comment_fic 919-923: TW, Avengers, Little Mermaid, HL
Title: the sunshine is a glorious birth
Fandom: Teen Wolf (TV)
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Wordsworth
Warnings: spoilers for up to the end of season 3; mentions of bad things; minor character death
Pairings: gen
Rating: PG
Wordcount:460
Point of view: third
Prompt: Teen Wolf, Talia + Derek, there's stranger who has her blood and tells her of a dark future
She knows him immediately, through scent and through sight, and she steps out onto the porch, closing the door behind her. “Walk with me,” she commands, both alpha and mother in the words. He falls in her beside her.
Her children are asleep upstairs, Laura and Derek and Cora, all curled together like puppies. Her husband is away on a business trip; her brother is away at school, almost done with his degree. Her mother is in the kitchen, washing the dishes by hand because it soothes her. Her sister is crooning a lullaby to her own daughter, her sister’s husband showering; her nephew is muttering at his schoolwork.
He is quiet beside her. He stinks of grief and blood. His eyes are bright blue by light of the moon. (oh, my boy, what has been done to you?)
“Tell me what you’ve come to tell me,” she says, stopping when they’re far enough from the house that young ears won’t wake to hear the horrors he brings with him.
He doesn’t look at her as he begins; by the time he’s done, he’s crying into her shoulder and still has yet to meet her gaze.
“You are so brave,” she whispers, arms tight around him. “I’m so proud of you.”
His sob catches in his throat and his fingers rip holes in her shirt, but she just holds him. She feels the magic as it builds around them, come to take him back, to the dark future, and she does not cling as it pulls him away.
She recognizes that spark.
“I love you,” she shouts to him as the magic flares and fades, leaving her alone in the moonlight.
.
In the morning, she brings her nephew and children to school; as she walks Cora to her classroom, she sees Claudia’s boy, chattering away at his father, and watches him for just a moment. He is bright in a way that would blind her if she looked too long; so much potential for one so young. What happened to him in the dark future?
She kisses Cora and reminds her that good little wolves keep their tempers, and then she goes to meet Claudia by the tree.
“I felt it,” Claudia says before Talia even opens her mouth. “Tell me everything.”
.
(When Claudia begins to get sick, Talia offers her a gift. Claudia accepts.
When Gerard Argent sabotages the peace, three emissaries stop him and he is executed.
When Kate Argent prowls around, she is put down and her head sent back to her brother and mother.
Chris Argent stays away from Beacon Hills. The tree is never cut down.
Claudia’s boy is taught to control his spark and Talia watches her children grow, powerful and strong and alive.)
Title: the miracle is coming back from the last war alive
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from James Humphrey
Warnings: post-Winter Soldier; talk of death/violence/torture
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 210
Point of view: third
Prompt: Any, any, Your mind is the scene of the crime. (Inception)
He remembers falling. He remembers cold and dark and pain that faded too quickly to be anything good. He remembers shouting and sharp cuts and a hurt that encompassed the world.
He remembers forgetting. It was a slow process, his breaking and reforming into their weapon. It took years. He remembers them all, now, and the decades of his slavery as the bloody fist of Hydra.
He remembers how long it took Bucky Barnes to die, and how hard a death it was.
He remembers faces. He remembers names. He remembers locations. The asset saw it all and never forgot. Their machine didn't burn it out of him; it blanketed the knowledge in snow and froze it to walls of ice, but they are shattered, now, fractals melting on the ground of his mind, and Bucky Barnes wields a fire that will raze them all.
He remembers. He knows secrets Hydra has long buried, and he knows their weaknesses, and he knows their procedures. He knows where all those in authority will run, will hide, will wait for the storm to pass.
The storm will not pass. He owes them 70 years of pain and blood and the cold of not-quite-death, and he remembers that Bucky Barnes always paid his debts.
Title: When looking westward, I beheld a something
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Coleridge
Warnings: post-Winter Soldier; self-deprecating narration; AUish, mishmash backstory for both Clint&Natasha
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 475
Point of view: third
Prompt: MCU:Avengers (canon or AU), Hawkeye, "The story of a nobody who saved everybody." (The Lego Movie Tagline)
this team -- the smartest men in the world, Captain America, an alien warrior prince, and Tasha, the most dangerous of them all..'> Clint knows that he shouldn't be on this team -- the smartest men in the world, Captain America, an alien warrior prince, and Tasha, the most dangerous of them all. He's a nobody, just an orphan raised as a carnie, just a mercenary who managed to snake a target right under SHIELD's nose, and instead of taking him out, Coulson brought him in and offered him a spot. But snipers are replaceable, and Clint always knew one day someone would get the best of him.
For a few weeks, as he hunted the Black Widow, he assumed it would be her. But instead of taking her out from a distance, he went in to talk to her, and he brought her home.
And then Loki. The wave of blue, the smoking helicarrier, the destruction in New York - Clint kept waiting for someone to arrest him, to lock him away, but after the dust settled, Hill told him to clear out and keep to the ground, so he did. While Tony dealt with terrorists and Thor did whatever the fuck in London and then Tasha and Captain America tore down SHIELD to show off its’ Hydra innards, Clint kept to back roads and wandered.
He waits for Tasha’s message (Safe :) stay lost) and keeps to his meandering course. He’s just another nobody.
Her next message is two weeks later and it makes him sit up straight from his sprawl on the ground. It’s in a code they haven’t used since Budapest and his eyes widen as he decodes it: Remember that time you hunted down a spider? Now you need to hunt down a ghost. Attached are the pertinent files, encrypted; it takes him all night to decrypt ‘em. After he does, he just shakes his head.
The Winter Soldier. Once, Captain America’s best friend, from back before he was Captain America. The only of her teachers that Tasha remembers fondly, not that he remembers her. Tasha is off being busy somewhere, and Captain America is tracking the Winter Soldier while also burning Hydra to the ground, but Cap’s not much of a hunter when his prey isn’t announcing itself to the world.
Clint hasn’t done anything since Hill told him to get lost, so of course Tasha sent him the (second?) most dangerous mission of his life.
He spends two days on the files: facts on the Soldier’s breaking/remaking, training, programming, past missions, and then the mission that broke it all into pieces. The last file is only what Tasha thinks the Soldier might do, where he might go. She’s thinking like an operative who just broke free - but, she admits to him, in cold black and white text, that she was never a person, before. The Soldier was.
“Well,” Clint says, stretching and packing up his kit. “Time to go ghost hunting.”
Title: what monsters fear
Fandom: The Little Mermaid (Disney)
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: dark AU; implied very bad things
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 220
Point of view: third
Prompt: any, any, spirit of dark and lonely water
After... after everything, she swims down into the deep, trailing the blood of Atlantis behind her, and she ignores the monstrous creatures that dart at her, she ignores the taste of the darkest water, and she swims and swims and swims down down down, until at last she reaches the bottom.
She can barely breathe, here. Cannot see. It is dark and quiet, but she grasps at the bare dirt at the bottom of the ocean and she sings with what remains of her strength.
She sags as the last note leaves her throat, and as she starts to rise, the currents catching her without the force left to struggle against them, she hears a faint laugh. Her last thought is only Thank you, and then she is gone.
But there are things that sleep in the deep. Things that need only a reason to wake, a summoning, a call through the vast water, a plea in the dark. The last daughter of Atlantis is fodder for the bottom feeders, but her vengeance stirs. It rises.
The Sea Witch would smile, had she survived -- but none are left. She would cackle to see what Triton’s child has woken.
It rises from the deep, through the dark, to the surface, stretching for the first time in living memory.
It rises, hungry.
Title: of choices
Fandom: Highlander
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: major character death
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 100
Point of view: third
Prompt: Highlander, Methos, dilemma
It comes down to his life or Duncan's. That is a choice to which he has always known his only decision.
It comes down to Duncan in the line of fire and Methos able to shove him out, to take his place - but Methos does not move. Of course not.
There are many things Methos will never be forgiven for, should there actually be a final reckoning on the other side. He never plans on seeing that other side.
Duncan falls, an endless barrage of bullets severing his head.
Methos watches with a tiny shred of regret - then he runs.
Fandom: Teen Wolf (TV)
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Wordsworth
Warnings: spoilers for up to the end of season 3; mentions of bad things; minor character death
Pairings: gen
Rating: PG
Wordcount:460
Point of view: third
Prompt: Teen Wolf, Talia + Derek, there's stranger who has her blood and tells her of a dark future
She knows him immediately, through scent and through sight, and she steps out onto the porch, closing the door behind her. “Walk with me,” she commands, both alpha and mother in the words. He falls in her beside her.
Her children are asleep upstairs, Laura and Derek and Cora, all curled together like puppies. Her husband is away on a business trip; her brother is away at school, almost done with his degree. Her mother is in the kitchen, washing the dishes by hand because it soothes her. Her sister is crooning a lullaby to her own daughter, her sister’s husband showering; her nephew is muttering at his schoolwork.
He is quiet beside her. He stinks of grief and blood. His eyes are bright blue by light of the moon. (oh, my boy, what has been done to you?)
“Tell me what you’ve come to tell me,” she says, stopping when they’re far enough from the house that young ears won’t wake to hear the horrors he brings with him.
He doesn’t look at her as he begins; by the time he’s done, he’s crying into her shoulder and still has yet to meet her gaze.
“You are so brave,” she whispers, arms tight around him. “I’m so proud of you.”
His sob catches in his throat and his fingers rip holes in her shirt, but she just holds him. She feels the magic as it builds around them, come to take him back, to the dark future, and she does not cling as it pulls him away.
She recognizes that spark.
“I love you,” she shouts to him as the magic flares and fades, leaving her alone in the moonlight.
.
In the morning, she brings her nephew and children to school; as she walks Cora to her classroom, she sees Claudia’s boy, chattering away at his father, and watches him for just a moment. He is bright in a way that would blind her if she looked too long; so much potential for one so young. What happened to him in the dark future?
She kisses Cora and reminds her that good little wolves keep their tempers, and then she goes to meet Claudia by the tree.
“I felt it,” Claudia says before Talia even opens her mouth. “Tell me everything.”
.
(When Claudia begins to get sick, Talia offers her a gift. Claudia accepts.
When Gerard Argent sabotages the peace, three emissaries stop him and he is executed.
When Kate Argent prowls around, she is put down and her head sent back to her brother and mother.
Chris Argent stays away from Beacon Hills. The tree is never cut down.
Claudia’s boy is taught to control his spark and Talia watches her children grow, powerful and strong and alive.)
Title: the miracle is coming back from the last war alive
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from James Humphrey
Warnings: post-Winter Soldier; talk of death/violence/torture
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 210
Point of view: third
Prompt: Any, any, Your mind is the scene of the crime. (Inception)
He remembers falling. He remembers cold and dark and pain that faded too quickly to be anything good. He remembers shouting and sharp cuts and a hurt that encompassed the world.
He remembers forgetting. It was a slow process, his breaking and reforming into their weapon. It took years. He remembers them all, now, and the decades of his slavery as the bloody fist of Hydra.
He remembers how long it took Bucky Barnes to die, and how hard a death it was.
He remembers faces. He remembers names. He remembers locations. The asset saw it all and never forgot. Their machine didn't burn it out of him; it blanketed the knowledge in snow and froze it to walls of ice, but they are shattered, now, fractals melting on the ground of his mind, and Bucky Barnes wields a fire that will raze them all.
He remembers. He knows secrets Hydra has long buried, and he knows their weaknesses, and he knows their procedures. He knows where all those in authority will run, will hide, will wait for the storm to pass.
The storm will not pass. He owes them 70 years of pain and blood and the cold of not-quite-death, and he remembers that Bucky Barnes always paid his debts.
Title: When looking westward, I beheld a something
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Coleridge
Warnings: post-Winter Soldier; self-deprecating narration; AUish, mishmash backstory for both Clint&Natasha
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 475
Point of view: third
Prompt: MCU:Avengers (canon or AU), Hawkeye, "The story of a nobody who saved everybody." (The Lego Movie Tagline)
this team -- the smartest men in the world, Captain America, an alien warrior prince, and Tasha, the most dangerous of them all..'> Clint knows that he shouldn't be on this team -- the smartest men in the world, Captain America, an alien warrior prince, and Tasha, the most dangerous of them all. He's a nobody, just an orphan raised as a carnie, just a mercenary who managed to snake a target right under SHIELD's nose, and instead of taking him out, Coulson brought him in and offered him a spot. But snipers are replaceable, and Clint always knew one day someone would get the best of him.
For a few weeks, as he hunted the Black Widow, he assumed it would be her. But instead of taking her out from a distance, he went in to talk to her, and he brought her home.
And then Loki. The wave of blue, the smoking helicarrier, the destruction in New York - Clint kept waiting for someone to arrest him, to lock him away, but after the dust settled, Hill told him to clear out and keep to the ground, so he did. While Tony dealt with terrorists and Thor did whatever the fuck in London and then Tasha and Captain America tore down SHIELD to show off its’ Hydra innards, Clint kept to back roads and wandered.
He waits for Tasha’s message (Safe :) stay lost) and keeps to his meandering course. He’s just another nobody.
Her next message is two weeks later and it makes him sit up straight from his sprawl on the ground. It’s in a code they haven’t used since Budapest and his eyes widen as he decodes it: Remember that time you hunted down a spider? Now you need to hunt down a ghost. Attached are the pertinent files, encrypted; it takes him all night to decrypt ‘em. After he does, he just shakes his head.
The Winter Soldier. Once, Captain America’s best friend, from back before he was Captain America. The only of her teachers that Tasha remembers fondly, not that he remembers her. Tasha is off being busy somewhere, and Captain America is tracking the Winter Soldier while also burning Hydra to the ground, but Cap’s not much of a hunter when his prey isn’t announcing itself to the world.
Clint hasn’t done anything since Hill told him to get lost, so of course Tasha sent him the (second?) most dangerous mission of his life.
He spends two days on the files: facts on the Soldier’s breaking/remaking, training, programming, past missions, and then the mission that broke it all into pieces. The last file is only what Tasha thinks the Soldier might do, where he might go. She’s thinking like an operative who just broke free - but, she admits to him, in cold black and white text, that she was never a person, before. The Soldier was.
“Well,” Clint says, stretching and packing up his kit. “Time to go ghost hunting.”
Title: what monsters fear
Fandom: The Little Mermaid (Disney)
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: dark AU; implied very bad things
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 220
Point of view: third
Prompt: any, any, spirit of dark and lonely water
After... after everything, she swims down into the deep, trailing the blood of Atlantis behind her, and she ignores the monstrous creatures that dart at her, she ignores the taste of the darkest water, and she swims and swims and swims down down down, until at last she reaches the bottom.
She can barely breathe, here. Cannot see. It is dark and quiet, but she grasps at the bare dirt at the bottom of the ocean and she sings with what remains of her strength.
She sags as the last note leaves her throat, and as she starts to rise, the currents catching her without the force left to struggle against them, she hears a faint laugh. Her last thought is only Thank you, and then she is gone.
But there are things that sleep in the deep. Things that need only a reason to wake, a summoning, a call through the vast water, a plea in the dark. The last daughter of Atlantis is fodder for the bottom feeders, but her vengeance stirs. It rises.
The Sea Witch would smile, had she survived -- but none are left. She would cackle to see what Triton’s child has woken.
It rises from the deep, through the dark, to the surface, stretching for the first time in living memory.
It rises, hungry.
Title: of choices
Fandom: Highlander
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: major character death
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 100
Point of view: third
Prompt: Highlander, Methos, dilemma
It comes down to his life or Duncan's. That is a choice to which he has always known his only decision.
It comes down to Duncan in the line of fire and Methos able to shove him out, to take his place - but Methos does not move. Of course not.
There are many things Methos will never be forgiven for, should there actually be a final reckoning on the other side. He never plans on seeing that other side.
Duncan falls, an endless barrage of bullets severing his head.
Methos watches with a tiny shred of regret - then he runs.