#SciTech

[nisshant]

STEM Education Powerhouses around Asia 

From pioneering universities in wealthy city-states to premier research institutes amidst sprawling partner nations – Asia offers immense scope for international STEM students craving global career mobility. Let’s explore epicenters nurturing human talents who bridge eastern knowledge reservoirs with western industry ecosystems:

Singapore 

The prosperous city-state leads education indexes and R&D investments concentrated on engineering, biotech and interactive digital media disciplines. National University Singapore, Nanyang Technological University and Singapore Management University offer rigorous graduate coursework through English alongside merit scholarships, paid internships and direct PR pathways.

Hong Kong

Building on manufacturing prowess, wealthy HK transforms into a research giant via the University of Hong Kong, Chinese University of Hong Kong and Hong Kong University of Science & Technology fueling advancements from microelectronics to precision health. Cultural dynamism, lush countryside escapes and work opportunities galore add allure! 

South Korea

From semiconductors to biopharma to gaming technologies, Korea channels east-meets-west inventiveness through POSTECH, KAIST and Seoul National University's global partnerships, English-integrated degrees, cutting-edge R&D and convergence curriculums synthesizing technology with creative arts.

Advance your STEM specialization along the dynamic eastern edge blending rich cultural wisdom and technological imagination! 

-Shaunak Vora

[calcpage2020]

Yeah! #LIMACON Long Island MAth CONference 3/17/2023. See my blog post about it: Jupyter Notebooks in Math class! "Look Ma, No Calculators!" shadowfaxrant.blogspot.com #edtech #mathed #math #maths #PiDay #scitech #Computing #computer #computers #Science

[latest-update-movie-news]

Academy Adds Four to SciTech Council – The Hollywood Reporter

Academy Adds Four to SciTech Council – The Hollywood Reporter

Four new members have joined the Science and Technology Council of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Academy said Wednesday. They include cinematographer and cinematography branch governor Paul Cameron, whose credits include Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Collateral and Man on Fire; production designer Tom Duffield, a governor in the production design branch…

[captainsophiestark]

Star-Crossed Agents

Grant Ward x Reader

Masterlist - Join My Taglist!

Written for my personal fic writing challenge for 2024, Sophie's Year of Fic! Featuring a new fic being posted every Friday, all year long :)

Fandom: Marvel

Summary: Grant's SO is part of SciTech, which means they have to sneak around a little bit to hang out, and with the end of their Academy careers approaching it's harder than ever to find time for each other

Word Count: 1,485

Category: Fluff

Putting work into an AI program without permission is illegal. You do not have my permission. Do not do it.

I took a deep breath in and then let it out, slow and heavy in a massive sigh. I'd been staring at my laptop for what felt like an eternity, and I was about to truly and completely lose it.

I snapped out of my thousand yard stare at the screen two feet in front of me at the sound of my dorm window sliding open. I shot up from my desk and whirled around only to find my boyfriend, Grant Ward, hanging out of my window.

"You gave me a heart attack," I said by way of hello as I rushed to the window to help him the rest of the way through. He had takeout containers in one hand, which I immediately took to make sure he wouldn't drop them. I turned to set them on my desk, and by the time I returned to Grant, he'd made it all the way through my window and stood in the middle of my room with his hands on his hips.

"Really? You went for the food before me?"

I just shrugged and grinned at him. "You're a Specialist in the top of your class. I figured you'd be able to handle it, especially since you've done it a thousand times before."

He sighed, but didn't waste another second before crossing the room to kiss me either. His arms wound their way around my waist as he pulled me to him, and I brushed one hand against his cheek before gently pulling back.

"I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but I don't think I'm gonna be a very good date tonight. Between trying to finish out the SciTech-Ops prank war and my final thesis project being due in just a few months, I'm probably going to have to mostly do work tonight."

"I don't mind helping you with SciTech pranks, if that's what you're working on," said Grant as we walked to my desk together, sitting shoulder to shoulder. "Why don't you open up your notes on that, and let me see all the things you have planned."

I scoffed. "I thought Specialists were supposed to be better at getting information out of people than that."

Grant fixed me with a look and put his hands on the arms of my chair, slowly leaning in until his face was inches from mine, effectively pinning me to the spot.

"I bet I could get you to give up some secrets if I tried."

I leaned in, closing the distance between us until our lips were barely a hair's breadth apart. Then I smiled.

"Nice try, but I'm already betraying my entire school by dating you. No way I'm giving the Ops kids an edge in the prank war. And no way I'm letting you distract me, either, I have work to do."

Grant sighed, but when he leaned in for a kiss it was just a quick peck before he sat back in his own chair.

"Fine. We don't really need your help to win, anyway. We've got this in the bag."

"Mhmm. And you just keep telling yourself that, Superspy."

Grant and I shared a grin as he dished up our food and I reluctantly turned back to my laptop. Leaning against Grant and having him here, especially with some of my favorite food, made trying to work less frustrating. But it didn't magically spark any inspiration or ideas like I'd hoped it would.

After we finished dinner, Grant crossed the room to kick back on my bed and cracked open a book while I kept trying to make my brain work. I stared at the computer screen, just trying to get some kind of brainstorm to start. I felt a headache coming on with every passing moment, and my brain started to feel literally heavy, like thick fog was just sitting up there, weighing me down. My eyes squinted against the glare of the screen, and still I didn't move, scanning over my notes like they might magically add some insight that they hadn't before.

I jumped when a hand landed on my shoulder, then turned with bleary eyes to find Grant had returned to sit next to me, a worried expression on his face.

"Are you alright? You were starting to look like a zombie over here."

"Yeah, yeah, just... waiting for inspiration to strike."

"...And how's that going?"

"Uh. Not well."

Grant huffed a laugh, the corner of his mouth quirking up in a smile as he pulled me a little closer to his side.

"Then I think it's time we take a break together."

I sighed and leaned my head against his shoulder. Truly all I wanted to do was spend time with him, without anything SHIELD-related hanging over our heads, but final tests were coming soon and I really didn't have a moment to spare.

"I don't think I can, Grant. Everything I've been working for since the day I got here all comes down to this project. I have to make sure it's perfect."

"Right now you're not going to be able to make anything perfect."

I pulled back, mouth dropping open as I glared at him, but he just stared right back with the frank appraisal of a Specialist that I both loved and hated.

"Your brain is clearly fried from working on this for too long. Anything you put down now is just going to be something you have to go back and fix later. I've seen it before, from new Ops recruits and from you. You need a break. If you take one, odds are you're going to have a much easier time brainstorming and working things through after you spend some time not thinking about this project. It'll be faster and better than anything you might manage to force out now."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "That... actually kind of makes sense..."

"I know it does. It's because I'm right." I scoffed, but Grant ignored it, instead leaning forward and resting a hand on my thigh. "Besides, the next month or so is going to be hell for both of us. Between your final projects and all of my practical exams before we graduate... I'm barely going to have time to see you. So we should enjoy the time we have now, while we still can."

I sighed, leaning forward and raising one hand to rest at the nape of Grant's neck, gently touching my forehead to his.

"I don't like to think about that," I admitted. "Or about how much harder it's going to be to stay together when you're out in the field and I'm in the Hub or the Triskelion doing work."

"I know. I hate thinking about that too."

We fell into silence for a few moments, the uncertainty of both of our futures hanging over us. Grant's grip on me tightened slightly, and I sighed. He was right. I needed a break, and I needed to enjoy every moment I could get while it was just the two of us like this.

"You know what? I think we'll be fine," I said, straightening up enough to meet Grant's eyes. "If we can make it work as two people from rival SHIELD schools dating each other? Like a more intense version of Romeo and Juliet? Then I think we're gonna be just fine, no matter what the rest of the world tries to throw at us."

"...You know Romeo and Juliet ended pretty badly for both of them-"

"I know! I was just trying to make a point, we're from aggressively rival groups and we're finding love anyway. Just... ignore the ending."

Grant chuckled. "Alright. So does this mean you're going to take a break with me?"

"Yes, it does. Come on, let's watch some terrible tv and eat the chocolate I keep in the bottom drawer of my desk for emergencies and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist."

Grant smiled, catching my chin before I could move away and pulling me back to him for a long, deep kiss. When we finally broke apart, I was breathing hard and grinning like an idiot at the man before me. I really, really loved him, even though when he finally spoke he said:

"Anything but Love Island."

"What! Grant, come on. We were almost done with the last season! We have to get caught up before the new one starts."

"No way. I'll watch anything but that."

"...Anything?"

He sighed. "This is gonna be a long night, isn't it?"

I just grinned at him. It was fun to give him a hard time, but at the end of the day, I was happy doing anything as long as I got to do it with him. And I knew he felt exactly the same way. We'd make it work, from picking a tv show tonight to whatever our futures might have in store for us after this.

*****************

Everything Taglist: @rosecentury @kmc1989

Marvel Taglist: @valkyriepirate @songbirdcannabe @infinetlyforgotten @coinsublime @sagesmelts

If your blog is crossed out, it's because Tumblr wouldn't let me tag you for some reason

[heartofsurgingflame]

why does he tuck his sweater in is he stupid

[mesanthropi]

i actually hate this sem sm but i have some parts of it i like. my advisor from last year is our arts teacher and i heart that sm

[lp-23]

Scitech

A-Tec

[zephyrmonkey]

S1 E12 Agents of Shield 10th Anniversary

10 years ago today we…

Chuckled at Ward trying (and failing) to be the cool CO.

Smiled at FitzSimmons being the popular kids.

Awed at this lovely little insert! I love that they put this in there! Like I literally can talk about this for hours!

Are still smiling at FitzSimmons being the popular kids.

Laughed at Fitz’s sensitivity about his young looks.

Chuckled at Simmons proving that SciTech is cooler than Operations.

Are left with jaws open at how this scene played out.

Laughed at this funny little moment.

I may have went a little overboard with the GIFs. But, this is one of my favorite episodes, so I decided to have a little fun!

See you in 3 weeks, when we come back from break!

Want to be tagged? Send me an ask or comment on this post!

Taglist:

@trapezequeen, @aintinacage, @kikiwritesthingss, @canvascoloredin, @backgroundagent3, @tiffthemarvelnerd, @likea-black-widow-baby, @redwidow616, @smartoneamia, @fairy-tales-of-yesterday, @daisyjohnsn

[foone]

After pulling my hair out getting a VM of Win95 running, only to forget to install the graphics drivers and wonder why the colours of my game were all wrong, i can only marvel at your soft-hardware necromancy. How do you learn this stuff? What do you do when you encounter a filetype you've never seen before? (What do i even do with the file CD_AUDIO.kpx?) Can you download all your knowledge into my brain?

I mainly learned this stuff by just fucking around with computers for a long time (I think I got my first computer in 1993, so I'm coming up on my 30th anniversary of being a Big Nerd). You pick up stuff eventually.

Also yes. Setting up Win95 VMs is hard (real hardware is also hard, for the record) . The bearsoftware VBE drivers seem to have some glitches but they work well enough, and the scitech display doctor drivers work better... If they work. Sometimes they are a nightmare to get working. My advice is start your win95 VM setup, immediately work on getting everything working (graphics/sound/networking drivers), then clone or savestate that shit. Then you have a working base to build on. Don't dirty your clean base, just clone it when you need to start fresh because you've messed it up somehow.

As for an unknown file, my first approach is usually a hex editor. Look for signature info towards the top of the file, Google that. I find that's more useful than searching on the extension, because extensions are reused too often. Sometimes you can search the full filename or game name plus extension and hit gold, but sometimes you just get nothing, and then it's up to you to figure it out.

So the first step is make sure you have a hex editor that can do integer decoding. I usually use HxD. See the data inspector on the right?

It's decoding the value of the number at the position of the cursor. This is very handy. File formats tend to have commonalities, like a count of how many sub-files there are, either right up front or at the end. (up front is more common these days, but in the Old Times it was easier to put them at the end, because of RAM limitations. That's why Zip has the index at the end)

That's a good place to start, because once you know how many subfiles are in there, you can figure out where they are, and deal with them separately. Often you only care about one part, so this lets you ignore most of the bits.

The other big tip I can give you for figuring out files is to be hands on. You don't have to just stare at a file and go WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?!

Change the file. Make a backup and then edit parts of it. See what changes in the program when you do that. Or if it's something the program writes out, save a basic file, than change something minor, then save it out again to a different file. Now you can compare the two and see what changed!

The next step up for figuring out an unknown file format is to reverse engineer the program that reads/writes them. Use a tool like Ghidra/Ida Pro, and disassemble the EXE. Figure out where it reads and writes the datafiles. This is often easy to find, you can look for imports on CreateFile/OpenFile or search for strings like the filename.

Another option is to hybridize your tools: use a debugger (I use OllyDbg usually, but it is getting long in the tooth sadly) and set a breakpoint on file opening. Run the program and step through all the files it opens and then you'll find the time it opens the file you care about. Now that you know where it is, you can locate that same function in the disassembler/decompiler.

Anyway. There's a bunch of tools and they all can help with different parts of this sort of reverse engineering, and it's often just about collecting as much info as you can, and then trying to compile it together. I usually have a text editor open on another monitor, and just keep a sort of running journal of anything I learn, so I can easily refer back and cross-reference things.

Also keep in mind that even if you can't solve the whole problem, you can learn some things, and it's useful to share that with the world. Sometimes just getting part of the solution means it'll inspire others to help finish the work, or point out stuff you missed.

[andronetalks]

MIT’s New Desalination System Produces Freshwater That Is “Cheaper Than Tap Water”

SciTech Daily By JENNIFER CHU, MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY OCTOBER 3, 2023 Engineers at MIT and in China are aiming to turn seawater into drinking water with a completely passive device that is inspired by the ocean, and powered by the sun. In a paper published on September 27 in the journal Joule, the research team outlines the design for a new solar desalination system that takes in…

[aww-writing-no]

For @winterhawkbingo Round 5, Square O2: In Vino Veritas

Ao3 Link

Lift:

The first time Clint ended up on Bucky’s floor was entirely by accident. The button for Bucky’s floor was directly below the button for his floor, and he’d hit the wrong one after getting back to the tower from an extended mission, eyes blurring with exhaustion. He’d been awake for about sixty hours straight, only upright and conscious thanks to the liberal application of caffeine. 

When he stumbled into Bucky’s rooms he was half drunk with exhaustion, mind barely registering the fact his couch wasn’t in its normal place to the left of the door. Everything seemed to be in muted shades of grey, and he bounced off the armchair that had suddenly appeared in the location his couch normally was.

At that point Clint couldn’t be bothered to care and made his way to the bedroom, dropping pieces of gear in a trail behind him as he went. 

His bed had moved a few feet over – Clint wondered if Tony was pulling some kind of weird prank on him – but he couldn’t find the motivation to care about that either as he collapsed into it face-first, asleep within seconds of his face hitting the pillows.

Clint woke up to somebody poking him sharply and repeatedly in the calf. 

“G’way, lemme sleep,” he mumbled, rolling over and wrapping the blankets more tightly around himself. 

The poking stopped and Clint vaguely registered a set of footsteps walking around the bed before finding himself hauled roughly off the bed and dumped on the floor. He was struggling to free himself from the blanket burrito to yell at whatever teammate had rudely thrown him out of this own bed when someone dumped a pillow on his face. 

“I don’t know why you’re here, but you can sleep on the floor,” he heard Bucky growl. 

“Why am I here?” Clint yelled, finally freeing his arms from the blankets to throw the pillow at Bucky, “Why are you here?” 

Bucky caught the pillow with one hand and stared at Clint like he’d grown another head. 

“Because this is my bedroom?”

Clint looked around in confusion before registering the fact that nothing in this room belonged to him. It was far too clean, for one thing, and there wasn’t nearly enough purple. 

“Aww, bedroom, no,” he whined, dropping his head back to stare at the ceiling in despair. 

“Go back to sleep, Barton,” Bucky said, tossing the pillow back at his face. “You clearly need it.” 

Clint opened his mouth to argue before deciding the better of it and tucking the pillow under his head and rolling back up into the blanket. If he had to do the walk of shame back to his floor, he’d rather do it after a full night’s sleep.

*

 The second time Clint ended up on Bucky’s floor was also more or less an accident. He made the same mistake again - pressing the wrong floor’s button – but this time he’d been distracted by a heated discussion he was having with Natasha. 

She raised her eyebrow when he hit the button, but didn’t say anything as he continued to rant about Reinhold in SciTech and his penchant for leaving his dirty socks outside the showers in the SHIELD locker room.

 “It’s unsanitary and I’ve nearly killed myself about three times now slipping on them on my way to the shower!” Clint was yelling as he walked off the elevator. He nearly ran into Bucky, who was staring at him with confusion.

Clint returned the look of confusion until he glanced past Bucky and noticed the rest of the room. The rest of the room that was definitely not his living room. 

“Aww, floor seventy-three, no,” Clint sighed, shaking his head as Natasha snickered at him. “Sorry Bucky, I must have hit the wrong button again. At least I’m not sleeping in your bed this time?” 

“Small victories,” Bucky said dryly.

“I’ll take what I can get,” Clint told him. He had a vicious bruise on his elbow from slipping on Reinhold’s socks this morning, and he was lucky he hadn’t brained himself on one of the shower stalls. He was going to take any small victories he could. 

“Low standards are important, I suppose,” Bucky commented, looking pointedly at the elevator door. “Are you going to go to the correct floor now, or were you planning to join me for disc golf?” 

Clint perked up at the thought of playing disc golf with another sniper. “You’re going to play disc golf? Really? And we can join?” 

Bucky rolled his eyes. “You’re far too excited about this. But yes, I suppose you can join if you want to.” 

Clint pumped his fist in the air. “Yes!” he crowed, suddenly happy to have hit the button for the wrong floor. “Large victories!”

*

The third time Clint ended up on Bucky’s floor he was wheeled in by Tony. 

"Birdbrain here decided to jump out a window again without arranging transport," Tony informed Bucky as he pushed Clint into the living room and parked the wheelchair next to the couch. "The rest of the team is headed to an Assemble, but somebody isn't supposed to be putting any weight on those legs and has a long history of escaping medical. If anyone's going to be able to keep him out of trouble it's you," he said, marching back out of the room before Bucky could respond. 

Clint shrugged when Bucky turned and gave him a questioning look. "Not sure why Tony thinks that," he said, disengaging the brakes on his wheelchair and making his way towards the kitchen. "I mean, your track record isn't that great. You never managed it with Steve, even before he got all full of muscles. You got any pizza in here?" 

Bucky trailed in after him, looking a bit dazed. "Not everyone keeps their fridge full of pizza, you know." 

"Yes, but those people are wrong," Clint said, frowning at the contents of Bucky's fridge. "Do you eat anything besides chicken?" 

"Says the man who would eat nothing but pizza if given the option." 

"Pizza is great," Clint said, shutting the fridge. "We should get pizza." 

Bucky rolled his eyes. "I think there might be a frozen pizza in th- hey, no standing!" he snapped when Clint pulled open the freezer and started pushing himself out of the chair. "What part of 'no weight' do you not understand?" he asked, pushing Clint back down and keeping a firm grip on his shoulder. 

"It was only for a second," Clint argued. "I wanted to see if there was pizza." 

"There is... barbecue chicken pizza," Bucky said after peering into the freezer, hand still a warm weight on Clint's shoulder. 

"Again with the chicken," Clint moaned, flopping his head backwards dramatically. "Can we please order pizza? I promise I'll be good if we can order pizza." 

Bucky looked down at Clint looking unimpressed. "No escape attempts if we order pizza?" 

"And watch a movie?" Clint asked, widening his eyes and smiling up at Bucky as he tried pressing his luck. 

"No escape attempts for pizza and a movie?" 

Clint shook his head, trying his best to look endearing. It must have worked because Bucky sighed and said, "okay, fine, pizza and a movie". 

Clint pumped his fist and wheeled himself back into the living room. "Can we get mushroom pepperoni?" he asked, grabbing the remote from the coffee table and turning on Bucky's TV. "Or maybe that mediterranean one with the olives and the feta? Or both? Let's do both. Hey JARVIS, can you order a large mushroom pepperoni and a large mediterranean pizza from that place with the space cats on the takeout menu? And an order of cheesy garlic bread?" 

He looked at Bucky who had a dazed expression on his face again. 

"And a large pesto chicken pizza for the chicken-obsessed super soldier," Clint added. Pizza and movie night with Bucky was going to be awesome. 

*

The fourth time Clint ended up on Bucky’s floor was entirely JARVIS’s fault. He’d stumbled into the elevator after a bit too much revelry and announced “fly me to the moon, Jarvy, my man!”. Apparently, JARVIS took that to mean Bucky’s floor, which was entirely on JARVIS and had nothing to do with the fact Clint was falling over and hitting elevator buttons at random because he had tried to out-drink Thor. 

In retrospect, that was maybe a little bit on Clint. Maybe.

*

The fifth time Clint ended up on Bucky’s floor was much like the first. He’d only been awake for about forty-eight hours this time, but at the end of it they’d busted a child trafficking ring masquerading as a circus and Clint wanted nothing more than to burn the world down and then sleep for a week straight. To say this one had hit too close to home was a little bit of an understatement.

So when he’d stepped out of the elevator and found himself on Bucky’s floor instead of his own, he shook his head and headed for the couch instead of the bedroom. He couldn’t find it in himself to care anymore, because that would open himself up to caring about other things. Things like kids in cages with silent tear tracks running down their faces because they’d learned that crying out loud only brought more pain.

 If Bucky wanted to murder him for sleeping on his couch, well, Clint could think of worse ways to go.

Instead of being murdered in his sleep, Clint woke to find Bucky sitting in the armchair across from the couch and staring at him. The hair on the back of Clint’s neck went up and he shivered, his body going cold like someone had dumped a glass of ice water down his back.  

“Could you be any more of a creeper?” Clint joked, trying to deflect his primal fear of being watched by an apex predator. 

“I could have a knife,” Bucky said calmly. 

“Please, like you don’t have at least half a dozen knives on you,” Clint said, his body starting to thaw out when it looked like Bucky wasn’t going to do anything drastic like kiss him or throw him out the window.

Bucky rolled his eyes. “I could have a visible knife,” he amended.

Clint pointed to Bucky’s ankle, where the hem of his pants had ridden up to expose the sheath tucked into his boot. 

Bucky sighed deeply. “I could be stabbing you with a knife,” he said after a beat. “Maybe I should be stabbing you with a knife. Why are you sleeping on my couch?” 

"I hit the wrong button on the elevator again and I didn't want to get tossed out of your bed. The couch seemed safer." 

Bucky raised an eyebrow. 

"Did you read the after action report from the latest SHIELD mission?" Clint asked. 

"You know I don't have access to those." 

Clint snorted. "Everyone knows Steve gives you the hard copy he prints out 'for his files'. He plays up the old-fashioned fuddy-duddy stereotype for the SHIELD administration, but everyone knows he's printing them out for you." 

Bucky rolled his eyes. "Well, I suppose it's good to know his team can see through his nonsense, even if SHIELD can't figure out what's going on. Yes, I read the after action report," Bucky admitted. 

"And you've read my file?" 

Bucky looked uncomfortable for a second, looking to the side and playing with the zipper on his hoodie. He took a deep breath and exhaled loudly through his nose before replying, "Yes. Both the SHIELD and Hydra ones. The Hydra files on you actually had more detail than the SHIELD files, especially regarding some of your history prior to joining SHIELD." 

Clint grimaced. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure Coulson purposefully left some of that out of my official record. After Nat released all the files to the public, I'm pretty grateful for that fact. Not sure how I feel about Hydra having all that dirt on me, though." 

"For what it's worth, after the way you left the circus Hydra didn't consider you recruitable. Too many morals." 

"Well thank Thor for that," Clint said, flopping back on the couch and throwing his arm over his face to cover his eyes. "I figured it woulda been the whole Natasha thing that put me on Hydra's blacklist, but sure, getting beat up by my own brother and left for dead on the side of the road's a good reason as any." 

Bucky coughed delicately, and when Clint lifted his arm to peer at him, he was looking pointedly away from Clint.

"What?" 

"The, ah, 'Natasha thing', as you call it actually made Hydra reconsider their stance on you."

"What."

"Not enough to actively recruit you, but, ah, they were always looking for persuasive individuals who could convert others to their cause. If you could convince an active Red Room agent to defect, just imagine what you could do for Hydra recruitment if you joined the cause..." Bucky petered out as he peered at Clint with growing concern. "Are you all right?" 

"I think I'm gonna throw up." 

"Please don't." 

"I'm not actually going to," Clint assured him, despite feeling queasy at the revelation that Hydra had considered him for some kind of recruitment officer. "I just... that's horrifying and I don't want to think about that more than I have to. Great distraction technique, though. A-plus for both effort and execution."  

"That was not actually my intent, but I'm glad to have been of assistance," Bucky said, studying Clint for a long moment. "Do you want a drink?" 

"God yes," he answered, flopping back on the couch again to stare at the ceiling. "I want ten drinks."

Bucky's lip twitched in a small smile. "Maybe we'll start with one," he said, heading into the kitchen. He came out a few minutes later with two small glasses in his hand and held one out to Clint. 

"Nostrovia!" Clint said, taking the glass and clinking it against Bucky's. 

Bucky frowned for a second before replying, "Na zdorovje." 

Clint tipped his head back, taking a large sip and immediately coughing. He managed to swallow instead of spitting it back into the glass, and he felt quite proud of himself for that. 

"What the fuck is this?" he asked, looking balefully at the glass. 

"Absinthe," Bucky replied with a raised eyebrow, calmly taking a sip from his own glass. 

"Why does it taste like where happiness goes to die?" Clint asked, taking another cautious sip and making a face. "It's like... black licorice cough syrup." 

"That would be the anise," Bucky explained. "And maybe the wormwood." 

Clint swirled the liquid in his glass, glaring at it and feeling betrayed. 

"Is this stuff even legal over here?" 

Bucky shrugged. "I have no idea. Tony imports it for me. I got a taste for the stuff when we were stationed in Europe during the war." He held out his hand. "If you won't drink it, I'll take it." 

"I didn't say I wouldn't drink it!" Clint huffed, clutching the glass to his chest. "If it's good enough for Sergeant Bucky, it's good enough for me." 

Bucky just rolled his eyes and settled down on the couch next to Clint. "Sergeant Bucky, as you so call him, brewed coffee in a tin can and boiled most of his meals. I'm not sure I'd take culinary advice from that guy." 

"I won't judge. We've all been there," Clint said with a shrug, taking another sip of the absinthe and wrinkling his nose. "I can see how it'd lead you to thinking this concoction is good, though. Lower your standards enough and even the licorice wormwood drink tastes appealing."

"It is an acquired taste," Bucky said, sipping delicately from his glass before settling back into the armchair across from the couch and giving Clint an unreadable look.

A few too many glasses of absinthe later, Clint had clearly acquired a taste and was sprawled across Bucky's lap, hand reaching up to bat at Bucky's hair. 

"What are you doing?" Bucky asked. 

"Playin' with your hair," Clint slurred, twirling a lock of Bucky's hair in his fingers. 

Bucky rolled his eyes and gently grabbed Clint's hand, redirecting it away from his hair. Clint took that as an invitation to hold hands, and twined his fingers through Bucky's, smiling dopily. 

"Why do you keep coming to my floor, Clint?" 

"Pro'bly because I have a crush on you," Clint said, closing his eyes. "I wish you liked men," he continued, drunkenly oblivious to Bucky's shock. "It's okay you don't, of course. You like who you like and that's not a choice you make, no matter what some people tell you, no matter how many times they try to beat it out of you, but I wish you liked men because then you might like me." 

Clint yawned, eyes still closed, so he didn't see the way Bucky bit his lip and frowned. He fell asleep a few minutes later, breathing softly and body going limp and relaxed. Bucky shook his head and slowly eased his fingers out of Clint's hand. When Clint didn't stir, Bucky carefully extricated himself from the couch and pulled the fuzzy purple blanket he'd bought on a whim over Clint.  

It seemed he had a lot to think about. 

*

Bucky stood in the elevator, finger hovering over the button to Clint's floor, for much longer than he cared to admit. JARVIS must think him a fool. 

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a brief second, and pressed the button to Clint's floor. The elevator started moving in the smooth way the elevators in Avengers Tower always did, and Bucky had exactly seventy seconds to second guess his actions before the doors opened with a quiet whoosh. 

He took in the surroundings as a matter of course, instinctually noting the differences with his floor - mainly the mess of purple clothing and knickknacks scattered across the floor and tables. 

Clint looked up from the couch where he was sprawled. He had a set of beat up looking headphones over his ears, but pulled them down around his neck when he spotted Bucky. 

"Bucky, hey!" he said, sounding surprised but not unhappy. "What are you doing here?" 

"Possibly something very foolish," Bucky replied with a wry smile. 

Clint perked up from his seat on the couch. "You came to the right place for that," he said, pushing himself to an upright position. The purple Starkpad he'd been holding fell to ground, but Clint just shrugged and shoved it under the coffee table with his foot. "I am totally your man for possibly bad ideas. What are we doing? Are we pulling a jump-scare prank on Bruce?" 

"God, no!" Bucky said, horrified. The last time Tony had tried that, he'd had to replace half the engineering wing. 

"Probably for the best," Clint admitted, looking thoughtful. "Are we pranking Steve, then? I've been wanting to replace his shampoo with purple hair dye for a while now. Did you know they make conditioners with hair dye in them? I don't know how well they'd work on someone with your hair color, but I'm sure they'd work great on Steve." 

Bucky shook his head. "No, but I might steal that idea." He took a deep breath, gathering his courage. "I wanted to ask you out to dinner." He paused. "On a date," he clarified.

Clint frowned and Bucky's heart fell. 

"Why would you... wait, are you pranking me?" 

"What? No!" Bucky said hurriedly. "Why would I prank you about that?"

"Because you don't date men!" Clint practically shouted. 

Bucky recoiled, torn between anger and frustration. "I don't date men because I grew up in the twenties and then I was a brainwashed Hydra assassin. I don't date men because I haven't had an opportunity to date men, not because I'm not interested in men. I'm sorry you thought I was pranking you." 

He gathered up the remaining shreds of his dignity and turned back to the elevator. The doors whooshed open without him having to press the button. JARVIS must truly think him a fool.

"Bucky, wait!" Clint called out behind him. He heard Clint stand up from the couch and take a few hurried steps, but Bucky didn't turn around. He didn't need to see whatever expression Clint had on his face. Disgust, pity, or god forbid - amusement? Bucky didn't need to see any of that. The rest of this experience had been humiliating enough. 

"Bucky, stop, please," Clint begged, standing right behind him from the sound of it. "I'm so sorry. I had no idea and you - you took me by surprise. I'm sorry. Please don't leave?"

Bucky turned around slowly to face Clint. 

"It's fine. I understand. I made a mistake."

"It's not," Clint insisted. "And you didn't. But even if you had, that's no excuse. It's like... you can't just go around stabbing people because they've surprised you. That's rude. I was rude. I'm so sorry."

"I might have preferred if you'd stabbed me," Bucky muttered darkly. "It would have hurt less." 

Clint winced. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I just - I thought you must be pranking me because there's no way someone like you would want to go on a date with someone like me." 

"Why would you say that?" 

"I mean," Clint waved his hands, gesturing to Bucky, "just look at you. You're like, super soldier perfection. I'm like the hot mess carnie trash that keeps breaking into your house." 

Bucky shook his head. "I think you're getting me mixed up with Steve. And it's not really breaking in when you're welcome. If I didn't want you on my floor, don't you think I'd have asked JARVIS to lock the doors?" 

Clint's mouth dropped open. "Really?" 

"Really." 

"Is it too late to say yes to that dinner?" Clint asked, biting his lip and looking at Bucky with a hopeful look. 

Bucky smiled. "No, Clint. It's not too late to say yes to dinner."

[calcpage2020]

Yeah! #LIMACON Long Island MAth CONference 3/17/2023. See my blog post about it: shadowfaxrant.blogspot.com #edtech #mathed #math #maths #PiDay #scitech #Computing #computer #computers #Science https://www.instagram.com/p/CqBKdfXgG_ZxZrgCkaDVvhVaC34H4_iUcFPpH40/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[captainsophiestark]

Lack of Awareness

Grant Ward x Reader

Masterlist - Join My Taglist!

Written for Fictober 2022! Requested by Anon :)

Fandom: Marvel

Prompt: “Who said this was a good idea?”

Summary: When a fellow agent is rude to Y/N, their boyfriend Grant is determined to get some revenge on his partner's behalf. Y/N managed to talk him out of a physical fight and into a ridiculous prank instead, but it might be more effective than either of them could've thought when another member of SHIELD accidentally gets involved.

Word Count: 1,260

Category: Fluff, Humor

Putting work into an AI program without permission is illegal. You do not have my permission. Do not do it.

"Okay, I'm gonna go now- oh shit! Freeze!" I hissed, hoping the sound carried just far enough to reach Grant, my boyfriend, in the vent a few inches behind me and no one else. We were in the middle of one of the most ridiculous things I'd ever done at SHIELD, which was really saying something.

Last week in training, I'd been minding my own business when Agent Heary came up to me and started insulting my form, strength, intelligence, and everything in between. It honestly hadn't bothered me; the guy had been a dick since our academy days, mostly out of jealousy, and he was way too confident in himself for abilities he simply didn't have. I could've laid him out in two seconds, but it just wasn't worth my time. Grant, on the other hand, had been furious when I'd told him about it later. He'd insisted that we had to get some kind of revenge on Heary, and I'd barely managed to talk him down from a physical fight to a prank.

Hence our current situation. We were hiding in the vents above one of SHIELD's busier hallways, laying in wait to dump a vat of some weird shit we'd found in a SciTech lab on his head. He'd come into my line of sight and stopped walking in the perfect position for Grant and I to strike, but just as I'd been about to tip the bucket I held over onto his head, none other than Director Fury himself had walked into the line of fire as Heary engaged him in conversation.

"What's happening?" Grant hissed from behind me. He started moving forward to come shoulder to shoulder with me, but I held up a hand to stop him.

"You have to be deadly quiet right now," I whispered. "Fury's walking right under us. I don't think I have to tell you're we're completely fucked if we accidentally get him."

Grant sighed heavily and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Who said this was a good idea?"

"You, remember! I would've been perfectly fine ignoring Heary and his stupid nonsense, but no, we just had to get revenge."

Grant made a face at me, and I made one right back. Slowly, silently, he scooted forward in the vents until he was right next to me and we could both watch Fury and Heary. The noise of the hallway made it a little hard to hear their conversation, but after a second, I managed to tune in.

"-time for a promotion, sir." I barely held in a snort of disgust at the words. Heary was pitching Fury for a promotion, because of course he was. He absolutely did not deserve it, but obviously there was nothing Grant or I could do about that now. "I'm at a point in my training and experience where I know I'm ready to take on more. I could be a real asset to you at a higher level, sir. I just want to do my duty to the best of my ability."

Fury's expression was completely unreadable as he stared down Heary. After a few beats, Fury's gaze lifted up and away from Heary and, to my horror, landed on Grant and I in the vents. I froze, and I felt Grant stiffen beside me. Of course Fury had noticed us, despite our best efforts. He was the spy.

And now we were totally dead.

Fury made eye contact with me, then his eyes slid to Grant and held my boyfriend's stare for a few moments. Then, finally, his gaze drifted back down to Heary. I reached out in the dark of the vent and took Grant's hand, squeezing it tight. He squeezed right back, and I swear I was on the verge of a heart attack when Fury finally spoke again.

"Agent Heary, you think you're at a point in your training where you're ready to take on the next level of missions, challenges, secrets, and dangers SHIELD deals with?" he demanded. Heary nodded, snapping to attention.

"Yes sir!"

Fury snorted. "Then you have a dangerous misconception of your own skill set. You need to be a hell of a lot more aware of your environment before you get sent into high level espionage missions."

Heary looked shocked, but Fury didn't spare him another second as he moved past him to continue on his way. He spared one last glance up at me and Grant and gave us a nod before he disappeared out of sight.

I looked to Grant in shock, finding the same expression on his face. We held each other's stares for a few beats, then looked back down at where Heary still stood in the hallway, apparently just as shocked as we were.

"I mean... that feels like a green light, right?" I asked, keeping my voice down as I looked back at Grant. He took a deep breath in, and I swear I could see him rethinking every decision in his life that had led him to this exact moment. Finally, as he let the breath out, he looked back at me with an expression that told me he'd accepted his fate.

"I guess so. Let's do it."

I grinned as Grant popped the grate on the vent then helped me gradually tip over the vat of lab stuff. Heary still hadn't moved, and it didn't take us long to empty all the contents onto his head. He shrieked and jumped backwards, but it was too late. He was completely covered.

"You!" he shouted, practically shaking in rage as his eyes landed on Grant and I in our hiding spot. I grinned at him before moving to close the vent, but Grant leaned out of it and flipped Heary the bird before I could.

"That's what you get for being a dick to my- to Agent Y/L/N," he said. "If you weren't such a shitty agent, you would've seen us ten minutes ago."

With that, Grant ducked back into the vent with me, pulling it shut behind him. Everyone in the hallway stared between us and the scene that was Heary, shocked and often delighted expressions on their faces. Grant and I ignored them all as we moved back through the vents the way we'd come.

"That was awesome!" I cried, laughing as we army-crawled together. Grant tried to hide a grin, but I still saw it.

"I thought you didn't want to get revenge," he said. I shrugged.

"I mean, I don't think it was necessary, no. But that was an epic prank, and it's not like Heary didn't deserve it. We just got Director approval!"

Grant snorted a laugh at that, and I grinned. My normally straight-laced, uptight boyfriend had been getting more and more wild and crazy since he'd started dating me, and I had to admit, I absolutely loved it. After pulling off an insane stunt like this, it was time for us to celebrate. I knew Heary would probably be coming to settle the score with us later, but Grant and I would be more than ready to meet him when he came.

And until then, we were going to have some serious fun celebrating Heary getting what he deserved at the hands of SHIELD's unofficial power couple.

[trading-cards-owner]

Hello Agent Coulson! I'm Ms. Hill's intern, friends and family call me Nev, short for Nevaeh. At work I'm either Mini Danvers or Agent Danvers, I'm in the SciTech departement. Nice to meet you!

It’s my pleasure, Nev. I’m glad Carol and Val could get over themselves and actually get together. How’s it down in SciTech these days? I haven’t had much time to have a look about recently.