enemy?
Father has told him all his life that the world is his for the taking.
Why, then, has Father given him to one who flies from death? (Maybe the name was meant to be strong - to him, though, it stinks of fear, of one frightened and trying vainly to hide it.)
Father has told him so many things, and tomorrow, Draco will be marked like his father.
No.
Malfoys are not minions. Malfoys do not follow. This path of Father's will lead to the ruin of the Malfoys - and, possibly, to their entire society.
What, then, can one boy do? He's yet to even finish schooling. He has nothing outside of the Malfoys. Outside of the Malfoys, he is nothing.
No.
He is Draco. He must, then, be as strong as a dragon, as resilient. No more hiding behind the mask of the perfect son, the sniveling prince of Slytherin. (If only he had known, then, what mad lord his father worshipped. Would he still have mirrored his father in everything?)
He tells no one, hints to nobody at the Manor of his plans. He walks to the edge of the wards and summons the Knight Bus. At Gringotts, he withdraws enough galleons to cover a year's tuition at Hogwarts; at Wiseacre's, he buys a mokeskin pouch and transfers the galleons to it. He casts a glamour on himself before buying a handful of used wands from a hag, and then he leaves his Ollivander's wand on the front stoop of a closed shop.
The world is large. Surely it is large enough to find a place for himself, away from the Malfoys' mad lord?
He pauses just outside the Leaky Cauldron, at the enormity of this choice-once made, there could be no going back.
After a moment, he straightens his spine, lifts his chin. Dragons bow to no one.
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from "Sleep All Summer"
Warnings: spoilers for Cap2
Pairings: gennish
Rating: PG
Wordcount:
Point of view: third
Prompt: MCU, Steve/Bucky, sleep all summer.
Bucky Barnes died when he fell; Winter Soldier is his grave.
Steve flinches when he says that, but James knows it's the truth.
He is not Bucky Barnes, can never again be Bucky Barnes, but neither is he the asset anymore. The Winter Soldier died when he went into the water after Captain America; James (whoever James is) is the Winter Soldier's grave.
"I'm doing this for me," he tells Steve, "not for you," and Steve smiles at him.
Title: Sunlight on a broken column
Fandom: Highlander
Disclaimer: not my character; title from TS Eliot
Warnings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 95
Point of view: third
Prompt: Highlander, Mythos, I don't have the slightest clue when my birthday is
Each of his identities has a different birthday, and a different way of celebrating it. Adam Pierson goes out drinking with his mates; the life before that, he stayed in to sketch.
When was his first birthday? It was before years were invented, before months had been thought up, before days had names. It was before time had meaning.
Ask him and he'll lie, of course.
What he knows is this: he was born with the dawn, opening his eyes after his first death to a light creeping across the sky. Does anything matter but that?
Title: supplication of a dead man's hand
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Disclaimer: not my characters; all quotes from the movies; title from TS Eliot
Warnings: spoilers for Cap2
Pairings: gennish with Steve/Bucky leanings
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 285
Point of view: third
Prompt: any, any, "don't go where I can't follow"
Don't win the war 'til I get there, he said, and then he became a supersoldier, and he performed like a dancing monkey, and he thought he was 'doing his part' for the war, and he hated it, he hated every last second of it, but he was doing his part, and -
The 107th was captured, Bucky was dead, but he couldn't, how could he accept that without any proof? Of course he couldn't (you're taking all the stupid with you) (I'm with you to the end of the line) so he found Bucky (alive) and tore the base down around him, and he was finally doing his part, finally doing good -
And. And then.
And then he couldn't reach far enough and Bucky.
Bucky.
Throwing himself after Bucky would be spitting in Bucky's face, would make his sacrifice worthless, and he needed to tear Hydra down and burn it all.
(He could have escaped the plane.
No, he couldn't have.)
He wakes up and they tell him they won the war.
He wakes up and aliens tear open the sky.
He wakes up and there's still battles to fight.
He wakes up and Hydra's still alive.
(He wakes up and Bucky's looking at him with blank eyes, Bucky's attacking him, Bucky's shooting him, Bucky's stabbed him.)
(He wakes up choking on water, and he knows he couldn't have gotten himself out of the river.)
There's only one battle left for him. He's given enough of himself and he refuses to dance to anyone else's tune anymore.
When do we start? Sam asks and Steve looks down at the file.
He let Bucky fall once. Bucky pulled him out of the river.
Right now, he says.
Title: all coming back to me now
Fandom: Avengers moveiverse
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from a song
Warnings: Spoilers for Cap2. All quotes from either it or First Avenger
Pairings: Definite Steve/Bucky leanings
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 180
Point of view: third
Prompt: any, any, it was lost long ago but it's all coming back to me now
Don't do anything stupid 'til I get back, his voice says.
How can I? Captain America's voice says back. You're taking all the stupid with you.
He is sitting in an abandoned building in Virginia, eyes closed, straining what little memory he has. He remembers missions, handlers, how to kill and how to hurt, how to evade authorities, how to pretend to be harmless, how to pass unseen. He remembers how to speak eighteen languages and read five more.
He does not remember what he likes, how food tastes, if he ever enjoyed anything at all.
He does not remember Captain America, but Captain America had said, You've known me your whole life.
Don't do anything stupid 'til I get back, his voice says.
How can I? Captain America's voice says back. You're taking all the stupid with you.
His memories cannot be trusted; he knows he has been wiped and remade. Who is he? Who was James Buchanan Barnes? Captain America loved him.
Captain America loves him still.
He lets his head rest against the wall and keeps trying to remember.
Title: slow to wake
Fandom: Harry Potter
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Ursula K. Le Guin
Warnings: AU for Half-Blood Prince
Rating: PG
Pairings: none
Wordcount: 380
Point of view: third
Prompt: Harry Potter, Draco (+/any), deny thy father and refuse thy name (Romeo and Juliet)
Note: The title is from this quote - The hunger of a dragon is slow to wake, but hard to sate.
Father has told him all his life that Malfoys bow to no one.
Why, then, does Father grovel to this mad lord, this dark lord, this lord once beaten by an infant?
Father has told him all his life that Malfoys will rule when the old days return.
Why, then, does Father listen to this mad lord who kills his own as easily as he kills the enemy?
Father has told him all his life that the world is his for the taking.
Why, then, has Father given him to one who flies from death? (Maybe the name was meant to be strong - to him, though, it stinks of fear, of one frightened and trying vainly to hide it.)
Father has told him so many things, and tomorrow, Draco will be marked like his father.
No.
Malfoys are not minions. Malfoys do not follow. This path of Father's will lead to the ruin of the Malfoys - and, possibly, to their entire society.
What, then, can one boy do? He's yet to even finish schooling. He has nothing outside of the Malfoys. Outside of the Malfoys, he is nothing.
No.
He is Draco. He must, then, be as strong as a dragon, as resilient. No more hiding behind the mask of the perfect son, the sniveling prince of Slytherin. (If only he had known, then, what mad lord his father worshipped. Would he still have mirrored his father in everything?)
He tells no one, hints to nobody at the Manor of his plans. He walks to the edge of the wards and summons the Knight Bus. At Gringotts, he withdraws enough galleons to cover a year's tuition at Hogwarts; at Wiseacre's, he buys a mokeskin pouch and transfers the galleons to it. He casts a glamour on himself before buying a handful of used wands from a hag, and then he leaves his Ollivander's wand on the front stoop of a closed shop.
The world is large. Surely it is large enough to find a place for himself, away from the Malfoys' mad lord?
He pauses just outside the Leaky Cauldron, at the enormity of this choice-once made, there could be no going back.
After a moment, he straightens his spine, lifts his chin. Dragons bow to no one.