Dancing, pining, and plastic martini swords
Latest batch of prompt fills from Tumblr! These are loose and extremely non-betaed. Mostly "grab a prompt and write till you find an end or get tired of it" with no research or stopping for logic or any kind of good sense. Archiving them here so they don't get lost in the shuffle at Tumblr.
1. Damon/Alaric (Vampire Diaries), Historical AU, for @EmmyHildy.
So. I can’t write a Salvatore historical AU and not set it in the Civil War era. I just can’t! It’s impossible. So we rewind to around 1860. Damon’s 21 (yes I googled his birthday - did you know it’s October 31, 1839? Facts!), and there’s a new schoolteacher in town by the name of Alaric Saltzman. At this point, the war hasn’t broken out yet, but I’m sure there are rumblings.
Because one of my favorite things about Alaric is how good he is at building things, let’s have him raise money from the townsfolk to build a new schoolhouse, which he then mostly builds himself, because let’s face it, the Founding Families are all about throwing money at things and then leaving the actual labor to lesser people, and also it means that Alaric gets to get his hands dirty lugging around beams and bricks and whatever else goes into building a single-room schoolhouse in that era.
He meets Damon, and the rest of Damon’s family, during the fundraising efforts. One of those ridiculously over-the-top society functions, and Alaric is in an uncomfortable set of clothes that belonged to his neighbor’s dead uncle and are way too tight across the shoulders. He knows he should still be devoting as much time as he can to the effort, because these kids need the money, but frankly having to sit around and watch these rich bastards prance around in clothes that cost more than his yearly wage and still complain about the cost of building a schoolhouse for the town children, as if there’s only a need for schooling when it’s one of their brats, it’s infuriating, and there’s only so much Alaric can take.
So he sneaks away from the party and ends up in the library, which is huge and amazing, as many books as Alaric has ever seen in one place other than the library at his university. And of course he runs into Damon there, because Damon hates these parties more than anyone, because ever since his mother died it’s been just him in this house with Stefan and his father, and it’s always been Stefan for his father. Nevermind that Damon is the first-born, Stefan was always Giuseppe’s favorite, and he never took great pains to hide it.
But Damon and his mother loved the library, and worked together to fill it with all the best books they could get their hands on.
And it’s there, surrounded by their mutual love of books, that Damon and Alaric meet.
After that, there’s war, and Damon’s defection from said war, and Katherine, who was worse than any war could ever be.
But this time it’s Damon who gets caught in the fire, Damon who gets locked in the tomb under the church, and Alaric who waits, who spends 150 years chasing Katherine across the country in a blood-fueled rage. Until the day finally comes, and the comet’s in the sky again, and Alaric, Stefan, and a girl named Elena pop open the tomb and Damon, still wearing the dusty remnants of the waistcoat Alaric had bought him more than a century ago, stumbles from the shadows into Alaric’s arms.
“Mr. Saltzman,” he gasps, the gray pallor fading from his face as he tears apart the first of the blood bags Alaric has piled at his feet.
“Mr. Salvatore,” Alaric says, running a hand across Damon’s forehead, watching as the health returns to his face. “I believe you owe me a waltz.”
2. Pepper/Natasha (Avengers), telepathy, for @CrystalMage.
It happens like this. Pepper drops by Stark Tower with paperwork for Tony, specs for Avengers merchandising and notes from R&D that she knows Tony will mark HILARIOUS NOW TRY AGAIN and send back with her, Tony lives to make R&D tear their hair out.
She’s in the kitchen with Natasha, sharing a pot of chai tea and internally blaming overexposure to Tony Stark when she wonders if her hairdo would survive if she and Natasha ran off for a quickie before she was due back at Stark Industries, and she can tell by the gleam in Natasha’s eye and the way she drags her fingers along the rim of her teacup that she’s having the same thought, when something explodes.
The table shakes, the magnets fall off the fridge, and something creaks ominously above them.
“Move, Pepper,” Natasha says, and grabs her hard by the wrist, drags her over into the living room. And just in time, because some huge contraption falls through the ceiling and crashes into the middle of the kitchen, dust and sparks flying everywhere.
Silence rings through the space, and then, Tony’s head pops into the hole, sees them, sees the destruction.
“Uh, look out below?”
“Stark!” Natasha’s face is streaked with dust. “What the hell was that?”
Tony babbles something about updated comms, unhackable frequencies and interstellar communication, possibly something about black holes? Pepper’s not really listening. Mostly she’s thinking about how much her head hurts, and her wrist hurts, and her suit is likely ruined and she’ll have to take the afternoon off and she didn’t even get to spend it having sex with Natasha.
Natasha is instantly inspecting her wrist, apologizing for hurting her in the scuffle.
“I’m fine,” Pepper says. “Really, I barely noticed.”
“But you just said -” Natasha prods at her wrist, and while Pepper fights back a wince, she thinks, Ow goddammit that hurts.
Natasha looks up and her, and her expression is suddenly amused. She frowns and looks directly at Pepper, then says, I think their new tech worked.
Without opening her mouth.
“Oh, dammit,” Pepper says, then sighs. Dust and grime be damned, she lets Natasha pull her into a hug. At least it’s you. I don’t think I could survive if I had to listen to Tony’s interior monologue.
I’m pretty sure Tony’s interior monologue is the same as Tony’s exterior monologue, Natasha thinks. Come on, let’s go freak out the Wonder Twins.
Turns out the telepathy is short-term, and Pepper and Natasha only hold onto it until Tony and Bruce manage to fix their new gizmo. But in the short-term they manage to terrify quite a few people. Natasha is great at reading people, and she helps Pepper manage (manage, manipulate, whichever sounds better to you) her board of directors. Pepper enjoys feeding Natasha bits of Tony trivia for when he’s driving everyone nuts in the field. Somehow, having Natasha call across an open comm line, “Hey guys, did Tony ever tell you about the time in Nicaragua when he-” always ends up in Tony howling about betrayal and knives in the back and then inexplicably behaving himself for the next ten minutes.
And of course they use it for their own version of phone sex - it takes more than two weeks for Tony and Bruce to fix the gizmo, and Natasha spends three days on a SHIELD op in Pakistan. Natasha’s in a rundown safehouse outside of Karachi and Pepper’s at her desk at Stark Industries, and it’s not nearly good enough, not the same as Natasha’s hands on her skin, not the same as Natasha’s gasping breath in her ear, not even close to the same as the tremble in Natasha’s thighs when she’s close. But there’s something sharp and sweet about knowing exactly what Natasha feels, when she feels it. They get caught in a feedback loop of oh god yes right there so perfect beautiful love you- and Pepper’s not sure which one of them made that high, wailing noise, but for the sake of her dignity and her public relations, she’s hoping it was Natasha (for the record, Pep went home early that day, because even though Natasha drops off to sleep shortly after, her sleeping thoughts are a steady background hum of smug affection and satisfaction, and there’s no way Pepper is going to get any more work done).
And when Natasha gets trapped under a building during a fight with a bunch of Doombots, Pepper is a quiet voice of comfort in her ear, keeping her awake and conscious despite the blood loss, while using Natasha’s description of her surroundings to help lead the others to her location.
And when Natasha wakes up in medical, she doesn’t even have to open her eyes to know Pepper’s there, heels kicked off, feet tucked under her on the chair, one hand holding her tablet, the other curled around Natasha’s unbroken fingers.
And when the gizmo’s fixed, and the telepathy shuts off, Pepper misses it for a little while. Misses always being able to reach out and touch Natasha, misses being certain of what she was thinking. But they’ve never had a problem communicating, and when Natasha starts sending her random text messages or emails during the day - saw shoes on 5th you need, and pretty sure this morning’s barista was in one of Stark’s sex tapes, and just got off the plane, debrief w/ Fury after, bring lunch by at 2? - Pepper knows why.
She also invests in a hands-free headset for her cell phone for the next time one of them is away on business. Because you don’t need telepathy for that.
3. Tony/Clint (Avengers), amnesia, for @CrystalMage.
So I don’t actively ship these two, but since this is supposed to be fun prompt time while also flexing my writing muscles, I figure, why not try some pairings I don’t usually go for? Also, I considered going MEGA SAD for this, but reigned in that impulse. You’re welcome.
Clint wakes up in medical and can’t remember who he is.
Since he hasn’t recently suffered any large knocks to the head (well, no more than usual, and none that knocked him unconscious or left him bleeding copiously, which was a win for Clint, usually) and he knows who the President is, and how to tie his shoes, and that he’s on the Helicarrier, but not his name, or who any of the people crowded into the room with him are, the assumption from the group is that it’s mystical.
The rest of the group rushes around trying to find a solution. Thor and Natasha go to Asgard to talk to Thor’s mom, who knows more about magic than anyone. Bruce is immediately on a conference call with Reed Richards, Hank Pym, Hank McCoy, Dr Strange, and everybody in their Rolodex with a PhD.
That leaves Clint alone again when Tony strolls in.
“Sorry, sorry, was in a meeting and you know how Pepper gets, she actually confiscated my phone this time. You look fine, though, what happened? I got a weird text from Natasha, said something about magic? God, don’t tell me it’s Loki again.” Tony drops into the chair next to Clint’s bed, grinning big and bright in his impeccably pressed suit and tie. “You’re awfully quiet. It’s not some kind of non-speaking spell, is it? That would be a shame, you know I usually enjoy the challenge involved in rendering you non-verbal.”
Clint’s been staring at him since he walks in the door, and he finally snaps his fingers and points at Tony. “I know you!”
“Of course you do -“
“You’re Tony Stark! You run Stark Industries. Are we friends? That is, damn, really cool. Am I rich? I don’t feel rich. Hey, is that story about you and the heiress and the hot tub full of jello true?”
Tony’s frozen in his seat, but his million-dollar smile never wavers. “Partially true. It was chocolate pudding, not jello, and there were two heiresses. Well, one of them might have been a duchess, I’m bad with the details. Hey, you stay there, okay? I’m gonna go get the doc.”
Tony wanders out of Clint’s room, still smiling, but he doesn’t come back.
Over the next few days, everybody’s buzzing around Clint, trying to figure out what to do with him. Fury’s making noise about how he’s a security risk because he doesn’t know any of their protocols, but Coulson shoots back that since Clint doesn’t have any memories, it’s not like there’s anything he could divulge.
And because Coulson knows Clint, he takes Clint to the range and puts a bow in his hand.
Clint, naturally, doesn’t believe that his job is shooting arrows at giant space aliens, not even when Coulson shows him the security footage.
“This is crazy,” Clint says. “So I’m on a superhero team.” He looks down at his arms, which, even in his own opinion, are pretty ripped. “Do I have any superpowers?”
“Only the supernatural ability to try my patience, Barton,” Coulson says, then shakes his head. “Not everyone on the team has a supernatural ability. Your specialties are long-range weaponry and close-quarter combat, but you’re also pretty talented with explosives. Agent Romanoff’s specialties are infiltration, interrogation, and close quarter combat. Captain Rogers -“
“You don’t have to tell me what Captain America can do,” Clint says. “I’ve seen the film reels.”
A small smile lifts the corner of Coulson’s mouth. “Oh, really. Now, that is interesting, because when I met Clint Barton he told me that he didn’t know who Captain America was.”
Clint reaches for the memory. He can remember the movies, Captain America leading a charge on a beach, don’t forget to buy war bonds, but he can’t remember where he was when he watched it. There’s no texture to the memory - no idea if he had a drink while it watched it, if he was a kid or an adult, if he was sitting on a couch watching TV or sitting in a theater watching it on the big screen.
“Did I watch them with you?”
Coulson shook his head. “I always wondered if you were messing with me. It was hard to tell, because of the blood loss.”
“Blood loss?”
“Gunshot wound to the lower leg. Through and through, but messy. I was dressing your wound and trying to keep you conscious. I mentioned that Captain America was my childhood hero, and you said, ‘Captain Who? Is he on Sitwell’s squad?’ Then you passed out.”
Clint whistled. “I think I’m kind of a badass.” He looked down at the bow in his hands. “Even if I do use medieval weapons. But what about the rest of the team? What about Tony Stark?”
Coulson paused. He seemed to gauge his next words carefully. “What do you remember about Tony?”
Clint thinks, able to pull up plenty of information on Tony Stark, but it’s like the movies again. He remembers articles about Stark Industries, news reports about advanced Stark weapons tech, gossip chatter about Tony Stark’s philandering ways, but never where he was when he read them, or when he might have actually met the man.
“Only stuff from the news. I recognized him, but the same way I’d recognize any other celebrity.”
Coulson explains about Iron Man, about the suit of armor Tony built for himself. He tells Clint that Tony doesn’t have super powers either, just enough money, brilliance and swagger to keep strapping on the armor and flying into the fray.
He leaves Clint there at the range. Clint fumbles with the arrows for a while, but he’s not sure how to hold his arms, or how to keep the arrow’s tip from sliding off the side, and it’s frustrating.
Clint wanders the halls like a ghost, sure he belongs here but not sure how, and while the rest of his team checks in with him, checks in on him, they’re not sure how to talk to him.
He asks Natasha one day why Tony won’t talk to him.
She sighs. “He doesn’t know what to say to you. Clint, you have to understand, Tony has spent a lot of time recently trying to be something more than what gets reported in the tabloids. The idea that you, of all people, could think that’s all he was…” She trails off. “Besides, he’s been working round the clock trying to figure out how to fix you. I don’t think he’s slept more than six hours total in the last week. And those were probably only after Steve physically dragged him out of the workshop.”
The pieces click into place, and Clint wonders how he could’ve been so stupid. Even brain erasure doesn’t excuse it. “Me and Tony - Tasha, were we a thing?”
She smirks. “You were something all right. From almost the minute you met, the two of you were snarking at each other over the comms, Tony buzzing the rooftops so he could high-five you in the middle of a fight, the pair of you coming up with more and more ridiculous nicknames for each other.
Natasha laughs a little, leans back against the blank gray wall of Clint’s SHIELD barracks. “I knew he was really into you the first time I caught him picking through rubble to find some of your arrows after a fight. He was still in the suit, and seeing him standing there outside of this demolished bank, clutching a fistful of arrows like they were a bouquet of flowers was one of the funniest things I’d seen in weeks.”
“Roses make him sneeze,” Tony says. He’s leaning against the open door in a way that’s probably supposed to be casual. Clint’s not sure how he knows, whether it’s the angle of his smile or the set of his shoulders, but Tony’s not glad to be here. “We’ve got a briefing in ten, Natasha. Cap’s waiting.”
Natasha’s out of her chair and out the door before Clint can think to say goodbye.
Tony turns to follow her, and Clint calls after him. “Tony, wait.”
“Sorry, buddy. Places to be, giant monsters to punch, you know how it is. Or, maybe not, I guess.” Tony’s walking backward as he talks, already putting distance between then. “See you around!”
Then he’s gone again.
Of course, because this is SHIELD, and this is how they live, the Helicarrier gets boarded. Let’s say AIM, because their outfits are hilarious. So AIM boards the Helicarrier somehow, and everything’s going to shit - alarms blaring, Fury’s got his rocket launcher out, Hill’s kicking dudes in the face, Tony and Thor are flying outside trying to knock loose the ship that’s attached to their hull and all the little yellow nutjobs pouring out of it, and Clint’s just. Sitting in his room, looking at his hands. Until he’s not. Because he thinks, isn’t this who I am? Aren’t I supposed to be a superhero? I have to do something.
So he pulls the compound bow and quiver from his locker and runs to the bridge. Fury’s got the comm channel wide open, and Clint can hear his team fighting all over the ship, hears the clang of Steve’s shield and the crack of Thor’s lightning and, over it all, Tony’s voice, yelling and laughing and cursing.
And Clint wants to be there with them, feels a big empty chasm in his chest where he thinks they might fit, but he still doesn’t know what to do.
Then Fury turns, sees him and raises his gun.
“Barton, behind you!” He yells.
And between one breath and the next, Clint remembers.
He drops into a roll, drawing an arrow as he goes, and he fires before he even thinks about what he’s doing. Clint looks up from his crouch to see another of those yellow suited drones, flat on his back with an arrow sticking straight up from the notch at the neck where the helmet meets the chestplate. A second drone comes in behind him, and Clint takes him down too, without thought, draws another arrow and fires, easy as putting one foot in front of the other. Easy as breathing.
Clint looks down at his hands, at the bow he holds. He knows who he is. He remembers. His hands remembered, even when his mind couldn’t.
“Director!” Clint calls, climbing back to his feet. “I need a radio.”
Fury pulls his two-way from his belt and tosses it to Clint.
“Coulson, you shot me, you bastard.” Clint can’t stop grinning, and the junior agent running around the bridge are giving him a wide berth. He can’t really blame them.
Coulson’s voice comes back over the radio, “Barton? What are you talking about?”
“The story you told me, about Captain America, and how I very manfully passed out in the street from blood loss? You left out the part where it was you who shot me.”
There’s no silence on the line, Clint can hear echoing gunshots and muffled explosions, hear Steve giving orders, and Thor yelling “FOR MIDGARD,” but there is suddenly a lack of chatter from Tony.
“I’m told I give a very persuasive recruitment speech,” Coulson says. “Does this mean you’re back in the fight?”
“Just point me at the bad guys, boss,” Clint says.
Cap sends him down to the lower levels to keep the AIM drones away from the armory, and when he and Natasha end up back to back, surrounded by fallen bodies, and there’s blood running into Clint’s right eye from a gash on his forehead and a chunk of Natasha’s hair is smoking because one of the goons had a freakin’ flamethrower, Clint can’t resist a literal jump for joy, because he knows this.
When the job’s done, and Fury lets them all head back to the tower, and everyone has hugged Clint - carefully, as most of them are bruised and battered - Clint and Tony end up in the kitchen together.
It’s late now, and they’re both banged up. The cut over Clint’s eye needed five stitches, and Tony’s nursing two cracked ribs.
Tony’s at the table, and he’s got a glass of scotch leaving wet rings on the tabletop, but he’s not actually drinking it. Clint’s sitting on the counter, a bag of frozen peas icing his aching knee.
Clint knows they need to have some kind of talk, but he has no idea what to say. He’s not so great at talking about his feelings on his best day, and this isn’t even close to his best day. He thinks about what Natasha said, and what Coulson said, and all the things Tony hasn’t said.
“It wasn’t the arrows,” Clint says. He leans over, snags a couple of oranges from the basket of fruit on the island. Absently, he tosses them from hand to hand. His memory still feels jumbled, as if somebody yanked out everything that made him Clint Barton, then shoved it back in, but upside down, backwards, and in the wrong order. But his hands are trustworthy. They know how to keep the oranges moving fast enough to avoid dropping any to the kitchen floor, and it seems to help him get his thoughts in order. “Maybe that’s when Natasha saw it, but that wasn’t it for me.”
“Then what was it?” Tony asks. He didn’t look up from his untouched glass.
“Movie night,” Clint says. “You and Bruce started it, but when it became a team thing Steve got us to agree to rotate who picked every week. And it went really well for a while, every Wednesday night barring apocalypse. Until Tasha and I took that mission in Venezuela, and I was missing for two weeks.”
“I remember,” Tony says. “I’m not the one with the recent memory problem, y’know. I remember exactly what it felt like to find you in that place, to see what they had - ” he breaks off, fingers tight on the glass.
“But then I got to come home, and that Wednesday we did movie night in medical, popcorn and all. Do you remember what movie we watched?” Clint asks. He leans back, oranges still moving lazily through the air. He grabs an apple from the bowl with his bare foot, tosses it into the air to join the other fruit. “I do. It was Godzilla. Not the remake, the original.”
“What’s your point, Barton?” Tony snaps.
“That’s my favorite movie,” Clint says. “And I don’t think I ever told anybody that. My first few times to pick at movie night I went for classics I thought we’d all like, ones that Steve needed to see. Raiders, Princess Bride, Die Hard. The only way someone would know it’s my favorite would be to check my Netflix queue. Or ask JARVIS which DVD I played the most.”
Clint sees Tony glance up at him, but keeps his attention focused on his little juggling act. “And it was your week to pick.”
“Maybe I just like Japanese monster movies,” Tony says.
“Nope,” Clint says easily. “Natasha always picks horror movies, Steve loves sci-fi, Thor’s nuts for Disney movies, Bruce likes those 80s brat pack movies, and you like the thriller movies, the spy movies, and the con movies. Movies with brains, where the hero has to think his way out.”
Tony’s still not looking at him, is dragging his fingers through the condensation on the tabletop. Clint considers trying to add a banana to his flying fruit assortment.
“After that, every time it was your turn to pick, it was always one of my favorite movies. Didn’t take me long to figure it out. And the night we watched King Kong, that was the first time I kissed you.”
Clint takes a breath, lets each apple and orange roll from his left hand to his right hand and then drop back into the bowl until his hands are empty again. He turns to Tony, who’s finally looking at him.
“I still mean it,” Clint says. “I didn’t stop loving you just because I forgot it was true.”
Tony smiles, and it’s a little shaky, but definitely real this time, no plastic PR grin in sight. “Even with no memories, you knew you’d never do better than me, Barton. It’s a fact of life, like the quadratic equation, or gravity, or the superiority of Stark technology.”
Clint throws his head back and laughs. “More like I’d already invested too much time in you to want to start over with some other rich pretty boy. Took me way too long to get you housebroken.”
Tony’s up and moving around the table, stepping in between Clint’s legs to press him back against the cabinets. “Pretty sure this is still my house, archer. We’ll see who sits up and begs.”
Tony’s breath is hot on Clint’s neck, and the firm press of his body against Clint’s, the smell of his expensive shampoo, they’re all real, tangible reminders of where he is, who he is, and Clint lets his hands take over one more time, reaches out, pulls Tony in.
4. Bruce & Steve (Avengers), forced to share a bed, for @CrystalMage.
Steve and Bruce don’t usually go on missions together. For ops that don’t require the whole team, Steve usually runs with Clint and Natasha, or sometimes with Tony.
But SHIELD got a tip that someone was trying (again) to replicate Erskine’s serum. So far, they were even less successful than Bruce had been - at least Bruce had lived. A stack of mutated bodies were found in a ravine outside Istanbul, and the markers in their blood were a dead giveaway.
Time’s a factor, and they need to be stealthy. Usually Steve would send Natasha along with Bruce, as she could play a fellow scientist, disinterested girlfriend, or bodyguard as needed, but she’s in medical with a broken leg.
So Steve and Bruce fly coach to Turkey. They track down the scientist easily enough, and when Bruce finds a hand-held torch in the underground lab, he very methodically sets fire to each blood sample, each tissue sample, and each bit of paper data, before tossing the torch, still lit, into a row of glass jars filled with something Steve doesn’t recognize. There’s a whoosh, and then the fire is rushing up the walls of the lab like water.
The lab itself is mostly metal, and won’t burn, but Bruce assures Steve that with all the chemicals in there, the structure will collapse in on itself within the next hour.
“Next time, maybe a little warning?” Steve asks. “I think my eyebrows are singed.”
Bruce glances sideways at Steve. “You’re fine. Trust me, I’m a doctor.”
They count the mission as a win - no injuries, bad guys captured and currently on their way to the local jail. Their rental car was still outside the lab, but with quite a few more bullet holes than it’d had that morning, so Steve and Bruce had to walk the four miles back to the hotel with their duffel bags slung over their shoulders.
Luckily, neither of them was a stranger to long hikes. Steve was glad it wasn’t snowing and no one was shooting at him. Bruce was glad he still had pants.
Bruce told Steve about the other times he had been in this part of the world, both when he was on the lecture circuit, and when he was running from Rusk. Steve pointed out flowers and plants that he recognized, and told stories about the Howling Commandos. They had never come this far east, but the countryside was similar enough to fields he had hiked through with them that Steve could almost imagine they were over the next hill, complaining about the lack of a fire, singing dirty ballads, pushing and shoving and laughing as they climbed out of their boots and drew straws for the first watch.
Steve never stopped missing them. Sometimes it felt strange to miss war, but he did. Missed Bucky, the Commandos, missed Peggy sometimes like a physical ache in his chest.
But with Bruce walking beside him, smelling faintly of chemicals and charred paper, knowing that behind them was another crisis averted and ahead of them was a good night’s rest and then the promise of home. Well. Steve can miss 1943 and still be happy in 2013.
So then they get back to their hotel, and while it wasn’t the longest walk either of them have been on, they’re both ready to drop into bed.
The hotel clerk, though, starts speaking rapidly in a language Steve doesn’t recognize. Bruce translates, says that since they missed check-in the hotel gave their room away.
Turns out they’ve got one room left, but it’s only got one bed. Steve shrugs, turns to Bruce. “You can take it. Sleeping on the floor’s better than sleeping on the ground, and I’ve done that plenty.”
Bruce rolls his eyes, takes the key from the hotel clerk and thanks him. “We can share the bed, Steve. It’s not a problem.”
Steve tries to take the floor again when he sees how tiny the bed is.
“I’m not making Captain America sleep on the floor,” Bruce says, smiling wryly. “Cope and deal.”
They both get changed, moving around each other in the tiny hotel room, brushing their teeth and settling in for the night.
Bruce clicks off the light and they both just sort of lay there in the dark, on their backs, arms pressed against each other.
Steve wonders if he should say something. He crosses his arms across his chest, then uncrosses them, then folds his hands on his stomach. He drums his fingers idly, wishes they were staying in a hotel with a gym.
Bruce chuckles. “This is kind of awkward.”
“Just a little.”
“You’re lucky it’s me and not Tony. He’d never stop joking about how he totally spent the night with Captain America,” Bruce says.
Steve goes quiet. “Um.”
Bruce shifts, turns so he can peer at Steve in the dark. “No way. You and Tony?”
“Uh.”
“How’d you manage to keep that a secret?”
“It’s not a secret,” Steve says. “It’s just. New.”
Steve can’t see his face, but he’s sure Bruce is smiling again. “Maybe for you. Tony’s been pining for ages.”
“What? Really? Pining?”
“You are not allowed to tell him I used that word,” Bruce says. “But yes. Like a Harlequin leading lady on the prow of a pirate ship.”
Steve’s not sure how to respond to that, so he lets it go. They lay there in comfortable silence for a while.
“Bruce?”
“Yes, Steve?”
“Thanks for coming along with me. I had a nice time.”
Bruce laughs again, quietly. Steve notices that Bruce laughs more now. He’s not one for whoops and hollers or big belly laughs, but his laughter is always warm and genuine, and Steve likes that Bruce is more likely to laugh now than he had been before.
“Me too, Steve. We should do this again some time.”
“You got it, buddy. Good night, Bruce.”
“Good night, Steve.”
-and naturally, there’s an epilogue where Bruce, during the debrief, casually mentions that he and Steve slept together during the mission. Tony, who had been leaning backward in his chair with his feet propped on the conference table, pecking away at his phone and ignoring them, promptly overbalanced and fell out of his chair.
5. Fury & Coulson (Avengers), pretending to be married, for @CrystalMage.
Okay. So there’s a mission, there’s always a mission. Phil misses his Ranger days sometimes. It was all hurry up and wait, lying in ditches for hours, and the near-constant threat of bullets and roadside IEDs.
It was easy.
But now there’s this mission, undercover at some duke’s holiday ball at a mansion estate outside Cestlice in the Czech Republic. There’s snow on the mountains outside, and all the ladies are wearing furs with their diamonds.
And Phil Coulson is waltzing across the marble floor with Nick Fury.
“The black bowtie was a good choice, Nick,” Phil says. He lifts his hand from Nick’s shoulder to straighten said tie. “Much sharper on you than the necktie.”
Nick smiles at him, leads him into the next turn. “I wanted to wear the cufflinks you got me last Christmas, and they look better with the bowtie.”
They make their way across the floor, measured steps maneuvering them between and around other dancing couples.
Phil sighs happily, casts an eye around them at the opulent surroundings. “I’m so glad you suggested we take our second honeymoon here.”
“Nothing too good for my baby,” Nick says.
Phil tilts his head, moves his hand to the back of Nick’s neck to pull him in close. “Target at your two o’clock. White male, 6’2, blue jacket.”
Nick looks up slightly, glancing over Phil’s shoulder as he turns them in a wider arc across the floor. “Agreed, that’s definitely Petrov. You spot the seller?”
“Top of the stairs. White dress, extra dose of cleavage.”
During the next turn Nick spots her as she’s moving down the wide oak staircase. Her blonde hair is pinned in a complicated twist, and there are enough diamonds spilling down her throat and into the deep cut of her plunging neckline to buy and sell Nick’s house three times.
Nick keeps his voice low enough not to be overheard, maintains the sweetheart smile. “I can’t believe you’d comment on some weapons dealer’s tits when we’re on our second honeymoon.”
“I can’t believe you thought I’d let you get away with calling me ‘baby’,” Phil says mildly. His expression radiates contentment. “Is that why your second wife left you?”
Nick grins. For a split second it’s a full Nick Fury grin - all teeth and barely restrained violence. Then it slides over into the bland persona smile, the innocent bystander face.
“Can I get you a glass of champagne?” Nick asks.There are several waiters making the rounds, silver trays held high. Phil catches sight of the blonde again as she reaches the bottom of the stairs. He closes his eyes as they continue the dance, trusts Nick not to step on his toes as he calculates the relative positions of every player in the room - Petrov, the blonde gun runner, the unsubtle security staff members, Petrov’s much more subtle bodyguards, the wait staff, the guests, entrances, exits, windows, couches, buffet table, open bar, the baby grand in the corner -
“I think I’d rather have a scotch,” Phil says. He lowers his voice, adds, “She’s moving to him. They won’t do the exchange in the open. Only door on that side of the room that’s not a restroom or the kitchen runs past the coat room on its way to a side door, and it’s right behind the bar. That’s where we want to be right now.”
Fury’s nod is barely susceptible. His steps falter, and he frowns down at Phil. “You said you weren’t going to drink on this trip.”
“It’s one scotch, why do you always have to make such a big deal out of it?”
“Because you’re an asshole when you’re drunk!” Nick says, voice getting louder. “And you promised.”
Phil drops his arms and rolls his eyes. He pushes back Nick and heads off the dance floor and in the direction of the bar. “Don’t be such a drama queen,” Phil calls back.
He drops onto the bar stool closest to the doorway, propping his elbows on the bar and leaning backwards onto them, keeping the whole room in sight as Nick marches up to him, anger and hurt on his face.
“Fine,” Nick says. “Give me the keys to the rental car.”
“What?” Phil asks. Behind Nick’s back he can see the meet going down, shaking hands and posturing. The tall blonde arms dealer has an even taller and blonder bodyguard, and Phil tenses when the muscle reaches into his jacket.
Nick sees him tense and raises an eyebrow a fraction of an inch. Phil blinks slowly, waving him off. The ice queen’s hired muscle pulls a file folder from his jacket and hands it to Petrov.
They’re speaking Russian, and Phil’s never been great at lip reading, but when he makes out blast radius, he can’t help the sinking feeling in his gut. They’d been expecting machine guns, maybe rocket launchers. This is definitely bigger than that.
“If you’re just gonna get drunk and pass out at the bar like always, I’m going back to the hotel,” Nick says.
“Please,” Phil says, sneering. “You think I don’t know when I’m in over my head? This is hardly the disaster you think it is.”
Nick’s eye widens. “And you think I should let you drive when you’ve had how many scotches? Five? Six?”
“You’re overreacting because you’re a lightweight. You can barely manage one before you’re ready to pack it in. I’m a country mile ahead of you when it comes to tolerance.”
Phil turns, signals to the bartender. Nick puts his hands on his hips and sighs loudly, turning away from Phil.
“I don’t think you need me here anymore,” Nick says. “Maybe I’ll find someone else to dance with.”
“You should try that redhead in the black dress,” Phil says. “She looks like she likes it dirty.”
Phil can see the meet breaking up, negotiations over and both parties ready to make a quick getaway.
“Sometimes I don’t even know who you are,” Nick says. “Give me the keys before one of us says something we’ll regret.”
Phil rolls his eyes. “Fine. They’re in my coat pocket. Here, take the coat check stub.”
Nick takes the stub from his hands and stomps off down the hallway.
The bartender brings over Phil’s drink. “Ouch, that didn’t look fun. How long you two been married?”
“Ten years,” Phil says. “Most frustrating man I’ve ever met.” He pulls out a tip for the bartender, then groans out loud. “And I’ve got the damn keys. Better go catch him before he tears the coat check girl a new one.”
Phil tosses back his drink as the weapons dealer and her entourage head past him. He thanks the bartender and snags one of the little plastic martini swords from a dish on the bar top.
“Do you mind if I take one?” Phil Coulson asks. He smiles pleasantly.
Later, after the gunfire and screams have died down, after INTERPOL has loaded several people into the back of unmarked police cars, after a black helicopter has landed and departed from the lawn outside the mansion (there wasn’t quite enough room for it - the rotors chopped off the top of several topiaries), and after being questioned by several different organizations for several hours, that bartender goes home and lies awake in his bed and wonders, What did he want that plastic martini sword for?
The world may never know.
Thanks for indulging me, guys. Let's do this again soon!
1. Damon/Alaric (Vampire Diaries), Historical AU, for @EmmyHildy.
So. I can’t write a Salvatore historical AU and not set it in the Civil War era. I just can’t! It’s impossible. So we rewind to around 1860. Damon’s 21 (yes I googled his birthday - did you know it’s October 31, 1839? Facts!), and there’s a new schoolteacher in town by the name of Alaric Saltzman. At this point, the war hasn’t broken out yet, but I’m sure there are rumblings.
Because one of my favorite things about Alaric is how good he is at building things, let’s have him raise money from the townsfolk to build a new schoolhouse, which he then mostly builds himself, because let’s face it, the Founding Families are all about throwing money at things and then leaving the actual labor to lesser people, and also it means that Alaric gets to get his hands dirty lugging around beams and bricks and whatever else goes into building a single-room schoolhouse in that era.
He meets Damon, and the rest of Damon’s family, during the fundraising efforts. One of those ridiculously over-the-top society functions, and Alaric is in an uncomfortable set of clothes that belonged to his neighbor’s dead uncle and are way too tight across the shoulders. He knows he should still be devoting as much time as he can to the effort, because these kids need the money, but frankly having to sit around and watch these rich bastards prance around in clothes that cost more than his yearly wage and still complain about the cost of building a schoolhouse for the town children, as if there’s only a need for schooling when it’s one of their brats, it’s infuriating, and there’s only so much Alaric can take.
So he sneaks away from the party and ends up in the library, which is huge and amazing, as many books as Alaric has ever seen in one place other than the library at his university. And of course he runs into Damon there, because Damon hates these parties more than anyone, because ever since his mother died it’s been just him in this house with Stefan and his father, and it’s always been Stefan for his father. Nevermind that Damon is the first-born, Stefan was always Giuseppe’s favorite, and he never took great pains to hide it.
But Damon and his mother loved the library, and worked together to fill it with all the best books they could get their hands on.
And it’s there, surrounded by their mutual love of books, that Damon and Alaric meet.
After that, there’s war, and Damon’s defection from said war, and Katherine, who was worse than any war could ever be.
But this time it’s Damon who gets caught in the fire, Damon who gets locked in the tomb under the church, and Alaric who waits, who spends 150 years chasing Katherine across the country in a blood-fueled rage. Until the day finally comes, and the comet’s in the sky again, and Alaric, Stefan, and a girl named Elena pop open the tomb and Damon, still wearing the dusty remnants of the waistcoat Alaric had bought him more than a century ago, stumbles from the shadows into Alaric’s arms.
“Mr. Saltzman,” he gasps, the gray pallor fading from his face as he tears apart the first of the blood bags Alaric has piled at his feet.
“Mr. Salvatore,” Alaric says, running a hand across Damon’s forehead, watching as the health returns to his face. “I believe you owe me a waltz.”
2. Pepper/Natasha (Avengers), telepathy, for @CrystalMage.
It happens like this. Pepper drops by Stark Tower with paperwork for Tony, specs for Avengers merchandising and notes from R&D that she knows Tony will mark HILARIOUS NOW TRY AGAIN and send back with her, Tony lives to make R&D tear their hair out.
She’s in the kitchen with Natasha, sharing a pot of chai tea and internally blaming overexposure to Tony Stark when she wonders if her hairdo would survive if she and Natasha ran off for a quickie before she was due back at Stark Industries, and she can tell by the gleam in Natasha’s eye and the way she drags her fingers along the rim of her teacup that she’s having the same thought, when something explodes.
The table shakes, the magnets fall off the fridge, and something creaks ominously above them.
“Move, Pepper,” Natasha says, and grabs her hard by the wrist, drags her over into the living room. And just in time, because some huge contraption falls through the ceiling and crashes into the middle of the kitchen, dust and sparks flying everywhere.
Silence rings through the space, and then, Tony’s head pops into the hole, sees them, sees the destruction.
“Uh, look out below?”
“Stark!” Natasha’s face is streaked with dust. “What the hell was that?”
Tony babbles something about updated comms, unhackable frequencies and interstellar communication, possibly something about black holes? Pepper’s not really listening. Mostly she’s thinking about how much her head hurts, and her wrist hurts, and her suit is likely ruined and she’ll have to take the afternoon off and she didn’t even get to spend it having sex with Natasha.
Natasha is instantly inspecting her wrist, apologizing for hurting her in the scuffle.
“I’m fine,” Pepper says. “Really, I barely noticed.”
“But you just said -” Natasha prods at her wrist, and while Pepper fights back a wince, she thinks, Ow goddammit that hurts.
Natasha looks up and her, and her expression is suddenly amused. She frowns and looks directly at Pepper, then says, I think their new tech worked.
Without opening her mouth.
“Oh, dammit,” Pepper says, then sighs. Dust and grime be damned, she lets Natasha pull her into a hug. At least it’s you. I don’t think I could survive if I had to listen to Tony’s interior monologue.
I’m pretty sure Tony’s interior monologue is the same as Tony’s exterior monologue, Natasha thinks. Come on, let’s go freak out the Wonder Twins.
Turns out the telepathy is short-term, and Pepper and Natasha only hold onto it until Tony and Bruce manage to fix their new gizmo. But in the short-term they manage to terrify quite a few people. Natasha is great at reading people, and she helps Pepper manage (manage, manipulate, whichever sounds better to you) her board of directors. Pepper enjoys feeding Natasha bits of Tony trivia for when he’s driving everyone nuts in the field. Somehow, having Natasha call across an open comm line, “Hey guys, did Tony ever tell you about the time in Nicaragua when he-” always ends up in Tony howling about betrayal and knives in the back and then inexplicably behaving himself for the next ten minutes.
And of course they use it for their own version of phone sex - it takes more than two weeks for Tony and Bruce to fix the gizmo, and Natasha spends three days on a SHIELD op in Pakistan. Natasha’s in a rundown safehouse outside of Karachi and Pepper’s at her desk at Stark Industries, and it’s not nearly good enough, not the same as Natasha’s hands on her skin, not the same as Natasha’s gasping breath in her ear, not even close to the same as the tremble in Natasha’s thighs when she’s close. But there’s something sharp and sweet about knowing exactly what Natasha feels, when she feels it. They get caught in a feedback loop of oh god yes right there so perfect beautiful love you- and Pepper’s not sure which one of them made that high, wailing noise, but for the sake of her dignity and her public relations, she’s hoping it was Natasha (for the record, Pep went home early that day, because even though Natasha drops off to sleep shortly after, her sleeping thoughts are a steady background hum of smug affection and satisfaction, and there’s no way Pepper is going to get any more work done).
And when Natasha gets trapped under a building during a fight with a bunch of Doombots, Pepper is a quiet voice of comfort in her ear, keeping her awake and conscious despite the blood loss, while using Natasha’s description of her surroundings to help lead the others to her location.
And when Natasha wakes up in medical, she doesn’t even have to open her eyes to know Pepper’s there, heels kicked off, feet tucked under her on the chair, one hand holding her tablet, the other curled around Natasha’s unbroken fingers.
And when the gizmo’s fixed, and the telepathy shuts off, Pepper misses it for a little while. Misses always being able to reach out and touch Natasha, misses being certain of what she was thinking. But they’ve never had a problem communicating, and when Natasha starts sending her random text messages or emails during the day - saw shoes on 5th you need, and pretty sure this morning’s barista was in one of Stark’s sex tapes, and just got off the plane, debrief w/ Fury after, bring lunch by at 2? - Pepper knows why.
She also invests in a hands-free headset for her cell phone for the next time one of them is away on business. Because you don’t need telepathy for that.
3. Tony/Clint (Avengers), amnesia, for @CrystalMage.
So I don’t actively ship these two, but since this is supposed to be fun prompt time while also flexing my writing muscles, I figure, why not try some pairings I don’t usually go for? Also, I considered going MEGA SAD for this, but reigned in that impulse. You’re welcome.
Clint wakes up in medical and can’t remember who he is.
Since he hasn’t recently suffered any large knocks to the head (well, no more than usual, and none that knocked him unconscious or left him bleeding copiously, which was a win for Clint, usually) and he knows who the President is, and how to tie his shoes, and that he’s on the Helicarrier, but not his name, or who any of the people crowded into the room with him are, the assumption from the group is that it’s mystical.
The rest of the group rushes around trying to find a solution. Thor and Natasha go to Asgard to talk to Thor’s mom, who knows more about magic than anyone. Bruce is immediately on a conference call with Reed Richards, Hank Pym, Hank McCoy, Dr Strange, and everybody in their Rolodex with a PhD.
That leaves Clint alone again when Tony strolls in.
“Sorry, sorry, was in a meeting and you know how Pepper gets, she actually confiscated my phone this time. You look fine, though, what happened? I got a weird text from Natasha, said something about magic? God, don’t tell me it’s Loki again.” Tony drops into the chair next to Clint’s bed, grinning big and bright in his impeccably pressed suit and tie. “You’re awfully quiet. It’s not some kind of non-speaking spell, is it? That would be a shame, you know I usually enjoy the challenge involved in rendering you non-verbal.”
Clint’s been staring at him since he walks in the door, and he finally snaps his fingers and points at Tony. “I know you!”
“Of course you do -“
“You’re Tony Stark! You run Stark Industries. Are we friends? That is, damn, really cool. Am I rich? I don’t feel rich. Hey, is that story about you and the heiress and the hot tub full of jello true?”
Tony’s frozen in his seat, but his million-dollar smile never wavers. “Partially true. It was chocolate pudding, not jello, and there were two heiresses. Well, one of them might have been a duchess, I’m bad with the details. Hey, you stay there, okay? I’m gonna go get the doc.”
Tony wanders out of Clint’s room, still smiling, but he doesn’t come back.
Over the next few days, everybody’s buzzing around Clint, trying to figure out what to do with him. Fury’s making noise about how he’s a security risk because he doesn’t know any of their protocols, but Coulson shoots back that since Clint doesn’t have any memories, it’s not like there’s anything he could divulge.
And because Coulson knows Clint, he takes Clint to the range and puts a bow in his hand.
Clint, naturally, doesn’t believe that his job is shooting arrows at giant space aliens, not even when Coulson shows him the security footage.
“This is crazy,” Clint says. “So I’m on a superhero team.” He looks down at his arms, which, even in his own opinion, are pretty ripped. “Do I have any superpowers?”
“Only the supernatural ability to try my patience, Barton,” Coulson says, then shakes his head. “Not everyone on the team has a supernatural ability. Your specialties are long-range weaponry and close-quarter combat, but you’re also pretty talented with explosives. Agent Romanoff’s specialties are infiltration, interrogation, and close quarter combat. Captain Rogers -“
“You don’t have to tell me what Captain America can do,” Clint says. “I’ve seen the film reels.”
A small smile lifts the corner of Coulson’s mouth. “Oh, really. Now, that is interesting, because when I met Clint Barton he told me that he didn’t know who Captain America was.”
Clint reaches for the memory. He can remember the movies, Captain America leading a charge on a beach, don’t forget to buy war bonds, but he can’t remember where he was when he watched it. There’s no texture to the memory - no idea if he had a drink while it watched it, if he was a kid or an adult, if he was sitting on a couch watching TV or sitting in a theater watching it on the big screen.
“Did I watch them with you?”
Coulson shook his head. “I always wondered if you were messing with me. It was hard to tell, because of the blood loss.”
“Blood loss?”
“Gunshot wound to the lower leg. Through and through, but messy. I was dressing your wound and trying to keep you conscious. I mentioned that Captain America was my childhood hero, and you said, ‘Captain Who? Is he on Sitwell’s squad?’ Then you passed out.”
Clint whistled. “I think I’m kind of a badass.” He looked down at the bow in his hands. “Even if I do use medieval weapons. But what about the rest of the team? What about Tony Stark?”
Coulson paused. He seemed to gauge his next words carefully. “What do you remember about Tony?”
Clint thinks, able to pull up plenty of information on Tony Stark, but it’s like the movies again. He remembers articles about Stark Industries, news reports about advanced Stark weapons tech, gossip chatter about Tony Stark’s philandering ways, but never where he was when he read them, or when he might have actually met the man.
“Only stuff from the news. I recognized him, but the same way I’d recognize any other celebrity.”
Coulson explains about Iron Man, about the suit of armor Tony built for himself. He tells Clint that Tony doesn’t have super powers either, just enough money, brilliance and swagger to keep strapping on the armor and flying into the fray.
He leaves Clint there at the range. Clint fumbles with the arrows for a while, but he’s not sure how to hold his arms, or how to keep the arrow’s tip from sliding off the side, and it’s frustrating.
Clint wanders the halls like a ghost, sure he belongs here but not sure how, and while the rest of his team checks in with him, checks in on him, they’re not sure how to talk to him.
He asks Natasha one day why Tony won’t talk to him.
She sighs. “He doesn’t know what to say to you. Clint, you have to understand, Tony has spent a lot of time recently trying to be something more than what gets reported in the tabloids. The idea that you, of all people, could think that’s all he was…” She trails off. “Besides, he’s been working round the clock trying to figure out how to fix you. I don’t think he’s slept more than six hours total in the last week. And those were probably only after Steve physically dragged him out of the workshop.”
The pieces click into place, and Clint wonders how he could’ve been so stupid. Even brain erasure doesn’t excuse it. “Me and Tony - Tasha, were we a thing?”
She smirks. “You were something all right. From almost the minute you met, the two of you were snarking at each other over the comms, Tony buzzing the rooftops so he could high-five you in the middle of a fight, the pair of you coming up with more and more ridiculous nicknames for each other.
Natasha laughs a little, leans back against the blank gray wall of Clint’s SHIELD barracks. “I knew he was really into you the first time I caught him picking through rubble to find some of your arrows after a fight. He was still in the suit, and seeing him standing there outside of this demolished bank, clutching a fistful of arrows like they were a bouquet of flowers was one of the funniest things I’d seen in weeks.”
“Roses make him sneeze,” Tony says. He’s leaning against the open door in a way that’s probably supposed to be casual. Clint’s not sure how he knows, whether it’s the angle of his smile or the set of his shoulders, but Tony’s not glad to be here. “We’ve got a briefing in ten, Natasha. Cap’s waiting.”
Natasha’s out of her chair and out the door before Clint can think to say goodbye.
Tony turns to follow her, and Clint calls after him. “Tony, wait.”
“Sorry, buddy. Places to be, giant monsters to punch, you know how it is. Or, maybe not, I guess.” Tony’s walking backward as he talks, already putting distance between then. “See you around!”
Then he’s gone again.
Of course, because this is SHIELD, and this is how they live, the Helicarrier gets boarded. Let’s say AIM, because their outfits are hilarious. So AIM boards the Helicarrier somehow, and everything’s going to shit - alarms blaring, Fury’s got his rocket launcher out, Hill’s kicking dudes in the face, Tony and Thor are flying outside trying to knock loose the ship that’s attached to their hull and all the little yellow nutjobs pouring out of it, and Clint’s just. Sitting in his room, looking at his hands. Until he’s not. Because he thinks, isn’t this who I am? Aren’t I supposed to be a superhero? I have to do something.
So he pulls the compound bow and quiver from his locker and runs to the bridge. Fury’s got the comm channel wide open, and Clint can hear his team fighting all over the ship, hears the clang of Steve’s shield and the crack of Thor’s lightning and, over it all, Tony’s voice, yelling and laughing and cursing.
And Clint wants to be there with them, feels a big empty chasm in his chest where he thinks they might fit, but he still doesn’t know what to do.
Then Fury turns, sees him and raises his gun.
“Barton, behind you!” He yells.
And between one breath and the next, Clint remembers.
He drops into a roll, drawing an arrow as he goes, and he fires before he even thinks about what he’s doing. Clint looks up from his crouch to see another of those yellow suited drones, flat on his back with an arrow sticking straight up from the notch at the neck where the helmet meets the chestplate. A second drone comes in behind him, and Clint takes him down too, without thought, draws another arrow and fires, easy as putting one foot in front of the other. Easy as breathing.
Clint looks down at his hands, at the bow he holds. He knows who he is. He remembers. His hands remembered, even when his mind couldn’t.
“Director!” Clint calls, climbing back to his feet. “I need a radio.”
Fury pulls his two-way from his belt and tosses it to Clint.
“Coulson, you shot me, you bastard.” Clint can’t stop grinning, and the junior agent running around the bridge are giving him a wide berth. He can’t really blame them.
Coulson’s voice comes back over the radio, “Barton? What are you talking about?”
“The story you told me, about Captain America, and how I very manfully passed out in the street from blood loss? You left out the part where it was you who shot me.”
There’s no silence on the line, Clint can hear echoing gunshots and muffled explosions, hear Steve giving orders, and Thor yelling “FOR MIDGARD,” but there is suddenly a lack of chatter from Tony.
“I’m told I give a very persuasive recruitment speech,” Coulson says. “Does this mean you’re back in the fight?”
“Just point me at the bad guys, boss,” Clint says.
Cap sends him down to the lower levels to keep the AIM drones away from the armory, and when he and Natasha end up back to back, surrounded by fallen bodies, and there’s blood running into Clint’s right eye from a gash on his forehead and a chunk of Natasha’s hair is smoking because one of the goons had a freakin’ flamethrower, Clint can’t resist a literal jump for joy, because he knows this.
When the job’s done, and Fury lets them all head back to the tower, and everyone has hugged Clint - carefully, as most of them are bruised and battered - Clint and Tony end up in the kitchen together.
It’s late now, and they’re both banged up. The cut over Clint’s eye needed five stitches, and Tony’s nursing two cracked ribs.
Tony’s at the table, and he’s got a glass of scotch leaving wet rings on the tabletop, but he’s not actually drinking it. Clint’s sitting on the counter, a bag of frozen peas icing his aching knee.
Clint knows they need to have some kind of talk, but he has no idea what to say. He’s not so great at talking about his feelings on his best day, and this isn’t even close to his best day. He thinks about what Natasha said, and what Coulson said, and all the things Tony hasn’t said.
“It wasn’t the arrows,” Clint says. He leans over, snags a couple of oranges from the basket of fruit on the island. Absently, he tosses them from hand to hand. His memory still feels jumbled, as if somebody yanked out everything that made him Clint Barton, then shoved it back in, but upside down, backwards, and in the wrong order. But his hands are trustworthy. They know how to keep the oranges moving fast enough to avoid dropping any to the kitchen floor, and it seems to help him get his thoughts in order. “Maybe that’s when Natasha saw it, but that wasn’t it for me.”
“Then what was it?” Tony asks. He didn’t look up from his untouched glass.
“Movie night,” Clint says. “You and Bruce started it, but when it became a team thing Steve got us to agree to rotate who picked every week. And it went really well for a while, every Wednesday night barring apocalypse. Until Tasha and I took that mission in Venezuela, and I was missing for two weeks.”
“I remember,” Tony says. “I’m not the one with the recent memory problem, y’know. I remember exactly what it felt like to find you in that place, to see what they had - ” he breaks off, fingers tight on the glass.
“But then I got to come home, and that Wednesday we did movie night in medical, popcorn and all. Do you remember what movie we watched?” Clint asks. He leans back, oranges still moving lazily through the air. He grabs an apple from the bowl with his bare foot, tosses it into the air to join the other fruit. “I do. It was Godzilla. Not the remake, the original.”
“What’s your point, Barton?” Tony snaps.
“That’s my favorite movie,” Clint says. “And I don’t think I ever told anybody that. My first few times to pick at movie night I went for classics I thought we’d all like, ones that Steve needed to see. Raiders, Princess Bride, Die Hard. The only way someone would know it’s my favorite would be to check my Netflix queue. Or ask JARVIS which DVD I played the most.”
Clint sees Tony glance up at him, but keeps his attention focused on his little juggling act. “And it was your week to pick.”
“Maybe I just like Japanese monster movies,” Tony says.
“Nope,” Clint says easily. “Natasha always picks horror movies, Steve loves sci-fi, Thor’s nuts for Disney movies, Bruce likes those 80s brat pack movies, and you like the thriller movies, the spy movies, and the con movies. Movies with brains, where the hero has to think his way out.”
Tony’s still not looking at him, is dragging his fingers through the condensation on the tabletop. Clint considers trying to add a banana to his flying fruit assortment.
“After that, every time it was your turn to pick, it was always one of my favorite movies. Didn’t take me long to figure it out. And the night we watched King Kong, that was the first time I kissed you.”
Clint takes a breath, lets each apple and orange roll from his left hand to his right hand and then drop back into the bowl until his hands are empty again. He turns to Tony, who’s finally looking at him.
“I still mean it,” Clint says. “I didn’t stop loving you just because I forgot it was true.”
Tony smiles, and it’s a little shaky, but definitely real this time, no plastic PR grin in sight. “Even with no memories, you knew you’d never do better than me, Barton. It’s a fact of life, like the quadratic equation, or gravity, or the superiority of Stark technology.”
Clint throws his head back and laughs. “More like I’d already invested too much time in you to want to start over with some other rich pretty boy. Took me way too long to get you housebroken.”
Tony’s up and moving around the table, stepping in between Clint’s legs to press him back against the cabinets. “Pretty sure this is still my house, archer. We’ll see who sits up and begs.”
Tony’s breath is hot on Clint’s neck, and the firm press of his body against Clint’s, the smell of his expensive shampoo, they’re all real, tangible reminders of where he is, who he is, and Clint lets his hands take over one more time, reaches out, pulls Tony in.
4. Bruce & Steve (Avengers), forced to share a bed, for @CrystalMage.
Steve and Bruce don’t usually go on missions together. For ops that don’t require the whole team, Steve usually runs with Clint and Natasha, or sometimes with Tony.
But SHIELD got a tip that someone was trying (again) to replicate Erskine’s serum. So far, they were even less successful than Bruce had been - at least Bruce had lived. A stack of mutated bodies were found in a ravine outside Istanbul, and the markers in their blood were a dead giveaway.
Time’s a factor, and they need to be stealthy. Usually Steve would send Natasha along with Bruce, as she could play a fellow scientist, disinterested girlfriend, or bodyguard as needed, but she’s in medical with a broken leg.
So Steve and Bruce fly coach to Turkey. They track down the scientist easily enough, and when Bruce finds a hand-held torch in the underground lab, he very methodically sets fire to each blood sample, each tissue sample, and each bit of paper data, before tossing the torch, still lit, into a row of glass jars filled with something Steve doesn’t recognize. There’s a whoosh, and then the fire is rushing up the walls of the lab like water.
The lab itself is mostly metal, and won’t burn, but Bruce assures Steve that with all the chemicals in there, the structure will collapse in on itself within the next hour.
“Next time, maybe a little warning?” Steve asks. “I think my eyebrows are singed.”
Bruce glances sideways at Steve. “You’re fine. Trust me, I’m a doctor.”
They count the mission as a win - no injuries, bad guys captured and currently on their way to the local jail. Their rental car was still outside the lab, but with quite a few more bullet holes than it’d had that morning, so Steve and Bruce had to walk the four miles back to the hotel with their duffel bags slung over their shoulders.
Luckily, neither of them was a stranger to long hikes. Steve was glad it wasn’t snowing and no one was shooting at him. Bruce was glad he still had pants.
Bruce told Steve about the other times he had been in this part of the world, both when he was on the lecture circuit, and when he was running from Rusk. Steve pointed out flowers and plants that he recognized, and told stories about the Howling Commandos. They had never come this far east, but the countryside was similar enough to fields he had hiked through with them that Steve could almost imagine they were over the next hill, complaining about the lack of a fire, singing dirty ballads, pushing and shoving and laughing as they climbed out of their boots and drew straws for the first watch.
Steve never stopped missing them. Sometimes it felt strange to miss war, but he did. Missed Bucky, the Commandos, missed Peggy sometimes like a physical ache in his chest.
But with Bruce walking beside him, smelling faintly of chemicals and charred paper, knowing that behind them was another crisis averted and ahead of them was a good night’s rest and then the promise of home. Well. Steve can miss 1943 and still be happy in 2013.
So then they get back to their hotel, and while it wasn’t the longest walk either of them have been on, they’re both ready to drop into bed.
The hotel clerk, though, starts speaking rapidly in a language Steve doesn’t recognize. Bruce translates, says that since they missed check-in the hotel gave their room away.
Turns out they’ve got one room left, but it’s only got one bed. Steve shrugs, turns to Bruce. “You can take it. Sleeping on the floor’s better than sleeping on the ground, and I’ve done that plenty.”
Bruce rolls his eyes, takes the key from the hotel clerk and thanks him. “We can share the bed, Steve. It’s not a problem.”
Steve tries to take the floor again when he sees how tiny the bed is.
“I’m not making Captain America sleep on the floor,” Bruce says, smiling wryly. “Cope and deal.”
They both get changed, moving around each other in the tiny hotel room, brushing their teeth and settling in for the night.
Bruce clicks off the light and they both just sort of lay there in the dark, on their backs, arms pressed against each other.
Steve wonders if he should say something. He crosses his arms across his chest, then uncrosses them, then folds his hands on his stomach. He drums his fingers idly, wishes they were staying in a hotel with a gym.
Bruce chuckles. “This is kind of awkward.”
“Just a little.”
“You’re lucky it’s me and not Tony. He’d never stop joking about how he totally spent the night with Captain America,” Bruce says.
Steve goes quiet. “Um.”
Bruce shifts, turns so he can peer at Steve in the dark. “No way. You and Tony?”
“Uh.”
“How’d you manage to keep that a secret?”
“It’s not a secret,” Steve says. “It’s just. New.”
Steve can’t see his face, but he’s sure Bruce is smiling again. “Maybe for you. Tony’s been pining for ages.”
“What? Really? Pining?”
“You are not allowed to tell him I used that word,” Bruce says. “But yes. Like a Harlequin leading lady on the prow of a pirate ship.”
Steve’s not sure how to respond to that, so he lets it go. They lay there in comfortable silence for a while.
“Bruce?”
“Yes, Steve?”
“Thanks for coming along with me. I had a nice time.”
Bruce laughs again, quietly. Steve notices that Bruce laughs more now. He’s not one for whoops and hollers or big belly laughs, but his laughter is always warm and genuine, and Steve likes that Bruce is more likely to laugh now than he had been before.
“Me too, Steve. We should do this again some time.”
“You got it, buddy. Good night, Bruce.”
“Good night, Steve.”
-and naturally, there’s an epilogue where Bruce, during the debrief, casually mentions that he and Steve slept together during the mission. Tony, who had been leaning backward in his chair with his feet propped on the conference table, pecking away at his phone and ignoring them, promptly overbalanced and fell out of his chair.
5. Fury & Coulson (Avengers), pretending to be married, for @CrystalMage.
Okay. So there’s a mission, there’s always a mission. Phil misses his Ranger days sometimes. It was all hurry up and wait, lying in ditches for hours, and the near-constant threat of bullets and roadside IEDs.
It was easy.
But now there’s this mission, undercover at some duke’s holiday ball at a mansion estate outside Cestlice in the Czech Republic. There’s snow on the mountains outside, and all the ladies are wearing furs with their diamonds.
And Phil Coulson is waltzing across the marble floor with Nick Fury.
“The black bowtie was a good choice, Nick,” Phil says. He lifts his hand from Nick’s shoulder to straighten said tie. “Much sharper on you than the necktie.”
Nick smiles at him, leads him into the next turn. “I wanted to wear the cufflinks you got me last Christmas, and they look better with the bowtie.”
They make their way across the floor, measured steps maneuvering them between and around other dancing couples.
Phil sighs happily, casts an eye around them at the opulent surroundings. “I’m so glad you suggested we take our second honeymoon here.”
“Nothing too good for my baby,” Nick says.
Phil tilts his head, moves his hand to the back of Nick’s neck to pull him in close. “Target at your two o’clock. White male, 6’2, blue jacket.”
Nick looks up slightly, glancing over Phil’s shoulder as he turns them in a wider arc across the floor. “Agreed, that’s definitely Petrov. You spot the seller?”
“Top of the stairs. White dress, extra dose of cleavage.”
During the next turn Nick spots her as she’s moving down the wide oak staircase. Her blonde hair is pinned in a complicated twist, and there are enough diamonds spilling down her throat and into the deep cut of her plunging neckline to buy and sell Nick’s house three times.
Nick keeps his voice low enough not to be overheard, maintains the sweetheart smile. “I can’t believe you’d comment on some weapons dealer’s tits when we’re on our second honeymoon.”
“I can’t believe you thought I’d let you get away with calling me ‘baby’,” Phil says mildly. His expression radiates contentment. “Is that why your second wife left you?”
Nick grins. For a split second it’s a full Nick Fury grin - all teeth and barely restrained violence. Then it slides over into the bland persona smile, the innocent bystander face.
“Can I get you a glass of champagne?” Nick asks.There are several waiters making the rounds, silver trays held high. Phil catches sight of the blonde again as she reaches the bottom of the stairs. He closes his eyes as they continue the dance, trusts Nick not to step on his toes as he calculates the relative positions of every player in the room - Petrov, the blonde gun runner, the unsubtle security staff members, Petrov’s much more subtle bodyguards, the wait staff, the guests, entrances, exits, windows, couches, buffet table, open bar, the baby grand in the corner -
“I think I’d rather have a scotch,” Phil says. He lowers his voice, adds, “She’s moving to him. They won’t do the exchange in the open. Only door on that side of the room that’s not a restroom or the kitchen runs past the coat room on its way to a side door, and it’s right behind the bar. That’s where we want to be right now.”
Fury’s nod is barely susceptible. His steps falter, and he frowns down at Phil. “You said you weren’t going to drink on this trip.”
“It’s one scotch, why do you always have to make such a big deal out of it?”
“Because you’re an asshole when you’re drunk!” Nick says, voice getting louder. “And you promised.”
Phil drops his arms and rolls his eyes. He pushes back Nick and heads off the dance floor and in the direction of the bar. “Don’t be such a drama queen,” Phil calls back.
He drops onto the bar stool closest to the doorway, propping his elbows on the bar and leaning backwards onto them, keeping the whole room in sight as Nick marches up to him, anger and hurt on his face.
“Fine,” Nick says. “Give me the keys to the rental car.”
“What?” Phil asks. Behind Nick’s back he can see the meet going down, shaking hands and posturing. The tall blonde arms dealer has an even taller and blonder bodyguard, and Phil tenses when the muscle reaches into his jacket.
Nick sees him tense and raises an eyebrow a fraction of an inch. Phil blinks slowly, waving him off. The ice queen’s hired muscle pulls a file folder from his jacket and hands it to Petrov.
They’re speaking Russian, and Phil’s never been great at lip reading, but when he makes out blast radius, he can’t help the sinking feeling in his gut. They’d been expecting machine guns, maybe rocket launchers. This is definitely bigger than that.
“If you’re just gonna get drunk and pass out at the bar like always, I’m going back to the hotel,” Nick says.
“Please,” Phil says, sneering. “You think I don’t know when I’m in over my head? This is hardly the disaster you think it is.”
Nick’s eye widens. “And you think I should let you drive when you’ve had how many scotches? Five? Six?”
“You’re overreacting because you’re a lightweight. You can barely manage one before you’re ready to pack it in. I’m a country mile ahead of you when it comes to tolerance.”
Phil turns, signals to the bartender. Nick puts his hands on his hips and sighs loudly, turning away from Phil.
“I don’t think you need me here anymore,” Nick says. “Maybe I’ll find someone else to dance with.”
“You should try that redhead in the black dress,” Phil says. “She looks like she likes it dirty.”
Phil can see the meet breaking up, negotiations over and both parties ready to make a quick getaway.
“Sometimes I don’t even know who you are,” Nick says. “Give me the keys before one of us says something we’ll regret.”
Phil rolls his eyes. “Fine. They’re in my coat pocket. Here, take the coat check stub.”
Nick takes the stub from his hands and stomps off down the hallway.
The bartender brings over Phil’s drink. “Ouch, that didn’t look fun. How long you two been married?”
“Ten years,” Phil says. “Most frustrating man I’ve ever met.” He pulls out a tip for the bartender, then groans out loud. “And I’ve got the damn keys. Better go catch him before he tears the coat check girl a new one.”
Phil tosses back his drink as the weapons dealer and her entourage head past him. He thanks the bartender and snags one of the little plastic martini swords from a dish on the bar top.
“Do you mind if I take one?” Phil Coulson asks. He smiles pleasantly.
Later, after the gunfire and screams have died down, after INTERPOL has loaded several people into the back of unmarked police cars, after a black helicopter has landed and departed from the lawn outside the mansion (there wasn’t quite enough room for it - the rotors chopped off the top of several topiaries), and after being questioned by several different organizations for several hours, that bartender goes home and lies awake in his bed and wonders, What did he want that plastic martini sword for?
The world may never know.
Thanks for indulging me, guys. Let's do this again soon!