#I love Laura...i can totally understand why clint falled in love with her...

[purple--queen]

I love Nat & Clint being best friends & the fact that they showed us that men & women can be friends without getting feelings & stuff...but sometimes i think about the what if they would have been together. I feel like pushing it right into ours faces would be to much...i think it could have been a subtile thing. Like blink & you miss it. 

[egcdeath]

act natural

pairing: steve rogers x reader

summary: sometimes, you just have to share the bed. 

word count: 2.4k

warnings: fluff, sharing a bed, idiots in love, cheesy

a/n: this is really just an excuse for me to write a lot of self indulgent bants, but it’s also a part of @stargazingfangirl18’s soft!dark challenge, and i decided to write something soft and use the prompt of only having one bed! (p.s. i like did not edit this at all so if a few words are used a lot pls forgive me) 

Dinner at the safehouse was finally wrapping up after a long day of getting your ass beat by an angry android and a few enhanced teenagers. You and everyone else around you seemed to be more than exhausted from the extensive day of revisiting deeply repressed traumas, and petty arguments between teammates over who was truly at fault for every predicament you found yourselves in.

You took a long and final swig from a beer bottle, glancing up to Bruce and Nat as they stood up and pushed in their chairs, retiring for the night. 

“Thanks for hosting us, Laura,” Natasha offered, grabbing her plate from the dinner table, and dropping it off in the dishwasher.

“Of course, guys. Any time,” she gave a half smile to her friend, then looked back at the table, where everyone else had taken the memo, and found themselves somewhere in the process of leaving the table, or grabbing their dishes, “but before you all go, I wanted to warn you that someone else is gonna have to share a room tonight.”

You glanced over at Steve, who was on your left, and Tony, who was sat at the head of the table. You and Steve shared an awkward chuckle at the thought of being in the same bed, not even considering the similarly uncomfortable situation of sharing a bed with Tony. 

“I think I’ll be rooming alone. These two lovebirds can share,” Tony chided before either of you even had a chance to think of a response. You looked back over at Steve, whose cheeks were currently dusted with a light shade of pink, and the bigger man quickly looked away from you.

“Tony, you know we are not- you know what, nevermind,” you huffed, deciding the argument was not worth it. 

Tony shook his head as he dropped his dishes off in the dishwasher. “So no objections?” he asked teasingly, eyeing you both with a smirk on his way back from the kitchen. “Why am I not surprised?” You could’ve sworn you heard Clint and Fury laughing to themselves before excusing themselves from the table, and dispursting though the house.

Besides the slight humiliation of being teased for your situation, you weren’t too concerned about the act of spending the night, or next few nights with Steve. You and Steve were friends, or something like that. Just a few pals with crushes that you refused to admit to each other (or yourselves).

Pushing this thought aside, you grabbed the neck of your empty beer bottle, along with a few pieces of silverware and marched off to the mechanical cleaner yourself. You dropped off the things that needed to be cleaned, tossed your bottle in the recycling bin, then went to turn away when Steve grabbed your arm, automatically catching your attention. 

“Is this okay with you?” He asked, letting his vice grip on your arm go.

“It’s fine. I’ll see you upstairs,” you muttered before speeding off, and heading upstairs where you strolled into the only vacant room, with the door wide open, and both your own and Steve’s duffle bags on the floor. 

You made a mental note to thank whoever brought them in (probably Laura), and dug through your bag to find something even slightly comfortable to sleep in, eventually settling on an oversized shirt and your favorite cotton shorts. 

You had just barely finished changing in the tiny closet when you heard the soft click of the room door, notifying you of Steve’s arrival. You slid open the closet door, and made a beeline for the bed, flopping onto the left side, and reaching for your phone as a distraction. 

“Do you want me to sleep on the floor?” Steve asked, searching through his own bag until he found the only clean comfortable pair of pants he had in there, that just happened to be a jokey Christmas gift donned with a red white and blue color scheme, and graphics of mini shields on it.  

“What the hell, Steve. Of course not,” you set your phone down so that you could get a better look at him. “We probably have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.” You could live with that excuse, especially considering that it would not be very becoming of you to tell your crush that missing an opportunity to sleep in the same bed as him feels like a federal crime. 

He stood up from his squatting position, squeezing into the tight space of the closet so that he could change into the corny pants, and finally get out of his clothes from the day, “I just didn’t want to make things weird.”

“Well, they won’t be as long as you stay on your side, okay?” You said petulantly, setting two pillows across the middle of the queen sized bed and attempting to ignore the excited butterflies in your stomach. 

“I will,” Steve responded, exiting the closet slipping into the right side of the bed cautiously, and looking at the wall that was facing him.

You glanced over at Steve, and when you caught wind of his shirtless torso, you couldn’t help but to look away with a warm face,“this is so awkward now,” you said after a beat. “Why couldn’t you have roomed with Tony?”

“Tony is the worst bed mate ever. Total blanket and pillow hog,” Steve chuckled, attempting to ease up some of the tension.

“You’re no saint either. I’ve heard you’re a cuddler,” you bantered back, allowing yourself one more glance at the man. Steve seemed to be having the same thought as you at the same time as you, as your eyes briefly met. 

It was uncomfortably silent in the room once more, and you reached over to your nightstand to turn off the bedside lamp, “Goodnight, Y/N.”

“Night, Steve,” you turned your back to the border of pillows, fell into a fetal position, and squeezed your eyes shut, hoping that you’d be able to find some sort of peace after such a bizarre day. You tried not to dwell so much on the horrors you’d been forced to face earlier, and instead relied on the rhythmic breathing coming from the man next to you to ground you.

----

You weren’t sure when exactly you fell asleep, but a jolting of your bed, and a bit of a commotion coming from somewhere in your room pulled you away from your unsettling dreams.

Blinking yourself awake, you uncurled your body, and rolled over to look at Steve, whose legs were thrown over the edge of the bed while he panted heavily.

“Steve?” you slurred sleepily, “you ‘kay?”

“’m fine,” he yawned.

“Well you woke me up,” you mumbled, throwing your head back against a pillow.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I was having a shitty dream anyway.”

“Really? I was too,” Steve refused to look at you, staring blankly at the wall.

“So tell me about it,” you hummed.

“It’s just… I keep thinking about how I missed out on so many things from the past. I could’ve been happy, living out my days in a semi-peaceful and familiar world. Not anything like this.”

You sat up as you listened, pushing aside a pillow from the border you’d constructed to move closer to Steve and set a reassuring hand on his back.

“I guess I just wish that I was there. With everyone and everything I used to know.”

“But it’s not all bad, right?” you offered, and Steve shrugged before looking down. 

 “I’m sorry. I really am. I know that I’ll never truly understand that, but there’s nothing any of us can do about it now. You’re here now, and you have no other choice but to make the best of it. I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but if you spend all of your time in the present lamenting about what things could’ve been in the past, you’re just gonna be miserable forever,” you rambled sleepily, words slurring occasionally. 

“Your experience is so unique, so I could be getting this all wrong, but there are plenty of good things here in the now. I mean, a world without the internet? I don’t know if that’s a world worth living in,” you chuckled softly, and were joined in your quiet laughter by the man on the other side of your bed.

“Seriously, though. I know you can’t control your dreams, but maybe your subconscious is letting you know that it’s okay to let go. Of like, the past. It might just be time for you to move on and be happy. I’m sure that Peggy and everyone else from your past would’ve wanted that for you too.” In the dark, you saw the silhouette of Steve’s head nodding. 

“You always know what to say, huh?” he asked, kicking his legs back over onto the bed while you scooted back over into your previous space. 

“I’m like half asleep right now, Steve. If you asked me to repeat half of what I just said, I would not know what to say,” you giggled. 

“You wanna talk about your dream?” Steve asked in a concerned tone. 

“Mmm, I actually just wanna go to sleep. As crazy as that may sound,” 

“Is there anything that I can do to help you not have another bad one?”

“Hmmm,” you pondered, becoming a bit more lethargic by the moment. “Spoon me?”

“As you wish,” Steve happily obliged, grabbing one of the pillows from the middle of the bed and adding it to his stash of pillows. 

You threw a pillow from the border between your knees, and received a strange look from Steve. “What? I heard it’s good for your back.” He still didn’t seem convinced. “Stop being so judgy and cuddle me already,” you murmured, turning your body so that you could lay on your side.

Steve scooted closer to you, and you pressed your back to the front of his chest. He tossed an arm over you and somehow managed to pull you even closer to him. You swore you hadn’t been this comfortable since you left the womb, and you nearly purred in response. 

“Can I make a request?” he asked.

You simply nodded.

“Can we just… talk until we fall back asleep?” 

“That’s really cute,” you mumbled into your pillow. 

“You just have a relaxing voice!” he defended playfully.

“You are such a dork,” you giggled. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Just tell me about… I dunno, anything.”

“That was so helpful, Steven.”

“My bad. Tell me about your favorite… mission?”

“Mm, probably that one time you and I had to go undercover for like a month to bust that arms dealer.”

“Which one?”

“Some dude in the Midwest. Can’t remember his name.”

“Oh yeah, yeah I know who you’re talking about.”

“It was fun being your life partner for a month. We were really good at being domestic.”

“Hmm, now that I think about it, we really were. Do you remember that cookout?”

“Of course I do,” you laughed at the memory. “Everyone else was getting so drunk, but you just… couldn’t. They were like Joseph, you’re such a beast, and shit. And who would’ve guessed that you, the old timer would be such a beast on the grill.”

“Well, who would’ve guessed that you were so good at cornhole?”

“Was I really that good? Or were you just really bad? Like really bad, especially for someone whose skill set revolves around having good aim,” you teased.

Steve scoffed and laughed, shaking his head at you. 

“How didn’t those people recognize us? I just don’t get it.”

“You’d be surprised how much a beard and dyed hair can change your look.”

“I guess,” you sighed softly, and set a hand on top of Steve’s. “Does this feel counterproductive to you? We’re just sitting here giggling. We’re probably getting less tired.”

“I guess I am less tired. But I’m also not thinking about the impending robot apocalypse.”

“Well now that you brought it up, I’m thinking about the impending robot apocalypse. You better fix this, Rogers.” Emboldened by what must’ve been the butterflies in your stomach falling asleep, you began to roll a bit in his arms so you were facing each other, kicking away the pillow between your legs in the process. 

“How can I make it up to you?” Steve asked, raising a brow.

“You’re the man with a plan, right? Think of something,” your lip quirked slightly in a smirk.

Steve leaned in just the smallest amount, before a lightbulb seemed to go off in his head. “I got it. We can do one of those one word stories until we fall asleep.”

Well, that’s not exactly how you thought this moment was going to go. 

“Okay, I’ll start then,” you nodded, pressing your head down against a soft pillow, and looking up at Steve, “once.”

“There,” Steve added.

“Was.”

“A.”

“Death-bot,” you giggled. 

“Okay, Y/N. No. No more stories. We can just listen to each other breathe now until we fall asleep like before since you wanna ruin the mood.”

“What mood? And you listened to me breathe?”

“What else was I gonna listen to?” he furrowed his brows, “it’s too late for this anyway. We can talk in the morning.”

“All you had to do was tell me that it’s way past your bedtime, and I would be understanding. But goodnight anyway, Stevie,” you cracked him one last smile, not budging from your position as you closed your eyes. 

It was silent for a few minutes before Steve whispered up out of the blue, “you still awake?”

You slurred something into the pillow, much more asleep than awake. 

“Well, I really like you a lot. Maybe one day I’ll get the guts to tell you that when you’re not completely out of it.”

You grunted as a response, and Steve couldn’t seem to wipe the grin off his face, not while he was falling asleep, and certainly not during his rather pleasant dreams.

——

You just couldn’t seem to catch a break with your wake up calls. While you and Steve seemed to sleep through the rapping against the door, and the door itself opening, you both seemed to become aware after the artificial shutter of an iPhone camera flooded through your ears.

“You guys just looked so cute, I wanted to archive this moment for the rest of time. And I’m sure the team will be glad to see that you got along well last night,” Nat teased as your eyes widened and you shot up. “Breakfast is ready downstairs, by the way.”

Well, you two were going to have a great time explaining this one. 

[barnesandco]

Little Hands (2)

Bucky is woken one morning by a small girl hammering on his door and crying her eyes out. He takes her to Child Protective Services only to be called back and informed that he is in fact, the father, and the mother a murder victim from the night before. What happens when he now finds himself a father, and the daughter in question becomes inexplicably, irrevocably attached to his neighbor who lives across the hall?

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: Mentions of murder, war injuries.

A/N: Thank you for the tremendous response on this series! I’m so excited that so many people are enjoying it. Tags are open, let me know if you want to be added. I’d love to hear what you think!

“I'm glad you came, Buck. Everyone's been trying to get to know you better, and hopefully this will help. You need to get out of your apartment more.” Steve murmurs across the table to Bucky, leaving the boisterous collective conversation momentarily. Bucky doesn't know how he got roped into team lunch at the Barton farm, but here he is. Eating apple pie at the table that is meant to fit half the people it's currently accommodating, as some Christmas musical rerun plays in the background. If it weren't for Nate dancing in front of the TV and singing at the top of his little lungs, someone would have asked to turn it down or off already - it's not even Thanksgiving yet.

Grateful that Steve has stopped the mother-henning for now, Bucky turns back to the pie, and then to the other Avengers. Some of them, at least. Clint looks immeasurably happy as Nat discusses target practice with his daughter, Lila. On his other side, Laura and Sam are engaged in a fierce debate on the best sides for Thanksgiving meals. The Avengers with families of their own - Scott and Tony - are notably absent, spending free time with their children, making it seem as though Clint has taken in a collection of strays. 

He looks past the table and out the window, where the remaining few leaves are falling down in an early winter breeze. It's grey, but then, everything feels grey compared to Wakanda. Ironic coming from a man raised in the smog and fog of Brooklyn, he knows, but his life is just one color after the other. Phases passing like the seasons.

After Brooklyn, it was the trenches of the war, where Bucky knew nothing but brown for months on end. Then the sterile silver of Zola's equipment, followed by the consuming black of his cell. When he finally got out, the most dominant color was white. Agent Carter's perfect teeth, his cold knuckles around a rifle, the snow-clad mountains he fell between during that awful train-ride. Red followed - the bloody stump where his left arm used to be, the gunshot wounds that blossomed wherever he went, the star on his shoulder. His stupid fucking Henley, even the robe in green, green Wakanda. He's sick of red, longs for blue, now. 

That's the crux of his problem, at present. Those blue eyes from yesterday, glittering like the moon, distant, but ever present. And oh, so familiar. Unrecognizable, whenever he tries, and he doesn't think any of his memory lapses have frustrated him like this one. He should know where he's seen Nina's eyes before. He doesn't, though, cannot. Pressing his brain has yielded no answer, not as he saw her staring at him from the rearview mirror on the way to drop her off. Not when she started tearing up again when it was time to leave, not when she watched you as you reassured as she clung on to you. Not when she almost glared at him, as if for a betrayal, over the shoulder of  a social worker that carried her way. He thanks God that childcare workers have weekend shifts, because he wouldn't have known what to do with Nina for a second longer, with or without your help.

He had dropped you at your intended grocery store with too many thank-you's and awkward blushes and red stutters. Almost smacked himself in the forehead after you left the car for his total and utter inability to be coherent around you. He knows he isn't who he used to be, doesn't expect to be the ladies' man Steve tells him about, but he wishes he could at least put on a facade. At least appear sane and capable of basic human interaction. You never seem to mind, though, always offering a friendly giggle and gentle patience as he stumbles over his words. He wonders if that's a facade, too. If you're not as willing to put up with him as you appear to be, the way you were with Nina yesterday.

He could tell you were out of your depth, but you handled it like a champ. Handled her, rather. All his thought processes are circling back to Nina, and he doesn't understand it. One child, left alone on his doorstep in the dead of night. The mystery of it is most inconvenient. Bucky shakes all thought of it out, and decides to participate in the conversation at the table, and jumps, to find Wanda staring at him.

She smiles as if it's not an issue, as if she hasn't been watching him for who knows how long, and reaches for another piece of pie. 

"Are you okay, Mr. Barnes?" She asks when he doesn't stop looking at her and Steve looks over. Bucky resists the urge to roll his eyes at the concern that immediately overtakes his features.

"Yeah, Buck, you look a little out of it. Everything alright?" Steve leans on his forearms, ready to do whatever is required to put Bucky at ease. The others start to get up as lunch is now over. Bucky begins to answer Steve as he makes his way past him with a plate to put away. 

"I'm fine, Stevie. Don't wor-" Ring. Saved by the bell. Bucky puts the plate down and pulls his phone out of his pocket and looks at the caller ID; it's an unsaved number. His teammates are bustling about, getting ready to settle down in the living room, and he mutters a generic excuse me and answers the call. While holding the phone to his ear, he accidentally presses the speaker button.

"Hello?" He says gruffly, standing in the foyer.

"Is this Sergeant Barnes?" A woman asks from the other end. The TV has been turned off, Nate's attention diverted. The four-year-old runs out of the room, barely missing Bucky's legs, and rushes up the stairs.

"Yeah, who's askin' ?" Everyone in the next room has gone quiet, and he - super senses and all - does not know it yet, back to the door, eyes on his socks scuffing against the worn floorboards, and ears on the professional, straight-cut voice on the phone.

"It's about the girl you brought in to our Brooklyn office yesterday morning. Nina?" Bucky holds his breath. He had given the CPS office his number to let him know when they found her parents. Something in him, maybe the forgotten big brother part that still holds on to Becca, feels a responsibility towards the girl. And he can't get rid of the niggling question that asks: why would someone go to all that trouble to leave her on his doorstep?

"Yeah? What about her?" He shifts his weight, tucks a hand in his pocket, clenches and opens his fist. "Have you found her parents?" 

"Sir, you're the father." Bucky's heart stops. He freezes, blood turning to stone and muscles to glass. The anger floods his cheeks red. Steve stands, cup of coffee neglected on the table.

"Is this some kinda joke? 'Cause I don't find it funny. That's impossible." He fumes, now pacing, assassin-silent stalk abandoned in favor of heavy treading across the planks. His hair curtains his face and he pushes it back as he listens closely to her response.

"Sir, we conducted a DNA test to see if there was a match in the system, and you are the father." Bucky ceases pacing when he meets Steve's eyes through the doorway, tunnel vision excluding the others' stares. 

"Did you find the mother?" He asks, hand no longer raking through his hair, but pulling at the strands.

"That's the second cause of concern, Sergeant Barnes. The mother was found murdered in Bushwick on Saturday morning." She replies, apology now saturating her tone. Bucky can taste the sympathy through the phone, and he doesn't know whether to swallow it up or vomit. 

"What's her name?" He manages.

"Irene Petrov." 

"What's going to happen to Nina?" Bucky asks, not accepting this result, but retaining some semblance of pragmatism. He doesn't have a daughter. He can't have a daughter. The name Irene rings no bells, and there's no way, even with his bruised, battered memory, that he would forget making a child with someone. The idea that she's dead sends a jolt to his gut, and he staggers. The nausea that comes with the gut feeling that something is not right tastes like metal and bile in his throat, and he heaves in deep breaths of clean country air in order to listen to the woman answer his question.

"You have custody, unless you decide to give it up, in which case she'll enter the foster system." Clint is now on his feet, too; Wanda's taken to biting her nails. 

"Okay. Okay, alright. Can you send me the results? I'll pick her up soon." Bucky wrings his free hand, asking for some sort of verification. He needs proof. Evidence. Something to hold onto as the world swims around him, buzzing ears barely perceiving the woman's promise to send him the documents, and subsequent good-bye. A headache builds between his eyes as he turns back to Steve, holding his phone like he doesn't know what it is, or what it does. 

"Buck? What was that all about?" Steve speaks first, walking up to him, audience forgotten. Bucky looks over his shoulder to realize they heard the entire conversation, but finds that he doesn't fully care. He told them about finding Nina earlier, and now they know everything. Just as well, he would have had to tell them anyway.

"You heard everything, Steve. Don't know what more there is to say." He chuckles, shaking his head in disbelief at the phone in his hand. The phone buzzes, signaling an email. 

"These are the DNA test results. Got no idea how that's possible, but there you go." He shows Steve the phone screen, still shaking his head, unsure whether to laugh or scream. A daughter. 

An hour later sees him standing inside the reception he dropped Nina off at yesterday, not knowing that her mother was dead in a proverbial ditch a stone's throw away. Irene Petrov. The name means nothing to him, but he can't trust his mind, based on the events of late. 

Sam is standing on his right, and Steve to his left, both silent and in wait. After verification of the results through a quick phone call with F.R.I.D.A.Y., they had left Clint's house together in Sam's car. Both men had insisted on joining him, noticing his evident despair, and wanted to be by his side. A social worker holding Nina’s hand emerges from a hallway, and Bucky moves forward. It’s the same woman who coaxed Nina away yesterday when he dropped her off. 

“Sergeant Barnes. Nice to see you again.” She says, smiling, but Bucky suspects she’s disgusted. Suspects that he tried to abandon his daughter - his daughter? - and was found out. He forces a stiff nod in response.

“Hi.” He says, then looks at Nina, whose gaze is defiant, chin turned up. She’s angry, as angry as a child can be, anyhow. 

Before he can address her, however, the social worker gestures for him to follow her to a seating area nearby, still holding Nina’s hand. They sit, and she opens a slim manila folder, showing him the documents within. Rather, the alarming lack thereof.

“Nina has no record, Sergeant Barnes. No birth certificate, in the US or otherwise, as far as we can see. No passport, medical records, any official documents of registration. We’ve just registered her here, though, and it’s on the basis of that registration that we’ve made the papers assigning you to have her full custody. Please sign here.” She hands him a pen, turns the page towards him, and he reads through it. Lifts the paper to see copies of the DNA report underneath. After mere moments of deliberation - wasted moments, it’s not like he has a choice - he signs the fateful paper. Wipes his palms on his thighs anxiously, looks at Nina but talks to the social worker.

“Can we go now?” He asks, like a teenager excusing themselves from the dinner table. Nina’s watching him, curious, piercing blue eyes fixated on him. Perhaps he recognizes them because they’re her mother’s, who he doesn’t recall meeting, but his subconscious does. Is that why they’re so startingly familiar? He shakes the query out of his head, once again, and stands when the woman does. She nods, wishes him well, and hands Nina over, points out the car seat and backpack that has now been brought out. She waves goodbye, and Nina watches her go, patiently, unmoving. Bucky bends down, rests one knee on the beige carpet, and looks at her.

“Hey, Nina, remember me? I’m-”

“Bucky.” She blurts out, and he is taken aback. Didn’t expect her to remember his name, and he knows she only does because of the conversation between you and him on the way here. You had introduced him. This is my friend, Bucky. He’s nice. He smiles at Nina, nods, and holds out his hand out to shake hers. Almost withdraws it when her eyes widen, and he prays she doesn’t cry again. Calmer than yesterday, having had time to come to terms with this horrible predicament, she doesn’t cry. Instead she shakes his hand, and he releases the breath he was holding hostage in his chest, pressure from his lungs relieved but the pressure on his hand remains. She has a firm handshake.

“Yeah, I’m gonna be taking care of you. Is that okay?” He asks, fully aware of Steve and Sam’s stares burning into him. He can see a smirk and a dropped jaw from his peripherals, and feels like pumping a fist in the air just for Sam’s awestruck gaze. Internally thanks Steve for having more faith in him than he does himself. He’s not the only one, because it seems that Nina is starting to trust him, too. 

“Yes.” She says, voice a whisper, gliding around him. He stands, and holds out his hand. The feeling of her small fingers wrapping around his large, calloused ones is indescribable. Soft, warm, they fit in his perfectly, and unbelievably, inexplicably, Bucky’s heart soars. His stomach is still in knots, the thought of Irene Petrov doing somersaults in his abdomen, but for the first time since yesterday morning, he thinks something feels right. Her hand in his is comfortable, and he doesn’t want to let go. Stifling the smile, he finally gets to where Steve and Sam are.

“Nina, these are my friends.” She doesn’t respond, looks up at the men unimpressed, and he smiles again. “This is Steve, and this is Sam.” He says as each man kneels down to say hello.

“Where is the lady?” She asks, her r and l pronounced as w’s, and Bucky blanches. Thinks of you, doing more than you should have, kind mind and sound heart, helping him drop Nina off with your shy smile and glinting eyes. Wonders if you’ll understand his situation, even though he knows he has bigger fish to fry than worry about his chances at taking you on a date when he now has a girl, a whole person, to take care of. So he tells that girl the only thing that comes to mind.

“She was busy, honey, I’m sorry. Hey, do you want to get ice-cream on the way home?” He says, and changes the subject before she can react. She frowns, then perks up slightly, nods for ice-cream. Unfortunately- 

“Ice-cream in November, Buck? She’ll get sick before you’ve even brought her home” Steve points out, and she glares at him. Bucky very nearly laughs at the look on her face, and Sam grins.

“Okay, okay, ice-cream in November.” Steve actually laughs, holding his hands up in surrender, waving away the distrust on Nina’s tiny, chubby face. Bucky’s gaze goes to her little hands unclenching from the fists they were in.

“Alright, man, let’s go.” Sam says, picking up the car seat and patting Bucky on the shoulder as he leads them out. Bucky grins, if only for a moment, watches the beginnings of a smile on Nina’s face as they leave the building.

---

Kamenev holds two empty glass vials up to the flickering lightbulb suspended from the ceiling. One used to contain hairs belonging to the Fist of Hydra, proof of DNA just in case. The other held a fingerprint mold of the same man - biometric identity. He smashes the vials in a tissue, flushes it all down the toilet of another dirty motel bathroom. 

He’s sick of these dingy, disgusting places, knows he deserves better. He deserves the world at his feet, after his scientific accomplishment, the only evidence of which is the child itself. The child that has been slipping out of his grasp like sand through his fingers. She manages to evade him, even when her mother could not. However, he is sure he will find her soon. He must.

Taglist:  @suz-123 @mermaidxatxheart @buckyreaderrecs @shield-agent78 @corneliabarnes @readerandcinephileingeneral @stevieboyharrington @captainchrisstan @mickmoon @notsomellowmushroom @alyxkbrl @mcueveryday @jennmurawski13 @hailqueenconquer @luckyfiction17 @veganfangirl5

[avengerscompound]

Legacy - Chapter 3

Legacy: A Hawkeye Fanfic

Series Masterlist PREVIOUS //

Buy me a ☕ Character Pairing:  Clint Barton x  F!Reader

Word Count:  1732

Rating:  E

Square filled:   @marvelfluffbingo - Hurt/Comfort

Warnings:  Pregnancy, domestic abuse, post-endgame, angst, developing-relationship, hurt/comfort, smut, Laura and Clint have broken up.  Comic Clint/MCU Clint mix.

Synopsis: Nothing is the same after the events of Endgame.  When Clint has trouble returning to a life where his family hasn’t changed but he has lost everything, he moves back to the city and tries to move on as a single parent. When Nate finds you bruised and pregnant in the stairwell of his building, he decides that there might be another way that he can make Nat’s sacrifice worth something.

Chapter 3

Clint was really beginning to enjoy the summer.  It had been a long, long time since he could remember actually really enjoying one.  Not since everyone had turned to dust.  It was a season that had been tainted.  The last time he had really remembered enjoying it was the one where his family had died.

Since then there were five where he’d been alone, furious and broken.  Where the summer was just an uncomfortable season where he remembered everything he lost.  Then there was one year where all he felt was guilt and melancholy.  Guilt over the fact he couldn’t be what Laura needed him to be and melancholy over a season he usually mourned.

This year had been better.  He had the dog now and his kids were with him.  He’d take them to Central Park and visit the Zoo or go to Heckscher Playground and let them run around in the water.  He’d taken them to see movies where they’d sat in the cool watching all the new features that had been made now half of Hollywood had reappeared.  He’d taken them to see the Mets play and down to Coney Island to visit Luna Park.  He was making the effort to be who they needed him to be at least.  Cooper and Lila had already lost one dad.  They didn’t deserve to lose another.  Even if he had already mourned their deaths.

One thing that was helping him a lot was you.  Part of it was probably a huge case of white knight syndrome.  He was aware of it.  He wouldn’t have joined the Avengers if he didn’t get a kick out of helping people.  He helped people a lot.  It was kind of his thing.  It was more than that though.  Yeah, he was happy he’d gotten you away from that asshole of a boyfriend.  Yeah, he was happy that he’d set you on your feet so you could do this whole pregnancy thing without the looming threat of a man that beat you or not being able to provide for them.  Mostly he just liked having you around.

He’d shut people out.  It wasn’t just that he wasn’t letting new people in, he’d also shut out the friends and family he already had.  Opening that door for you seemed to open up a little bit of the man he used to be before all this happened.  Not only that, without Richard looming over you, you started to come to life.  You were like a breath of fresh air.  Even after you moved into the apartment next door you’d come by to have meals with them.  Often bringing over some of the dishes the neighbors had been making, sometimes cooking from scratch.  While he missed eating pizza as much as he was, it was definitely good to that the kids were eating better.  Laura would be happy to hear it in any case.

You’d gotten a job at Stark Industry basically doing data entry.  It wasn’t much, but it was something that you could sit for and it would last you until you couldn’t work anymore.  On your days off you were with them.  You came to movies and the park and the zoo.  The kids had all bonded with you quite closely considering it had only been a month and a half.  He liked seeing you with them.  He liked you.  He liked himself with you.  He started to recognize the guy he’d used to be.  The one that was happy and flirtatious and hadn’t lost his family.

Which kinda sucked because he couldn’t see how there was any chance for you two to be anything.  He couldn’t properly hit on you.  The flirting was harmless but you’d just gotten out of an abusive relationship.  You needed time and space.  You’d already said you’d worried that he wanted something from you as payment.  He wasn’t exactly in the best place either.  How was he supposed to make a new relationship work when he’d fucked his marriage up so badly?  Not to mention you were pregnant.  It upped the stakes.  He had to be really sure that there was something there before he messed with your life.  The problem was that he was never sure about that kind of thing.

It has been Nat that has introduced him to Bobbi.  It has been Nat who has pushed him towards Laura.  He didn’t know if he had it in him to try without he smacking him over the back of the head.

As the summer drew to a close he had really started to relax.  It was a weird sensation after so many years where he wouldn’t let himself.  You were at his apartment with the kids waiting for Laura to pick them up.  You were all playing Mario Kart.  He couldn’t quite believe how much fun he was having.  The kids were being hypercompetitive.  You were shoving him every time he got in the lead to try and make him crash.  Everyone was laughing and screaming, but that good kind of screaming where you’re having so much fun it comes out as shrieks.  Each time you pushed against him he felt a warm tingle inside him.  That little flutter of potential.  He wanted it to go away but at the same time, he liked it.  He liked that he could feel that again.

You shoved him again making him fly his baby Luigi off the side of the rainbow road.  “Oh, that’s it!”  He said trying to grab your controller out of your hands.

“No!”   You squealed, climbing up the back of the couch.  He wrestled with you for it making everyone laugh and Lucky start to bark excitedly.

“Yes!  You want to play dirty, we’ll play dirty.”  He teased.

There was a knock at the door and Lila jumped up and ran over to answer it.  “Mom!”  She squealed.

Everyone froze and looked over to see Laura standing in the doorway looking bemused.

“Mommy!”  Nate yelled, running over to Laura and throwing himself at her.  She caught him and picked him up as she pulled Lila into a hug too.

“Hey, guys.  I missed you.”  She said as she held them close.

Clint stood a little startled.  He knew Laura was coming today but he thought he had a few more hours.  He checked the microwave clock but it was flashing 12.00 as it had been since the day he moved in.  “Are you early?”

“Yeah, sorry.”  She said.  “I totally misjudged how long it would take to get here.  I don’t wanna rush them out or anything.  I do have that baby stuff you asked for in the car though.”

“Oh, great.  Thanks, Laur.”  He said and introduced the two of you.  “How about we go get that and you guys pack up the last of your stuff and then we can all go out and grab an early dinner?”

“Sounds good to me,”  Laura said putting Nate down.

“You mind helping them out?”

You nodded.  “Sure of course.  Come on you lot.”

Clint followed Laura downstairs leaving you and the kids to pack up their things.  “I hope this stuff is okay.  It’s all really old now.”  Laura said as she made her way down the stairs.  “I forgot that until I was going through it and it was covered in almost a decade of dust.”

Clint sighed and nodded.  “I guess if it’s no good we can have a baby shower and buy whatever else.”

Laura looked at him and raised her eyebrow.  “We?  Is this your baby, Clint?”

“What?  No.  I’d have told you I was with someone.”

“Well, that’s something at least.”  She said with a shake of her head.  “Who is this woman, Clint?  Why are you doing this?”

“She doesn’t have anyone.  And her ex was beating her.  I… Laur, I couldn’t do nothing.”

“There’s doing something and then there’s bending over backward.”  She said.  “Do you want something to happen with her.”

“No.  It’s not like that…”  He said.

“Clint, I just saw you.  I know what you look like when you’re falling for someone.”

He sighed and opened the door for her to go outside.  “I just… Laura.  She needed someone.  I couldn’t be who you needed me to be.  I tried.  And I wish it was different.  But it’s not.  And she needed help.  I can give her that.  I should be dead and I’m not so I need to do something to make it count.”

Laura stopped and looked him over.  She approached him and cupped his jaw.  It was such a familiar move yet it was like it was something that used to happen to a whole other man.  “I miss her too, Clint.  Every single day.  And I miss you.  But you aren’t the man I miss.  I think he died right along with us, only we don’t remember that happening.”

Clint opened his mouth to say something.  To apologize or try to explain or something.  She put her finger on his lips.  “It’s okay, Clint.  I can’t even try to understand what those five years were like.  I’m not even sure I want to.  You aren’t who you were before.  But the world isn’t what it was before.  It’s different and maybe you’re right.  Maybe she needs you.  But maybe you need her too.  Just…”  She paused and took a deep breath, caressing his cheek with her thumb.  “Be careful.  For both your sake.”

He nodded leaning his head into her hand a little.  “I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

“I love you, you know that?”  Laura said.  “If helping her, or being with her helps you find yourself, do it.  Be happy.”

He smiled sadly and nodded.  “I love you too.”  He said.  “I wish…”

“Me too, Clint.  But let’s not dwell on it anymore.  We’ve all lost too much.  Time to move forward.”  She said.  “Now help me get these things outta my car.”

Clint nodded and popped the trunk.  He did wish things were different in so many ways.  Laura was right though, it was time to move forward.  Most likely nothing would happen between you and him.  It was unfair of him to expect it would.  He could be your friend and he hadn’t made a new one in a long time.  That was a good start.

// NEXT

[tortoisesforhire]

Which Avenger

I was tagged by @sarcasm-is-my-native-tounge 

Oh my, oh my oh my oh my. ~cracks knuckles~  Lets do this!

Which Avenger would you recruit to help you plan your birthday party?

Clint. He’s the defacto strategist, lowkey crazy, grew up in a circus and would throw the wildest fucking party ever. Who needs a venue? He owns a building let’s have a roof party. Booze? He has his ways. Everyone ever would be there, someone would definitely almost die and/or get arrested. Clint would probably end the night in tears cause he’s a sappy drunk lmao. 

Which Avenger would you switch suits with for a day?

Tony. I mean he ends up making suits for literally everyone anyways. Poor ptsd boi, and that includes people like Cap and Nat who refuse to ever wear them even though they are shiny and he made them with love and anxiety. Also the Ironman armor is OP as fuuuuck

Which Avenger would you want to train with?

Natasha is actually a horrible teacher, her own instruction was highkey abusive as fuck and learning from her would be horrible. Steve maybe but then again he’s not that good at teaching, he relies mostly on his superior physique and cognitive abilities. Tony and Clint would be the best at teaching honestly, Tony would stress about it a lot but he also cares a lot and Clint is just naturally good at it. If I could choose from part-time avengers then definitely Logan. I mean he randomly adopts young women and teaches them to be badass all the time (Laura, Jubilee, Kitty, Yukio etc.) so it’s not like it would be new to him. And he’s surprisingly very good at teaching. 

Which Avenger would you call if you are in trouble?

Natasha, there’d be no questions asked. No guilting afterwords for whatever it was. Clint would mock me for my pain too much, Tony would go all overprotective Irondad on me, Steve would exude so much American Disapproval I’d probably just shoot myself to get away from it. Bruce is never to be called ever for anything other than a hug. Pepper maybe but also she’s very busy and needs a nap. Sam maybe but depending on how in trouble I am he might not be able to help. Sam with Scott and Hope. Thor would cause too much of a mess. Loki would just get me into more trouble. T’Challa is too busy for my shit and would just say no. Shuri would laugh at me, Okoye would be sooo done with all of it. Wanda maybe yeah but she’s not very covert and would end up causing some kind of scandal. Pietro would get me out of trouble and then promptly get me into even more trouble. Vision would try his best but who knows how that would end. Bucky would hurt people very badly and it would be a very bloody ordeal full of screaming and trauma, but hey, he’s trying. Janet honestly, if we’re talking OG Avengers would be a good person to call if Nat isn’t available, she’s great in a crisis, can talk her way out of everything and is also brilliant. 

Natasha is honestly the only one who would ask no questions, make no mess and take care of everything no matter what. 

You got arrested, which Avenger are you with?

Probably Clint or Pietro. Most likely Clint cause Pietro would just leave me to take the heat, Loki would never get caught in the first place, Tony doesn’t get arrested. He’s Tony. But Clint? Yeah. Or Scott, tbh. Although in the first it would be Clint’s fault totally, in the second only like 50 percent Scott’s fault. 

Basketball: which Avenger do you pick first for your team?

Not Thor, he doesn’t get the game very well and there would definitely be lightning involved. Steve doesn’t get basketball, Bucky would refuse to play, sam with Nat...hmmm. Sam probably. He’s normal enough to get it, athletic enough to be good at it and friendly enough to have fun. Everyone else honestly would be a hot mess. Peter maybe? Sam or Peter. 

You are trying to make your ex jealous, which Avenger do you pretend to date?

Carol. She’s hot, she’s buff, she can bench press a buss. Definitely Carol, also she’d be down to fuck with some dudes. Also just dtf honestly, she’s cool like that. Can I just date Carol? 

You are out for a good time, which Avenger is your wingman/woman?

Nat is a horrible matchmaker, so choosing her as a wingwoman comes with a lot of risks. She’ll get very invested and weirdly competitive about the whole thing. Clint would be very eager but generally kind of shit at it. Tony is too distracting to be anyone’s wingman. Rhodey honestly would be perfect. I choose Rhodey.  

You woke up with a hangover, which Avenger were you drinking with?

Tony, it would be a night full of bad decisions of badness and Rhodey and Pepper would scold us thoroughly. Mostly Tony, he’s a very bad influence. 

You are on a road trip, which Avenger do you ride with?

Mmmm, I don’t know. Tony would have great taste in music but no patience at all and would eventually drive me crazy. Natasha would insist on silence and/or weird russian music. Clint would be a good road trip buddy, great conversation, good snacks. Peter too, also Sam because you need a responsible adult. Thor doesn’t understand what you mean by ‘roadtrip’ why not just fly? Steve would suck honestly, like a roadtrip with your overly responsible dad. Wade would be fun, but also very dangerous, we might end up dead. Scott would be a good road trip buddy, Quill as well I mean he’s got some pretty great music. 

Idk if I could just pick one. But honestly I’d go on a roadtrip with Clint and Quill and then drag Sam along kicking and screaming because we need a grown up to make sure we don’t die. 

You slept with one of the Avengers, which one do you wake up next to you?

Carol. Mmm, definitely Carol. Or Doctor Strange. I feel like he’d be a good time. 

Your favorite band is having a concert, which Avenger goes with you?

Scott, he’s a good concert buddy, he’s got that fun dad energy and would definitely rock out with you to whatever, he’s just happy to be there. 

You are shopping, which Avenger do you trust to help you pick your outfits?

Pepper, she’s got impeccable fashion sense perfectly suited to the person. Tony would insist I dress like he wanted me to dress and everyone else is kind of a disaster fashion-wise. Like Comic-Wanda is very red-hippie-cleavage and it works for her but she doesn’t relate well enough to others to be able to give advice of any kind. 

Your parents want to meet one of your new friends, which Avenger do you take to meet them?

Peter, a hundred percent. He is the Goodest Boi (tm), and everyone would immediately fall in love with him. It is science. Lowkey though I’d want to bring Natasha or Carol just to scandalize some people. Like hello yes here is my Murder Girlfriend, she does bite so watch your hands. 

You get injured on a mission, which Avenger do you trust to be in charge of your care?

Bruce. He’s good at this sort of thing, and it doesn’t involve hulking or smashing so he’d be down to babysit the injured person. Also he’s super chill to hang with so bonus.

Your room is a mess, which Avenger do you pick to be your Butler and clean your room?

Mm, not Tony he’s not clean. Pepper would do it but I would feel bad. Bruce no, Clint definite no, Natasha would probably stab me for asking. Sam would guilt me into cleaning it myself. One doesn’t ask such things of Bucky honestly. Vision would try but I don’t think it would go well unless you like all your stuff put in weird places. Same with Wanda, Pietro would just fuck with you. Honestly Steve. Cause I could definitely trick him into doing it, would feel absolutely no guilt whatsoever and if he got upset I could just say it’s his fault for being gullible. 

You want to play a prank on the team but need help, which Avenger do you pick to help you prank the rest of the team?

Clint or Peter. Or Clint and Peter. 

Time to buy Christmas presents, which Avenger is the easiest to buy for?

Tony is terrible to buy for until you realize all you have to do is draw him a heartfelt picture and he’ll cry. Pepper is a nightmare to shop for. Natasha as well. Bruce wants infinite comfort items. Fuck Steve. Anything you get Bucky will be received with lowkey tears. T’Challa, don’t even try honestly. Get Peter something funny and spider themed and you’re good. Sam eh, no matter what he’d be polite about it. Thor would honestly be the easiest. I could get that guy socks and he’d be so fucking touched, wear them everywhere and brag to all the other avengers about his cool poptart socks. 

You are going on a mission but only one other person can go, which Avenger are you taking with you?

It would depend on the mission. Anything politically tricky that would require tact and know-how I’d take either Natasha or Tony. Tony if it was well publicized because he has the most experience with the media and Natasha if it was more covert because she has the most experience dealing with murky politics of that sort. Anything to do with stealing I’d take Janet, Hope or Scott. Probably just Scott. Not Bruce, he only goes in when things get destroyed and he doesn’t need help in that arena. Steve if it was something fairly straight forward but that needed good press. Bucky if I need help murdering someone. Anything to do with magic I’d bring Strange, not Wanda cause those things end badly since they usually involve Doom or Sinister who always end up fucking with her head which ends in reality warping shenanigans. T’Challa if it was something to do with either Atlantis (cause he’s salty) or Wakanda. Clint if I need a strategist, Thor if it’s cosmicy, Pietro if I absolutely had to but honestly he doesn’t work well with anyone other than his sister. Getting into part-time avengers Logan if it’s a problem I can’t or won’t handle I can just toss him at it and he’ll sort it out. Same with Deadpool tbh. Carol if it had to do with Space politics (Thor’s a terrible politician, ask Loki). Loki if it had to do with big magics (honestly I’d go to him first in the case of magic, he has more free time than Doctor Strange and he’s definitely more powerful good god he’s fucking ancient jesus). 

Honestly the most consistently useful one is Spiderman. Peter would be covert, could manage to maneuver political minefields, could get good press (not including the daily bugle fuck those guys), is super OP and would be great company. 

I’m not gonna tag anyone else but I had fun with this. 

[pass-the-bechdel]

Marvel Cinematic Universe: Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

Does it pass the Bechdel Test?

Yes, once.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Seven (30.43% of cast).

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Sixteen.

Positive Content Rating:

Three.

General Film Quality:

Significantly flawed, and well-known in fandom for it. Unpopular opinion? I still think it’s better than the first Avengers film.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) UNDER THE CUT:

Passing the Bechdel:

Natasha and Laura pass in a single-line trade. It’s sooo close to not counting.

Female characters:

Natasha Romanoff.

Wanda Maximoff.

Maria Hill.

Helen Cho.

Peggy Carter.

Laura Barton.

FRIDAY.

Male characters:

Tony Stark.

Steve Rogers.

JARVIS.

Thor.

Clint Barton.

Strucker.

Pietro Maximoff.

Bruce Banner.

Ultron.

Sam Wilson.

James Rhodes.

Ulysses Klaue.

Heimdall.

Nick Fury.

Erik Selvig.

Vision.

OTHER NOTES:

Everyone talking about Strucker like we already know who he is...

The “Shit!”/”Language!” gag was funnier before they hung a lantern on it. Not least because it takes almost a full minute before Tony harks back to it (fifty seconds, actually. I checked). If you’re gonna make a Thing out of it, you gotta follow up immediately, not after fifty seconds of cutting around to different character intros and action shots and a whole lot of other dialogue. 

Urrgghh, ok, I’m going to break my standing rule about not discussing source material, because we gotta acknowledge the colossal wrongness of re-writing the Maximoff twins - canonically Jewish Romani - as willing volunteers in a Nazi science experiment. It gets worse the more you think about it. There are a few things about this movie which generated significant negative outcry, and this incredibly offensive decision is one of them.

Tony and Thor fighting over who has a better girlfriend does have a certain charm to it. If you’re gonna have a testosterone-off, it might as well be about how great your partner is.

I got a zero out of ten on this out-of-nowhere forced romance crap with Natasha and Bruce. We’ll come back to this later.

“I will be reinstituting Prima Nocta,” Tony declares, as he prepares to lift Thor’s hammer and thereby theoretically take charge of the Nine Realms. Primae noctis (believed to in fact be a myth) refers to a supposed Dark-Ages law that granted lords the ‘right’ to take the virginity of any newlywed peasant woman who lived on their land. So, this is a wonderful little rape joke from Tony (or, y’know, not so little, since primae noctis in reality would make Tony a serial rapist). Ha ha ha ha. Hilarious. Good one.

I’m really mad about the parts here that are total garbage, because mostly, the revels sequence has a nice low-key quality to it, good solid team dynamics. 

I can’t fucking believe that they played the ‘and then Bruce falls with his face in Natasha’s cleavage!’ gag. I cannot believe it. Is this a disgusting frat-boy comedy from the nineties?

Honestly, Tony, just shut up and admit that you KNEW from the get-go that it was wrong to try and make Ultron happen (that is why you kept it secret from everyone else to begin with); don’t try to defend the decision now that you’ve got a ‘murderbot’ on your hands. Take responsibility for a bad choice instead of talking shit about how you had to and everyone else is just too short-sighted, damn it! 

Andy Serkis is delightful.

The Iron Man/Hulk fight absolutely KILLS the momentum of this film. It goes for way the fuck too long (eight minutes) and has no narrative significance at all. Pro tip for action scenes: they should always be driving the story somewhere. You can pull off eighty minutes of action so long as your plot is advancing alongside/within it.

Also, Iron Man causes a huge amount of additional damage during this fight, in the service of the aforementioned pointless action. His efforts to minimise Hulk’s effects are extremely poor, and calling in his relief organisation to clean up after the fact does not negate that. 

Gotta love that throwing a wife and kids at Hawkeye at the same time as we suddenly start pushing this Natasha/Bruce thing. That’s not transparent at all. I also understand this to be a major deviation from Clint’s identity in the comics, and very unpopular with fans for that reason, but regardless; reinventing him as a family man to reset the romantic blather after baiting fans with the possibility of Clint/Natasha in the first Avengers movie is such a shitty move. I was not invested in the ship myself and would have loved to have them reinforce the just-friends relationship between Hawkeye and Black Widow, because there are not enough platonic friendships between compatible men and women in fiction, but 'they’re not interested in each other because they’re busy with someone else!’ is a weak reinforcement indeed. Less forced romances, and definitely less token wifey who exists for no other Goddamn reason at all. This comes out of nowhere, and not in a clever-surprise kind of way.

“You still think you’re the only monster on the team?” Natasha says, after telling Bruce about her sterilisation. This earned a HUGE backlash, and for good reason - despite all arguments about how what Natasha meant was that her being raised to be an assassin makes her a monster, the direct implication of her words as they are phrased and as the discussion is structured is that her inability to have children makes her monstrous, and that’s deeply offensive. It’s also completely in keeping with a narrative which is often played out against women, in which their value as people is attributed directly to their ability to produce offspring, so it’s not even like this outrageous implication of monstrosity - the corruption of what it means to be female! - is that unusual. It’s awful, but not unusual. Add on the fact that 1) Natasha’s nightmare-flashes specifically foregrounded her sterilisation over all other details of her training, supporting the idea that she believes that it’s what makes her irredeemable (instead of, y’know, all the murdering and stuff), and 2) this is Joss Whedon’s work and he is OBSESSED with highlighting the womanhood of his female characters and treating it like their defining trait while also variously punishing them for it, and you’ve got every reason to interpret this terrible fucking line as exactly the heinous thing it (presumably, unwittingly) seems to be. 

Steve ripping a log in half with his bare hands is the funniest thing in this whole movie.

Thor’s brief side-adventure with Erik Selvig is pretty out-of-place. He just...goes for a swim in a convenient magic pond that Selvig chances to know about. Seems normal.

Ultron is full of such boring, empty rhetoric. Reminds me of Loki in The Avengers, with all that sound-and-fury. 

I love Paul Bettany.

Man, they sure do find Natasha instantly. It’s almost like making a damsel-in-distress of her who needs to be rescued by the team was completely meaningless...

Breaking my no-BTS rule (since I already have done for this movie at this point) because it’s well-known how Joss Whedon ordered Elizabeth Olsen not to show exertion or ‘ugly emotion’ on her face in this film, because God forbid she compromise her attractiveness by being human. Joss Whedon is not human; he’s fucking trash. 

The final fight sure does just, y’know, get to a point where it ends. They really did not ratchet up the tension over the course of the Sokovia conflict, it just goes along until it stops (also, they say Sokovia is a country, but then they never call the city anything else, it’s just Sokovia. Is the city conveniently named after the country (very confusing), or is it a city-country, like The Vatican? I kinda assume it’s option three, which is that no one bothered to care because it’s just some fake European placeholder anyway and we’re not supposed to notice such a dumb oversight).

“I was born yesterday.” This is the best quip in this whole thinks-it-is-way-wittier-than-it-is movie.

Helen Cho deserved better than to be a prop rapidly dismissed and then just trotted past at the end for an ‘oh, she survived, btw’. 

Back when I reviewed the first Avengers movie, I said that I considered that film to be heavily overrated, so maybe it’s not such a surprise that I actually like this one better. The two primary problems I had with that first film were the overly simplistic plot, and the fact that most of the characters were OOC compared to previous films, and this movie does do better on both scores, so I feel more engaged by it, and less annoyed. That said...this movie has still got a lot of problems, and those include iffy characterisation and a plot with various holes, nonsensical complications, and conveniently ignored or smoothed-down dynamics. When I say I like this movie better than the first one, I mean just that: I like this better. That does not mean I am here to sing its praises. 

The tacked-on romance is part of the problem - for Clint as well as Natasha (but especially for Natasha). After Hawkeye was so heavily under-used in the first film (and his slightly-ambiguous relationship with Black Widow was the only human element that made him a character instead of a prop), Age of Ultron attempts to compensate by giving Clint a personal life, in the form of a magically-appearing heavily-pregnant wife and a pair of nameless children. The function of this family appears to be 1) to give Clint a reason to not be interested in Natasha, and 2) to ‘humanise’ him by giving him something to fight for and get home to, because we all know nothing legitimises a character quite like some otherwise-irrelevant dependents. Want a man to seem lovable and important? Give him a pregnant wife. That’s what women are for, anyway, right? To enhance a man’s story? In this case, to provide a man whose purpose in the story has been contested with insta-personality, because ‘he’s secretly a family man, ooh, twist!’ is way better than having to spend time on giving him something to do in the plot that is actually meaningful in some way. Great logic. Makes Hawkeye super dynamic, right? 

Natasha, unsurprisingly, is hit much, much harder. As the only female avenger and one of only two prominent female characters in a cast which has seven-to-nine male characters of equal or greater importance/screen time (YMMV on whether or not you think Fury and Vision count for that list), the pressure is already on for Natasha to be served up a quality narrative, because if she doesn’t get one, well...she doesn’t have six-to-eight alternative characters to pull the weight for her gender. The best solve for this problem would be to avoid the ‘Token Woman’ cliche in the first place, but since we missed that boat...not having the personal story of your only primary female character revolve completely around her womanhood and her catering to heteronormative expectations of a love interest would have been a good choice. This weird, forced, chemistry-free thing with Bruce Banner? Was the worst thing they could have used to define Natasha’s presence in the film. It sticks out like a sore thumb every time they have an awkward interaction, and it leads in to that atrocious ‘monstrous infertility’ element (though that particular egregious mistake could have been included with or without a romantic blunder, it...probably wouldn’t be, and we’d all be the better off). Even the Hulk-whisperer part of the relationship - while not awful on its own with all the unnecessary romance and Unresolved Sexual Not-Tension removed - serves to highlight Natasha’s female-ness by making her the soft maternal figure for the team, because God forbid one of the other male members of the team be asked to ASMR-speak to the Hulk while delicately caressing his hand. If Natasha’s presence in the first Avengers film leaned too heavily on her gender identity as a defining trait (and it did), this movie doesn’t fix that problem at all: it doubles down on it. 

The good news for most of the excess of male characters is, they by-and-large don’t feel as OOC as they did in the first film. The boorish romantic entanglement aside, Bruce Banner is still a naturalistic character highlight (all credit to Mark Ruffalo, who probably doesn’t know how to turn in a bad performance in the first place), and Thor’s dialogue is way less ridiculous this time ‘round, so he lands a lot closer to his personality from previous films simply by virtue of sounding like the same guy (unfortunately, the plot does not have the faintest idea what it wants to do with him as a character). Steve Rogers is still being written as if being Captain America is his character, which is a fundamental misunderstanding of his identity, albeit one which conveniently allows him to behave in a stereotypical self-righteously bland manner, thus avoiding the need for any nuance in his perspective or actions. This borderline fanfic-flamer ‘Captain America is my least favourite character so I’m going to write him as a boring stick-in-the-mud and then hopefully no one else will like him either!’ approach doesn’t grate quite as badly as it did in the first Avengers, and it can’t cancel out the innate level-headed charm of Chris Evans, so as disappointing as the bias is, it’s still a better balance here than it was last time. The one character who is not so flatteringly handled, however? Also happens to be the one who was arguably handled best last time, and unfortunately, he’s the one who is essentially treated as the ‘lead’. 

The big problem for Tony Stark is that this movie is not interested in digging in to the pathos of any character, it’s all-flash-no-substance on that front, and Tony really, really needed a less heavy-handed slathering of ‘afraid of what might come (feat. messiah complex)’ to motivate his actions and reactions in this film, because without any exploration he’s basically just a billionaire kid playing with matches. If this were an Iron Man film (either the first or third one, anyway), we’d get into some tasty deconstruction of Tony’s mental state and confront his hubris, etc, and - crucially, most crucial of all, it’s a mainstay of all his past stories in the MCU - Tony would own up to his mistakes, listen to the advice of those around him, and take contrite steps toward fixing the problem not just in the direct sense of ‘beating the bad guy’, but also in the personal and emotional sense of working on his own flaws and making amends with the people he hurt along the way. This movie offers none of that. To begin with, Tony’s ‘I know best and I will not be taking any questions’ approach to creating Ultron feels like a significant step backwards in his character development so far (Iron Man 3 was specifically about addressing his PTSD and associated tumultuous emotions surrounding the fear of imminent alien invasion, so his reactionary and secretive behaviour in this film feels particularly out-of-touch with a mental reality Tony has been explicitly working on for the past couple of years); Tony is actively aware that it’s a bad call and thus hides it from the other Avengers until it’s too late, and then he’s bizarrely unrepentant about his mistake. Worst of all, he actually attempts to repeat that mistake, only worse, late in the film (the fact that his idiotic ‘mad scientist’ pep talk actually convinces Bruce to help him again is the weakest character moment for Bruce outside of the aforementioned romance crap). The plot rewards Tony’s second, far worse mistake, in the creation of Vision, who turns out to be ‘worthy of wielding Thor’s Hammer’ and whatnot and conveniently provides every necessary skill to defeat Ultron in a deus ex machina so overt you could use it as a textbook example, so even though Tony had absolutely no way of knowing that he’d get a good result this time and almost every reason to believe he’d just compound the existing problem, his reckless disregard for the literal safety of the planet is treated like a good thing because it happens to work out this time, and they just kinda sweep under the rug the fact that Tony is playing God (and being uncharacteristically stupid and selfish about it - in other films, Tony is normally only reckless with his own safety, and it’s when his actions spill out into unintended consequences for others that he realises the error of his ways and cues up a positive learning curve; it’s what makes him palatable). At the end of the film, once Ultron is gone and Tony has thrown some dispassionate wads of cash into ‘relief efforts’, he strolls and quips and eventually drives off into the sunset in his expensive car, with nary a mention of, I dunno, maybe a little guilty conscience? Maybe a hint of having learned a valuable lesson? The closest he gets is just suggesting that it might be time he retires from Avenging, but neither he nor anyone else lets on that there’s a need for serious self-reflection. The Tony Stark in this movie is the nightmarish male-fantasy version of the character, the playboy with the cool tech and no limits who does whatever he wants and then...literally rides off into the sunset in the end, no muss, no fuss. He’s kinda like a complete reversion to his original self, pre-Iron Man, frittering money around and designing weapons of mass destruction while convincing himself he’s bringing peace to the world one explosion at a time, but that Tony has no business here, seven years of character development down the track.

While we’re talking iffy characterisation, we should also segue into plot, and that’s something we can do easily enough by looking at our villain, Ultron. Calling Ultron an actual character feels...ambitious. He’s a CGI robot full of empty rhetoric and, you guessed it, more of those quips that this movie has in place of any meaningful dialogue. I’d call him self-fellating, but he ain’t got nothing to fellate, so instead he just blathers a lot in a manner that sounds vaguely poetically intelligent but is, upon a moment’s consideration, just vapid nonsense (much like Loki in the first Avengers, as noted above, but at least Loki had the benefit of a flesh-and-blood actor delivering his lines with conviction; James Spader does solid work as the voice of Ultron, but trying to make a CGI robot who spouts a school-kid’s attempt at edgy philosophy sound like a genuine menace is an uphill battle). Speaking of genuine menace, I assume the reason the film is called Age of Ultron is because A Couple of Days of Ultron Causing Disturbances in a Handful of Specific Locations was too much. For all the big talk (and there is..so much), Ultron doesn’t get up to all that much trouble, most notably in the sense that he apparently has his code all over the internet and yet he doesn’t bother stirring up a single ounce of chaos with that ungodly power. Why bother including this as an element of the character if it achieves zero story? Is it purely to make Ultron seem ~unstoppable~ because he keeps downloading into new robots? Because it didn’t really land, y’all. They try to play it like a big victory for the good guys when Vision burns Ultron out of the ‘net, but in context it’s meaningless because he didn’t do anything while he was there. Pretty much everything about Ultron was all talk, little to no action - even a whole bunch of the trouble he did cause happened off-screen, with Maria Hill just popping in to let us know that ‘there are reports of metal men stealing shit’. Cheers, cool. And you know, Ultron makes a song and dance about how he’s going to save the world by ‘ending the Avengers’, but then he...does not pursue that at all. He tries to make himself a pretty body, the Avengers thwart him, and then he enacts a doomsday machine to destroy all life on Earth. Like every other aspect of the character, the whole ‘end the Avengers’ schtick is just white noise, there’s no meaning in it. Ultron is just a same-old-same ‘What if Artificial Intelligence wants to WIPE US OUT?!’ cliche, and maybe that’s what he was in the comics too, I don’t know, but it’s the job of the film to tell that story in a dynamic way, and they had two and a half hours to do it. And yet.

There should be more to this than a nondescript placeholder villain concept and a series of action set pieces that just kinda happen until they stop. At least the first Avengers had some variety in each of its action sequences, using the location and the different skills and weapons of its antagonists, whereas this one is just ‘there are robots and the good guys punched and shot them until they were all broken, the end’. Even making the city fly in the end doesn’t actually make it interesting, not least because the characters spend most of their time running around the (weirdly, perfectly stable) streets not having to deal with any consequences of being up in the air anyway, and the doomsday device is too nebulous to ratchet up any real tension about figuring out how to deal with it. The conflicts with the Maximoff twins have at least some spark of life in them, but the characters themselves are treated to an over-simplified and very contrived narrative arc that uses what they do and what they know more as plot devices than as details of actual people’s lives, leading to a cheap death for Pietro so that Wanda will be distracted enough to abandon the big ol’ doomsday button, and it’s just all so convenient. There’s no heart in any of it, and it makes the moments that try to have heart all the more embarrassing and out-of-place (don’t even get me started on what a prescribed attempt at tugging the heart-strings it is to have Hawkeye name his magnificently well-timed newborn after Pietro, because DAMN). When I said I liked this movie better than the first Avengers, I meant just that: I like this better. That’s not to suggest that it is significantly better in any sense, because it isn’t, and I can’t even argue that this one has a better story, because honestly, it doesn’t. The first film made more sense, it was just less interesting to watch, and the things about it that were contrived were contrived in different ways. The first film was weaker and more irritating on character, and character is always the most important part of a story for me, so as annoyed as I am by the major character blunders in Age of Ultron, I’m still not as annoyed as I was after The Avengers. That is damning with the faintest of praise; this is just not a particularly good movie, it makes a poor use of its cast at the best of times, delivers a sub-par action extravaganza, and the script is not half as witty as it gleefully convinces itself that it is. It comes as no surprise, I’m sure, that I am very glad a certain writer/director departed the franchise after disappointing everyone with this outing. I say I like this better than the first Avengers, but gee, it’s a close call.

[chalantness]

@young-adult-catholic said: Hey I just discovered your Marvelous AU and then discovered that your giving up fanfic to work on your individual work (which is AWESOME good for you!). I voted already but the Marvelous AU wasn't an option and in the tags you said you had an idea of more stuff in that verse and I was just wondering if I could get any headcanons/info from it? If its too much I totally understand but I'm so in love with the verse I'll take what I can get! 

Also as a follow up your writing is honestly so amazing and incredible I'm bummed I've discovered you just as you're leaving the fic world (it was about two weeks ago). 

Thank you, darling! I am definitely bummed out to step away from fanfics for the indefinite future, but I know it will be worth it to have the chance to work on my own stories, and support like yours will absolutely be my motivation to become a published author!

Anyway.

The Marvelous ‘verse is probably one of the quickest things I’ve ever written and definitely some of the most fun I’ve ever had writing in general! I’m a sucker for those fandom articles and I adore when casts are adorable together on social media, and when I figured out how I could apply it to a fanfic, I went all out! I’m definitely going to sneak in a little social media in my original works, that’s how much fun it is to write!

As for the Marvelous ‘verse itself? I definitely planned on doing “5 Years of Marvelous Mayhem” theme for one of the chapters, inspired by Marvel Studios celebrating 10 years, and also inspired by the press and general goodbyes from the cast in talk shows and on social media as Game of Thrones was about to air its last season. I was also going to write about Steve and Natasha as a special magazine-type chapter surrounding their wedding a la the Royal Wedding of Harry and Meghan, of course! I happen to own one of the special edition magazines on the wedding, and I was using it heavily as inspiration to write Steve and Nat falling in love on set, which would have included anecdotes and “interviews” from the rest of the cast on how they all probably figured out Steve and Nat were in love before the two did themselves! 

The plot of Marvelous itself was, in my head, a play off of the X-Men line of comics, or at least how they approached their heroes: the Marvelous gang are essentially superpowered through altered genetic means, like Steve and Nat and Bucky being serum-enhanced or Pietro and Wanda being experimented on in actual canon. Tony’s power would essentially be along the lines of telekinesis via technology - hence him birthing the Iron Man suits in this fake TV show - and Clint would have had super sight with a little bit of super speed and superhuman strength, like a cross between Captain America and Quicksilver in the actual Marvel canon. Natasha would acquire her skill set through rigorous training in the Black Widow program - something that Laura Barton (aka: Mystery Agent) receives when her memories are wiped and she’s essentially reprogrammed with Black Widow abilities - but Natasha would also have empathetic powers on a smaller scale than Wanda’s, which is what helps her emotionally manipulate others and enhances her natural espionage skill because of it.

Now here’s something I was itching to write about: finale spoilers from Part IV!

Wanda’s big surprise from the mid-season finale? She’s pregnant, and the second half of the season would have seen her and Bucky dealing with the implications of how her fluctuating powers may be affecting the baby.

Also, guest star Edwin Jarvis? That’s meant to be Ultron.

In case it wasn’t obvious, Maria and Thor would have developed a romance late in the season and continued onto Season 5. Why? I have no idea. I just got Thor and Maria in my head one day, and the Marvelous ‘verse seemed like a fun way to dabble in them.

Natasha would have never fully recovered her memories, but she would have continued receiving flashes of them.

Steve proposes after he, Nat, Bucky, Wanda, and Peter narrowly escape being ambushed at their headquarters - for real, not a dream or some kind of hallucination like the season premiere - and she says yes!

An idea for Season 5 would have been to reveal Peter and Natasha as biological siblings that had been separated. Natasha’s memories would have been wiped just like Laura’s, which is why she wouldn’t have remembered him.

Speaking of which: Laura and Clint were going to be revealed as high school sweethearts, before Clint went missing - which was actually him realizing he had powers and running away for her safety, unbeknownst to him that Laura had been pregnant - and Laura would cross paths and end up on the Black Widow program’s radar shortly after. The reason Clint had forgotten her is because he had been banged up and emotionally distraught from being on the run until Nick Fury happened upon him and had to sedate him, and he’d simply lost most of his memories from the struggle of staying alive. Not my best, I know, but eh.

Thor would have gotten his powers back in the season finale, only to learn in the Season 5 premiere that this affected Wanda’s powers, making them believe she’d lost them for good when in reality that had simply been too weakened from the struggle and would take several months to come back.

He would’ve lost an eye protecting Maria, somehow - because broody Eye Patch Thor is a thing I didn’t realize I needed until Thor: Ragnarok.

Okay, that’s all I can think of for right now, but I could definitely write more trivia about the Marvelous ‘verse!

#chanty’s fanfic free-for-all

[forever-more-never-again]

All is Fair (An Avengers Request)

Requested: Anonymous

Pairing: Platonic!Avengers X Fem!Reader, Natasha X Fem!Reader

Word Count:2078

Warnings: Sam and Bucky being little shits, other than that, I don’t think so :)

Request: Howdy! I love your writing would you be willing to write an avengers x reader where everyone is fighting for reader’s attention/affection but reader is either oblivious or ignores it and one day nat just sweeps the board completely on accident somehow?

a/n: I had so much fun writing this! for this fic to work, Wanda and Vision are not together, neither are Tony and pepper or Clint and Laura. Hope you guys enjoy this! Super fluffy!

Masterlist

You were humming a song that you had heard on the radio recently as you walked into the common kitchen in the tower.

“Hey Steve, Bucky, Sam!” You greeted the three men as they were gathered around the island, fruit and water bottles scattered between them clueing you in that they had just returned from their jog.

Steve blushed a light pink and turned his face to the counter as Bucky and Sam smirked at you. Bucky spoke up first as you reached up into the cupboard for your special cereal, “So Doll. What’s on your roster for today? Maybe you and I could go get ice cream later?”

Sam glared at Bucky, but you didn't notice as you poured your cereal and replied, “Well, Wanda promised a relaxing movie night, you guys are welcome to join. Ohhh! We could all go get ice cream and have a movie night! Team bonding!”

Sam laughed and smacked a flabbergasted Bucky on the back before turning to you as you shoveled the cereal into your mouth, “So [Y/n], I noticed on the last mission you lost your necklace, what would you say if I could get you a new one?”

You scrunched your eyes as you thought about it. Swallowing your cereal and throwing your bowl in the sink you chirped, “Naw, I don’t really like wearing jewelry. But, we could all get friendship bracelets!”

And with that, you skipped out of the kitchen to go get dressed.

Bucky snorted at Sam, “Sorry buddy. Seems you got friend-zoned.”

Sam glared back, “And what you would know about friend-zone grandpa? Why do you even try? She will never go out with a 100 year old fossil.”

Bucky stood up and his metal arm whispered as the plates shifted, “Want to say that again Birdbrain?”

Steve slowly got in between his friends, hands raised, “Hey now. WHy are you guys even fighting over her? She hasn't shown any interest in dating any team member.”

Sam sighed, falling back into his chair, “Yeah, but she’s just so…”

Bucky finished the sentence, “ ...Beautiful.”

Sam glared but relented, turning to Steve, “She can take down two men without breaking a sweat, and still look gorgeous.”

Bucky added on, staring dreamily into space, “And she doesn’t shy away from my arm, or my past. She’s so sweet and innocent.”

At that moment, Tony and Bruce walked into the kitchen, “What we talking about boys?” Tony quipped.

Bruce, bleary eyed, starting making a cup of coffee as Steve sighed and rubbed his head, “Sam and Bucky are trying to flirt with [Y/n], but she doesn't appear interested.”

Tony laughed, “Of course not, She obviously wouldn't go for either of them when I’m the clear choice. Me and her are going to get doughnuts tomorrow morning.”

Sam stared down Tony, “Did you specifically call it a date? Or did you make it sound like friends going to get doughnuts?” Tony squirmed, “Well, I’m sure she knew I meant it as a date…”

Bruce piped up, looking fresher after sipping some coffee, “When he asked her, she got excited and talked about getting doughnuts for the whole team. So no. she did not take it to mean a date.”

Tony glared at Bruce who shrugged his shoulders innocently.

Bucky flexed his arms, “I knew it. I know what impresses the ladies, and she is totally crushing on me.”

Steve sighed, “Bucky. She calls you her precious cinnamon roll and pats your head like a puppy...I doubt she thinks of you romantically.”

Sam burst out into laughter, clutching his stomach as Bucky turned bright red and directed an ice cold glare to Steve.

Sam turned to Bruce, “What about you? You trying to get [Y/n] out on a date?”

Bruce nervously sipped on his coffee before tugging on the collar of his shirt, avoiding everyone’s eyes, “Well… She is quite the woman. And that’s even without her pyrokinesis…”

Sam rolled his eyes, “yes yes, she’s a marvelous Avenger. But do you have a crush on her? I need to know how many people I’m competing against for her affection.”

Bruce turned a slight green color as his eyes flashed before calling back down to his usual brown color, “Both Hulk and I care very much for [Y/n] and only want what's best for her. If that so happens to be me, I would not complain.”

Sam rolled his eyes again. But got distracted from replying when Clint, Wanda and Vision entered the kitchen. The room was now almost completely crowded.

Wanda startled when she saw everyone standing around the kitchen island counter, “What is this?” She asked, raising an eyebrow.

Bucky ran up to her and poked her in her chest, causing her eyes to flash warningly, “What is this about a movie night with [Y/n]? Now she wants to make my ice cream date into a social event for the whole team before a team movie night!” Wanda frowned, “A team movie night? No, it's just me and [Y/n], a date.”

Sam snorted, “Yeah, apparently we all think its a date whenever we suggest something, but she takes it as a friendly team suggestion. She turned Bucky’s ice cream date and your movie date into a team bonding event, she rejected my gift of jewelry in favor of wanting friendship bracelets for everyone and she turned Tony’s doughnut date into a doughnut errand run. We are so pathetic! Fighting for her affections. We should settle this so that only one of us can ask her out.”

Steve spoke up, his voice commanding and condescending, “You mean even if she doesn't want to date you? Your going to limit her options to one person?” Sam groaned, “Not what I meant Cap. Besides what do you care, you haven't asked her out, obviously you aren’t interested.”

Steve blushed, and Sam gaped at him, “Wait...have you asked her out?”

Steve mumbled, “She thought I was inviting the whole team to dinner.”

At that Tony started laughing, but was shut up when Clint jumped up onto the counter, standing over them all, “Excuse me. But I believe I would be the best suitor for [Y/n]. After all, I can make her laugh, and we’ll have fun together.”

Wanda rolled her eyes, using her magic to bring Clint back to the ground, “Right, cause that’s all someone wants in a relationship. Not anything like loyalty, or romance.”

Clint defended himself, “Well yeah of course those would be involved!”

Vision walked into the fray, “I can calculate the best odds to make [Y/n] fall in love, and I would be so bold as to suggest that I would be the best partner for her.”

Bucky and Sam both stared, open mouthed at the android before bursting out laughing, holding on to each other so they wouldn't fall onto the ground.

Vision squinted at them, “I fail to see the humor in my statement.”

Tony patted Vision on the shoulder, “Well Vision, see [Y/n] deserves someone of the flesh and bone variety...Not someone so...clinical.”

Vision frowned and moved out from under Tony’s hand, “I fail to see how what components we are made up off make a difference in the emotions that can be referenced from out actions.”

Tony sighed, “That, right there, is why you should not date anyone.”

Bruce spoke up, clearing his throat to get everyone’s attention. Once everyone was looking at him, he pointed down the hall, “Maybe we should ask [Y/n] who she wants to date rather than make assumptions for her. You guys have been hounding her for weeks and she doesn’t seem to understand that you all like her, so why not clear the air.”

Steve, Sam, Bucky, Tony, Vision, Clint and Wanda all seemed to consider his words. They all shared a look with each other, and then in the next second, were clambering and fighting each other to be the first out of the kitchen.

“Shove it Iron Stank!” Sam yelled as he elbowed Tony in the chest.

“Hey, No magic allowed!” Clint yelled as he grabbed onto Wanda’s foot as she tried to float over everyone.

“Watch yourself Captain or you might regret it.” Vision stated calmly as he blocked a kick from Steve as he launched himself over Bucky.

Eventually all of them were running down the halls, looking in doorways, trying to find where you were.

Finally, they ran past the gym. “Wait!” Sam yelled out, backpedaling. Everyone else gathered around to look through the giant window and they all shared shocked looks at what they were seeing. You were standing in front of Natasha, holding one of her hands and laughing.

“Oh hell no!” Sam screamed, opening the door to the gym and running inside. Everyone else following.

You turned, shocked as you saw your team running towards you in a stampede, “Guys? What’s up?” You asked. Letting go of Natasha’s hand to look at all of them concerned as they panted.

“We need to ask you something. You need to settle an argument.” Steve spoke up, straightening out his shirt as he stood up.

You smiled at them, “Okay, but I have something to share first!”

You turned to Natasha, who was watching everyone with a knowing glint in her eyes.

“Can you guys believe it! Natasha had an extra set of tickets to La Boheme tonight in the Opera house and she asked me out! We’re going on our first date!” You squealed, hanging onto Natasha’s arm as you leaned over and kissed her cheek.

Everyone’s jaw dropped.

You turned back to them, not seeming to see the shock, “So what did you guys need me to settle?”

Tony was the first to compose himself, “Ahh well, It's simple really.”

Bruce mumbled, “We could have handled it.”

Sam groaned, as Bucky and Steve both turned to punch him in the arm.

Wanda shook her head and with a small smile spoke, “So sorry. Happy for you two. But I think it was just settled.”

You shook your head, smile turning into a bemused smirk as you ran your eyes over your team, “What are you guys on? Did you not get enough coffee this morning?”

Visionspoke up, despite Tony and Steve scrambling to grab ahold of him and pull him out of the room as everyone else left, “We all shared a crush on you, and were fighting for you affection, but it seems that Miss Romanoff has won.”

You quirked your head to the side, “Aww you guys all had a crush on me?” Your eyes shot wide and your mouth made an O as realization dawned on you, “Is that why everyone was asking me to go with them to different places and offering to buy me stuff? I thought you guys were just wanting to Bond with the team!”

Natasha chuckled next to you, “Wow, you guys were all fighting for [Y/n]?” You turned to Natasha with a shy smile, “You weren’t?”

Natasha shook her head, her Green eyes softening as she gazed into yours, “I honestly had no clue. I asked you out because you seem to be a really cool, beautiful person and I just want to get to know you better. And if it grows and becomes romantic, then that's just a bonus.”

Your smile grew ten times and your heart flipped as you listened to her. Unaware that everyone else had left the gym.

“I’m so happy to hear that. I have had a crush on you since you fought me on the train tracks two years ago in Berlin.”

Natasha threw her head back as she laughed freely, recalling the day you got recruited to the Avengers.

“I think this might become a wonderful thing.” She stated, smiling warmly at you.

You  smiled back before frowning, “Do you think this will affect my friendship with the rest of the team? I think of them all as family and I would hate for it to become awkward between us.”

Natasha’s lips lifted into a smirk. She leaned over and pecked a quick kiss on your lips, leaving you looking at her in a daze as she replied, “If it does, they are idiots. Well, bigger idiots than they normally are.” She mused.

You laughed softly, “I’m going to have so much fun teasing them all for crushing on me.”

FOREVER Taglist:

@sxph-t @littlestfangirl @rainydaysrnevergrey @not-jk-rowling @sociallyawkwardcircus-freak-hi @ayyidkeither

Natasha Taglist:

@ludwigvonbaethoven @hanjiscience-slut @kitten-q-p @morbid-gaymer @honeybadgerwhodoesntcare @sunnyandtwisty @zoeyknight @kurlyafro @thewomanofwonder @5aftermidnight

Avengers Taglist:

@jadepc

[todokori-kun]

Here’s my proper reply :)

*hugs back* I love talking to you toooo you’re such an awesome friend *ugly tears*

Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that too. I guess the only explanation is that some part of Kaneki’s body is still human, since he IS an artificial ghoul. Though I have to wonder how Touka can be sure the kid needs human food….it seems she hasn’t told Ken or anybody else so she couldn’t have gotten advice/info about it, and though Touka’s no idiot it’s not like she’s an expert on biology.

I wonder if Ishida’s going to be like ‘lol sorry the kid’s basically full ghoul and Touka’s been poisoning it with human food in the womb’

(jk, jk, but really)

Or wait, crack theory (please don’t take this seriously, it isn’t meant to make sense):

You know those theories that Uta isn’t actually 100% ghoul (or at least not a 'normal’ ghoul)? So, what if it was Uta back in THAT chapter. I mean, he’s been trolling Ken since the first series so…

And Touka somehow found out about the whole thing and still wants to keep the kid, which is why this is happening.

Wow, it would actually be awesome if Eto adopted the kid and raised them to understand what it means to be a part of both the ghoul and human worlds! If she was planning to pass on the title of the OEK to the child but ended up growing too attached, giving them the childhood she never had and telling them that though she’s crowning them as the new 'King’ she wants them to truly live- “Bridge the gap between the two worlds, become a leader and a spark of hope for those who need it, but never lose sight of yourself and your happiness. Martyrdom doesn’t pay, you know?”- because their father, Kaneki, failed to do so and that was what ruined him.

I think the hair suits Chris Hemsworth pretty well (OTL I have sinned, forgive me Queen Luna) but it doesn’t suit Thor…? Idk. He doesn’t look like Thor anymore haha

I feel like they’ll let it grow back in later movies, though :)

I agree that their canon bond is supposed to be platonic (possibly goes deeper than that, just not in a romantic way) but the fandom can dream ^^ I actually don’t mind either way because I ship Clint with Laura (his wife) as well.

Well, not exactly. Sharon’s still a pretty minor character but I think she had a lot of potential until that romance just killed it (I mean, she doesn’t have much of a personality, but she had one pretty cool scene in Civil War (before the Notp happened) that made me like her).

Don’t you dare I need someone to ship Stoki with me, please ;-; don’t leave me alone with all this pain

I’m glad you enjoyed the comments about Kanae ^^ (sorry I’m in an evil, gloating cinnamon roll mood today)

Oh, we’re actually pretty similar then! I mean, I have a few artists I could say I’m a fan of (Lana Del Rey, Lorde, Marina, Fall Out Boy) but most of the other songs I listen to are just chosen at random from all over the place.

If you liked Still Sane, though, I recommend Lorde’s new album (Melodrama)! It’s been years and she’s finally back :) there’s a song called 'Liability’ on the album that I really relate to and also reminds me of Kaneki ;-; I’ve also been obsessed with 'Perfect Places’ and 'Sober’ for a while now.

Oh my XD reading that reminded me of one of my older MCU characters who was pretty bad: it’s been a while so I’ve forgotten most of the details, but I remember she had a cat theme (her powers were probably something like enhanced agility??? and claws??? I think?) and was this super edgy anti-hero who shouldn’t even have been allowed to work with SHIELD in the first place but you know, terrible OC logic. She’d stand on top of buildings and make angsty speeches with her impractically long hair flowing in the wind…. and of course she had this intense love-hate relationship with Loki that was just full of unnecessary drama.

(Again, I don’t really remember much about my old OCs (conveniently forgot all my worst creations haha) so I’m just guessing here ^^;; I think this is mostly the sort of cringe-worthy stuff I came up with though)

Nara sounds cute! It’s admirable that she doesn’t get discouraged and tries her best even with guys like Yuuri and Phichit around :) I’d love Kya (that’s her name, right?) also seems really cool- her powers are a nice twist on the old 'communicating with/controlling animals’ thing :D

Whew, I’m glad Tatsuo didn’t get lost ^^ I accidentally erased his 'profile’ like two or three times when I was trying to send him to you and I was getting really frustrated…was he ok?

Also I was trying to make his profile a bit 'light’ and funny but I probably failed lol

And since you said you wanted to see my suffering TG OC, I’ll send you Naomi now! :) And maybe some of my other OCs with her, because I love creating characters and end up making some for almost all the fandoms I’m in even if I have no intention of ever using them (Naomi and Tatsuo are probably going to be confined to our conversations because I have no idea how I’d use them in a fic).

Ayyyy the blog is so pretty ! ! ! <333333

Wow, first you somehow associate me with my favorite color before I ever told you that’s what it was, then I choose the character you most relate to as your icon…? This is weird but also strangely cool, if that makes sense lol

I actually learned to play Merry Go Round of Life on the piano a while ago and my teacher told me it was a waltz-like piece, so I should try to stay true to that (needless to say I failed miserably for quite a while haha). You’re right, it’d be lovely to see a couple dancing to it :)

(Why am I imagining Yumikuri waltzing to that song ;-;)

((This is my favourite hug gif of all times))

I mean, yes, Kaneki is a half ghoul, but he’s more powerful than some full ghouls, not to mention his Rc levels are as high as a ghouls. I think that getting a Kakuja also ‘helped’ him to bridge the gap between half-ghoul and more or less-ghoul. However, since it is an incomplete Kakuja.

This is all so confusing ;-;

That wouldn’t surprise, me honestly. It would make fans suffer more and what does he like more than suffering?

OH MY You’re totally right! When a healthy baby is born, with black hair and always has his kakugan activated (I don’t trust Uta’s explanation of it), Kaneki starts to doubt some things.  Not to mention, he never actually slept with Touka, so how the fuck would the kid be his?

Honestly, if Eto adopted the kiddo and gave it a beautiful childhood full of wonders and fun, somewhere away from Japan, I’d forgive Ishida everything, including (maybe) killing Hide, or, at least, if he’s not dead, keeping Hide away from us for so long.  She’s George Washington here. ‘Dreams of dying like a martyr?’ ‘Yes’ ‘Dying is easy young man/lady, living is harder’ So she encourages them to live, despite how hard it is, because the world is cruel, but also beautiful.

YES! It suits Chris, but not Thor! Which is why they should’ve given him a wig, at least =3= Oh well, all that’s left to do is wait for it to grow back. Hopefully it will.

Oh, I see. Then, it truly is a shame that the writers decided to go through with the ship of her and Steve :/

Heh. I’ll see...  Idk when I’ll watch Civil War, tho. Soon, probably

The only reason why I want to see Re animated is because of Urie and Kanae. That’s it, as long as those two get so much as 5 seconds of screen time, I’ll be happy.

Alrighty, I’ll make sure to listen to the album soon ^^

Oh wow, that’s certainly an interesting OC...  So, angsty catwoman in MCU? Sounds exactly like something I’d make, just with wolves instead of Cats (i had an unhealthy obsession with wolves (and werewolves!) when I was younger ;-;)

I recently remembered my Fairy Tail OC. You ready for it? Idk which one’s worse, this one or the FMA one ;-; A dragon slayer (which is already a very Sue trait), but she didn’t have one element. Oh no, she was the QUEEN dragon slayer, which meant she could use any element she wanted *nods head* See, that was my worst problem when making characters. I was more or less tame with looks and I tried to give them character flaws (but it usually made them endearing, whoops), yet I just had to give them powerful abilities or something.

Now that i think about it, I’m glad I never made an OC for TG. Now that would’ve been a show. Waddaya say we make the biggest, most sueish character we can think of?  Let’s see, to begin with, they would definitely have a chimera Kagune. Now, the most kagune a ghoul can poses, as far as we know, is 3, but why stop at that? The glorious character should definitely have all 4!

At one point, I stopped writing down my OC stuff. Now I’m very thankful about that, since it means I forgot most of it.

Aw, I’m glad you like the characters ^^ Honestly, as a writer, one of my first impulses when watching something is either to make an AU (for the show’s characters or for characters from other shows thrown into that situation) or to make an OC. So, Nara and Kya are one of the more recent ones.

Tatsuo is a magnificent bastard, if I’ve ever seen one. Seems like either the guy who’d immediately become my problematic fave or the character I can’t stand. Keep them coming huehuehue I definitely enjoy reading about other people’s OCs! I can’t wait to see Naomi! And feel free to send me other ones as well ^^

Thank you! I’m glad you like the new blog ^^ I wanted to change the palette to something lighter and more summer-like, so I think pastel yellow was a nice choice ^^

We are connected 

Oh, that’s so cute! I never had the will to print the sheet music out, honestly. I’m too lazy for my own good :p

Why are you giving me the feels™ :))