#jarvis tapes recordings

[marvelsfavoriteuncle]

Jarvis tapes on Jason’s life (or at least what the footage tells you) 🎞️

Jason Grayson Underwood was born at twelve-oh-one a.m., April 20th, 1922

at Children's Hospital, San Francisco,

the second child of Fran and Jonathan Underwood. His sister Dolores Marie Underwood only be 5 years old.

On the 16th of June in 1929, Mr & Mrs. Underwood would divorce taking both children their separate ways.

~~~~

August 30th 1943, Howard Stark and his sister Elizabeth Stark would come into the picture, change his life forever.

Meeting both of them during the war, alongside Agent Margaret ‘Peggy’ Carter. Who would later on become his sister in more ways than one.

Eighty-seven days later Jason met James Bucky Barnes and The Howling Commanders, crossing paths on the battle field with Captain America.

~~~~

After the war ended, Jason Underwood went on to work for the SSR. He had the opportunity to work selling watches in Texas and New York, but went on to become an associate of the organization.

Which is where he met Agent Jack Thompson, Daniel Sousa and plenty of others.

However he had another job underneath his belt as him, Edwin Jarvis and Agent Carter were given a job to locate Howard Stark’s stolen items while he hide away.

The whole time, half of the country was after him.

That’s when he would met his sister once again, Dottie Underwood, A Black Widow. As she worked with an scientist and Soviet spies to frame Stark’s items as dangerous as they seemed.

It was complicated.

He was not pleased and made sure his sister was behind bar for her crimes, with working for the wrong side. But she did not care, she never did.

He shot the scientist and spies with the help of the SSR who realized who was responsible for all of this.

They freed Howard and his sister from all charges. Jack Thompson became Chief Executive Officer in New York City.

But they all know Peggy Carter deserves all the credit for the job.

Daniel Sosua was promoted to Chief in California.

~~~~~

In 1947 New York City, Chief Jack Thompson and Agent Peggy Carter of the Strategic Scientific Reserve (SSR) apprehend Soviet spy Dottie Underwood.

Newly appointed Chief Daniel Sousa of the Los Angeles SSR office meets with Detective Andrew Henry, who has discovered a woman's body in a frozen lake during a heat wave.

That’s when Jason Underwood was called from his newly acquired home in Los Angeles for the job, requesting Agent Carter to sign onto the job.

Howard and his Elizabeth Stark were living in Los Angeles as well, making films and creating new inventions for their company.

~~~~

Ten weeks after filming a new movie Howard was creating and working on the case, Jason was driving north one night to his shared studio beach cottage when something highly unusual occurred, something almost magical...

Snow fell in Los Angeles, California. Heavy winds and hail stormed all into one. The car swing over the slippery slope of the bridge as he drove onto the main water, as he tried to pull up.

But failed to get the brakes to work.

The immersion in the frigid water caused Jason's body to go into an anoxic reflex, instantly stopping his breathing and slowing his heartbeat.

Within 2 minutes, Jason Underwood's core temperature had dropped to 87 degrees...

his heart stopped beating.

He was silent underneath the table of water for 7 minutes.

At 11: 55 a bolt of lightning struck the vehicle discharging half a billion volts of electricity and producing 60,000 amperes of current.

Its effect was threefold.

First, the charge defibrillated Jason Undwood's heart.

Second,

He was jolted out of his anoxic state causing him to draw his first breath in 3 minutes.

Third, based on Von Lehman's principle of electron compression in deoxyribonucleic acid, which will be discovered in the year two thousand thirty-five, Jason Underwood will henceforth be immune to the ravages of time...

he will never age another day.

~~~~~

Of course, he didn’t know that would be a harsh yet effective condition until later.

Wrapped in a cold sweat, dizziness and fatigue were the consequences of the accident.

He was in bed for a few days at the house or made to be sat down, as a nurse took his temperature while he helped study the case.

A field of zero matter and Whitney Frost, 2 times Oscar nominee who was a scientist at heart, was behind it. They hoped it wouldn’t be the rest of mission and the caseload conditions that harmed them.

But faith had other plans.

Peggy took the rest, after her painful defeat of almost being impaled by the help,to call Jason’s sister Dottie for undercover work.

It wasn’t the best thing, but worked like a charm. Dottie left getting her cut of the money and ran.

Soon enough, Jason, Peggy and others were up for the challenge to help finish the race in their job. It was a long and difficult process for the entire team but they made it work.

Zero matter was seemingly gone. Whitney Frost was put in prison.

~~~

Weeks went by.

He studied long and hard for weeks, working with Howard, Peggy, Dr. Wilkie Jones and Ana Jarvis on cases. Figure out the answer to the questions they had from their previous research on the mission.

And the effects left behind.

Jason found nothing on his plate of studies onto what happened to him, as the years went by he noticed his friends slowly turning around with age, as he stayed the same.

It wasn’t zero matter or the previous time on trips that harmed him.

It was something else.

Some would see it differently, thinking it as a blessing that he stopped aging, others might’ve called it a curse.

It just depends on who you were talking to.

For Jason, he made the blonde sick to his stomach and want to hide behind closed doors.

As the years passed, Jason credited her unchanging appearance to a combination of a healthy diet, exercise, heredity, and good luck.

He would travel around, change his name and mind. Leave for a couple of weeks every new decade.

It was all to prevent confusion, controversy and added pressure from anyone who might’ve wanted to sent him to a lab to be tested for his status. 

To protect himself and his loved ones…

~~~~

~~~~~~~

// There’s a tale. Remember to like, comment and reblog.

|| Tags: @missstrawbs2001 @purpleprincessonfyre @meiramel @gcthvile @ask-starrk @rickb-chaos @gaminggirlsstuff @wizzzardofoz @cherrysft @luna-d-marsh @sherloquestea @rooster-84 and etc

#marvel oc #age of adaline #jarvis tapes recordings #jason underwood #agent carter oc #carterwood #dottie underwood #howard stark #edwin jarvis #glen powell #agents of shield #marvel x oc #mcu ocs #oc intro #agent carter #peggyweek2024 #daniel sousa #jack thompson

[sunnysideprincess]

Steve's jealousy is a hot flash. A strike of blunt axe against the wood that's not ready to fall just yet. It burns like rage. Like a wildfire. Rises with the heave of his chest and the clench of his fist. An ache for violence that he barely holds back because he's wearing an expensive suit Nat had wrestled him in.

It ends with a threatening politeness carved on his face, a possessive hand down his lover's spine and later, hours of slow, sweet torture in the confines of their bedroom with Jarvis recording their movements like the grace and patience of a professional film maker.

It ends with Pepper on their doorstep, with the media roaring about Captain America and Iron Man's leaked sex tapes, with Nat throwing him knowing looks and Tony perched on Steve's lap like the brat he is.

Tony's jealousy is a slow crawl of venom. Rising from the pits of his stomach and spilling over like a great tidal wave. It comes right before they part—his solo business trip to Japan and Steve's undercover mission with Sharon. Coated with a languid smile foreboding trouble. It lasts days until right before Steve's return, when he predicts Sharon would have caved and begged for another chance.

It ends with Steve's untraceable SHIELD issued cell being hacked, and one, single encrypted video file in which Tony spreads himself wide open for the viewer, wrapped in expensive lace and ribbons.

It ends with a victorious smile shared between Nat and him, with Sharon looking sad and bitter, with Tony stretched on their bed satiated and content, feeling like a sure thing.

#jealousy #tony stark #stevetony #steve rogers #stony #avengers #iron man #captain america #ficlet #ficlets #marvel #marvel fic #fic #brat tony #nat knows it all #sneaky steve #sneaky tony

[imagine-loki]

Midnight Stroll

TITLE: MIDNIGHT STROLL

CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: One Shot

AUTHOR: mooncat163

ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine that you struggle with sleep walking, and one night you manage to get to Loki’s room. The next morning he wakes to find you snuggled against his back, and wonders how you ever got past the security spells he’d cast.

RATING: General

NOTES/WARNINGS: just fluffy stuff, sleepwalking

— —

You’ve been up for close to seventy-two hours straight, copying VHS surveillance tapes to digital in an attempt to isolate and identify players suspected of gearing up for a major weapons heist. Any attempts to make you rest before you collapsed were rebuffed: you were determined to complete the process and make positive ID’s as soon as you could.

“Hey.”

The greeting was soft so that you weren’t startled when Steve came up behind you. He glanced over the monitors before looking at you.

“Hey, Cap,” you replied, and turned your head slightly. “I’m almost done, just have about twelve hours left-“

“That's why I’m here,” he said. “You’ve been at it for close to three days, and you need to rest.”

“I’m good,” you protested. “Jarvis has already isolated footage for me, I just have to-“

“Rest,” he said, firmly. “Jarvis, bookmark where she’s at, but she’s not allowed to start again until she’s eaten and slept.”

“Yes, sir.”

“But I-“ You turned your chair to face Steve after the computer monitors went blank.

“No.” He urged you out of the chair and then ushered you from the room. “Tony agrees, and none of us want you to become overtired.”

You still wanted to protest, but there wasn’t any point in doing so. Jarvis wouldn’t allow you to access the files until Tony or Steve agreed to it, and there wasn’t a way to subvert the AI. You knew this because you’d tried several times, just to see if you could and to see how badly you could annoy Tony.

You had managed one small victory: you’d renamed some of his music files, so that instead of the heavy metal songs he liked to blare at random, Jarvis would end up playing teen bop songs. Tony didn’t talk to you for a week after that, although you could see by the gleam in his eyes that he was slightly impressed by the feat.

Computers had always been your ‘thing’, and you could set up networks and track down problems in record time. When you worked with the electronics, your mind visualized the connections and routes in schematic form, enabling you to pinpoint the failing areas. When it came to analyzing data, you could do so just as quickly.

Steve led you to the elevator, and the ride up to the Avengers’ level was made in silence, then his hand in the small of your back guided to the dining table, where the rest of the team sat.

“Glad you could join us,” Tony said, grinning when you cut your eyes at him.

You sat down across from Loki and Thor, then helped your plate with food as it was passed to you. You offered them both a tired smile, which Thor returned with a wink. Loki nodded, and although he didn’t smile, his green eyes were lit with amusement. A warmth spread through your veins, making it hard to look away from him, but you finally managed.

If only he wasn’t such eye candy, you thought. Or maybe such a snack...a tall, tall, snack…snack-a-licious…

You smothered a giggle that almost escaped, but then strangled on the sip of water you’d just taken. While you coughed into your napkin, Bucky tried to help by patting your back, but his strength knocked you forward enough where you almost face-planted into your plate.

“Bucky!”

“Sorry.”

You composed yourself while keeping your attention on your food. You weren’t very hungry, even though you’d subsisted only on coffee, protein snacks and candy over the last few days. As you began to eat, it became difficult to keep your eyes open. Now that you were still and quiet, the lack of sleep caught up with you fast. The others watched as your head began to drop lower and lower, until your fork clattered onto the plate as you fell asleep while sitting upright.

“Come on, sleepyhead.” Steve scooped you up and carried you to your apartment, where he put you to bed.

— —

Later that night, Tony was still in the common room when you padded quietly on bare feet into the kitchen. You went to the fridge and stared at its contents for several minutes before taking out a yogurt cup.

He watched as you shuffled to a drawer for a spoon, and he started to ask if you needed help when you struggled to open the yogurt, but you did manage to get the lid off after a couple of minutes.

“Are you alright?” He asked as you consumed the yogurt in four large spoonfuls.

You didn’t respond, just dropped the spoon into the sink, and the empty cup into the garbage, and left. Once back in your apartment, you crawled into bed, pulled up the covers and went back to sleep.

— —

Several hours later, Loki stirred from a deep sleep when something woke him. He listened for any movement in his apartment, but all was quiet. Something wasn’t right, though, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

He started to get up, but then realized what had disturbed him: a warmth against his back, along with a bare arm across his waist. To say that he was stunned would be an understatement, since neither should be there.

Loki carefully grasped his bedfellow’s wrist and raised it enough to try to determine who had invaded his space, and he didn’t need three guesses when he recognized the intruder’s bracelet.

Pixel.

He couldn’t help but think of you by the nickname that Tony had burdened you with due to your computer skills. None of that was important, however. What was important was why you were in his bed, and how you had managed to avoid the spells that he cast each night that would alert him to any intruders. It was a habit that he kept, even though it was unlikely that he’d be attacked in his own suite, and he felt a bit uneasy that you hadn’t triggered any of them.

Loki carefully shifted until he faced you, and the movement was enough to turn you on your back. He braced up on one elbow while he looked into your face, and recognized the exhaustion it reflected. He knew that you’d been working hard on the surveillance videos; too hard, it seemed. He frowned at that, and decided to speak to Stark about letting you stay awake for days on end, as it wasn’t necessary since Jarvis could easily help run comparisons.

“Hey, Pixel.”

He brushed hair out of your face before shaking you gently, but you didn’t stir. He tried again, with no success: you were dead to the world. He considered taking you back to your own bed, but an urge for mischief kept him from doing so. He rather wanted to see what your reaction would be come morning. So, he adjusted position slightly so that your head was pillowed on his arm, then he put the other arm across you and pulled you closer.

— —

Early the next morning, well before dawn, you awoke slowly to find that something was very, very wrong.

Your sheets were softer than you recalled, you were curled against someone’s side, with your head on their shoulder, and this someone had their arms around you. Slowly, carefully, you sat up, and the shock when you recognized your bedfellow had you turning toward the edge of the bed.

Loki.

Before you could disengage fully from his embrace, he turned with you, and drew you even closer to his chest, where he held you firmly. You laid still for a couple of minutes, not wanting to disturb him, hoping to escape before he woke. Then you carefully tried moving his arm from across your waist so that you could slide from beneath it.

“What’s the fuss, pet?” Loki asked, sleepily.

“Why are you in my room?”

“Your room?” You felt his smile against your temple.

“My room! And my bed!”

“Are you certain about that?”

Your brow furrowed in confusion while you slowly looked around, then your mouth fell open in astonishment when you realized where you were. Nope, not your room, but his.

“How did I get in here??”

“That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?” He asked, while burying his nose in your hair. “How you got in, and got past my security measures.”

“I don’t—wait, security measures? You mean booby traps?” You whispered, aghast.

He almost laughed aloud at that, and would have if your tone hadn’t been so horrified at the notion of triggering one of his spells.

“Don’t worry, Pixel, there isn’t anything that will cause lasting harm,” he chuckled. “So, first order of business: why did you come here?”

“I’m not...oh...cripes…” you rubbed your face with a groan.

“Yes?”

“I’m so sorry...I must have been sleepwalking.”

“Oh?”

“I haven’t done it in years, though...I guess being up for close to four days straight triggered it.”

“I see,” Loki mused over that for a moment. “But how did you get past my spells?”

“I don’t know, I really don’t,” you replied. “Are you sure they’re still intact...never mind, forget I asked.”

You’d backtracked on the question when his arm tightened slightly; you could imagine that his expression would remind you that he was a master sorcerer who was at least nine hundred years in age, and that he would know if his spells had failed.

“I should go,” you told him as you tried again to move his arm. “I’m very sorry for invading your space…”

“It’s early yet, why not stay?” He asked. “You’re delightfully warm.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I should.”

You were painfully aware that your gown’s thin straps left your arms and shoulders bare, and the hem only reached to your knees. There was no way that Loki hadn’t noticed it either, just as it hadn’t escaped your notice that his chest was bare. Thankfully, you could tell that he had on pajama bottoms. Thank God for small mercies.

“I was a perfect gentleman last night,” he commented. “Don’t you trust me?”

“Of course I do,” you replied, quickly. But do I trust myself?

Loki hummed softly before he ran his hand down your arm and changed your gown into one that covered you from your chin to your feet, and from your shoulders to your wrists. You were quite sure the thing would strangle you, since you were a restless sleeper.

“Geez, did you raid Steve’s grandmother’s closet??”

“Just trying to be helpful,” he replied with a chuckle, before he changed the gown again.

This time it was a green shirt with flowing sleeves, open neckline and a shorter hem which reached your knees. It wasn’t lost on you that he’d put you in his color.

“Better?” He asked.

“Yes, thank you,” you replied. “But I should go....”

He held you more firmly, and drew his legs up behind yours to trap you further. He was reluctant to let you go now that you were in his arms. He’d watched you for months now, slowly warming up since you treated him the same as anyone else, perhaps even better. He wasn’t sure how you’d managed to get under his skin, but he found himself wondering how it would feel to hold you, to kiss you...to have you.

When Loki refused to let you up, your heart began to race at the implications. Was he interested in you? Or just being mischievous because you had accidentally climbed into his bed? Either way, the proximity to his bare skin had you shaking; it wouldn’t take much for you to give in to his request.

“I’d like for you to stay,” he whispered, before he’d turned your face toward him.

When his lips found yours in a gentle kiss, your reticence flew out the window.

Yes, that did it.

#Submitted one shot #God of Mischief #Loki #Others #Lover #submission #mooncat163 #midnight stroll

[3pirouette]

Fic: Hello, Darling (1/1)

Title: Hello, Darling By: TriplePirouette/3Pirouette Disclaimer: They're not mine. Distribution: AO3  Anyone else please ask first :)

Story Summary:  Instead, he reached for his phone. He hit the only button that seemed to matter at the moment.

Her voice was warm. “Hello, darling.”

“Peg,” he sighed, closing his eyes. “Oh, your voice is just what I needed.”

Angst. Satisfies the Fake Dating a square for the Steggy Bingo Bash. AU, obviously.

A/N: Timeline is as close to sort-of right as I can make it for an AU. 2017 is post Civil War, 2016 is during Civil War, 2014 is during AOU, other time stamps should be self-explanatory. I hope this makes as much sense for everyone else as it does to me- this concept was a little hard to get on paper. I wrote this in about... 2 hours? Couldn’t sleep until I got this out of my brain. Also, I’m sorry. Please get some tissues. More AN at the end.

~*~ 2017

Steve flopped on the bed, wiping his forehead. They’d been training, hard, and he was drained. He and Natasha were spending their days whipping the new iteration of the team into shape and spent their nights sweet talking whatever government officials would listen to them while still trying to stay off the grid.

Their position in multiple areas was shaky, to say the least.

When he couldn’t sleep, which was most of the time, he wrote letters to Bucky, who was still in stasis in Wakanda. The letter writing was a calming ritual, and made him feel closer to his friend when he was doing it, but when he saved the letter instead of sending it, it left him feeling a little more alone than when he started.

He didn’t want to move tonight. He felt empty and exhausted and so very, very much like the small man he used to be on the rickety old bed.

He looked at the second-hand laptop, closed and charging on his desk, and turned away. He couldn’t take that feeling tonight.

Instead, he reached for his phone. He hit the only button that seemed to matter at the moment.

Her voice was warm. “Hello, darling.”

“Peg,” he sighed, closing his eyes. “Oh, your voice is just what I needed.”

Her voice was warm, and there was a smile in it. “Well, I’m just a phone call away, as always.”

“Yeah,” he replied, just a hint of sadness seeping through. He took a deep breath and shifted up on the pillows, closing his eyes and holding the phone tighter to his ear. “We were training again today.”

“How are they pulling together?” She asked, bright and interested. “Has Wanda gained more control?”

“Every day,” he replied quickly, a smile quirking at his face. “She’s more powerful than I think any of us were prepared for, even her. She’s still doubting herself, though.”

Peggy chuckled through the phone. “After what she went through, I’d doubt myself if I were her, too.”

Steve rolled to the side, pulling a pillow tight into his arms. “True.”

“Give her time,” Peggy soothed him. “Think about how long it took you to get the hang of your new body.”

He laughed out loud at that. “What, all thirty seconds or so?”

“I seem to recall you crashing through a store’s front window display fairly immediately.” Her laugh was like bells, light and happy. “Though that was followed by months of tests, followed by months of kick lines.”

Steve groaned at the memories. “The tights… and those boots.”

“I rather liked the tights,” Peggy flirted. “Though, the point of my mentioning, is that it took you rather a few months in the field to figure out you could lift a tank, and that became one of your favorite tricks. Give the poor girl some slack.”

“Actually, fitting my entire body behind my shield was one of my favorites.”

“I still don’t know how you do that.” She sighed. “But it is quite a trick.”

“She is getting the hang of it,” Steve relented. “It’s just been… hard.”

“I can hear the weariness in your voice.” She was soft and gentle. Steve closed his eyes and pretended he was wrapping himself around her. “Have you been taking care of yourself?” She sighed when he didn’t answer. “Steve…”

“I don’t know how…” he drifted off, changing course mid-sentence. “I’m tired, Peg. I’m tired of fighting and running but that’s… that’s all that’s left.” He rolled to his back, throwing his free arm over his head, some of the plaster of the wall of the old boarding house falling on his forehead. He wiped it away with a heavy groan of frustration. “Back then, I had so many plans. After the war…”

“We shan’t be going there, darling.” Her voice left no room for argument.

He was quiet for a moment, the emotion boiling up in him. When he finally spoke, his words were soft. “I miss you. I miss you so, so much.”

The pause was almost too long, and it broke him just a little bit more. “I’m here, Steve. Only a phone call away.”

He sat up, frustrated. “For a little while I had it- I had everything. I had you, I had Buck, I had new friends, and I could… I was…”

“You were almost happy,” she whispered. “We’ve said these words too many times.”

“I don’t…” He took a deep breath and let his head fall to his hand. “I don’t know how to move past it. I can pretend I’m ok, but… but I’m not.” He laughed to himself. “I wouldn’t be calling you if I were ok.”

“I’m here for you, Steve,” she replied sharply. “You call me when you need to call me, when you want to call me. Good or bad. I just wish… I wish there was more good.”

“Me, too.” He cleared his throat, sitting up. “Tell me something good, Peg.”

He thought he could hear a smile in her voice. “Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, eh, Rogers? Well, then, I can tell you that yesterday I came across a very silly video of a sneezing baby Panda and no matter what your mood, I promise you’ll feel better if you watch it.”

He pulled the phone away from his cheek when it vibrated in his hand, the video popping up on his screen. He laughed, despite himself.

“You always know exactly what I need,” he mumbled out loud.

Her chuckle was soft, just like he remembered. “Lucky, I guess.”

“I love you so, so much, Peg.” He turned serious. “I wish… I wish I could see you.”

“I love you, too, my darling.” She replied softly. “And I’m only ever just a phone call away.”

He could feel the familiar pangs of depression swirling, and knew talking longer would do him no good. Not tonight. “I should… I should go.”

“Good night then, my love.” Peggy’s words were so full of love he could scarcely believe it. “Don’t wait too long to call again.”

He didn’t answer her, just nodded to himself. “Good night, Peg.”

He pulled the phone away from his ear, looked at it, and tossed it across the bed. Like his letters to Bucky, sometimes he felt worse after talking with her. He laid back on the bed, the springs creaking under him.

He wasn’t going to sleep tonight, not with the way his gut was roiling and the loss so close to the surface. Her voice was always a double-edged sword. Some nights, it was enough to bring him back to life, to remind him of whatever little purpose he felt he had left.

Sometimes, it was only filled with loss and the could-have-beens and should-have-beens.

Sometimes, he wished Tony had never given her back to him.

~*~ 1988

“Anthony, get this blasted thing out of my face.”

“Come on, Aunt Peg, no one is better at telling me what to do than you are.”

Peggy looked up from where she sat at the table in what was supposed to be a dining room, but was often used as an extended work space when Peggy and Howard had to pull long nights. “Under no circumstances.”

Tony pulled a chair up next to her and held out the tape recorder towards her. “Under all circumstances.” He started ticking it off on his fingers. “When I almost blew up the garage when I was eight. First time I got caught with a girl in my room. First time I got caught with booze in my room. First time I tried to create a jet pack. Who yelled at me? You did.”

Peggy pursed her lips at him and turned in her chair. “Concerned correction.”

He smiled, shrugging. “See? Concern, correction… all things I’m going to need in the future.”

Peggy swiveled back and picked up a file, eyes firmly set on the writing though she wasn’t reading anything. “Things you need now.” She didn’t look up. “Can’t you go badger Jarvis? Edwin has far more practice at humoring you.”

He laughed and smiled sweetly, moving the tape recorder in front of her. “Indulge your Godson in an experiment?”

“I seem to indulge you Starks far more than I’d like.” She leaned back in the chair and tossed the file back on the table. “Tell me about it.”

“Well, you see, I actually need you to tell me…”

~*~ 2014

Tony hadn’t looked at these cartridges in years. He pulled FRIDAY up and loaded her, knowing the program would make do for now. He could make some upgrades, and mourn Jarvis, later.

He ran his fingers over the last few cartridges as FRIDAY was integrated into his systems and found one that he hadn’t thought about in decades. It had been so long that the ink was almost faded completely away.

He didn’t need the label to remind him what was on there. He remembered each story, each lesson, each crisp English word with a sharpness that he liked to pretend didn’t exist. It was the only AI that was as old as Jarvis.

Tony laughed out loud. There was no way Ultron would have come to be if this was the AI he’d chosen to run his life with instead of Jarvis. She never would have allowed it.

She never would have allowed half of his shenanigans. She had been right all those years ago: Jarvis had always indulged him more. Aunt Peggy had no qualms about telling him, and often stopping him, when he was about to do something stupid, whereas Jarvis would give him an exasperated sir and follow behind, helping to clean up the mess.

He could have used some of her guidance so, so many times since he built that armor. Before, too, to be honest. He should have revisited her AI years ago.

He should visit her in the nursing home.

He knew exactly why he didn’t.  

He flipped the cartridge onto his work desk and slid the rest back into their box to be stored. Save the world first, tongue lashing from his Godmother second.

~*~ 2015

The icon showed up on his phone one day without explanation. Two hours later the text from Tony was nearly as mysterious.

Click the icon and you’ll be routed to an update on an old project, kind of like a phone call. Totally sanctioned, of course. I think she’ll get a kick out of it.

When he told her one day in the nursing home, she laughed.

“That boy had me record hours and hours of tape,” Peggy smiled. “I wondered if he ever got around to making it. I would have rather liked to have another one of myself around while I was still running SHIELD.”

“So, you did know,” Steve asked, “that Tony made an AI of you?”

Peggy looked at him, her eyes sharp and disapproving. “Of course, I knew. And while I didn’t ever say it, I was quite insulted that he eventually chose Jarvis over me.” She sat up in her hospital bed, gray hair falling in waves around her face. “Dial it up, let’s see what he got right, shall we?”

~*~ 2016

He was still in his suit and tie, his cheeks puffy with the tears he only let himself shed in the privacy of his hotel room. The church had been hard, but letting the coffin settle into the cold dirt had been harder.

She was gone.

And he was alone.

He picked up his phone, intent on checking his flight for the morning when an icon he scrolled past daily caught his eye.

He rubbed his thumb over the edge of the screen, temped.

He checked his flight, but it was perfunctory and he couldn’t recall, by the time his thumb hit the other icon, if it was still on time or not.

Slowly he lifted the phone to his ear. He knew from the few times he’d called at the nursing home with her that there wouldn’t be a ring tone, and that he had to be the first one to talk. “Hello?”

“Steve?”

Her voice through the line was young and vibrant, the way her remembered it from all those years back: red rimmed lips and bright eyes in just the vibration of sound.

He lost his breath.

“I’m so glad you called,” her voice was happy, bright.

He’d just left her in the ground, and yet…

Yet…

“Peggy.” He barely got the word out, the emotion choking him.

“Are you alright, Steve?”

“No, I…” he couldn’t speak. He didn’t want to continue, but couldn’t tear himself away.

“I’m right here, Steve.” Her voice was warm and welcoming, like honey and home and everything he was missing. “Tell me when you’re ready.”

He was quiet for a moment. He contemplated hanging up and deleting the icon.

Instead, he spoke, his words broken and full of loss. “I miss you.”

Her voice wrapped around him through the phone, “And I miss you, darling. But I’m right here. I’m just a phone call away, any time you like.”

He nearly laughed the way her words warmed him. She was so real- had always been every time he talked to the AI.

But she wasn’t real- just an amalgamation of information Tony had stored for decades.

He held the phone away for a second, contemplating his choices. He wanted to walk away, but the loss was still so raw. He pulled the phone back to his ear.

Just for today.

He told himself he’d pretend just for today.

Over the phone, he could pretend she wasn’t dead. Could pretend she hadn’t aged and lived on without him.

Just for today, just until he could get past this pain, he could pretend.

“I guess,” he cleared his throat, trying to banish the thickness in it from the tears, “I guess I should call more often, then.”

“Absolutely. I will accept nothing less, Captain.”

He smiled and sat on the bed, tears falling from his eyes as he listened to her voice.

It was just for today.  

~*~ End Notes: Saved this to the end to avoid giving this away. Deeply inspired by Hayley Atwell’s episode of Black Mirror, “Be Right Back.” If you haven’t seen it, you should.

#Steggy Fic #Angst #Steggy Bingo Bash #3P's Fic #Steggy #Cannon character death #fulfills the fake dating prompt only if you squint #but I couldn't get the idea out of my head

[ana-swritings]

Kinktober - Day 11

Day 11 of Kinktober

Kink: Video Tapping

Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe

Pairing: Tony Stark x OFC (Lyla)

Words: 1377

T.W.: N/A

Summary: His own personal actress.

Everything was ready. The bed had silk sheets, the temperature of the room was perfect, champagne was on ice, the glasses were chilled to perfection, and the pièce de resistance, the video camera, was all set up. Tony couldn’t wait for Lyla to get home.

They had been talking about it for a while, and it didn’t take much convincing for Lyla to accept doing a sex tape with Tony, even with all her reservations about it. They were always pushing boundaries when it came to sex and this was just another one.

Sure, in the beginning Lyla worried that the tape could be leaked, or someone might hack his server and find it, but then again, this was Tony Stark she was talking about. There was no way anyone could hack Jarvis and Tony would never leak it to the press. They both had an image to maintain, and this definitely would have all the makings of being a PR nightmare if it ever got out.

Tony was waiting for her in their bedroom. He knew she would be nervous, hence why he had the champagne. A little liquid courage, not just for her, but for him too. He knew what he was asking her to do, and he knew the consequences if it ever got out, so he promised her he would delete it after they watched it. Still, they were equal parts nervous and excited for what was coming.

She walked in the room from their walking closet just wearing one of his ties, making Tony scan her body with his eyes, his mouth watering with each curve and freckle. He pressed the record button on the little remote and placed it on the table next to the champagne, before serving them a glass each and walking to her, glasses in hand.

He kissed her softly and handed her her glass, toasting and taking a sip before placing them on the dresser next to the camera. Caressing her skin, he wrapped an arm around her waist while his other hand grabbed the back of her neck and pulled her close to kiss her again, this time more passionately.

His kiss was demanding, forcing his tongue through her lips and battling hers for dominance. Lyla’s hand dropped from his chest to his cock, pressing it over his jeans and massaging it. She could feel just how hard he was and how much it was straining against his clothes, almost as if it were begging her to free it.

She made quick work with the button and zipper, freeing his cock and grabbing it, pumping him a little. Lyla heard him groan against her lips, clearly surprised with her moving so fast. The truth was that she had been turned on all day, thinking about that night. She even considered taking care of matters herself during her lunch break, but decided against it, just in case someone walked in on her.

Tony took his hand from her waist and slowly caressed his way down to her entrance. One flick of his finger and he noticed she was drenched. His cock twitched in her hand and she squeezed it making him moan. He placed his thumb on her clit and played with it, rubbing and massaging her nub, making her beg for release. He picked up speed and soon she was coming, screaming his name.

He smiled and grabbed her hand, pulling his hand away from her clit, and led her towards the bed. Tony stripped his jeans off and sat on the edge of the bed, while Lyla sat on his lap, facing the camera, her legs between his.

They had agreed to start slow, so Lyla began moving back and forth, rubbing her entrance on his cock slowly and moaning at the sensation. Tony had his hands on her waist, helping her move and keeping her balanced at the same time, but he wanted more. Moving one hand down, he slipped two fingers in her, forcing her to open her legs and started pumping in and out as fast as the position allowed.

Lyla leaned back against his chest, one of her hands grabbing her breast and massaging it and pinching her own nipple, making herself moan even more, while the other grabbed on to his arm, not wanting him to stop. She felt the knot tighten before exploding, screaming his name when it did, a wave of pleasure washing over her.

Tony pulled his fingers out and licked them, tasting her and groaning at the thought that soon he was going to be inside of her. He helped her to her feet and, after walking around her, laid her on the bed, her legs hanging on the side of it.

He kneeled in front of her, spreading her legs, and didn’t wait. Eating her pussy was something that Tony enjoyed deeply and tonight would be no exception. Licking her folds, he made quick work thrusting his tongue inside of her. He had one hand on her stomach to keep her still while the other was rubbing her clit as if his own life depended on making her come, Lyla moaning and pleading under him. A few well-placed licks and rubs later, and she was coming with his mouth wrapped around her pussy and drinking what he called the nectar of the Gods.

Tony gave her a couple of minutes to catch her breath before telling her to get on her hands and knees facing the camera. Lyla did as she was told and Tony walked around and kneeled behind her, admiring her swollen pussy from the treatment he had already given her. He couldn’t wait to be inside her and feel her wrapped around his cock.

Lining up with her, he placed the tip of his cock by her entrance and brushed it against it, teasing her for as long as he could. Lyla was a moaning mess, begging him to fuck her and to make her come, fisting the sheets under her hands, her arms collapsing and leaving her on her arms and elbows, as she was losing it.

Tony gave one harsh push forward and heard her gasp as he groaned at the sensation of being finally inside of her. The position was perfect for him to hit her core and making her come as many times as he wanted. He gave her time to adjust and when she started moving her hips, there was no stopping him.

Thrusting into her as hard as he could, picking up speed with each thrust, he knew neither of them would last long. Her moans mixing with his own, the sound of flesh hitting flesh, it was all sending his cock into overdrive and he couldn’t care less. He wanted her, all of her, and he was going to get what he wanted.

Tony felt her clamp around his cock, putting it in a vice-like grip before hearing her scream his name and beg for more. He just kept the rhythm, wanting her to come once more before he did the same. Tony moaned her name and told her to come with him and that he was close. It didn’t take much for Lyla to come again, and a couple more thrusts and Tony was coming inside of her, his cum filling her up to the brim, almost making her pass out from the pleasure.

He fell forward, resting his head against her back, trying to catch his breath and hearing her try to do the same, neither one moving. Tony was the first to move at all, pulling out and watching as his cum slid out from her pussy and down her leg.

Getting up, he walked on shaky legs to the bathroom, where he cleaned himself up and grabbed a towel. Wetting it, he went back to the bedroom and climbed on the bed to where Lyla still was laying, cleaning her up, before tossing the towel aside.

He pulled her up to their pillows and towards his chest, caressing her back to help her relax. Once her breathing evened out, he knew she had fallen asleep and allowed himself to follow her, completely forgetting the camera and that it was still recording.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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#kinktober #kinktober 2021 #kinktober challenge #video tapping #marvel cinematic universe #mcu #tony stark #ofc #iron man #tony stark x ofc #smut #day eleven #day 11 #ana's writings

[fantasticstoryteller]

New Amsterdam Chapter 28

Tony looked at his two helpers. Right now all he had were Natasha and Clint, but they’d be all he needed. And Pepper was out doing something else, so she wasn’t going to barge in with her “logic.”

Natasha poked a small, perfectly manicured finger towards the cat basket on Tony’s desk. Puddles (what a stupid name for a cat; could he change the name? Of course he could change the name; he was Tony Stark, all he had to do was figure out a better name) lazily batted at the finger with a paw. The kittens were, once again, nursing.

Clint looked around at the transformed office. There were scratching posts in all the corners, tucked up against the desk, and one with a basket right under the window. There was a small, working fountain that was just at the right height for an adult cat, with a slightly wider (though shallower) pool under it at the right height for a wandering kitten. The cats themselves were situated in a huge, plush doggie bed.

Clint let out a low whistle. “Damn, Tony. You’ve gone crazy cat lady on us.”

“Pepper should be proud,” muttered Natasha before turning to Tony.

Who was, once again, reminded that their first loyalty was to SHIELD, their second was to Pepper, and he came third. Which was fine. He had no problem with that; SHIELD had taken in the two of them and Pepper was amazing. “I didn’t call you here about the cats.”

Natasha merely quirked a small smile, pulled out her phone (one of his Starkphones, he was pleased to note), and pulled up a text that read, see me about naming kittens.

Tony rolled his eyes. “It was a cover,” he explained.

Clint glances around the room again. “You sure?” he asked.

One of the kittens rolled to the flat portion of the bed and Tony caught it with a massive hand (compared to the kitten) before gently rolling it back to its mother, who groomed it like nothing had happened. “I’m sure,” he said grimly. “When’s the last time either of you saw Spiderman?”

Natasha shrugged. “Couple days ago. He was last seen working with Deadpool.”

Deadpool—who had taken over patrolling the city for the human spider. Deadpool—who was single-handedly reducing the crime rate of the city. Deadpool—who was an insane murderer to everyone who wasn’t Spiderman…or Peter. For some reason the merc was obsessed with the lab assistant.

“Right.” Tony tapped the top of his desk, the computer part, to bring up a hologram of a building. On the side of the building was what looked like a giant spider egg sack. “This popped up about an hour ago.”

“You think that’s him.” The comment was flat. An observation, nothing else.

“Okay, Spiderman spins webs,” said Clint, “but we’ve got no evidence that he spins—whatever the Hell that is.”

Natasha’s eyes snapped from the image to Tony. “You think he’s hurt and spun the cocoon to protect himself.”

Tony snorted. “I think Deadpool is unpredictable.”

Clint leaned against the wall as he looked at the image. “Did you try running back the tape, or whatever you call it, on your computer thing to see what made it?”

“Oh, why didn’t I think of that?” demanded Tony. He sighed. “Computer thing” indeed. Sometimes he wondered if the reason he liked Spiderman so much was that the vigilante had a way with technology that rivaled his own. “The camera that image came from is a special time-lapse camera set up to take pictures of the sky against the city over the course of a day.”

“Why?” asked Clint.

“Not important. The important part is that it takes one picture every two hours, so according to this camera one moment the side of the building was clear, and the next this was there.” Tony gestured to the hologram.

“Okay.” Natasha looked at the image again before focusing on Tony. “What’s the plan?”

“The plan is to get him out of the cocoon and see how badly hurt he is.”

“Uh—I’m no expert,” Clint said looking at Tony, “but if he is badly hurt—won’t forcing him out of the cocoon hurt him more?”

“Nothing Bruce can’t cure,” Tony said firmly. He was certain of it; he’d run all the algorithms to predict every possible scenario.

“And why are we here?” demanded Natasha grimly. “It sounds like you have everything figured out. Why don’t you just suit up, go down there, and break into the cocoon?”

“Three reasons. One; it’s broad daylight and there’s a clear sky. The moment I show myself all suited up, Paparazzi will surround me wherever I go, and if Spiderman is that badly hurt, I don’t want to risk his identity becoming public knowledge. Two; you may not believe it, but there are actually things that need to be done to keep a company like this running.”

“I believe it,” offered Clint. “I just thought Pepper was doing it.”

Natasha wouldn't be distracted. “And three?” she asked.

“Three; the gray kitten keeps rolling out of the basket and someone needs to be here to catch it. Pepper’s busy and I have been forbidden,” a twist of his mouth showed how he felt about that, “to call any of the assistants or people below the ranks of Bruce and Gwen, and they have their own shit to do.” Before Clint could accuse him of being a crazy cat lady again (rude) he quickly pulled up another image. Deadpool, on the roof of the tower, having what appeared to be a cozy lunch with Peter, the lab assistant. “I also,” he added firmly, “don’t like the thought of leaving my Tower undefended while that maniac is taking lunch on the top of it.”

“Could have led with that,” muttered Clint.

Natasha’s eyes tracked to the moving image (it was being shown in real-time, unlike the picture), and Tony had no doubt that she was memorizing every detail of the scene just in case it might be relevant later. “Why do you let Deadpool into your Tower?” she asked.

Tony snorted. “Have you ever tried to keep him out of someplace? Guy takes ‘Go away’ like an engraved invitation.” Which sounded better than admitting to the two of them that he’d basically hired Deadpool to stalk one of his staff.

Natasha was still taking in the scene while Clint laughed. “He seems awfully cozy with that kid.”

Tony’s gut twisted. Peter was still a kid. A kid who had been inflicted with Deadpool for days now. Sure he seemed fine, and Pepper had assured him that the kid actually enjoyed Deadpool’s company (seriously—how?), but still—he was a kid. He should be playing video games, making insane inventions in the company’s big labs—not having to play host to mad mercenary. And that was Tony’s fault. He’d fix it—somehow. He just had to figure out how.

Which wasn’t helped by the fact that Tony hoped Deadpool would find out why Peter didn’t want to get his own lab.

Tony focused on the two in front of him and spread his arms. “There you have it. Will the two of you go investigate, since I’m stuck here for the time being.”

Clint grinned at Tony. “Sure—cat-mom,” he said sweetly.

“We’ll find your spider for you,” Natasha agreed before walking out, Clint close behind.

Tony waited until the two of them, the only two people SHIELD had in the Tower, were long gone before he pulled up his computer program JARVIS. “What did you find out?” he asked the computer.

“Sir, there is no recorded information as to why SHIELD wants Spiderman’s identity,” the program replied. “However, I could only go so deep without alerting them to the intrusion. Should I dig further?”

“No,” said Tony firmly. “I don’t want SHIELD knowing even a hint of what you’re capable of. Anything else on Spiderman?”

“No, sir,” JARVIS replied. “It would appear that the vigilante knows all of my blind spots. He disappears into them, but always at times when it is impossible to check the people around to see who appears. Should I continue to keep an eye out?”

“Please,” said Tony. There was the electronic beep of the program disengaging the communication mode. He didn’t really believe Spiderman was in the cocoon—but it made a good excuse to get the two SHIELD agents out of his Tower so that he could interrogate JARVIS.

Tony had been hired to find out who Spiderman was. He would do it—there was no question of whether or not he would find out the identity, but when. However he was—curious, so to speak about how desperate SHIELD was to have the information. There had to be a reason.

He was going to find out what it was.

#Spider-Man #Deadpool #Spideypool #interlude

[malicerewatchesdoctorwho]

The Wheel In Space - Episode Four

Written by - David Whitaker (Story by Kit Pedler) Director - Tristan de Vere Cole Producer - Peter Bryant

Episode Four

("The problem with the drug is it's only effective against a known enemy." - The Doctor to Gemma about how the Wheel's crew are protected from mind control by a drug.)

Likes

- I like Gemma trying to talk sense into Jarvis quite a bit in this one. She sees his point, but knows he's taking it way too far. She also wants to check to see if there is anything to worry about with these Cybermats and Cybermen.

- I still love Duggan and calling the Cybermat Billy Bug. It's so cute.

- I also love the teamwork shown here and people's jobs. I have no idea why. Possibly because it's so normal in an otherwise abnormal situation and barely anyone knows.

- Jamie thinking he's ruined a recording that can easily be taped over, because he has no idea of what a tape recorder is. Zoe sounding slightly amused at his confusion.

- Gemma admitting that she is worried that things might go bad when Jarvis finds a problem he can't deal with. She's worried about his health. Glad someone is.

- Bill and the way he talks to his workers. Just... Bill calling himself Daddy XD He's looking after the lot of them, he is responsible, he is the Dad. Either that, or he too is kinky :P

Dislikes

- Jarvis, the only one who seems to be sick on this Space Wheel is you.

- Were the two that were given the break Vallance and Laleham because of collecting the Bernalium from the rocket? Or were those two nameless people that take the 45 minute break? I am so confused right now to who those two were.

- Is this how the men usually talk? Because it seems really flat to me and wrong because of it. Usually people not being controlled tend to have inflection in their tone. Shouldn't Bill notice this, if it is different? Bill, you're the Dad here. Pay attention to your kiddies.

- Wow, the shit Zoe went through to get her abilities is awful. Did she volunteer for that, or was it just done to her because she could withstand it and survive?

Awesome

- I am definitely still liking the sound effects in this one. That's good.

- Some of the scenes in this are still there. Like people walking down corridors or Chang when he got the air lock ready for Vallance and Laleham.

Shitty

- It's missing, oh yay. Still, less and less in this category.

- Eh, I wasn't too thrilled in this episode with the CGI animation used in the scene where the Cybermen are packed into the cargo to the Wheel. I get why they did it, because otherwise it would be like 1 still, or they didn't have the stills to do it with and it would just be people moving boxes silently. But still.

In Conclusion

Things are starting to heat up in this Wheel. The Cybermen are now on board the Wheel, people are starting to drop like flies because of it and people are now starting to actually listen to the Doctor.

Jarvis is losing it, but Gemma and Zoe have noticed. I stopped calling Bill Duggan because I really liked him and now he's dead. Everyone is hella busy trying to save the Wheel from oncoming meteors, but the main techie working on the lasers was Bill, who is now dead.

I liked this episode a lot. I am liking this whole story so far. It helps that we get to know little things about the side characters.

Body count - 2. Chang got killed by a Cyberman. Bill zapped himself in the central control room and died while being mind controlled by the Cybermen. RIP Daddy.

#classic doctor who #doctor who #the wheel in space #episode four #epic rewatch #second doctor #jamie mccrimmon #zoe heriot #cybermen

[stevishabitat]

The summer wasn’t meant to be like this. By April, Greene County, in southwestern Missouri, seemed to be past the worst of the pandemic. Intensive-care units that once overflowed had emptied. Vaccinations were rising. Health-care workers who had been fighting the coronavirus for months felt relieved—perhaps even hopeful. Then, in late May, cases started ticking up again. By July, the surge was so pronounced that “it took the wind out of everyone,” Erik Frederick, the chief administrative officer of Mercy Hospital Springfield, told me. “How did we end up back here again?”

The hospital is now busier than at any previous point during the pandemic. In just five weeks, it took in as many COVID-19 patients as it did over five months last year. Ten minutes away, another big hospital, Cox Medical Center South, has been inundated just as quickly. “We only get beds available when someone dies, which happens several times a day,” Terrence Coulter, the critical-care medical director at CoxHealth, told me.

Last week, Katie Towns, the acting director of the Springfield–Greene County Health Department, was concerned that the county’s daily cases were topping 250. On Wednesday, the daily count hit 405. This dramatic surge is the work of the super-contagious Delta variant, which now accounts for 95 percent of Greene County’s new cases, according to Towns. It is spreading easily because people have ditched their masks, crowded into indoor spaces, resumed travel, and resisted vaccinations. Just 40 percent of people in Greene County are fully vaccinated. In some nearby counties, less than 20 percent of people are.

Many experts have argued that, even with Delta, the United States is unlikely to revisit the horrors of last winter. Even now, the country’s hospitalizations are one-seventh as high as they were in mid-January. But national optimism glosses over local reality. For many communities, this year will be worse than last. Springfield’s health-care workers and public-health specialists are experiencing the same ordeals they thought they had left behind. “But it feels worse this time because we’ve seen it before,” Amelia Montgomery, a nurse at CoxHealth, told me. “Walking back into the COVID ICU was demoralizing.”

Those ICUs are also filling with younger patients, in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, including many with no underlying health problems. In part, that’s because elderly people have been more likely to get vaccinated, leaving Delta with a younger pool of vulnerable hosts. While experts are still uncertain if Delta is deadlier than the original coronavirus, every physician and nurse in Missouri whom I spoke with told me that the 30- and 40-something COVID-19 patients they’re now seeing are much sicker than those they saw last year. “That age group did get COVID before, but they didn’t usually end up in the ICU like they are now,” Jonathan Brown, a respiratory therapist at Mercy, told me. Nurses are watching families navigate end-of-life decisions for young people who have no advance directives or other legal documents in place.

Almost every COVID-19 patient in Springfield’s hospitals is unvaccinated, and the dozen or so exceptions are all either elderly or immunocompromised people. The vaccines are working as intended, but the number of people who have refused to get their shots is crushing morale. Vaccines were meant to be the end of the pandemic. If people don’t get them, the actual end will look more like Springfield’s present: a succession of COVID-19 waves that will break unevenly across the country until everyone has either been vaccinated or infected. “You hear post-pandemic a lot,” Frederick said. “We’re clearly not post-pandemic. New York threw a ticker-tape parade for its health-care heroes, and ours are knee-deep in COVID.”

That they are in this position despite the wide availability of vaccines turns difficult days into unbearable ones. As bad as the winter surge was, Springfield’s health-care workers shared a common purpose of serving their community, Steve Edwards, the president and CEO of CoxHealth, told me. But now they’re “putting themselves in harm’s way for people who’ve chosen not to protect themselves,” he said. While there were always ways of preventing COVID-19 infections, Missourians could have almost entirely prevented this surge through vaccination—but didn’t. “My sense of hope is dwindling,” Tracy Hill, a nurse at Mercy, told me. “I’m losing a little bit of faith in mankind. But you can’t just not go to work.”

When Springfield’s hospitals saw the first pandemic wave hitting the coasts, they could steel themselves. This time, with Delta thrashing Missouri fast and first, they haven’t had time to summon sufficient reinforcements. Between them, Mercy and Cox South have recruited about 300 traveling nurses, respiratory therapists, and other specialists, which is still less than they need. The hospitals’ health-care workers have adequate PPE and most are vaccinated. But in the ICUs and in COVID-19 wards, respiratory therapists still must constantly adjust ventilators, entire teams must regularly flip patients onto their belly and back again, and nurses spend long shifts drenched in sweat as they repeatedly don and doff protective gear. In previous phases of the pandemic, both hospitals took in patients from other counties and states. “Now we’re blasting outward,” Coulter said. “We’re already saturating the surrounding hospitals.”

Meanwhile, the hospitals’ own staff members are exhausted beyond telling. After the winter surge, they spent months catching up on record numbers of postponed surgeries and other procedures. Now they’re facing their sharpest COVID-19 surge yet on top of those backlogged patients, many of whom are sicker than usual because their health care had to be deferred. Even with hundreds of new patients with lung cancer, asthma, and other respiratory diseases waiting for care in outpatient settings, Coulter still has to cancel his clinics because “I have to be in the hospital all the time,” he said.

Many health-care workers have had enough. Some who took on extra shifts during past surges can’t bring themselves to do so again. Some have moved to less stressful positions that don’t involve treating COVID-19. Others are holding the line, but only just. “You can’t pour from an empty cup, but with every shift it feels like my co-workers and I are empty,” Montgomery said. “We are still trying to fill each other up and keep going.”

The grueling slog is harder now because it feels so needless, and because many patients don’t realize their mistake until it’s too late. On Tuesday, Hill spoke with an elderly man who had just been admitted and was very sick. “He said, ‘I’m embarrassed that I’m here,’” she told me. “He wanted to talk about the vaccine, and in the back of my mind I’m thinking, You have a very high likelihood of not leaving the hospital.” Other patients remain defiant. “We had someone spit in a nurse’s eye because she told him he had COVID and he didn’t believe her,” Edwards said.

Some health-care workers are starting to resent their patients—an emotion that feels taboo. “You’re just angry,” Coulter said, “and you feel guilty for getting angry, because they’re sick and dying.” Others are indignant on behalf of loved ones who don’t already have access to the vaccines. “I’m a mom of a 1-year-old and a 4-year-old, and the daughter of family members in Zimbabwe and South Africa who can’t get vaccinated yet,” says Matifadza Hlatshwayo Davis, who works at a Veterans Affairs hospital in St. Louis. “I’m frustrated, angry, and sad.”

“I don’t think people get that once you become sick enough to be hospitalized with COVID, the medications and treatments that we have are, quite frankly, not very good,” says Howard Jarvis, the medical director of Cox South’s emergency department. Drugs such as dexamethasone offer only incremental benefits. Monoclonal antibodies are effective only during the disease’s earliest stages. Doctors can give every recommended medication, and patients still have a high chance of dying. The goal should be to stop people from getting sick in the first place.

But Missouri Governor Mike Parson never issued a statewide mask mandate, and the state’s biggest cities—Kansas City, St. Louis, Springfield, and Columbia—ended their local orders in May, after the CDC said that vaccinated people no longer needed to wear masks indoors. In June, Parson signed a law that limits local governments’ ability to enact public-health restrictions. And even before the pandemic, Missouri ranked 41st out of all the states in terms of public-health funding. “We started in a hole and we’re trying to catch up,” Towns, the director of the Springfield–Greene County Health Department, told me.

Her team flattened last year’s curve through testing, contact tracing, and quarantining, but “Delta has just decimated our ability to respond,” Kendra Findley, the department’s administrator for community health and epidemiology, told me. The variant is spreading too quickly for the department to keep up with every new case, and more people are refusing to cooperate with contact tracers than at this time last year. The CDC has sent a “surge team” to help, but it’s just two people: an epidemiologist, who is helping analyze data on Delta’s spread, and a communications person. And like Springfield’s hospitals, the health department was already overwhelmed with work that had been put off for a year. “Suddenly, I feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day,” Findley said.

Early last year, Findley stuck a note on her whiteboard with the number of people who died in the 1918 flu pandemic: 50 million worldwide and 675,000 in the U.S. “It was for perspective: We will not get here. You can manage this,” she told me. “I looked at it the other day and I think we’re going to get there. And I feel like a large segment of the population doesn’t care.”

The 1918 flu pandemic took Missouri by surprise too, says Carolyn Orbann, an anthropologist at the University of Missouri who studies that disaster. While much of the world felt the brunt of the pandemic in October 1918, Missouri had irregular waves with a bigger peak in February 1920. So when COVID-19 hit, Orbann predicted that the state might have a similarly drawn-out experience. Missouri has a widely dispersed population, divided starkly between urban and rural places, and few highways—a recipe for distinct and geographically disparate microcultures. That perhaps explains why new pathogens move erratically through the state, creating unpredictable surges and, in some pockets, a false sense of security. Last year, “many communities may have gone through their lockdown period without registering a single case and wondered, What did we do that for?” Orbann told me.

She also suspects that Missourians in 1918 might have had a “better overhead view of the course of the pandemic in their communities than the average citizen has now.” Back then, the state’s local papers published lists of people who were sick, so even those who didn’t know anyone with the flu could see that folks around them were dying. “It made the pandemic seem more local,” Orbann said. “Now, with fewer hometown newspapers and restrictions on sharing patient information, that kind of knowledge is restricted to people working in health care.”

Montgomery, the CoxHealth nurse, feels that disparity whenever she leaves the hospital. “I work in the ICU, where it’s like a war zone, and I go out in public and everything’s normal,” she said. “You see death and suffering, and then you walk into the grocery store and get resistance. It feels like we’re being ostracized by our community.”

If anything, people in the state have become more entrenched in their beliefs and disbeliefs than they were last year, Davis, the St. Louis–based doctor, told me. They might believe that COVID-19 has been overblown, that young people won’t be harmed, or that the vaccines were developed too quickly to be safe. But above all else, “what I predominantly get is, ‘I don’t want to talk to you about that; let’s move on,’” Davis said.

People take the pandemic seriously when they can see it around them. During past surges in other parts of the U.S., curves flattened once people saw their loved ones falling ill, or once their community became the unwanted focus of national media coverage. The same feedback loop might be starting to occur in Missouri. The major Route 66 Festival has been canceled. More people are making vaccine appointments at both Cox South and Mercy.

In Springfield, the public-health professionals I talked with felt that they had made successful efforts to address barriers to vaccine access, and that vaccine hesitancy was the driving force of low vaccination rates. Improving those rates is now a matter of engendering trust as quickly as possible. Springfield’s firefighters are highly trusted, so the city set up vaccine clinics in local fire stations. Community-health advocates are going door-to-door to talk with their neighbors about vaccines. The Springfield News-Leader is set to publish a full page of photos of well-known Springfieldians who are advocating for vaccination. Several local pastors have agreed to preach about vaccines from their pulpits and set up vaccination events in their churches. One such event, held at James River Church on Monday, vaccinated 156 people. “Once we got down to the group of hesitant people, we’d be happy if we had 20 people show up to a clinic,” says Cora Scott, Springfield’s director of public information and civic engagement. “To have 156 people show up in one church in one day is phenomenal.”

But building trust is slow, and Delta is moving fast. Even if the still-unvaccinated 55 percent of Missourians all got their first shots tomorrow, it would still take a month to administer the second ones, and two weeks more for full immunity to develop. As current trends show, Delta can do a lot in six weeks. Still, “if we can get our vaccination levels to where some of the East Coast states have got to, I’ll feel a lot better going into the fall,” Frederick, Mercy’s chief administrative officer, said. “If we plateau again, my fear is that we will see the twindemic of flu and COVID.”

In the meantime, southwest Missouri is now a cautionary tale of what Delta can do to a largely unvaccinated community that has lowered its guard. None of Missouri’s 114 counties has vaccinated more than 50 percent of its population, and 75 haven’t yet managed more than 30 percent. Many such communities exist around the U.S. “There’s very few secrets about this disease, because the answer is always somewhere else,” Edwards said. “I think we’re a harbinger of what other states can expect.”

#covid 19 #pandemic #missouri

[marvelsfavoriteuncle]

Thanks J. @ask-starrk

Yes, he is a badass 23 year old with a cool ass suit and mad skills. I am surprised, I helped raised such an amazing young man.

//

Tags: @missstrawbs2001 @purpleprincessonfyre @meiramel @gcthvile @rickb-chaos @gaminggirlsstuff @wizzzardofoz @cherrysft @luna-d-marsh @rooster-84 and etc

#marvelsfavuncle #rei stark #appreciation post #grey underwood photo album #jarvis tapes recordings

[elcorhamletlive]

fandom: MCU (Post-Avengers) relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Bruce Banner & Clint Barton & Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov & Tony Stark & Thor, Nick Fury & Avengers Team, Maria Hill & Avengers Team, Nick Fury & Tony Stark tags: POV Outsider, Fluff and Humor, Team Feels, Truth Serum My fic for the Holiday Exchange, for talesofsuspense! Summary: “Look, I’m not thrilled by the prospect of spending my day here either," Nick said, "but there’s no postponing this. We can’t give them a chance to combine stories.”

“Right,” Hill said. “And I’m sure they’ll all be very…cooperative.”

“Hope you didn’t have any dinner plans."

Hill’s sigh mirrored his own so much it was unnerving. “Okay.” She leaned forward and pressed a button on his desk. “Send in the first one.”

Hill flipped through the pages, making the already thin folder appear even smaller. “Not much of a starting point,” she said.

Nick leaned back in his chair. “No,” he agreed. The report from Stark’s A.I. was very brief, and the rest was just what the scavenging team managed to comb through from the quinjet debris. “The press will not be satisfied with that. And there is a key part missing. We deliver this to the Council, they laugh in our faces.”

Hill raised an eyebrow at him. “So our job is to make the folder thicker?”

“Our job is to understand what happened,” he replied. “So we can deliver them something slightly more coherent, and they can feed the reporters whatever they want.”

“And you think this will work?” Hill gestured to the room around them. Across the desk where she was sitting, on a perfect diagonal view from Nick’s eye, there was a single, empty chair. “Seems like a criminal interrogation.”

“Maybe it is,” Nick said. He wasn’t sure if the superficial report was an intentional cover up or just plain sloppiness – both were equally likely when you had people like Romanoff or Stark in the middle of an OP – but at the end of the day, it didn’t matter. There was a hole in the story, and the World Security Council didn’t deal with holes. “Look, I’m not thrilled by the prospect of spending my day here either, but there’s no postponing this. We can’t give them a chance to combine stories.”

“Right,” Hill said. “And I’m sure they’ll all be very… cooperative.”

“Hope you didn’t have any dinner plans,” Nick quipped.

Hill’s sigh mirrored his own so much it was unnerving. “Okay.” She leaned forward and pressed a button on his desk. “Send in the first one.”

-

“There isn’t much to tell,” Romanoff said, and, if Nick wasn’t sure there was something being hidden before, now he did. “I believe JARVIS sent you a detailed account, didn’t he?”

“Depending on what you consider ‘detailed,’” Nick replied. The report had extensively covered the material damage to the quinjet, as well as the information pertaining to AIM’s plan and how it related to it. It was just lacking in the “explanations” department, and it seemed to jump in key time periods between events very hurriedly. Either Stark’s robot was a shit storyteller, or the human factor (specifically the “what the fuck were your team of freaks thinking to let something like this happen, director?” factor) had been strategically avoided.

And there was the matter of the tapes. The security footage recovered from AIM’s quinjet seemed to cover just about every angle of the battle - that is, up until a point right where everything just faded to static before it returned just in time to record the crash.

“This is standard procedure,” he continued as Romanoff’s eyes studied him attentively. “Which, I’d like to stress, is actually a kind way to go about it.” Romanoff quirked an eyebrow at him. “The Avengers initiative isn’t the most popular plan SHIELD has ever come up with, agent. To the world, you might be celebrities, but a lot of people on the inside see you as - how did Banner put it? Oh, yeah - a time-bomb.”

Romanoff smiled. “We’ve made it work so far.”

“Only barely,” Nick said. Romanoff didn’t deny it, nor could she - ever since they had all decided to stay at Stark’s tower, after the battle of New York, Nick had kept his eye close on their performances, be it on the field or with the press, and though the initial animosity seemed to have lessened, they were still a far cry from a synchronized, united team.

The Council had been against them moving in together - there was just too much potential for the proximity to make things go south again - but Nick had argued in favor, and they ultimately decided to allow it. Nick himself knew he was making a risky bet, but at the end of the day, he figured a bunch of anti social people on the edge of normal society had a better chance of making it as a team if they could at least learn how to deal with each other on a friendly basis. And Stark putting the damn A on the tower was as close as he’d ever get to admitting he wanted the company, so Nick didn’t want to deny him it. Hill had a laugh at his expense, then, saying he was getting old and soft.

None of them knew about any of this, of course, and they would never find out. But if Nick Fury made a bet, he wanted to ensure it’d pay off, and crashing a quinjet belonging to one the world’s largest weapons manufacturers in the middle of rural property of the some of the richest people in America was far from a reward, especially while keeping potentially vital bits of information in the dark. That wouldn’t do, and he was determined to get the full picture of what had gone down, whether they liked or not.

“Why don’t you start at the beginning, agent?” Hill suggested.

Romanoff’s eyes blinked astutely before she smiled. “Of course,” she said, much more kindly than Nick would have anticipated. “It started at the fair.”

-

“I wouldn’t normally have come,” Dr. Banner said, straightening his glasses. “The events we get invited to, they're… not my usual scene.”

“Too many reporters?” Nick asked. He knew Banner wasn’t the press’ favorite target - Stark and Rogers, both recipients of huge celebrity fame way before anyone added superhero worship into the mix, were tied up for that position - but he also knew the Avengers in general were the go-to topic for any gossip show running out of material. The fascination with them pendulumed from healthy curiosity to obsessive speculation way too often for Nick’s liking.

“Too many people,” Banner said, with a nervous smile. “The other guy doesn’t like crowds. But AIM said they were interested in having me and Tony speak. ‘The science bros.’” He made air quotes. “Or something. And, well, it was a nice idea to hang on a science exposition. I looked through the flier, and there were some interesting exhibits.”

-

“The whole thing was just a blatant rip off of the Stark Expo. But you know how it goes – imitation, flattery, yadda yadda.” Stark leaned back in his chair and propped his feet up on the desk as if it was his office. “So, we get the invite, and, not going to lie, I was a little curious. Pep said we should make an appearance, smile a little, make niceties – but, well, you know me.”

Nick raised an eyebrow, unimpressed by the display. “We do?”

Stark smiled. “I don’t like to do things halfway. I’m just not built for it.” He shrugged. “So I decided to come, and I thought it would be good if everyone else came too, and that we should try out some of the exhibits together – team bonding, you know? Sometimes it’s nice.”

-

“Stark wanted to show off,” Barton said, taking a sip of his water. “He thought there was no way Hammer’s people could organize something on that scale, and he wanted to drag us all there to see it because he was sure it would end up being a huge mess.” He sighed. “I guess at the end of the day, he wasn’t wrong.”

-

Rogers’ jaw clenched so hard Nick thought he’d pull a muscle. “Everything went normally. We got there, took some pictures, got inside… Nothing out of the ordinary.” He looked at Hill. “But, like I said, this is all in JARVIS’ report.”

“Right,” Nick replied. He tilted his head to get a better look. Rogers was as tense as a wood board, and his effort to not let it show made things a lot worse. “I have to say, Cap, I was a little surprised to not get the usual report coming from you.”

Rogers shifted on the chair. “Tony—” He cleared his throat. “We, uh, we thought JARVIS would make one more quickly.” His eyes turned towards Fury, defiant. “From what I understand, every piece of information the Council needs should be in that file.”

“Need and want are two very different things,” Nick said. Rogers took a deep breath, and Nick couldn’t help but frown. “So, you guys started to mingle, right?” he asked, wanting things to get back on track. “That was when you decided to go to Hammer’s stand?”

“Yes. He… invited us.” He paused. “Well, Tony, at least.”

“Right,” Nick said. “But you also ended up going, right?” Rogers gave a reluctant nod. “Why?”

There was a moment of silence, and Rogers said, “It seemed like it could be an interesting experience.”

-

“Stark dared him to do it,” Thor stated bluntly. “Said Steven was probably too scared to lose to him.” He smiled, amused. Nick was fighting against the urge to underestimate him, but boy, was it hard. “It reminded me of some of my disputes with my brother, when we were both younglings and daring ourselves to attempt to steal Heimdall’s helmet.”

“Well, that’s a nice thing to hear about two adults who are constantly in charge of saving the world,” Nick deadpanned.

Thor looked at him disapprovingly. “They are worthy warriors,” he said. “They just… get a little wrapped up in their blind spots, sometimes.” Nick and Hill stared at him questioningly, and Thor looked away, coughing on his hand. “Uh, well, where was I? Right – the stand.”

-

“It was a silly concept – melt stuff with our new laser project, whoever melts the most wins, woohoo! - but I’ll admit it seemed like it could be fun. It took place in a separate room, though, and they were only letting two people in at once.” Stark straightened his tie, looking away from Nick for the first time since he walked inside the office. “So me and Cap decided to try it out.”

“Why just the two of you?” Hill asked, precise as a whip.

Stark stayed focused on his tie. “Well, I wanted to check out what was so great that Hammer was showing off in public. As for Cap, who knows? You should probably ask him.”

“So it was a spontaneous thing?” Nick pushed. “You didn’t ask him to come along?”

Finally, Stark looked at him. For a second, his expression was downright defiant. Then it all melted away in a shrug. “I might’ve. I wasn’t driving back home, you know? So I had a few drinks, and I was saying a lot of things, and maybe I asked if he wanted to try it out.”

“We heard you dared him,” Nick countered. Normally he wouldn’t put the cards on the table like that, but something in Stark seemed to favor a more direct approach.

Stark’s expression didn’t change. “Again, I might’ve. What’s life without a little challenge, right? But, still, if you want to know why he came in the stand, you should probably ask him.” His eyes darted towards the window, avoiding Nick and Hill. “Maybe he just… needed a distraction. He hates those things.” Nick tilted his head, noticing the strange thoughtfulness in his voice, but as soon as it came it was gone, and Stark was rambling at rapid fire speed again. “Anyway, I suppose this is where I get to the gas, right?”

-

Hill turned a page of the folder. “This is where the truth serum got them, right?”

Barton gave them a lopsided smile. “Stark would blow a fuse if he heard you calling it that,” he said. “But, yeah. Exactly.”

read the rest on ao3!

#capimexchange #stony #stevetony #superhusbands #stony fic #my fics #reblogs are highly appreciated #im very excited to finally post this #probably one of the strangest things i've ever written #but i'm happy i actually managed to finish it

[lovelyirony]

Lyric prompt! "With no-one wearing their real face It's a whiteout of emotion And I've only got my brittle bones to break the fall"

Tony Stark was in the nearly-brand-new luxury car that his father Howard was driving. His mother had put in a tape of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker and Tony was nowhere to be found. 

They think he died in the woods due to a substantial amount of blood found soaked into snow, and the fact that it was on a twisty road with no help coming until the following day, and the temperature was well and truly freezing.

It was snowing. Snow covered tracks. 

They technically never found Tony Stark. He was the cause of multiple conspiracy theories, such as: 

1.) He had died earlier and the Starks had been replacing him until it was impossible to. His double’s name was Arno, which was a name that was very unfortunate and also quite ugly.  

2.) Tony Stark, unable to deal with the pressures of his life, had run away and was currently running a coffee shop in Portland. This was substantiated with a picture of a barista with remarkable similarities, and the article got substantial clout on the internet until the barista, named Robert, had said “please take this down all I’m doing is loving my wife and making coffee I can’t handle much more than that.” 

3.) Tony Stark had run away from his life and the strained relationship with his parents (complete with picture analysis), and wanted to live his life in peace and quiet by himself and maybe have a regular existence while also lying low in the shadows and taking care of corporate criminals. 

The last one didn’t gain much traction. But it was the only one that was correct. 

(The last theory is credited to WARMACHINEROX, all caps and no spaces.) 

Tony Stark became Tony Jarvis, and while people say he looks similar to the late Howard Stark, he laughs it off and says that he was raised in upstate New York with cozy sweaters and a loving aunt and uncle who made the best damn hot chocolate in the state. 

People do not question this because outside of New York City, there really is nothing to learn about unless you’re into that sort of thing. And most people who ask are not. 

Tony Jarvis owns his own coffee shop that also doubles as a record/bookshop, because he is nothing if not resourceful. He always seems to have just the record you were looking for, or the right book to gift to a friend in times of trouble. (Whether or not you have known about it.) 

Kids walk down every Friday to treat themselves to a cookie and a book, sitting quietly and smiling as Tony asks them about class and helps out with math homework. He wears nice cardigans and talks to their parents when they’ve arrived. He likes dogs. And he wears scarves when it gets really cold. 

Of course Tony also tracks down corporate criminals and tends to make a right mess of things in a roundabout way, but he will take the occasional Saturday off to go to the farmers’ market and get a fresh bouquet of flowers, fresh-baked bread, and a nice blend of coffees from the shop down the street. 

It’s fun, really. Amusing at its most dangerous. 

They call him Iron Man. Might be because he’s designed a flying suit that he flies around in and his ability to get through systems is amazing, but more amazing is the fact that no one can get through his. 

Well, the only person who could--Colonel Rhodes--says the system is too complicated and it would take years to understand. 

Rhodes goes by Rhodey and is a great friend of Tony Jarvis. He reads to the children who want it on Friday and likes coffee. He also likes beating Tony at his game and ruining his strategies online. 

But he won’t crack the codes needed, and Tony likes that. 

-

Why did Tony become someone else? The answer is simple: he didn’t trust anyone that was in his life save for Edwin and Ana, and perhaps his mother. (But his mother would never leave someone like Howard. Tony’s not sure she even could.) 

There was underground dealings. Hydra agents that were supposed to be dead landing in profitable positions. And the pesky little fact that Tony didn’t like the way that Obadiah Stane handled things and was evasive and weird and he had a strange look about him. 

This doesn’t necessarily make him a villain. 

At least, until Tony found the files that were ordering an assassination hit on his family. 

And then he faked his death. Or his disappearance. Whatever. 

Now he’s wanted by the US government and SHIELD, the former of which is not important because they have the skillset of a toddler. SHIELD is much more important as they tend to hire people who are skilled, which is unfortunate for Tony. 

They hire people like Natasha Romanov, the Black Widow and the woman who gets front row tickets to see Rihanna. She has that type of energy, which Tony knows and is scared of. 

They have Bruce Banner on retainer, the scientist who is so blisteringly smart that Tony thinks if he ever sees him in real life, he’s gonna have to wear sunglasses. 

They also have Falcon. Enough said. 

Steve Rogers isn’t so much a threat because Tony is pretty sure that he could see “look at that!” and his head would turn in that direction, allowing a clean getaway. But Rogers can have the occasional good strategy. (More than occasional.) 

And Winter Soldier. Bucky Barnes. Oh, he’s cute. And dangerous. Mostly cute though. 

-

“He’s gonna kill you,” Rhodey reminds Tony, pushing a new shipment of books onto the shelves. “He’s gonna kill you and you’re gonna let him because when you like someone you think everything about them is cute and good.” 

“If he finds me,” Tony sniffs. “Of all the bookshops in New York, you think he’s gonna walk into this one?” 

As a matter of fact, yes he is. Bucky Barnes is not really the type of guy to have his life together. He knows how to fix a sink and make the pipes work better, and so he gets a discount on his apartment’s rent. 

But he thinks that he’s all-together while conveniently forgetting that he was trained for combat and not to be a human being and it’s not all that smooth, going from being a machine to being human. 

He forgets he has to buy coffee. 

This culminates in him realizing he has no hobbies outside SHIELD and Steve recommends finding a bookshop. 

So he does. 

The man who is running it is nice. He has glasses, a kind smile, and jams his hands into his cardigan. 

(His brain whispers that he’s doing it to not give himself away. 

Bucky ignores this because regular humans do a lot of things that aren’t like his targets. 

He should not have ignored this. Or maybe he still should. Either way.) 

Tony Jarvis is Tony Jarvis. No one else knows that up until about eight years ago, Tony Jarvis did not exist. 

And he’s looking at Bucky Barnes, who has quite the record for successful targets and also has a nice smile, apparently. 

(He’s wondering when the dental work was done. Honestly, he is.) 

“I’m...new to the area,” Bucky says. “And my friend suggested that I find a bookshop and sit down to read. Any recommendations?” 

“What’s your favorite genre?” Tony asks, as if he doesn’t know that it’s science-fiction and also mysteries. (Peggy liked to talk.) 

“I like mysteries. And science-fiction,” Bucky says. 

“Well then, I have some recs for you,” Tony answers, turning. “Let me get them to you. Also, do you like chocolate chip or oatmeal for cookies? They’re complementary for first visits.” 

“You can tell when someone first visits?” Bucky asks. 

“I have a good memory, and I would’ve remembered someone like you,” Tony says. 

(he’s so glad he’s faced away. his face is firetruck red and it’s not because he’s been blasting the heat ever since the temperatures dropped) 

The shop itself is cozy. Bucky gets sucked into a book about a space criminal. He’s never read anything like it, and he loves the way it’s written. 

He buys it and tucks it under his arm as he hears a soft chime from his phone. 

Meeting about the problem. be there asap

Bucky sighs, chewing the oatmeal cookie that he was given. 

He nearly drops it from his mouth. 

“Where do you get these?” he asks Tony. “These are the best things I’ve ever tasted, and oatmeal is my favorite!” 

“I, um, I made them?” Tony says. “I can forward you the recipe next time you stop by, if you’d like.” 

“Nah, that’s okay,” Bucky says. “They’re always better when someone else makes them, in my opinion. If that’s okay.” 

“Makes sense,” Tony says. “Have a good day!” 

Bucky smiles to himself. (Tony Jarvis has a rather nice smile. It’s kind.) 

- 

Meanwhile, Tony is sagged up against the wall. Bucky Barnes is now close. He will come back because Tony cannot make himself be mean to someone like him. 

But he can’t be caught. Not yet. 

Not when he’s planning on a total take-down. 

#lovelyirony writes #bucky barnes #tony stark #winteriron #i actually really love this #inspired by the writing styles of terry pratchett and neil gaiman honestly #listen: tony just wants 2 help people and hold babies #bucky just wants to live his life

[abundanceofsoph]

SkyFire 2: Chapter 5

Tattoos, Amputations and Art: April 2016

Word count: 2.3k

PART 1

SkyFire 2 MASTERLIST

CW/TW this chapter involves and amputation surgery although there are no explicit details

>Instagram posts

A week before the surgery, Aurora and Harry were curled up in bed.

“Rori? I’ve had an idea.”

“Why does that sentence make me worried,” Rori joked.

“Yeah, ha ha, you’re hilarious,” Harry deadpanned. “Shut up I’m trying to be cute.”

“Oh, sorry dear.” She replied with a mockingly serious tone. “Please proceed.”

Harry rolled his eyes at her. “I was thinking we could go get tattoos together before your surgery next week.”

“Oooh, that sounds like fun.” She grinned over at him from where her head lay on his pillow. “It’s been so long since we got tattooed together. I don’t know what I’d get though, I’m pretty happy with the ones I’ve got.”

Harry peeled back the bedsheet covering her torso, tracing his fingers across the familiar ink spreading out across her rib cage. “Well I was thinking maybe we could your IronMan and Cap one redone on your other wrist since you’ve mentioned a couple of times that you miss it.”

“Oh harry,” she sighed. “That sounds perfect.”

“Just thought that way you’d still be keeping a part of your left hand with you.”

“I love when you get all sentimental,” she said, kissing the tip of his nose. “What are you gonna get?”

Harry blushed. “Thought I might get a palm tree after our trip to St Lucia.”

“It really was beautiful there wasn’t it?”

“Yeah it was,” he agreed, smiling softly as his hand traced the skin of her hip. “Maybe we should go back for our honeymoon.”

“I’d love that.” She lifted herself up on her elbow to look down at him, leaning in to kiss him deeply as his hands moved to grab at her waist, pulling her closer to him. She burst out laughing as she lost her balance and fell on top of him. His laughter echoed hers before their lips reconnected.

xXx

Aurora found herself in a tattoo parlour the following afternoon, her right arm stretched out for the artist sitting in front her. She was smiling softly as she watched him ink in the familiar design that was now nearly unrecognisable on her other wrist. While she’d never thought of replicating the tattoo, she was glad that Harry had suggested it and that he was sitting in the chair next to her, just as he had been the first time she received the tattoo in question. She looked up from her own artwork, to watch Harry’s palm tree come to life above his elbow. He caught her eye, smiling widely back at her. Since his piece was simple black and white line work, his artist finished much sooner that hers and after he was cleaned up and the tattoo wrapped, he scooted over to sit beside her, his hand resting on her elbow, unable to hold her hand due the brace.

“Looks good, love,” he said when the artist finished, quickly cleaning and wrapping the plastic around her wrist.

“Thank you for suggesting I do this,” Aurora whispered, pecking a soft kiss to his lips. “Feels right to have it back again.”

xXx

When they got back to the tower with their new tattoos, Aurora headed downstairs to the workshop while Harry joined Steve and Bucky in the living room where they were watching TV.

“Hey kiddo,” Tony said in greeting when Aurora walked through the glass door. “How’s the new tattoo?”

“Perfect,” Rori smiled, pulling out her phone to show him the photo Harry had taken before it was covered in plastic. “Looks just like the original.”

“Love it,” Tony replied.

“Can I ask a favour dad?”

“Of course, you can kiddo. What’s up?”

“Would it be ok if just Harry comes with me to the hospital next week?” Aurora asked. “I’m ok with you and pops both being there when I get out of surgery, but I think I’d just like Harry to be there before I go in.”

“Of course,” Tony replied. “Whatever you need.”

“Thanks dad.”

xXx

Aurora was sitting up in the hospital bed, a light blanket pulled up over her legs, a sheer hospital gown covering her torso. One of the nurses had come by earlier to help remove the brace and all the taping from her hand and it was now propped up on a pillow in her lap as she waited, scar tissue covering every inch of visible skin, her fingers curled up uncomfortably. She ran the fingers of her right hand along the scars, tracing them from the tips of her fingers, over the back of her hand and up past her wrist before flipping her hand over and touching every inch of her palm. She started crying softly as she mapped the familiar expanse of skin, unsure what it would feel like to look down and see nothing when she woke up again later that day.

“It’s not too late to change your mind,” Harry whispered, wiping her tears away with the pads of his thumbs as he sat next to her on the edge of the bed.

She shook her head, looking up to meet his eyes. “This is the right thing to do, just confronting to think I won’t have a hand in a few hours.”

“You are so brave,” Harry told her. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too Harry,” she replied. “Wouldn’t have made it this far without you.” He kissed her cheek, reaching out and taking hold her right hand in his. She watched him lace their fingers together, the light catching on her engagement ring. She knew that she would have to take it off shortly before she went into the OR, but she left it on for now. “You know,” she murmured, staring at the ring. “I’d kind of figured that by the time we got to the wedding this would be on my left hand where it belongs.”

Harry squeezed her hand, placing kisses to her temple. “Doesn’t matter which hand it’s on,” he replied. “Still means the same thing.”

“I’m scared Harry,” Aurora admitted, her eyes still firmly glued to the ring.

He placed his thumb and forefinger on her chin, lifting her head until she was looking at him. “I’m not going to lie and say that everything will be easy, but it will be ok. You’ve already survived the worst of it, and you are so strong. I’m gonna be right here waiting for you when you wake up.”

She kissed him deeply, his hand not holding hers coming to rest on her cheek, his thumb moving back and forth across her cheekbone as they both deepened the kiss. They both pulled apart when a nurse entered the room and cleared her throat. She blushed deeply when they both looked over at her, slightly out of breath. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said, “but we’re ready for you now Miss Stark.”

“See you soon, love,” Harry murmured. He kissed her again quickly before standing up and stepping back to allow the nurse to wheel Aurora from the room. Aurora slipped the ring from her finger and placed it in his palm.

“Keep this safe for me,” she told him.

“I love you, Aurora,” Harry said as she neared the door.

“Love you too, H” she replied.

xXx

A little over a week after the operation, Aurora made her way to the elevator. She was wearing a pair of dark grey leggings and one of Harry’s knitted sweaters, the oversized garment hanging off her shoulders and falling midway down her thighs. The right sleeve fell down to almost cover the tips of her fingers while the left sleeve swung freely at the end, her arm ending halfway along her forearm. The penthouse was empty as she crossed the living room, stepping into the elevator and telling JARVIS which floor she needed. The Avengers had all left the previous day on a mission, neither Steve nor Tony wanting to leave her, but both agreed to go once she reminded them that Harry would be there with her the entire time.

She made her way into the recording studio, smiling softly as she watched Harry working away with his new team. His long curls were swept back from his face by a pair of sunglasses perched on the top of his head, a loud Hawaiian shirt hanging off his shoulder, unbuttoned and swinging loosely as he sang. Aurora always loved watching Harry sing, relishing the way his dimples popped in his cheeks as he smiled, and the creases by his eyes crinkling. Happiness radiated off him when he was in the studio and Rori loved basking in it. No one had noticed her entrance and she lent against the door frame, soaking in the sounds of the unfamiliar song. Her lips quirked up and she bit back a laugh as she listened to the lyrics.

“Said I’m having your baby,” Harry sang. “It’s none of your business.”

“I think if I was having your baby it would be your business,” Aurora joked when the song petered out a few moments later.

Harry’s eyes snapped up to where she stood, he face lighting up. “I’d like to hope so,” he laughed, gesturing for her to join him. She crossed the room coming to a stop in front of him, but let out a surprised squeal when he reached out, grabbing her by the hips and pulling her onto his lap.

“Rude,” she laughed.

“Missed you,” he murmured into her ear before kissing her cheek. “You getting lonely upstairs with everyone gone.”

“A little,” Rori admitted. “But I also need your help. I’ve been trying to tie my hair up for the last half an hour, but I can’t get it up one handed.”

“Ponytail, Braid or Bun?” he asked, taking the hair tie from her hand as she spun around to face away from him.

“Whatever’s easiest,” Aurora replied. “Thinking I might try painting this afternoon and I just don’t want to get paint in it.”

Harry placed a kiss on her shoulder, trying to hide his excitement that she was finally feeling ready to venture back into her and Steve’s studio. He started combing his fingers through her hair before beginning to braid it down the centre of her head and down the back of her neck. “All done,” he declared a few minutes later once he snapped the hair tie into place.

“Thanks baby,” she smiled, leaning back against his chest when his arms wrapped around her waist.

“You’re welcome,” he said, kissing her shoulder again. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” Rori replied. “Feeling less off balanced today and the stitches aren’t itching anymore.”

“Good.” He continued kissing across her shoulder, his chin coming to rest in the crook of her neck. “Promise you’ll tell me if it’s not, yeah?”

“Promise,” she replied, her right hand resting over his own. “Now sing for me.”

He laughed, but quickly fell back into the swing of working. She stayed there for a while  listening as they worked, occasionally offering up a suggestion here and there before leaving with a kiss to Harry’s forehead after an hour or so.

She slowly made her way out into the hallway, padding over the carpet barefoot until she reached the door to the art studio she shared with her Pops and pushed open the door. The sun was streaming through the window and she took a moment to admire the latest sketches that Steve had been working on since she’d last been down here. Before the shooting, barely a day went by that she hadn’t come down here, but she hadn’t step foot inside since the disastrous day in January.

She saw the half started canvas still on its easel over in the corner, drawing her in as if in challenge. It felt as though it was mocking her, a physical reminder of one of her lowest moments, an acknowledgment of her inability to do what she loved. She stood up straighter, setting her shoulders in determination before dragging the easel out to the middle of the room along with a stool to place her palette on and requesting JARVIS play one of her favourite playlists.

It was much later in the afternoon when Harry excused himself from the others and headed down the hall to check in on Aurora. Without realising it, he mirrored her earlier position, leaning against the door frame, smiling warmly as he watched the way her brow furrowed, and she held a paintbrush in her mouth while she splashed paint across the canvas with another. Knowing how much it had pained her to be without her art for months, he was over the moon to finally see her back in her element. Music was playing softly through the speakers in the ceiling, filling the studio with a peaceful atmosphere. Harry bit back a laugh as they current song ended, and the start of End of the Day played. He lost his battle over his laughter when Aurora started dancing on the spot while she painted, spinning around to face him with a soft blush on her cheeks.

“How long have you been standing there?” she asked, putting down her brushes when he walked across the room to kiss her.

“Long enough to know you’ve found your groove again.” He looked over her shoulder at the canvas, a sprawling countryside on a spring day filling the scene.

“You like it?” she asked, smiling softly.

Harry hummed in response as he continued taking in the details of the painting. “Getting late though,” he pointed out, looking towards the setting sun outside. “We were thinking of getting Pizza.”

“Why don’t you invite everyone upstairs for a movie night?” Rori asked, already walking over to the sink in the corner to clean her brushes out.

“I’ll go ask,” Harry said. “Meet you up there?”

“See you in a few,” she agreed.

NEXT CHAPTER

OR CONTINUE READING ON AO3

#skyfire #skyfire fic #aurora stark #dad!tony #iron dad #step dad steve rogers #stony #stony fic #boyfriend harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #superfamily #harry styles #tony stark

[fablesrose]

Of Kings and Shadows XVII

Description: Y/n, a girl who seems to have found her calling. Being a SHIELD agent is like a dream come true. With a friendship starting to form with the Avengers, she’s the Queen of the world! What could go wrong?

Pairings: Avengers x reader, Loki x reader (eventually)

Notes: On Wattpad –> Here

Masterlist

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Say what now?" Tony rocked back and forth on his heels to his toes, growing impatient.

Fury slid the file towards him on his desk, "I need you to look for any weak spots on these machines so we can take them down easily on your next mission."

Tony visibly clenched and released his fists, trying to stay calm, "And what happened to looking for Y/n?"

Fury took a deep breath, knowing this was going to get messy, "I'm sorry, but it's been too long with no leads. That can't be our main focus anymore, we have more pressing matters to attend to."

"So you're just going to give up on her?!"

"No, Tony, but we have to accept that we might not find her. We have missions that we need executing and oh I don't know, taking down Hydra!"

Tony's face started to turn red, "All these people!" He pointed towards where Shield agents were working just down the hall, "are just expendable to you aren't they!? All just little pawns ready to be sacrificed for your little game!"

Fury slammed his hands on the desk, "I cared about her too Tony!" The room became eerily quiet, the only sound was heavy breathing. "She was a good agent, I just can't put all of my resources into finding her anymore."

Tony rubbed his face in his hand while nodding his head in understanding. He took a couple of steps towards the desk and slid the file into his hand. He said in a whisper, "I'll look this over, get it back to you soon as I can..." He turned back towards the door, head slightly bowed.

"Tony."

"Yes?" He didn't turn around, only tilting his head towards the director.

Fury opened a drawer, "It-- It's been checked for sensitive Shield information, so if you want to keep it for her..." He gently placed a phone on the desk, making sure to give Tony his space.

Tony turned back around slowly, eyes flickering from the phone to Fury who took a step back. He picked it up gently and gave it a quick once over. The case was worn, well used. There was a crack or two in the glass screen protector, but the phone itself was in good condition. He sucked his teeth for a moment before patting his hand and pointing at Fury with the phone. He didn't say anything, but neither of them needed to. He exited the office and closed the door behind him.

Once Fury was alone he sat heavily in his chair. He didn't know what he was going to do with them. They were already hard to keep under wraps but trying to get them to work now was going to be a nightmare. Fury wasn't sure if he should be glad that he got Tony done early on. He was sure the most vocal, but the others can be challenging in entirely worse and different ways. He sighed and leaned back in his chair, closing his eye, it was going to be a hard couple of weeks and Fury needed all the rest he could get.

The file stared at Tony, the metal shavings and oil residue leaving stains around the corners. He really should be working on it, but instead, the lovingly used smartphone in his hand was occupying his mind. He didn't know exactly what to do, even if he acted like it. If there was one thing he did know, however, it was technology. Tony made sure he had Jarvis back up all the information, the notes, the pictures, the music that she lived by.

Tony tried multiple times to open the file to review it, but he found himself picking up the smartphone again and again. He was puzzled at first as he was sure she had a passcode to keep us, snoopy people, out, but she didn't have one when Fury passed it over. Not that it would make much of a difference since both Tony and Natasha were skilled at hacking with Clint having somewhat of a hand for it. Tony wasn't sure what Loki's abilities were, but he wouldn't put it past him. The rest of the team didn't have the technical ability or desire to pry... on Y/n at least. He came to the conclusion that since Shield looked through it they took the passcode off.

He kept flipping through somewhat familiar pictures and smiling at the old songs.

He wasn't the only one who wasn't moving on from the loss.

Natasha kept hacking into Shield and into the compound. She found all the security tapes with Y/n on them. Both Tony and Fury knew about it, but once they saw what she was looking at they let her be. She kept watching the footage, sometimes freezing the frame to see her smiling face, other times watching some of the happy moments together over and over again. Tony sometimes joined her. Not in person, but he would tap into her hacking session and watch what memories she would dig up. She was rarely alone while watching the recordings. Clint would join her. They sat in silence, hearts aching in tune, what would have happened if they had never dragged her into their missions? What if they were never friends in the first place? Fortunately, or maybe less so, they knew they couldn't turn back time, and loss was not new to them. With how long she had been gone, all they could do was hope she was dead, or if she wasn't, that she hasn't been suffering.

Thor was having a hard time wrapping his head around how to cope. He knew she was gone, but his concept of loss seemed different than the others. Maybe it was because he was a god and he perceived time differently. Maybe he came to peace with it more easily, honor, bravery, a true warrior, all that jazz. Or maybe he just had more time and experience to learn to hide it better. Despite his jovial exterior, most seemed to forget that he was from outside of human understanding.

Bruce buried himself in his work. He didn't want to talk to anyone, and if he did talk about Y/n everyone noticed an unnatural color rising up his neck. She was always kind to him, even if they were on a different page most of the time. He would have to leave the compound more often then he used to, get some fresh air. Tony didn't comment or complain when Bruce requested a jet to take him to a deserted wasteland. Sometimes it's best to just let it out and heaven knows the consequences to him bottling up the tension.

Steve never claimed to be close to her. He never claimed to be coping either. He hid behind his veteran demeanor, his captain mask. Steve tried to fall into his formal numbness, going to his go-to, "she was a good soldier." That was, at least, until Tony snarled at him, "We are not soldiers!"

Loki made sure to tread carefully. He knew first hand how much she meant to the rest of them and the means they would go to defend her. He mellowed down the snark and even most of his presence for a while. He was well aware of how much he grated on the others. The rest of the team didn't look any closer at his behavior and just let him be. Loki wasn't sure if he was grateful for that or not.

They all hit a little harder, ran a little faster, and worked a little longer. Caution was thrown to the wind, while also being increased ten-fold. Every camera was double, triple checked to be operational. Battles started to look more bloody, more messy, but oh so more satisfying. Backs were covered like an ironclad, but their own defenses had holes.

They knew it couldn't last forever, wouldn't last forever. They had to move on. This wasn't the first time they had lost someone, far from it. They also knew it was going to be far from the last time. For now, they took pleasure in beating, bruising, breaking, cutting, killing, bleeding. They used their anger for a little chaotic good.

The faint click and sliding sound of the shop door opening caused Tony to raise his head. He finally opened the file and started to review it, but the phone was sitting delicately under his fingertips on the bench.

Loki walked in, his footsteps light, but his shoulders not so much. The tension grew in the room, both men could feel it. Both knew that something better be apocalyptic for Loki to disturb Tony. And that was usually the only time Loki even tried.

"What do you want?" Tony was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, especially when he noticed the submissive body language that was so much different than when he usually saw him, but after the meeting with Fury and the stirred emotions of looking through the phone, Loki was standing on thin ice.

Loki started picking at his palm, "I- I heard Fury allowed you to possess Y/n's phone."

"Yes?" There was no reason for Tony to be angry, yet, but everything was grating on his nerves anyway.

Loki could hear the strain in Tony's voice and how he was trying to hold back. He tried to not be bothersome, but there was nothing Loki could do better. His eyes found their way to the phone just under Tony's fingers and he gestured a hand towards it, "May I?"

"Why do you care?! Are you going to break it like you almost broke her, huh?!" Tony exploded, his voice echoed around the machinery making his loud voice sound even louder. Tony wasn't sure why he brought it up. They had all gotten past it. No one really held a grudge from it anymore. Tony tried to reel himself in, but it wasn't working very well. He felt his throat clench and his eyes started to sting. He didn't say anything else for fear of what would slip out.

Tony didn't notice that Loki was slouching slightly until he straightened himself. His submissive demeanor faded, but he didn't turn aggressive, yet. "Y/n defended me when she had the power to leave me be and get injured, maybe die. I had yet to repay that debt. She was kind to me despite what I did to her. I understand your emotional state is tender at the moment. My apologies, I will take my leave." He silently turned around and began to head for the door.

Tony swallowed both his emotions and his pride, "No, wait, Loki."

Loki turned to the side so he could converse with Tony.

"I... I'm sorry," he nodded his head to himself, not sure what else to say. He tapped the phone screen gently with one of his fingers, thinking. After a couple of seconds, he picked it up from off the table, he held it out to Loki, "Here, take it."

Loki hesitated for a moment, that soft body language returned when he carefully took the phone from Tony's hand. He looked it over slowly, holding it with both hands. He turned the phone on and noticed there was no password. His eyes flashed with a bit of confusion, but then softened when he was able to see what apps she had. Loki's finger hovered above the music app when he came to it. He looked back up at Tony who was watching him curiously, "She liked her music, did she not?"

Tony let out a huff, "Yeah, I guess she did."

Loki nodded distractedly. He didn't say anything else before exiting the room just as quietly as he entered.

Tony puffed his cheeks and slowly let out a big breath while releasing the tension in his body. He looked at the clean rectangle on the table where the phone once rested. He sighed and attempted to focus on the file that he got from Fury but with Loki's visit his mind returned to Y/n.

"Jarvis, double your efforts on searching for Y/n. I want you looking at everything, especially any Hydra communication we have access to. We have to pick up Shield's slack."

"Of course sir."

TAG LIST: 

#loki x reader #loki fanfic #loki #avengers x reader #avengersfanfiction #Avengers #tony stark #natasharomanoff #clint barton #bruce banner #thor #Steve Rogers #Nick Fury #grief #Of Kings and Shadows #chapter 17

[3pirouette]

#12 Peggy Jarvis for the WIP meme

WIP Title Game OH MY GOSH GUYS 

So this is a NOT at ALL well fleshed out idea. No real plot, maybe about 5 lines of dialogue. 

The idea is that Peggy was in Tony’s life, and that at some point when he was making his AIs, Tony tried to get Peggy to do voice recordings for him and there’s either tapes laying around that Steve finds or like, a full blown Peggy AI that Steve stumbles on. 

It was super angsty, though, so I just typed up the few lines of dialogue that were living in my head and shelved it. at least for now. 

#penny4alittlehope

[builder051]

Whumptober day #24: Secret Injury

Tony finishes wrapping the ace bandage around his broken ribs, then breathes in and out a few times experimentally.  It hurts.  A lot.  Maybe too much.  There has to be something he can use to provide a little more stability.  His suit’s snug, but not enough to be supportive.  

“I recommend you avoid going into combat with this injury, sir,” Jarvis says.  The holographic screen above the lab bench flickers from a weather map to a 3-D projection of Tony’s ribcage, including a model of how yesterday’s crash into the hard corner of a concrete overpass had smashed a weak spot in the armor and, in turn, his body.  

Needless to say, the suit had been fixed.  His ribs, on the other hand, may need another few days.  

“I thought I had you on mute,” Tony mutters.  He spots a roll of duct tape on one of his tool shelves, lamenting the fact that he’s too sore to slide over the top of the lab bench on his way to grab it.  He walks slowly around the black-topped table, then spins the prize around his wrist a few times before tearing off a long strip and sticking it diagonally across his bandages.

It only takes a few minutes to give himself what feels like half a semi-flexible chestplate.  It makes side bends difficult, as well as bending over forwards and backwards, but it does the job of supporting his injury.  

“See, Jarv, duct tape does fix everything,” Tony says with a slight groan as he steps onto the pedestal in the center of the lab.  He snaps his fingers, and the bots begin to dress him.  

“I again caution you.  Even mild physical activity can worsen fractures of the ribs--”

“Aaaaand, mute.”  Tony opens the panel in the wrist plate he’s just put on and checks the watch function.  “Fifteen seconds.  It’s a new record.”

Dumm-E makes a squeaking sound that could be a laugh.

“See, one of you knows what’s funny and what’s not.”  Tony puts down his face plate.  “Since this is a team effort, I don’t see it taking longer than a couple hours.  When I get back, I want a hot bath and a jar of coconut oil waiting.  I’m not stripping the edges off my skin, no way.”  

A light in the corner of the holographic screen flashes, signaling that someone’s at the door.  A second, smaller one flashes above it, showing Jarvis has something to say.

“Fine, what is it?  Be quick.”  Tony powers up his boots and hovers a few feet off the ground.

“Good luck, sir,” says the AI.  “I do always trust your judgement.”

“Thanks,” Tony replies. “Seeing as I built you and all.”

“Very true, sir.”

“Alright.  See ya.  Coconut oil.  Don’t forget.”

“Yes, sir,” says Jarvis.  “After you save the world.”

#whumptober 2019 #whumptober #Iron Man #secret injury #day 24 #tony stark #jarvis #broken ribs #hurt comfort #whump #injury #marvel #MCU #fanfiction #fanfic

[spideyxchelle]

live long enough to see yourself become the villain

“EDITH, lights on.”

The fluorescents statically winked to life. Peter pulled the red and black mask free from his face, and tossed it on the cluttered metal work table jammed in the corner of the room. He rubbed his weary eyes and padded across the cold, concrete floor to his narrow bed. The sheets needed a washing, but he hardly cared as he collapsed on the bed with a thud.

He stared at his ceiling and began to quietly catalogue his night. Patrol was harder to do effectively in shadows. Peter reached for the handle of his half-empty mini-fridge that partly functioned as his bedside table and grabbed his last soda. He cracked it open and took two long gulps. It was more frosty than flavor, but, after the night he braved, the fresh cold was welcome.  

“EDITH,” Peter rasped, “Give me a status report on subjects Jarvis, Springtime and Capital M.”

The AI materialized a data screen on the wall opposite his bed. EDITH notified him, “Compiling personnel reports on subjects Jarvis, Springtime and Capital M.”

Peter lumbered to a sitting position and took another drink of his too cold soda, as he anxiously waited for his daily reports.

Finally, the data screen displayed blurry security footage. It looked to be from Rocky’s Pizza, just three blocks from the library he used to frequent with his friends. And, if he strained to listen, Peter could just make out the taped conversation .  

“Two slices of cheese with extra cheese, please,” Ned said, yanking some cash from his Velcro-wallet.

The boy behind the counter sniffed, “Is that all?”

“Uh, and two cokes. One for me and--,” Ned turned to look at someone, but there was no one there. His friend shook his head, “Just the one coke. One coke.”

Peter tried to blink away his exhaustion. “EDITH?”

The AI clicked, “Yes, Peter?”

“Is that the only update on Jarvis?”

“Subject Jarvis, alias Edward Leeds, is currently at home building LEGOs. Would you like to see?”

Peter rested his soda on the top of the mini-fridge. “No. No, uh, that’s okay.”

The image of lonely Ned in the pizzeria faded. Peter felt something in his chest pang.

EDITH continued to populate the next search.

Next, the screen showed a grainy, cellphone video of May on the steps of City Hall. She was shouting something he could barely discern in a blue and red megaphone. She was surrounded by other protestors, equally sporting some variation of blue and red.

The person recording was not a professional. The camera violently shook and he only saw May in the brief moments the camera was steady enough to focus on her.

“Yo, dude,” the camera-man laughed, “that’s that weird Spider-Guy’s Aunt.”

A second voice chortled, “Nah, no way.”

“No, trust me. Fuck what is her name. It’s something—Something Parker. Trust me,” the camera-man insisted.

Peter muted the stream, “EDITH. Do we not have any clearer video?”

“I’m sorry, Peter. There were no official reporters at today’s demonstration.”

He felt his throat restrict with unwanted tightness. The video continued to play on, muted, and Peter sat quietly on his bed, scrutinizing all of the footage. Finally, the spotty camera-man managed to stand still and Peter hastily instructed, “Pause that.”

EDITH did as she was instructed. The shaky video froze and, even in the pixilated state of the stream, Peter could  detect the telltale line that only formed between his Aunt’s eyes when she was viciously angry. She did not look upset anymore, like she had the day she held her press conference begging him to come home. She knew he didn’t kill Mysterio, she had said. She was going to compile a team of lawyers to prove her nephew’s innocence. But please, she had pleaded, May just wanted Peter to come home.

He didn’t. And she had moved beyond the hurt and defeat and worry. Now, she was angry. The little line between her eyes was not the only clue. She was being reckless with her safety in every, exhaustive effort to bring him home.

Sometimes, when he was at his weakest, he wanted swing by their crappy, post-Blip apartment and tell her to stop the demonstrations, to stop fighting for him. She was putting herself in danger by being his loudest and strongest advocate. He would not lose her to his enemies.

He never called. It was a gamble, but he was certain May was much safer without him in the picture.

Peter ripped his eyes away from the frozen image of his aunt with the megaphone locked in her grip. “EDITH, status report on Capital M.”

The image of May faded and, in her place, the most clear recording yet occupied the screen. MJ was bent over one of the lab tables at the freshly rebuilt compound upstate. She was scratching more notes on the same map he had seen her slave over for weeks. “God damn it, Peter,” she huffed. She lifted her head from her diligent work and scowled at the security camera. “Why are you making it so difficult to find you?”  

He felt his heart arrest. The last nine weeks, every night—after his patrol, when he still tried to protect his neighborhood, when he had EDITH compile her status reports on his loved ones— Michelle spoke directly to him. It did not matter if she was upstate at the new Avengers compound. Or if she was sitting in her bedroom in Manhattan and talking to the blinking camera of her at-home computer. Or if she was looking into the camera on her phone. Every night she left a message for him.

She knew him, she said a few weeks into her routine, and, if she was right, which she knew she was, the Peter Parker she knew would absolutely use his billion-dollar Stark tech to check-in on everyone. To see if they were safe. To see if they were alright. His eyes had glistened over with tears that night.

She frowned and crossed out another row of blocks on her map of New York City. “Honestly, you might be the worst boyfriend in the entire world.” Peter mistily laughed. “Most girls would think their boyfriends were avoiding them if they kept this disappearing act up for as long as you have.” He inched forward to the edge of his bed and pressed his hand against the transparent image of her face. The pads of his fingers connected with the solid structure of the wall and not the soft warmth of her cheek.  

Michelle rubbed her eyes, willing whatever emotion was welling up behind them away, and he, crippled by his anguish, rested his forehead against the wall. The video did not stop. The recording of her continued to talk directly to him. “I know you think you’re protecting us, protecting me, but this isn’t fair, Peter. I miss you. I miss you so much.” Her voice hitched, “It isn’t fair. I only just got you. Come home. Please.”

He knew she could not hear him. He knew she was not talking to him now. He knew this was a recording from hours earlier and, likely, the real MJ was asleep in her bed. But he could not help but reply, “I miss you, too.”

Peter lifted his head from the wall and looked into the holographic echoes of her eyes. “When I eventually find you, Peter Parker, you are in so much trouble. You have no idea.”

Her face faded. He grasped for the dimming image. She was gone.

EDITH indicated, “Recording ended.” Peter sucked in a harsh breath. “Do you need to see anything else?”

“No,” Peter scraped, shaking his head. “Thank you, EDITH.”

He succumbed to the heavy weight of his body and fell back into the arms of his bed. Peter curled in on himself and stared at the wall where the images of the people he loved once screened. He stared at that wall for quite some time, until sleep mercifully claimed him and dragged him headfirst into welcome dreaming where he was with them, again.

#ficlet #ffh spoilers #spideychelle #angst