#and then they were like. steal a whole building. the ship eats things. they're on the floor of the ocean

[lighthouseborna]

they made us such COOL new characters only to favor the spectacle over the characters like (shouts into a pillow)

[takerfoxx]

The Owl House, Season 2, Episode 1, "Stranger Tides," First Impressions!

Yo ho, yo ho, it's a pirate's whaler's life for Luz!

Now, if you'll recall, a common problem I ran into while reviewing season 1 is that while I was definitely enjoying it, it was so episodic that I often found it difficult to find something new to say about each episode. There wasn't a whole lot carrying over from one episode to the next that I could really sink my teeth into and fill out a full review, with the plot not really kicking in until the final two episodes.

Fortunately, I did not have that problem here, and now that season 2 has started, I have PLENTY to say about its debut episode.

So, this is what you'd expect for the first episode of the new season, an episode basically intended to bring everyone up to speed on how the characters are dealing with the ramifications of the previous season and introduce a few new elements that will set the tone for the season to come.

And basically, things at the Owl House are...not really great. I mean, sure, everyone got away and it looks like Emperor Belos hasn't really made their recapture a priority (most likely deliberately), but thanks to Lilith deciding to share Eda's curse to neutralize it, they both have found themselves powerless. They're not completely without magic, but what they have left is so meager to be practically useless. All expect for Eda's detachable limbs. Those still work. For Luz, as she never had magic to begin with and had to work extra hard to get around that handicap and find ways to keep up with everyone else, that means she's suddenly the breadwinner of the family, the one with the most power despite living with two (previously) notoriously powerful witches, and thus has taken up bounty hunting (sort of ironic, if you ask me). For Lilith, that means coming to terms with losing literally everything important to her, from her power to her position as the Emperor's Coven's poster girl, having been replaced by a spoiled teen prodigy (and oh, ho, ho, we will get to him!) as well as her own feelings of guilt for having cursed Eda in the first place.

Actually, guilt is the main motivator in this episode. Luz feels guilty for having gotten Eda trapped and that Eda now has to prioritize what little money they have for Luz's sake, which motivates her to take on more and more dangerous bounties to try to make it up to her. And Lilith feels rotten for the curse and that the fix ended up sapping Eda's powers, so she's driven to find some way of making herself useful, which fills out this episode's A-plot and B-plot.

Meanwhile, Eda herself is...handling things like a champ, actually. Sure, she's not thrilled about losing her power, nor does she care for the sudden dip in respect from the locals as a result, but she's not wallowing in self-pity. No, she's working and innovating, finding ways to adapt and keep ahead of the game. And to rip off the Empire too, because fuck those guys.

So anyway! Let's start with our A-plot: Luz the bounty hunter. She's doing her best to keep her spirits up and keep food on the table, but bounty hunting is a tough job and because everyone knows that Eda is powerless, the bondsman has no problem ripping them off because he knows he can get away with it. Furthermore, with the portal gone, Luz's messages to her mom aren't getting through, which is weighing on her mind.

Okay, we already know that Luz's mom is probably going to get involved this season. I predict that at some point, Emperor Belos completes his repairs of the portal, and when he does, all those unsent message will suddenly spill out all at once, giving good ol' Mama a heart attack.

Sort've serves her right though, because, you know, G-RATED CONVERSION THERAPY!

But anyway, she overhears Eda talking about eschewing her booze in favor of getting Luz food she can actually eat, so she resolves to make it up to her by taking on the biggest bounty of them all, which so happens to be a magical creature called a Selkie-dama, which requires her to join a ship that's setting out to do that so she could get a cut.

A ship that just so happens to be under the command of Lilith's replacement, who also so happens to be the mysterious spy working for Emperor Belos that we met last season, whom we will get to!

Anyway, they fortunately rush through the bit of Luz proving herself to the crew, because who cares, King finds out agent's private room (in a reveal that calls back to a similar scene in Gravity Falls) and gets captured, and they find the Selkie-Dama, in which Luz shows us how far she's come by utterly wrecking shit.

Unfortunately, the bounty is stolen by a mysterious figure, and Luz isn't about to get ripped off again, so she goes after them, only to find that that SURPRISE, it's Eda, who figured she'd cut out the middleman and just steal the bounty directly, because you have to admit that that does make sense.

But anyway, none of that matters, because that's when HE finally is properly introduced.

Hear that? That's the sound of thousands of thirsty fangirls (and quite a few fanboys and fanenbys as well) shrieking.

Meet the Golden Guard. Yes, he's arrogant. Yes, he's sassy as fuck. Yes, he's voiced by Zeno Robinson. And according to his brief appearance in the OP...

HE'S A PALE-HAIRED PRETTY BOY, Y'ALL!!!

So. We now have this season's small antagonist.

And since Luz is the only resident of the Owl House with any real power (Hooty aside, but we'll get to that) and now with Amity as Luz's close friend (more on that later as well), that makes him Luz's new rival! Ooooh, I can smell the Enemies to Lovers fics already!

Yeah, it's gonna be a HUGE ship, but that's no prediction, everyone knew that anyway.

But while I doubt they're actually going to get together (though count on our bi-queen Luz getting smitten once she sees his face), I do smell a redemption arc for this guy. I mean, why would they make him so likeable otherwise?

Yes, he was a jerk, but he was a jerk in an endearingly entertaining sort of way.

But beyond that, I do note that he also has a tech-powered staff (seems to be the same one that held the palisman that Belos fed off of last season, but with an upgrade), and wields the same flesh-based magic as well. Now, his ears do show that he's not a human, but I still wonder if all that tech magic (which has to be manipulating the flesh of the Titan itself) is either a crutch for the magicless or a shortcut for those who want power fast.

Also, in addition to slotting in as Luz's rival, he also has taken Lilith's place as the face of the Emperor's Coven and also uses Eda's "BYYYEEEEE!!!" catchphrase, he's set up to be a foil to just about everybody!

Anyway, he's not here to take them out just yet, but instead forces them to kill the Selkie-dama. They don't, of course, and instead trick him into thinking that they did, but it does show that 1. Emperor Belos is content to leave them be for the moment, and 2. Emperor Belos is seeking the destruction of magical creatures. Huh.

Also, called it on Luz becoming Eda's teacher when it comes to glyphs.

But speaking of rivals and ships, the question over all of this is Amity, who's been MIA with a broken leg for a while. No doubt she's not going to be upset about Luz being stuck in the Boiling Isles, but if Luz does start crushing on Prettyboy Golden Guard, I can see her feel all sorts of upset about that. I still thinking that Lumity is endgame, but now she's got to work for it, and there is going to be angst.

Anyway, our B-plot has Lilith trying to make things up for Eda, by putting together a scrying potion to spy on the Emperor's castle. Nice, will probably be important later, but the real important part, in addition to her getting over her pride (not an easy thing) was the surprisingly touching friendship she's building with Hooty of all people! I didn't see this coming, but they honestly have some great comedic chemistry.

And honestly, I can see it. Lilith's first introduction to Hooty was him opening a can of whoopass on her and her men, and now he does it again to save her from the fire bees. Sure, he's weird and annoying, but he's strong and competent as hell, something that she would naturally respect. I honestly like what they have building, and the Lulu and Hooticifer nicknames were adorable.

And now, onto our brief glimpse of Belos, who still managed to steal the whole damned episode with just a few words. We see he's gone that long, white hair thing going for him, so not a rogue palisman. So, human or shortcut-exploiting conman. Regardless, just as he seems content to leave the Owl House be despite Luz having the key (which will definitely be important later), he also seems aware of the scrying, and has no problem letting it go on.

Okay, this season is shaping up to be a great one. And next episode is an Amity episode, in which her parents meet Luz, so let's fucking GOOOOOOOOOOO!!! on the Lumity teases and oh God NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! on the awkward cringe comedy that is sure to result!

[endlich-allein]

Once again, @iinchicore was very kindly to translate an article for me. This is the interview with Till and Joey in MetalHammer (January 2021). The boys tell about their journey in the Amazon and their future projects together.

A big thank you, lots of kisses and a big hug to @iinchicore ♡

Till Lindemann & Joey Kelly : Friendship Without Limits

MetalHammer: How did the preparations for this journey differ in comparison to your Yukon trip?

Joey Kelly: We took along different equipment. While riding on the Yukon we used sturdy Canadian kayaks, which we couldn't find in Colombia. So we took along our own foldable 15 kilogramme kayak. Due to the climate, our choice of clothing was also different. Besides, the Amazon is much more dangerous than Alaska. There are many dangerous animals, small and big ones. You can find snakes, crocodiles and piranhas, which is why you shouldn't bathe in the river. You have to move differently on the Amazon than on the Yukon, where you only have to keep your distance to bears and elks. Amazonia is a jungle, where only those animals survive who eat the others.

Your first river journey led you to the Yukon, now you travelled on the Amazon. Was there a reason for why you picked that river exactly?

Till Lindemann: We were considering to travel along the Chinese Yangtze or the Lena in Russia, Siberia. Siberia was my favourite, but Joey convinced me to go to the Amazon. We have both been there before and knew a little about how to prepare and what to expect. One thing we knew right away was that, in regard to the nature and people, South America was much more exciting – Siberia looks similar to Alaska. That wouldn't have been all that interesting for our second book. Now the contrast is much greater: Alaska is austere and glum, the Amazon is the exact opposite with an entirely different wildlife and vegetation. Don't forget the wonderful colours of South America!

Any fascinating experiences of nature?

TL: It is really rare to spot an animal in the jungle. You can hear them everywhere, but they hide or are disguised very well. With the help of the local guides we observed snakes, birds, monkeys and a tapir. We saw pink dolphins and watched them do their jumps on the river. Because of their skin-like colour the locals believe they're incarnations of their dead loved ones and worship them.

How did the locals at the river react towards you?

TL: Reluctant, at first. You go to them and, for example, ask whether you can stay the night. They don't really talk much in the beginning, but after a night with a lot of Cachaca they warm up to you. Usually they were interested in our fishing gear. Most of them had never seen something like it, as they were used to fishing with rolled up strings and nets. I was amazed that every village we visited, no matter how remote the location, owned fridges with cold beer, they even had solar energy. Huge satellite dishes to watch football. For three days we visited one particular village. There was a storm, so they allowed us to stay. There was an older guy who had fallen off his stilt house, drunk, and broke his foot. Two young men went to the neighbouring village, a day's journey away, to get the shaman. The man should have belonged to a hospital, but that was entirely out of the question for him. It either heals on its own or it doesn't. We bandaged his foot and supplied him with pain meds. Then we continued drinking.

Did you plan beforehand what you wanted to see during your journey?

TL: Yes, a coca plantation. We knew that they existed there everywhere. At first, it was a lot of back and forth. They were staving us off, but after a lot of endless waiting and our patient agreeing to it, they allowed us to go. Along with two attendants from the village, we paddled down a branch of the Amazon that became narrower over time. A labyrinth of branches we would have never found our way out of. Eventually, we ended up at one of the countless plantations. It wasn't harvest time, however, so the leaves weren't ripe yet. But you could see all the tools for it: mashers, bags, and hundreds of bowls. And a little storage.

Did you try the coca leaves?

TL: Yes. We were on the plantation. They hid the plants below banana trees, so you couldn't see the plantation from the air. I did try a few coca leaves, but there is no sorcery about it. You just stay awake and feel energized. Everybody is chewing on them there, it's like coffee, just ten times stronger.

Did you reach your physical limits during this journey?

TL: The body adjusts to the climate pretty quickly. After three weeks you don't sweat all that much anymore. Even the sun doesn't bother you as much anymore, because you're thoroughly cooked anyway. But the humidity requires getting used to. The people there are handling it very differently. They own to pairs of shorts, two t-shirts and beach slippers, and they walk around like that all day.

JK: The climate there is exhausting, you're sweat-soaked after only three minutes. Personally, I don't mind it, but to people who aren't used to it it's a pain. The route we went on was quite difficult in parts, it was very serpentine. You had to paddle the whole time, you had to steer, then there were shoals or the water became too flat, so we had to relocate the boat.

You didn't capsize though, like it happened to you on the Yukon?

JK: No, the water level during that season was way too low. Later on, when the water comes in from the Andes during the monsoon season, the level rises by 15 metres. It drowns out entire forests.

TL: I was there once during the monsoon season. Back then only the tree tops were peeking out of the water. That's why they build their houses on stilts, so the water doesn't reach them. Many villages are located on mountain tops, as the water level won't rise that high.

Considering the many preparations and daily challenges, did you ever find time to relax during such an extensive journey?

TL: Travelling on the Yukon wasn't stressful, because we were sleeping on the sandbanks. Those experiences made travelling the Amazon even easier. As the sun goes down very early there, our only concern was to make camp before 6PM. Whenever we found a good location we sometimes made camp even earlier than that, instead of travelling on and risking not finding a good spot. That only happened to us once, so we had to sleep in the jungle, which wasn't all that bad either.

With a camp fire and night watch?

TL: A camp fire, yes, but we didn't need a night watch. You have to trust your guide, those guys know what they're doing. Our guide went ahead a couple of metres with a bit of string and, within a few minutes, came back with six piranhas. Then we turned on the grill and ate. Piranhas are really tasty, like giltheads.

Did you gain more respect for nature due to this journey?

TL: I had a great respect for nature before that already. Still, I couldn't hold myself back from taking pictures with snakes. I love snakes, Joey thinks they're scary. (laughs)

What did you learn along the way?

JK: I asked the Indians to teach me how to fish with a cast-net and pulled animals out of the water, which an aquarist would usually pay thousands of euros for. Scalars, discus fish, loricariids, sisorid catfish, catfish in all shapes and sizes.

Here in Europe we read a lot about the fact that these romantic times might be of the past soon, due to the systematic ecocide. Is that what you saw over there?

TL: When you approach Leticia you can make out the slash-and-burn methods used below. We assume that every minute jungle area the size of 1.5 football fields gets cleared, for soy plantations or pasture areas. The search for gold is also devastating for the nature. They use mercury to wash the gold out of rocks and clay. The mercury ends up in the rivers, in the fish, and then inside the people.

JK: The Amazon traverses through the entire continent. It is so broad and deep, there are even bigger ships cruising the river than on our rivers here in Europe. They carry natural resources, mainly wood. You can find a sawmill every couple of kilometres. They carry the tree trunks there and cut them along the length (4m by 1,20m or even 4m). Those planks then get transported either by ship or overland, a systematic deforestation of the Amazon area.

TL: You find a lot of filth in the main stream: huge tree trunks, garbage, bags full of plastic, and a lot of wood waste. It's illegal, but everybody does it. Very obviously, even during the day, nobody cares.

Are the locals not aware of the drastic situation?

JK: The sawmills pay the farmers 250 to 300 euros for one tree trunk. The sawmills sell it for 2.500 euros, and then here in Europe it costs up to 30.000 euros.

TL: As soon as they saw us, the lumbermen turned off their chainsaws and fled into the forest, yelling: “Piss off!” They were afraid that those pictures would be seen by the world. Same thing for the fisheries. Usually, the fish leave the lagoons during the dry season and swim back into the main stream, because the lakes dry out. The law allows it that they cast a net over half of the lake, so that a part of the fish can swim past. Now, the fishermen close off the entire lake, with up to ten nets. No fish can get past that anymore, only the very small ones. They're overexploiting the area high and low. They even steal all the turtle eggs from the clutches. It didn't used to be that way, back then they would leave half of it where it was.

Do you think that could change, if other types of income would replace the exploitation, like tourism?

JK: I don't think that the parts Till and I went to would be suitable for commercial tourism. Let's be honest, the biggest income is ensured by the coca production. You would travel right into a drug area. We could only move around freely there, because the government was taking care of the cartel conflicts at the time. Apparently, the military is now in charge of the coca trade.

TL: Corruption is the order of business. A policeman is earning less than a coca farmer. Thus, bribery and blackmail are commonplace. Almost all of it is illegal: fishing with the many nets, the gold-seeking, the wood clearing and the coca plantation. The areas are huge and hardly controllable. Since president Bolsonaro is in power in Brazil, the clearing business went up by 30 percent. Bolsonaro announced officially that the Amazon is a product, and that's how the people treat it. They expel the indigenous people and allocate them to surrogate areas, their land goes to the gold-seekers and their prospecting rights. The surrogate areas aren't of any use, however, so they don't live in villages anymore, but in small cities. That'll turn out to be very problematic in the future.

Was it a bizarre experience to you to live with indigenous people, even though it is said that there is no room for the white man?

JK: I've seen tourism in parts of the world where I'd have never expected it. An example would be the South Pole. Once I reached by goal there a plane landed, six tourists came out and paid several thousand dollars for a four to six hour long stay. I thought there was a lot less tourism at the Amazon than anywhere else. The only tourists who travel there are either extremely rich Americans or Russians who come in by helicopter, no matter how expensive the journey. As long as they were there once in their life, took a picture with an Indian and a monkey, then they fly back to Bogotá. All in all, you only meet natives here.

TL: You have to differentiate. There are also motor boats and Americans with sun hats on, sleeping in their loggias. But not in the area we were in. There were children there, who pulled at our pants and ran to our kayaks, because they had never seen anything like it. A canoe made of plastic! They only know boats made out of wood. The kids played with our fishing poles, the angling reels, and were amazed by our lures and wobblers. They had never seen something like that before. They only knew of the hooks, where you put a little meat on. There was a lot of curiosity.

Did the journey affect your friendship at all?

TL: Our friendship didn't get any better or worse, it's been a good friendship before. We want our travels to be periodic. Joey and I want to grant us this sort of time off every two, three years. We realized we're getting better at it. We drove down rapids. While travelling on the Yukon we would have peed our pants, but now we're capable of really daring manoeuvres among waves that are 1.5 metres high. You get well attuned over time, become more experienced with the daily routine, the luggage, moving around.

JK: That was one of the reasons why we planned out the next trip right after our Amazon journey. We paddled down the Rhine in August 2020. We decided to do this during the Corona pandemic, because like that we didn't have to travel through so many countries and still got to tell the entire river's history, which led us through Switzerland, Germany, Liechtenstein, Austria, France and the Netherlands.

Do these travels to the Yukon and Amazon satisfy your wish for solitude?

TL: Like we said, we already travelled along the Rhine. The Nile will be next. The Mekong river is also on our list, but with the goal to start at its origin. These journeys are really important to us. We might have published up to six books some time. We still have a couple of goals ahead of us: The Nile, maybe the Mississippi, one Russian river and the Mekong. Like that we would have visited a river in almost each part of the world.

Which seems to be a difficult goal to achieve, considering the current Corona pandemic...

JK: Sadly so. Because even if Germany will be cleared of the virus, that might not be the case for Tanzania, where the Nile originates, or in Egypt, where it ends. There are five countries in between, after all.

Symbolically, what did you take home from this journey?

TL: Humbleness! And gratefulness for what we have. At the same time, however, a sort of incomprehension for how we live here in Europe. With so much waste, lunacy and luxury. The people we met didn't really have anything. Property and wealth don't mean anything. The huts, the boats, tools, even the TV, it all belongs to everyone. You eat and drink together, and most of the work is done as a community. They say people are happier there. I won't be the judge as to whether that's true, but life there is simpler, more manageable, and thus people there live more modestly. In Germany people get up in the morning, rush to the office, are stuck in traffic, sit at the computer all day or manage machines, rush back home in the evening. In comparison, it's very relaxed at the Amazon. The people go to bed early, when they wake up they go fishing, hunt or raise manioc and corn. Life there is structured in a very simple way, it's been reduced to only the bare necessities.

What is the first image you see when you think of Amazonia?

JK: Looking back, I'm always thinking of this one boat ride very early in the morning. It was still foggy when we started paddling. To the left of us I can still barely see riverside, apart from that only fog, I can only see for two, three metres. We are on the Amazon without knowing what's ahead of us. It's quiet, there is no wind, the water is calm... That was a great experience.

[bulkyphrase]

Everybody & the Avengers Team

I've got a new fic rec list for you!

The stories in the "X & the Avengers Team" tags focus on one person's relationship to the Avengers team as a whole. Courtesy of AO3's tag browse and Excel, here's a ranked list of the top 20 most popular pairings:

Tony Stark | 2470 total, 240 OTP

Peter Parker | 2255 total, 85 OTP

Steve Rogers | 602 total, 56 OTP

Loki | 387 total, 26 OTP

Natasha Romanov | 308 total, 35 OTP

Clint Barton | 268 total, 46 OTP

Bruce Banner | 244 total, 15 OTP

Thor | 209 total, 7 OTP

Avengers Team | 174 total, 24 OTP

James "Bucky" Barnes | 156 total, 7 OTP

Wanda Maximoff | 143 total, 4 OTP

Phil Coulson | 105 total, 9 OTP

Darcy Lewis | 91 total, 6 OTP

Matt Murdock | 60 total, 8 OTP

Sam Wilson | 53 total, 5 OTP

Nick Fury | 41 total, 5 OTP

Harry Potter | 40 total, 0 OTP

Pepper Potts | 31 total, 1 OTP

Vision | 29 total, 2 OTP

Stiles Stilinski | 25 total, 0 OTP

In chart form, if you like charts:

Notes:

The numbers after the names are the number of stories tagged with that ship. OTP means the number of stories where that is the only relationship tagged on the story. Numbers are accurate as of July 2021.

Story Recommendations

For your reading pleasure, included below is at least one fic rec for each pairing except the crossovers from non-Marvel fandoms (apologies to Mr. Potter & Mr. Stilinski). Most are gen fic, and even in the ones with a romantic pairing, romance is not the focus.

Tony Stark

As Subtle As Cognitive Recalibration by petroltogo (Teen, 8949) tumblr: @tonystarktogo

Standing inside his penthouse, listening to Rogers, Barton and Banner explain to Fury how they just happened to stumble over the Tesseract on a routine security check of Stark Tower’s roof and wouldn’t you know, they’ve managed to fight off the looming alien invasion before it could really start and secure the missing overpowered nightlight is one of the most surreal situations Tony has ever had the displeasure of experiencing.

Peter Parker

the worst field trip ever by shrill_fangirl_screaming (Teen, 3420) tumblr: @i-am-having-an-emotion

"We're on a field trip," Peter said. "To here. And Tony decided to be our tour guide and absolutely embarrass me, so can you please help get him under control?"

Which is how Peter Parker, architect of his own destruction, ended up with not one but two superhero pseudo-dads being annoying on his school field trip.

Steve Rogers

Do You Remember Being Happy? ('Cause I Sure Don't) by GalaxyThreads (Teen, 11022) tumblr: @galaxythreads

That seems about right. He doesn't know how he knows that, though. He does have vague memories of an annoyed fondness at finding peanut butter in some sort of jam. Thor's doing, because he doesn't see the point of using two knives when one works just as fine. He knows that. How does he know that? He knows all those little details, though, almost innately. How can he know these strangers so deeply?

Everyone else below the cut!

Loki

Proprietary by TheThirdMarauder (Teen, 7639)

No, Loki simply wants the Avengers conquered. The details of whom, how, and when matter not. Unless, of course, said details interfere with Loki's plans. Then, well, then none can fault him for protecting his own interests.

Loki has always been exceptionally good at lying to himself.

Natasha Romanov

What Girls Are Made Of by enigma731 (Teen, 4613) tumblr: @enigma731

She rolls her eyes but does as he’s indicated, using his shoulders to leverage herself up onto his back, her arms around his neck and her legs hugging his waist.

“You know,” he says blithely, “this isn’t really what I tend to picture when I think of a hot girl riding me.”

Natasha groans, deciding that if his sense of humor gets them arrested, she’ll kill him herself. “Just go.”

Clint Barton

Dear Clint Barton (circa age 7) by pollyrepeat (Teen, 4221)

With a normal person, this might count as blackmail material, but a) this is a case of mutually assured destruction if ever there was one, and b) Fury is immune to embarrassment. Not just in the regular, Tony Stark way, either, oh no. Things that could possibly end up being embarrassing to Fury get somehow warped and changed until they go from mortifying all the way over into useful and/or good for his image. It’s like a superpower.

Carrying Clint’s small child self around on his shoulders more than once has probably already hit the interagency rumour mill as an example of Fury’s innate awesomeness: good with rocket launchers and small children.

Also available as a podfic!

Bruce Banner

They're Not Wrong by Trumpeteer34 (Teen, 10163)

As Tony began to pace around the hole in the road to keep himself from shooting repulsors at the nearby buildings in a fit of rage, Thor began to study the nearby area. There was no sign of either the Hulk or Bruce Banner beyond the crater. The surrounding area, aside from the rubble of the fight, held no clue as to their friend’s location.

“Guys, he’s gone,” Tony growled into the communicator on their private line, drawing Thor out of his darkening thoughts. “Someone tranqed him and took him. He’s gone.”

Honorary mention goes to the Responsible Science series by @letteredlettered - the stories don’t have the "Avengers Team & Bruce Banner" tag, but they could, and they are amazing. The best Bruce Banner writing I've ever come across.

Thor

Fortunately, I Am Mighty by onward_came_the_meteors (General, 3062)

Steve was the first one to speak. “Are you okay?”

Thor nodded. Which was a bad idea, as it turned out, because now there were little gray lights flashing in front of his eyes. “I’m fine.” Absolutely everyone narrowed their eyes, and he added, “But, uh. Could we possibly not get back in the car just yet?”

Avengers Team

Civil Wasn't by onward_came_the_meteors (General, 7123)

"We're having an ideological conflict here," Tony stated with disbelief. "Are you telling me you still want to go out to dinner?"

"It's a standing engagement, Tony," Rhodey reminded him.

"Not you too—"

"We already had to reschedule from Friday when Natasha was..." Rhodey frowned. "What were you doing?"

The question was directed toward Natasha, who shrugged and said, "Spy stuff."

James "Bucky" Barnes

You Know How I Feel, aka, The Adventures of Bucky and Muffy the Dinosaur by ifeelbetter (Not Rated, 4511) tumblr: @ifeelbetterer

“As you may have heard, Bucky Barnes, a.k.a. The Winter Soldier, recently rescued a tiny part-robot dinosaur during the Avengers’ battle with Dr. Doom in Antarctica,” the other newscaster explained. “Pictures of Barnes and the dinosaur were posted on twitter by fellow Avenger, Clint Barton, a.k.a. Hawkeye, and immediately made Barnes’s new pet America’s sweetheart.”

“Her name’s Muffy,” said Steve."

Wanda Maximoff

and the woman was young again by Mira_Jade (General, 3669)

Tony Stark called them the Cap's Kooky Quintet, and sometimes the term amused her – causing her to lift a sardonic brow where someday a smile would truly smile. She enjoyed the presence of comrades – true comrades – and she enjoyed the way their minds wove and bound together about each other to fluctuate against her senses as one. There was something soothing about being in their midst, and even when their loud and brash ways – their painful Americaness - rubbed her raw and drained on her, it was ever the knitting of their minds that soothed those moments over, and made them inconsequential.

Phil Coulson

Coulson's First Day of School by storiesfortravellers (Teen, 3055)

Coulson looked up at him. “I like drawing pictures with Mr. Rogers. I like having tea parties with Ms. Potts. I like it when Dr. Banner reads me books, and I like it when Natasha teaches me things. And I like when you play with me. You do really good voices when we play action figures. And you’re the only one who lets me do stuff like jump off the high diving board at the pool or eat three cupcakes or play tackle with kids at the park.”

Clint didn’t realize that. He was pretty sure that meant that he was doing something wrong.

Darcy Lewis

Beginner Yoga for Dummies (Darcys) and Sad Hobos by chailover (Teen, 3434)

Darcy had a theory: crazy attracted crazy, working kind of like gravity. It was pretty much her explanation for her life after Thor. And if she had thought the type of crazy Thor attracted was bad, be it Loki or the Warrior Three and Sif, or the dark elves and the Convergence, it was still nothing against what the Avengers manage en masse.

Matt Murdock

Double Blind by smilebackwards (Teen, 2381) tumblr: @smilebackwards

Stark snaps his fingers. “You can’t see half of my inventions. This explains so much about you and why you’ve never been properly impressed by me.”

“Does it?” Matt says, ambiguously.

Sam Wilson

Bystander by scribblemetimbers (Teen, 52029)

“I just want you to know,” Sam says loudly, cautiously raising his hands, “That I’m very poor and very sleep-deprived and literally the only thing you can kill me for right now are my notes.” He pauses. Wait. On second thought: “Please don’t steal my notes.”

“I’m not—I’m not a mugger,” Not Mugger rasps out, and for all that he looks about to keel over and die, the man actually manages to sound offended.

Nick Fury

Bedtime Story by dixiehellcat (Teen, 2532) tumblr: @deehellcat

Fury snorted. “I have to check in with the duty officer. I’ll be back in, let’s say twenty minutes. I expect all of you to have whatever your pre-bedtime routines are completed, and be in here pajama’ed and ready to be read to.”

He tapped the book under his arm, then left with the usual dramatic swish of his long coat. Bruce scratched his head. “Did…he just say be ready to be read to?”

Pepper Potts

Pepper and the Avengers (Which She Knows Nothing About) by rebelmeg (General, 6696) tumblr: @rebelmeg

The Avengers, that mismatched group of hurt and heroism, was one of the most important things in Tony Stark’s life. So, naturally, Pepper had made them an important part of her life too.

Vision

039. Intoxicated by aimmyarrowshigh (Teen, 100) tumblr: @aimmyarrowshigh

It might be nice to fit in, just this once. To lose a bit of composure.

Vision floated over to the refrigerator and, with some timidity, pulled off a magnet. He stuck it to his forehead.

[sholiofic]

could you write something with stakar meeting peter as a kid? maybe peter loses yondu while they're on a planet and attaches himself to stakar because he recognizes the coat?

Also posted on AO3: Bring it on Home (2700 wds). The hug in this fic is totally inspired by this lovely art by @dis4daria.

Peter only stops for a minute, hanging through the bars of a corral to watch a display of synchronized riding by orange-skinned, green-haired ladies in flowing silks, on six-legged animals with long streaming fur that makes them look like a cross between horses and llamas and those little dogs that look like mops. The ladies are standing up barefoot on the backs of the horse/dog/llamas, twirling batons with fire on the tips, and Peter thinks it’s just about the coolest thing he’s ever seen.

He swears he was only watching for a minute, but when when he looks up, any signs of nearby Ravager red have vanished in the festival crowd of aliens thronging the streets.

There’s some kind of carnival going on. It’s awesome – the closest thing Peter’s seen was the Missouri state fair, and he thought that was pretty rad, but this is way cooler. He wouldn’t have thought space pirates would like going to things like fairs and carnivals for fun, but the Ravagers hit the planet and fanned out into the carnival crowd like a bunch of overgrown kids, so apparently they do.

Yondu, as usual, hasn’t been looking like he’s having much fun at all, just marching around glowering at anybody who gets in his way. However, he did point Peter at a display of candy earlier and told him that anything he could steal without getting caught, he could keep, so now Peter’s pockets are stuffed full of alien candy bars and other treats (he’s getting pretty good at this whole stealing thing) and his fingers are sticky. He’s pretty confident that he won’t starve if he can’t find Yondu again.

But he’s also nine years old and he’s lost on an alien planet.

He tells himself that he doesn’t even want to find Yondu again. Maybe he can cry at some nice alien lady who will take him home (this is another thing Yondu’s been teaching him how to do, playing the “cute kid” card at people to get them to give him stuff). What’s Yondu gonna do, kill a whole family of nice suburban alien people to get him back?

… well. Well, actually Yondu probably would do that, not because he cares about Peter as a person, but because he’s made it really clear that he’s been putting a lot of work into training Peter, and anybody who beats up Peter or tries to eat him is Messin’ With The Cap'n’s Investment In This Here Thief Kid. Presumably this also applies to adopting Peter into a nice alien family with other kids and whatever the alien equivalent of a dog is.

Peter is also just old enough to suspect that running away from the Ravagers probably isn’t going to get him adopted into a nice alien family; it’s more likely to get him into the alien equivalent of an orphanage. He’s seen Oliver! on TV, and he gets the general idea that being stuck with the alien equivalent of Artful Dodger and Fagin rolled into one is better than finding out what alien planets do with orphans.

So he makes his way through the crowds, which suddenly seem a lot less funny and entertaining than they did a half hour ago, and it starts to sink in that he has no idea how to get back to where they parked their ship, or any of the places they’ve already been. He doesn’t even think he can find the place with the fire-twirling ladies again.

People bump into him. He’s almost squashed by someone riding a big animal that makes him think of a brontosaurus with iron-shod hooves, which under other circumstances would be awesome, but not right now. He never realized how much protection he used to get from walking along in the shadow of Yondu’s flowing red coat. Now he’s getting bumped and jostled and it’s all he can do to keep himself from being trampled.

“Hey there, little kid,” says a scruffy-looking panhandler with a ring of tentacles around his head and long, sharp teeth that are revealed when he pulls his lips back in a fierce grin. “You lost?”

“No!” Peter squeaks, and dashes into the crowd. Someone very tall (eight feet at least) kicks him by accident, at least he thinks it’s by accident. He stumbles to the edge of the flow of pedestrians and presses against the side of a building. He’s starting to feel very scared and very small. He doesn’t want to admit, even to himself, how desperately he wants to catch a glimpse of Ravager red, Ravager flames.

And then he does see the flames, but they’re not on a red Ravager jacket. They’re pinned to the dark blue coats of a group of people, mostly men plus one woman, who are strolling along with a cocky attitude that Peter recognizes because Yondu walks that way too.

They’re not wearing red, so they’re not from Yondu’s ship, but they are Ravagers. Peter didn’t know there were other Ravagers besides Yondu’s crew, but the universe is full of things Yondu hasn’t taught him about.

He darts forward and settles into their wake. He’s not quite sure whether he can work up the nerve to actually talk to them, but walking with them like this … it feels the same way that walking with Yondu feels. People get out of their way, so Peter ghosts along quietly in their wake, a silent little shadow in scaled-down red leathers, enjoying the relative feeling of safety while he tries to think how he can find Yondu again and whether these people might be able to help him.

Until the little group of blue-clad Ravagers stop and Peter bumps into someone’s back. With a gasp, he scrambles backward, but a big hand closes over his. An enormous hand. This guy looks basically human, but he’s huge.

“Hey, Stakar,” the guy says in a deep, rumbling voice. “Looks like I caught me a pickpocket.”

“No!” Peter gasps, writhing. He might as well have his hand in an iron vise. Yondu’s been teaching him self-defense and he tries to lash out with his feet, but the guy holds him at arm’s length and all Peter can do is flail at him. Which is pretty much how his self-defense training with Yondu typically goes, come to think of it.

The adults close around him, and suddenly he feels like he’s trapped in a ring of blue leather coats. Terrified, Peter tries to bite the big guy, who closes another huge hand over his head and tips his head back so he can’t.

“Is that a Ravager coat?” a woman’s voice asks. She crouches down to bring herself to Peter’s level … well, Peter’s normal level, though right now he’s dangling in the big guy’s grip. “Charlie, you’re scaring him.”

“He’s tryin’ to bite me,” Charlie grumbles.

This makes the woman grin. “Oh no, poor baby. You can’t even handle a tiny l'il street kid? Want me an’ Stakar to warm up some nice hot milk for ya?”

Her hair is a wild dark mop done up with haphazardly-applied combs, her eyes bright, and her grin full of teeth. Although she, too, looks basically human, she makes Peter think of Yondu, which is less than comforting under the circumstances. He’s pretty sure he knows what Yondu would do to a kid who he thinks tried to steal from him.

“I’m not a thief!” he gasps when Charlie’s hand lets go of his head so his mouth isn’t mostly covered up. “I’m not, I swear! I – I – I’m a Ravager! You’re Ravagers, right?”

The woman raises her eyebrows, and another man leans down, craggy-faced and frowning. “Ravager huh? Little scrap like you? What ship are you on, boy?”

“Yondu’s,” Peter says, panting.

The adults all look at each other, and a sharp electric current of something or other passes between them. “Well, now you ain’t,” the man says. “Charlie, bring ‘im.”

“Sure thing, Stakar,” the big guy says easily, throwing Peter over his shoulder and ignoring Peter’s shriek of outrage and subsequent attempts to pummel Charlie’s back and neck with his fists. “What’re we gonna do with him?”

“Not sure,” Stakar says heavily. “But looks like Udonta ain’t learned a thing.”

Peter barely hears them; he figures he should’ve expected this, since it was Ravagers who abducted him in the first place, but now he’s being abducted from Ravagers by Ravagers, and this is just ridiculous. Or at least he thought they were Ravagers at first. Maybe they’re not; maybe the flame means something very different on a blue coat. “Let me go!” he shrieks in fury. “Take me home, take me back! Yondu’s gonna murder you!”

(He won’t realize until a long time later that “home”, in this context, doesn’t mean Earth.)

“Settle down, kid,” Charlie grunts.

With an effort, Peter manages to get himself under control and goes limp, draping over Charlie’s shoulder in seeming capitulation. What he’s thinking, though, is how Yondu’s self-defense lessons have always included more than kicking his feet out from under him or smacking him down to the floor. (Although they do include plenty of those things.)

“Fight smart, boy. Think about what advantages you got they don’t. Think about what weaknesses they got that you don’t. You ain’t gonna win a fight hand to hand, not as small and scrawny as you are –” This part was usually reinforced by smacking him bruisingly to the Eclector’s deck plates again. “So you gotta win smart. Kick ‘em in the nuts, stab 'em in the back, use every dirty trick you can. Ain’t no such thing as a fair fight when you’re fighting for your life.”

An inner voice that sounds a lot like Yondu asks him what he has in the way of advantages, so he lists them to himself, his lips moving soundlessly. He has a small blaster on his belt, but he doesn’t think he can get to it without Charlie noticing. And he has a knife up his sleeve.

The woman and Stakar are talking, something about Yondu, but Peter doesn’t really hear. He’s carefully slipping the knife into his palm, and then he grips the handle and sinks it up to the hilt in the massive slabs of muscle that make up Charlie’s back.

Charlie gives a startled yelp and Peter tumbles to the ground. But he’s taken worse falls a hundred times in Yondu’s self-defense lessons, and by now, after months of nursing bruises, it’s second nature to roll and spring to his feet. He sprints into the crowd.

Behind him, he hears the woman’s disgruntled voice: “Charlie!”

“Damn l'il fucker stabbed me!”

Peter stumbles to a halt once the crowd has swallowed him up and hidden from those blue-coat not-Ravagers. His fingers are sticky with blood that is just a little more purple than human blood. In a distant part of his still-rattled brain, he’s a little upset to notice that he dropped the knife by accident – it was a pretty cool knife, that Yondu let him pick out from the Captain’s own knife collection.

He flexes his sticky hand and realizes that he’s shivering. Okay, he ditched those jerks, but he still doesn’t know how to find –

“Where the hell you been, boy?” an all too familiar voice snaps, as a heavy hand settles on his collar and yanks him back.

“Yondu,” Peter says, and it’s adrenaline and fear and that awful jittery keyed-up feeling from being in a real, actual fight and he doesn’t even know what else that makes him spin around and throw his arms around Yondu’s waist.

Yondu makes a choked sound, and Peter realizes in the same instant what he’s doing (the fact that he’s now face to face with the gently glowing arrow in its holster is a pretty good reminder) and he drops Yondu like an Aaskavarian razor-snake.

“How’d you find me?” he demands, tucking his hands under his arms to stop them from doing any more accidental hugging of space pirates.

“Got a tracker on you, boy.”

Because of course he does.

“Would'a found you sooner, but you kept movin’ around.” The hand settles on his collar again, big warm blue fingers pressing and staying in place, and if Peter didn’t know any better (which he does, he does know better, he knows they only keep him around 'cause he’s useful), he might think it was comforting, having it there. Might think Yondu was holding onto him for some reason other than keeping him from running off again.

***

Epilogue:

“I cannot believe,” Stakar snaps, pacing his quarters, the high-dollar Xandarian brandy nearly slopping out of the cup held in his white-knuckled grip, “cannot believe that asshole is still trafficking in kids! Ain’t nothing gets through that thick Centaurian skull, nothing at all?”

Aleta is taking down her hair from the combs in which she’d pinned it up for the festival, one leg tucked under her on Stakar’s bed. Her long Ravager coat is thrown over the back of a chair, leaving her in a loose dark tunic and leather pants. She’ll need to be back to her own ship soon … but not yet, not quite yet. “You know,” she remarks, “I’ve probably heard Yondu’s name on your lips more than my own since you kicked him out.”

“Don’t start with me, woman.”

Aleta snorts around the comb she’s holding in her mouth. “That child was wearing the flames. You saw that, didn’t you?”

“Yondu ain’t supposed to be wearing the flames, let alone pinning them on someone else!”

“I’m just saying, perhaps it’s not what you think. That boy could be someone’s kid brother or a pirate’s by-blow he took on board the ship.”

Stakar blows out his breath and leans against the window. His quarters are at the very top of the ship, with a 360-degree view of space around them. No one can see in from the outside; it’s simultaneously very private and about the closest possible thing to being in the middle of the stars he loves so much.

“I just kept thinking he could change, Aleta,” he mutters, breath fogging the glass, and for a moment she glimpses the depth of the pain he still carries about Yondu’s betrayal.

Still, it’s her job as his wife and co-captain not to let him wallow in it. “Would you let him back in if he did?”

“Damn it, woman …”

“Why don’t you stop thinking about Yondu,” she says, tossing the handful of combs carelessly in the direction of the chair (about half of them land on it, the other half scattering on the floor), “and come pay some attention to me for a change.”

But much later that night, she sits on the end of the bed, naked except for her usual knives (one in an ankle sheath, the other strapped to her upper arm), and looks out at the stars above and behind and all around. Stakar snores softly with a white snow-dragon pelt thrown over him, while Aleta thinks about that wild, angry child in the red Ravager coat.

“Yondu’s gonna murder you!” he’d screamed.

Aleta slips one of her knives out of its sheath and absently picks her teeth with it, one arm thrown over her bare knees. She’s pretty sure the backstabbing maneuver the boy used on Charlie (who was still complaining about the dressing on his back, last she saw him, despite the fact it hadn’t even gone through the muscle) is exactly the sort of move that a former child slave might teach someone equally small, equally scrawny, with all the same disadvantages that he’d had, a long time ago.

Yondu, you asshole, she thinks, it’d be just like you to start savin’ kids instead of sellin’ em and never breathe a word to us.

Not that it’s any of her business. Yondu made his choices long ago. Is still makin’ em, come to that. Still, she can’t help hoping their paths might cross again, out here in the stars one of these days. She’d like to find out if that scrappy little kid with a brave heart much bigger than his skinny body (who reminds her so much of another scrappy kid she knew, once upon a time) is still on Yondu’s crew, next time they meet.