Aug 28, 2022 - Flowers of Life: Hollyhock (FR-13)
Aug 28, 2022 - Flowers of Life: Hollyhock (FR-13)
Author: mmooch
**Part of 2022 FaD challenge** Chapter Summary: Buffy manages to get details on the reasons for the nuke launch.
Crossover: She-Hulk; Avengers
Rating: FR-13
Word count: 718
Challenge: for the livejournal 2022 August Fic-a-Day Challenge
Timeline: first Avengers movie timeline for MCU and post-series for BtVS.
Warning: Buffy acts very dark at the beginning of this chapter.
A/Ns: Hollyhock stands for ambition, something standard for Hydra/Wolfram & Hart employees.
Disclaimer: BtVS/AtS characters belong to Joss Whedon/Mutant Enemy. MCU characters belong to Marvel, Disney et al. I claim no rights to any copyrighted material. Please do not copy or take this story without my permission.
Various locations around the world
To keep the hidden WSC members from learning about their lack of anonymity, the Slayers and DRI struck fast and hard at all locations simultaneously. Buffy led the team that captured Holland Manners. She decided to interrogate him away from non-Council people because she was going the scary Slayer route and didn’t want to upset them.
“You guys hired Faith to kill Angel because you thought she was the scarier one of us, right?” she asked as she circled the chair he was chained to.
“My underlings thought it would be poetic if a Slayer killed him, and nobody thought you’d do it if he had his soul,” he corrected her.
She kept walking around him, dragging her stake along his upper body. “Do you know I was only sixteen when I tortured my first vampire? I put a cross in its mouth until it gave me the information I wanted.”
Squatting down to look him in the eyes, Buffy continued, “I also happen to know how much holy water it takes to melt a vampire’s insides before it finally dusts.” She pulled out a bottle of holy water and put it on a nearby table within Holland Manners field of vision.
He was starting to get a little panicked and when he looked around for somebody to stop her, he noticed they were alone.
“And then there were the lessons I learned from Angelus. He was a harsh, but inventive teacher to me and my friends. Do you want to find out the details of those lessons? I think your employers would have loved to have him on their payroll…except he isn’t much of a team player. You’d never know when he would decide to turn on you for his own pleasure,” she explained as if she were talking about something as mundane as the local pro basketball team.
“My former employers,” Holland quickly said. He honestly had thought Faith had been the more dangerous of the two Slayers because the one in front of him didn’t go off the rails. If he still worked for the Senior Partners, he would have told them to adjust their threat assessment on Buffy Summers. “When they didn’t stop Darla and Drusilla from killing or turning almost all of us, I decided to leave their employment.”
“So what was your plan in nuking Manhattan?” Buffy enquired, grabbing the bottle from the table and unscrewing the top. When he hesitated, she told him, “It’s amazing the damage this can do to your eyeballs.”
“War!” he yelled in fear. “If New York was destroyed, it would start a war and, in the chaos, the demons and HYDRA members within SHIELD could take over in a lot of places. It was a bonus that we could take out the team of superheroes at the same time. Once we had power across the globe, we could take on the Senior Partners.”
“Wow, this was just to stage a coup? I’d say this surprised me, but nothing evil does surprises me anymore. Alright, we’re going to have a little chat so you can give me names and other plans. It will remain pain-free as long as you continue to cooperate. Don’t make me regret showing you mercy,” she snarled.
When they were done hours later, she gave him a quick death by decapitation. They weren’t in the habit of keeping vampire prisoners and there was no power on earth that would convince her to let him go free. The Slayers would handle the demons involved, but they’d turn over the humans to their government allies.
Stark Tower
By the time Tony came out of his coma seventeen days later, the world and SHIELD were very different. When it was revealed that they were infested by HYDRA and weren’t overseen by any legitimate government agency, SHIELD was on its way to being stripped down and its agents being either cut loose or scooped up by real intelligence agencies.
The first words out of Pepper’s mouth after telling Tony she loved him were, “I want a suit. I don’t necessarily want to fight, but I do want to be able to get to you no matter what.”
Not fully convinced this was real, Tony nodded weakly and replied, “Anything you want, Pep.”
A/N: I don’t think Buffy would have actually tortured Holland, but she was at least able to sell it to him.
Author: mmooch
**Part of 2022 FaD challenge** Chapter Summary: Buffy manages to get details on the reasons for the nuke launch.
Crossover: She-Hulk; Avengers
Rating: FR-13
Word count: 718
Challenge: for the livejournal 2022 August Fic-a-Day Challenge
Timeline: first Avengers movie timeline for MCU and post-series for BtVS.
Warning: Buffy acts very dark at the beginning of this chapter.
A/Ns: Hollyhock stands for ambition, something standard for Hydra/Wolfram & Hart employees.
Disclaimer: BtVS/AtS characters belong to Joss Whedon/Mutant Enemy. MCU characters belong to Marvel, Disney et al. I claim no rights to any copyrighted material. Please do not copy or take this story without my permission.
Various locations around the world
To keep the hidden WSC members from learning about their lack of anonymity, the Slayers and DRI struck fast and hard at all locations simultaneously. Buffy led the team that captured Holland Manners. She decided to interrogate him away from non-Council people because she was going the scary Slayer route and didn’t want to upset them.
“You guys hired Faith to kill Angel because you thought she was the scarier one of us, right?” she asked as she circled the chair he was chained to.
“My underlings thought it would be poetic if a Slayer killed him, and nobody thought you’d do it if he had his soul,” he corrected her.
She kept walking around him, dragging her stake along his upper body. “Do you know I was only sixteen when I tortured my first vampire? I put a cross in its mouth until it gave me the information I wanted.”
Squatting down to look him in the eyes, Buffy continued, “I also happen to know how much holy water it takes to melt a vampire’s insides before it finally dusts.” She pulled out a bottle of holy water and put it on a nearby table within Holland Manners field of vision.
He was starting to get a little panicked and when he looked around for somebody to stop her, he noticed they were alone.
“And then there were the lessons I learned from Angelus. He was a harsh, but inventive teacher to me and my friends. Do you want to find out the details of those lessons? I think your employers would have loved to have him on their payroll…except he isn’t much of a team player. You’d never know when he would decide to turn on you for his own pleasure,” she explained as if she were talking about something as mundane as the local pro basketball team.
“My former employers,” Holland quickly said. He honestly had thought Faith had been the more dangerous of the two Slayers because the one in front of him didn’t go off the rails. If he still worked for the Senior Partners, he would have told them to adjust their threat assessment on Buffy Summers. “When they didn’t stop Darla and Drusilla from killing or turning almost all of us, I decided to leave their employment.”
“So what was your plan in nuking Manhattan?” Buffy enquired, grabbing the bottle from the table and unscrewing the top. When he hesitated, she told him, “It’s amazing the damage this can do to your eyeballs.”
“War!” he yelled in fear. “If New York was destroyed, it would start a war and, in the chaos, the demons and HYDRA members within SHIELD could take over in a lot of places. It was a bonus that we could take out the team of superheroes at the same time. Once we had power across the globe, we could take on the Senior Partners.”
“Wow, this was just to stage a coup? I’d say this surprised me, but nothing evil does surprises me anymore. Alright, we’re going to have a little chat so you can give me names and other plans. It will remain pain-free as long as you continue to cooperate. Don’t make me regret showing you mercy,” she snarled.
When they were done hours later, she gave him a quick death by decapitation. They weren’t in the habit of keeping vampire prisoners and there was no power on earth that would convince her to let him go free. The Slayers would handle the demons involved, but they’d turn over the humans to their government allies.
Stark Tower
By the time Tony came out of his coma seventeen days later, the world and SHIELD were very different. When it was revealed that they were infested by HYDRA and weren’t overseen by any legitimate government agency, SHIELD was on its way to being stripped down and its agents being either cut loose or scooped up by real intelligence agencies.
The first words out of Pepper’s mouth after telling Tony she loved him were, “I want a suit. I don’t necessarily want to fight, but I do want to be able to get to you no matter what.”
Not fully convinced this was real, Tony nodded weakly and replied, “Anything you want, Pep.”
A/N: I don’t think Buffy would have actually tortured Holland, but she was at least able to sell it to him.