#The Snap

[incorrect-marvel-because-why-not]

Steve when he gets Bucky back: Realistic version

[magicpiano]

I have seen a few DCxMarvel dimension travel fics, and quite a few of them are of them are Peter Parker post-blip. Which gives me a crack fic idea: everyone who got snapped ended up in the DC universe. Yes, all of them.

The current world population is around eight billion, so half of that would be 4 billion... Yeah that would cause so so so many problems. But the DC universe is used to crazy shit.

Obviously there would be a sudden influx of "new" heroes and villains but with absolutely no context it is hard to figure out who is who.

Batman immediately trying to make contingency plans for all these new heroes and villains as well as figure out their civilian identities but this is very difficult because literally no records exist yet.

Magic users from both worlds team up, but I think they were still unable to fix it, the infinity stones were just too powerful. Also I think Dr. Strange and Constantine can't stand each other.

While I am at it, Wonder Woman and Loki would probably hate each other too. DC is more Greek but it has had their own version of Norse mythology, so maybe they are the same and have beef?

They would struggle to feed and house that many new people, but getting them jobs and integrating them into society would be hard too. And good luck proving anything anyone says. "You swear you have a law degree from Harvard? Okay I guess."

Do doubles exist? Yeah a lot of people probably don't have an alternate universe double, but it stands to reason some do. How do you deal with having a new kind-of twin? Or a dead friend or relative coming back, but different? Or even someone you never knew/doesn't exist in this world insisting they are family.

Some au double ideas I have seen people toss around are: Dick Grayson as Richard Parker, Kara Danvers as Carol Danvers, Steve Trevor as Steve Rogers, and Slade Wilson as/being somehow related to Wade Wilson, but I am sure there are other fun ideas out there too.

The snap didn't just affect humans/earth! So other planets are having the same problems.

Then randomly, five years later, just when people were getting used to the change, they all disappear again without warning. This causes as many problems as the original appearance did.

[navybrat817]

If you could make a What If episode, what would it be?

Good question, nonnie!

What if... The other half got snapped?

I would love to see a reversal where Bucky, Sam, Wanda, Peter, etc., deal with the snap.

How about you?

Love and thanks. ❤️

[raccoonfallsharder]

the raccoon, the witch, & the roadtrip.✮part five. montana.

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angst, comfort, friendship, & fluff for @hibatasblog rocket & wanda | part 5/7 | word count: 1975.

what makes a person a monster?

During a watch party for Avengers: Endgame on Twitter, Markus revealed the idea to team Wanda with the Guardian of the Galaxy captain actually made it into several versions of the film's script. "We had whole drafts with Wanda on a road trip with Rocket," Markus wrote, "but after the Vision plot in Infinity War, nothing we came up with was anything but wheel spinning for her character." CBR

Wanda hadn’t felt much like talking since they’d left the bar. She can’t possibly describe the lurch in her lungs when she’d woken alone in the room, and found Rocket—

gone.

She peels it apart when they get in the car: silent, lost in her thoughts. Rocket doesn’t turn on his music right away, and when she casts a sideways glance at him, he looks vaguely uncomfortable: shifting in his seat, clenching and unclenching his fists. He looks like he wants to be taking something apart, inventing something new — anything to take his mind off whatever’s eating him inside. 

After the scene in the bar, when the bartender had poured Rocket’s drink so shakily that the mouth of the bottle had clanked against the glass tumbler, Wanda had sat beside her companion quietly. The bartender had wisely left the bottle behind, and then had gotten to work with the rest of the wide-eyed, ashen hotel staff to clean up the glass that had been broken in the altercation. She’d watched her furry colleague bemusedly as he sulked over his liquor, and had tried to tell herself that she had only been concerned because Rocket had been missing, and she’d known that someone walking around looking like a sentient raccoon could only get in trouble, no matter how well-intentioned and well-behaved he’d been attempting to be.

She had tried to tell herself it was just concern for a missing hero in a cruel world.

But her reaction had been too visceral to keep herself convinced. As she’d unfolded the truth of herself, wincing, she’d had to acknowledge that the way fear had suddenly ripped through her belly had been all too similar to the ache she’d felt when she’d lost Pietro: screaming hollowly at the root of her lungs, at the vagus nerve laced against her heart. A shrieking void in the center of a fiery cyclone. It had been an agony of terror: to think her new, small, sarcastic friend had been taken from her like everyone else.

When she’d seen him — safe, but on the verge of becoming a victim of his own temper — she’d wrapped her power around him as carefully as she knew how. And when she’d realized what was happening, her own temper had surged: some strange combination of fire and ice. 

She’s so tired of people being treated as less-than, of lives being overlooked. 

Especially the lives she loves. 

Rocket still doesn’t speak. They make their way through a number of national forests before he even hesitantly reaches out to fuss with the music again. She says nothing as something mellow spills from the speakers, but she can feel her shoulders ease. It takes another hour before his feet are kicking again, and he’s humming something low and husking along with the lyrics. 

“Uh, hey,” he says at last, his voice rasping as the sun begins to cast a melting-gold crust over the edge of the trees ahead of them, light hitting the western crest of the world and sprawling upward in sprays of topaz and rose and aquamarine. “Thanks for — I dunno. Sorry for fucking up at the last place. And thanks for, uh, stepping in.” He shifts next to her, one shoulder hitching uncomfortably. She watches from her periphery as his lip curls in a clenched-jaw grimace, like he’s tasted something sour. 

She weighs that quietly. 

“I was as angry as you were, once I understood what was happening,” she admits.

The wince lingering in the corner of his mouth and eyelids softens. “Saw that,” he acknowledges after a long minute, spooled with the crooning tones of whomever’s singing from the zune now. “Don’t know — I think only Nebs has ever, uh. Stuck up for me like that.” His voice sounds parched and cracked and starved, like he’s not certain what he’s trying to say. Like maybe the words feel disloyal, somehow, to his absent friends. Something answering cracks open in her ribs. She knows he loved the rest of the Guardians — Pete, he’d mentioned, referring to the owner of the zune. Gamora, whom Wanda has gathered had been sacrificed to Thanos’ goals, just like Vis. But it hurts her to think that Rocket’s little adopted family wouldn’t have been just as offended on his behalf as she had been. Or maybe they would have been, and he just doesn’t realize it. Either way, it hurts. It hurts to think that he believes no-one would have been moved to intercede, to demand respect on his behalf, or to offer comfort.

Pietro would have devastated anyone whom he’d perceived as treating her as inferior. And in his own gentle, wise way, Vis would have fought for her as well. 

At least he has Nebula, now, she thinks, and a space inside her loosens. She hasn’t spoken with the awkward blue cyborg — not anymore than she’s spoken to anyone else on the team, preferring to stay off to the side, needing to observe. But knowing that Rocket feels like “Nebs” would step in for him allows some of the tension in her neck and shoulders to ease.

“You — you got a lot of power,” Rocket says tentatively. “As much as Danvers, maybe.”

She feels herself go watchful and wary again. The silence is heavy in the little car, even smothering the faint music trailing from the speakers. 

“Or more,” she admits at last, quietly.

He acknowledges her addition with a mild grunt and a nod.

“Ya know, the Guardians of the Galaxy numbers are lookin’ pretty slim these days,” he says musingly. “F’you ever wanna get off this planet. Could find a spot for you, prob’ly.” He slants her a taunting grin. “Pretty sure we’re more fun than the Avengers. Less stuffy and judgy, too.”

She can’t help the delicate snort that scrapes up the back of her throat, edged with laughter. And here she’d been worried that he was scared of her. Instead, twice in two days, now, he’s made her laugh.

Regular laughter seems like such a distant memory. It is a distant memory, and a frail one. She’d had it before the Stark industries mortar shell, and then again in her time with Vis — but certainly not since. 

Other than that first time she’d seen him bickering with Nebula on the compound lawn.

“Not that every part of this planet sucks,” Rocket admits grudgingly from beside her. The last flickers of sun-gold ricochet off the distant line of tree and mountain, settling into a rosy-lavender and hydrangea-blue. “This section’s kinda nice, if you’re into that sort of thing. Reminds me of specifical parts a’ Berhert or Foresteria.”

She considers the Montana terrain. “Are you into that sort of thing?”

He smirks. “Not enough places to get into trouble for me,” he says with a sideways toss of his head. “No gambling. Or booze.” He pauses to waggle his brows at her, so exaggerated that she can see the gesture even in her periphery. “Or tail.”

This time, when she laughs, it hasn’t crawled up her spine: it’s as bright as it had been the other day, so merry in the air that it’s utterly foreign to her ears.

“You are ridiculous,” she tells him, but he only gifts her a shit-eating grin.

“What about you?” he asks. “You ever think about runnin’ away from Terra? Come hang out with the cool kids in the stars?”

She snorts again and glances sideways at him in the melting velvet shadows. How does the space inside Natasha’s car, with its ruined dashboard and sound system, feel so much easier than anywhere she’s ever been in the past five years? How does it feel so much easier than anywhere she’s ever been at all, unless it was with Vis?

“Not exactly,” she says quietly.

“Not exactly?”

She hesitates and chews the inside of her lip at the corner of her mouth. 

“I think about making a place for myself,” she admits after a handful of quiet breaths. The song on the zune blurs into something new. “A place where… where things are the way they’re supposed to be.”

The quiet expands. Doubles.

“Whaddaya mean?” her companion asks at last. There’s tension in his voice, but it’s surprisingly quiet. As soft as she imagines his fur.

She hesitates. “I could — I think I could do it. Make a place — like in the old TV shows. Somewhere perfect, where people can be happy. Where I can be happy.”

The silence drawls through the music, and she can feel Rocket’s anxiety. She’d been silly to think he might be scared of her before, because now she can feel it — crackling and tense. But… it’s also careful. Testing. Cautious. She knows if she’d said something like this to any one of the Avengers, they’d probably try to lock her up immediately. They don’t understand her magic, and they don’t understand her. And they certainly don’t understand her pain. 

After all, they’ve always been able to look away.

And while she can tell that Rocket doesn’t like what she’s shared — the dangerous little truth she’s laid out between their armrests — somehow, she doesn’t feel judged.

“I get that,” he says at last, his voice grudging and slow. “Wanting that. Me myself, I never had the — I never had the power to sort of…  reshape the galaxy into what I wanted.” He pauses, and she can feel him gathering his thoughts in the dusk like the fireflies that used to litter the Sokovian summer grasses. When he speaks again, his voice has grown as dark as the world outside their car: grim and solemn and hard. “But I definitely been one a’ the poor morons who got caught up in someone else’s idea of perfect, and I can promise — you try to tie other people up like that, and you’re only gonna become somebody’s nightmare.”

She takes her eyes off the road, even though she shouldn’t — not here, in the dusk and the trees and the mountains. Her eyes find his in the shadows: glowing red to glowing red. She flicks her gaze over him: the broad shoulders that should be sloped inward, the opposable thumbs where there should only be dexterous fingers, the hard-packed muscle where she would expect a soft layer of fat. She’d decided that maybe he was an alien — and perhaps that’s true — but now she realizes there’s more to it than just that. 

Someone’s shaped him into this.

Who was your nightmare? she thinks, and remembers Ultron again. Trying to reshape the world. It’s not the first time in the last five years that her fantasies of recreating a small slice of the world have given her pause — but it is the first time that the uneasiness has outweighed the solace. 

Then she thinks of the labs. Of Hydra, yes — and the other one. The one she still isn’t sure if she remembered or dreamed up.

Rocket clears his throat, as if he knows she’s wondering what happened to make him the way he is. 

“Take that asshole Thanos,” he mutters at last, and there’s a darkness to his tone that matches her own midnight vortex of thoughts when it comes to the Mad Titan. “So frickin’ committed to what he thought would make the universe better, that he killed half of it and broke everybody else.” Her companion scowls and mutters something in a language she doesn’t understand, but it doesn’t matter, because his words have already opened up a pit in her belly: pinching and frightened.

“I wouldn’t be killing anyone,” she says, and she’s surprised by the stubbornness in her voice. It makes her flinch, and that cramp in her belly tightens apprehensively — but she goes on anyway. Trying to convince herself, she realizes, even as she speaks. “I’d give them perfect lives. I’d make them be happy.”

He lifts his head and even though her eyes are back on the road, she feels his heavy, quiet, steady stare. 

“Can’t make anybody be anything, witch.” He clears his throat, and his eyes release her. “Not without making yourself a frickin’  monster.”

sometimes i fuck around with comics-canon and throw it into my mcu fanfics so uh be ready for that with the next chapter. we're gettin weird

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[shiorimakibawrites]

Idea: A Fragile Thing (Daredevil)

Brainstorming notes - Thoughts, comments, suggestions and other feedback are welcome.

Warning: Spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame - Temporary Character Death - Pregnancy Fic - Kid Fic - Grief - Eventual Happy Ending

A Fragile Thing

Matt Murdock / Daredevil x Reader

Title Inspiration: Hope can be a fragile thing seems to be a general phrase, not a specific author.

Possible Ch. Titles –

You are married to Matt Murdock / Daredevil.

You haven’t been feeling very well lately – very tired, achy, nauseous and vomiting, odd or increased sensitivity to smells . . . you are pretty sure that you have the flu but Matt (the hypocrite) wants you to go to the doctor.

But WORK is very busy and the last thing you want to spent your energy and limited time on, is going to the doctor.

(1) Compromise by promising to talk to Claire. Who agrees that it could be flu but also asks if you are sure that you aren’t pregnant.

(2) Makes the appointment because you know that look, Matt was not going to let this go.

(3) Combination where on Claire’s suggestion, you take a home pregnancy test but go to your doctor for confirmation.

Either on, on the day you were sure, you go home to tell Matt but before you can tell him that he is going to be a father, the Snap happens. Matt turns to dust.

Neither Karen or Foggy were dusted.

Rest of the story is trying to get through your pregnancy and raise your daughter Hope without your husband.

You name her “Hope” as reflection of that your hopes that Matt wasn’t gone forever, that one day Matt would get to meet his child . . . and little Hope wouldn’t just know her father only from stories and pictures.

The sheer unnaturalness of Matt’s ‘death’ makes it very difficult to accept as permanent – it feels more like he’s missing rather than dead.

You want to believe that you’ll get Matt back but it gets harder and harder with each passing year.

You understand that some encouraging you to move on are just trying to help but particularly if they don’t lose very much, part of you just wants to punch those people. Hard.

Maybe the only person whose sympathy doesn’t feel like pity or seems best understand your combination of anger and helpless from watching your husband disappear in front of your eyes is Frank. Absolutely no romantic feelings for Frank – your relationship is entirely platonic. He’s like the big brother you never had.

You love Hope fiercely but she reminds you so much of Matt and you can’t stay that it doesn’t hurt.

Maybe as part of your attempts to maintain hope, you make a memory box for Matt. Like maybe a recording on Hope’s heartbeat during your pregnancy, swatches from her favorite clothes, molds of the her little hands and feet – you take pictures too and write things down so when (if) Matt comes back, you can give him as much as that missing time as possible.

When Matt comes back, he is very confused. One minute, he was hearing people start to panic – then he suddenly feels weak and ill – he fell to his knees – the last thing he heard was your pained, terrified voice saying ‘no, no, Matt, please . . .’. The next, he’s standing in his living room – feeling fine – hearing the city erupting into chaos – you are clinging to him sobbing – there is a little girl calling you ‘Mommy’ he doesn’t know in the apartment . . .

Maybe as the happy ending, about nine months after Matt’s return, you and Matt have another daughter named Joy.

[hermesserpent-stuff]

If the Snap happened in the Spider Nephew AU, how would the uncles handle Peter's dusting? Who else would've been dusted too?

so! the uncles would have a mental break.

I think they would try to uphold his memory and take care of new york while he was gone.

I have a personal beef with how the marvel movies did the dusting. in a lot of comics/shows the stones dont snap boom gone from forever. the soul stone actually acts as a housing place for souls that were snaped away. which i think makes a more compelling thing?

people out side the stone trying to get people back, people in the stone trying to get back, with aging ocuring for everyone.

I love the idea of quentin dusting and maybe electro too. otto would go nuts and try to rip the world in two if quentin was gone.

[feelmyskinonyourskin]

Five Years [The Snap Trope]

Pairing: Matt Murdock x Frank Castle

Trope de Sept Masterlist | Main Masterlist

The Snap event 1. Characters are put in the situation surrounding Thanos' Snap. "Matt disappeared five years ago, much like half the world. Frank took over his lease, just to have a place to stay. What happens when Matt and the rest of the world return?"

Warnings: Can be read as either platonic or romantic Fratt.

WC: 1,099

*I never give permission for my fics, manips, or any other original creation I post on this site to be copied, posted elsewhere, translated, or fed into any AI program. The only platform I currently post anything on is Tumblr. Thanks!*

The consistent hum of Hell’s Kitchen reverberated in Matt’s ears, a white noise symphony he’d learned to love over the years. The electric buzz of the billboard across the street, the steady flow of traffic from surrounding blocks, the occasional punctuation of dogs barking or taxi’s honking.

He shuffled around his kitchen, making himself a cup of midday coffee in preparation for looking over some rather tedious case files that afternoon.

But in an instant something was different. The flow of the city changed below, overwhelming Matt’s senses. There was screaming, it seemed like the number of heartbeats dropped in an instant, and the distinct sound of tires screeching and cars hitting things echoed throughout the city.

He dropped his mug, not even sure if he heard it crash amongst the dramatic shift in sensory input of Hell’s Kitchen. But he could tell something else was off.  His skin was clammy, head spinning. He thought maybe he was going to pass out.

Just as suddenly as the sensation came over him, it was gone.

“I have to clean that up.” Matt thought, remembering the dropped mug at his feet

But when he shifted his focus to the floor, the coffee wasn’t there. No warmth hit his skin from heated liquid radiating upward, no broken shards of ceramic sliced his hands as he reached down. The hardwood was clean beneath him.

He tilted his head curiously, listening to hone in on whatever the hell was happening. Sure, he could hear the usual sounds of his apartment, but it felt different. 

He couldn’t smell the leather of his sofa. In fact, all the furniture seemed to be different, based on the way the air rushed around the room and bounced off of the various frames and fibers. There were many things unfamiliar about the room; a throw blanket draped across the back of the different couch, the taste in the air of cheaper coffee than he’d ever buy coming from the canister on the counter, and he could smell the mud on a pair of boots by the door that were definitely not his.

Another heartbeat suddenly appeared before him.

“Red! Sonofabitch!” he shouted

How had Frank suddenly appeared in the middle of his apartment without him noticing?

In a flash, Frank was across the room, drawing Matt into his arms. His heart was racing, thundering in his rib cage as he pressed Matt into it. He smelled as he usually did; gunpowder and metal mixed with earthy cologne.

Frank Castle was not a hugger.

What in the hell?

“Jesus Frank. Why are you in my apartment? And what the hell has gotten into you?” Matt asked

“S’ kinda been my apartment for a while now.”

“What?!”

“Matt, you’ve been gone. Shit, it’s been over five years now.”

“Frank, what the hell are you talking about? This is my apartment, I was just making a cup of coffee and gonna review some files for a case I have going to trial this week.” 

Frank let out a sigh, guiding Matt to the sofa and sitting beside him.

He did his best to explain Thanos and how the world fell into chaos. How Matt and half the population disappeared in an instant, and now it seemed since he was back, so was everyone else. 

Frank’s heartbeat didn’t waver, his bizarre story of The Avengers losing to a magic gem wielding alien true.

Matt was unsure what to say, where to start with the number of questions he had.

“And you’re here because?” he finally asked

Frank chuckled.

“Like I said, I live here now.”

Matt’s eyebrows flew up, curious as to how that happened.

“Things got chaotic, someone had to keep the kitchen safe.” Frank nodded toward the window

“So you moved into my place?”

“Eh– I started just crashing here to help Karen out. She was convinced you were comin back soon so she paid your rent for a while. Figured it wouldn't hurt to stay here. Then when Fisk got out and she had to run, well I’d kinda gotten used to it here.”

“Fisk is out? Where is Karen, is she okay?!”

“She’s fine. It was a bitch getting her out of New York once Fisk figured out you were gone. He went after her but Foggy and I got her safe. She’s got a new identity, livin somewhere none of us know, just in case. She’s got a husband and a kid and everything. She checks in every once in a while just to let me know she’s still safe.”

“Foggy!” Matt jumped up, hearing his best friend’s name

Frank put an arm on Matt’s shoulder, sitting him back down beside him.

“Nelson’ll be here soon enough.” Frank reassured, knowing this would be the first place Foggy would rush when he heard the news

Matt rubbed the fabric on the furniture beneath him. It was soft, like a suede or velvet, and it smelled distinctly like Frank. 

“So what, did you not like how I had it decorated before?” Matt joked

“Nah, it was all fine. Little much for my taste. But I kinda got blood on a lot of stuff and had to replace it.”

“Did you keep anything of mine?”

“After a few years, I convinced Karen you weren’t coming back. Guess I’m gonna get an earful from her soon.” Frank stood and walked across the apartment, stopping in front of the closet under the stairs. “I donated most of your fancy lawyer suits, but I did keep this.” 

He opened the doors and Matt heard the all too familiar sound of the old trunk squeaking open. Frank ambled back over and handed something to Matt.

The crimson mask felt just like Matt remembered it, the latex and fiber composite textured and abrasive under his fingers.

“Mighta missed you, Red.”

The corners of Matt’s mouth tugged upward at Frank’s sentimentality. Oh how these last five years had softened him.

“Well, I’m gonna get going.” Frank commented “Let you and Nelson have your reunion.”

He began walking toward the doors.

“Frank, no. It’s your home too now, I can’t kick you out.” Matt said, standing and reaching out his hand to stop him.

“Nah, I was just keeping it waitin’ for ya”

“Frank, I mean if half the world just came back, rent’s gonna fly up and it’ll be a bitch to get a new place.”

“You askin’ me to stay?”

“Yeah, I am.”

Frank nodded his head, walking back over and placing his large hand on Matt’s, both of them now holding the Daredevil mask.

“Okay.”

[glitchaxolol]

I’m rewatching all Marvel movies chronologically, and goddamn, I always cry when Peter dies. He was just a fucking kid and he was scared to die despite risking his life so often😭 Ik he comes back but it’s one of the saddest MCU deaths (saddest legit death for me would be Loki tho).

[incorrect-marvel-because-why-not]

I refuse to move on

[up-in-space-reading]

The End of the World and Everything After

pairing: Matt x F Reader

word count: 6,345

warnings/tags: angst, grief, hurt, fluff, comfort, established relationship, unplanned pregnancy, swearing, domestic fluff, dad!Matt, the blip/the snap, mentions of alcohol, allusions to sex (nothing graphic). no use of y/n.

read on ao3

masterlist

Story Summary: Half of the universe is turned into dust because of Thanos. You and Matt were left behind to pick up the pieces of yourselves and try to learn how to live without the most important people in your lives.

a/n: This fic was born from me babysitting, listening to 90s top hits for two weeks straight, and way too many conversations with my partner about what our fave characters did during the blip. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy <3

The whole world stopped that day. The entire universe stood still. It was unbelievably quiet everywhere, a silence settling down on the surface that wouldn’t lift anytime soon.

On an average Tuesday afternoon, half of the earth disappeared in minutes. Leaving behind the other half to cope with the losses and clean up the mess left behind.

No one was sure what the Avengers did or didn’t do, all everyone knew was that five minutes after someone had snapped their fingers half of their loved ones were no longer around.

Not dead, just dust.

Matt had taken losing Karen and Foggy hard. He spent months taking out his anger on anything he could hit and kick. Bruised and bloody fists a harsh reminder that he is alive, and they aren’t. The streets and the punching bag in the gym got hit with his rage, and you got hit with his sadness. There was no denying you felt it too, you were just as much of a mess you just didn’t have the physical outlet he did.

He started training you in the old dusty ring at Fogwells a few months after, hitting the bag and sparring until neither of you could handle it anymore and the tears began falling again, collapsing into each other’s arms for a while. You’d then walk home, arm in arm on the quiet streets of the Kitchen, Matt would listen to the people left and you’d stare at the empty buildings.

It was a similar routine for a year but getting easier to handle with every passing week. A smile here and there when you would land a punch, a giggle when he’d grab you around the waist in just the right spot to tickle you.

Slowly, you were getting yourselves back. Not your old selves, but a new version, versions that lived with the pain and held onto the small glimpses of hope. Versions of yourselves that settled into a calm and quiet routine. You got to a place where you could talk about them with a bittersweet tone instead of not being able to speak through the tears. And in the strangest turn of events, connections were made.

It was Jessica who had reached out first. You had been so surprised you read the text on Matt’s phone yourself multiple times. Her and Luke had figured things out, they even had a kid a few months before the blip. But they were getting lonely, and once Luke has realised who was left he figured you and Matt were getting lonely too.

Halfway through that first year you quit your job, began working with Matt in the office doing the admin and office managerial tasks. He didn’t have many clients, but people were still having issues during this time. At some point everyone decided the world had to keep turning, people needed money to stay in their homes or downsize and businesses still needed to run. The city kept going, it just felt smaller and emptier now.

You packed away Karen and Foggy’s things, in storage boxes. Matt asked why you didn’t get rid of them completely and you didn’t have an answer, maybe a small part of you hoped they’d come back one day. Maybe you just didn’t have the heart to get rid of it all yet. The door to Foggy’s office staying almost permanently shut, windows dark.

So, you sat at the desk in the main foyer of the office, answering emails and doing any research Matt needed done. Matt went over files and case notes in his office, listening to you hum along to the music playing quietly through a speaker in the corner of the room. It was a little over a year since it had happened.

It was a warm day, sunlight pouring through the dirty office windows making the space look happier than it ought to be. You were busy typing an email response to organise an appointment with a client when there was a knock at the door.

“Come in” You said loud enough so the person could hear, not looking up from your computer screen.

Luke opened the door with one hand, holding Dani and a bag of food in the other. Dani had her arms wrapped around as much of Luke’s neck as she could reach and was babbling in her fathers ear while he hummed in response.

“Hi Luke, hi Dani” You smiled wide at the two of them.

You were always happy to see Dani, convinced she was one of the cutest kids you’d ever seen. Looks like her fathers and a temper like her mothers (only if you didn’t give in to her ice cream demands).

“Hey, how you guys doing? We bought you both some lunch if you haven’t already had some” He took the bag of food in his free hand and held it up for emphasis.

“No, we haven’t eaten yet, thank you so much.” You stomach grumbling as you stood up and accepted the bag happily, peering at the contents inside “Can’t believe the mayor of New York is doing a lunch run while also looking after his little one”

At the mention of Dani you look at her and scrunch up your nose and smile, she smiled in return before quickly hiding her face in Luke’s shoulder. Luke laughed.

“If I’m behind that desk for too long I’ll lose my mind, besides, needed to ask Matt a few things and figured it was a good excuse to get out”

You laughed in response, it was a new feeling, laughing at things regularly and feeling a semblance of normal. It was something none of you had been used to in a long while, but it did feel good, you almost felt relieved that the worst was over even though the worst was technically still ongoing.

“If there’s enough here for all of us I’ll get a table and some chairs set up so we can eat together, you go chat with Matt, Dani and I will hang out for a bit”

Luke passed Dani over to you before giving her a quick kiss on the cheek and going into Matt’s office. You went about dragging out the fold out table and chairs from the unused conference room, Dani in one arm and dragging furniture with the other. Eventually you put her down on the floor next to the small basket of toys you’d acquired for her so you could finish setting up the table and chairs and place the food out on the table.

Once done, you knocked on the door of Matt’s office and poked your head in telling the two boys that food was ready. The four of you sat down around the small square table, Dani on Luke’s lap trying her absolute hardest to stab things with a chopstick.

You small talk about your days and what everyone has been up to recently, its mostly the same as usual and at some point Matt and Luke continue talking shop so you start entertaining Dani with funny faces and peek-a-boo.

It was a nice day, you finished work an hour before Matt and were able to cook something nice for dinner by the time he got home.

Later that night you and Matt were sat on the couch, both reading a book quietly. He had decided to not go on patrol that night, it had made you wonder at first, but you weren’t going to complain at the chance for quality time. The two of you were sat on the couch, you were leaning against the arm rest with your legs stretched out on Matt’s lap, his feet were resting on the coffee table and you’d both been wearing your pyjamas since arriving home after work. A record playing on the turntable in the corner of the room, Matt had picked tonight.

At a point in the evening when the sun was down and the moon making its home in the sky for the night Matt put his book down on the side table, running his hands up and down your shins. After a few minutes and once you’d finished your page you closed your book and put it down, looking up at him to see he was already facing you, a lazy smile on his face.

“What’s up, handsome?” You teased reaching one of your hands down, meeting one of his at your knee.

“Nothing much, beautiful” He teased back.

You sit in silence for a few moments, taking in all his features and how they seem to have aged so much just in the past year and you assumed you looked the same. But he was still beautiful, pensive and unfocused brown eyes staring while his other senses take in everything. The stubble lingering on his jaw that you had always preferred over him being clean shaven.

“You’re staring” He pulled you out of your thoughts.

“If you could see your reflection then you’d understand why” You giggled.

“Can I ask you something?” He asked tentatively.

“Of course”

You leaned your head sideways to rest on the back of the couch, still looking at him as he seemed hesitant with his question. Had this been six months ago your mind would have run wild with possibilities, anxiety having already decided the worst outcome was definitely going to happen. But this time, your instincts weren’t screaming and your mind was clear, it should’ve scared you but instead your heart stayed steady. The worst had already happened, anything since couldn’t compare.

“I love you, so much. The past year has been…” He looks away, blinking hard a few times before turning to face you again “probably one of the worst ever, we were- are dealing with something so unprecedented. But we’ve made it this far and it has me convinced we’ll make it through anything” You both let out a short laugh.

“I feel like I’m getting off track, sorry” He laughed nervously this time, at this point you could see he was fiddling with something in his pocket with his free hand.

“That’s okay, keep going” You smiled and squeezed his hand, trying to calm your heartbeat as your mind jumped to conclusions hoping against everything they were the right ones.

“Anyway, if it weren’t for you I don’t know what I would’ve done or where I would be now. You’re the most amazing, kind, funny and caring person I’ve ever met.” Tears were welling up in his eyes, matching the ones that had been brimming in yours threatening to spill “I-I can’t live without you, so would you marry me?”

He pulled his hand out of his pocket, holding a silver ring. It was beautiful, two small bands winding around one other creating an infinite spiral, decorated with small diamonds embedded in the bands. It was the perfect ring for you, he knew you weren’t a fan of big jewellery and a big diamond wouldn’t match your style.

“Oh my god Matt… yes I will, of course I will” The tears had now begun to fall now and there was no way you were going to be able to stop them.

He held your shaking left hand steady as he slid the ring on your finger, and you looked at it for a few moments before sliding closer to Matt to wrap your arms around his neck and kiss him. He returned the favour, hands going to your waist to hold you close and steady. When you pulled back for air you could see he was also crying.

After a few moments of catching your breath, you spoke up again.

“What about K-“

“I know, I thought about it. They would hate that we stopped living just because they’re gone, and if we get to see them again one day I want to be able to tell them the things we’ve done together”

“Okay, if you’re sure” You put your forehead against his.

“Sure as I’ve been about anything”

The two of you chose a date a few weeks later to go to the courthouse and make it official, with Luke, Jess, and Dani in tow. You and Jess went out to get a dress, she insisted she was only there to tell you which ones were ugly so you’d know what to avoid. The dress you chose was simple, not a wedding dress by definition but it was white and it suited you. Jess had even said you looked nice in it, which coming from her she may as well have called you Aphrodite.

You filled out and signed papers, quickly kissed, and by that evening the five of you were sitting in yours and Matt’s apartment a few drinks in laughing over nothing. Music from the turntable and Dani’s babbling as she played on the floor creating background noise, and for the first time in a long time the city doesn’t feel too big or too quiet.

It was a perfect night to end a perfect day.

Throwing up into the toilet isn’t how you had anticipated you’d start your Saturday morning, Matt still in pyjama pants and no shirt holding your hair back as your body convulsed. He rubbed your back soothingly until you’d finished, and once you were sure you were done, he held you on the bathroom floor as you caught your breath.

A year and a half since half the universe disappeared, a few months since you and Matt had gotten married.

“Oh god” You gasped, looking at the results of the test later that day.

“Well..” Matt trailed off.

You were both processing the results in silence for a little while, you weren’t sure if it were seconds or hours that passed.

“Quarters” Matt whispered.

At first it confused you until you racked your brain, did some rough maths and suddenly it made sense.

“Quarters” You whispered back in shock.

“This should be incredibly unfair to you but I actually think it’s the opposite and incredibly unfair to me” You giggled while pouring a shot of whiskey into the cup in the middle of the table.

“Mrs Murdock attacks her husband once again, will the torment ever end” Matt pretended to fret to someone else who wasn’t in the room before laughing.

“Mr Murdock is going the right way to sleeping on the couch if he continues to pretend he will be bad at this game”

Matt walked to the dining table, carrying freshly washed quarters in a towel, drying them as he walked. He had insisted on washing the coins before playing, they smelled so strong he could taste them and it made him feel ill.

“I’m going to cheat” You said matter of factly.

“Sweetheart, I didn’t marry you because you’re a fair player” You both laughed hard.

You had begun playing games every so often, going out drinking less meant you and Matt had time to fill and you were determined to not have him fill the time with Daredevil. An argument six months after the blip which left you both emotionally raw had already gone over that issue. He was doing worlds better now, not relying on Daredevil as much to cope and you were proud.

When Matt was satisfied that the coins were as clean as he could get them and dry enough, the game commenced. You immediately regretted it, wishing you had chosen a card game instead. He was landing every single one, you were lucky to get one in four. After a little while you stood up to get some water and wobbled on your feet, deciding that you had to stack the odds in your favour somehow so you wouldn’t get blackout while Matt stayed lightly buzzed.

“Need help getting to the fridge?” He teased, leaning back in his chair.

“I am perfectly fine walking a few steps to the fridge” You insisted, but you were definitely trying harder than usual to take balanced and even steps.

Once you had acquired a bottle of water, you returned to the table and picked up a coin for your next shot. Unsurprisingly you miss the glass, but before Matt can pick up a coin of his own you take one off the table as quick as possible and take another shot. This one makes it into the glass and you throw your arms up in victory while Matt throws his head back laughing.

“Drink up Matthew!” You cheered.

From that point on Matt let you keep trying until you got the coin in the glass before taking his turn. At some point in the evening when your cheeks were hurting from laughter and your mouth was sticky with the taste of alcohol you called it a night, advising Matt that you two had shared enough of the bottle for a single evening.

You stumbled through the living room and into the bedroom together, feeling grateful that you from a few hours ago decided to put her pyjamas on before starting the game. You were warm and happy all over, but it wasn’t until Matt took his shirt off that your heart began to race and heat spread through your body.

“Hmm”

The noise had accidentally slipped from your lips, you hadn’t meant for it to come out but it was too late, Matt had already heard it and was taking in the rest of your body’s reaction.

“Oh” He responded quietly while smirking.

“And you’re sure you want to do this?” You asked nervously from the other end of the couch.

“Sure as I’ve been about anything, only if you’re sure too” He placed a hand on your knee.

“Yeah, I’m sure”

You let out a deep breath, taking it all in and already thinking ahead. A feeling settled in your chest, a mix of excitement and anxiety. You both had a daunting future ahead of you but you were sure it would be worth it, and there was no one you’d rather do it with than Matt.

Luke was elated for the both of you, and Jess pretended to not be as happy also but had a hard time hiding it, a rare smile gracing her face for just a moment when you had told them the news. You often texted Jess with a million different questions and whilst reluctant to answer she still helped more than you’d ever be able to thank her for. When you found out the gender Luke brought over a few bags of Dani’s old stuff that she had grown out of and you couldn’t be more grateful.

“Your daughter is fuckin’ huge, can you help me with my shoes please” You yelled across the apartment to Matt.

“As soon as she’s an issue it’s my daughter, huh?” He teased as he walked over to where you were on the couch, his tie still undone.

Matt knelt on the floor in front of you and helped with putting your socks and shoes on, you hadn’t been able to reach your feet for a while now so he was used to it and he never minded helping in any way he could. You were the one doing the hard work after all, who was he to complain about having to help with a pair of shoes every now and then.

Once he was done with your shoes he placed a kiss onto your belly and then your forehead. He finished doing up his tie and you both headed out to work for the day. It was a brisk morning as you walked to the office, arm in arm as per usual. You had to stop once to catch your breath and Matt sat with you on the bench, hand on your knee in comfortable silence.

After you had gotten to the office and up until lunch you had felt minor pains but nothing to be concerned about. It wasn’t until about 2pm that they got worse and you grew worried, but you still hadn’t caught Matt’s attention until a bad one hit you suddenly causing you to hiss through your teeth and clench your fists.

He got up from his desk and rushed to the doorway of his office.

“Are you okay?” He asked concerned.

“Uh-“ You thought about it for a few moments “Not really”

You knew Matt would be annoyed if you downplayed how you felt, he had been all over since you found out you were pregnant making sure you weren’t having any pains that were out of place and making you be almost too careful. Fortunately, you’d read about these pains, and you now had the task of quickly mentally preparing yourself for the coming hours.

“I’ll call Luke” Matt was ready for action immediately, pulling out his phone and finding Luke’s contact immediately.

Taxis were harder to come by after the blip and it was a jarring change for New York. The only person you and Matt knew who did drive was Luke, so he was always the go to if you needed a ride for a bit of a distance; and he had offered to call him anytime for the baby. Luke was outside the office not 10 minutes later ready to take the two of you to the hospital.

Matt would do anything for her, he had decided that the moment he got to hold her for the first time. She was his everything, two people in the world he would do anything for.

While you were sleeping that night, exhausted after all the effort that afternoon, he held her in his arms. Sat on the uncomfortable hospital couch he felt her warmth against his chest and listened to her tiny heartbeat. She was perfect, and he cried as he stroked her soft cheek with his finger.

His girls were everything to him. Two years ago his world collapsed and he thought he could never be happy again, he’d never be lucky enough to laugh or smile. But despite the many difficulties the day offered, he was content.

If he ever got to see Foggy and Karen again, he couldn’t wait to tell them everything.

You told him she was still mostly bald but there were whisps of dark hair covering her head, you joked she wasn’t done cooking enough to tell who she looked more like yet. Luke drove the three of you home two days later, not lingering too long so you could get settled.

Sleepless nights were tough on both of you, Matt didn’t get enough sleep as it was and now with a crying baby it was worse. But eventually you figured out a routine, and after two months of stumbling and sleepless nights the two of you found a way.

Saturday afternoon and you were finally getting around to doing the laundry you’d been putting off for two weeks, Mia propped up by some pillows at the head of your bed and unfolded clothes covering the foot of the bed. She was holding a toy in her hand that she would occasionally decide to chew on or wave around while music played in the background.

“Your father hates when I sing this one, rolls his eyes and everything, can you believe him?” You told Mia as you swayed your hips to the music while folding t-shirts.

She made a quiet cooing noise and you couldn’t help but smile. A few minutes passes of you humming and Mia watching you, content in between feeds and naps.

“Oh my god yes! Mia baby this is important stuff I expect you to remember this one” You said as the next song begun, one of your personal favourites.

The swaying hips very soon escalated into dancing around the bedroom as you folded clothes, Mia smiling at your antics only encouraging you further. You were getting lost in the music, and though you didn’t know it Matt was smiling from where he was washing dishes in the kitchen, attention focused completely on you in the other room.

Near the end of the song Mia waved her arms around a little, and you didn’t care if she was copying you or just doing her thing but it made you laugh anyway.

“That’s it baby, get into it!”

It wasn’t often you had the opportunity to sneak up on Matt, ears hearing you approaching from more than a block away, always making sure you’re safe. But every now and then you had a rare opportunity to, and it was always a gem to catch Matt off guard.

Today you had gone grocery shopping while Matt stayed home with Mia. You had returned from shopping, hearing Matt’s voice on the other side of the apartment door made you stop for a moment. You stood by the door, ear close to the gap trying to listen to what he was saying.

“Now it isn’t so bad, see? If I had known this is what you wanted in the first place we could’ve avoided a lot of stress, sweetheart”

A warmth blooms in your chest as a smile graces your face, a few moments of silence pass before you hear him speak again.

“Ah here we go, you like this one. You gotta learn to tell me this stuff, your mother says communication is important, y’know” He chuckled to himself.

Finally, you unlock the door and go into the apartment. Upon walking into the living area you find Mia lying on her tummy on the play mat, surrounded by toys within arm’s reach, and Matt lying on his stomach on the floor, chin resting on his arms facing Mia.

He greeted you the moment you walked in and you greeted back while putting the bags of groceries on the counter. You shrugged your jacket and shoes off and walked over to Matt and Mia, lying down right next to Matt, mirroring his position and facing Mia.

“Didn’t realise we all needed tummy time” You laughed, giving Matt a kiss on the cheek before leaning forward to kiss Mia on the forehead.

“This was what made her happy, who am I to argue” He shrugged his shoulders.

“You’re a sucker” You nudged him with your elbow.

“I might be” He laughed and hung his head.

Mia’s first birthday involved too much ice cream and cake, but Dani had insisted that after all the time she’d spent playing with Mia that she wanted ice cream and you didn’t have the heart to say no. She loved ripping the wrapping paper off of her gifts more than she liked the actual gifts, you made a note of that for when Christmas came around.

As she grew a whole corner of the office became a play area for her, and occasionally Dani. At first it was one corner, but as soon as she began walking unaided the whole office was hers to play in as far as she was concerned. Matt would often step on toys left lying around his office, muttering to himself in annoyance while putting it away. The conference room had become the nap room, and Mia enjoyed the walk between the office and home.

She often wanted to sit on yours or Matt’s lap while you worked, eager to bang on the computer keyboards and scribble on notepads. You caved and bought an old keyboard for her to play with, it meant she stayed off your lap a little longer, but not Matt’s.

Mia was a daddy’s girl through and through, and Matt would do anything for his little girl. His ears were always tuned in to the sound of ‘dada’ and always telling her she was perfect. You would often hear them having ‘conversations’ on his office, him telling her a story and she would babble back happily.

It was 1:30pm, you had put all work on hold to deal with Mia who refused to nap and was letting everyone else deal with the consequences. Matt was getting frustrated; she would cling to her dad when upset but he had work to do, and the crying child on the floor under his desk didn’t help with productivity. You were getting annoyed that she wasn’t being receptive to anything you did to calm her down and eventually gave up, bordering on tears yourself.

Despite the feelings of guilt Matt made you sit on the couch with him in his office and just leave Mia, she would cry herself tired. He reassured you that you weren’t a bad mother for letting it happen, and if she kept going then he would handle it. You leaned your head on his shoulder and closed your eyes, trying to relax even with the sound of crying filling the room. Matt rubbed your arm soothingly and sighed, leaning his head back against the wall.

The two of you hadn’t felt like this since the sleepless nights when Mia was a newborn, you’d gotten used to her good sleep schedule and generally good behaviour. Jess laughed that the ‘terrible twos’ was approaching, and you refused to believe your baby girl could be anything remotely near terrible. That was until today, when she wouldn’t nap and you were quickly running out of patience.

You weren’t sure how much time had passed when you came back to reality, thinking you had tuned out the crying you opened your eyes and took stock of the room around you. You lifted your head and looked at Matt who had a small smile on his face, looking relieved. It was then you clocked how quiet the room was.

“Is she-?” You whispered.

“Yep” He sighed in relief.

You got up from the couch and made your way over to the desk, crouching to peer underneath. Mia was curled up under Matt’s desk, dark hair pointing in all directions and cheeks still red from her meltdown. Other than the wet tears under her eyes she looked as peaceful as ever, and you felt the tension leave your shoulders.

Matt had gotten up and retrieved a blanket from the conference-slash-nap room to put over her. He joined you where you were crouched and carefully covered Mia with the blanket, then standing up and collecting his files. He sat on the couch and continued his work, while you went to make a cup of coffee, both of you pleased you could finally get some work done before going home for the day.

“I do it!”

“Okay okay, you can do it” Matt laughed as Mia tried to stir the pasta sauce by herself.

He had always preferred cooking when he had company to do it with, the two of you had loved cooking together since you first met. You weren’t chefs but Matt knew what tasted good and you had a knack for portioning pasta perfectly every time (Matt joked that it was your heightened sense). Now that Mia had come along, he had someone else to cook with who was always attached to his hip.

She attempted to stir the sauce, it being too thick for her small arms to handle and Matt sneakily helping her. Once a few stirs were done she clapped her hands and Matt gave her endless praises and cheek kisses, you couldn’t help but smile at them.

You had tried to feed her a mouthful, but she outright refused and said she could do it herself. It was at this point you realised she’d inherited Matt’s sense of independence, wanting to do everything on her own without any help. Trying to stop yourself from helping her when she was getting half the pasta sauce down her shirt was tough, and Matt’s giggles weren’t helping.

“Your daughter is becoming like you” You said to Matt while you both cleaned up after Mia had gone down to sleep for the night.

“Again with the my daughter, you had a hand in making her too y’know” He smiled, amused.

“She’s becoming stubborn, and refuses help. It’s sounding all too familiar, won’t be long until you’re teaching her how to throw a proper punch” You joke, rolling your eyes.

Matt walks up to you and puts his hands on your waist, pulling you close and kissing you with a smile on his face, and you can’t help but kiss back. Still giving you butterflies after all these years.

“You don’t have to worry about her, the way she plays with Dani, she’s inherited your kindness and empathy. Besides, I’m a good father so I won’t teach her how to throw a punch until she’s at least 5” He laughed again at this own joke while you just groaned and rolled your eyes.

Once his laughter has died down you kiss him on the cheek and begin walking towards the bathroom to have a shower.

“You’re lucky I love you, Mr Murdock”

“Very lucky indeed”

He quickly catches up to you and sweeps you off your feet, carrying you bridal style to the bathroom while you can’t help but giggle.

“Daddy!”

“Good morning sweetheart!”

Mia runs through the lounge room to the kitchen where Matt was getting her lunch ready. He takes a few steps forward to meet her and scoop her up in his arms when they meet. She wraps her arms around his neck while he holds her in a tight hug.

“Tell me what your outfit is today” He continues to hold her with one arm while getting food together with the other hand.

“Got a dress and boots”

“What colour are they?”

“Pink and blue, and pink!”

“As beautiful as always” He kisses her on the cheek before placing her back on the floor to run around the apartment for a little bit.

You walk into the kitchen to make coffee for you and Matt, giving him a kiss on the cheek and a quick good morning. The two of you start a discussion about the cases you’re currently working on and when the next court date is.

As you leave the apartment the glint of Matt’s red glasses on the shelf catches your eye, he hadn’t worn them in years. Right after the snap he was in such an awful place that wearing his glasses out was the least of his concerns, and it became a bit of a habit. Then when Mia came along, he didn’t want her remembering how he looked only with his glasses on, losing any reason to wear them daily.

On the walk from the apartment to the office Mia walks between the two of you, holding a hand each and skipping. Every few steps you and Matt lift her up by the arms and swing her, making her laugh loudly. Her laugh echoes down the otherwise quiet street, and you think you see someone on the other side of the street smile at the sound.

Halfway through the walk Mia begs to get on Matt’s shoulders and he can’t say no to his little girl, you mutter about how he’s a softie and he pretends to not hear you but reveals himself by rolling his eyes.

“Since its Friday did you wanna finish up early and head to the park for the afternoon?” You ask Matt, nearing the office.

“Yes park!” Mia cheered from her place up on Matt’s shoulders, her arms wrapped around his head, hands meeting on his forehead.

“Park sounds good” He turned his head towards you and smiled.

You reach the office building and Matt lifts Mia off of his shoulders, you begin making your way up the stairs, searching your bag for the keys to the office. Matt and Mia hung behind because Mia insisted Matt help her jump up every step.

Once the two of them had finally reached the office, Matt went to his desk as Mia tipped out her box of toys onto the floor and began rummaging through them all looking for something she wanted. You sat at the reception desk and opened your laptop, checking emails like any other day.

Today was a quiet day, not many emails and even fewer calls. It was mostly a day of research and helping Matt prepare for a court date the following week. Mia would interrupt to show you her drawings and you all took a break for lunch.

Mid-afternoon when the both of you were satisfied with how much work you’d gotten done that day began packing up the office, putting away files and leaving to-do lists for Monday. Matt walked out of his office and stood next to your desk, Mia was on the floor slowly putting her toys back into the box.

Suddenly, Matt started breathing heavily and bent over, having to hold onto the desk for support as if he’d just been hit in the gut. His eyes were wide and you were immediately concerned – you couldn’t lose him too.

“Matt, are you alright? What’s wrong?” You asked concerned, a hand on his arm and one on shoulder.

He turned his head towards you and the look on his face was worrying, a mix of horror and confusion. It made your blood go cold; the last time he looked like that the whole world came crashing down.

“Something’s happened” He breathed out, putting a hand on your arm and squeezing tight.

“Are you okay, dada?” Mia asked from her spot on the floor, confusion all over her face.

It was then you heard it, you heard everything; people yelling and screaming, cars honking, and sirens going off. Your legs almost gave way, your heart thundering in your ears and breathing becoming difficult as you try to comprehend what was happening.

Another breath left your lips, you squeezed your eyes shut and when you opened them there was another person in the room. Time seemed to stop, all the noises outside seemed to quiet as you took in the face of the person standing in front of you. Your voice had been ripped from you with the breath you had been holding, Matt was the one to speak first.

“Foggy?”

a/n: Thank you so much for reading!! I hope you enjoyed it and please let me know if you did <3 I could probably add some extra scenes in (or even write Karen and Foggy's return) so if you'd like to read more let me know and I might think about writing some more :) P.S: the 'important song' referenced about halfway through is Kiss Me by Sixpence None The Richer bc I LOVE that song.

[itsagentromanoff]

Tony Stark [X]

1970-2023

[pixiatn]

Broke: The snap accidentally sends Peter to the dc universe

Woke: The snap accidentally sends Shuri to the dc universe

I just think ppl need to switch it up, Shuri's fun and I love her and I think she'd benefit from interacting with characters her age/dcs wack ass heros bc I'm pretty sure before IW/EG she never really interacted with any other heros, also all the Peter getting sent to the dcu fics are kinda repetitive

Anyway here's some nonspecific memes

[facelessfinest]

Super duper quick question, but why the fuck didn't No Way Home start and end with *any single one of the still living Avengers INCLUDING STEPHEN STRANGE* corroborating Peter's story, thus disproving the very flimsy evidence Mysterio somehow convinced thousands of people with????

It does not matter how much their reputation has fallen in recent years, they still killed Thanos, undid The Snap, and saved the world several times before that (and after, in all their individual shows we don't like to acknowledge.) They have enough influence to overwrite a small city hero's reputation, and it isn't like they're trying to fool anyone, they would literally just be setting the record straight, because Peter did not actually do the things Mysterio tried to frame him for, so maybe they should have done this weeks before Peter even had to come crawling to Strange begging for some god damn support.

Like, we don't even have to address all the much worse things that happen in that film, because it never should have even happened in the first place. Where the fuck were Happy and Pepper, why didn't Strange stop him in the middle of his stupid little idea and say "Yeah, no way I'm wiping the whole world's minds when I could just go on TV and say you didn't do it'????? Peter is supposed to be the genius protege of genius Tony Stark, Stephen Strange is a genius former neurosurgeon with a photographic memory, how did neither of them come up with a better idea than spell-that-can-easily-become-volatile-if-you-so-much-as-talk-too-much-while-I-cast-it????

[raccoonfallsharder]

the raccoon, the witch, & the roadtrip.✮ part seven. you've arrived at your destination.

the raccoon, the witch, & the roadtrip masterlist prev | main masterlist

angst, comfort, friendship, & fluff for @hibatasblog rocket & wanda | part 7/7 | word count: 3006.

rocket and wanda complete the most important mission in the galaxy.

During a watch party for Avengers: Endgame on Twitter, Markus revealed the idea to team Wanda with the Guardian of the Galaxy captain actually made it into several versions of the film's script. "We had whole drafts with Wanda on a road trip with Rocket," Markus wrote, "but after the Vision plot in Infinity War, nothing we came up with was anything but wheel spinning for her character." CBR

Needless to say, Rocket hadn’t slept that night. He thinks he might never sleep again. The witch had said what she’d said and he’d promptly spun on his heel and said Welp, time for me to get to bed, and parked himself on the sofa at the foot of the mattress. He’d stayed there all night, staring up wide-eyed at the ceiling, each hand clutched into a pocket: the key-plate in his right palm, and the zune tucked into his left. Both memorized so well by his fingertips that he could take them apart and put them back together, blindfolded in the dark — both grafted onto the skin of his hands so lovingly that the ghosts of their shapes stay with him always, whether he’s awake or sleeping.

It hadn’t been his finest captain-moment. He can admit that to himself. Wanda had just told him something all…vulnerable an’ shit, and he’d been a jackass. 

He’s been trying to get better about stuff like that. Not that Rocket would recommend himself as an ideal person to talk about feelings with, but he’s been trying. Kraglin’s surprisingly softhearted and Rocket’s had to get used to offering some awkward emotional first-aid every once in a while, even if he is frickin’ useless at it. And both himself and Nebula get drunk enough that sometimes they end up saying things they’d never say sober. 

But the witch had said what she’d said, and every strand of Rocket’s fur had stood up in its follicle, prickling with awareness and an instinctive fear. He’d kept track of his sire’s whereabouts, more or less, since his own escape from HalfWorld. At least, he’d listened for the gossip. But he hadn’t considered where else the bastard might’ve had labs back when Rocket himself was still just a kid, still just a scrawny degenerate escapee on the run, living on the streets of Contraxia and Conjunction and anywhere else he could lay low.

He hadn’t considered the High Evolutionary might’ve ever come to Terra. That even this backwater mudball might not be safe. 

So Rocket had tossed and turned all night and stared sullenly out at the landscape all morning, drinking the rest-stop coffee Wanda had silently brought him in some kind of terrible cup she called styrofoam. Now he watches her sideways through slanted crimson eyes, calculating. The lab she’d walked into willingly, with the infinity stone — that had been some bad decision-making on her part. But the other — the place in the mountains, when she’d just been a little humie gargoyle? The one where Herbert E Wyndham had probably gripped her jaw with his palm and wrapped his spindly fingers around the back of her skull like he was measuring it, ready to crack it open and feast on what was inside? Unlikely she’d ever had any sort of choice in that.

And besides. Who’s Rocket to judge, really? It’s not like he hasn’t made a bad decision or two since being raised in the High Shitbag’s lab.

“Sorry,” he grunts at last, into the weird plastic lid on the styrofoam cup. The coffee smells bitter and acrid, and it tastes worse. Not like the stuff that comes outta Nat’s Nespresso, or even the shit they’d had at the little diners sprinkled throughout their route across this stupid continent. 

Her eyelids flicker. “I’m not sure what you’re apologizing for,” she says at last, dryly, gaze still locked on the mountains and trees ahead of them. 

Some kind of weird sound shuffles up from under his ribs: something between a scoff and a reluctant groan. He pinches the bridge of his nose, right between his eyes, and scrunches his body down into the stack of books and the chair cushion under his ass. His tailtip flicks out his discomfort in dots and dashes. He’d always been on the outside — since Halfworld. He’d had his little family — his precious family — in the cages. And then he’d been alone, apart, and separate. No thing like me ‘cept me.

What did the galaxy ever do for you? he’d asked Pete, shrill on the side of a blown-apart skull, still reeling from the tidal wave of purple death. The High Evolutionary’s afterimage had seemed burned into his retinas, glowing the same color as the power stone’s blast. Why would you want to save it? 

Because I'm one of the idiots who lives in it! 

No thing like me ‘cept me, he thinks again. But he’d found his second family, his second precious family — of morons. And he’d found Nebs, almost as singular as himself in the ways she’d been remade. 

And now there’s Wanda. Maybe something like a sister, if he dares to think that way again. 

“Don’t give yourself a migraine,” the witch says sardonically with a sideways flick of her own dark-star, volcanic gaze. He cuts a glare at her from behind the squeeze of his fingers, and makes sure she sees it. 

“Can’t give myself what I already frickin’ got,” he mutters, and there’s a soft breath of a chuckle from her corner of the Terran vehicle. He sighs again. “I dunno. Shoulda said somethin’ last night. Not good at that shit. But what you said…” He hesitates. Clears his throat. Swallows. “Reminded me of some things I’d rather not think about.”

She arches a dark-cherry brow skeptically. “You met an evil, purple-clad mad scientist with no face, too?” 

He cringes, and does what he does best: evades. “More or less.” 

I'm one of the idiots who lives in it! 

Rocket had been lucky to find his idiots. A little pocket of belonging in the glittering junkyard of the galaxy. He drops the hand that’s been pinching his brow and tilts a curious look at Wanda now: open. Thoughtful.

Ain’t no thing like me ‘cept me — except the witch reminds him of himself: his whole first family lost, and then with nothing and no-one to his name. Not till he’d found himself in a pit-prison with a robot and a flora colossus, promising to take care of Groot. Rocket himself doesn’t need any taking-care-of, of course.

…but Wanda seems like she maybe needs a Groot.

And then her own pack of idiots, ‘cause the frickin’ Avengers sure ain’t it.

He clears his throat again, and flips the zune in his hand nervously. His eyes dampen and he looks out the window at the flashing scenery. Terran vehicles are so slow, but sometimes — like this — there’s so much to see that they still feel fast. “I think we got more stuff in common than I realized, is all,” he admits at last, and turns back to narrow his eyes on the witch until she finally glances over, her eyes shifting from the road to his face.

“What?” Wanda asks.

“Meant what I said the other day,” he says at last. The words are slow and measured. Deliberate. For once, he doesn’t leave space to hide behind any sarcasm or jokes. “You should think about comin’ and hanging out with the cool kids in space.”

“Turn here,” Rocket says, consulting the map he’s made on his datapad and pointing at a sidestreet. His clawed hands grip the cylinders that hold the screen open, and the zune is tucked safely between his knees. Then he points. “Now here.” It’s been a maze of streets for the last hour or so, and he wishes Terran travel weren’t so damn two-dimensional. If he’d had the Benatar, he could’ve just dropped down right on top of the place.

“Can you tell me what we’re doing yet?” the witch asks dryly. “How am I supposed to help you if I don’t know—”

“Here, turn here,” he interrupts urgently, and Wanda taps the brakes and lurches to an undignified stop. Her red-dark eyes slash to him, confused, and then furious. Somebody honks, and she mutters something under her breath in a language that his translator identifies as Terran-Sokovian but can’t interpret. She drifts the car across the bikelane and against the curb. 

“I said turn,” Rocket mumbles sulkily. 

“Microsoft?” she growls. The sound is incredulous, but not condemning. Not yet. “Danvers has you completing a mission at the Microsoft campus?”

Rocket grimaces, then offers up what he hopes is a charming smile, even though he knows he’s a toothy little goblin without an ounce of charisma in his scarred-up, metal-riddled body. He can feel his ears trying to flatten plaintively, against his will. It’s not like he’s suddenly developed a conscience or anything, but… 

“Uh. Hm. About that—“

Wanda throws the car into park. A biker swerves around her and gives her the finger, a gesture Rocket recognizes from having seen it delivered almost-daily by Pete. The witch ignores it though, crossing her arms over her chest and turning in her seat to glower at Rocket.

“What kind of evil lurks at the heart of the Microsoft campus?” she drawls sarcastically, but he sees an escape hatch and his ears prick forward.

“Actually—”

“If this is another one of your rants about how fucked-up Terran capitalism is, save it,” she cuts in flatly, and he blinks and tries to remember if he’s heard her swear before. “We all know.”

He gives her a look he just knows can only be interpreted as a pout, and tries to cover it up with a scowl. “Not well enough to change anything, though. F’you people would just adopt the Intergalactic Accords—”

“Enough,” she says sharply, and for a second she’s so like Gamora that it brings a sheen of tears into his eyes and a lump like an infinity stone into his throat. “Rocket. Were you serious about me coming to space?”

He blinks again at the shift in subject. Verbal whiplash. He hadn’t thought she’d even been considering it — not really. Someone should let her know that come hang out with the cool kids really means come hang out with the losers — the people who lose things. But all that comes out of his mouth is, 

“I was.”

He cringes. There’d been more sincerity in those two words than he’s entirely comfortable with.

“Then start telling me the truth,” she grows, her voice low and ominous. Each word is clipped and demanding — unyielding. Unwilling to be dissuaded. Rocket grimaces, lips curling back from his teeth, and coughs a little, trying to scratch out some words.

“Okay,” he mutters at last. “Okay. So, maybe Danvers didn’t send me on a mission.”

Wanda groans and rolls her face into her palms. “You lied to Natasha?”

Not, you lied to me, which Rocket decides is a good sign. Or maybe he’s just fundamentally optimistical after all. The captain of the Guardians of the Galaxy lifts one shoulder in a cautious shrug. “I lie to most everybody at some point.”

Wanda makes a sound that might have been a laugh, if it hadn’t been so choked in frustration.

“In my frickin’ defense, I did need to come out here an’ see this place,” he adds quickly. “And Nebs really is busy workin’ on making Knowhere into a place for refugees with Kraglin and Cosmo. Just got in a transport of displaced Xandarans and everything.” He winces. “Not that those three morons are very good at refugee-work. But like Pete used to say, it’s the thought that costs—”

“—that counts,” Wanda snaps. She lifts her head from her palms and glowers. “And you needed to see this place for what.” It’s delivered so tonelessly that his translator almost doesn’t pick up on it being a question. “So help me, if you tell me this is some…. bizarre space-alien tourist-type shit while everyone else is back in New York doing very important things—”

He grapples. He’s such an impulsive frickin’ creature and he never thinks things through. He’s had days to scheme up what to tell her and now here they are, and he’s been caught empty-handed. “Look, I was just hoping for some ideas to improve my tech—”

“Your tech is better than anything on this planet,” she almost-snarls. “And you know it—”

“What not to do, then—”

“Stop lying.”

He hates the way the words claw and crawl up his ribs, scrabbling scabbed little gremlins with gawky unhinged limbs, like bony monsters climbing in his throat. He tries to cage them with his teeth, but they pry open his jaws and tumble out anyway, sticky and keening and malformed.

“I read they made the zune here.”

The words hit the console between the two of them and lay there, pathetic and dripping over the armrests, into the cupholders. Another biker swerves past the car and somewhere, someone honks. Rocket clenches his jaw and looks away, glaring at the decimated dashboard and the upgraded sound system that looks like a wreck. The datapad snaps shut and he grips the two cylinders in one fist, crossing his arms and trying to pull up every defense he’s still got in his arsenal—

Wanda breathes out, and he can feel it when she deflates against the car door. 

“You could’ve told me that,” she says quietly.

He snickers darkly. “Would you have come? Drove me out here from New York, and left all the other Avengers doing their very important things?” The words are a sneer.

The witch sighs, and he winces in spite of his commitment to pretending to be unbothered. “I don’t know,” she admits. “Maybe not at first, but honestly, there wasn’t much keeping me in New York anyway. And — look at me, Rocket.” 

He doesn’t want to. Sure, maybe he’s acting too sullen to be considered much of a captain right now, but there’s comfort in sullenness and he’s decided he kinda hates being the captain if it means he has to give up Pete and the others to do it. But Wanda waits, and eventually, he deflates too, and turns his firestorm eyes to hers.

But hers aren’t glowing right now — not like when she’s mad, anyway. 

Huh. 

He’d always thought her irises were dark around the fire, but he suddenly realizes they’re actually a kind of tawny hazel: clear, and soft, and sad. 

And honest.

“You could’ve told me back in Chicago,” she says, so gently it hurts. “In Pennsylvania, even. I would’ve said we should keep going. I would’ve wanted you to be here.”

His mouth feels suddenly dry, and every nerve is scraped raw and wounded. He tosses the closed datapad into the backseat and palms the zune from where it’s still gripped between his knees. “It’s stupid,” he admits. “Sen’imentalistic—”

“I think it’s a really good idea,” she interrupts, and her voice is a quiet hum. “I at least—” She hesitates, and he hears her throat working. “Thanos took the part of Vis that made him Vis, and someone—” She stumbles. “I never saw his body after Wakanda. I don’t know who did it, but someone took that away from me, too. And I think not having any little part of him made losing it all so much harder.” She closes her eyes, and Rocket feels his ears flatten further when the corner of her mouth trembles. “I know — with the Snap, I know it was like that for you too. If there’s something you can do that makes you feel closer to — to Pete, then you should do it.” Her eyes open and meet his again, and hold them. “We should do it. Together.”

Rocket feels himself swallow. The witch doesn't remind him of Gamora right now. Instead, her voice and all the words in it sound like they're coming from Lylla. He looks away — out the front, and then out the copilot-side window. Passenger-side, he corrects himself mentally. Tears clutter up on his lower lashes, silvering everything in his line of sight. “What about your very-important Avengers things?”

There’s a sound in the back of her throat that he can’t identify: something cynical, and amused, and sad.

“I’ve never really been much of an Avenger,” she admits softly. “Besides. At this point, I’m beginning to feel like this is the most-important thing we could be doing right now.”

The silver runs over his lower lids and into his fur. He sighs, and scrubs the back of his paw over the end of his nose, and slants his head toward her. When he speaks, he can’t keep the words from sounding strangled.  “There’s, like, tours or some shit here. At this Microsoft-place.” He tries to wrangle out a cocky smirk, but he knows it falls lopsided on his mouth. “Real tourist-type shit.”

Wanda huffs out a low, forlorn little laugh. “I have a feeling you’re going to be disappointed,” she tells him. “This company has nothing on your inventions, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He shrugs, and something in him eases. He allows himself a single sniffle while the tight knot of ice in the back of his throat starts to melt at the edges. “If it’s all crap, I can still enjoy myself by makin’ fun of it,” he reasons, and she snorts softly. Those eyes of hers are warm with affection.

“Even though they made the zune?" she teases gently.

He opens his palms in mock-helplessness. “Even a broke multicalendar is right once a circumrotation.”

She smiles and shakes her head, and turns in her seat to wrap her palms around the steering wheel. “You’re going to have to teach me what all these phrases mean, if I’m coming out to space with you,” she tells him lightly, and shifts into drive.

His ears tilt forward, and he grins — small, but real, this time. There’s a little flare of gleeful triumph at the base of his skull. His legs swing in front of his seat without his conscious permission, and he turns the zune over in his palm, fingers tracing the well-known ridges and rounded corners without taking his eyes off Wanda’s profile, and the sun glancing all gold-and-green off her hazel irises. 

Yeah. Maybe she could be something like a sister, after all. 

“We can start on the way back to New York,” he promises.”You’ll have the best guide in the galaxy, sweetheart.”

“Okay, okay,” the witch utters sardonically, one eyebrow raised. She glides the Terran vehicle carefully back out into the street. “Guide me to a parking spot first, Captain.”

that's it. that's the fanfic. clearly i’ve never been to the microsoft campus before so i was relying a hundred percent on maps and streetview and reddit and the campus website lol. thank you thank you for suspending your disbelief, and for all your kindness ♡ i hope you enjoyed this LENGTHY fuckin headcanon of mine, all inspired by the magical @hibatasblog, the gorgeous rocket raccoon, and the incompetence of the endgame creators lol. my gratitude to them forever. ˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

the raccoon, the witch, & the roadtrip masterlist prev | main masterlist this will eventually be posted on ao3, probably as a one-shot.

[killacharacterbingo]

The Blip

In the MCU, two related events are referred to as the Blip. During the events of Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos used the Infinity Stones to eliminate half of all life in the universe in his desire to bring balance, in his twisted view. This event is referred to as both the Snap and the Blip in different sources.

Five years later, during the events of Avengers: Endgame, Bruce Banner used the Nano Gauntlet to channel the power of the Infinity Stones again, this time with the purpose of resurrecting all those who'd died five years prior. The Nano Gauntlet was much more damaging to the user than the Infinity Gauntlet used by Thanos during the Snap, and as a consequence Banner sustained serious injury, solely surviving because of his strength as the Hulk. The resurrection of all who died during the Snap is also referred to as the Blip.

Under either interpretation of this prompt, literally setting the story in the MCU is not a requirement. MCU fics or MCU AUs are welcome, of course, but in broader terms, the prompt covers different possibilities depending on the definition of the Blip that is chosen.

If based on this clip from Infinity War, the event also called the Snap, the prompt refers to mass death, the disappearance of people on a large scale, villains who commit atrocities in order to fulfill a perceived moral duty, and the like. The powerlessness of being unable to save a loved one who vanished next to you, or the confusion of dying suddenly and unexpectedly.

If based on this clip from Endgame, the prompt relates to sacrifice. To enduring harm potentially leading to death, or accepting death, as a consequence to saving others. Self-sacrifices for the greater good, or to give loved ones, or unrelated innocents, a second chance. Difficult decisions and putting the good of many over the suffering of a few.