#this is jokes in all seriousness they should kill Porter to hell

[swordsandstitches]

Somebody get Telemaine, Gorgug, and Porter in a room together that MCAT would get signed

#this is jokes in all seriousness they should kill Porter to hell #dimension 20 #fantasy high #fhjy #then he’s the paladin multiclass advisor. fuck off actually.

[3wisellamas]

Just Rewatched Books 1 and 2, here’s a bunch of observations and wild, probably completely false theories!

Because dangit, this is how I get my kicks.

-In The Unfinished Car, it was One who Tulip was ultimately speaking to towards the end.  It was One who expressed guilt over allowing the car to happen.  It was One who she finally convinced to let it go as it was, stop trying to fix everything, and even break the car again to restore the turtle peoples’ way of life.  And, it was ONE, not One-One, who jumped into her arms in the end, and made these particular faces, meaning he probably wasn’t entirely emotionless and robotic as conductor:

(apologies for TV pics on these.  ^^; )

-Also, while One-One normally talks in his two different voices, and even converses/riffs on himself, in that scene before his voices combined back into One’s they were literally finishing each other’s sentences -- syncing up again!  Does this mean that One-One is actually just...out of sync, rather than completely broken? 

-I don’t think Amelia was going to the roof of her old university after Alrick’s death to jump.  In The Past Car, she’s clearly on the ground while the roof...flattens?  She literally watches it disappear right in front of her!  And the train tracks are already in place when she gets up there.  So, it might have been less that the train found her at her lowest point, but that she found the train -- and went right up to investigate it!

-And here��s another juicy Amelia theory:  Throughout Book 1, One-One has a tendency to use the words “gone forever”.  He uses it while telling Tulip what will happen when her number reaches zero (making her think she’ll die, when really he just means leave the train forever), then he uses it a second time while in Amelia’s tape, describing “Amelia” (actually Alrick, remember we were led to believe she was Alrick at first), who IS dead.  And the final usage is after Tulip has her exit restored, and One-One says again that she’ll be “gone forever”, but, in this case, he clarifies that that’s a GOOD thing.  So, what if, when One learned about Alrick from Young!Amelia, he used that same phrase, telling her he was “gone forever” -- One meant this as a comfort, maybe even a misguided attempt to convince her she should be happy he’s gone (like, it was One’s way of saying “He’s no longer in pain”), but to Amelia, it’s just reminding her of why she’s on the train in the first place.  Thus prompting...you know.

-Okay, last observation about that damn Amelia tape:  While in there, The Cat mentions that the memories are recorded as the passenger stores them, meaning there may be biases / misremembering / other things that not only change the memories to trap passengers in them, but also change what VIEWERS would see as well -- like how Amelia kept the memory of her wandering the streets after her husband’s death “at a distance”, which prevented Tulip from getting close.  So...what if more elements of Amelia’s tape weren’t 100% accurate, due to misremembering things, convincing herself certain things were true when they weren’t, maybe even her age or the tape itself degrading over time, etc?  Maybe even Alrick wasn’t remembered 100% accurately, with her grief clouding her memories and making him seem like a different, more ideal person?  (I’m bringing this up because MAN did I have a realization later on...)

-After Atticus was turned into a Ghom, the first thing he did was attack Tulip, but he hesitated, allowing her to escape -- as if he remembered being her friend.  And, then, when he was freed from the tube, right next to both Tulip, a passenger whose nice tasty life he could suck out, and the Steward, a robot, the first thing he did was attack the Steward.  Just as he was trying to do before getting Ghom-ed!  So, I think it’s safe to say, that, if the Ghoms really are transformed denizens, they still possess some memory of who they used to be and what they were doing before they were transformed.  So...what does it say, then, that every non-Atticus Ghom we’ve seen has been trying to kill passengers (and NOT hesitate and let them go)?

-Tape Car time.  So, if that’s the only car with its universe projected on the OUTSIDE, then that not only means the train, the wasteland, etc are all fake and part of the car’s projection, but...also the Engine, the control console, and One(-One)?  Does this mean he was a fake conductor, too?

-And then, to make this even more of a mind screw...the Mirror World is apparently NOT a creation of the train, since MT / Lake has been with Tulip since the beginning even in the real world, and she was eventually able to leave the train -- when it’s shown that train-created items (like, say, the device Jesse was wearing when he got his first exit in the Mall Car) CANNOT go through exit portals.  (But, then, for some reason, the handcuffs Mace had slapped onto MT also didn’t go through the portal with her?  Meaning they were from the train?  IDK.)  Point is, though, the Chrome Car is a projection of the train, which itself is not real, as a projection of the Tape Car...but it’s connected to the Mirror World, which is connected to both the real world and the train?  Does this mean the real world is part of the Tape Car’s projection as well?  Is this a damn Matrix situation?

-There’s more Mirror World emergency services than just the Flecks -- remember the two paramedics that showed up in the Chrome Car to take care of Mirror Atticus and Mirror One-One?  I honestly wonder now if they used to be reflections as well, who chose to keep their memories but not be cops?

-Alright, this is my most out-there theory, but I gotta say it.  Mace and Alrick look slightly similar, at least as similar as a human and a featureless reflection cop can look -- the square jaws especially.  And his voice also sounds a LOT like Alrick doing his robot voice with that modulator.  So...maybe a connection there?  Mirror Alrick decided to keep his memories after his death?  I know I’ve seen this theory floating out there before, so it’s not new, but I just had to add it.  But, then, another implication if this is true:  Did he do this to keep remembering Amelia?  And...Mirror One-One wasted no time at all in getting a hold of the Flecks, maybe because they’ve been keeping in contact with him through that car, and Amelia by association?

-Now, for the inside of the Tape Car.  Specifically...what the hell is this thing?

That...looks a little like One.  And during that scene in which MT / Lake is wading down the canal towards the tape -watching room to get her number, the camera actually focuses on this thing for a few seconds -- not enough to really call attention to it, but enough that now that we’ve seen One himself if stands out on a rewatch.  So, what is it?  It looks kinda like it’s watching over the whole Tape Car, with its one eye light thing?

I’ve got two theories that kinda work together on this one, neither of which are very likely considering I’m probably just taking a small background detail way too seriously, but come on, I’m having fun:

-If the inside of the Tape Car is the only real part of the train, and even One(-One) himself is fake...then that’s the REAL One, overseeing the train’s core operations but not interacting directly -- that’s what all the other robots, including One-One, are for.

-I’ve always kinda had a feeling that there’s a Zero to go along with One -- come on, it’s an obvious joke, what with robots running on binary and passengers needing to get their numbers to 0 and whatnot.  So, for now, I’mma call that thing Zero.

-One last Amelia Takeover Theory.  We know, from the Tape Car, that One-One is pretty hands-off about a lot of the train’s operations, his lack of hands aside -- he doesn’t seem to actually visit the Tape Car until something goes wrong there, and grabs his attention -- like Lake smashing up a few Porters.  So...why were One and Amelia there in the past?  Sure, two passengers boarding at the same time and sharing a number is unusual, but One even says it himself, it’s no big deal, on the train anything can happen.  So, why WERE they there?  Maybe it’s because something happened with Amelia in that car...like her waking up before the number-engraving process was completely finished?  (And she smashed a Porter for good measure?)

-Things required to wake a passenger, according to One-One:  Robots, coding, and juice boxes.  (Things required to wake a passenger, according to Lake:  Flicking them on the forehead with metal fingers)  What if one of the actual purposes of the Stewards is to manipulate the pods and wake the passengers inside, and then slip out unnoticed so they can start their journey?

#sorry for the long post i just have Thoughts #infinity train #spoilers #finish infinity train #so we can see if any of these actually hold any water!

[thisblogisalsoboundforglory]

WHAT I HAVE BEEN READING LATELY

Kage Baker’s Company Series

In the Garden of Iden

Sky Coyote

Mendoza in Hollywood

The Graveyard Game

The Life of the World to Come

The Children of the Company

The Machine's Child

The Sons of Heaven

The Empress of Mars

Not Less than Gods

Nell Gwynne's On Land and At Sea

Black Projects, White Knights: The Company Dossiers

Gods and Pawns

In the Company of Thieves

Ø  Science Fiction written by a woman with Asperger’s. Wildly uneven. Main protagonist is female, but there are lots of POV characters, male and female.

Ø  Big ideas.

Ø  Lots of adventure, some action.

Ø   Small doses of humor.

 Neil Gaiman

Good Omens (with Sir Terry Pratchett)

Neverwhere

Stardust

American Gods

Anansi Boys

The Graveyard Book

The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Ø  Neil’s books are a road trip with Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell and a baggie full of sativa.

Ø  Ideas are incidental. The Milieu’s in charge.

Ø  Adventure happens whether you like it or not.

Ø   Cosmic humor. The joke’s on us.

 Connie Willis’s Oxford Time Travel Series

Firewatch

Doomsday Book

To Say Nothing of the Dog (and the novel that inspired it – Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat)

Blackout/All Clear

Assorted:

The Last of the Winnebagos

Ø  Connie loves her historical research. Blackout/All Clear actually lasts as long as the Blitz, but anything in the Oxford Time Travel series is worth reading. Doomsday Book reads like prophecy in retrospect.

Ø  One idea: Hi! This is the human condition! How fucking amazing is that?!?

Ø  Gut-punch adventure with extra consequences. Background action.

Ø   I’d have to say that Doomsday Book is the funniest book about the black death I’ve ever read, which isn’t saying much. To Say Nothing of the Dog is classic farce, though. Girl’s got range.

Neal Stephenson

Snow Crash (After the apocalypse, the world will be ruled by Home-Owners Associations. Be afraid.)

Cryptonomicon

Anathem

Seveneves

Ø  Neal writes big, undisciplined, unfocused books that keep unfolding in your mind for months after you’ve read them. He’s a very guy-type writer, in spite of a female protagonist or two. Seveneves, be warned, starts out brilliant and devolves into extreme meh.

Ø  Big. Fucking. Ideas.

Ø  Battles, crashes, fistfights, parachute jumps, nuclear powered motorcycles and extreme gardening action. Is there an MPAA acronym for that?

Ø   Humor dry enough to be garnished with two green olives on a stick.

  Christopher Moore

Pine Cove Series:

Practical Demonkeeping

The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove

The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror (Okay, yeah, Christmas. But Christmas with zombies, so that’s all right.)

Fluke (Not strictly Pine Cove, but in the same universe. Ever wonder why whales sing? They’re ordering Pastrami sandwiches. I’m not kidding.)

Death Merchant Chronicles:

A Dirty Job

Secondhand Souls (Best literary dogs this side of Jack London)

Coyote Blue (Kind of an outlier. Overlapping characters)

Shakespeare Series:

Fool

The Serpent of Venice

Shakespeare for Squirrels

Assorted:

Island of the Sequined Love Nun (Cargo cults with Pine Cove crossovers. I have a theory that the characters in this book are direct descendants of certain characters in Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon.)

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal (So I have a favorite first-century wonder rabbi. Who doesn’t?)

Sacre Bleu

Noir

Ø  Not for the squeamish, the easily offended, or those who can’t lovingly embrace the fact that the human species is pretty much a bunch of idiots snatching at moments of grace.

Ø  No big ideas whatever. Barely any half-baked notions.

Ø  Enthusiastic geek adventure. Action as a last resort.

Ø   Nonstop funny from beginning to end.

 Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London Series

Rivers of London

Moon Over Soho

Whispers Under Ground

Broken Homes

Foxglove Summer

The Hanging Tree

The Furthest Station

Lies Sleeping

The October Man

False Value

Tales From the Folly

Ø  Lean, self-deprecating police procedurals disguised as fantasy novels. Excellent writing.

Ø  These will not expand your mind. They might expand your Latin vocabulary.

Ø  Crisply described action, judiciously used. Whodunnit adventure. It’s all about good storytelling.

Ø  Generous servings of sly humor. Aaronovitch is a geek culture blueblood who drops so many inside jokes, there are websites devoted to indexing them.

  John Scalzi

Old Man’s War Series:

Old Man’s War

Questions for a Soldier

The Ghost Brigades

The Sagan Diary

The Last Colony

Zoe’s Tale

After the Coup

The Human Division

The End of All Things

Ø  Star Trek with realpolitik instead of optimism.

Ø  The Big Idea is that there’s nothing new under the sun. Nor over it.

Ø  Action-adventure final frontier saga with high stakes.

Ø  It’s funny when the characters are being funny, and precisely to the same degree that the character is funny.

Assorted:

The Dispatcher

Murder by Other Means

Redshirts (Star Trek, sideways, with occasional optimism)

Ø  Scalzi abandons (or skewers) his space-opera tendencies with these three little gems of speculative fiction. Scalzi’s gift is patience. He lets the scenario unfold like a striptease.

Ø  What-if thought experiments that jolt the brain like espresso shots.

Ø  Action/misadventure as necessary to accomplish the psychological special effects.

Ø  Redshirts is satire, so the humor is built-in, but it’s buried in the mix.

  David Wong/Jason Pargin

John Dies at the End

This Book is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don’t Touch It

What the Hell Did I Just Read?

Ø  Pargin clearly starts his novels with a handful of arresting scenes and images, then looses the characters on an unsuspecting world to wander wither they will.

Ø  Ideas aren’t as big or obvious as Heinlein, but they are there to challenge all your assumptions in the same way that Heinlein’s were.

Ø  Classic action/adventure for anyone raised on Scooby-Doo.

Ø  Occasional gusts of humor in a climate that’s predominantly tongue-in-cheek.

 Jodi Taylor’s Chronicles of St. Mary’s Series

Just One Damned Thing After Another

The Very First Damned Thing

A Symphony of Echoes

When a Child is Born*

A Second Chance

Roman Holiday*

A Trail Through Time

Christmas Present*

No Time Like the Past

What Could Possible Go Wrong?

Ships and Stings and Wedding Rings*

Lies, Damned Lies and History

The Great St Mary’s Day Out*

My Name is Markham*

And the Rest is History

A Perfect Storm*

Christmas Past*

An Argumentation of Historians

The Battersea Barricades*

The Steam Pump Jump*

And Now for Something Completely Different*

Hope for the Best

When Did You Last See Your Father?*

Why Is Nothing Ever Simple*

Plan For The Worst

The Ordeal of the Haunted Room

Ø  The * denotes a short story or novella. Okay, try to imagine Indiana Jones as a smartassed redheaded woman with a time machine and a merry band of full contact historians. I love history, and I especially love history narrated by a woman who can kick T. Rex ass.

Ø  The ideas are toys, not themes. Soapy in spots.

Ø  Action! Adventure! More action! More adventure! Tea break. Action again!

Ø  Big, squishy dollops of snort-worthy stuff.

 Laurie R. King’s Mary Russell Series

The Beekeeper's Apprentice

A Monstrous Regiment of Women

A Letter of Mary

The Moor

Jerusalem

Justice Hall

The Game

Locked Rooms

The Language of Bees

The God of the Hive

Beekeeping for Beginners

Pirate King

Garment of Shadows

Dreaming Spies

The Marriage of Mary Russell

The Murder of Mary Russell

Mary Russell's War And Other Stories of Suspense

Island of the Mad

Riviera Gold

The Art of Detection (Strictly speaking, this is in the action!lesbian Detective Kate Martinelli series, but it crosses over to the Sherlock Holmes genre. If you’ve ever wondered how Holmes would deal with the transgendered, this is the book.)

Ø  Sherlock Holmes retires to Sussex, keeps bees, marries a nice Jewish girl who is smarter than he is and less than half his age and he’s mentored since she was fifteen in an extremely problematic power dynamic relationship that should repulse me but doesn’t, somehow, because this is the best Sherlock Holmes pastiche out there. Mary should have been a rabbi, but it is 1920, so she learns martial arts and becomes an international detective instead. Guest appearances by Conan Doyle, Kimball O’Hara, T.E. Lawrence, Cole Porter, and the Oxford Comma.

Ø  Nothing mind-expanding here, unless the levels of meta present in a fictional world that is about how the fictional world might not be as fictional as you thought come as a surprise to anyone in the era of tie-in books, films, tv, interactive social media and RPGs.

Ø  If these two geniuses can’t catch the bad guys with their dazzling brilliance, they will happily kick some ass. Adventure takes center stage and the action sequences are especially creative.

Ø  Amusement is afoot.

 Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next Series

The Eyre Affair

Lost in a Good Book

The Well of Lost Plots

Something Rotten

First Among Sequels

One of Our Thursdays is Missing

The Woman Who Died a Lot

Ø  In a world where Librarians are revered and Shakespeare is more popular than the Beatles, someone has to facilitate the weekly anger-management sessions for the characters of Wuthering Heights, if only to keep them from killing each other before the novel actually ends. That someone is Thursday Next – Literature Cop.

Ø  Mind-bending enough to give Noam Chomsky material for another hundred years.

Ø  Adventure aplenty. Action? Even the punctuation will try to kill you.

Ø  This is a frolicsome look at humorous situations filled with funny people. Pretty much a full house in the laugh department.

 Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld Series/City Watch Arc

Guards! Guards!

Men at Arms

Feet of Clay

Jingo

The Fifth Elephant

Night Watch

Thud!

Snuff

Raising Steam

Ø  If this were a game of CLUE, the answer would be Niccolo Machiavelli in Narnia with a Monty Python. Everything you think you know about books with dragons and trolls and dwarves and wizards is expertly ripped to shreds and reassembled as social satire that can save your soul, even if it turns out you don’t really have one. Do not be fooled by the Tolkien chassis – there’s a Vonnegut-class engine at work.

Ø  Caution: Ideas in the Mirror Universe May be Larger Than They Appear

Ø  The City Watch arc has plenty of thrilling action sequences. Some other of the fifty-million Discworld novels have less. Every one of them is nonstop adventure. Most of the adventure, however, takes the form of characters desperately trying to avoid thrilling action sequences.

Ø  Funny? Even though I’ve read every book in the series at least ten times, I still have to make sure I have cold packs on hand in case I laugh so hard I rupture something.

[jamlally]

Takes a village

This was written for the 25 days of Christmas Challenge that is hosted by  @panicfob .  The Day 8 Challenge prompt was Gingerbread house

Warnings: Fluff and hints of a relationship 

Pairing:  OFC x Tony Stark

Summary: A painful incident and distraction therapy help Belle realize that family can be more than the blood you are born too.  Family, Ohana, can be what you make it

“Barnes, confirm all clear on the west?”

“Confirmed”

“Rogers, Widow, Status?”

“Clear”

“OK ladies and gentlemen it looks like things are all wrapped up/. Return to the rendezvous point.  Barton, are read for extract on 60 and Wilson complete the clear down protocol”

Belle waited for confirmation to come over the coms before starting to transfer the streamed data and run things through the banks of analysis tools that helped her with her work.  It had been a long couple of days without the team being around.  She and Tony had been enjoying their growing relationship and she felt so comfortable with him that it was hard to believe that he hadn’t always been a part of her life.  They were still kind of feeling their way, working on boundaries and learning how to share with each other, but things had been going well.   

Things had been quiet for long enough that she had been shocked when an emergency alert had come in and the team had quickly been dispatched en mass.  Keeping herself distracted was easy to do when she had her job to fall back on, but at night, when she had some downtime she found that she missed Tony and the others.  Sleep hadn’t come easily and Belle had found that wrapping herself in one of Tony’s hoodies that had been left in the common area helped. It would be another couple of days if things went well before the team was home so now she needed some other way to busy herself,

Tony looked through some of the data that they had retrieved on mission, but he wasn’t really putting all his attention into the task, his mind was thousands of miles away, thinking of a a woman whose eyes showed everything she was feeling and whose smile made him feel like he was the greatest man to walk the earth.  He would be home to her soon enough and the unease he felt at not being there to protect her would fade back into the background.  

“Mr Stark”. Tony blinked awake slowly  “Mr Stark” Rubbing his hands over his face Tony tired to focus. “FRIDAY?” His voice was rough and croaky and he quickly lowered the volume when he realized that the others were asleep around him, well at least Rogers was, the man snored like a bull.  Disengaging the harness from over his shoulder he slipped out of his seat and heading up to the cockpit where Barton or Wilson would still be up.

It was Clint who turned and nodded in his direction when the cockpit door opened.  There was some vaguely familiar turn playing quietly and Bartons hands tapped gently with the rhythm.

“Ok FRIDAY what’s up”

“Apologies for disturbing you sir, but I thought you should know that there was an incident at the compound”

Tony froze for a second slumping down into the co-pilots chair “Define incident.  Do you mean, Oh a window broke or oh aliens invaded and burned the place down?” His heart was pounding,  Belle was at the compound - if something had happened to her then…..

“There was a phone call this evening from Col Fury asking for a status update”

“Ok and I am sure that Belle was capable of handling that “

“Indeed Sir, however at the end of the call the Colonel informed Agent Porter than he didn’t appreciate all of her belongings being sent to SHIELD.  He was somewhat annoyed that Agent Porter had compromised security.”

Tony groaned, he had no idea what FRIDAY was talking about “FRIDAY I have….”

“Agent Porter was most distressed and arranged for her things to be delivered to the compound.  Her distress increased further when after she made a second call.  As for 10 minutes ago she has not slept for close to 24 hours”

Suddenly things started to slot into place in Tony’s mind “FRIDAY confirm who Agent Porter called”

“Agent Porter spoke with Dianne Porter for approximately 10 minutes”

“Ok I need you to monitor Agent Porter and let me know if anything else upsets her and get me on the line to Fury”. Tony waited his fingers drumming on his leg as he heard rising and waited for Fury to pick up.  He was suitably annoyed by the time the other man was on the line that he didn’t give him a chance to speak “ Nicholas, you want to tell me why the hell you decided to upset my mission analyst and then leave her dealing with the fallout?”  

Clint raised his eyebrows, he could only hear one side of the conversation but it was enough to understand that everything wasn’t ok.  Without being asked, he started to adjust the settings increasing the speed and checking the route to see if there was any way he could get them home faster.

Belle used the back of her hand to push a piece of hair that had fallen over her face.  Her eyes burned from tiredness and the tears that hadn’t stopped falling for at least a couple of hours after her phone call with the Director.  She hadn’t thought anything of the call, she often spoke to him or Maria Hill on the back of missions, not usually as quickly as this but maybe there was some other importance that she wasn’t aware of.  What he hadn’t been expecting was the rollocking that came from an seemingly innocent question

“Tell me Agent Porter, you are aware of the fact that SHIELD is an at least somewhat covert organization, are you not?”

“Of course Director” Belle was thrown, based on his tone he was obviously furious about something and she had no idea what.

“Really because if that was the case I can’t help but wonder why you would have all your belongings shipped to me because that DOES NOT SOUND LIKE YOU ARE RESPECTING THAT”

Belle had stumbled over apologies and confusion. A number of boxes had been shipped to SHIELD for the attention of the director with an accompanying letter explaining that they were unwanted at their current location.  Fury had ranted at her for a solid 5 minutes before winding down when Belle promised that she would have the items shipped to the compound.  He had finished the conversation with the request to have pertinent report details sent to both himself and Maria Hill.

There was only one place that the items could have come from but before Belle  could tackle that she needed to calm herself,  Fury had made it clear that further protocol breaches would come at the cost of her position and Belle figured he wasn’t the joking sort.  Loosing her job wold break her heart, but losing her family and Tony would cost her so much more.  She would find some way to serve the job, but Tony and the others were snarled so deep into her heart that loosing them may just kill her.  The more she thought on it the more she panicked, the faster her breathing became and the more tears fell.  She lost track of time as she paced the halls working through worst case scenarios her panic rising by the moment

FRIDAY had eventually pulled her out of her spieling state with a blast of cold air and a calm voice, which, despite its feminine tone reminded her of Tony.  She felt emotionally exhausted but knew that she needed to deal with this.  FRIDAY placed the call and she waited for her mother to pick up.

The conversation had been short and to the point.  As far as Dianna Highland (formally Porter) was concerned she didn’t have a daughter.  Any child she had ever look-up wasn’t  a part of her life and any shit that was left behind she didn’t want to deal with.  The solid tone let her know that her mother had closed any contact with her one time daughter and there would be no further discussion on the matter.

Belle had paced and ranted and cried before deciding that she should prepare the reports and stay on Fury’s good side.  FRIDAY had helped by setting up the coffee maker and making sure it stayed warm while Belle worked through the analysis and filled in the paperwork.  

Sitting still at her desk, and drinking a boat load of coffee left Belle twitchy.  She knew that the others would have packed up and would be heading back. She didn’t want to bother them on the journey so she needed to find something to do.  She had seriously been considering a work out when she had seen the gifts under her tree and had a sudden moment of inspiration.

Her hands were sticky, her body was sore and she wasn’t sure if she was seeing straight anymore as the tree she was attempting to balance next to the double sized gingerbread house seemed to be leaning quite alarmingly to the left.  She used her finger to push it upright, at which  point it leaned to the right.  Belle let out a huff of annoyance and rubbed at her eyes, managing to smear a dollop of the sticky blue icing she had been using across her cheek. 

The damn tears that had dried up sometime around the second tray of ginger cookie shaped went into the oven.  She hadn’t lost her new family yet and she was going to make them a tat festive treat as a surprise for when they got home.  She had mixed, chilled, rolled and baked assembling what she needed.  FRIDAY had organized for her items to be delivered so she was able to just sink into her project.  Other than the tree which was currently causing her no end of problems, she was happy with what she had produced.  She had managed to create her own little gingerbread village, each of the houses had been decorated with the insignia of the team members and on each individual’s house she used some of their favorite candy’s to add decoration.   She had decided to create a small woodland around the outside, and wanted to add some powdered sugar for snow and maybe some sparking stuff but if the tree wouldn’t co-operate.

“Agent Porter, may I make a suggestion”

“Sure, I’m all out of ideas” Belle clenched and opened her hands a few times relieving the ache

“I would recommend that you take a moment to rest and think through options.  I believe you may need a stronger glue substance as the trees are heavier and larger than the other items”

Belle scowled at the tree, she didn’t think that she had made them larger, maybe the AI was right though.  Taking a moment she sat on one of the stools looking across the counter at the model, perhaps the tree did look a little bigger.  Her head rested on her arms and she blinked once, twice and then her eyes didn’t open again.

Tony was furious when he managed to get FRIDAY to stream the conversation between Nick and his Snowflake.  While the other man had no way to know that Belle was important to him, he had no right to threaten her job or anything else.  

Barton had managed to shave a couple of hours off of the journey time and as they landed FRIDAY let him know that Belle was currently asleep in the common room.  He had informed the others they would debrief later and was off the jet as soon as the doors opened. Barton had waved the others back and he was fairly sure the other man had also explained a little of what what happening back at base.

Striding through the compound he pushed his sleeves up - he was going to to have to think of someway to get back at that utter bitch that his girl had to call a mother.  He desperately wanted to do something awful like wait until she went to work and then blow up her house, but he also didn’t want to upset Belle.

Seeing his girl sound asleep, had resting on her folded arms, sprinkles and icing smeared on her cheek his heart felt like ti both melted and broke at the same time. He could see she had been crying and he figured that he could maybe blow up her car as well as the house.  His hand was soft when he  ran it over her cheek, but still her brow furrowed and her eyes slowly opened.

“Tony”

“Hey Snowflake, I heard that you had a bit of a day baby”

“I screwed up Tony, the Director is furious and I can’t say I blame him.  I probably over reacted and well, yeah.” She looked down and took in the state of herself.  She was covered in sticky icing and sugar and god knows what else.  Her face flushed “I had meant to tidy up”

Tony grinned “Well it looks like if you choose to leave us you probably shouldn’t look for a job in architecture, your walls and trees are listing a bit” he teased looking over the small village she had created 

Looking at the houses Belle could see what he meant.  She had been sure that it looked better than this before she fell asleep

“You know what though, there is a lot of beauty in the imperfect my Snowflake” he pulled her up by her hand “the things that matter to everyone, those things are perfect.  Look at how you thought about each of us” He lifted a piece of candy off the side and popping it in his mouth, humming in pleasure “The love that’s right here, that’s the most perfect thing of all”. He hooked his finger under Belle’s chin and turned her face so she was looking up at him.

“This is perfect, and for us, you are perfect Snowflake”. He pressed his lips against hers, tasing the sugar sweetness, letting go of her hands his own wound into her hair pulling her closer, as he deepened the kiss, his tongue brushing against her own 

Belle couldn’t keep the groan in as she melted against this wonderful man who always seemed to know what to say and when.  Her arms wrapped around his neck her fingers carding int the shorter hairs at the back of his neck.  As she pulled slightly she felt the rumble in his chest and then heard Tony’s groan of pleasure.  He pulled this lips from hers resting his forehead against her own staring deeply into her eyes.

“You’re all sweet and sticky baby, and only some of it is in the good way. Let's get you cleaned up” He stepped back lowering his hand to grab hers again and pulling slightly.  Belle went happily. Pressing into his side 

“You’ll come with me right?”  She felt his kiss on the crown of her head 

“You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried baby.  FRIDAY, let the others know we’re done for the day, I don’t want to see them until tomorrow, and make sure they don’t touch the bit of that village Belle made for me”. 

Standing in the elevator heading up to Tony’s floor Belle pushed up kissing her man again.  No matter what she wasn’t going to let anyone take this man, these people, from her.

#panic's 25 days of christmas #oneshot #fluff #christmas