iamshadow21 requested Sam/Riley, seeking solace. Thusly:

“Stop feeding my dog popcorn,” Riley grouses, and Sam flicks a kernel at his damn head.

It’s day three of the kind of rough patch that usually leaves Sam feeling twitchy and useless all at once, the kind where Riley spends his whole days inside and asks Sam to call the VA and tell them he’s not coming in. Sam, because he’s a good boyfriend even in the worst of times, called the VA first and the law school second, begging off two of his three classes because, hey, sometimes you need somebody to hang out on the couch with you and your spoiled rotten “service dog,” you know?

“You don’t need to do this,” Riley’d said on the first day, his face mostly neutral with just a hint of sad.

Sam’d carded fingers through his hair and kissed him on the temple. “Complete Indiana Jones trilogy disagrees, baby,” he’d teased, and that’d won him a smile.

It’s day three, and they’ve watched pretty much every DVD they own (plus a billion reruns of Project Runway), eaten their weight in popcorn, and shared a couple extremely long, lazy showers. And just to piss Riley off, he tosses Cap a fat piece of popcorn.

Cap crunches down, his tail wagging, and Riley rolls his eyes. “I’m so glad I’m going back to work tomorrow,” he grumbles.

“It’s like you don’t even love me,” Sam complains, but Riley kisses him slow and sweet like he maybe needs to prove Sam wrong.

Ahhh guys the-wordbutler wrote for my prompt and it’s PERFECT. Happy, happy smiles from me, here.

Life of Crime – neveralarch – Marvel 616, Hawkeye (Comics) [Archive of Our Own]

As a ~~supervillain~~ ~~supercriminal~~ contract worker with a morality deficit, Clint Barton leads a glamorous life. You know, stolen cars, dangerous women, a really confusing relationship with a meddling do-gooder, the works. It’s pretty awesome. Except for, uh, medical bills, the mob, and being on the run all the time. That part isn’t all that awesome.
(A supervillain AU where Clint shoots arrows at people and gets beat up a lot. So, not really that much of an AU.)

Okay, I usually don’t single recs out, but this fic, guys, it is SO GOOD. It is incredibly funny and ever so sightly cracky in the best of ways. It’s got the failboaty Clint Barton that we know and love, he’s just working for the other side. He’s Deaf, he’s a bit of a manslut, he’s kinky, and he loves what he does (even if it does wind him up hurt nine times out of ten), and he’s got the gang of Bucky, Natasha, Kate and Lucky around him to get him on his feet again. It’s got sign language. It’s got ridiculous comic book fights, inadvisable hookups, and a lot about the grey (sexy) line between heroism and villainy. It’s got a bit of violence and a bit of fairly kinky sex with various partners, but those scenes are short and I don’t think it’s hugely explicit, and even if kink isn’t your thing I really think this fic is well worth reading. It’s about so, so much more than bedroom shenanigans and it’s just so much fun that I think you’ll like it even if a Clint who likes being slapped around a bit isn’t your thing. I don’t remember the last time I read a fic where I had to stop so many times to literally laugh out loud.

Ask me what kind of porn I’m into,
and I will take you on a magical journey to
fanfiction.com/harrypotter/nc17—

What turns me on
is Ginny Weasley in the Restricted Section with her skirt hiked up,
Sirius Black in a secret passageway
solemnly swearing he is up to no good,
and Draco Malfoy
in the Room of Requirement
Slytherin in to my Chamber of Secrets,

I am an unapologetic consumer of
all things Potterotica,
and the sexiest part
is not the way
Cho Chang rides that broomstick,
or the sound of Myrtle moaning,
the sexiest part
is knowing they are part of a bigger story,
that they exist beyond eight minutes in
“Titty Titty Gang Bang,”
that their kegels
are not the strongest thing about them,
and still,
I am told that my porn is unrealistic.

Not quite as erotic
as flashing ads that say “JUST TURNED 18!”
so you can fantasize about fucking
the youngest girl you won’t go to jail for;

I’m told that my porn isn’t quite as lifelike
as a room full of lesbians begging for cock,
told that this
is what is supposed to turn me on,

Don’t you give me raw meat
and tell me it is nourishment,
I know a slaughterhouse when I see one.

It looks like 24/7 live streaming
reminding me
that men are going to fuck me
whether I like it or not,
that there is one use for my mouth
and it is not speaking,
that a man is his most powerful
when he’s got a woman by the hair;

The first time a man I loved
held me by the wrists and called me a whore,
I did not think, “RUN.”
I thought, “This is just like the movies,”
I know a slaughterhouse when I see one.

It looks like websites and seminars
teaching you how to fuck more bitches;
Looks like 15-year-old boys
bullied for being virgins;
It looks like the man who did not flinch
when I said “Stop,”
and he heard, “try harder,”

If you play-act at butchery long enough
you grow used to
the sounds of the screaming.

It is just a side effect of industry;
Everything gets cut
into small, marketable pieces,
you can almost forget
they were ever real bodies.

I will not practice bloody hands.
I will not make-believe dissected women.
My sex cannot be packaged,
my sex is magic,
it is part of a bigger story;
I am whole.
I exist when you are not fucking me,
and I will not be cut into pieces
anymore.

Brenna Twohy, FANTASTIC BREASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM

Brenna’s slam poetry has gone unexpectedly and brilliantly viral — but she’s about so much more than Harry Potter

(via micdotcom)

WOW that is great

(via feminismforthewin)

Oh there’s the rest of the poem.

(via amemait)

Quiet mental MPU obsession of the day:

the-wordbutler:

I’ve talked a little on here (without fleshing it out too much because I’m ages from using it) about how Bucky screwed up his shoulder in the service, how it bothers him now and will bother him worse in the future. But I’ve spent a lot of time recently thinking about Steve and Bucky’s friendship with Sam and Riley, how they hang out together, and how they’re probably that clump of friends who hang out at all the church events to the point where the old ladies serving the punch just call them The Barneses and the Wilsons, like they’re one big unit.

(Steve’s never offended when the old church ladies call him by Bucky’s last name. Riley pulls a face every time.)

But Sam and Riley both served, too, and that led me to the thought of Riley being seriously injured before his discharge. Like, maybe that’s why they left the service: Riley was badly hurt and couldn’t return, and Sam worked as hard as he could to follow him out. Which is maybe why they have a (big, dopey, wonderful) service dog at home, why Sam spends a lot of his free time kicking around the VA (Riley maybe works there, a page from the movie since Sam’s a law student in this), why sometimes Steve and Bucky drop off a crockpot meal or something when Sam sends one of those texts before church on Sunday: rough night and morning, see you next week.

I’m not sure if Riley’s wounds are physical or not (I play with the idea of a lost limb, maybe a leg), but mentally, it’s rough, sometimes.

And when Dot first notices—because you know she will, she’s smart and observant (like both her daddies)—she just tips her head to the side and asks when Riley’ll be better. “Sick people get better,” she says when Steve blinks at her, exasperation in her tone. “Riley and Sam miss church when Riley’s sick, so when will he stop being sick and be better?”

Steve’s face is soft when he crouches down in front of her. “Remember a long time ago, when we talked about why Uncle Tony’s sometimes so … ” He searches for a good word, and he rolls his eyes when Bucky mouths unglued. “Why Uncle Tony goes a million miles an hour like he’s had way too much chocolate?” Dot nods, and Steve forces a little smile. “Remember why we said Uncle Tony does that?”

“Because his brain’s not always nice to him,” Dot reports.

“Right. And Riley’s brain isn’t very nice to him, either.” Steve brushes hair out of her face. “And sometimes, that means he and Sam stay home from church and cuddle with Captain Fluffybritches.”

Bucky snickers the way he always snickers at the dog’s name—“He came up with it,” Sam’d exclaimed back when they’d landed the dog, and Riley’d rolled his eyes at him—but Dot frowns. “Do lots of people have mean brains?” she asks.

“More than you’d think,” Steve tells her, and she nods like she understands.

Riley’s a little more grounded by the time they bring over a bucket of chicken and all the sides that night, and Sam invites them to stay for dinner. “Even if this is half a watermelon away from a stereotype,” he criticizes.

“Only for one of us,” Riley calls after him, and then Dot’s sort of tossing herself around his waist like she’s missed him, which is weird for Dot and Riley’s relationship. (Most of the time, they play dress up and engage in very serious meta-analysis of the latest Sofia the First episode.) Steve and Bucky flinch like they want to apologize, but Riley lights up like a sunrise. “What, did you miss my off-key singing this morning?”

Dot shakes her head before she glances up at him. “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry you have a mean brain, and I hope it gets less mean like my Uncle Tony’s did after he went to the Four Trees place.”

Bucky face-palms, Steve blushes, and Sam laughs hard enough that he almost drops KFC all over the floor. But Riley just grins at her and ruffles her hair. “I hope it works that way, too,” he says, and then he leads Dot off to find the plastic flower crown she wears every time she comes over.

I liked this scrap that you wrote about Dot and Riley, I think because as a disabled person, and as the partner of a disabled person, I have feelings about how people talk about disabled people in our society. The line that stood out for me is ‘sick people get better’, because, although it’s a four-year-old saying it, that’s the prevailing view of society, that illness, injury and disability are things you ‘get better’ from, and really, that’s not always the case, but no one seems to want to admit that – that there are people in our society, in our schools, in our workplaces, in our churches and in our culture, who don’t get well, who won’t ever get better, but who are just as human as they are, and who belong just as much as an able-bodied or able-minded person does. People get uncomfortable when you challenge that, too. I went for disability payment after my diagnosis, and the person processing me said something about ‘maybe in the future’ and I corrected her saying ‘no, I’m autistic, it’s neurological, I was born this way and it’s permanent’, and she responded instantly that I was being pessimistic and defeatist. I wasn’t. But no one wants to accept that disabled people aren’t part of some inspiration porn story that ends with them being able-bodied or able-minded at the end or ‘just as good as’. Our society shouldn’t be a club with the worthy being accepted and the rest on the fringes, but it is. And until able-bodied and able-minded people accept that we’re worthy just as we are, without ‘overcoming’ anything, that’s the way it’s going to stay.

Writing and reading fanfiction isn’t just something you do; it’s a way of thinking critically about the media you consume, of being aware of all the implicit assumptions that a canonical work carries with it, and of considering the possibility that those assumptions might not be the only way things have to be.

At this late date, fanfiction has become wildly more biodiverse that the canonical works that it springs from. It encompasses male pregnancy, centaurification, body swapping, apocalypses, reincarnation, and every sexual fetish, kink, combination, position, and inversion you can imagine and probably a lot more that you could but would probably prefer not to. It breaks down walls between genders and genres and races and canons and bodies and species and past and future and conscious and unconscious and fiction and reality. Culturally speaking, this work used to be the job of the avant garde, but in many ways fanfiction has stepped in to take that role. If the mainstream has been slow to honor it, well, that’s usually the fate of aesthetic revolutions. Fanfiction is the madwoman in mainstream culture’s attic, but the attic won’t contain it forever.

Anne Jamison. Fic: Why Fanfiction is Taking Over the World. 2013

(via notenoughgatorade)

mcumeta:

I’ve been doing a lot of Hulk-based reading and watching (both films. Don’t even ask) lately. Taking what I’ve seen in the comics, the old TV show (my favourite when I was 10), and the little we get of the Ruffalo-Bruce-backstory, I got to thinking about the quote above.

“I’m always angry”.

I’ve seen a lot of people who were flailing that it didn’t make sense, that if Bruce was always angry, he would always be the Hulk. But this is where Bruce’s backstory is so key. He came from an abusive household, where he was weak and he was vulnerable, and I have no doubt that he was always angry about the fact he could do nothing about it.

Bruce in the comics is made of pent-up emotion. He shows nothing. Betty repeatedly comments on it, because she can’t understand him at all. And that’s because Bruce is afraid of the anger inside him, the fact that he could become like his father, that he could and might lash out. (There’s also a whole split-personality arc apparently, but I’ve not reached that yet and whoa complicated)

Because it’s contained, it builds and builds, hidden behind the calm facade. It’s always there. People talking down at him, people calling him weak, people dismissing him. It all bothers him, but he just crushes it down. But don’t believe that for a second. Bruce Banner has no patience for idiots. He calls them on their BS all the time. He pretty much says “were you always this stupid or did you have to work at it?” when someone is blatantly dumb in front of him. He’s a man with a hell of a lot of frustration and anger seeping to the surface, just waiting for an outlet.

And then I remembered this exchange in the Avengers:

STEVE: So, this Doctor Banner was trying to replicate the serum that was used on me?
AGENT PHIL COULSON: A lot of people were.

See, this makes the “I’m always angry” thing even more painful.This may only be MCU-verse, but in this context, it really makes sense.

We’ve been told way back in Captain America: The First Avenger that this serum “makes good become great, bad become worse”. So Bruce is not only affected by gamma radiation, but by a serum which takes what is at the core of him and amplifies it to the nth degree. It takes that anger, that grief, that split between placid scientist and the fury he’s contained for so long and turns it all the way up.

Everything he’s tried to hold in for so many years bursts out in the Hulk. And understandably, he hates and fears it at first. It’s everything he’s tried not to be: feral, dangerous, violent, unthinking. He only sees the surface, just like everyone else, but little by little, he comes to see that just because he’d always tried to hide those parts of him, it didn’t mean they were bad.

That wry half-smile and look back, that “I’m always angry”, is Bruce going “you know what? I am always angry, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing”. That’s Bruce seeing what he can do with these emotions that he has smothered for so long. That’s when Bruce and the Hulk are finally on equal terms.

Guys, my upcoming marvelbang fic is literally about all of these things. This awesome meta is uncannily spot on all the stuff I’ve explored in it. So wait a couple more months, and you can read my fic about Bruce and the Hulk, with amazing art by kath-ballantyne throughout.

imaginebucky:

doodlesofall:

“Imagine Bucky as this very meek, silent presence when he first joins the team. Hydra had him trained to stay out of the way, to speak only when spoken to or when a mission required it, and the idea that he’s allowed to have actual conversational input is taking a while to sink in. So it’s not uncommon for him to go days at a time without uttering a word, and everyone just takes it in stride and does their best to let him know that he’s welcome to talk whenever he wants. It takes time, but gradually he starts to open up, volunteering his questions and opinions and disjointed little observations…

And god, his vocabulary is absolutely filthy.

It’s pretty obvious that he’s not trying to be aggressive or offensive. Bucky’s main source of social interaction for the last seventy years has been listening in on conversations between the various other soldiers, mercs and black ops guys who accompanied him on missions, so that’s who he parrots now as he learns how to speak for himself again. He can swear fluently in about a dozen different languages, and his repertoire of English vulgarities is enough to raise even Natasha’s worldly eyebrows.
“I’m gonna start a swear jar,” says Tony, kicking back on the couch as Bucky offers up his colourful interpretation of the evening’s news to the room at large. “Screw clean energy, clearly the real money is in swear jars now.”
“Hey, I can dig,” says Sam. “I’m learning some great new compound words here. And it’s not like he’s wrong about the mayor.”
It may not be deliberate, but it’s also not entirely unconscious. Bucky is perfectly capable of switching to perfect 1940s gentleman when he wants to: as far as the downstairs reception staff are concerned, he’s a boyscout. But when he’s relaxed, he always defaults back to talking like he’s in the trenches. Some jokes are made about the effect he must be having on the good Captain America, but Steve barely even blinks – it’s kind of like having his old STRIKE team back on site, if his STRIKE team were all to start talking through the same mouthpiece at the same time while under the misguided impression that Steve wasn’t really listening.”

From imaginebucky

(The rest of this beautiful post is displayed in the comic)

(original post here)

What are your fave post-cap2 stevetony fics? Xx

brandnewfashion:

There aren’t very many, but a few do come to mind:

Favorable Winds by RurouniHime is probably the first post-Cap 2 fic I read that I really, really enjoyed. I love fics told from another person’s POV because we can see how an outsider feels about their relationship, and this was done beautifully. Also, she’s one of my favorite authors in the Steve/Tony fandom, so you should check other fics as well!

From the Past by sara_holmes is another fic that deals with Steve visiting Tony while looking for Bucky. Half of it is rough sex, but the other half is really sweet.

Iron Man: Director of S.W.O.R.D. by Pookaseraph is a long fic (about 75k) that quickly became one of my favorites. I loved it because the way she depicted the relationship between the two of them was very believable given the whole “oh crap, there’s no more SHIELD, what do we do about global security now?” situation.

Blueberry Waffles and Fireworks is much less serious than the others, and definitely more of a crack-y read, but still very enjoyable.

I also wrote I’m Ready to Lose (Everything but You) which deals with Tony coming to see Steve in the hospital right after the events of the movie.

I haven’t read the others yet, but I know for a fact that Iron Man: Director of SWORD is AMAZING. So if you like long, plotty awesomeness with slow burn, you should go read it.

I HAD AN IDEA: SOULMATE AU WHERE THE VOICE IN YOUR HEAD IS YOUR SOULMATE’S VOICE. I AM A GENIUS.

copperbadge:

tehnakki:

theappleppielifestyle:

musicalluna:

theappleppielifestyle:

Tony is forty-three, tired, in a business meeting and bored out of his mind when a voice vertebrates through his head, panic and shock griefgriefgrief bleeding through: I had a date.

Tony jerks in his chair, making nearly all the businessmen stop talking and look over at him.

I- hello? hello, the voice continues, sounding even more panicked now, which probably isn’t helped by Tony’s constant stream of ohshitohshitfuckfuckfuck.

“I have a thing, sorry,” Tony says, getting up and accidentally catching his hip on the edge of the table. He assumes he looks godawful, since Pepper actually stays when he says not to follow him.

Walking through the hall on shaky legs, Tony tries to calm his breathing. Seriously, what the fuck.

No offence, but where the hell have you been for the past 43 years, Tony sends, trying to get a hang on how this works, trying not to let any stray thoughts seep through the link, because he guesses blind panic isn’t what this guy needs right now.

What he gets back is grief, an overwhelming flood of it that makes Tony have to stop and lean against the elevator wall. Grief and shock and disbelief and the beginnings of anger, all mingling and getting shot through the link at Tony.

I’ve been, the voice says in Tony’s head. I. I’ve been away, I guess.

For how long, Tony sends. And you sound younger than me but you’re definitely not a baby, what with the talking thing, I thought this got activated when your soulmate is born, none of this is making sense, today is awful.

Whatever kind of day you’re having, believe me, I’m having a worse one, the voice sends back darkly.

I do, Tony sends. Believe you. He’s still reeling from his borrowed grief, sagging against the elevator wall. What happened?

Another flood, unstoppable, and Tony’s head aches with it. Okay, okay, how about you explain it to me in person? Wherever you are, I can get a jet there.

You can get a jet, the voice says, dubious. I’m, uh, I’m in Brooklyn right now, but I’m being transported.

I’m in Manhattan, Tony sends, excitement brimming in him despite himself. Wherever you’re being transported to, I can get there. Do you know?

Back to SHIELD HQ, the voice sends, and Tony pauses as the elevator doors swish open.

Would’ve pegged you for a soldier, the way you think, Tony sends, and he gets a laugh, quite bitter, in return.

I am. Or, I was.

SHIELD doesn’t have soldiers.

That’s news to me, the voice sends, and Tony nods at Happy as he gets in the car, says, “SHIELD Headquarters,” and ignores the funny look Happy gives him.

What’s your name, Tony sends, and there’s a pause before the voice says, Steve.

–

It’s not until he sees him, until Fury introduces them with a deadpan voice and Tony realizes why the voice in his head, his soulmate, sounded so familiar, and how someone younger than him could have been away for 43 years-

“Oh,” Tony says, staring at Captain America, who stares back at him with wide eyes and the beginnings of a smile that can’t quite make it yet.

In Tony’s head, Steve says, Tony… Stark. Huh. Not a coincidence, then.

Tony bristles, inwardly and outwardly, and Steve’s smile dies completely.

Right, Steve says in his head, and Tony doesn’t know what he just broadcast to him through his mind or otherwise, but he assumes that Steve now knows Howard was never Father of the Year.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you,” Steve says, standing and holding out his hand, and Tony startles a little at hearing his voice aloud.

It takes a second for Tony to remember to hold out his own hand, and they don’t really get to shake hands, they pretty much just stand there holding hands as the bond solidifies and Tony can pretty much feel most of Steve’s mind, which isn’t a very good place to be at the moment.

“Sorry,” Steve says, trying to smile and failing, dropping Tony’s hand after he squeezes it. “I know I’m not-”

“Hey, you’re sort of entitled to be a complete fucking mess right now,” Tony points out, and beside them, Fury swears loudly.

They both look at him, and Fury glares back. “If you just did what I think you did-“

“Sorry not sorry,” Tony says, and Fury swears again.

omg i feel like this is a jerk thing to do, THIS FIC IS DELIGHTFUL OK, but i just—i read this prompt differently and I COULDN’T HELP IT??

—

Tony’s internal voice doesn’t sound like him.

His voice is all edges and sharpness, hard-hit consonants. His enunciation is very precise. He knows because he spent the first decade of his life being taught how to speak clearly and confidently.

The voice in his head is different. Deeper. It’s easy, almost drawling—which Tony has tried his damndest to fix, it is insanely difficult to learn proper diction when the voice in your head refuses to match it—and has this hint of a Brooklyn accent that Tony finds mystifying.

It’s not until he’s fifteen that he learns it’s not normal for one’s inner voice to sound different from one’s outer voice.

He’s fifteen when he learns that the voice in his head is the voice of his soulmate.

–

Twenty comes and goes and Tony figures he’s still got time for that soulmate to show up, he’s young, and there are plenty of other pretty people to keep him occupied in the mean time.

He’s less optimistic when his thirtieth birthday rolls by and there’s still no sign of his supposed soulmate. He’s still enjoying spreading himself around and seeing what’s out there, but there’s a part of him he tries to shunt to the back of his mind that aches at the sound of his own thoughts.

By forty, Tony’s given up entirely. He’s read everything there is to read about soulmates and apparently it’s possible to go through life without ever meeting yours. Some people hear a voice in their heads that never comes to fruition because the person kicks it as a kid or whatever. That voice in that person’s head is all that remains of them. Tony had been skeptical about those anecdotes, because how the hell do you know your soulmate’s dead if you never meet them? But there have been a couple cases where somebody heard a recording and recognized the voice instantly only to discover the horrible truth. It doesn’t take much when you’ve heard something your entire life.

So Tony guesses his soulmate died somewhere along the way. That’s fine. He’s done pretty well for himself, considering, if you discount a few major missteps along the way. No one has to know about the way his chest burns when he sees other ‘mated couples.

He’s got a reputation to uphold anyhow.

–

When he’s forty-two, Tony gets a call from Agent, and the only thing he says is: “We’ve got someone we’d like you to show around.”

Tony bitches and moans and shows up twenty minutes late, but he shows up, because Agent is good people.

He tips his sunglasses down so he can look over the rims at him, one hand fiddling with the nuts and bolts he’s got in his pocket—he’s not sure how they got there in the first place. “So?” he says. “Who’s the special gal or guy S.H.I.E.L.D. is going to pay my very, very pricey hourly consultant fee to escort around? Does this mean you’re dabbling in prostitution? I’ve never been a prostitute, this could be fun.”

“You are not under any circumstances to do anything that might be considered prostitution,” Agent says sternly and Tony grins at him. He beckons Tony forward with a crooked finger and leads him through a door in to a drab gray lounge. Everything at S.H.I.E.L.D. is drab and gray. “Captain Rogers?” he calls.

A tall blond man with eyes the color of the California sky and broad, broad shoulders, Mary mother of God, steps through a doorway in the opposite wall and Tony says, without meaning to, “Hel-lo.”

The man’s features widen and slacken in a boyish expression of shock. He touches his temple and takes half a step forward. “You—that’s what it sounds like.”

Tony processes the words first and replies, “That’s what what sounds like?” and then hears it and his jaw drops. “Oh my god.”

“What’s happening?” Agent says, wary.

“You’re my soulmate,” Tony blurts.

“Oh no,” Agent says.

“I thought you were dead.”

Rogers blinks, something like wonder on his face. “I kind of was.” He tilts his head forward just a hair and smiles crookedly, shyly. “Soulmates; is that what they’re calling it now?”

“Now,” Tony repeats and then everything comes together all at once. Captain Rogers, tall, blond, and broad, S.H.I.E.L.D., now, holy shit, his soulmate is Captain Goddamn America. “You’ve gotta be shitting me.”

“I’ve got to report this to Fury,” Agent sighs. Tony’s barely aware of him exiting the room.

Forty years he had to wait, because his soulmate is CAPTAIN FRICKING AMERICA and he was frozen in some godforsaken iceberg in Antarctica. Although, he supposes it’s good the guy wasn’t defrosted when he was like, a toddler or something, when his half-crazed dad had been hoofing it around every summer looking for him, because that would be weird, and gross, and weird, and Jesus, he’s somehow simultaneously cradle robber and cradle robee in this scenario.

“Um,” Rogers says, and scratches at his forehead, a little crease forming between his eyebrows. “No?” His shoulders start to hunch like he’s trying to make himself smaller and it’s adorable and Tony wants it to stop.

“You sure took your sweet time. Any longer and this,” he gestures between them, “would be way creepy.”

Rogers looks at him with wide eyes for a second and then starts to smile and it’s the sweetest thing Tony’s ever seen. “I’m sorry for making you wait,” he says sincerely. “This isn’t where I expected to find you.”

Tony lets out a burst of surprised laughter. “Not in your wildest dreams.”

He shakes his head. “Not even.”

Rogers closes the distance between them then and Tony feels the prickle of excitement along every nerve. He can’t believe how much better the voice sounds in reality, how perfect every intonation is. He can’t believe he’d given up. “Hi,” Rogers says, face schooled into a serious expression, and holds out a hand. “Steve Rogers. It’s nice to meet you.”

Tony can’t help the stupid grin that spreads across his face as he reaches out and takes it. “Tony Stark. It’s a pleasure.”

“It sure is,” Steve murmurs and squeezes his hand.

—

PLEASE FORGIVE ME FOR HIJACKING THIS theappleppielifestyle D:

omg this is adorable

I DEMAND ANOTHER! *throws post on the floor*

Nakki you are an awful person and you bait me constantly. 😛

Here’s a third take:

***

“Oh fuck,” Tony says, right before the bomb goes off, and he wakes up to Steve saying “Oh fuck” in his ear.

“You got that right,” he says, sitting up. Steve, who is standing a weird distance away considering he was just whispering in Tony’s ear, looks startled as he turns to him.

“What right?” he asks, and then the voice in Tony’s ear — no, in his head, oh shit, says, Oh God, what if he’s concussed? Why won’t he pad his goddamn helmet?

The guy who set them up the bomb was ranting right before it detonated about how he would bring all of Manhattan together. Tony has a really bad feeling about this.

“Me too,” Steve says aloud, and then looks confused.

Tony gives it a shot. I think we’re telepathically linked, he tries.

Steve stares at him, eyes wide.

Oh, FUCK, they think in unison.

*

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I WROTE A THING. Since everybody tackling this prompt seems to be in fashion. And because I’m me, I totally subverted it.

Pygmalion’s Folly

(Sam’s fic below, I just had to put my coding here or it got hid by the cut.)

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Tony doesn’t know whether the guy who telepathy-bombed them intended for this level of chaos. Hulk stomped him right after the detonation and he’s now in a coma, so he can’t explain his goals.

The city, meanwhile, is a mess.

Every single person in Manhattan now has another voice in their head. And that is causing a lot of freaking out. SHIELD, too, is freaking out, because they have no idea how to handle this. The Avengers, to an extent, are freaking out; Tony and Steve are doing okay, but Bruce has some woman in his head who is yelling at him a lot about hiding from her, and the depth and breadth of Thor’s memories are unsettling Jane. Clint and Natasha and Phil are in a three-way bond which would probably be awesome if all three of them didn’t have super-dark pasts that now all three of them are aware of. Sam has some lady in his head he’s never met, which is justifiably wigging him out.

And it’s horrible for nearly everyone because the first thing you think about, of course, when you find out someone else is in your head, is: oh shit do they know about [insert horrible thing I have seen/done/thought here]?

The weirdest part about it is that, okay, Manhattan has a daytime population of about three million people. All of them now have a voice in their head. But there are also — well, later, the SHIELD numbers will show about 2.8 million people outside of Manhattan, all over the world, also had a voice in their head. The voice of someone in Manhattan.

Someone needs to figure out what happened and how to reverse it, on both the biological and the engineering sides, but someone also has to keep riots from breaking out in Manhattan, and make sure city services stay operational.

I should be out there with you, Tony thinks to Steve, as he works on what’s left of the bomb. He dragged it to a nearby garage and set up a makeshift workshop, but any damn engineer could do this, and the city needs Iron Man.

We’re doing fine, Tony, Steve says. He’s across town, helping mobilize the police, at least the officers that are managing to function with someone else in their head. He’s already had to break up a fight when one officer found out his wife was in another officer’s head.

His words are reassuring, but Tony can feel the undercurrent of longing, of wish-you-were-here, and also the resolute way in which Steve is ignoring that. They are both ignoring the immediate discovery that Steve has a schoolboy crush on Tony and the only reason Tony hasn’t jumped his bones in the last six months is that he was worried it would ruin one of the best friendships of his life.

I really need you to fix this, Steve adds. No pressure. I know you can do it.

Yeah thanks, no pressure, Tony replies. When this is over, can I buy you dinner?

Not right now, Steve sends, less stern than desperate.

“Tony,” Bruce says over the speakerphone. He’s at a nearby hospital, having commandeered a lab to work on the biological aspect of this. Tony somewhat wishes he’d had Bruce in his head instead. Bruce sounds stressed.

“How you doing, big guy?” Tony asks.

“Well, Betty stopped yelling,” Bruce says. “My head is killing me.”

“From the yelling?”

“From the ignoring.”

“Bruce, you gotta talk to her sometime. I mean, she’s in your head, now you’re just being a jackass about this.”

“She knows,” Bruce sighs. “And so do I.”

“Okay, well, I’m not going to pile it on. What’ve you got?”

“Zip. We’re dealing with unusual parts of the brain lighting up. I’ve got four MRIs going, but I’m getting nowhere. It’s a totally new science. I am literally the leading expert in a branch of medicine that did not exist two hours ago."

"How can I help?”

“Keep working on the bomb, I guess. I just needed confirmation I’m not crazy.”

“You’re a little crazy. You need to talk to her."

"I thought you weren’t going to pile it on?”

“Yeah, I lied,” Tony says. A spark shoots out of the remains of the bomb, and he jerks back.

“Careful,” says a voice. Tony glances to the side. Super-dramatically, a man about his age, with grey hair at the temples, steps out from the shadows.

“If you are an alternate universe me, I really don’t have time to kill you right now,” Tony says. The man smiles.

“My name is Stephen Strange,” he replies. “I understand you’re the man to speak to about the voices in everyone’s heads."

"Yeah? Who’ve you got in yours?”

“No one,” Strange replies serenely. “I was shielded. Who is in yours?”

“Captain America, for my sins,” Tony says.

I heard that, Steve says, not without amusement.

“How very interesting,” Strange observes. “You’re a lucky man, Mr. Stark.”

“Yeah, doesn’t really feel that way right now,” Tony says, gesturing at the chaos outside.

“Oh, they’re lucky too, they just don’t know it yet. I can help you reverse the effects. If I may?” Strange rests a hand on the workbench and Tony figures, why not, so he steps aside.

“Do you know what the bomb was?” he asks, as Strange presses both hands to the bench. The parts laid out around them begin to glow, and then to hover.

Tony? Steve asks, because Tony’s frantic internal screaming is probably upsetting him.

If I die of strange glowing magical lights, you can have all my cars, Tony tells him.

“It’s a wide-spectrum magical broadcast bomb,” Strange says.

“We have magic now?” Tony demands, voice rising an octave.

“Well, we’ve always had it,” Strange says. “And apparently some of us have badly misused it. Ah, here we are.”

The pieces are starting to coalesce, and Tony forgets to be really terrified in his fascination over how they’re coming together.

"He was, genuinely, trying to help. He’s just very terrible at helping,” Strange continues. “Did you know that each person on this Earth has a soulmate?”

“Bullshit,” Tony says automatically.

“Well, that’s a very simple way of putting it, so I don’t blame you for refuting the idea. The rules are complicated, and subject to influence. But in essence, we share a link with all other people, and there is one person for whom that link is strongest. A soulmate, give or take a few degrees of semantics."

Tony is having trouble breathing, but there’s a warm flood of affection and happiness from Steve. In fact that might be why he’s having trouble breathing, because Steve’s reaction to the information being relayed to him through Tony’s frantic thoughts is overwhelming. Tony is suddenly the one place another whole human being belongs and that’s so much pressure on someone who has, traditionally, fucked up relationships with other people.

It’s okay, Steve sends, like a thick blanket on a cold day. You won’t mess up with me. Because we’re soulmates.

Stuff it, Tony tries, but his heart’s not in it.

"Here you are,” Strange says, offering him the newly-reassembled bomb. “You’ll need to plug it into the broadcast antenna on Stark Tower to get the proper spread, but this should dampen the links back down to normal level."

"Who are you?” Tony asks.

Strange grins. “You should come see me, sometime. After the honeymoon,” he adds, and presses a thick card into Tony’s palm.

Dr. Stephen Strange
Master of the Mystical Arts
Freelance Consultant
Sliding Fee Scale & Validated Parking

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Tony finds himself alone in the penthouse that evening, which in a city full of people who have suddenly found the person (or people) they’re meant to be with is a little sad.

Ten minutes after he set off the reverse-bomb, Rhodey landed on the balcony of Pepper’s office and now they’re on their way to France or some damn thing. Tony personally escorted Betty to Bruce, and there haven’t been any Hulk-related incidents so that probably went okay. Clint, Natasha, and Agent are curled up together in Natasha’s apartment, Thor and Jane are asleep at Jane’s place, and Sam’s off meeting his mystery lady, who sounds nice (Sam texted that she’s a Marine).

Steve, last Tony checked, was still pulling shifts with the police, because (unsurprisingly ) blanking out the voices did not solve everyone’s problems. Gonna be a lot of fighting and fucking in Manhattan tonight, he thinks, pleased that it stays in the privacy of his own head as he stands at one of the tall Stark Tower glass walls and looks out on the city.

It’s probably best Steve will be out late tonight, maybe into tomorrow morning. Tony doesn’t believe in soulmates and while he would have been okay with acknowledging that they’re attracted to each other, the weight of that burden (even if he doesn’t believe in it) is pretty heavy. Better to ignore that it ever happened.

Which is, of course, when Steve clears his throat from the doorway. “I’m home,” he announces, unnecessarily.

Tony turns, leaning back against the wall. Steve is not merely home; Steve clearly came home, showered, shaved, and combed his hair. He smells like aftershave and toothpaste. He’s wearing nice clothes, clothes Tony talked him into getting tailored.

"I’d like to take you up on dinner,” Steve says, fidgeting nervously.

“I don’t know if that was a smart offer to make,” Tony answers.

“Are you rescinding?” Steve asks. “That’s rude.”

“Steve, I just don’t — ”

You do, you’re just scared, he hears in his head. Tony looks at him, wide-eyed. Steve steps forward, not quite meeting his eyes.

“I got a visit too. Strange said it might take longer to wear off on me, because of the Serum,” Steve says aloud.

“So you’ve been reading my thoughts all afternoon.”

“Yup,” Steve says. He’s still moving forward and Tony has glass at his back, nowhere to go.

“That’s a dick move, Steve,” he says.

“Probably. So is rescinding a dinner offer.”

“Will you shut up about the dinner — ” Tony starts, but Steve kisses him and it’s hot and sharp and fireworks go off in his head, which he’s pretty sure aren’t his own.

And for just a second he has this impression of what could be: a lifetime with someone, the kind of utter trust that only builds with years of experience, the knowledge that whatever he does, whatever happens, at least one person will always be there. Steve has already seen the inside of his head and if that didn’t run him off, literally nothing else will.

“Marry me,” he blurts, when Steve leans away.

After dinner, Steve insists.

I WROTE A THING. Since everybody tackling this prompt seems to be in fashion. And because I’m me, I totally subverted it.

Pygmalion’s Folly

scuttleduck:

cptstvrgrs:

avengers au where clint’s got his hearing aids but he turns them off when hes bored so that he can try to decipher what everyones saying
and no one knows he does it but they think its weird when he misses huge gaps of a story or throws in an oddly specific detail that never happened or gets a name really wrong on an official report
tony and nat try to piece together whats happening through increasingly convoluted ways that may result in more than a few injuries
steves convinced its just something left over from when loki was in his head and he keeps trying to get sam to talk to him about it
bruce starts trying to develop a new hearing aid that’ll register the sound better (clint accepts them and then proceeds to continue turning those ones off too)
and then one day thor’s telling a story about loki’s embarrassing childhood and he just offhandedly says ‘tell barton to turn his ears on, he will like the next part’ and the room just goes quiet as they realize theres absolutely nothing wrong with clint hes just been being a shit the entire time

I WROTE THE THING.

This Story is Not About Ukuleles

My author name on AO3 is Araceli, for reasons. Roll with it.