#his parents and then there was the scene where he told steve that he'd been wrong and I really really liked his reasoning for hating bucky

[shoujo-wizard]

@lexirosewrites here's the ask i told you i've been putting too much detail into, i call it Haunting of Harrington House it's more details on the ask i sent quite awhile ago of a/b/o steddie haunted house AU this is very long so it is under the cut

it involves slightly better harrington parents, but they still aren't the best the emotional neglect is very present, it isn't very steddie or buckingham coded yet so i didn't tag it as either these r just broad initial details

O!Steve A!Robin

Steve grew up in a relatively cosmopolitan town in Washington near Seattle. His father and mother were big shot lawyers with little time for him. He was mostly a check on the to-do list for a "picture perfect" marriage, his designation as a male omega wasn't unexpected or shunned as the Harrington family apparently had a long history of male omegas. But they were still much too busy so every school break they'd dump him at his maternal grandparents house a few towns away. When there wasn't a school break he was primarily in the care of a nanny till his 15th birthday when it was deemed he knew how to take care of himself & be safe abt it.

He grew up learning next to nothing about his paternal grandparents aside from what was essential to a family tree project here & there. Steve knew his middle name, Oliver, came from his great-grandfather & tht said great-grandfather was a male omega as well. Richard Harrington never divulged more than the necessary information that Steve needed for school: his grandfather's name was Elijah Harrington, his grandmother's name was Amelia Smith before she married Elijah, his ancestors were some of the first settlers of the area that would grow into Hawkins, that his grandparents lived there their entire lives

Well time passed as it's wont to do, Steve graduated high school & decided to study Library Sciences as a long-term goal. Despite their estranged relationship his parents were supportive of this choice, but his father drew the line at looking at schools in Indiana. Richard told Steve he'd left Indiana & specifically Hawkins for a reason. He never told his son what tht reason was.

Steve thrived in college, getting a Bachelor in Information Science eventually getting into a Masters program that would earn him a Masters in Library Science thus allowing him to begin working as a librarian. In his Masters program he met A!Robin & they instantly bonded after a disaster of a Socratic seminar where they ended up on the same side of a heated debate abt the legacy of the Library of Congress. When Steve graduates his parents r nowhere to be found even tho they'd promised & even shared w him their travel plans tht would get them there on time. So he goes thru the motions of celebration till he gets a call from an unknown number. It's the police, his parents had been involved in a serious car accident after swerving to avoid a drunk driver. They'd both been pronounced dead at the scene. His parents were dead.

The next two weeks r filled with meetings with his parents lawyer, finding appropriate coffins, alerting business partners & friends alike to the deaths, & then getting acquainted with their will. The will stated that if Steve was 20+ upon their death their house would go up for sale. They'd left certain things to business partners, certain things to friends, and the rest was Steve's to do w as he pleased. he sells much of it, keeps some of it. Among what was left to Steve is the deed & blueprints & keys to a house in Hawkins Indiana. 

Well, he'd always been curious & there was no more childhood home waiting for him so he gets Robin to agree to come with him to the town he'd never been to before. They get in his car & go on a road trip. They arrive in Hawkins days later & stop at a diner they happen to find on Google maps before making the final trek to the mystery Harrington house.

They come upon a historic mansion from the Gilded Age. It's unmistakably in need of work. The windows r dark & the key gets stuck before working. The electricity buzzes & blinks before coming on reliably. There's furniture covered in white sheets in nearly every room. The kitchen hadn't been updated since the 1950s. The drawing room has covered paintings, covered furniture, a large fireplace clearly meant to impress, & nearly empty bookcases built into one wall. There is no television but an antique radio as well as a 70s record player in the sitting room. There's a second fireplace in the sitting room tht is just as gorgeous but clearly meant for the personal use of the family. There's an entire personal library past the sitting room & the platonic pair r apprehensive of the state of the books on the shelves. The library is two stories with a spiral staircase leading up. Another staircase directly opposite the foyer leads up to the second floor of the mansion. The blueprints show a total of five bedrooms & three bathrooms on the second floor with the third bathroom being an ensuite to the master bedroom. There's a staircase w a door at the top leading to the attic/servants quarters. They test the faucets in the kitchen & after some noise & undeniably stale water it works. The fridge clearly needs to b replaced & the oven & stove top r dubious at best. They find the master bedroom has a gorgeous antique nesting frame tht Robin thinks might date to the 1910s. Neither wants to chance the old mattress so they roll out their sleeping bags next to eachother & settle as comfortably as they can on the hardwood floor. 

That night Steve dreams. 

He stands in the garden behind the mansion. The lights r all on, & he can see shadows moving within as if a party is taking place. He's in the pajamas he wore to sleep & his feet r getting cold. But every effort he makes to get to the house makes him sink into the dirt. Just as his head is abt to b submerged beneath the soil he wakes up.

They eventually end up committing to using Steve’s inheritance to restoring/renovating the mansion. The dreams do not stop. In fact when he begins sleeping in the master bedroom alone the dreams get worse. More vivid and more confusing.

It all hits the fan not long after Steve has his first heat in the mansion. He comes out of his heat a little worse for wear bc he kept dreaming in between waves of horniness & moments of care from Robin. The dreams were not the pleasant wet dreams he’d always had during his heats. He could not remember any of them, but he always awoke with a rabbiting heartbeat searching the room for eyes he knew wouldn’t be there.

So he’s a little anxious but has to get over it quickly because they had carpenters coming in to reinforce various areas tht needed the help tht week, the electricity and wiring was already renovated and up to code. Context: they’d been working with local companies through this entire process, and the workers always smelled a little nervous whenever they were around. Neither of them asked because they got the feeling they wouldn’t get a straight answer. So these workers come in to do their job. The last area they needed to work on is the attic/servants quarters. These are big people, strong people, most of them alphas, but they all stood at the bottom of the stairs to the attic psyching each other up to go up there. Eventually they go up, begin working, all is quiet for half an hour, then suddenly every single one of the workers in the attic are charging down the stairs and stampeding out of the mansion.

i haven't exactly finished this thought but im now cooking up an entire fic

[sidekick-hero]

(steddie | mature | 2.1k | tags: mutual pining, Eddie/OMC (nothing explicit), memory of the past | second part to are you still mine? where Steve remembers another moment from their shared past | @steddielovemonth prompts Love is keeping a spare sweater/blanket in the car because they always get cold by @steddieasitgoes and Love is showing up when someone doesn’t ask ❤️by @steddieas-shegoes | AO3)

Steve thinks that making out with Eddie on the dance floor at Dustin and El's wedding is probably not the most polite thing to do. Especially as the best man.

But boy, is it hard to stop once they start kissing, twenty years of longing and dreaming all flowing into an almost desperate need to get closer and closer. Eddie kisses Steve like he wants to crawl inside him so he'll never have to leave again, and by God, Steve wants him to. Now that he's finally feeling Eddie, tasting him, he's not sure he can ever give it up.

It reminds him of Christmas Eve '93.

He was in Hawkins for the holidays, staying with Claudia and Dustin, as he had done every year since he and Robin had moved to Chicago in '87. His parents usually spent the holidays in Florida anyway, claiming the weather was more to their liking. He had a standing invitation to join them there, but Steve never took them up on it.

He'd rather spend Christmas with his real family.

So every year, on the day before Christmas, their little close-knit group would come over to Joyce and Hopper's house and gather for a family dinner. It was a tradition, almost an unspoken rule. Christmas Eve was spent at the Byers-Hopper residence.

Even Eddie would come, come hell or high water. In fact, he once told Steve that it was part of every contract he had signed since their first record deal in '88. Eddie would have time off between December 23rd and New Year's. The rest of the year was pretty unpredictable; they never knew when they would get a chance to talk to Eddie on the phone or even see him in person, but Christmas Eve was set in stone.

The last time Steve had seen Eddie in person had been at Dustin's graduation in May. Eddie had come all the way from LA just to see Dustin graduate, and Steve had been so excited to see him. More so than usual, since Steve had just graduated from teaching after drifting aimlessly for a while before deciding to go to community college to become a teacher.

He was also single for the first time in a long time. And he had thought that maybe this could be their chance. For a future together. Because Steve could teach in LA just as well as he could in Chicago. Or maybe Eddie could make music while living in Chicago; the city had a great music scene and recording studios as well. It wouldn't matter where, just that it was them.

Steve had never stopped hoping.

That's why he'd wanted to ask Eddie out while they watched the kid they kinda co-parented graduate. Only the words had died in his mouth the second he realized that Eddie hadn't come alone.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is Tom. Tom, these are my friends, Dustin, Mike, Will, Lucas, Max, El, Robin and Steve."

"You're a friend of Eddie's too?" Dustin had asked the guy, and Steve marveled at how dense their token genius could be sometimes.

Tom had smiled at Dustin and taken Eddie's hand. "His boyfriend, actually. Is that okay with you guys?"

No, Steve had wanted to say, piss off.

But he hadn't. Instead, he had avoided Eddie and Tom altogether, barely exchanging more than a few words with Eddie and ignoring the hurt look Eddie gave him whenever Steve pretended to be too busy to talk to him. It was for the best, really.

Their Christmas Eve gathering was a family affair, no outsiders allowed. It meant that Steve would at least not have to deal with watching Tom all night, enjoying what Steve himself had hoped to have one day: Eddie's love.

But even without Tom physically being there, he was like a ghost haunting him. It wasn't even that Eddie talked much about him or anything like that. In fact, he was too busy asking Steve questions about his new job as a middle school teacher and about the cat he and Robin had adopted and how their crazy neighbor was doing.

It made it easier to forget about Tom. The eggnog helped, too, and by the time he had finished his fourth glass, he was leaning heavily against Eddie's side, warm and cozy and surrounded by his still familiar smell. It almost felt like back in '86, before LA. When they drove Eddie's van to the quarry and lay on a mattress in the back with the doors open, looking at the night sky.

Eddie always kept a spare blanket in the van, just for Steve, because Steve always, always forgot his jacket. By the end of September, when Eddie had left, the blanket had begun to smell of them both.

"This is nice," Steve said, his tongue loose and his inhibitions low. "Just like the van, remember?"

Eddie's arm was on the back of the couch behind Steve, and he used it to pull Steve even closer. "Yeah."

And then, in a lower voice, "I missed you, Stevie."

When Tom stood in the doorway to pick up Eddie, reality came crashing down on him.

Everything went downhill after that.

Because after Eddie and Tom left, Steve decided he couldn't stay a minute longer either. He couldn't handle the laughter and joy, and especially the worried looks Robin was sending his way. So he told everyone that he was walking home to get some fresh air and to clear his head of the eggnog.

"Are you sure? I can drive you. Or you can stay with me at my parents'; you know they wouldn't mind."

"Thanks, Robbie, but I want to be alone for a little while, okay? Just for tonight. We'll talk tomorrow, I promise."

She gave him a long, searching look before nodding and pulling him into a tight hug. "Take care of yourself, okay? I need my best friend."

His downfall was the bar on the way to the Henderson house, because he had just enough money in his pocket to get sufficiently shitfaced.

And just enough spare change to call Eddie from the pay phone outside.

It rang for several long minutes, and Steve was almost ready to hang up and try again when a sleepy voice on the other end grumbled, "This better be important."

"Eddiiieee," Steve cheered, "thought you wouldn't pick up. Thought maybe you were too busy screwing Tom to answer the phone." Steve slurred his words badly and wondered if Eddie could even understand what he was saying.

"Jesus, Stevie, you're drunk as a skunk! What happened?"

"You," Steve whispered, and then louder. "'Nothin'. Just, y'know, spending Christmas Eve alone and drunk. Got to get used to that, I guess."

There was a long silence on the other end, and Steve would have thought Eddie had hung up if not for the sound of his breathing.

"Eddie?" Steve had to ask, the silence between them worse than anything he could imagine.

"Where are you?" Eddie had asked suddenly, and Steve had just enough time to tell him before the line went truly silent and the dial tone rang through the speaker, the phone demanding more coins Steve didn't have.

Cursing under his breath, he leaned his head against the glass of the phone booth and pinched his nose to keep the tears at bay.

He must have fallen asleep, because the next thing he knew, Eddie's hand was on his shoulder, shaking him gently. "Steve, hey. Stevie, come on, wake up. Time to get you home."

Blinking up at Eddie, Steve was sure he must be dreaming. "Eddie? What -?"

"You sounded like you needed someone, so I came. Come on, you must be freezing, man, you're shaking."

"Am I?" Steve asked, his voice sounding dazed, and Eddie sighed. With an arm around Steve's waist, he led him over to his old van. The one he'd left behind after his first visit to Hawkins after moving west, realizing it wouldn't survive the trip back. Wayne was taking care of it so that it would still be able to drive short distances in and around Hawkins, ensuring that Eddie would always have a ride when he visited.

"Your chariot awaits, my prince," Eddie said, helping Steve inside. It still smelled like it did back then. The inside of the old van had a distinct aroma that mixed the musty scent of the worn upholstery with the lingering hints of herbal sweetness and Eddie's cologne. It felt like a snapshot from his memory, as if no time had passed since he had last sat here.

God, Steve had missed this car.

He patted the dashboard clumsily but lovingly. "I missed you, baby."

"Did you just tell my car you missed her?" Eddie asked incredulously.

Steve pouted at him as Eddie turned the ignition and the engine roared to life. "She's a lady, Eds. You said so yourself. And she was always there for us."

Eddie's eyes were soft as he looked over at Steve.

"You're right, Stevie. She was." And then he leaned to the side and turned in his seat to rummage in the back until he emerged with a burgundy blanket. He draped it over Steve with gentle hands until only Steve's head was sticking out. "You're still shaking."

Steve was too stunned for words, and maybe that was better, because Eddie had shifted into drive and pulled onto the blissfully empty streets of Hawkins.

It was Steve's blanket. The one Eddie had put in the van for him.

The drive over to the Henderson's was a quiet one, both men lost in their thoughts. It was only when Eddie pulled up to the curb in front of the house that Steve spoke again, his brain a little more alert than when he had called Eddie.

"Thanks, Eds. You didn't have to do that," he told Eddie as earnestly as he could while feeling like the car was still moving underneath him.

"I know. I wanted to, though. I'll always want to, you don't have to ask."

"Why?"

"'Cause it's you." He said it so simply, as if it were just another fact. The sun rises in the east, monsters exist, and Eddie would always be there when Steve needed him, even when he didn't ask.

"Kiss me," Steve begged, suddenly desperate in a way he couldn't understand. All he knew was that if he let Eddie go right now, this moment between them would be over and he would have lost Eddie.

Again.

"Please, Eddie." His voice broke at Eddie's name.

A soft touch on his cheek, feather light as calloused fingers caressed his skin before a warm hand cupped his cold face.

"I can't," Eddie whispered even as he leaned in, his eyes so dark they looked almost black.

Steve leaned forward as well, willing to meet Eddie halfway, something he wished he'd done so much sooner.

"Why?" Almost inaudibly.

"Because I don't think I could stop if I kissed you now," Eddie replied, pressing a tender kiss to Steve's forehead, right between his eyebrows. "Go inside, Stevie. Sleep it off. You'll feel better in the morning."

And Steve went, if only to hide the tears on his face.

He didn't feel better the next day. Or the day after that.

It was a year before he spoke to Eddie again.

"Remember Christmas Eve '93?" Steve asks Eddie after they finally break apart.

Eddie's eyes are glazed and it takes him a second to get his bearings. He makes a questioning sound, clearly trying to catch up with where Steve's mind had gone, but then his face clears.

"Of course. God, you have no idea how much I wanted to kiss you that night. It took everything in me to let you go."

"I wish you had. I wanted you to."

"I know, sweetheart. But you were also really drunk and upset, and I had a boyfriend. And even though he wasn't you, I didn't want to hurt him. He didn't deserve that. But most of all, I didn't want to make you the other guy. I remember how much you hated your dad cheating on your mom, and I couldn't make you a part of something like that."

Steve kisses him again to show Eddie that he understands and that he's grateful. Because it's true, he wanted Eddie to choose him, but not like that. Not by hurting someone else like that.

"But I loved you then. Which I guess wasn't fair to Tom either, but I just didn't know how not to."

"I know. I think a part of me knew then, too. Which made it hurt even more."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. What did you say in your toast? 'If you're willing to take the long and winding road, you know that whatever's at the other end is worth it.' You are worth it."

Later, in Steve's hotel room, sweaty and sticky and still catching his breath, Eddie vows to show Steve every day that he's worth it. That they're worth it.

[livwritesstuff]

Just in connection to my reply to one of your posts with little baby Moe (Okay she wasn't a baby but you get it.)

I really, really need some scenes with the girls (all of them or one by one) where they tell Steve (and Eddie too) how amazing he is as a dad. Not as teeny tiny children but rather as teenagers or even as young adults. Just genuine love between them, no ulterior motives.

Because I feel like Steve NEEDS that too. Every now and then. I know parents always have moments where they feel like they've fucked up or that their children don't really like them. And I feel like Steve could spiral about these things on a bad day. Eddie telling him that the girls love him to pieces doesn't help a lot on these days, I believe (You can correct me since it's definitely your universe and your Steve and Eddie).

So I'm just asking, very VERY politely :))), what you think those moments could look like and what the girls would say or why Steve even feels like he failed them. (Okay that's a LOT I'm asking of you, I'm sorry.) Just see where the flow takes you, if it does.

Thank you thank you thank you 🥰🥰🥰🥰

HAZEL

Steve was home alone with the kids because Eddie was away for a few days of work meetings in New York. The second day of Eddie’s absence, Steve was hit with a killer migraine – his first really bad one in a while – so he set the girls up with a movie (a long one) to give himself a couple hours to try sleeping it off.

A while later, he woke up to an alarm blaring – weird, he’d thought in the moment because he probably wouldn’t have set a loud alarm for a migraine nap (seems a little counter-intuitive), but everything about his brain was foggy so who's to say.

Then, outside the door, he heard this exchange between his two oldest daughters.

Moe: Papa can turn it off.

Robbie: But we’ll get in trouble.

Robbie: It’s on fire.

Half-convinced he was dreaming, he got up and followed the girls into the kitchen where, yep, the microwave was on fire. All Steve really remembers is unplugging it and leaving it to the elements outside.

Turns out Moe had wanted to make mac and cheese (which she knew how to do – they’d actually been about to graduate her to toaster privileges until this incident) and it had been a fluke timer-based accident.

Eddie had thought coming home to a melted microwave in their driveway was hilarious, but Steve was seriously rattled about it because it was the first time he'd felt like something had happened because of a failing on his part. He shouldn't have let himself succumb to the migraine, he should have pushed through it to be there for the girls, but he’d let himself slip and then they set the goddamn microwave on fire.

The same day he got back from his trip, Eddie went out and bought a new microwave (even though it’s one of those purchases Steve would normally handle because he doesn’t trust Eddie for a second to not buy the dumbest appliances he can find), and he took all three girls with him so Steve could have a bit of time alone. When they all returned an hour or two later, the sheer volume and amount of excitement they brought with them pretty much confirmed for Steve that whatever microwave Eddie bought had way more bells and whistles than any person on Earth could possibly need.

Steve didn’t go downstairs to greet them and not too long later, the door to his and Eddie’s room opened, and then three-year-old Hazel was climbing into bed and snuggling up close to him.

“There’s a new microwave,” she told him in her matter-of-fact way she reported on everything that happened in her world.

“I know,” he replied, running a hand through her tangled blonde curls (unlike Robbie, Hazel’s tolerance for “hair time”, as they call it, is pretty much rock-bottom – her hair is more frizz than curls these days and Steve is figuring out how to cope).

“Daddy wants to turn the old one into a diagram,” she continued.

Steve furrowed his eyebrows.

“A diagram?” he repeated.

“He wants to put all the melted spoons in and make them look cool and put it on a shelf.”

Oh – also, no fucking chance. Not in Steve’s kitchen.

“I think he said diorama, Haze.”

Hazel nodded.

Then she said, “You were like a firefighter.”

Steve refrains from pointing out that he shouldn’t have needed to be like a firefighter in the first place (because that would be putting his own issues onto his children and he doesn’t want to do that), even though he knows it’s true. He should have been there.

“You’re the best dad ever,” Hazel continued.

“Yeah?”

“Uh-huh,” she nods, and she’s just as matter-of-fact now as she was before, and she’s sitting on his chest in a way that has her little knees digging into his ribs, which should hurt but instead feels like a tether to the real world he can grasp onto and pull himself out of his head.

 “You think we should go check out this microwave?” he asks, starting to sit up.

Hazel nods.

“Alright, let’s go.”

MOE

When Moe was 21 – a junior in college in New York City – she and her best friend since kindergarten, Gray, started dating (finally, in Steve’s opinion, because he’d seen that coming for ages).

Steve and Eddie have known Gray for as long as Moe has, and they’ve watched Gray grow up nearly as much as their three daughters – as a kindergartener with freckles and dark brown pigtails, as a middle-schooler tearfully coming out as non-binary knowing they’d have to hide it from their family, as a high school senior, still with all those freckles, eager for the fresh start that college would bring.

It was nice to be for Gray (and for a handful of their daughters’ other friends over the years) something that Eddie and Steve had needed when they were their age – a place where they could be themselves without any consequences, a place where they didn’t have to hide, because sometimes, as was the case for Gray for many years, you have to hide. It’s nice to have a safe haven where you don’t.

During Moe and Gray’s senior year of college, the pair made plans to come home for their final spring break. When that first week of March finally rolled around, Moe called from the train to tell them that Gray was finally pulling the trigger – finally coming out to their parents, finally telling them about their relationship with Moe.

“Are they sure,” Steve had asked – not because he doubted Gray but because he hadn’t been too much older when he’d taken that leap for himself and he’d felt the subsequent loss of his parents like mourning a death.

“Positive,” he’d heard Gray reply.

Three hours after their train dropped Moe and Gray off at the Wellesley Farms station, Steve and Eddie heard the back door open. A moment later, Moe trailed in with something heavy in her eyes.

“How’d it…” Eddie started to ask from where he and Steve sat on the couch, but he stopped when Moe shook her head.

“Not over yet,” she told them, “Gray made me leave. It’s a fucking trainwreck.”

And even though he knew that was always going to be the outcome, Steve’s heart still sank.

“Damn,” Eddie commented while Steve shook his head, “They’ll always have a home with us, but…”

“Yeah,” Moe nodded, “Still sucks.” 

Steve recognizes something of his own experience in that – he feels so damn grateful that Jim and Joyce had slid into that parent role for him, especially after he’d become estranged from his actual parents in his mid-twenties. Still, they weren’t his parents, and Steve would’ve never not wanted his parents to pull through like they should have.

Moe sat down on the couch between her dads.

“Why did Gray make you leave?” Steve asked (even though he had a sneaking suspicion why).

“Uh…” Moe paused, pushing her blonde bangs back, “Well, I wouldn’t say I was yelling, exactly, but…I dunno. If you ask Gray they might tell you I was yelling.”

Yep, that seems about right.

“I just,” Moe continued, “I know Gray was prepared for this – for their parents, like, rejecting all of this – and I know they’ve always totally sucked so this was obviously how this was gonna go, but I think I had a hard time seeing it because I’d never really had to consider what it would be like for that to happen.”

Moe shook her head, her bangs falling right back into her eyes, and Steve had to resist the urge to ask if she wanted his help trimming them like he’d done when she was little.

“I just mean – it never made a difference to you who me and Haze and Robbie were or what we did. You just, like, love us regardless…and always, y’know? I never had to imagine anything happening to make that stop, and I never had to consider that it might not be like that for everyone.”

She paused again, this time for a while, her eyes trained on the carpet as she fiddled with cuffs on her jeans. 

And then Moe looked Steve dead in the eye.

“You’re the best dads,” she said, “and I’m really, really lucky.”

ROBBIE

There were eight hours between Steve and Eddie finding out their fifteen-year-old daughter had been in a car crash during a school trip to Disney World and when they finally made it down to the hospital in Orlando she’d been taken to. There were another agonizing two before Robbie woke up.

When she did, her eyes groggily blinked open, and she looked blankly around the hospital room for a moment, and then she saw them.

Then her pale face crumples and suddenly she’s crying.

And that had Steve’s heart plummeting even faster than the phone call from hell he’d gotten eight hours earlier, because Robbie doesn’t cry.

He can’t remember the last time he’d seen her cry – not since she was a baby, anyway. She’d cried constantly as a baby, but the second she had a firm enough grasp on the English language it had ceased entirely, replaced by an endless stream of words – demands and trains of thought and exclamations and everything in between.

Eddie had joked that she’d only ever been crying out of frustration over not being able to tell them what she needed, and as soon as she could tell them, she had no use for it anymore, so seeing Robbie sobbing – the kind of crying where no sound could come out, where she was barely breathing, where her tears were soaking her cheeks and staining the collar of the hospital gown someone had changed her into – it practically had Steve crying himself.

After a few minutes of we’re here and you’re okay and what do you need, Robbie had tearfully admitted, “I need a hug,” and then she’d broken down again.

She wasn’t exactly in any position to get up, obviously, so Steve had taken off his shoes (because even through tears she’d still side-eyed his sneakers) and slid onto the hospital bed so he could pull Robbie into his arms just like he used to do when bad dreams woke her up in the middle of the night.

Later, when Eddie was just outside the hospital room talking to the nurse and the chaperone for the trip about the accident and how the school was planning on moving forward in the aftermath, Robbie finally spoke.

“Papa,” she said, her face pressed into his shoulder.

“Mm-hmm.”

“I’m sorry.”

Steve looked down at his daughter.

“Robbie, you don’t need to–”

“Not for this. For…just, like, in general. You–”

She paused, and Steve let her.

“I just mean…” she continued, “I haven’t been, like, good lately, and I’m sorry.”

Steve didn’t know what to say.

She’s not exactly wrong – it’s true that Robbie had been a total piece of work lately, especially since she started high school, especially since she got bumped up to the senior-level band class because she’s that good at the violin (which he and Eddie had been thrilled about initially until they realized it meant she was making friends with high school seniors) – but Steve didn’t exactly know how best to explain to her that up until this, up until she’d nearly died because of it and no matter how much Steve didn’t like it, it was normal.

It was normal for teenagers to do dumb shit, to hurt themselves, to hurt others, to drive their parents goddamn insane with worry. It wasn’t normal for them to nearly end up dead because of it, and this time it wasn’t really even her fault.

It sort of reminded him of Nancy in a way, of how Nancy had never been the same again after what happened to Barb, how Nancy had never let herself be a dumb teenager, never let herself relax, even though picking a boy over a friend was normal. Sneaking out and drinking during a badly-supervised school trip was normal. Sure, there were supposed to be consequences but there shouldn’t be a goddamn death toll.

“I know, Bean,” he finally said, something about the situation pulling out a nickname for her that he hadn’t used in a long time (because when she was born, Moe had turned Robin into Robbean and the rest was history).

“You’re really good to me,” Robbie whispered, “You and dad are so good to me, and I’m not always good back, and I’m sorry.”

“I don’t need you to be sorry,” Steve told her because, for right now at least, it was true, “Just…just stick around long enough to work with us, okay?”

Robbie nodded.

“Okay.”

[findafight]

WAIT OKAY I just read your supernatural st au and AHHHHH now I need that one too holy shit token human Steve!! Token human Steve!!!

Even here everyone’s just like I love him he’s a neat little guy he’s literally thrown himself around and been mortally wounded for the party when he’s literally the only human and everyone’s just like - him!!!! Selkie Robin and how they find out they’re soulmates!! Aaahh!!!! And that final line…… I am obsessed putting in my little request for a full fic when you can, pretty please!!!

Anon you're spoiling meeeee I love you I love hearing from people who like my writing/ideas!! Original post

This one is definitely something that has high potential of me actually writing too. Because like, yeah. The Party is Marge Simpson "I just think they're neat" potato meme about Steve. He's so shaped.

This has a readmore because it's actually got two different mini scenes in it. Enjoy~~~ (also note I included a bit of another non kinky kinkmeme prompt about supernatural baby sitter Steve in this!)

I imagine a scene where Dustin, early fall of '85, is complaining to Lucas and Mike about another failed attempt to get Steve Officially (as he can't actually be Pack unless he KNOWS he's pack, ya feel? Like he IS their pack but also he doesn't know so not really but yes but no...) In their pack at lunch, and Eddie, who as mentioned is a vampire that feeds off energy and is therefore The Most Dramatic Bitch Ever, overhears and is like

"Steve? Steve Harrington is part of your Pack??"

And Dustin goes "well he would if he stopped being DENSE about it!!! We've been trying to tell him-"

"you've been trying to tell him" says Mike.

"-since before Christmas last year! But he keeps thinking we're-"

"you're-"

"-talking about DnD!!"

Eddie is just a little shocked his newest sheepies have been trying for nine months to tell Steve, King Steve, of all people, that his preppy human ass is such a firm part of their Pack that they haven't given up on telling him.

Lucas pipes up. "To be fair to Steve, he was concussed before Christmas last year, and then again this summer."

Dustin shakes his head. "Need to get the guy a helmet. Protect the braincells he has left."

"did he have any to begin with?"

"oh, can it, Mike." Lucas says. "At least he knows about Robin, now. So maybe you should ask her for help. He believed her!"

Ohhh? Eddie was curious, because he had heard certain...rumours, about a Robin and her possible tie to Steve Harrington.

Dustin scoffs. "Okay, yeah, but she's his literal actual soulmate who he still refuses to date, and she transformed in front of him. But I don't want to freak him out. A seal is one thing, a wolf is another!"

"Dustin, you're basically a dachshund."

"fuck right off"

Eddie waves his hands in front of them. "Wait wait wait. Are you talking about Robin Buckley? The selkie in the marching band with Gareth?" The sheepies nod. "You're saying Steve Harrington, former captain of laundry basket sport-"

"actually pretty sure he wasn't ever basketball captain, just swim team-"

"-former Head Jock, is dorky little Robin Buckley's soulmate? Like full on, Selkie coat magic woo woo, Soulmate?"

They all nod, but it's Lucas who speaks. "Yeah. They worked together over the summer. Became, like, inseparable. She told him in August sometime I think."

Eddie does not know how to process that.

-----

ALSO!!!

I imagine Steves parents sitting him down, after his nineteenth birthday (which I headcanon as April first) and very carefully explaining to him that Monsters Are Real.

And Steve sitting there, nearly eight months into knowing that, trying to pretend he doesn't. Pretending that since Robin told him she was a Selkie and the Party told him about being werewolves, he'd sort of, kind of, become any supernatural beings' go to babysitter. Sort of.

It started with a litter of pups he stumbled across in the woods who seemed really friendly for being abandoned in the woods and welcomed the water he brought them and the ear scritches he gave, that he didn't even realize were werewolf children until a couple came crashing through the trees frantically and stopped to watch as he helped a puppy get a leaf off its paw. And the pups are waggled over to the woman and the man looked at Steve with a twitchy nose and then Steve realized they were scenting him because ohhhh. Werewolves.

And Steve went "uh. I think they forgot how to change back? Good luck?" And left. Because what else was he going to do?

So it became a thing. Little magical creatures were told that if all else fails, Steve Harrington will make sure you're safe and looked after until your parents could get to them. He amassed a Rolodex of the contact info near-human folk of Hawkins, and a reputation for being a damn good babysitter. And also somehow having a gaggle of kids around him whenever he went to the park.

So his parents go on and on about things Steve already knows about and he's wondering why they're telling him all of it and also how they know and then they mention how these things are dangerous. How they must be removed. Destroyed. Killed.

Because that's what Harringtons do, they hunt monsters in the night and keep the good, normal, human folks of america safe.

And Steve, who knows that there are supernatural creatures in Hawkins; who knows what actual monsters in Hawkins look like and has hit them with a spiked bat and an axe; who can't go three blocks before some pup or fae or gnome or whatever decides to follow him like a duckling; who little lost kids of all shapes and sizes flock to in order to get back home; sits there and listens as his parents tell him how to kill them. How to salt and burn the remains.

He grips the edge of the table with white knuckles and purposefully evens his breath. He will not betray The Party, or Robin, or any of the families who have found a safe haven in Hawkins to live their lives peacefully. And isn't it ironic, that the place the Harringtons supposedly live, the place they are barely in because of legitimate business and the family business takes them across the country, is a hotbed for supernatural activity. It happened right under their noses, and their only son and heir was at the centre of it. The Human in a Pack of werewolves, platonic soulmate to a Selkie, potential.... something to a vampire, babysitter of all the little creatures of the county.

So Steve tries to make a plan. He can't let his parents know that Hawkins is anything but a quiet human town, but he can't let them keep hurting innocents either. It's either a long con of taking up his family mantle and changing things from inside, manipulating the system like he did in highschool to his whims, or dismantling it loudly and more dramatically which could back fire.

Either way, as soon as his parents leave again (for human related business), he takes the family Grimoire, his birthright, and calls an All Party Meeting.

He slams the tome onto the table and says, simply,

"we've got a problem"

[thefuseoftemptation]

THE SUB

‘when Eddie Munson and his guys get let go, he’ll try to find other ways to get himself back out there— even so much as posing as a sub at a school….even if it wasn’t really the scene he was looking for.’ BASED OFF OF THE SCHOOL OF ROCK.

EDDIE MUNSON X GN!READER

PT. I: WELL, WELL, WELL….

WARNING(S): cussing, it’s like the film but I’ve also put my own turn to it, just little things here and there. the timeline isn't very specific, set in 2000's? like the film ig. so the reader and Eddie are in their 30’s? the numbers are in there. It'll be more thorough and specific as we go. and there are going to be other warnings further on but that’s all just for this section. lmk if there are more!!! NOT PROOFREAD. Well it is but knowing me, there’s always something that I overlooked.

And thnx to @jamdoughnutmagician for lending a hand w/the title, otherwise there wouldn't be one- I'd still be thinking about it.

—

He wasn’t sure if it was just him hearing things, or maybe it was that whoever was in the room, didn’t know how to keep their voices down- but it kept pulling Eddie from his sleep.

The guy was back to where he had been trying to get away from for years- it’d been some time between from then, when he left, to now.

He’d been here not even a few weeks, subsequently to the results of him and his guys getting let go by their manager. And by let go, it means the guy just upped and left. Nothing but a sheet with a few short words to go by that told them they were on their own.

It was only a matter of time before everyone else left, the other members, had gone too. Not looking back as they shut the door without so much as a bye to their frontman who they’d known and been with for years.

Guess all of it meant nothing.

So here he was sleeping, totally out of it, on the pull out, under his Uncle's roof— once more.

Eddie would’ve taken the couch, but with its size, it wouldn’t have gone well when he’d wake up and have to stretch. Not thinking so much of it when it came to Wayne though during the years he used it. Who speaking of, when he heard that his nephew would be returning and staying with him for a few, was nothing but understanding with open arms even if it meant that his time to himself would be put on hold, again.

He even took to giving up the room so Eddie could sleep in there, albeit the head shakes given that Wayne wasn't having.

Wayne let his nephew know that he was more than welcome to take the room back, even with the no's he got from him. And Eddie, who was clear himself, made sure Wayne knew he wasn't about to let that happen. Telling the man, who was there for him throughout everything, that it'd only be for a little while— that he'd be out and on his way in no time.

That was a month ago.

And where was Eddie? Back with his Uncle, still.

—

“So how long has he been here?” 

“S’just been a few weeks…”

“Mr. Munson, haven’t you had plenty? I mean, you took him in when he was young, raised him, and when he was ready– he left. It happens, we aren’t supposed to come back! I mean I wouldn’t.”

“You’re still here though?” Wayne remarks, crossing his arms as he leans back against the counter. Steve just stares at him not knowing what to say because well, he got him there. He’d been staying in the same house he grew up in, mostly because he himself wasn’t sure where it is he’d go if he ever were to leave.

Not certain of what was holding him there since everyone and thing he knew was gone. His parents left it all to him. They were living their lives, something Steve often thought about but never quite got a hold of.

Guess it just wasn’t the time for him….

Steve shook his head at Wayne’s comment.

“B-But this isn’t about me. It’s about Eddie, which– he’s here! A-And aren’t you…I don’t know, done?”

“Steve, when you have children of your own– come back to me on that. Until then, keep it to yourself. I get what you’re trying to say but it’s not necessary. It’s not like how it was back then, it’s different and as much as I was looking forward to me being on my own and him out of my hair– I ain’t just gonna turn my back on him. And how many times have I told you, it’s Wayne.”

“Mr– Wayne. He’s sleeping on your pull out!” Steve's arm waves to where Eddie was currently at, spread with his legs up and about. If there were any presumptions from Steve, Eddie most likely fell asleep like that rather shift into that posture during the hours.

“I can see that, but won’t be for long,” Wayne says then takes a few steps over to the window before opening the curtains.

“Son, get up. Now.” 

Sure, Wayne Munson would always be there for his kid, it didn’t mean he’d never not be on him for not doing what he was supposed to. He wasn’t the type to let that go. He hadn’t been then, and he wasn’t about to begin now. No matter how old he and his boy got. 

“I said up, son!” Wayne tugged the sheet out of Eddie’s hold, who had uttered under his breath before turning over.

“Christ. W-What? What is it?” His eyes lidded, the results of just waking up, as he looked over to where they were.

“Steve’s here. You ‘member Steve? Came by to see you after all this time.” Wayne’s head tips to where Steve stood and waved, not really trying with his greeting. 

“Munson. How’ve you been?”

“Harrington? Why’re you here?” Eddie’s words were muttered, sleep still in his system.

“What? I have to have an excuse to come see my friend who I haven’t seen in years?” Steve questioned as he walked up to him, but by the way it released from his tongue so tonelessly, and the way Eddie’s brow lifted up– you could say that none of them were really buying the ‘why’.

Eddie looked to his Uncle who stood there, one arm over his chest as the other rubbed the scruff on his chin, and gestured to the guest in their living room.

“Why is he here?”

“Because he hasn't seen you in so long and he just had to come by– why do you think, boy?!” Wayne cut off his former sentence that was full of nothing but tone only to finish it with him getting real with his nephew.

“Well I don’t know, that’s why I asked!”

“He’s here ‘cause of you.”

“Wait, so he is here to see me?” Eddie didn’t know what to think. Nobody was making any sense.

“Not in that way. He’s here because you've been sleeping on the pull out for a while now and you haven’t gone out to get yourself back out there.”

“It still doesn't tell me why he’s here…” Eddie stared expectantly at them both, eyes going between the two of them as he wasn’t getting what was trying to be said.

“I just thought–”

“We.”

Steve corrected as he cut Wayne off, though he uttered a ‘sorry’ as soon as he saw what he just did to the man standing next to him.

“We just thought that maybe you could use a push, you know? An example.” Steve voiced, putting his hands on his side. Eddie rolled his eyes, setting himself so he was leaning on his elbows for support.

“Example of what?”

“Of what it’s like to be on your feet. You know, like what I’ve been doing and your Uncle had been at for years.” 

Ugh. The unruly haired Munson just laid himself back down, using his shirt as a cover to pull over his face.

Steve was such a parent- such a mother.

“Mommy, could we talk about this later?”

Wayne's brows pulled together at the sentence that just came from his son’s mouth, not even sure, much less going to ask, what and who exactly he was referring to. He just kept his thoughts to himself and watched the interaction before him.

“Uh, no. We can’t, Munson. I’ve got work and Wayne has shit to get to. Now get up, come on.”

“No.”

“Son, don’t make me go over there. Get. Up.” Wayne stepped closer to where Eddie was at and thumped his forehead. Or what he thought was his head, not knowing since Eddie was still behind his t-shirt. 

“We’ve got somewhere to be. It’s what keep us busy and out during the day. You know, as grown ups? I’ve got work.” Steves includes as paces in his spot, trying to explain.

“Temping?” Eddie asks, as he finally shows his face, removing his head from behind his tee to stare at Harrington.

Last Eddie remembered, Steve Harrington was between jobs. One of them being substitute teacher which honestly, wasn’t even really a job— wasn’t even half of one in his eyes!

“Munson, being a substitute is not a temp!” 

Eddie looks to Wayne, who has seemed to have left to conversation since he was in the kitchen, getting a cup, going on like nothing was happening in front of him.

“He’s literally a babysitter.” Eddie lips as he sits up, side eyeing his friend.

“Oh you think it’s so easy. I’d like to see you try it, you wouldn’t last a day.” Steve butts in again, making a face at Eddie.

Wayne wasn't sure who to listen to or if he even gave a shit to do so, rubbing his neck as he sighs through his nose, already done with the nonsense that was going back and forth.

"This is getting nowhere. I'm telling you both— shut up. Now Eddie, I'm only saying this once here— by the end of the week, I expect you to have a job. You hear? Don't make me get on you and repeat myself, son.” Wayne lectured, taking one of his caps from the shelves, setting it on his head as he went for the door.

“Like I said, by the end of the week, no further.” And with that, he left with the shut of the screen.

The guys stared subsequently to the older Munson’s absence, stillness spreading the room besides the shuffling of the sheets Eddie took back that his Uncle set to the side on the floor— that is until he spoke.

"Dude, why're you here? I haven't seen you in years and all of a sudden you're in my living room teaming up with my Uncle on how to get me out of here. Is this what it's like when you’re not working? Or ‘scuse me, when you’re a temp,” Eddie imitated what was spoken earlier, his fingers making quotations. “You just got nothing else going for you so you y'know—"

"Hold up there. First of all, like I said, being a sub is not a temp, okay?" Eddie's expression towards Steve's words says otherwise.

"Secondly, w-why are you here, huh? Last I remembered you were packing up and going on about having a break through. And we weren't teaming up to get you out of here, so stop that. Christ, you're still the same. So,” Steve gestures his arms around trying to find the words before settling on one that could only sum up the guy in front of him.

"Munson."

"Why yes, Steve, that is my surname. And since we're apparently stating what we already know, how about I go ahead and say yours." Eddie leveled his head, with his chin sticking out and eyes fixated— a face that said ‘what’s new.’

"That's not what I was trying to say." If Steve rolled his eyes back any more, any further than he had been doing since he got there, they'd roll straight out of his head.

"It's just, you're still so Eddie, you know?"

Steve trailed off, looking to his old time friend, who he'd never admit this to ever— he missed.

Very much so.

Eddie stared back at Steve, watching as the other guy took a seat at the end of the pull out, before his lips were turning up in a tight lipped stretch. The all too familiarly look of self-satisfaction that Harrington had seen to many times in the years they've known the other. And just like then, Eddie got up and leaned into Steve's face, who in return, got up himself and took a step back.

Something’s never change.

"And that's how it’ll always be," he said nudging Steve's shoulder with his, never breaking eye contact.

"Well, whatever. Could you just try, you know? From now on. You've been here for weeks and haven't gotten out or done shit."

Eddie sighs and tilts his head as if he were thinking about it, shrugging shortly after.

"Whatever you say. I'll try— for no one else but you guys." Eddie says, as he points to Steve with one hand and gestures the other behind him, more likely referring to his Uncle, who just left.

“Yourself?” Steve questions as he sits himself down in a chair.

“I guess, why not.” Eddie answers with a wave of his hand.

—

Over the next few days or so, Eddie had been trying to look for a job. His eyes through with going over the same words in the newspaper and having no break with what he saw.

He’d been with Steve that day, stepping into his friends work to ‘keep him company,’ when really he had nothing else to do. He knew that, Steve knew that, but nonetheless let him stay as long as Eddie kept to himself and at least furthered in his search for a job.

Eddie was leaned up to the counter, legs stretched out behind him as he pressed himself into it. His elbow up supporting his face which was in his hand.

He could feel his eyes shutting, and if it hadn’t been for the noise from the telephone, he probably would’ve let himself slide to the floor to lay down.

Man, who knew job searching could be so time consuming….and boring as shit.

“Steve, the phone!” His words went unheard as his head, now rested on the surface of the counter, was muffled by his arms over it.

When there was still no reply back and the phone kept going, Eddie just about had it. Looking around to see where his friend had gone off and speaking under his breath before picking it up.

“Hello?”

“Is this Mr. Harrington?” The voice questioned on the other end.

“Uh, he’s not here.” Eddie answered, hands pulling the cord, eyes still briefing the room.

“Oh. Could you take a message for me?”

“Um, sure.”

Eddie listened as the person spoke, brows lifting when hearing what being said. Now, given the many times he’s told Steve that temping wasn’t a thing, he certainly was thinking much of it when there’s a possibility of a job on the line. But with what he had in mind….it wasn’t meant for his friend to take.

"Scuse me? Hello?"

"Uh," Eddie shook his head before fixing his words, sitting himself on the counter top as he crosses his legs. "When is it? And how long?”

“My guess is as much as a few weeks. But we do need somebody to start immediately.”

“Uh huh, so how much are we talking here?” There was not much thought to his query, it was honestly just him asking, him speaking in the usual Eddie way- which was not putting much thought into how things came out.

So in other words, being too forward. Something people often viewed as him not having ‘manners.’

When they went on about the role, Eddie asked himself why he’d been giving Steve shit all this time when he was making that much.

“Now, do you know when Mr. Harrington will be back?” The voice cut his thoughts off again.

“Hold up. Oh, you know what? I think he’s just coming in…Steve, phone!” His voice raised, eyeing the room to make sure the guy himself that had been referred to, wasn’t there.

Eddie was shuffling the phone and cord around, trying to let the other on the line know he was ‘handing’ it over.

With his fingers on the receiver, Eddie cleared his throat— his voice dropping to what was supposedly meant to resemble that of his friend’s.

“Hello, this is Steve Harrington.”

—

PT.II -> HERE

A/N: feedback and reblogs are appreciated.

TAG(S): @jamdoughnutmagician @heydreamchild

(just tagging now since it's the release)

[thaliaisalesbian]

i get myself twisted in threads

Chapter 4: and there you are

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, ao3

Jonathan can’t help but keep glancing back at Steve, enough that the kids are all whispering about it. Despite being the one most well-versed with the Upside Down, he insisted on being behind all of them.

He can’t help but wonder if it’s because Steve is worried about slowing them down if he’s in the lead.

Jonathan knows the woods well enough, but not the way Will does. Steve’s just been living in them, lately.

When he looks back again, Steve and El are talking, and Dustin looks a little put out. He’d been next to Steve, a few minutes ago, but they hadn’t really been talking.

It’d be funny in any other situation; Dustin seems to think he has a claim on Steve that means none of the other kids can be close with him. 

“Where are we going, Steve?” Nancy calls from where she’s at the side of the group, between Mike and Max.

“El thinks if we get close enough to the Upside Down version of the lab she might be able to get us out.”

Why hadn’t any of them thought of that?

“Should she be doing that?” Mike snaps. “I thought you didn’t want her using her powers!”

Jonathan doesn’t know what it is Mike has against Steve, but it’s been like this all morning—at least, it’s morning if they’re still matched with Hawkins time.

It'd been different when he’d been a brat about Steve and Nancy dating—he'd had a little more reason, then. These days he’s mostly mean to Steve just because he can be, it seems like.

“I don’t.” Steve says. “Unless she has to. Getting us out of here seems like a ‘has to’ situation.” Mike grumbles a little, but he doesn’t have anything to say to that.

Eventually, they have to stop to take a break, and Jonathan tries not to think about what his mom must be thinking right now. She and Hopper might even be combing through the woods, looking for them. And the other kids—what have they told their parents? 

They’re all in so much trouble when they get home.

“How much farther do we have to walk?” Dustin asks, too loudly. Even the t-shirt mask doesn’t muffle his voice much.

“Keep it down, okay?” Steve sighs. “We’re about halfway there. We’ll probably be back in Hawkins by sunrise tomorrow.”

“How do you know that?”

“I mean, I don’t. I’m guessing on the time frame there.” He shrugs, and when the leaves rustle, tightens his grip on the bat, stepping in front of the kids.

“It’s me, I’m sorry.” Max steps out. “I told Nancy where I was going.”

“That’s okay, Max.” Steve tugs her braid. “Jonathan, do you want to switch for the next half, or are you good up front?”

“We can switch.” When the kids are distracted, he watches Steve slip some of his crackers to El. She doesn’t seem to notice that she's gotten extra.

Steve’s much thinner than he was last time Jonathan saw him. He doesn’t need to be giving the kids extra food. They’ve got enough crackers to last them for the rest of the day, at least. And at this point, he doesn’t think any of them would actually complain about the hunger—they’ve kids, but Jonathan knows that at least Max has clocked how skinny Steve is now. Will, probably, too. They’re the least likely to make a scene of it, which is good for Steve.

“Worried about your mom?” Steve leans against the tree next to him, and if Jonathan didn’t know that he’d been sleeping in them, he’d be wondering how he does it. The trees mostly look like normal trees, but some of them are so infected with rot, and covered with all of those vines, that just looking at them makes him feel queasy.

continue below or finish on ao3

“Yeah. She’s not going to take this well.”

“Can’t blame her. Hopper’s going to be pissed, too.”

“Well, I think the first priority is going to be making sure you’re okay.”

Wrong thing to say. So, so wrong. Dammit, Jonathan, this was going well. Maybe he could have said something about needing to talk, later, when they’re out of here.

“I’ll be fine, I told you.” Steve won’t look at him. 

Jonathan doesn’t believe him. Not for a second. He's got to be hurting right now; he probably hasn't slept in days.

“I know, but you’ve got demodog bite wounds on both legs. I wouldn’t be standing.”

“It’s fine. I hardly feel it anymore.”

He doesn’t believe that, either, but he lets it go. Fighting with Steve about this isn’t going to get them out any sooner, and he feels like every time he tries, he’s just going to mess it up even more.

“Alright, kiddos, let’s move.” He thinks Steve winces a little when he pushes off the tree, but it’s hard to say if it’s part of the motion or actually from pain.

Steve makes contact with each of the kids at least once before they start moving again—messing with their hair, adjusting masks, squeezing their shoulders.

It’s like he has to remind himself that they’re here, that they’re real.

Oh, god. 

Has he been hallucinating them? Or hearing them? Had he heard their voices when they were searching for him?

Maybe Jonathan should have said something to Hopper about that conversation, when they were checking things out. Maybe Steve would have heard him. Maybe he’d be more willing to let them help him.

Will drops back to walk with him as they start moving again.

“Mom’s not going to let us out of the house for weeks.”

“We’ll deserve it.” He agrees. “Are you—”

“I’m okay. Really. You’re here, and so is everyone else. Steve’s never let anything happen to one of us before, he won’t now.” 

Will's unwavering trust in Steve is heartening, but it's the kind of thing Jonathan is worried about. 

That Steve is going to end up getting himself killed for them.

“That’s good, Will.” is what he settles on saying, because he’s not going to tell his kid brother that he thinks Steve has a different plan than the rest of them.

One that doesn’t involve all of them leaving the Upside Down.

Steve sets a faster pace than Jonathan did. He’s not sure why they haven’t come across any demogorgons or demodogs yet, but he doesn’t want to risk it.

Maybe the group of them isn’t as appealing as just him. Are they smart enough to know when they're outnumbered?

He doesn’t really care, so long as none of the kids get hurt.

No one else is getting hurt on his watch.

He knows he’s not a good enough liar to fool Jonathan and Nancy about how much pain he’s actually in, so he’s staying away from them for now. El probably knows, but she won’t say anything.

At least not yet.

He’s had more than a few migraines while he’s supposed to be watching her, and she seems to understand now that not every one means he needs someone to come and take care of him.

The first few, she’d called Hopper or Joyce to come over; they’d usually make him stay the night.

As if Hopper wasn’t going to make him do that anyway.

Despite the faster pace, they don’t take any more breaks. The kids are all hungry and complaining, but the truth is they don’t have a lot of food left. He doesn’t want to waste time getting them to the lab—getting them out of here—if he can help it.

It’s already been a lot easier than it should be, like something knows what their plan is and is going to have something waiting there for them.

Or maybe he’s just being pessimistic.

“We are near.” El doesn’t grab his hand this time, and he glances down at her. “You will go first.”

“No, El, I can’t do that. You and the other shitheads will, okay?”

“No. You. You pushed them out.”

“El—” He doesn’t want to tell her that it’s better if he’s the one left behind. That he should be the one left behind. It will just be easier for all of them if he is. He knows they’ll miss him, but they’ll have each other. They’ll probably forget about him by the time they graduate high school. “El, you’re still all kids, you’re going first.”

“Then you.”

“And then Jonathan, Nancy and I will follow, yeah.”

“No. Then you. Promise.”

“I can’t do that, El.”

“Promise. Now.”

“I can’t. We don’t know if there will be any demogorgons there, and if there are, then I’ll be fighting them, and I won’t be able to keep my promise.”

She watches him for a long moment, thinking about what he’s said. She doesn’t look happy about it, but she nods.

“There.” El points ahead of them.

Well, at least from here it still looks abandoned.

Nancy adjusts her grip on her pistol a little as they get closer to the Upside Down version of the lab. The whole walk over was just… way too easy. She knows it’s got Steve set on edge too, from the tension in his back, and when she glances behind her Jonathan has his bat raised already.

“Okay, El, do your thing.” They stop right outside the gates. Hopefully it’s close enough.

It takes a few minutes, the kids circling around El as if to protect her while she’s got her eyes closed.

El’s gate doesn’t look quite like the one they came through, but that might be normal; it’s not like she’d been attention to how the gate looked when Steve was still on the other side. Steve helps Will and Dustin through, picking them up when it’s a little too high for them to reach, Jonathan boosting Mike and Lucas.

Steve’s just grabbed Max when Jonathan yells, and Nancy doesn’t think she hears much of anything past the first word.

She’s shoved to the ground, and then Steve and Jonathan are both standing over her, bats raised.

Getting to her knees takes longer than it should. She can just see the kids’ faces through the gate, all of them screaming, but she can’t hear them either.

“El!” Steve hits the demogorgon closest to him—one of three; they’d barely beaten two yesterday— “Get out of here!”

“No! No, Steve! You first!”

“El, go!” When she doesn’t move, Nancy pulls herself up on the fence and staggers over. If it were Mike, she probably wouldn’t be able to pick him up easily, but El is still small enough that it’s not too difficult to get her through the gate.

“No!” El screams, kicking at her. “NO! STEVE!”

But it’s too late. None of the kids are tall enough to get back through alone.

Nancy turns around just in time to shoot the demogorgon that’s trying its best to eat Steve.

It’s still not enough.

She’s never shot with a pistol in each hand, but if she hits one of the boys they’ll all be dead anyway, so she might as well try.

Steve and Jonathan alternate hits on the demogorgons without getting too close, and she falls into their pattern, shooting at the ones Jonathan is going for. She takes a step back, so close to the gate she can feel the change in energy, and hopes they can hear her.

“Keep backing up! El can’t hold it forever!”

Nancy’s not sure El is holding the gate open anymore; she doesn’t know if picking her up broke her concentration enough to stop her.

When the smaller two demogorgons start backing off, she fires her last rounds and turns into the gate.

“It’s closing!” The kids are there, pulling her off the ground when she falls through, and yelling at Steve and Jonathan.

It’s probably a good thing they did this way out here.

What would the town think, if they’d seen this?

It would be a disaster. EL would be taken away. Steve would be taken away, probably for testing.

She can’t do anything but watch, wondering if this is going to have the same outcome as the last time they did this.

God, she really hopes not. She doesn’t think Steve would survive another month in there.

On the other side of the gate, Steve is still swinging, but he’s slower than he was yesterday.

Jonathan manages to pull him through, arms around his waist. El sticks her hand out and the gate folds in on itself.

“Nancy, how fast can you run?” Jonathan gasps out.

“Why?”

“Or one of the kids, it doesn’t matter, just go.” Jonathan is mostly supporting Steve, she can see that now, when she couldn’t through the gate. “Find Hopper, find Mom, someone. The faster the better.”

When she steps around to look at them probably, she sees that Jonathan isn’t just supporting Steve—he’s hiding how bad it is from the kids.

“Go in groups.” She turns to the kids, trying to stay calm. “Will, El, Max, you go to the cabin. Hopper might be there, and you can call from there, too. Dustin, Lucas, Mike, go to our house. You know where my stash is?” It’s not like she can tell her parents why she needs guns, or extra cash for times like… well, like this.

Mike nods. “Good. Take it all and go to the store and buy a first aid kit. A big one.”

She’s pretty sure the hospital won’t be able to take Steve—and she doesn’t want to risk him being taken away from them for good. The bigger one is definitely too far away, even with a car. He’d probably bleed out.

And they can't explain his injuries easily, either. They don’t have bears around here to blame it on, they don’t have any natural creature around here that could cause this damage.

“Where are you going?” Dustin asks. He’s not even trying to look around to see Steve.

“We’ll meet you at the Byers.” The cabin might be closer, but taking Steve back through the forest, having to navigate branches and roots while he’s like this, it’d be too hard. It would slow them down so much. Staying on paved surfaces will be easier and safer.

Nancy waits until the kids have all set off before pulling Steve’s other arm around her shoulders.

“The kids—” She doesn’t know how he’s awake, much less talking, despite how slurred it is. But it means he’s alive. If he’s talking, he’s breathing, and he’s alive. So he can talk all he wants. 

“They’re fine, Steve.”

It’s going to be a long walk. Hopefully Hopper or Joyce will be able to meet them at some point, but she doesn’t know where they are, or how long it will take the kids to get into contact with them.

Nancy’s not even going to let herself hope that they get here before she and Jonathan manage to get to the Byers’.

<- 3 5 ->

[chaossmagic]

I need stucky au from post-endgame where Steve left Bucky. There is not enough angst from the scene. Bucky had been in love with Steve since they were very young, however, Steve was naïve to notice his best friend’s feelings. After Steve left, Bucky needed to go to therapy since he was under government supervision. I love the quote from that one scene “If he was wrong about you, then he was wrong about me.” We do not discuss enough the passage from Bucky in Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Maybe you can add a little plot between the lines? Basically a story about Bucky’s situation after Steve left

Bucky can count on one hand the times he's outright, deliberately lied to Steve.

Once, when he was fourteen and he told Steve he'd kissed Maria Gracewski behind the grocery store one day, when it was the middle of summer and all the kids they knew were stepping out with each other. He hadn't; in fact, they'd done nothing more than hold hands and pass a bottle of ice-cold soda between them, each taking in turns to sip from the straw to quench their thirst, each feeling too awkward to make an actual move.

He wasn't sure, at the time, why he'd bothered lying; it was only later he realized it was because he had been trying to make Steve jealous, thinking about Bucky kissing someone who wasn't him.

The second time was when his draft card came and he told everyone he enlisted instead. It was easy to pretend to be the dutiful son doing the brave thing, the right thing, going where he was needed to serve his country, a true honour to his family. That's what people told his parents on the street, in the store, in the bread queue that ran around the block twice at nine in the morning. That's what he told himself when he spent the entire journey from New York to Portsmouth, England cooped up in his cabin, nauseous not with seasickness, but fear, knowing it was impossible to admit he never wanted to go to war in the first place.

The third time was after Kreichsberg, after - that. He didn't really like to think about it. Tried to actively avoid it, in fact, would be more willing to open up about plenty of other things that had happened to him in the last seventy years except where it had all started. No way was his mind ever going back there, to the cold, dank cell and the sizzling of burning hair and flesh, syringes full of substances he had no idea what they were and - screams. The screams were the worst.

I'm fine, he'd kept telling the nurses who insisted on examining him. I'm fine, he'd told Steve, after he'd suggested for the fifth time that he lie down and get some real rest. Really, I'm fine, he'd said to Dum-Dum and Morita and Falsworth and everyone else who asked him when they saw the dark circles under his eyes and the way his bones stuck out from under his uniform a little too much. He was fine. Tired, hungry, and missing home just like every other soldier. Fine.

Then, a dingy and sparse apartment in Bucharest, where the fridge only worked half the time and the wallpaper was peeling off the walls, but he paid his rent each week in cash and nobody bothered him if he helped fix a few lightbulbs or carry heavy pieces of broken furniture out to the sidewalk.

Steve, standing in the middle of his damn kitchen, a photograph of his own face in his hand and one of Bucky's notebooks in the other, head-to-toe Captain America monkeysuit on but eyes wide and pleading. Looking at Bucky and wanting answers Bucky himself had been too afraid to give.

You pulled me from the river. Why?

For a fraction of a second, the real answer had been on the tip of his tongue. If he could just say it, then maybe everything would be okay. Maybe Steve could save him. Maybe Steve could help him save himself, if let him. If he stopped being so fucking afraid all the time of being dragged right back to where he'd been for the last seventy-odd years. If he didn't feel constantly sick with nerves and fear, if his entire body wasn't one screaming hunk of bone-deep pains and muscle aches and joints that didn't work properly. If he could actually fend for himself instead of living off of chocolate bars and the few types of fresh produce he could actually eat with vomiting.

Because I didn't want you to die, he'd wanted to say. Because I love you. I remembered that I love you.

But once again, he'd been too scared to tell the truth. Chickened out at the last minute. Lied, again.

I don't know, is what had actually come out of his mouth, moments before the ceiling above them exploded in the thumping feet of the SWAT team, come to make sure he didn't do anything else terrible again by shutting him up permanently.

The last time had been right before Steve left to return the Infinity Stones. He'd wanted so badly to tell him not to go, to beg if he needed to, to tell him, Stay with me. Choose me. I'm the one who's always loved you more than anyone else, and I know you love me too, so why won't you fucking STAY?

But he hadn't done that. No pleading, no begging, no last-minute confessions of love despite almost a century of it burning beneath his ribs, right where his heart was, and where he knew, if only he'd asked, the same thumping beat pounded in Steve's own chest, crying out to him. Crying out for him. He'd feel it if he put his hand there, he knew, if he'd even dared to try instead of smiling and nodding in the right places and saying all the right things that Steve wanted to hear to justify his decision to himself.

Bucky was a lot of things. He'd been called a lot of things. Charmer. Casanova. A mother's biggest dream for a son-in-law.

Asset. Winter Soldier. The Fist of Hydra.

Killer. Murderer. Monster.

Sergeant. White Wolf. Buck.

Now, though? There was one thing left that people didn't really know. Opening and closing the fridge door for a fourth, fifth, sixth bottle of beer that did absolutely nothing for him intoxication-wise and only made him want to pee, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the TV while a football game played that he wasn't even watching -

Simultaneously wanting to scream, cry, or throw something -

Sergeant James Barnes was a war hero, museum display and all.

The Winter Soldier was the most dangerous assassin on the face of the planet for 50 years.

But Bucky, though? Just Bucky? Plain old scared-to-death-of-his-own-shadow, walks everywhere for miles because getting on the subway makes him want to pass out and throw up at the same time, even with noise-cancelling earbuds, Bucky?

That Bucky Barnes was a fucking coward. That was the real him. And he only had himself and his messed-up, broken brain to blame.

[hippielittlemetalhead]

I should be working on my Punk!Steve thingy and I will but first I am running on enough caffeine to stop an elephant's heart and 3 hours of sleep and I had a ✨thought✨.

Son of Hades Steve but more Bianca di Angelo than Nico. He's charming and charismatic but even if people like him there's still that sense of Other and people fear what he's capable of (King Steve) and the stereotype that he's bad luck and not like other demigods and almost less human than them (relationship with Nancy and the bullshit scene). His parents know and his stepdad refuses to acknowledge him more than he needs to and his mom resents him for ruining her marriage even though she's the one who revenge cheated in retaliation for her husband sleeping with another secretary. So they send him to Camp Half Blood as soon as possible and he is there the majority of the year.

And

Son of Artemis Eddie. BECAUSE in many ancient civilizations the words/phrases we translate to virgin would be closer to unwed young woman rather than never slept with someone. Because Artemis has a lover, Orion but upon his death vows to never wed and declares herself a maiden/virgin goddess. So either like copying Athena in PJO or via the occasional ONS she has a handful of kids. We'll say for easiness sake she 99.9999% of the time has girls that she keeps as part of her hunters. The occasional .0001% that's a boy she sends to the father or the camp. Eddie was left on his father's doorstep in a soft grey woven bassinet and swaddled in silver cloth that seemed to glow with the light of the full moon. His dad isn't the best but once he was delivered Artemis didn't really check in with him and only finds out he'd been sent to his Uncle Wayne (who can see through the Mist) when one of her hunters who was working with CHB sees and recognizes him as a child of her Lady and reports back to Artemis. She claims him at the campfire the next full moon and he immediately starts calling only the Apollo kids cousins and they sort of adopt him as one of their own right back when he proves to be terrible at anything related to either his mother or uncle except taking care of kids (he is great at helping with little ones who are new to the camp or have to visit the infirmary) and/or animals, being the type to take little lost campers under his wing and a talent for music that would rival the most gifted of Apollo's cabin.

A la PJO style we meet our heroes around the ages 11-12, Steve had been in and out of the camp routinely since he was literally a toddler. He was found at daycare by a kind nymph who went by Claudia and her satyr toddler (Dustin 😏) and told the Harringtons about the camp. She did not expect them to basically send their 3 year old to boarding school most of the summer.

Dustin later found Eddie on his own since he was now technically 9 to Eddie's 12 but still physically pretty toddler looking it took some effort and Claudia had to intervene when she finally found her son and explain to the nice mortal man and his demigod nephew about Eddie being of Greek god descent and that with the rise of monsters trying to get at him already he should go to the camp for a bit to train. Dustin would stay at the camp with Eddie partially as punishment for running off and partially to help him acclimate and make sure Eddie was on time for when Claudia helped Wayne Iris message Eddie. Eddie is maybe 13 and been at camp for about a year when he gets claimed.

That's all I've got really besides Steve and Eddie try being friends cause they're both odd kids out w/who their parents are but it's a little out of nowhere after a year knowing of each other rather than knowing each other but also Steve has powers and charisma and that makes him worth hanging out with to majority of campers where Eddie can get kids to stop crying and is a Disney princess with how much animals like him. There's some animosity cause Steve is jealous Dustin is spending so much time with Eddie, especially when they and some of the other campers and younger satyrs discover DND and Eddie feels rejected cause they didn't click at all and his emotionally traumatized little ass made that Steve's fault. Till they're 16 and 17 and assigned a quest with Dustin as their satyr and third and they have to learn to get along and realize how much they have in common like the fear of what comes next when they age out of being campers and yeah Steddie happens and Dustin is smug.

Also Eddie learns completely by accident he can basically use music as a weapon DND bard style and he is way too happy about it and so pissed he didn't think of that sooner.

[thestobingirlie]

Ok, so Nancy's lack of emotional intelligence. The really obvious ones are seasons 2 and 3.

Season 1, there are just little things, and a lot of it can be written off as her being a teenager. Like her being pissed off about not being allowed out because Will is missing. Karen is obviously worried that if they go out alone after dark something will happen to Mike or Nancy, and likely thinking about how Will went missing on his way home from their house. Mike is a bit of a mess, because his best friend is missing. But Nancy is unhappy because she can't sneak out to see her boyfriend (But as I said, she's 15 with what could be her first boyfriend, so it's more of an age thing.) Another minor thing is her reaction to Steve's worry about his parents (his reaction is something that is very open to interpretation, it could just be a teenager not wanting to get in trouble for underage drinking, or it could be something darker), but again it can be written off as a teenager who has never had to think about why some kids could be scared of their parents.

And her showing up at the funeral home where Jonathan is looking at coffins because he thinks he has to bury his little brother to talk to him about Barb? Just felt a little tone-deaf to me.

I think a slightly bigger thing in season 1 is how she doesn't seem to understand why Steve's upset in the alley when he'd seen her in her room with Jonathan, despite the fact it is heavily implied by Steve and Tommy that Steve's dad is unfaithful to the point his mom follows him on business trips "My moms gone with him cause she doesn't trust him." "Good call." and she was a part of this conversation, she heard it.

Then there's the time skip scene at the end of season 1, when she's back together with Steve. She'd already been shown to have feelings for Jonathan, but as we're told in season 2, she only waited a month for him to be ready for a relationship before going back to Steve. This was unfair to both of the boys, because she wasn't truly invested in a relationship with Steve, and was really stringing him along until Jonathan was ready, and because she expected Jonathan to be ready for a relationship within a month of his brother going missing, being pronounced dead, having a funeral, then being found alive but in a poor condition. Obviously, he'd want time with his family.

In season 2, we've got the part where she thinks she sees Barb and is ready to put a lot of people in danger to tell the Hollands what happened (Not just her and her family, but Steve and his family, the Byers, Hopper, Lucas and Dustin. Anyone who knew what happened could be put at risk if one told.)

The start of the party, when she's acting like Steve's in the wrong for them going to the party, and she decides to get very drunk. Like, she was shown to be excited for the party, to the point she talked Jonathan into going to the party when he'd made it very clear that he wasn't interested.

The whole bathroom scene doesn't really need going into. When she says "like we're in love" ties into the stringing Steve along when she's not interested in him, she's interested in the attention.

When she and Steve argue outside the school gym, she's putting her own inconvenience over Steve's hurt. She brushes off everything he says about what had happened the night before, and acts like he is the one in the wrong for feeling hurt.

She disregards the hurt the Byers have been through in comparison to losing Barb. "It's different for you, Will came home." As if the weight or trauma Jonathan is carrying is lessened by the fact that Will is alive.

The night she and Jonathan are in the motel. She gets huffy when Jonathan points out that she only waited for a month before going back to Steve. This, to me, feels like she clings to relationships rather than processing her own trauma.

Season 3, the big one is after she got herself and Jonathan got fired. She completely disregards the fact that he needed the job to pay bills in favour of 'but I didn't get to do what I wanted.' The whole Oliver Twist routine comment (which was so classist) seems to imply his financial instability isn't a big deal in comparison to how she feels she was wronged. And then, later, she gets smug when Jonathan told her she was right "I look forward to you never doubting me again." and doesn't apologise for hurting him and targeting his insecurities.

Season 4, as I said before, only watched it once, but I can think of a few instances.

Her relationship with Jonathan. Yes, both of them are at fault for the lack of communication, but we're just talking about Nancy. She seems to blame their position in their relationship on Jonathan, but doesn't seem to make an effort to be the one to reach out to work through the issues. Like, she's the one in the relationship with a financially stable family, she could have easily gone with Mike to visit the Byers in California. And expecting him to follow her to Emerson. That's her dream, not his. His dream school, at least until s1, was NYU. And she knows how protective of Will he'd been, so it seems pretty obvious he'd be hesitant about going to a school on the opposite coast to where his family are, he wouldn't want to be 3000 miles away in case something went wrong.

How she treats Robin until Robin makes it 100% clear that her and Steve are not a thing. Like, you have a boyfriend, why are you worried about who your ex-boyfriend (That you cheated on with your current boyfriend) is dating or friends with?

How she does seem to be sending mixed signals over what she wants with Steve, and with the end scene between her and Jonathan it really implied that she has feelings for Steve again. Which takes us back to the leading her partner on when she's not interested/ losing interest.

(I know some of the relationship stuff in s4 was lazy writing pushing for the love triangle story again.)

This feels a bit disjointed compared to when I wrote about her lack of common sense, but yeah. I feel Nancy isn't this brilliant, every type of intelligence person a lot of people make her out to be.

Oh, and adding to the emotional intelligence thing (same anon). Nancy just seems to not care about how her words impact others. She always has to be right and is quick to point out other peoples perceived lack of intelligence (Steve), or lash out if her position as the smartest person is challenged (Robin, Jonathan, and to an extent Fred.) And she puts people in danger just for her constant need to be right.

i think a lot of nancy’s emotional insensitivity does just come from her not being able to understand other peoples situation. however, she also seems to refuse to understand. like you said, a lot of her actions in s1 are understandable, because she’s a young teen with very limited life experience. as seasons have past she’s gained more knowledge, but refuses to use this knowledge to treat people with more sensitivity, and seems content to remain in her own understanding of the world.

but yeah, super funny to me that she just approached jonathan, in the middle of his appointment, to ask him to look at a photo he took while hiding in steve’s back garden. she couldn’t even have waited till he was done picking out a child sized coffin?? lmao

i can excuse her not understand steve’s complex relationship with cheating, because she has just been called a slut lol. so a girl that’s already not very empathetic isn’t gonna feel like trying to see the situation from steve’s pov.

the whole relationship situation is so messy at the end of s1. her dating steve is very much so influenced by her trauma, but again, she’s getting in a relationship with steve, while clearly either not ready for one, or in love with someone else, without considering steve. the actual person she’s dating.

s2 is the point where we see that nancy’s trauma and lack of emotional intelligence stops her from understanding steve’s position, to the point that she lashes out. at the halloween party, nancy gets drunk to spite steve. and obviously she can’t control what she says when insanely drunk, but she can control her reaction to those words. which is to basically laugh in his face. she doesn’t take his feelings seriously in that scene, and it isn’t until she’s with jonathan later that she even shows emotions.

i think with misunderstanding jonathan’s trauma that also comes from the duffers minimising trauma that isn’t about someone dying. but yeah, it is, again, nancy not being able to understand the way other people feel, and feeling a bit… maybe bitter that jonathan got his brother back, but she didn’t get barb.

oh and nancy 100% uses romantic relationships to avoid ever working through her trauma. if she’s never alone, and she always has someone to be with, then she doesn’t really have to process barb’s loss.

interestingly, even while barb was alive, there was a shift in priorities when dating steve. which is common when teenagers get their first boyfriends! so it’s kind of like, as long as nancy has a boyfriend, she can spend all her time with them, and it’s normal! instead of her acknowledging that she’s alone because she’s lost her best friend.

oh god, i hate the s3 fight. yeah, both of them don’t recognise each others issues in the workplace, but jonathan admits he was wrong, and nancy never does. nancy definitely struggles to admit when she’s wrong, which is probably part of the whole emotional immaturity thing, and is one the biggest things that’s holding back her development.

nancy can’t let herself admit when she’s wrong, with relationships or breaking someone’s heart, or investigating a murder. which i think is another trauma thing, better to make a decision and move on, because if she looks back and regrets, her life kinda starts to fall apart.

i think her relationship in s4 is partly her refusal to regret things, so she can’t acknowledge when her relationship has major issues, and also it comes down to her kind of… self-involved sounds a bit mean? but it’s like, her dream is to go to emerson, so her plan is to go to emerson with jonathan, regardless of his dream college. she has a plan, and she wants to go through with it regardless of jonathan’s wants. (jonathan definitely made mistakes in s4 too!!! but this is about nancy’s role)

robin and nancy are rough in early s4. nancy is seemingly jealous, and takes this out on robin. it definitely doesn’t scream emotional maturity.

i think nancy’s trauma has definitely emotionally stunted her. and i would say she prioritises scholarly intellect over emotional intelligence, which is why she’s pretty smart and savvy and everything, but seems to struggle when it comes to empathy and connecting to people emotionally. like you said, she puts her need to be correct before keeping people safe, or treating them with kindness.

in my opinion, nancy’s emotional issues are the main things holding back her development, and though i hope that the duffers do dive into it in s5, i cannot see that happening.

[darsynia]

📓

Send me a book emoji in my ask box and I'll describe a story I've never written but dreamed about!

A Tony Stark/OC kidfic where Tony has a special agreement with the government after HYDRA's infiltration is discovered, where everything is run through a program that cross-references the HYDRA files just in case there's a connection.

In 2016 he gets a hit: a DNA match after a paternity test that shows the child is HIS. But why is HYDRA involved? And... he has a kid??

When he shows up at the house, so does a HYDRA goon who tries to kidnap the 8 year old girl--except she massively outsmarts the guy with booby traps and robots in her room. Which is adorned with Captain America stuff. Also, he's never met her mother before...

Over the course of trying to protect the kid and her mother, it's discovered that Tony and she had attended the same MIT conference and stayed at the same hotel. HYDRA agents drugged both of them and impregnated her after obtaining sperm from him. Their goal had been to exploit Tony's death in Afghanistan according to Stane's contract, but to flip the script on Stane by showing that they had an heir, meaning that Stane was at their mercy unless he played ball with all their schemes.

When Tony survived, they laid low and let the woman assume her pregnancy was just a mixup with her current partner. Then SHIELDRA went down and the project went under deep cover, until now.

The story would eventually result in Tony bonding with his kid and falling for her mother (who I was writing to be half South Asian, with help from a few friends of that ancestry). If you think about it, ALL of Civil War is about family, found and otherwise, and the theme of Tony being an actual dad would have changed things for him. The final scene would have been the kid using the miniature Iron Man suit he'd built for her to follow Steve and Bucky because she'd studied their historical counterparts and is certain she can smoothe things over with her dad and her favorite superhero.

I chickened out because of the weight of writing a POC OC, if I'm honest! I just don't think I can do it right enough. I'm also pretty anti-kidfic lately after parenting struggles, so this one may remain in the memory banks.

It's called Because Love Battles, after a Pablo Neruda poem:

And because love battles not only in its burning agriculture,  but also in the mouth of men and women,  I'll end challenging the path  of those who between my chest and your fragrance  want to interpose their obscure figure.

About me, nothing worse they will tell you, my love, than what I told you. What more can they tell you? I am neither good nor bad, but a man. ~Love Battles, by Pablo Neruda

[thebabysittertm]

“I know that’s what happened, I’m just saying that power outages were all that happened afterwards. No bodies being found, no one going missing, no National Guard redirection or suspicious bank transfers from a branch of the government to anyone in Hawkins. It could have been a blip, or a mini-time loop, or one of your friends trying to reach out to their family the way that your friend Will did before everyone got snatched.” She shrugged. Taxes were always the way to find out where someone was or what they were doing — the reason for the paycheque might be fudged, but it would still be issued. Catching Capone on taxes had made a lot of organizations change the way they paid their people off the books.

No one liked going through accounts more than Congress and the IRS.

“Okay.” Maria eyed Steve thoughtfully but didn’t say anything else. She could assume the thought process behind his refusal — what if the people he knew were dead? What if they weren’t? Forty years was a long time to be gone. It was a lifetime, and everyone would have to deal with that. Maria could understand why Steve didn’t want to deal with it just yet, if ever. For some of them, if they were still alive, it might be kinder to let them think that Steve had, in fact, died when he disappeared in the eighties.

“Well, if you ever change your mind, road trips are kind of my jam.” Trying to get a SHIELD jet for that without explaining why she needed it wasn’t worth the effort, honestly, and commercial flights were — well, terrible. “Indiana Pacers still haven’t won an NBA Championship, but hope springs eternal. Trust me, I’m a Cubs fan.”

ㅤHis jaw may have snapped shut, but it was a lot harder to close off his entire expression as she explained all of the things that hadn't happened along with the power outages, and given the possible causes for it. He squinted a little, distrustful but watching her closely like he expected a lie to suddenly appear, bold as day, or like something she said would just make everything make sense in on neat little moment. Obviously neither of those things were going to happen, or did, because that wasn't how the world worked and just because Steve had some trust issues with agencies didn't mean it was all just going to fall into his lap like that.

ㅤMaybe there wasn't actually anything funky going on there, anyway. Maybe SHIELD wasn't lying and neither was Maria. It was possible, and given how they'd been set up with the apartment building and identities and all, SHIELD was looking okay. SHIELD, and Maria Hill once she'd arrived on scene, had 'saved his life' from his first death back in the real world (which had really only been a short reprieve before the first of the monsters came), and though that initial few weeks had been terrifying and confusing in its own ways, the agency had been absolutely invaluable in giving them lives back. He just wished he could stop waiting for the other shoe to drop.

ㅤThe problem with no new strangeness in Hawkins was that he and his friends were the only remaining link to the scary shit, and Steve still had a very strong link to the whole thing. Robin had flat out asked him if they were trying to talk him into being some kind of guinea pig or do anything weird, and he'd obviously said no, but once the thought was in his head, it was hard to get rid of it.

ㅤ"Okay, if you say that's all that happened, I guess. I just don't get why it'd be a constant thing for a few years and then just stop," he told her, clearly annoyed, but he knew as well as everyone else that he wasn't the scientist or the genius in the group. He missed the kids, which made him close his eyes and rub at his face, thoughts of them in their, what, 50s? "Yeah, I don't think I could really deal with seeing kids I drove to their first school dance in their 50s. That's older than my parents were."

@knowseverythingaboutyou continued from here.

[wizardnuke]

TONY ARE U READING INFINITE COFFEE AND PROTECTION DETAIL I'M NOT EVEN A STEVEBUCKY ANYMORE BUT IT'S ONE OF THE FEW RECS I KEPT ONCE I STOPPED SHIPPING IT BC I STILL LOVE IT WHAT DO U THINK SO FAR

IM LOSING MY FUCKIGN MIND!!!!!!!! I'M AAAAAHHH I!!!??? I love,,,, I love them so much I'm. I finished the first in the series at like 4:30am this morning and went to bed but I probably would've finished it at 3:30 if I hadn't gotten out of bed a thousand times to pace bc I was like ohhhh my god oh my god oh my god I love it so much and it's SO fucking funny oh my lord jesus bucky is such a goddamn loser I love him so much,,,, and the old people brigade fucking SENT me oh my god. ollie didn't even fucking blink when bucky told him he was on a protection detail for captain america he was just like "well okay. get your groceries I'll stall him until then" like. king. and steve's reaction to the tape of bucky taking out the hydra group in queens goddamn near made me cry oh my god he was crying and I was gonna start crying and bucky's constant arguing with the mission was so good and literally everything about bucky hiding in the hedge to watch sam's house fucking sent me. "there's a v in the branches that can hold a coffee cup" is that?? your biggest concern at the moment?? everything about bucky's coffee obsession was hilarious and when bucky began to actually realize that steve cares about him,,,, and just the. the writing itself is brilliant. and the way bucky's speech is stilted and he's so clearly been programmed to carry out missions and idk the way that his hatred for hydra was conveyed,,,, but even though he hates them he didn't kill anyone in queens and he gave the woman a tourniquet and god steve's reaction to that I'm emo and yeah 10 out of fucking 10. I'm on like chapter 9 of the next fic in the series

[ronearoundblindly]

Hey Ro! I'm so glad I caught the post before your birthday. Happy birthday and here's to a great day and very productive, successful year full of growth. For the birthday post I'm really unsure of any idea but I really love the way you write. You could literally rewrite the most boring article and I'd swoon with awe and disbelief at how great it is. I'd love to read your favorite trope, like sharing a bed, enemies to lovers, childhood friends, best friends to lovers or any other cliche you love. Thank you for sharing your work!

TLDR; scroll for drabble after my drivel.

Oh boy, this one is HARD. I'm gonna sound pretentious as hell, but I really love finding a way to mess with tropes. I like writing about imperfect relationships that work out because people work hard at them. (The voice in the back of my head is screaming, "you like painfully slow burns, bitch." But yeah, shut up, brah. Oh great, now it's just singing "smut" over and over. Well, fine. Brain's not wrong.)

I like finding organic transitions of behavior like people being nervous to excited to comfortable. I wanna read how Steve Rogers evolves as a man, and frankly, it's difficult to really get that from just a fighting style or being a hero all the time. I put him in domestic-adjacent situations and go wild thinking about how he'd react. Although to be fair, I got back into fanfic a few years ago with a Bucky x OFC, so it's really anybody being explored more through different scenarios.

I like characters in character. Now, that said, if you lead me there with experiences and background and interactions, I'm invested and will totally buy dark!characters and AUs, but I'm a picky bitch about jumping straight into--say--a hardcore BDSM sex scene when the characters have been flirting for 50k and have only kissed once. I'll read it, but I won't believe it. I'm not invested then. (Told you I was gonna sound pretentious.)

Ok now for a wee scene--only warning is zero editing. FluffyMcFlufferson WC ~450

In the Sunshine

Steve nods his head in the direction he wants you to look, but it’s too vague.

“Where?”

“Right there,” he whispers. “Are you even looking?” His head tries to point fervently to his eleven o’clock.

Of course, you see them, a whole family of deer lazily prancing in the sunshine a ways across the wooded ground, probably heading to the same babbling brook Steve is giving you a piggy-back ride to. You saw them before he even stopped, but it’s easy to see everything from your perch atop his hips. Yes, the shelf of his lovely, defined ass helps keep you propped high enough to squish your cheek against the side of his head, soft hair caressing back and forth with his strides.

A glorious, golden day indeed.

Steve is frozen, thinking his already imposing figure made more massive by your legs spread wide around his sides and your elbows jutting out, will spook the doe. 

She stares you dead in the eye. Her ear flicks, and her long tongue shoots out in a lick.

“I don’t think they give a shit about us, love,” you mutter so low and close to Steve’s ear that when he turns, he bumps your nose.

Your eyes water at the bit of sting that zaps through that delicate nerve.

Steve winces. “I’m sorry” rushes past his lips, louder than he intends. He shifts his footing instinctively which simply moves you with him, so he can’t look right at you.

The leaves crunch beneath his huge boots. Steve’s grip loosens under your knees, and you shift more weight to cling to his shoulder.

“No, honey, look.” Your command sounds nasally as you pinch your nose and wait for the tickle to stop.

Momma Deer flicks one ear and then the other. Baby stops nuzzling something at the roots of a sapling before looking back to their parents, ignoring you two entirely.

You’re recovered and settled again against his broad back. You keep your voice soft, breath hot on his skin. 

“They have good instincts, Steve. You might be big, but it doesn’t mean you’re scary.” You let your hand slide down his chest a little and pat. “We are looking. We all see the same thing. A good man.”

Steve sighs when your lips meet his cheek, and you both hum. He’s never gonna get used to this, and you’re secretly very glad of that because you will never get sick of reflecting Steve Rogers’  heart back to him.

The deer head to the stream, and Steve follows, bouncing you a little until you giggle and hold on tighter.

This is where Steve can be himself, can see himself, and can love himself: in the sunshine.

divider by @firefly-graphics

[chrisevansluv]

Here is the 2012 Detail Magazine interview with chris evans:

The Avengers' Chris Evans: Just Your Average Beer-Swilling, Babe-Loving Buddhist

The 30-year-old Bud Light-chugging, Beantown-bred star of The Avengers is widely perceived as the ultimate guy's guy. But beneath the bro persona lies a serious student of Buddhism, an unrepentant song-and-dance man, and a guy who talks to his mom about sex. And farts.

By Adam Sachs,

Photographs by Norman Jean Roy

May 2012 Issue

"Should we just kill him and bury his body?" Chris Evans is stage whispering into the impassive blinking light of my digital recorder.

"Chris!" shouts his mother, her tone a familiar-to-anyone-with-a-mother mix of coddling and concern. "Don't say that! What if something happened?"

We're at Evans' apartment, an expansive but not overly tricked-out bachelor-pad-ish loft in a semi-industrial nowheresville part of Boston, hard by Chinatown, near an area sometimes called the Combat Zone. Evans has a fuzzy, floppy, slept-in-his-clothes aspect that'd be nearly unrecognizable if you knew him only by the upright, spit-polished bearing of the onscreen hero. His dog, East, a sweet and slobbery American bulldog, is spread out on a couch in front of the TV. The shelves of his fridge are neatly stacked with much of the world's supply of Bud Light in cans and little else.

On the counter sit a few buckets of muscle-making whey-protein powder that belong to Evans' roommate, Zach Jarvis, an old pal who sometimes tags along on set as a paid "assistant" and a personal trainer who bulked Evans up for his role as the super-ripped patriot in last summer's blockbuster Captain America: The First Avenger. A giant clock on the exposed-brick wall says it's early evening, but Evans operates on his own sense of time. Between gigs, his schedule's all his, which usually translates into long stretches of alone time during the day and longer social nights for the 30-year-old.

"I could just make this . . . disappear," says Josh Peck, another old pal and occasional on-set assistant, in a deadpan mumble, poking at the voice recorder I'd left on the table while I was in the bathroom.

Evans' mom, Lisa, now speaks directly into the microphone: "Don't listen to them—I'm trying to get them not to say these things!"

But not saying things isn't in the Evans DNA. They're an infectiously gregarious clan. Irish-Italians, proud Bostoners, close-knit, and innately theatrical. "We all act, we sing," Evans says. "It was like the fucking von Trapps." Mom was a dancer and now runs a children's theater. First-born Carly directed the family puppet shows and studied theater at NYU. Younger brother Scott has parts on One Life to Live and Law & Order under his belt and lives in Los Angeles full-time—something Evans stopped doing several years back. Rounding out the circle are baby sister Shanna and a pair of "strays" the family brought into their Sudbury, Massachusetts, home: Josh, who went from mowing the lawn to moving in when his folks relocated during his senior year in high school; and Demery, who was Evans' roommate until recently.

"Our house was like a hotel," Evans says. "It was a loony-tunes household. If you got arrested in high school, everyone knew: 'Call Mrs. Evans, she'll bail you out.'"

Growing up, they had a special floor put in the basement where all the kids practiced tap-dancing. The party-ready rec room also had a Ping-Pong table and a separate entrance. This was the house kids in the neighborhood wanted to hang at, and this was the kind of family you wanted to be adopted by. Spend an afternoon listening to them dish old dirt and talk over each other and it's easy to see why. Now they're worried they've said too much, laid bare the tender soul of the actor behind the star-spangled superhero outfit, so there's talk of offing the interviewer. I can hear all this from the bathroom, which, of course, is the point of a good stage whisper.

To be sure, no one's said too much, and the more you're brought into the embrace of this boisterous, funny, shit-slinging, demonstrably loving extended family, the more likable and enviable the whole dynamic is.

Sample exchange from today's lunch of baked ziti at a family-style Italian restaurant:

Mom: When he was a kid, he asked me, 'Mom, will I ever think farting isn't funny?'

Chris: You're throwing me under the bus, Ma! Thank you.

Mom: Well, if a dog farts you still find it funny.

Then, back at the apartment, where Mrs. Evans tries to give me good-natured dirt on her son without freaking him out:

Mom: You always tell me when you think a girl is attractive. You'll call me up so excited. Is that okay to say?

Chris: Nothing wrong with that.

Mom: And can I say all the girls you've brought to the house have been very sweet and wonderful? Of course, those are the ones that make it to the house. It's been a long time, hasn't it?

Chris: Looooong time.

Mom: The last one at our house? Was it six years ago?

Chris: No names, Ma!

Mom: But she knocked it out of the park.

Chris: She got drunk and puked at Auntie Pam's house! And she puked on the way home and she puked at our place.

Mom: And that's when I fell in love with her. Because she was real.

We're operating under a no-names rule, so I'm not asking if it's Jessica Biel who made this memorable first impression. She and Evans were serious for a couple of years. But I don't want to picture lovely Jessica Biel getting sick at Auntie Pam's or in the car or, really, anywhere.

East the bulldog ambles over to the table, begging for food.

"That dog is the love of his life," Mrs. Evans says. "Which tells me he'll be an unbelievable parent, but I don't want him to get married right now." She turns to Chris. "The way you are, I just don't think you're ready."

Some other things I learn about Evans from his mom: He hates going to the gym; he was so wound-up as a kid she'd let him stand during dinner, his legs shaking like caged greyhounds; he suffered weekly "Sunday-night meltdowns" over schoolwork and the angst of the sensitive middle-schooler; after she and his father split and he was making money from acting, he bought her the Sudbury family homestead rather than let her leave it.

Eventually his mom and Josh depart, and Evans and I go to work depleting his stash of Bud Light. It feels like we drink Bud Light and talk for days, because we basically do. I arrived early Friday evening; it's Saturday night now and it'll be sunup Sunday before I sleeplessly make my way to catch a train back to New York City. Somewhere in between we slip free of the gravitational pull of the bachelor pad and there's bottle service at a club and a long walk with entourage in tow back to Evans' apartment, where there is some earnest-yet-surreal group singing, piano playing, and chitchat. Evans is fun to talk to, partly because he's an open, self-mocking guy with an explosive laugh and no apparent need to sleep, and partly because when you cut just below the surface, it's clear he's not quite the dude's dude he sometimes plays onscreen and in TV appearances.

From a distance, Chris Evans the movie star seems a predictable, nearly inevitable piece of successful Hollywood packaging come to market. There's his major-release debut as the dorkily unaware jock Jake in the guilty pleasure Not Another Teen Movie (in one memorable scene, Evans has whipped cream on his chest and a banana up his ass). The female-friendly hunk appeal—his character in The Nanny Diaries is named simply Harvard Hottie—is balanced by a kind of casual-Friday, I'm-from-Boston regular-dudeness. Following the siren song of comic-book cash, he was the Human Torch in two Fantastic Four films. As with scrawny Steve Rogers, the Captain America suit beefed up his stature as a formidable screen presence, a bankable leading man, all of which leads us to The Avengers, this season's megabudget, megawatt ensemble in which he stars alongside Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., and Chris Hemsworth.

It all feels inevitable—and yet it nearly didn't happen. Evans repeatedly turned down the Captain America role, fearing he'd be locked into what was originally a nine-picture deal. He was shooting Puncture, about a drug-addicted lawyer, at the time. Most actors doing small-budget legal dramas would jump at the chance to play the lead in a Marvel franchise, but Evans saw a decade of his life flash before his eyes.

What he remembers thinking is this: "What if the movie comes out and it's a success and I just reject all of this? What if I want to move to the fucking woods?"

By "the woods," he doesn't mean a quiet life away from the spotlight, some general metaphorical life escape route. He means the actual woods. "For a long time all I wanted for Christmas were books about outdoor survival," he says. "I was convinced that I was going to move to the woods. I camped a lot, I took classes. At 18, I told myself if I don't live in the woods by the time I'm 25, I have failed."

Evans has described his hesitation at signing on for Captain America. Usually he talks about the time commitment, the loss of what remained of his relative anonymity. On the junkets for the movie, he was open about needing therapy after the studio reduced the deal to six movies and he took the leap. What he doesn't usually mention is that he was racked with anxiety before the job came up.

"I get very nervous," Evans explains. "I shit the bed if I have to present something on stage or if I'm doing press. Because it's just you." He's been known to walk out of press conferences, to freeze up and go silent during the kind of relaxed-yet-high-stakes meetings an actor of his stature is expected to attend: "Do you know how badly I audition? Fifty percent of the time I have to walk out of the room. I'm naturally very pale, so I turn red and sweat. And I have to literally walk out. Sometimes mid-audition. You start having these conversations in your brain. 'Chris, don't do this. Chris, take it easy. You're just sitting in a room with a person saying some words, this isn't life. And you're letting this affect you? Shame on you.'"

Shades of "Sunday-night meltdowns." Luckily the nerves never follow him to the set. "You do your neuroses beforehand, so when they yell 'Action' you can be present," he says.

Okay, there was one on-set panic attack—while Evans was shooting Puncture. "We were getting ready to do a court scene in front of a bunch of people, and I don't know what happened," he says. "It's just your brain playing games with you. 'Hey, you know how we sometimes freak out? What if we did it right now?'"

One of the people who advised Evans to take the Captain America role was his eventual Avengers costar Robert Downey Jr. "I'd seen him around," Downey says. "We share an agent. I like to spend a lot of my free time talking to my agent about his other clients—I just had a feeling about him."

What he told Evans was: This puppy is going to be big, and when it is you're going to get to make the movies you want to make. "In the marathon obstacle course of a career," Downey says, "it's just good to have all the stats on paper for why you're not only a team player but also why it makes sense to support you in the projects you want to do—because you've made so much damned money for the studio."

There's also the fact that Evans had a chance to sign on for something likely to be a kind of watershed moment in the comic-book fascination of our time. "I do think The Avengers is the crescendo of this superhero phase in entertainment—except of course for Iron Man 3," Downey says. "It'll take a lot of innovation to keep it alive after this."

Captain America is the only person left who was truly close to Howard Stark, father of Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man), which meant that Evans' and Downey's story lines are closely linked, and in the course of doing a lot of scenes together, they got to be pals. Downey diagnoses his friend with what he terms "low-grade red-carpet anxiety disorder."

"He just hates the game-show aspect of doing PR," Downey says. "Obviously there's pressure for anyone in this transition he's in. But he will easily triple that pressure to make sure he's not being lazy. That's why I respect the guy. I wouldn't necessarily want to be in his skin. But his motives are pure. He just needs to drink some red-carpet chamomile."

"The majority of the world is empty space," Chris Evans says, watching me as if my brain might explode on hearing this news—or like he might have to fight me if I try to contradict him. We're back at his apartment after a cigarette run through the Combat Zone.

"Empty space!" he says again, slapping the table and sort of yelling. Then, in a slow, breathy whisper, he repeats: "Empty space, empty space. All that we see in the world, the life, the animals, plants, people, it's all empty space. That's amazing!" He slaps the table again. "You want another beer? Gotta be Bud Light. Get dirty—you're in Boston. Okay, organize your thoughts. I gotta take a piss . . ."

My thoughts are this: That this guy who is hugging his dog and talking to me about space and mortality and the trouble with Boston girls who believe crazy gossip about him—this is not the guy I expected to meet. I figured he'd be a meatball. Though, truthfully, I'd never called anyone a meatball until Evans turned me on to the put-down. As in: "My sister Shanna dates meatballs." And, more to the point: "When I do interviews, I'd rather just be the beer-drinking dude from Boston and not get into the complex shit, because I don't want every meatball saying, 'So hey, whaddyathink about Buddhism?'"

At 17, Evans came across a copy of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha and began his spiritual questing. It's a path of study and struggle that, he says, defines his true purpose in life. "I love acting. It's my playground, it lets me explore. But my happiness in this world, my level of peace, is never going to be dictated by acting," he says. "My goal in life is to detach from the egoic mind. Do you know anything about Eastern philosophy?"

I sip some Bud Light and shake my head sheepishly. "They talk about the egoic mind, the part of you that's self-aware, the watcher, the person you think is driving this machine," he says. "And that separation from self and mind is the root of suffering. There are ways of retraining the way you think. This isn't really supported in Western society, which is focused on 'Go get it, earn it, win it, marry it.'"

Scarlett Johansson says that one of the things she appreciates about Evans is how he steers clear of industry chat when they see each other. "Basically every actor," she says, "including myself, when we finish a job we're like, 'Well, that's it for me. Had a good run. Put me out to pasture.' But Chris doesn't strike me as someone who frets about the next job." The two met on the set of The Perfect Score when they were teenagers and have stayed close; The Avengers is their third movie together. "He has this obviously masculine presence—a dude's dude—and we're used to seeing him play heroic characters," Johansson says, "but he's also surprisingly sensitive. He has close female friends, and you can talk to him about anything. Plus there's that secret song-and-dance, jazz-hands side of Chris. I feel like he grew up with the Partridge Family. He'd be just as happy doing Guys and Dolls as he would Captain America 2."

East needs to do his business, so Evans and I take him up to the roof deck. Evans bought this apartment in 2010 when living in L.A. full-time no longer appealed to him. He came back to stay close to his extended family and the intimate circle of Boston pals he's maintained since high school. The move also seems like a pretty clear keep-it-real hedge against the manic ego-stroking distractions of Hollywood.

"I think my daytime person is different than my nighttime person," Evans says. "With my high-school buddies, we drink beer and talk sports and it's great. The kids in my Buddhism class in L.A., they're wildly intelligent, and I love being around them, but they're not talking about the Celtics. And that's part of me. It's a strange dichotomy. I don't mind being a certain way with some people and having this other piece of me that's just for me."

I asked Downey about Evans' outward regular-Joe persona. "It's complete horseshit," Downey says. "There's an inherent street-smart intelligence there. I don't think he tries to hide it. But he's much more evolved and much more culturally aware than he lets on."

Perhaps the meatball and the meditation can coexist. We argue about our egoic brains and the tao of Boston girls. "I love wet hair and sweatpants," he says in their defense. "I like sneakers and ponytails. I like girls who aren't so la-di-da. L.A. is so la-di-da. I like Boston girls who shit on me. Not literally. Girls who give me a hard time, bust my chops a little."

The chief buster of Evans' chops is, of course, Evans himself. "The problem is, the brain I'm using to dissect this world is a brain formed by it," he says. "We're born into confusion, and we get the blessing of letting go of it." Then he adds: "I think this shit by day. And then night comes and it's like, 'Fuck it, let's drink.'"

And so we do. It's getting late. Again. We should have eaten dinner, but Evans sometimes forgets to eat: "If I could just take a pill to make me full forever, I wouldn't think twice."

We talk about his dog and camping with his dog and why he loves being alone more than almost anything except maybe not being alone. "I swear to God, if you saw me when I am by myself in the woods, I'm a lunatic," he says. "I sing, I dance. I do crazy shit."

Evans' unflagging, all-encompassing enthusiasm is impressive, itself a kind of social intelligence. "If you want to have a good conversation with him, don't talk about the fact that he's famous" was the advice I got from Mark Kassen, who codirected Puncture. "He's a blast, a guy who can hang. For quite a long time. Many hours in a row."

I've stopped looking at the clock. We've stopped talking philosophy and moved into more emotional territory. He asks questions about my 9-month-old son, and then Captain America gets teary when I talk about the wonder of his birth. "I weep at everything," he says. "I emote. I love things so much—I just never want to dilute that."

He talks about how close he feels to his family, how open they all are with each other. About everything. All the time. "The first time I had sex," he says, "I raced home and was like, 'Mom, I just had sex! Where's the clit?'"

Wait, I ask—did she ever tell you?

"Still don't know where it is, man," he says, then breaks into a smile composed of equal parts shit-eating grin and inner peace. "I just don't know. Make some movies, you don't have to know…"

Here is the 2012 Detail Magazine interview with chris evans:

The Avengers' Chris Evans: Just Your Average Beer-Swilling, Babe-Loving Buddhist

The 30-year-old Bud Light-chugging, Beantown-bred star of The Avengers is widely perceived as the ultimate guy's guy. But beneath the bro persona lies a serious student of Buddhism, an unrepentant song-and-dance man, and a guy who talks to his mom about sex. And farts.

By Adam Sachs,

Photographs by Norman Jean Roy

May 2012 Issue

"Should we just kill him and bury his body?" Chris Evans is stage whispering into the impassive blinking light of my digital recorder.

"Chris!" shouts his mother, her tone a familiar-to-anyone-with-a-mother mix of coddling and concern. "Don't say that! What if something happened?"

We're at Evans' apartment, an expansive but not overly tricked-out bachelor-pad-ish loft in a semi-industrial nowheresville part of Boston, hard by Chinatown, near an area sometimes called the Combat Zone. Evans has a fuzzy, floppy, slept-in-his-clothes aspect that'd be nearly unrecognizable if you knew him only by the upright, spit-polished bearing of the onscreen hero. His dog, East, a sweet and slobbery American bulldog, is spread out on a couch in front of the TV. The shelves of his fridge are neatly stacked with much of the world's supply of Bud Light in cans and little else.

On the counter sit a few buckets of muscle-making whey-protein powder that belong to Evans' roommate, Zach Jarvis, an old pal who sometimes tags along on set as a paid "assistant" and a personal trainer who bulked Evans up for his role as the super-ripped patriot in last summer's blockbuster Captain America: The First Avenger. A giant clock on the exposed-brick wall says it's early evening, but Evans operates on his own sense of time. Between gigs, his schedule's all his, which usually translates into long stretches of alone time during the day and longer social nights for the 30-year-old.

"I could just make this . . . disappear," says Josh Peck, another old pal and occasional on-set assistant, in a deadpan mumble, poking at the voice recorder I'd left on the table while I was in the bathroom.

Evans' mom, Lisa, now speaks directly into the microphone: "Don't listen to them—I'm trying to get them not to say these things!"

But not saying things isn't in the Evans DNA. They're an infectiously gregarious clan. Irish-Italians, proud Bostoners, close-knit, and innately theatrical. "We all act, we sing," Evans says. "It was like the fucking von Trapps." Mom was a dancer and now runs a children's theater. First-born Carly directed the family puppet shows and studied theater at NYU. Younger brother Scott has parts on One Life to Live and Law & Order under his belt and lives in Los Angeles full-time—something Evans stopped doing several years back. Rounding out the circle are baby sister Shanna and a pair of "strays" the family brought into their Sudbury, Massachusetts, home: Josh, who went from mowing the lawn to moving in when his folks relocated during his senior year in high school; and Demery, who was Evans' roommate until recently.

"Our house was like a hotel," Evans says. "It was a loony-tunes household. If you got arrested in high school, everyone knew: 'Call Mrs. Evans, she'll bail you out.'"

Growing up, they had a special floor put in the basement where all the kids practiced tap-dancing. The party-ready rec room also had a Ping-Pong table and a separate entrance. This was the house kids in the neighborhood wanted to hang at, and this was the kind of family you wanted to be adopted by. Spend an afternoon listening to them dish old dirt and talk over each other and it's easy to see why. Now they're worried they've said too much, laid bare the tender soul of the actor behind the star-spangled superhero outfit, so there's talk of offing the interviewer. I can hear all this from the bathroom, which, of course, is the point of a good stage whisper.

To be sure, no one's said too much, and the more you're brought into the embrace of this boisterous, funny, shit-slinging, demonstrably loving extended family, the more likable and enviable the whole dynamic is.

Sample exchange from today's lunch of baked ziti at a family-style Italian restaurant:

Mom: When he was a kid, he asked me, 'Mom, will I ever think farting isn't funny?'

Chris: You're throwing me under the bus, Ma! Thank you.

Mom: Well, if a dog farts you still find it funny.

Then, back at the apartment, where Mrs. Evans tries to give me good-natured dirt on her son without freaking him out:

Mom: You always tell me when you think a girl is attractive. You'll call me up so excited. Is that okay to say?

Chris: Nothing wrong with that.

Mom: And can I say all the girls you've brought to the house have been very sweet and wonderful? Of course, those are the ones that make it to the house. It's been a long time, hasn't it?

Chris: Looooong time.

Mom: The last one at our house? Was it six years ago?

Chris: No names, Ma!

Mom: But she knocked it out of the park.

Chris: She got drunk and puked at Auntie Pam's house! And she puked on the way home and she puked at our place.

Mom: And that's when I fell in love with her. Because she was real.

We're operating under a no-names rule, so I'm not asking if it's Jessica Biel who made this memorable first impression. She and Evans were serious for a couple of years. But I don't want to picture lovely Jessica Biel getting sick at Auntie Pam's or in the car or, really, anywhere.

East the bulldog ambles over to the table, begging for food.

"That dog is the love of his life," Mrs. Evans says. "Which tells me he'll be an unbelievable parent, but I don't want him to get married right now." She turns to Chris. "The way you are, I just don't think you're ready."

Some other things I learn about Evans from his mom: He hates going to the gym; he was so wound-up as a kid she'd let him stand during dinner, his legs shaking like caged greyhounds; he suffered weekly "Sunday-night meltdowns" over schoolwork and the angst of the sensitive middle-schooler; after she and his father split and he was making money from acting, he bought her the Sudbury family homestead rather than let her leave it.

Eventually his mom and Josh depart, and Evans and I go to work depleting his stash of Bud Light. It feels like we drink Bud Light and talk for days, because we basically do. I arrived early Friday evening; it's Saturday night now and it'll be sunup Sunday before I sleeplessly make my way to catch a train back to New York City. Somewhere in between we slip free of the gravitational pull of the bachelor pad and there's bottle service at a club and a long walk with entourage in tow back to Evans' apartment, where there is some earnest-yet-surreal group singing, piano playing, and chitchat. Evans is fun to talk to, partly because he's an open, self-mocking guy with an explosive laugh and no apparent need to sleep, and partly because when you cut just below the surface, it's clear he's not quite the dude's dude he sometimes plays onscreen and in TV appearances.

From a distance, Chris Evans the movie star seems a predictable, nearly inevitable piece of successful Hollywood packaging come to market. There's his major-release debut as the dorkily unaware jock Jake in the guilty pleasure Not Another Teen Movie (in one memorable scene, Evans has whipped cream on his chest and a banana up his ass). The female-friendly hunk appeal—his character in The Nanny Diaries is named simply Harvard Hottie—is balanced by a kind of casual-Friday, I'm-from-Boston regular-dudeness. Following the siren song of comic-book cash, he was the Human Torch in two Fantastic Four films. As with scrawny Steve Rogers, the Captain America suit beefed up his stature as a formidable screen presence, a bankable leading man, all of which leads us to The Avengers, this season's megabudget, megawatt ensemble in which he stars alongside Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., and Chris Hemsworth.

It all feels inevitable—and yet it nearly didn't happen. Evans repeatedly turned down the Captain America role, fearing he'd be locked into what was originally a nine-picture deal. He was shooting Puncture, about a drug-addicted lawyer, at the time. Most actors doing small-budget legal dramas would jump at the chance to play the lead in a Marvel franchise, but Evans saw a decade of his life flash before his eyes.

What he remembers thinking is this: "What if the movie comes out and it's a success and I just reject all of this? What if I want to move to the fucking woods?"

By "the woods," he doesn't mean a quiet life away from the spotlight, some general metaphorical life escape route. He means the actual woods. "For a long time all I wanted for Christmas were books about outdoor survival," he says. "I was convinced that I was going to move to the woods. I camped a lot, I took classes. At 18, I told myself if I don't live in the woods by the time I'm 25, I have failed."

Evans has described his hesitation at signing on for Captain America. Usually he talks about the time commitment, the loss of what remained of his relative anonymity. On the junkets for the movie, he was open about needing therapy after the studio reduced the deal to six movies and he took the leap. What he doesn't usually mention is that he was racked with anxiety before the job came up.

"I get very nervous," Evans explains. "I shit the bed if I have to present something on stage or if I'm doing press. Because it's just you." He's been known to walk out of press conferences, to freeze up and go silent during the kind of relaxed-yet-high-stakes meetings an actor of his stature is expected to attend: "Do you know how badly I audition? Fifty percent of the time I have to walk out of the room. I'm naturally very pale, so I turn red and sweat. And I have to literally walk out. Sometimes mid-audition. You start having these conversations in your brain. 'Chris, don't do this. Chris, take it easy. You're just sitting in a room with a person saying some words, this isn't life. And you're letting this affect you? Shame on you.'"

Shades of "Sunday-night meltdowns." Luckily the nerves never follow him to the set. "You do your neuroses beforehand, so when they yell 'Action' you can be present," he says.

Okay, there was one on-set panic attack—while Evans was shooting Puncture. "We were getting ready to do a court scene in front of a bunch of people, and I don't know what happened," he says. "It's just your brain playing games with you. 'Hey, you know how we sometimes freak out? What if we did it right now?'"

One of the people who advised Evans to take the Captain America role was his eventual Avengers costar Robert Downey Jr. "I'd seen him around," Downey says. "We share an agent. I like to spend a lot of my free time talking to my agent about his other clients—I just had a feeling about him."

What he told Evans was: This puppy is going to be big, and when it is you're going to get to make the movies you want to make. "In the marathon obstacle course of a career," Downey says, "it's just good to have all the stats on paper for why you're not only a team player but also why it makes sense to support you in the projects you want to do—because you've made so much damned money for the studio."

There's also the fact that Evans had a chance to sign on for something likely to be a kind of watershed moment in the comic-book fascination of our time. "I do think The Avengers is the crescendo of this superhero phase in entertainment—except of course for Iron Man 3," Downey says. "It'll take a lot of innovation to keep it alive after this."

Captain America is the only person left who was truly close to Howard Stark, father of Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man), which meant that Evans' and Downey's story lines are closely linked, and in the course of doing a lot of scenes together, they got to be pals. Downey diagnoses his friend with what he terms "low-grade red-carpet anxiety disorder."

"He just hates the game-show aspect of doing PR," Downey says. "Obviously there's pressure for anyone in this transition he's in. But he will easily triple that pressure to make sure he's not being lazy. That's why I respect the guy. I wouldn't necessarily want to be in his skin. But his motives are pure. He just needs to drink some red-carpet chamomile."

"The majority of the world is empty space," Chris Evans says, watching me as if my brain might explode on hearing this news—or like he might have to fight me if I try to contradict him. We're back at his apartment after a cigarette run through the Combat Zone.

"Empty space!" he says again, slapping the table and sort of yelling. Then, in a slow, breathy whisper, he repeats: "Empty space, empty space. All that we see in the world, the life, the animals, plants, people, it's all empty space. That's amazing!" He slaps the table again. "You want another beer? Gotta be Bud Light. Get dirty—you're in Boston. Okay, organize your thoughts. I gotta take a piss . . ."

My thoughts are this: That this guy who is hugging his dog and talking to me about space and mortality and the trouble with Boston girls who believe crazy gossip about him—this is not the guy I expected to meet. I figured he'd be a meatball. Though, truthfully, I'd never called anyone a meatball until Evans turned me on to the put-down. As in: "My sister Shanna dates meatballs." And, more to the point: "When I do interviews, I'd rather just be the beer-drinking dude from Boston and not get into the complex shit, because I don't want every meatball saying, 'So hey, whaddyathink about Buddhism?'"

At 17, Evans came across a copy of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha and began his spiritual questing. It's a path of study and struggle that, he says, defines his true purpose in life. "I love acting. It's my playground, it lets me explore. But my happiness in this world, my level of peace, is never going to be dictated by acting," he says. "My goal in life is to detach from the egoic mind. Do you know anything about Eastern philosophy?"

I sip some Bud Light and shake my head sheepishly. "They talk about the egoic mind, the part of you that's self-aware, the watcher, the person you think is driving this machine," he says. "And that separation from self and mind is the root of suffering. There are ways of retraining the way you think. This isn't really supported in Western society, which is focused on 'Go get it, earn it, win it, marry it.'"

Scarlett Johansson says that one of the things she appreciates about Evans is how he steers clear of industry chat when they see each other. "Basically every actor," she says, "including myself, when we finish a job we're like, 'Well, that's it for me. Had a good run. Put me out to pasture.' But Chris doesn't strike me as someone who frets about the next job." The two met on the set of The Perfect Score when they were teenagers and have stayed close; The Avengers is their third movie together. "He has this obviously masculine presence—a dude's dude—and we're used to seeing him play heroic characters," Johansson says, "but he's also surprisingly sensitive. He has close female friends, and you can talk to him about anything. Plus there's that secret song-and-dance, jazz-hands side of Chris. I feel like he grew up with the Partridge Family. He'd be just as happy doing Guys and Dolls as he would Captain America 2."

East needs to do his business, so Evans and I take him up to the roof deck. Evans bought this apartment in 2010 when living in L.A. full-time no longer appealed to him. He came back to stay close to his extended family and the intimate circle of Boston pals he's maintained since high school. The move also seems like a pretty clear keep-it-real hedge against the manic ego-stroking distractions of Hollywood.

"I think my daytime person is different than my nighttime person," Evans says. "With my high-school buddies, we drink beer and talk sports and it's great. The kids in my Buddhism class in L.A., they're wildly intelligent, and I love being around them, but they're not talking about the Celtics. And that's part of me. It's a strange dichotomy. I don't mind being a certain way with some people and having this other piece of me that's just for me."

I asked Downey about Evans' outward regular-Joe persona. "It's complete horseshit," Downey says. "There's an inherent street-smart intelligence there. I don't think he tries to hide it. But he's much more evolved and much more culturally aware than he lets on."

Perhaps the meatball and the meditation can coexist. We argue about our egoic brains and the tao of Boston girls. "I love wet hair and sweatpants," he says in their defense. "I like sneakers and ponytails. I like girls who aren't so la-di-da. L.A. is so la-di-da. I like Boston girls who shit on me. Not literally. Girls who give me a hard time, bust my chops a little."

The chief buster of Evans' chops is, of course, Evans himself. "The problem is, the brain I'm using to dissect this world is a brain formed by it," he says. "We're born into confusion, and we get the blessing of letting go of it." Then he adds: "I think this shit by day. And then night comes and it's like, 'Fuck it, let's drink.'"

And so we do. It's getting late. Again. We should have eaten dinner, but Evans sometimes forgets to eat: "If I could just take a pill to make me full forever, I wouldn't think twice."

We talk about his dog and camping with his dog and why he loves being alone more than almost anything except maybe not being alone. "I swear to God, if you saw me when I am by myself in the woods, I'm a lunatic," he says. "I sing, I dance. I do crazy shit."

Evans' unflagging, all-encompassing enthusiasm is impressive, itself a kind of social intelligence. "If you want to have a good conversation with him, don't talk about the fact that he's famous" was the advice I got from Mark Kassen, who codirected Puncture. "He's a blast, a guy who can hang. For quite a long time. Many hours in a row."

I've stopped looking at the clock. We've stopped talking philosophy and moved into more emotional territory. He asks questions about my 9-month-old son, and then Captain America gets teary when I talk about the wonder of his birth. "I weep at everything," he says. "I emote. I love things so much—I just never want to dilute that."

He talks about how close he feels to his family, how open they all are with each other. About everything. All the time. "The first time I had sex," he says, "I raced home and was like, 'Mom, I just had sex! Where's the clit?'"

Wait, I ask—did she ever tell you?

"Still don't know where it is, man," he says, then breaks into a smile composed of equal parts shit-eating grin and inner peace. "I just don't know. Make some movies, you don't have to know…"

If someone doesn't want to check the link, the anon sent the full interview!

[ty-talks-comics]

Best of DC: Week of January 1st, 2019

Best of this Week: The Flash #85 - Joshua Williamson, Christian Duce, Luis Guerrero and Steve Wands

Amidst everything going on in the DC Universe right now from Year of the Villain to the end of Doomsday Clock, there’s been a lot of really underrated books that DC’s been publishing and Flash Definitely falls into that category for me. Of course, Flash is no low-tier character, but as it stands, there’s not a big conversation surrounding Joshua Williamson’s run with the character like there is for the up and down runs of Batman and Superman, but there should be!

Joshua Williamson and his revolving art team of Christian Duce, Scott Kolins, Rafa Sandoval and Carmine di Giandomenico have pulled off some of the most consistently fantastic Flash storytelling in recent years. From the Speed Force Storm to Flash’s “Final Showdown” with Captain Cold and finally here with Rogues’ Reign, these stories have only seen Flash become an even better character with depth after he’s been tested over and over with insurmountable odds and overpowered enemies while still being riddled with doubt.

This issue of Flash acts as the penultimate issue to the Rogues’ Reign storyline and sees us learning a bit more about some of the Rogues as individuals while at the same time, breaking them apart even further. This book is less centered on the various speedsters, but more around their lack of control over their powers and Flash continuing his rivalry with King Cold to the bitterest end.

The book begins with four panels of King Cold, Leonard Snart, monologuing to himself. We get a great big focus of the Symbol of Doom in the sky as Snart says that it’s the end of the world, but at least he’s going out like a winner, unlike his loser of a father. One of the many defining characteristics of Cold up to this point and in other stories has been his hatred of his father and his aversion to become anything like him. However, he’s become nothing more than a self-fulfilling prophecy because his life is nothing more than misery because of the sacrifices he made to get to where he is.

Cold helped Luthor’s ascension and the rise of Doom by accepting Luthor’s Gift and allowing himself and his Rogues to become ultra powered, but in doing so, has alienated himself from his friends and family now that they all have what they want. Duce frames all of this excellently by first placing Cold in shadow before he looks at his glasses, as if reminiscing about his old life before putting them on and looking towards his death at the end of the world.

Soon after, we cut to Kid Flash and Avery receiving training from two unlikely sources; Heatwave and Weather Wizard. Though they were seen as reporting in to King Cold a few issues ago, it was brief and mostly to air some small grievances that they had with the way that Cold was running things. Here, we get the reveal that they’d been working with Golden Glider since she broke off from her brother and Mirror Master under their noses. In a brilliant double page spread by Duce and Guererro, we see that they’ve been helping the speedsters keep their speed under control.

It’s a pretty warmhearted scene followed by more where Gold Glider comforts Flash about their presence. Williamson makes Heatwave and Weather Wizard come off as two men that have suffered hardships in their lives, leading them to the life of crime, but still managing to have hearts. Glider tells Flash how Weather Wizard wanted to escape the life of crime that his family was involved in when he was a kid, but never could which lead to him hurting people he loved. Heatwave suffers similarly from his pyromania being the reason his parents died, but it’s painted more as him having a sickness he can’t control. Glider tells Flash that they want to stop Cold so that things can go back to the way that they were.

Duce draws these scenes with a surprising intimacy. Amidst all of the intense action, Duce draws Heatwave with a sense of pride as he watches Kid Flash control his speed better, Weather Wizard stare in his lonesome because of everything going on and shows the kids eating with their teachers after a long day. On top of all of this, Flash has a nice scene where Golden Glider teaches him how to ice skate after he asks her to get back into what was one her hobby. Guererro colors all of these scenes with warm tones, even in the ice which is primarily blue and white. Flash and Glider’s colors give off something of a happy feeling.

One of the recurring themes of this run has been relating to the Rogues in meaningful ways and Williamson does an excellent job here of contrasting all of them to an amazing degree.

After Flash makes a bad joke to Golden Glider, causing her to become morose, Weather Wizard steps in and tells them that they’ve found where Mirror Master has been hiding and the entire crew go to find the last two pieces of his great mirror. Kid Flash asks Golden Glider if she used to date him and she confirms this, stating that she didn’t know why, but that she knew all of his tricks.

Mirror Master has always been one of the Rogues of lesser renown because well… he's an idiot. Only in the sense that he's never used his powers to a degree where people needed to be afraid of him, but thanks to his upgrade they need to. In actuality, his access to an entire Mirror Dimension makes him one of the most dangerous people in the DC Universe as a potential spy or thief because A LOT OF SURFACES REFLECT. Flash and the other Rogues learn this the hard way when Mirror Master springs a trap on them, revealing that he knew that Glider and the others betrayed Cold.

When the Rogues and Speedsters finally encountered Mirror Master, he looks absolutely devious with a wide grin and his wide grin as they did everything they could to stop him. Duce’s poses were dynamic and captured how intense the fight was, the furious facial expressions were very well done and crystalline backgrounds were beautiful. Guerrero’s colors stood out in how distinct each of them were. Mirror Master’s glossy white clashed with the other characters, especially Flash’s vibrant reds and Weather Wizard’s dark greens. By easily besting all of them, he showed just how dangerous he could be.

He teleports them all to the King and Snart notes how disappointed he is and how the Rogues could have ruled the world together. This causes Glider to snap at him, saying that he never told the Rogues what that would entail - the end of the world under Luthor. At this point Captain Cold is so far gone that he just doesn't care anymore and Williamson has been leading him down this path since the beginning.

In Rogues Reloaded, Cold had the idea for the Rogues to get one more heist over on The Flash before retiring completely and that was foiled with all of the Rogues being defeated. In Welcome to Iron Heights, Snart decided he'd run an operation from prison but Barry Allen and his former ally, Godspeed foiled that plan too. Because Cold had murdered another inmate to throw off the scent, this led to a fist fight between Cold and Flash which saw Cold's defeat and transfer to Belle Reve Penitentiary. Obviously the defeat had an adverse effect on Cold because he was so sure that he would overcome, but didn’t. He lost again.

Captain Cold has always been one to hold family in high regard since he's never quite had a functioning one side from the Rogues, so his time on the Suicide Squad was devastating to him. I mentioned in past Flash reviews that watching teammates die mission after mission must have done something to his psyche and Lex Luthor took advantage of that when offering him and his actual friends a way to win against The Flash. All of that led to this.

King Cold, feeling betrayed and pissed off, freezes his former friends and sister, leaving only The Flash to fight him one on one again. In their last fight, Cold wanted it to be one on one without any powers, but he lost that fight because of Flash’s iron will. As he removes his cold weather clothes, he reveals that Luthor’s Gift wasn’t just improved gear, but it was a supercharge of power implanted into him. Their final face off will be hand to hand with powers.

This final shot is absolutely poster worthy. Duce conveys the rage emanating from both of them with jaws wide as if they were yelling at each other. Fists are cocked back, ready to pummel their opponent into the ground, especially Cold as he has frozen his arms up to the elbow for maximum impact. What makes this even better is the Symbol of Doom hanging over them in the background like a terrible omen. Guerrero manages o make so many colors fit together in a brilliant display. Flash and his signature red and bright yellow makes him look heroic, the underdog in a fight shrouded in dark greens and cold greys. Cold is paler, his normally blonde hair turned completely white and his arms as blue as his cold blood.

I absolutely loved this.

Duce and Guerrero killed the art in this issue. On the scale of Flash artists for me, Duce is high up there. They manage to blend high intensity action with nice character moments to get the reader invested in character’s emotional states through visuals. Guerrero accentuates this by coloring scenes so that they fit each individual mood and can blend these all together when there’s a clash of ideology or character. Of course, Steve Wands is the glue that holds all of this together his letters are perfectly placed, distinct for each character and give every situation the proper weight to individual lines.

The Flash is an underrated hit that everyone should be reading, especially in regards to the Flash/Captain Cold saga. Their rivalry has been a grand center point on the level of Batman and Bane’s right now or Superman and good storytelling (zing!) I can only wonder where things go from here and what will happen to Captain Cold after this because this is probably the highest he’s ever flown, so how will he fall?

[teamironmanforever]

Marvel hasn't done Iron Dad right, tbh. That relationship was all Tom and Robert. Literally half of their scenes were improvised. If anything they did it dirty by having Tony have another kid while he shouldn't trust himself with another one. It's good that they eventually made it the reason why Tony wanted to fight again. But he really shouldn't have ever quit fighting. At the beginning it sincerely looked like he'd given up on Peter and I hated that to the bottom of my heart.

Imma have to disagree with you there, bud. Like really REALLY strongly. 

I may have a lot of issues with Endgame and with Marvel as a whole - but Ironfam is not one of them. The ONE thing they have been driving home since Homecoming is the parental/father figure role Tony has been stepping into with Peter. While yes, they improvised a few scenes, the guidance came both from the directors and from the script (s). 

Homecoming was a whole ass movie pal, and they didn’t improvise that. They were given a script and were given guidance and direction from Jon Watts and - more importantly - Kevin Feige.

Watts has spoken about how in Homecoming the relationship starts as Tony becoming the reluctant/out of the blue mentor because after CACW Tony begins feeling personally responsible for Peter. BUT Tony has his own issues and getting too close freaks him out. He is there for Peter, but he does so in helicopter mode. 

AND YET, the script is the one that lets us know that Tony has been hearing all of Peter’s voice messages and knows about the churro lady. The script is the one that let us know that Tony knows Peter’s schedule down to the hours of when he has band practice. The script is the one that has Tony be there again and again to catch peter every time - so by the end of the movie there is a natural relationship evolving. 

In Infinity War, we get tidbits as well - peter telling Tony he was at “the field trip” meaning Tony already knew what field trip, which lets us know they have been in constant communication. Peter understands Tony’s sarcasm in battle - something that was scripted - which in turn lets us know this is a)not their first time doing this b) they are very comfortable with one another. 

The Russos have been saying over and over again how they envisioned Tony as this father figure for Peter, and that this kid was the closest Tony had to a son. If they tell US that then I can assure you they told their actors BEFORE filming their scenes. RDJ and Tom are good - they are very good - but they work with what they are given. 

Meaning: if the director tells you that you are filming a scene where the kid you view as the closest thing you have to a son, is dying, then you are gonna take that into consideration when performing. Similarly, the Russos told Tom that they wanted him to showcase that Peter was just a kid, scared, crying out for help - and since Tom knows the importance of Tony Stark in Peter’s life, he was able to channel all that into the performance. 

Directors aren’t just there to get the actors to read the script; directors often let actors improvise after telling them what they (the director(s)) want to see. 

As for endgame: Why wouldn’t Tony have more children????like wtf does “he shouldn’t trust himself with another” even mean??? Tony is not to blame for Peter’s demise. Even if he had stayed in New York he would have been snapped away. And while I am sure Tony felt crippling guilt and depression for losing Peter that doesn’t suddenly mean he is not worthy of having other children. 

Also you can love more than one child!!!at the same time!!!! Tony having a beautiful relationship with Morgan is not a dig against iron dad and spider son, if anything it enhances and pays homage to that relationship. why? Because Peter helped Tony grow. Peter made him try to be better - as a father figure, and as a person as well. Peter made him realize what it is like to love unconditionally and to be afraid for one’s progeny. Peter made him remember that there is still good in the world at a time that Tony was very jaded (re: Steve’s lies). 

So the fact that Tony is great with Morgan only solidifies the fact that he cared for Peter. 

“he should have never quit fighting” Why??? Why the fuck shouldn’t he have quit fighting????? Thanos ERASED the stones. There was NO WAY for them to do ANYTHING. Tony did the ADULT thing and moved on as best he could because he had a wife and a daughter to take care of. We know FOR A FACT that he was still mourning Peter - he had a picture of the kid in his kitchen for fuck’s sake, a picture which he clearly treasures and looks at. 

Accepting that someone is dead does not cheapen one’s love for them. 

There was NOTHING Tony could do. literally absolutely nothing he could do. Peter was gone and that was the reality Tony had to accept. Him not looking for ways - when there are literally NONE - does not mean he did not love Peter. Scott gave them new hope - a hope they hadn’t even thought about because. time. travel. did. not. exist. 

Tony grieved and missed Peter for 5 years, but he had a daughter to take care of and a daughter to love. He did the right thing. There was NOTHING left to fight. Thanos was dead and the stones were gone. Tony was DONE. His job was DONE. 

Why didn’t Tony want to help them? Because the chances of everything going to hell were too. damn. high. Tony, at first, truly believes Scott’s plan is absolutely insane and has 0% chance to succeed. 

HOWEVER, We see Tony looking at the picture of peter and only THEN does he decide to try to crack time travel - for Peter. He makes a message for Morgan - because he truly believes he might die BUT he goes on this mission ANYWAY for Peter. 

When they get the stones, he only asks that they spare his daughter by bringing them back to the present time. The ENTIRE fucking movie is about Tony’s sacrifice and ultimate love for his children. His character arc is that of selfless love - and that includes the love he had for his children. He loved them and protected them both. We see his pain over Peter’s death - which hello was scripted - and we see his love and joy in BOTH his kids. 

He smiles and his eyes get teary as he hugs Peter TWICE because he has his kid back. And he loves and smiles and dotes on Morgan because she is the miracle he always wanted. 

So in conclusion: One of the few things Marvel has done right is the relationship between Tony and BOTH of his kids and you cannot tell me otherwise.