Rec Post, July-January

A mix of Avengers and Leverage fic, for your perusal.

Avengers
Collected Bones of All Kinds by hansbekhart
There was a reason that he ran, but he doesn’t remember anymore. He was on his way to the extraction – waiting for night to fall so that he could travel inconspicuously – crouched in a hollow on the roof of an old brick building – a warehouse, maybe – and the fading light – the light caught – on a blond head down below on the street. Laughter, and a cadence to the man’s speech that sounded familiar, misplaced R’s and blurry Th’s, quarter, water, this, that, the other one.

Love Stories for Tedious People by kristophine
The emergency departments of hospitals are all alike. Some are small, just a couple of rooms, a bathroom, a harried nurse who greets the frequent fliers by name, and some are huge, with dozens of rooms and a team of people who don’t even know each other’s names, let alone the patients.

What They Asked For by kristophine
Bucky raises his eyebrows at that, leers. “What, you don’t think I could be convincing?”

Theoretical Physicist by kristophine
“I’m sorry, sir,” said the airline representative behind her slick gray desk. “There just isn’t anything I can book you on instead. It’s shutting down the whole airport. It could just be a couple of hours, but we don’t know.”
She seemed like a nice enough woman, and Bruce fought down the welling rage in his throat. Not her fault. He smiled and said, “Thank you for letting me know,” and then went to find a drink.

You’ve Got (My) Mail by kristophine
Papers littered the floor in front of the stuffed-full mailbox as soon as he managed to get the little key to turn.
Bruce swore under his breath while he bent down to get them; his bag swung off his shoulder and smacked him in the leg, and he swore again. Physics journals—two of them—and junk mail, great, and a huge swirling crest announced the letter from the alumni association trying to convince him to fork over some money.

Curtains by kristophine
“Pepper, you can’t be serious,” said Bruce.
“Of course I can,” she said, and smiled at him serenely, crossing her legs under her glass desk. She looked like Sheryl Sandberg’s wet dream.
“Did Nick sign off on this? Tell me Nick didn’t sign off on this.”

Fine and Fierce by kristophine
Los Angeles was eighteen million degrees, weeks too early for it. Tony was sweating. It was good, it was his city, he loved it, he was basically part of it, but—on days like this, if he couldn’t be positioned directly in front of, and behind, and to the side of, air conditioning units, or at least fans, then there just wasn’t much point, was there, in existing in a corporeal three-dimensional form. The sun was beating down without mercy on the concrete and Tony folded his arms.
“I don’t know what we’re even doing here,” he whined to Pepper, who smiled at him with the arch patience of a saint. She was wearing linen. It was uncreased. Unwrinkled. She wasn’t sweating through it—or at all. It was uncanny.
“You’ll live, Tony,” she said.

The Way Out Is The Way Down by Speranza
“We’re alive in defiance of the law, now,” Natasha said bitterly.
“Well,” Steve said, and pushed his plate away. “We’ll just have to break in and get them.”
“Right, let’s take it from the top,” Natasha said wearily. “The Raft is a fully submersible supermax prison—“
“We can do it,” Steve said.
The Way Out by alby_mangroves
The words died as Natasha unzipped the top of her uniform and, grinning, yanked out a book.

Down Into The Golden Lands by Speranza and alby_mangroves
"Did he leave a forwarding address, the emigrating bastard? Steve Rogers, 50 Main Street, Valhalla?”

Our Lingering Frost by eyres
When S.H.I.E.L.D. finally locates the plane Captain America drove into the ocean, Colonel James Barnes drops everything to go bring Steve’s body home at long last. He finds more than he was expecting.

American Joe by jenjo93
Twitter returned five million, seven hundred thousand, six hundred and five accounts claiming to be ‘Captain America’, ‘Steve Rogers’, and variations of. An algorithm quickly proved all accounts to be fake.

Complications by flawedamythyst
Clint’s got a plan to retire and go find himself a simple life at his family’s old farm. Simple is good, right? Easy to remember. Simple is why he doesn’t really mind that his soul-print has never activated, because a soulmate could only add another layer of complexity to his life.
And then the Winter Soldier turns up at his archery range on the Avengers base, and simple slips through Clint’s fingers.

Featured Recback seat drive by silentwalrus
Bucky wants a car. Bucky gets a car. Now Bucky wants to blow Steve while he’s driving the car.
It’s awful, how Steve just keeps giving him what he wants.
Oh my God, it’s like someone put all my kinks in a bag and shook it up and out tumbled this fic. Relationships/sex while in recovery. Aftercare. Gentle, super hot power dynamics. Getting off on giving something they want, just because it’s what they want. Making it fucking work, because hell, you are going to make it work this time. And incredibly, for something with honest recovery treatment, this is free of tragedy and full of so much sass and banter as foreplay. If it was twenty times as long, it would be amazing, but as it is, I will happily read it twenty times and be glad it exists.

Leverage
The Two Weddings Job by HugeAlienPie
A year later, Sophie and Nate finally remember to get married. Looks like Eliot beat them to the punch.

Eliot’s Achilles’ Heel by rayvanfox
It took Eliot forever to pinpoint the problem.
Or maybe not problem so much as pitfall.
Or something.
Whatever it was, the fact that he’d never been so close to people in his own line of work meant that he was becoming spoiled for companionship.
Or, the one where Eliot really needs cuddles and finally gets them. just how he likes them, too.

only ever ruin someone like you mean it by beautifullies
Parker loves getting her way, Eliot’s the world’s subbiest sub, and Hardison’s baffled and delighted by how his life worked out.

Guard Your Eggshell Heart by letsgostealafandom
Parker had a theory, and her theory was this: it made Eliot really happy when they noticed the things he did for them. It made Eliot happy when they made sure he knew they noticed the things he did for them. And when Eliot thought they didn’t notice, it made him- not unhappy, but something worse, something like he knew that was all he could expect from anyone and he’d resigned himself to it a while back. Once she’d noticed it, she couldn’t stop, and the realization of how often they took Eliot for granted made her stomach twist uncomfortably.

something good can work (and it can work for you) by queenklu
“When you say ‘we’re making dinner,‘” Eliot finally says, “do you really mean ‘Hey you should come over and cook dinner for us so we don’t burn down the apartment?’”

Odd One Out by thingswithwings
“We should talk about Eliot,” Alec says, at the same time Parker says, “We should have sex in a hammock.”

Shelter Me by thingswithwings
Eliot’s their hitter, and taking on any physical threats to the team is his job, but there’s something beyond professionalism – even beyond the obvious fact that Eliot relishes the fight itself – in the way he puts his body between Parker or Alec and any potential threat. Alec has a good view of Eliot’s back on a lot of jobs, and he reads something in the tight line of Eliot’s shoulder, in the slow turn of his foot as he steps into a fighting stance.
Something possessive.

It’s a Long Way to Zanzibar by facetofcathy
It seemed like a good idea at the time—a road trip to the Grand Canyon—although Eliot doesn’t actually remember agreeing to the idea. He figures it’ll be fine as long as he does most of the driving.

Triptych by Thorinsmut
Parker liked Eliot.
Hardison liked Eliot.
There was a space where Eliot could fit into their lives, closer to them. Parker could see it, like a hole in a security system. It would work.
Getting her boys to fall in line, that’s the difficult part.

Brothers by zathara001 (Crossover with The Librarians)
“Of all the brewpubs in all the world, you had to walk into mine.” While escaping from a monster out of myth, Jacob Stone runs into someone he hasn’t seen in twenty years.

The Job Interview Job by copperbadge
Unemployed librarian Bobby Dismas isn’t sure how Leverage found him or what they want with him, but apparently it has something to do with his conspiracy theory website about Roy Chappel (and Kenneth Crane, and Jacques Labert).

Featured RecThe Food Cart Job by page_runner
She was only here for a long weekend, using this convention as an excuse to see Alice for the first time in over a year, or using Alice as an excuse to get away for a convention, or using both as a reason to finally take a vacation, because it was about damn time.
At least, that was the original plan.
If you like great characterisation, a fantastic premise, plenty of Amy and Peggy, fun, food, sass and beautifully written OT3, this fic is what you’ve been missing. Dive in.

Motion Parallax by Laughsalot3412
So, apparently Amy’s boss was part of a criminal gang.

Commissioned Epilogue to Man Out of Time

araniaart:

One of my ALL TIME favorite Captain America comics is “Man Out of Time” – a fantastically written miniseries by Mark Waid and GORGEOUSLY illustrated by Jorge Molina ( @jorgemolinam ) that retells the story of Cap coming out of the ice.  It deals with the weight of loss of his removal from his own time, greiving over Bucky’s loss (and remembering him after the Brubaker soft retcon of being about 20 when he “died”).

One of the most striking moments to me is at one point in a flashback, Cap is talking to Bucky about what they want to do after the war is over.  Bucky says that he always wanted to visit the Grand Canyon – he never saw it – and it is a part/represents of what they’re fighting the war for.

At the end of the comic, as Cap has some time to himself, he travels to the Grand Canyon for Bucky, as a way to deal with his loss, and this moment happens:

image

And, well, this moment always gets me.  Steve going there, drawing Bucky, and “showing him” the Grand Canyon in the only way he can.  It’s his way to try to start to move forward.

It was always a dream of mine to see an epilogue, of Steve being actually able to take him there in person after he finds out he’s still alive.  This weekend, I was able to make that a reality.

I had the distinct privilege to be able to commission Jorge Molina himself (the original artist of Man out of Time), at Wizard World New Orleans for just that scene, and here it is:

image

I am BLOWN AWAY by the work he did – this is a traditional media piece, done in inks and copic markers, and the values he worked in, the expressions, the dynamic pose that conveys the awe of the location, and yet still have it be a tender, quiet moment between the two of them.  in the Grand Canyon, Steve with the sketchbook, hand squeezing Bucky’s shoulder, both masks off and taking in the natural majesty of the canyon.

And God, to see Bucky looking honest-to-god /HAPPY/.  

;__________;

Thank you SO much, Jorge, this is everything I could have wanted and more.

Maybe I’ll be able to (ditigally) color this some day 🙂

This is incredibly beautiful and so damn uplifting that I could cry. The amount of detail for a con commission is stunning. It’s like he always had that picture in his head, and was just waiting for an opportunity to create it.

(Also doesn’t hurt my love for it that it doesn’t joss my Man Out Of Time sequel fic at all. :D)

Hey Sam, because of the Deadpool Trailers I’ve become interested in his comic book appearances & I know you don’t particularly read a lot of Deadpool, but I remember you saying that he can be written horribly, so I thought that maybe you still had some recs about where one can begin, if one wants to read some Deadpool comics. It doesn’t have to be solo though! since he seems to be a character that’s funny especially with other people to play off of :) It’d be very grateful for your help <3

copperbadge:

All I really remember is reading various issues and going “Ew, no thank you” I’m afraid 😀 The only Deadpool comics I’ve really enjoyed were the Posehn run that just ended (it was like 2013-2015 or something like that) – and he had a good long bit part in the last Secret Avengers volume too. 

Sorry I can’t be of more help! 

The short-run Hawkeye vs Deadpool run from last year is worth checking out, too.