comment_fic 960-964: Avengers and original
Title: it’s so fluffy!
Fandom: Marvel movies
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: post-WS by a lot
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 275
Point of view: third
Prompt: MCU, Clint +/any, The Carnival Job [Leverage]
"I thought we were banned from fairs?" James asks him, hands tucked into his pockets, hair windblown and loose, and looking at him makes Clint feel old. He's in his forties now. Fuck. When did that happen?
"You gonna tell?" he asks, shaking it off. So what if he never expected to survive his twenties? He's that awesome.
"No," James says, looking around with curiosity. How long’s it been since he did something just because it was fun? Probably not in Clint’s lifetime.
Tasha’s gonna kill him for taking James out without permission, but Clint knows about mistrust and trying to earn redemption, and this kid - he spends most of his time in his head, tucked away somewhere, and Clint knows that’s not the way to get better.
So here they are at a carnival upstate, with the rigged games and the sugar comas and the dangerous rides. There’s a little girl crying two rows over, tugging at her dad’s shirt, and he’s arguing with the guy about guns that don’t shoot right.
Clint raises any eyebrow. “How about a friendly wager?” he asks.
James glances at him. He really does look like he’s twenty, max. It’s gotta be the fluffy hair. Or the anime eyes. One of ‘em. “And what’s that?” He looks awake and alive, here. Clint pats himself on the back.
“Whoever wins the most prizes for the little kids gets to pick where we go for dinner,” Clint says. “And whoever wins the least has to pay for it.”
James smiles, soft and slow. “You’re on.”
Yeah. Tasha’s gonna kick his ass for this, but it’ll be worth it, for that smile alone.
Title: masks
Fandom: Marvel movies
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: post-Cap2
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 300
Point of view: third
Prompt: MCU, any +/ any, s/he's around somewhere. You just won't see them unless they want you to. Or you're on their list.
She's sitting in a pretentious coffee shop, reading a pretentious book, wearing pretentious clothes, with her hair up pretentiously, and ignoring her partner's snotty comments through the com.
She doesn't know he's there until he's leaning over the table, saying, "Wow, babe, it's been such a long time!" and she looks up into those ice-blue eyes.
"Yes, yes, it has!" she exclaims, reaching up to wrap her arms around him. She steals his knife at the same moment he steals hers, but they both sit back down, looking like old friends.
(They are old friends, is the thing. And enemies. And everything in between.)
He asks about her book; she comments on his hair. Idle chitchat.
Her partner wants to know if she needs back-up; she gives him the passcode that means safe; stay.
"So, what are you up to?" he asks, a smirk in his eyes.
(It's been a year. Steve's still raging around the world, blowing things up.)
"Oh, this and that," she says as her target stands up. She flicks her eyes toward him; her companion follows the gaze and nods.
"I'll leave you to it, then," he says. He rises to his feet and leans down to kiss her cheek. "You've grown up well," he murmurs in the first language she knew. "I'm proud of you."
(What does she remember? Not as much as she wishes. More than she likes.)
She doesn't return his knife; he doesn't offer hers back. Instead, he says, in his first language, "Tell our mutual friend that he's a goddamned punk and to get his ass home."
"I will," she promises. She doesn't watch him leave.
In her com, Clint says, "Tell me that wasn't..."
She chuckles, dropping a five on the table as a tip and sauntering after her target.
Title: deracinate
Fandom: Marvel movies
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: mayhem/vengeance; aftermath of torture/brainwashing
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 425
Point of view: third
Prompt: MCU, Winter Soldier, to tear something up by the roots
To say that he is blindly striking out is wrong. He's following a map that's burned into his mind because he saw everything without knowing what he saw. They spoke around him without censure because whatever mind he had was burned out of him twice a week, if he was awake long enough. He heard nothing in cryo, of course, and he did not dream (does not remember if he dreamed), but...
The path he's on has been seventy years in the making. The people he's executing now weren't alive at the beginning, but they die all the same. They all die the same.
Two heads will appear when one is lopped off; he remembers hearing that the first time he went after Hydra, side by side with his friends and brothers and Steve.
They knew what they had, those fuckers who froze and cut and burned him. Is that why they made it hurt so much?
He makes it hurt more. Some beg. Some curse. Some stare blankly at their death, and some cry. He doesn't hesitate or flinch or rethink any of it.
He knows now that some part of him was awake the whole time. Why else would the asset remember everything Bucky Barnes needs to know? Why else would the asset not protest or fight against Bucky Barnes’ crusade?
A few of them shout code-phrases at him, and inside him, the asset doesn’t even flicker. He smiles at them, kills them, burns the facilities, and salts the earth.
There is a map the asset has been marking for seventy years. There are secrets the asset heard and stored away.
The path he’s on is erratic and makes no sense, and he knows that’s the only reason he’s not being followed. But he’ll go home when it’s done. If there’s still a home to go to.
But he’s been fantasizing about this since the beginning, since the first cut, the first injection, the first burn - they made it hurt because he’d fought beside Steve. Because he was Steve’s.
He makes it hurt so much more because he was theirs and he remembers every single moment he was awake, now. He remembers it all.
He knows where the heads are growing because he was never truly mindless, deep down.
(He gets it, now. He won’t ever tell, not even to Steve. But it’s not Bucky Barnes going after Hydra this time. The asset is him and always was.)
He died trying to wipe Hydra off the map and they resurrected him.
They shouldn’t have.
Title: aren’t you proud?
Fandom: Marvel movies
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: talk of violence/death/bad things happening to children
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 300
Point of view: third
Prompt: MCU, Natasha, Little girls shouldn't play with matches
Be careful, no one ever told her.
Watch out for sparks, was never said.
Nobody warned her, and that is on their heads.
.
She burnt them down when she left. She salted the earth so that nothing would ever grow there again. Any who escaped did not last long because she hunted and she found.
I am what you made me, she told the last of them. Aren't you proud?
Little death-dealer, all grown up and standing tall. Little death-dealer, with hate in her eyes and rage in her heart.
Little-dealer, knife in hand, who was taught to never listen to screaming and begging and pleading from dying throats.
Aren’t you proud?
.
She is the spark.
When the man sent to kill her offers another way, she watches his eyes. He honestly believes what he is saying.
She wonders who taught him. She wonders how quickly he learned.
.
She is meant to burn, flame for hair and fire in hand. She is the spark. But she’ll leash it, for now, she’ll atone for everything she did, everything she was created for -
You can’t ever erase it, Clint told her, but you can cover it up with good. And he believes that. He really does.
She sometimes wonders what he’s covering up.
.
The end of the world comes; she closes the door.
Her fresh start is revealed to be rotten to the core; she sheds every skin she’s ever worn.
She was made for burning. Steve has a crusade that she could help with, could guide him to the end, could counsel and guard the ghost she barely remembers -
But no. She is the spark and she has burnt down. She does not know - who is she without the masks? Who is she without killing, without violence?
She wants to know.
Title: the light, shining
Original, femslash,
Character death, PG
Wordcount: 635
Prompt: any, any: "This isn't some fairytale. When I kiss you, you don't wake up from a deep sleep and live happily ever after." "When you kiss me, I wanna die."
Note: I may come back to this. I’ve started the worldbuilding.
I’m sorry, Fiali screams, tucked down behind the crumbling wall, arms wrapped around herself. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Her eyes are squeezed shut and she gasps for air, trying to breathe through the tears.
She should have known.
It’s not your fault, Oriande sends, her mind-voice as worn as her real one would be, could Fiali hear it. She wants to hear it. Please, live, Oriande begs. That’s all I want for you.
Before she can reply, Oriande cuts the connection. Fiali knows what that means and the tears come faster, harder, so much that she thinks she might wash away - she wants to wash away.
She should have known. No princess could ever be with a peasant, but Oriande tried. Fiali should have left, should never have crept into that dance.
They are looking for her, the king’s soldiers. The priests will purify her as they did Oriande, and then she will be a lesson for the realm.
Oriande submitted but begged Fiali to run, to hide, to live.
“I love you,” Oriande confessed at their last meeting, before the Crown Prince, her eldest brother, found them. “When you touch me, it feels like flying.”
Fiali should have told her then, but Tiandre opened the door to the least-used library and stared at them, at Fiali in Oriande’s lap, both their dresses untied, and then -
Oriande stayed, but Fiali ran.
Since their hands first touched, fingertip to fingertip, Fiali has known. And now…
Now.
Her head rests against crumbling stone. Her heart is bleeding. She is a peasant’s daughter, good only for tending crops and cattle. Her place in the king’s religion is plainly made and harshly kept.
The king’s only daughter is dead now, burnt on a pyre for her crimes, purified as their god commands.
Not Fiali’s god.
How can I hear you? Oriande had asked, the second time Fiali found her. What magic is this? She did not sound horrified or afraid. She was enthralled and Fiali let her in, let her explore every part. Oriande had thought it a marvelous game and not fully understood, but Fiali had been in such denial, sure they had time…
Fiali’s mother taught her the old gods’ names and asked her to promise to keep it secret, to pass on to her own daughters, should she have them, and to her nieces if she did not. “We are the daughters of the old ones,” she had said. We are blessed and cursed, Fiali. Know that. Know it and take care.
Oriande is dead for her crime of loving not only a peasant but a woman. Fiali - could have saved her. But Oriande had told her, as she ran, I broke their laws. Go and be free; I will take their punishment.
There is ancient law. Fiali had been content until she saw the princess, dancing with a noble and laughing, starlight in her hair. Even then, she could have backed away, returned to her father’s house - but the princess saw her.
Saw her and smiled.
There is ancient law. As the daughter of the old magick, Fiali’s duty is clear.
They are looking for her. Her tears have dried and she stands, turning to watch the rising sun.
She had known from the beginning how this would end and the ancient law is clear: “When they burn what is yours,” Fialana, Mother of Light, had decreed, long before the king’s god came to their shore, “burn what is theirs.”
Once, while her brothers were in the field and Fiali had to care for their mother, mere days before Ma finally let go, she asked, “Why did you name me for Vengeance?”
Ma had smiled and patted her hand. You will know why, little light. You will know.
The sun bathes her and she knows.
Fandom: Marvel movies
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: post-WS by a lot
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 275
Point of view: third
Prompt: MCU, Clint +/any, The Carnival Job [Leverage]
"I thought we were banned from fairs?" James asks him, hands tucked into his pockets, hair windblown and loose, and looking at him makes Clint feel old. He's in his forties now. Fuck. When did that happen?
"You gonna tell?" he asks, shaking it off. So what if he never expected to survive his twenties? He's that awesome.
"No," James says, looking around with curiosity. How long’s it been since he did something just because it was fun? Probably not in Clint’s lifetime.
Tasha’s gonna kill him for taking James out without permission, but Clint knows about mistrust and trying to earn redemption, and this kid - he spends most of his time in his head, tucked away somewhere, and Clint knows that’s not the way to get better.
So here they are at a carnival upstate, with the rigged games and the sugar comas and the dangerous rides. There’s a little girl crying two rows over, tugging at her dad’s shirt, and he’s arguing with the guy about guns that don’t shoot right.
Clint raises any eyebrow. “How about a friendly wager?” he asks.
James glances at him. He really does look like he’s twenty, max. It’s gotta be the fluffy hair. Or the anime eyes. One of ‘em. “And what’s that?” He looks awake and alive, here. Clint pats himself on the back.
“Whoever wins the most prizes for the little kids gets to pick where we go for dinner,” Clint says. “And whoever wins the least has to pay for it.”
James smiles, soft and slow. “You’re on.”
Yeah. Tasha’s gonna kick his ass for this, but it’ll be worth it, for that smile alone.
Title: masks
Fandom: Marvel movies
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: post-Cap2
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 300
Point of view: third
Prompt: MCU, any +/ any, s/he's around somewhere. You just won't see them unless they want you to. Or you're on their list.
She's sitting in a pretentious coffee shop, reading a pretentious book, wearing pretentious clothes, with her hair up pretentiously, and ignoring her partner's snotty comments through the com.
She doesn't know he's there until he's leaning over the table, saying, "Wow, babe, it's been such a long time!" and she looks up into those ice-blue eyes.
"Yes, yes, it has!" she exclaims, reaching up to wrap her arms around him. She steals his knife at the same moment he steals hers, but they both sit back down, looking like old friends.
(They are old friends, is the thing. And enemies. And everything in between.)
He asks about her book; she comments on his hair. Idle chitchat.
Her partner wants to know if she needs back-up; she gives him the passcode that means safe; stay.
"So, what are you up to?" he asks, a smirk in his eyes.
(It's been a year. Steve's still raging around the world, blowing things up.)
"Oh, this and that," she says as her target stands up. She flicks her eyes toward him; her companion follows the gaze and nods.
"I'll leave you to it, then," he says. He rises to his feet and leans down to kiss her cheek. "You've grown up well," he murmurs in the first language she knew. "I'm proud of you."
(What does she remember? Not as much as she wishes. More than she likes.)
She doesn't return his knife; he doesn't offer hers back. Instead, he says, in his first language, "Tell our mutual friend that he's a goddamned punk and to get his ass home."
"I will," she promises. She doesn't watch him leave.
In her com, Clint says, "Tell me that wasn't..."
She chuckles, dropping a five on the table as a tip and sauntering after her target.
Title: deracinate
Fandom: Marvel movies
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: mayhem/vengeance; aftermath of torture/brainwashing
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 425
Point of view: third
Prompt: MCU, Winter Soldier, to tear something up by the roots
To say that he is blindly striking out is wrong. He's following a map that's burned into his mind because he saw everything without knowing what he saw. They spoke around him without censure because whatever mind he had was burned out of him twice a week, if he was awake long enough. He heard nothing in cryo, of course, and he did not dream (does not remember if he dreamed), but...
The path he's on has been seventy years in the making. The people he's executing now weren't alive at the beginning, but they die all the same. They all die the same.
Two heads will appear when one is lopped off; he remembers hearing that the first time he went after Hydra, side by side with his friends and brothers and Steve.
They knew what they had, those fuckers who froze and cut and burned him. Is that why they made it hurt so much?
He makes it hurt more. Some beg. Some curse. Some stare blankly at their death, and some cry. He doesn't hesitate or flinch or rethink any of it.
He knows now that some part of him was awake the whole time. Why else would the asset remember everything Bucky Barnes needs to know? Why else would the asset not protest or fight against Bucky Barnes’ crusade?
A few of them shout code-phrases at him, and inside him, the asset doesn’t even flicker. He smiles at them, kills them, burns the facilities, and salts the earth.
There is a map the asset has been marking for seventy years. There are secrets the asset heard and stored away.
The path he’s on is erratic and makes no sense, and he knows that’s the only reason he’s not being followed. But he’ll go home when it’s done. If there’s still a home to go to.
But he’s been fantasizing about this since the beginning, since the first cut, the first injection, the first burn - they made it hurt because he’d fought beside Steve. Because he was Steve’s.
He makes it hurt so much more because he was theirs and he remembers every single moment he was awake, now. He remembers it all.
He knows where the heads are growing because he was never truly mindless, deep down.
(He gets it, now. He won’t ever tell, not even to Steve. But it’s not Bucky Barnes going after Hydra this time. The asset is him and always was.)
He died trying to wipe Hydra off the map and they resurrected him.
They shouldn’t have.
Title: aren’t you proud?
Fandom: Marvel movies
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: talk of violence/death/bad things happening to children
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 300
Point of view: third
Prompt: MCU, Natasha, Little girls shouldn't play with matches
Be careful, no one ever told her.
Watch out for sparks, was never said.
Nobody warned her, and that is on their heads.
.
She burnt them down when she left. She salted the earth so that nothing would ever grow there again. Any who escaped did not last long because she hunted and she found.
I am what you made me, she told the last of them. Aren't you proud?
Little death-dealer, all grown up and standing tall. Little death-dealer, with hate in her eyes and rage in her heart.
Little-dealer, knife in hand, who was taught to never listen to screaming and begging and pleading from dying throats.
Aren’t you proud?
.
She is the spark.
When the man sent to kill her offers another way, she watches his eyes. He honestly believes what he is saying.
She wonders who taught him. She wonders how quickly he learned.
.
She is meant to burn, flame for hair and fire in hand. She is the spark. But she’ll leash it, for now, she’ll atone for everything she did, everything she was created for -
You can’t ever erase it, Clint told her, but you can cover it up with good. And he believes that. He really does.
She sometimes wonders what he’s covering up.
.
The end of the world comes; she closes the door.
Her fresh start is revealed to be rotten to the core; she sheds every skin she’s ever worn.
She was made for burning. Steve has a crusade that she could help with, could guide him to the end, could counsel and guard the ghost she barely remembers -
But no. She is the spark and she has burnt down. She does not know - who is she without the masks? Who is she without killing, without violence?
She wants to know.
Title: the light, shining
Original, femslash,
Character death, PG
Wordcount: 635
Prompt: any, any: "This isn't some fairytale. When I kiss you, you don't wake up from a deep sleep and live happily ever after." "When you kiss me, I wanna die."
Note: I may come back to this. I’ve started the worldbuilding.
I’m sorry, Fiali screams, tucked down behind the crumbling wall, arms wrapped around herself. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Her eyes are squeezed shut and she gasps for air, trying to breathe through the tears.
She should have known.
It’s not your fault, Oriande sends, her mind-voice as worn as her real one would be, could Fiali hear it. She wants to hear it. Please, live, Oriande begs. That’s all I want for you.
Before she can reply, Oriande cuts the connection. Fiali knows what that means and the tears come faster, harder, so much that she thinks she might wash away - she wants to wash away.
She should have known. No princess could ever be with a peasant, but Oriande tried. Fiali should have left, should never have crept into that dance.
They are looking for her, the king’s soldiers. The priests will purify her as they did Oriande, and then she will be a lesson for the realm.
Oriande submitted but begged Fiali to run, to hide, to live.
“I love you,” Oriande confessed at their last meeting, before the Crown Prince, her eldest brother, found them. “When you touch me, it feels like flying.”
Fiali should have told her then, but Tiandre opened the door to the least-used library and stared at them, at Fiali in Oriande’s lap, both their dresses untied, and then -
Oriande stayed, but Fiali ran.
Since their hands first touched, fingertip to fingertip, Fiali has known. And now…
Now.
Her head rests against crumbling stone. Her heart is bleeding. She is a peasant’s daughter, good only for tending crops and cattle. Her place in the king’s religion is plainly made and harshly kept.
The king’s only daughter is dead now, burnt on a pyre for her crimes, purified as their god commands.
Not Fiali’s god.
How can I hear you? Oriande had asked, the second time Fiali found her. What magic is this? She did not sound horrified or afraid. She was enthralled and Fiali let her in, let her explore every part. Oriande had thought it a marvelous game and not fully understood, but Fiali had been in such denial, sure they had time…
Fiali’s mother taught her the old gods’ names and asked her to promise to keep it secret, to pass on to her own daughters, should she have them, and to her nieces if she did not. “We are the daughters of the old ones,” she had said. We are blessed and cursed, Fiali. Know that. Know it and take care.
Oriande is dead for her crime of loving not only a peasant but a woman. Fiali - could have saved her. But Oriande had told her, as she ran, I broke their laws. Go and be free; I will take their punishment.
There is ancient law. Fiali had been content until she saw the princess, dancing with a noble and laughing, starlight in her hair. Even then, she could have backed away, returned to her father’s house - but the princess saw her.
Saw her and smiled.
There is ancient law. As the daughter of the old magick, Fiali’s duty is clear.
They are looking for her. Her tears have dried and she stands, turning to watch the rising sun.
She had known from the beginning how this would end and the ancient law is clear: “When they burn what is yours,” Fialana, Mother of Light, had decreed, long before the king’s god came to their shore, “burn what is theirs.”
Once, while her brothers were in the field and Fiali had to care for their mother, mere days before Ma finally let go, she asked, “Why did you name me for Vengeance?”
Ma had smiled and patted her hand. You will know why, little light. You will know.
The sun bathes her and she knows.