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olet-lucernam · 6 months

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A Hollow Promise [8] chapter ii, part iii

{_[on AO3]_}

main tags : loki x original character, post-avengers 2012, canon divergence - post-thor: the dark world, canon-typical violence, mentions of torture

summary: In the aftermath of the Battle of New York, the Avengers need a few days to build a transport device for the Tesseract. With the Helicarrier damaged and surveillance offline, SHIELD sends an asset to guard Loki in the interim: a young woman who sees the truth in all things, and cannot lie.

Even long presumed dead, her memories lost to her, Loki would know her anywhere.

And this changes things.

Some things last beyond infinity. And the universe is in love with chaos.

(Loki was never looking for redemption. It came as an unexpected side-effect.)

chapter summary : the morning after. loki and his guard play a game of twenty questions.

recommended listening : silvertongue, young the giant

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Loki blinked, leaning back slightly on his heels.

"Ah. A trick of the light, I suppose. I have been told that my eyes appear bluer in brighter, clearer light. In firelight or evening, or in the presence of ambient magic, they appear greener."

She hummed in acknowledgement, eyes drifting to the armoured plates strapped across his right shoulder, her fingers dragging across the ridge of her collarbone like a sympathetic impulse.

"Except- I reviewed every piece of footage available from the moment you first arrived."

A strange unease began to creep through him, like heavy, noxious effluvium, alerting a premonition.

"No matter the lighting- in the Mojave, in Stuttgart, on the Helicarrier in multiple sections of the craft, in Manhattan- inside or outside, day or night- blue. Only blue. Until the Hulk attacked you in the penthouse of Stark Tower. From then on, I can find the shades of green."

Loki gazed into her, disconcerted by the eerie calm settling over her.

And then he made the connection.

Windows to the soul. Blue eyes. The confrontation at the Tower-

His thoughts pitched violently at the implication, like a ship capsized by a storm.

He should dismiss it, redirect her suspicions, but his mind had seized up in sheer panic, brittle and sharp as the broken edge of the Bifrost, leaving him suspended over the indifferent, cosmic maw of open space, adrift and anchorless.

She can't know- if she knows, if she even suspects-

"There is a visible symptom," she continued ruthlessly, even as she spoke on the crest a shuddering exhale, "of the sceptre's mind control. The irises turn a distinctive, highly saturated blue. It was confirmed with both Agent Barton and Dr Selvig. The effect was lost and their eyes reverted to their natural blue after the sceptre's control was broken- in both cases, by a powerful blow to the head-"

"Stop," Loki snarled, shredding the underlying desperation until it was mutilated beyond recognition. A dull pain throbbed behind his eye, a psychosomatic reminder of what was at stake if he failed, if he couldn't convince her that she was wrong.

She met his eyes with a slow blink. The outline of his frame subsumed hers like a cage, coiled like a spring-trap snare, threatening to snap shut on her flesh, butchering her.

"Am I wrong?" She asked softly, insolently.

Loki was silent for a long moment.

Then he dipped his head, and laughed, gentle and bitter.

"Oh, beloved," he murmured mockingly, his eyebrows pulling together in hollow sympathy. "Is this all it took? Pretty words and a trick of the light, and that is all it takes to convince you? To take a shadow on the wall, and cherish it into a delusion?"

"Tell me I'm wrong," she said, unmoved.

Loki pressed his hand to the cold curve of the glass, leaning in over her.

"My darling," he susurrated, tender as a skimming touch across her jaw, "my eyes were not the same blue of those under the sceptre's command."

It was the truth. One too direct for her to deny.

"I know."

That unbalanced him. She remorselessly seized the advantage.

"And I also know how the sceptre works. I was ordered to inspect it after you were first apprehended," she explained fluidly. "Its control doesn't replace a person's mind, it influences what is already there. Barton enjoys the efficiency of a clean kill, and the satisfaction of completing a mission. Selvig delights in studying and understanding the intricacies of the universe. The sceptre pulled those traits to the forefront because they were useful. It amplified them until everything else felt insignificant, and used it to make them pliant. They were being offered what they wanted and valued most, and couldn't think of a reason why they shouldn't accept. All they had to do was obey."

She hardened.

"I could feel it. Something about that sceptre- thinks. It has a sentience, a malevolence, infecting anyone within reach. I could feel it- pulling at me. Plucking at every emotion and impulse inside me, like pizzicato on a violin, testing what would make me turn. I almost-"

She cut herself off, the hand at her clavicle closing into a fist, knuckles straining bloodless.

For the first time since she had first arrived, she looked defensive, guarded, clenched in against herself.

Loki abruptly realised that she had never reacted to him that way.

She had never been unguarded, but from the start, she had wanted to be.

After a moment, the emotion simmered away, and her lip curled in quiet anger.

"I gave my report. Recommended a quarantine. It was dismissed as a low threat, since there was no danger of direct control," she quoted resentfully, "unless someone was holding it. Fury and the Avengers convened in the lab where the sceptre was being kept. There was a disagreement. It escalated, quickly. Too quickly, too intensely. They were at each other's throats within a few minutes. Minutes." Her eyes sliced across him, carving in deep curving arcs. "I can extrapolate what could happen over hours- days- months of exposure to that."

Loki watched her, his eyes flicking between hers.

"Ah. A shadow on the wall," he forced himself to wonder, the shape of his mouth turning pitying, "and guesswork?"

It was like exposing a cinder to pure oxygen.

The fire flared beneath the surface of her skin, the resolution coalescing in her eyes like clotting blood- and she abruptly turned away, striking towards her duffel bag where it was tucked at the base of the control terminal.

She rummaged violently through the bag, retrieving a notebook and forcefully flipping through it until she found the correct page, drifting back towards him.

"First: your condition when you arrived. Exhibiting extreme fatigue and symptoms of heatstroke- pallor, clamminess, unsteadiness, elevated pulse and respiration," she listed, clinical and precise. "And your encounters with the Avengers are proof that, like Thor, you are made of sterner stuff than the average baseline human. Whatever caused your condition, it was severe- more severe than any punishment you took here, given that your condition has improved since you arrived. Second-"

"What are you doing?" Loki interjected, quick and low, frictionless as a sheet of black ice.

She lifted her eyes from the page.

"Guesswork," she quipped, sibilants hissing like a brand on flesh. "Second. Your reaction to SHIELD's armed response team. Quick, reactive, hyperalert- centuries of battlefield experience and reflex, thrown into a blender with survival instinct. That wasn't the behaviour of an aggressor, that's someone being hunted, conditioned into expecting an attack and striking first. Strange mindset for a conqueror with an army at his back, no? Third: under the sceptre's control, at that distance, under those conditions, Agent Barton had no reason not to take the headshot on Fury. Instead, he aimed for his centre mass. Fury was wearing a bulletproof vest, which Barton knew, and he would have retained that knowledge under mind control. Barton is an excellent shot. He didn't miss. He chose not to take the kill shot- while under your command. Fourth: the entire incident in Stuttgart, but to start with," she said, bellicose and exasperated, "how no one else clocked that the device you used was mostly an illusion, I will never understand- the three auxiliary spinning blades were so unnecessary, where would you even get something like that-"

"I believe you will find that Dr Heinrich Schäffer is still under intensive medical care," Loki mentioned coldly.

"Ah, right- Dr Schäffer," she broke off, tapping the notebook against her arm, keeping her place with one finger trapped in its spine. "Curious that you remember his name. I would have thought it beneath you. Actually, I almost forgot it, before I re-read the report. Curiouser still is that his attending medical team will soon discover the damage to his eye and extraocular muscles was far less severe than anticipated. In fact," she said pointedly, cocking her hip, "it will be limited to a few shallow lacerations that will miraculously heal with no scarring. Almost as though they never even existed. I imagine that his memory of the incident will also become very vague- easily chalked up to a trauma response, of course."

Loki's jaw clenched.

It wasn't a casual insight. Her observations were too focused and too detailed to be anything less than the result of a purposeful hunt.

She must have known what she was looking for.

It wouldn't have been much of a challenge, at least for her, to find it once she was set on it; there was a surfeit of contradictions to be found under the surface, the illusion imperfect from hasty construction. He had relied on making it convincing enough that no one would tap into its depths, because they believed that no such depths existed- there hadn't been the time or the liberty to design redundancies, or craft anything that would hold under scrutiny.

For the most part, it had worked.

The woman before him was an unanticipated factor.

"Fifth," she said, holding his stare for a moment longer before flicking open the notebook. "You stole the iridium in the most painfully obvious, attention-catching way possible. Dr Banner and Dr Stark would have to be clinically braindead not to realise that Selvig was devising a method to stabilise the portal. Meaning that you handed them the opportunity to prepare a counterstrike on a silver platter. Sixth- your words in Germany, before Rogers' dramatic entrance. Look to your elder, people. Let him be an example." She looked up at him, brewing with a quiet fire. "I heard you. I heard what you didn't mean for anyone to hear. It's always darkest under the lamp, and a lie is the perfect place to hide a truth, who would suspect a villain's taunt of being in earnest-"

"Enough," Loki snapped dismissively, turning aside sharply and taking three quick steps away from the glass, as far as he could without hitting the wall, before swivelling back. "I tire of this pathetic scavenging-"

"Seventh," she spoke over him forcefully, no longer referencing the notebook, a strange frantic energy beginning to swirl up within her, "you may have trapped Thor in that cell and dropped him over thirty thousand feet, but you locked him in a glass cage with a nigh-indestructible war hammer that he can use to fly. Eight: you led the Avengers straight to you with your comment about a warm light for all mankind to share. Nine- like Barton, Dr Selvig somehow managed to retain enough control and free will to install a backdoor to shut down the portal- ten, the key to said backdoor was the powerful sceptre that you left lying around on the balcony of Stark Tower for Romanoff to stroll over and collect- eleven, the assault itself was so uncoordinated that I'm losing my mind, don't you dare tell me that you were actually trying-"

"Darling-" Loki hissed dangerously, stalking towards her.

"Twelve! I can taste your magic, you could strip the flesh from my bones in seconds, could wrench this cell apart and escape, but you haven't, you showed nothing of it during the battle in New York, so why- and thirteenth-"

She snapped the notebook shut and tossed it behind her with a clang, her breathing thick, hazel eyes like gold dust and open flame.

"The death toll. It's still being counted, but I looked, and focused. I nearly blacked out and managed to give myself a migraine, but I have my answer. And it is- miraculously low. Seventy-four civilians. Six from the national guard. From a city-wide surprise attack on NYC, population approximately eight-point-two million."

Coiled tense, Loki glared into her. She was trembling with adrenaline, visibly fighting against the rush, sketches of champagne hair cast about her shoulders, her decolletage stuttering as though she was fighting to drag in air, hot as a fresh bruise- and it hit him.

What he had seen before, that which she had kept supressed and firm in her grip, was not quite fear, not wholly.

It was desperation.

Suddenly, she laughed ruefully, stepping back and breaking open the space between them, lifting the pressure off his chest.

"Shit," she cursed softly, pressing the pads of her fingers into her browbone, "sorry. I'm being unfair, aren't I?"

"Unfair?" Loki echoed, unable to formulate anything else as a response.

She bit down on her lip so hard that, when she spoke again, he could see the indent in the reddened flesh.

"A question for a question," she murmured, as though reminding herself. "Truth for truth. Right?"

Her arms crossed, steeling herself.

"I know that I'm not human."

The admission punched a hole through Loki's chest.

Her fingers bit divots into her upper arms, holding the unscrewed parts of herself together.

"I was-"

Hesitation choked her.

Loki watched her close her eyes, throat working as she altered the words until they were forced to run smooth.

"Found. Under what you could call unusual circumstances. I had no memory of my past. All I knew was my name, that I wasn't human, and that I could see the truth in all things and couldn't lie. The man that I would come to call my father rescued me. He took me in. He raised me, kept entities like SHIELD from finding me. I was-"

A fond smile cracked her features.

"He called me his changeling child. His colleagues were- wary. Understandably. But it was never a concern for him. He would always say that being human was no guarantee of being good. In fact, they could be real bastards," she quoted with a nostalgic smile and a mimicked, neutral American accent. "Whatever I was or wasn't, it was irrelevant to him. I had free will- which meant I could make my own choices and form my own moral compass. He said that was infinitely more important than something as arbitrary as being human. He believed it so much that I began to believe it too. I made my compass. I chose a vocation. I fell in love with it, and I was damn good at it, and I began to think it would be alright if I never knew what I had forgotten. But then- there was an incident."

She pressed her fingertips into her sternum, her eyes distant, as though she could break the bone and reach into her chest cavity, groping and clawing the kernel of unknown out of herself to examine.

"I tapped into something inside me. Lying dormant, or- bottled up. A raw power. I was cracked open. I couldn't ignore it, or forget it was there. I couldn't unknow. It was there and it was strong and it- scared me. I couldn't call it a non-issue anymore. I needed to know what it is. What I am. I told my father. He was worried, of course, but he supported my decision. So I left. I went looking for answers. SHIELD was an obvious starting point. They took notice of my incursions, and started trying to track me, laid traps baited with false information or informants, but I was careful. I scrubbed through their archives, looked over every operation. I found nothing. But then- then. New Mexico."

Loki remembered.

Thor's banishment.

"It caught my attention. I investigated. I sensed the residual energy signatures," she said quietly, "in the scorch marks in the desert, in the crater of the impact site. And I recognised them. Somehow, they were familiar. I knew them even before I looked at the SHIELD report. Bifrost. Mjolnir. I knew that energy, even if I couldn't remember it. After so long of chasing nothing but shadows on the wall and tricks of the light, I finally had something. Anything that SHIELD had on interstellar artifacts and deep space research, I hunted down. I tracked the Destroyer to the SHIELD Headquarters in New York, and broke into the facility to examine it. I kept tabs on Dr Foster's research on Einstein-Rosen Bridges. I uncovered Project PEGASUS, out in the Mojave- and the Tesseract. The files from the forties, the eighties, the current research- from Howard Stark to Wendy Lawson to Erik Selvig. All of it."

She combed her hair back from her face, laughing humourlessly.

"Like I said. I was careful, before. But- I was so close. I wanted it so badly. I did something reckless. SHIELD found me. For three weeks I gave them nothing, but eventually they threatened to release my likeness to every major intelligence agency in the world." Her nails raked at the crook of her neck. "I'd been meticulous. My identity led to nowhere. But if anything could be traced to my father- even if it was the ghost of a chance, it was a risk I couldn't take. I decided to bend, instead of break."

That, Loki understood intimately. It was the decision to survive, to remain intact, against forces that would take and remake. It was the choice of shrewd pragmatism rather than naïve courage, a scalpel's logic to a sledgehammer's brute force.

Like wet sand, he watched her collapse into herself in one smooth motion.

"They put me in an airless metal box," she said hollowly, "and only took me out to work. A toolbox, I kept thinking. I was valuable, but they had to keep me contained. I only interacted with authorised personnel. I could count those on one hand. My movements were restricted. I was kept either in my quarters or the testing rooms, unless under armed guard and with my handler. Again, one hand. It was months since I had seen the sky. I had nothing but time to think, and rethink." She canted her head to the side, expression blank. "Three months ago, we were in a communal kitchen. Romanoff was cutting up peaches. She left the paring knife on the counter and she turned her back. It was an obvious test. They wanted to see if I would attack her, or palm the knife- or if I'd do nothing. If I could be turned."

She was perfectly still, eyes glazing.

"I used it to sever my carotid artery."

Loki lurched forwards in a convulsive half-step towards her.

Unseeing, she reached up and rapped at the column of her throat with her index finger, just beneath her left ear.

"Here. It was a clean cut. But Romanoff was quick. She pinched off the artery before I could bleed out. I spent a week in the medical bay. Over three hundred stitches."

She blinked back into herself, looking at Loki, and offered a clean, bright rictus of a smile.

Loki recognised that smile. He had worn it enough times, edgeless and numb as delirium.

"I get to see the sun now. And clothes that aren't identical jumpsuits. So that's nice."

Unbridled, unadulterated ire clawed at his insides, scaling the ladder of his ribs, his magic seething in accord, lashing at the surface of his skin and demanding to be unleashed.

Loki imagined simply unlocking it and allowing it to rage, corroding steel into rust as though by decades of saltwater, blasting the thick glass into fine sand, overloading the electrical cables in the walls until they snapped and popped like dislocated joints, then letting his magic find a culpable flesh target to tear apart like barbed hooks.

He could taste copper and iron.

"I should have forced Barton to take the headshot," Loki heard himself say.

Her laugh broke on the edge of a hysterical sob, swaying forward, head dropping and the sweep of her pale blonde hair tumbling over her shoulders to curtain her face.

"You're sweet," she choked out, pressing the heel of her palm against her eye.

"How long?" Loki demanded.

She took a steadying breath.

"August of last year," she admitted. "Well- July."

He performed a quick calculation through Midgard's standardised calendar. Nine or ten solar months.

"And how long will they keep you?"

"Until the project they have me working on is complete," she said noncommittally, lifting her head, face upturned just enough to force her curls to slip back over her shoulder like a snowdrift. "Projected for next September. Just over a year."

"Much can happen in a year," he said darkly, before he could rethink the words.

She pressed her lips together.

"Loki."

Her eyes were brimming with unshed tears, thick and precarious against the brim of her dark lashes, blurring out the clear hazel of her irises- but the rest of her held steady as sun-soaked marble, a strange contrast of vulnerability and resolve.

She had offered up herself, as collateral. She had effectively pulled off her vambraces and drawn the daggers from her sleeves, tossing them out of reach, unarmed, offering up bare skin and open veins and-

Pomegranate seeds, Loki thought wildly.

It was a Midgardian myth. While learning Latin and Greek outside of the translation of Allspeak, Loki had come across the damaged, earliest account of the tale that explained how the four seasons of the Mediterranean had come to be. In the centuries since the Homeric Hymn to Demeter had been put to page, the myth had been retold and reinterpreted within its blank spaces, where sections had been lost to the ravages of time, reframed in different contexts with the same template.

The most common variation: Persephone ate the pomegranate seeds willingly.

Loki's mind repainted the story vividly.

From a realm of gold and light and endless glory, a deity had fallen far, through a barren, unfamiliar world of death and darkness. In a chamber locked away from the sun, his captor came to him, her heart in the colour of the ruby jewels in the palm of her hand.

Stay, she entreated. Let me have you.

Loki could taste the tart fruit, splitting between his teeth onto his tongue like a sunburst, a consenting condemnation.

"What do you want from me?" He asked quietly.

She blinked, sending the gathered tears gliding down her face, and she scraped them away with the back of her hand roughly. A short, blunt laugh left her.

"You."

She meant exactly what she said. Loki could hear the stain of confusion, and self-loathing, and utter certainty.

He could only speculate on which part of him she had coveted for herself, had wanted to carve out of the whole, discarding the rest as refuse.

She smiled- a confluence of confidence and acquiescence- and squared her shoulders, sniffling away the remnants of her tears.

"I don't ask what I'm not willing to give," she said firmly, her voice abraded. "You only have to ask. You can have it."

She turned away too quickly, collecting the notebook to bury back within the duffel bag.

Loki refused to think on it.

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waywardxrhea · 4 months

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Part Twenty-Six: Decisions, Decisions...

[slow burn romance between Steve Rogers and SHIELD agent Emma Baker]

Warnings: 18+, contains humor, fluff, mental health, family trauma, romance, angst, language, violence, (potentially smut later on).

installment list

Word count: 6.7k

General Ross proposes the Sokovia Accords and Emma has some big decisions to make.

On the way back home, there is relative silence on the jet. No one speaks because they're all just trying to process what they saw. As Emma is tapping away at her laptop trying to get a report done before they get back, Wanda wanders up to her. She sits beside Emma on the bench and asks quietly, "Is...is there any way we just...don't send the footage to the media?"

Emma sighs and shakes her head, taking a break from her typing. "Unfortunately no. Sam and I aren't the only ones who got footage of that today. A report has to go out, but I'm trying my hardest to make sure everyone knows it wasn't your fault."

"But it was my fault, I couldn't contain the blast," Wanda replies despondently.

"Well even then, if you hadn't stepped in we would be down a man and many many more people would have died. So here I am being the one to say thank you, Wanda." She makes a quick glance up to Steve who is piloting the jet and adds, "And thank you for saving Steve."

Wanda tries a small smile as she says, "I'll always have my team's back."

"Good," Emma replies. "And hey, look on the bright side of things, the ending may not have been the best, but while we were there, we did a helluva lot of good."

When the team gets back to the compound, Emma heads to her room to shower and take another look over the footage. She plays the news report on the TV as she showers and mutters to herself, "Of course they're only talking about the explosion. Of course they aren't focusing on how we saved that bio-weapon from being unleashed on the world. I don't see them publishing footage of Wanda taking all that gas out of the building and saving everyone inside's life..."

Freshly clean and pissed off, Emma sits down at her desk and opens her laptop. She takes snippets of the footage from the day, of all the good things they did, and edits them together into one video. Emma then goes to her recording feature and makes a voiceover for the video.

She takes a deep breath and starts her speech. "Hello everyone. My name is Emma Baker and many of you may know me as the Avengers Reporter. Today as you all know, a small group of the Avengers, including myself, went to Lagos, Nigeria on a mission. That mission's goal was to take down former SHIELD agent and STRIKE leader, Brock Rumlow AKA Crossbones. And we were successful. The footage you're seeing is footage I personally recorded of the mission. Here you get to see what the news isn't covering. Today Wanda Maximoff saved dozens of lives from noxious gas in this building. Natasha Romanoff and Sam Wilson saved what could have been millions of lives from a bio-weapon being unleashed on the world. Captain Steve Rogers made sure that all of this went down as smoothly as possible. No one could have known that Rumlow was going to detonate a suicide vest, and we are very thankful that Wanda was there because without her. Captain Rogers would no longer be with us. Same with dozens of people in that crowded market. As a team, we did what we could with the resources and time we were given and as you can see, we did a ton of good that the news simply is not going to show you. Thank you for watching." Emma hovers her finger over the upload button for a second before clicking it. There had to be a way to make things right...

A few minutes later Emma makes her way to the kitchen to start something for dinner for everyone because what they all needed was comfort food in the midst of what happened in Lagos. As she cooks, Emma keeps checking her phone. From across the kitchen, Maria notices and asks, "Why do you keep checking your phone? I know you aren't checking a recipe, you know this one by heart."

Emma scrunches her eyebrows in confusion before putting her phone down. "It's just...I published something to put on the Avengers blog about the mission today and it hasn't gotten any views."

"Well, how long ago did you publish it?" Maria asks as Emma puts the dish she's making in the oven.

"About half an hour ago before I came in here to make dinner. Usually my Avengers stuff gets thousands of views within minutes and I would assume after something big like this, people would be wanting answers."

"Huh, that is weird," Maria says, thinking of what could be the problem.

They don't have to think too long though before the voice of Tony Stark presents itself. "What happened was me, Baker."

Emma turns around and takes off her oven mitts, asking, "Hey Tony, what do you mean by that?"

"Don't you 'hey Tony' me. I had to stop that video you were publishing because it was about to cause me a PR nightmare. You aren't supposed to cause me PR nightmares, Baker, you're supposed to prevent them!"

Emma can't help the hot rage burning inside, so in response to Tony's yelling, she raises her voice a bit too. "How the hell would that video cause a PR problem Stark? Everything in that video was the truth whether you admit it or not!"

"The truth is that you were blatantly ignoring the fact that people in that building died!"

"Dozens more could have died if Wanda hadn't intervened! Millions more if we hadn't been there! Maybe you would know that if you had listened to a goddamn word I said!"

"Guys! Guys!" Maria shouts trying to stop the argument.

At the sound of the yelling, Sam and Steve walk into the area followed by Wanda and Vision to see what was causing the commotion. Both Tony and Emma ignore Maria as Emma takes a jab at Tony. "You never listen to what I have to say when it comes to this stuff Stark! Way back when you completely ignored my coverup of the whole Iron Man thing and now you're not letting me publish the truth? I got into this business so that the news and its biases couldn't just publish whatever they want with no one taking the other side. That video was the other side! That video shows all the good we did and the silver lining of it all!"

"Well, silver linings don't mean shit when the world doesn't trust you anymore, Baker!" The words hit Emma and even though they have nothing to do with her and Steve's falling out, it takes her back to that headspace. In this fragile state, Emma can no longer think of anything to say to Tony, the fire inside her being put out at the mention of mistrust. At Emma's silence, Tony gets one more zinger in, saying, "All the world sees is the destruction we leave behind and you have always caught that destruction on camera."

Emma tries to open her mouth to say something but can't get any words out. She stands there defeated and turns her eyes to the ground. As he watches her reaction, Steve wishes he could take Emma into his arms and tell her it wasn't her fault, but instead of doing that, he simply asks Tony, "You're here for a reason aren't you? You aren't just here to yell at Emma?"

"Yeah, I am here for a reason as a matter of fact. We have a meeting with the Secretary of State. Everyone to the meeting room. Now."

Everyone follows Tony to the meeting room, Emma taking up the rear of the group and walking slowly, not wanting to face the music. Steve slows his pace to match Emma's before they reach the doors. He takes Emma's hand in his own and gently squeezes it, telling her, "Hey, it'll be okay, Em." Emma gives him a small smile at the gesture, her mind too clouded by anxiety as to what the meeting could be about to respond with words.

The team all gathers in the room, taking seats around a table with Secretary Ross at the head of it. Ross starts off the meeting with a story about his past heart attack, ending with talking about perspective. "The world owes the Avengers an unpayable debt," he tells them all. "You have fought for us, protected us, and risked your lives, but while a lot of people see you as heroes - a great deal thanks to you Miss Baker - there are some people who see you as vigilantes."

Natasha is the first one to speak up, asking, "And how do you see us, Mr. Secretary?"

"How about dangerous?" Ross asks her. "What would you call a group of skilled individuals based in the US who routinely ignore sovereign borders and inflict their will wherever they see fit? Top it off with those individuals seeming almost unconcerned about what happens when they leave and that's why I call it dangerous."

A small fire ignites itself in Emma at the words, wanting desperately to speak up, but words fail her as Ross brings up a holographic monitor to show them footage of the major battles the Avengers have been present in. Ones that Emma captured footage of. As Ross goes through footage of destruction and battle, every time Emma sees her watermark in the bottom corner, she breaks a little more inside. She keeps her eyes glued to the screen, not wanting to look at anyone else to see if they notice the mark too even though she can still see their eyes shifting...

Everyone has their own reactions to the videos and Steve notices so he says to Ross, "Okay, that's enough."

Ross nods and stops the footage. "For the past few years, you have operated with unlimited power with zero supervision. Frankly, that's an arrangement that the governments of the world can't accept anymore. I think we have a solution though." He takes a hefty book from his assistant and passes it to Wanda. "The Sokovia Accords. It's approved by 117 countries and states that the Avengers shall no longer be a private organization. Instead, it will be run and regulated by the United Nations panel and only go out if and when necessary."

"The Avengers were formed to make the world a safer place," Steve tells him while staring at the book. "I feel we've done that."

"Then tell me, Captain, do you know where Thor and Banner are right now?" Ross is met with silence from Steve so he continues with, "If I misplaced a couple of thirty megaton nukes you can bet there would be consequences."

The fire inside Emma burns a little brighter at the words, but once more her own words fail to make an appearance because her mind keeps going back to the videos they were shown as well as Tony's words earlier. When no one says anything, Ross speaks again. "Compromise and reassurance. That's how the world works. This is the middle ground."

From his place at the table, Rhodes asks, "So there are contingencies, yes?"

"Three days from now the UN meets in Vienna to ratify the Accords. Talk it over," he tells them before starting to leave the room.

As he heads for the door, Natasha asks, "And if we come to a decision you don't like?"

"Then you retire," he tells her sternly.

When Ross leaves the room and everyone moves to the living area, arguing about the Accords ensues. Sam and Rhodes argue about what Ross knows about Avenging while Steve reads the Accords and Tony sits on the couch with his hand over his face. Emma gets the almost burnt food out of the oven and sits plates beside it if anyone feels the need to eat, but she certainly doesn't. She also doesn't want to be surrounded by her friends arguing so she stays in the kitchen just listening in.

"I have an equation," Vision says loudly to stop Sam and Rhodes' fighting.

"Oh great, this'll surely clear things up," Sam smarts off.

"Well in the eight years since Mr. Stark revealed himself as Iron Man, the number of enhanced individuals has increased exponentially. During the same period, the number of world-ending events has also increased."

"Are you saying it's our fault?" Steve asks, looking up from the Accords.

"I'm saying there may be a causality," Vision responds.

Pissed, Emma smarts off just loudly enough to be heard by Sam and Rhodes. "Correlation doesn't equal causation Vision, that's basic college statistics..." Sam turns and smirks at Emma's comment and mouths a thank you!

Vision continues his statement, saying, "Our very strength invites challenge which then incites conflict and conflict...well that brings catastrophe. Oversight is not something that should be dismissed out of hand."

"Boom," Rhodes says, turning to Sam which makes Emma roll her eyes as she turns to get a glass from the cabinet.

"Tony," Natasha speaks up, "you're being uncharacteristically non-hyperverbal."

"That's because he's already made up his mind," Steve tells her with frustration in his voice.

"Boy you know me so well," Tony mutters while getting up and walking toward the kitchen. "Actually I'm nursing an electromagnetic headache. That's all. Just...pain, Cap." He looks in the sink and asks, "Who's been putting coffee grounds in the garbage disposal? What am I running a bed and breakfast for a biker gang?"

Emma sighs and shoots a look at Sam and says, "Damnit Wilson what did I tell you?"

Sam puts his hands in the air, "Sorry, I was in a rush this morning."

"I don't care if you were in a rush," Tony tells him. "I care about this." He slaps his phone onto the counter and starts telling them about one of the people that died while the Avengers were there doing their thing.

Wanda lets out a barely audible "Oh my God..." at the information.

Tony then continues in frustration, "There's no decision-making process here. We need to be put in check and whatever form that takes, I'm game. If we can't accept boundaries or limitations we are no better than the bad guys."

"Tony, when someone dies on your watch you don't give up," Steve tells him.

"Who said we're giving up?"

"We are if we're not taking responsibility for our actions," Steve retorts. "This document just shifts the blame."

"I'm sorry, Steve, that is dangerously arrogant," Rhodes tells him. "This is the United Nations we are talking about here. Not the World Security Council, not HYDRA, not SHIELD-"

"No, it's not," Steve interrupts him, "but it's run by people with agendas and agendas change."

"That's good!" Tony shouts, leaving the kitchen. "That's why I'm here. When I realized what my weapons were capable of I shut it down."

Emma finally finds words to say and calls, "Stark, you chose to do that! If we sign this we surrender our right to choose."

"Emma's right," Steve agrees. "What if this panel sends us somewhere we don't think we should be? Or if they send us somewhere they want us to be and we would be of better use somewhere else? We may not be perfect but the safest hands are still our own."

Tony comes back with, "If we don't do this now, it's just gonna be done to us later. That's the fact and it won't be pretty."

Wanda finds her voice and says, "So you're saying they'll come for me."

Vision responds immediately with, "We would protect you."

"Maybe Tony's right," Nat says to them all. "If we have one hand on the wheel we can still steer, but if we take it off..."

Before she can finish though, Sam interrupts her, asking, "Aren't you the same woman that told the government to kiss her ass a few years ago? Am I still talking with her right now?"

"I'm just trying to navigate this situation," she replies. "We have made some very public mistakes and to make up for it we need to win people's trust back."

"I'm sorry, did I hear you right?" Tony asks. "Did you just agree with me?"

"Oh I'm starting to regret it now," she smarts off.

"No, no, no, you can't take it back," Tony tells her with a smirk.

From his seat, Steve feels his phone start buzzing with a text so he takes it out to check the message. "I have to go," he says out loud before letting the Accords fall to the table, walking out of the area quickly.

Emma watches as Steve leaves and Sam takes the initiative to follow him. "I'll be back."

When he leaves, everyone starts to get up from their seats and goes into the kitchen for food. Emma starts to leave the area so she could get some time with her thoughts when Tony stops her. "Baker, can I speak with you?"

"Uh sure yeah," Emma mumbles, turning back around.

"We don't have to talk right here, let's go somewhere quieter." Emma nods and follows him down the hall and back into the meeting room they met with Ross in. Tony closes the door and starts with, "Look, I'm gonna get straight to the point. As I see it, you have two options here. You can either stay an Avenger, sign the Accords, and do so legally under government control or you can continue as an Avenger without signing, become a vigilante, and lose your job here as well as any sort of government support. If you go the second route, on a mission, anyone at any time can call for your arrest or worse your execution depending on where you are. Baker, you're my best reporter, so I hope you make the smart decision here. There's big coverage coming up for the meeting with the UN and I'll need you there."

Emma nods while her mind turns over what Tony had said. "You've given me a lot to think about. I'll keep you updated on my decision, I'll try and make up my mind by tomorrow evening."

"Just let me know," he tells her as he walks out the door.

Emma leaves the conference room and walks through the living area to make her way to her bedroom. While passing through, she bumps into Sam. "Sorry, I'm super distracted, I didn't mean to run into you," she apologizes to him quickly.

"You're okay," he replies.

"How's Steve? Did he say what was up?"

"Well, Peggy died," Sam replies with a sigh. "He's pretty broken up about it, so naturally he's beating the shit out of the punching bags in the training gym."

Emma's heart breaks for Steve, she knows how it feels to lose someone that important... "I should go talk with him," she says and starts to head in the direction Steve had gone off in.

Before she can leave though, Sam grabs Emma's arm to stop her. "He just needs time alone, Ems."

"No one needs to be alone in a time like this, Sam. He was there for me when my Grammie died, I need to be there for him now," she tells him.

"And I understand that, but he explicitly told me he wanted to be alone. If he hadn't I'd still be in there with him right now."

Emma stops her walking and nods. "I understand."

"Good," he replies. "Now just go to your room and relax for the night, it's been a long day. Tomorrow we can figure all of this shit out."

"Okay," Emma says, not wanting to bring up the talk she just had with Tony. "Goodnight Sam."

"Night. Don't get too into that head of yours, okay?"

"I'll try. No promises," Emma tells him with a soft laugh.

The next day comes and by morning Emma still doesn't have an answer to her dilemma, so instead of staying at the compound, she heads back to Manhattan for the day to try and buy some time. As Emma is heading out, Maria spots her and calls out her name. Emma quickly turns around and shushes her, "I don't need anyone to know that I'm leaving right now! I just need time to think, time I won't get that being here with everyone all day."

"Where are you going?"

"Manhattan. I need to go to that coffee shop for a bit. Maybe then I'll take a trip down to Central Park to see if I can come up with an answer to all of this crap going on."

"I'm coming with you," Maria tells her.

"Oh Maria, you don't have to. I don't want to interrupt your work."

"I want my work to be interrupted," Maria tells her. "Since things went down yesterday I've had a massive headache from dealing with it all."

"Sorry about that," Emma tells her sheepishly.

"Don't be, now let's head out and have some fun like old times when it was just the two of us."

"You don't have to tell me twice," Emma replies with a smile.

After her day out with Maria, Emma arrives back at the compound with answers. "Here goes nothing," she whispers to herself as she goes to knock at Steve's bedroom door.

The door cracks open to reveal an exhausted-looking Steve Rogers. "Hey Em, what's up?"

"Can I talk with you about something?" At the question, Steve opens the door fully and invites her into the room. When she takes a step in, she sees Sam is there as well. Sam stands up from his spot on a chair, but before he can leave, Emma takes a deep breath and tells him, "You don't need to go, Sam. This kinda involves you too."

Sam sits back down and Steve sits on the edge of his bed, asking, "What'd you want to talk about?"

"Well..." she trails off, suddenly losing confidence in herself and her decision.

Emma starts subconsciously fiddling with the ring on her thumb, a tick Steve has picked up on that means she's really stressed out. "Is everything okay, Em?"

Emma sighs and replies, "I guess I'm just gonna have to rip the bandaid off aren't I?" She avoids eye contact with Steve and Sam as she continues, "I have to resign from the Avengers."

"And why do you have to do that?" Steve asks, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

"I had a talk with Tony last night about the Accords and-" Emma tries but is interrupted by Sam.

"Since when the hell did you listen to what Stark has to say about the Accords? I thought you were on our side! You can't just abandon ship when things get rough, Emma!"

"He pushed my hand, okay? I refuse to sign those Accords, Sam, and because there's no way in hell I'm signing them, if I continue avenging I risk everything I have here. My job, my tech, maybe some of my friends. I can't lose every bit of stability I have in my life at once."

"Do you realize how selfish you sound right now?" Sam asks in frustration. "The whole point of being a hero is that you risk your life to save others who can't protect themselves! How don't you understand that?"

"Oh I'm so sorry that I'm finally in a stable place for once in my life and I would like to keep it that way! And don't you even dare accuse me of not understanding what it means to have the title of an Avenger. Of a hero. Because I lived most of my life believing I was the villain in my own life's story and now that I'm finally helping people, there's nothing about that title I don't understand." She turns away as her voice breaks, "I can't lose everything over a stupid piece of paper."

"You'd still have us," Sam tells her softly, sensing that he had gone too far.

"And I get what you're saying," Emma continues quietly. "I get that I can't just stop saving people because things get rough, but what Tony told me scared the hell out of me. He said that if I don't sign the Accords and I go out on a mission, even if I'm saving people, the government of wherever we are can call for my arrest or execution."

"Emma you know I would never let that happen to you," Steve tells her instantly.

Emma sighs and wipes a tear from her cheek with the sleeve of her sweater, saying, "I know, I know, but then you're in the crosshairs too. There are just too many factors and risks now. I'm sorry."

"Emma," Sam says, "that's what our whole job is: risk. We risk our lives to do the job that no one else will."

"But if we go out and have the government on our tails as well as the bad guys then we can't do our jobs properly. Please don't act like I didn't think this through."

Sam's frustration begins to show again as he mumbles, "I don't have to act."

Emma sighs in frustration and shouts, "I don't know what to tell you here, Sam! As long as I want to keep my job with Stark Industries, I have to remain a neutral third party in all of this and that means giving up being an Avenger! Trust me, it breaks my heart having to give up everything I've worked so hard for but I really don't have a choice."

"The hell you don't!" Sam says, raising his voice once more. His frustration reaches another peak and he shouts, "I really thought you of all people would understand what needs to be done here! You know, breaking the law for the greater good, it's not like you haven't done that before!"

Emma is speechless for a second as she sees red. She tries to keep her cool though, almost growling, "Don't you dare compare this to what I did back then."

Steve finally gets fed up listening to the bickering without getting a word in, so he stands up and says, "That's enough you two. They're tearing up the team enough as it is, we can't let them tear our friendship apart too!"

"Steve, are you even hearing what's happening right now?"

"Yes I am, Sam, and as your Captain, I advise you to back down. Emma is making the decision that's best for her. That doesn't have to change our position on the matter."

A few more tears slip from Emma's eyes and she tells the both of them quietly, "I hope both of you know that I support you one hundred percent, I just can't be involved in all of this, okay?"

"I understand, Em," Steve tells her softly.

"I'll just see myself out," she tells them and turns to leave.

Steve follows her to the door and tells her, "Don't worry about Sam, he's just pissed and needs to blow off some steam. I'll talk with him, okay?"

Emma nods and makes her way down the hall. She decides to go to her room to listen to music and calm down her nerves. When she gets there, she puts on her headphones and blasts some rock music to try and drown everything from the past 72 hours out.

After about half an hour, she feels a presence in the room and spins her chair around to see Sam standing in her room with a smirk on his face. Emma takes out her headphones and says, "I didn't think you'd want to talk with me right now."

"And I didn't know you listened to heavy metal, I guess we're both full of surprises."

"Aren't you pissed at me?"

"I wouldn't say pissed, more so just frustrated in your decision," he replies. Emma is about to open her mouth to smart off, but Sam says, "Ah, ah, ah, I know what I said back there was uncalled for and I'm here to apologize. Steve talked with me and I realized that what I said really hurt you and for that, I am very sorry."

"Thank you..." she whispers.

"Now I didn't come here just to apologize, I wanted to help you get your mind off of things too, so," he says and ducks out into the hall for a second. He then returns pulling a cart loaded with what might as well have been a fully stocked bar.

Emma can't help but laugh at the gesture. "So you came here to drink away our problems?"

"Not drink them away, just pretend they aren't here for a while," he tells her while closing the door.

"Is Steve coming?" Emma asks.

"No, he can't drink his feelings like you and I can, so he's blowing off steam in other ways. All of this isn't sitting well with him. He can try and hide it, but I can tell he's hurting."

"I would be concerned if he wasn't," Emma tells him as she grabs a glass from the cart and fills it a bit with liquor, topping it off with soda. She then sits on her bed and pats it, inviting Sam to sit with her. Sam shoots her a look of confusion and she laughs, "Not like that, you ass. I just want to drink and play video games and this is the best vantage point to see the screen."

"Got it," Sam laughs as he rolls the cart to be beside him so he can play bartender for the night.

As Emma boots up her game console, Sam says, "I hate to keep bringing it up, but you really do agree with us about the Accords though right?"

"Yes, I do. With all my heart. And that's why I have to resign, because I agree with you guys." Emma pauses for a moment and takes a drink before saying, "There's just so much that goes into the UN. With what they're wanting to do and with how many countries are involved, hundreds could be dead before we would even be given the clear to go do our job. How I see it is that it's all political. They say it's about saving lives, but I just can't see how. I think everyone just wants to save face, be the ones doing 'the right thing.' Well, I think it's all bullshit."

"Wow, you really did think this through, didn't you?"

"That's what I was trying to tell you," Emma tells him and lightly punches him. "They all know how many lives are saved every time the Avengers go out, they see the footage I've gotten through the years. I just wish it didn't come back to bite us in the ass..." She sighs heavily before throwing back the rest of her drink and handing the glass to Sam.

"Hey, no one's saying this is on you," he tells her as he hands her glass back once it’s refilled.

"Well I am," Emma retorts as she loads up a game for them to play, Mario Kart of course. "I know for a fact that you all saw my watermark in the footage that Ross used in that meeting, and even if no one's saying it out loud, my mind is telling me that I'm to blame for this mess."

"Try not to listen to those thoughts, okay?"

"It's just hard not to slip into that mindset when everything seems to be crashing down around me," she tells him while they choose their carts for the game.

Sam takes forever to customize his cart, so while he does, Emma finishes off her second drink. When she gets up to get herself another, Sam laughs. "Okay speed demon. Since when did you drink like this?"

"Since everything I've worked so hard for seemed to start to slip away, Wilson," she tells him. Emma makes her way back to her side of the bed with the bottle of liquor in one hand and the soda in the other, not wanting to get back up to get more later. She settles back into the bed and clicks start on the game so they can begin the round.

"Game on," Sam tells her.

The two sit and play the game for a few minutes while drinking, and Emma starts to slip up while trying to concentrate on the game and her conversation at once. "You know what I just don't understand?" Emma asks as she falls off the map once again.

"How you and alcohol do not mix well with Mario Kart?" Sam asks with a laugh.

"I mean sure, but that's not what I had in mind," she says back. "What I had in mind was who in the hell does Ross think he is asking Steve about where Thor is? The man is the literal God of Thunder, how and why does Ross expect us to keep tabs on him?"

"Right, it's not like they have the ability to email us from Asgard," Sam agrees.

"Exactly! And furthermore, does he really think that Thor Odinson would be okay with anyone telling him where he can and can't fight?"

"No, he would not be okay with that," Sam replies as they finish the map with Emma in last place. He decides to take a jab at Emma and jokes, "Wow I didn't know you were such a lightweight, Ems."

"Some of these maps are hard sober, okay?" Emma defends herself. The next map starts and she is left staring hard and silent at the screen as she tries to concentrate but can't as she falls off the map yet again.

Veering off-topic because of the buzz catching up to her, Emma says aloud, "You know, it sucks seeing Steve in so much pain."

"Tell me about it."

"He's just been through so much lately. First the Accords possibly take away his right to Avenge and then the possibility of them taking away his shield if he doesn't cooperate... And then on top of that the woman he loved for so long dies. He can't catch a break and it isn't fair. He doesn't deserve this kind of pain. He can hide it all he wants with that damn stoic look of his, but he's definitely hurting a lot more than he lets on. What I did earlier probably didn't help..."

"Yeah, I get what you're saying," Sam tells her as he loses his first-place position to concentrate more on the conversation at hand.

"I just..." Emma pauses for a beat to choose her words carefully, but at this point, her filter is gone. “I wish he knew how much I love him...maybe that could help take away some of his pain or at least give him an outlet to go to that isn't those poor punching bags.”

A bit more sober than Emma is, Sam takes time to process Emma's words before responding with a smirk, "I totally knew you were into him!" He pauses and then curses, "Damn, now I owe Nat five bucks..."

Emma pauses the game and disregards the second comment for now, saying, "Well of course I'm into him. He's one of the kindest, most caring, and genuine people I've ever met. He does this job and saves people's lives because he knows it's the right thing to do." Emma pauses and giggles before adding, "Not to mention he looks damn good while doing it." After saying this, she asks, "Wait let's go back, did you say you made a bet on me?"

"Yes, yes we did, and you just lost Wanda and me five bucks each," Sam replies.

"So what was this bet?"

"It was just us betting on who would admit their feelings first. Wanda and I bet on Steve because I mean, come on, he's one of the most confident and brave guys I know, and no offense, Ems, but you're...well you."

Emma laughs a bit but then her demeanor changes to be a bit more somber. "Well, it's not like the bet will mean anything anyways."

"What do you mean by that?"

"It's not like he has feelings for me."

"Emma, there's no way he doesn't have feelings for you. You can't tell me you haven't felt the tension between the two of y'all."

"I guess I just thought I was projecting," she replies, taking the last drink from her cup.

"I'm willing to bet it isn't that."

"Oh, well, now I know you aren't afraid to make a bet on me," Emma tells him.

Sam chuckles as Emma pours herself another drink. "So why don't you say anything to him?"

"Are you kidding me? He's Captain freaking America, the literal definition of perfection, and I'm just plain old me. Not to mention my shitty past when it comes to relationships... Then there's how my father treated me all my life... Overall, relationships and admitting feelings just...don't come easy to me after all of that."

"Well he was a boy, she was a girl, can I make it any more obvious?" Sam asks teasingly.

Emma cringes at the reference and tells him, "I'm also just afraid to ruin our friendship...if I make a move and he doesn't feel the same way then I risk things being super weird after and I don't know if I would be able to handle that." She pauses and then continues, "Plus, you saw how he reacted when Peggy died, he still loves her..."

"Ems, he's hurting so much because she was one of his only connections to the past. Barnes is still at large so she was the only one left. Of course he's gonna be hurt over her passing, but who's to say he doesn't have feelings for you?" Emma thinks about the words as she takes another long drink from her glass. When she takes the glass away from her lips, Sam chuckles and takes away the bottle and glass saying, "I think it's time for you to stop while you're ahead before you start telling me all your dirty little secrets like whose poster you made out with as a teenager."

Emma laughs as she leans her head back against her headboard, feeling like she was spinning. "I just wish I had the guts to tell him how I feel."

"Maybe soon," Sam tells her as he stands up from the bed, slightly tipsy, but gaining his footing quickly. He thinks for a second before saying, "You know, you're a lot more fun to drink with than Steve or Nat."

"I thought you said I was a lightweight," Emma replies.

"Oh you totally are, but at least you get drunk and tell me your secrets. Nat keeps hers even drunk and the only thing I've ever seen come close to getting Steve buzzed was that ale Thor brought from Asgard that one time."

Emma laughs as she stands up to change into her pj's, almost falling over in the process. Sam laughs at her as he helps her into the bathroom to change, standing outside the door to make sure she doesn't fall down. When Emma reemerges dressed in her pj's, she says to Sam, "Justin Timberlake." In response, Sam sends her a quizzical look. "You asked whose poster I made out with when I was younger. The answer is Justin Timberlake."

Sam can't help but laugh as he asks, "So I see you have a thing for blondes with nice jaw lines?"

"Shut up," Emma says with a blush on her cheeks.

"Well it's getting late," Sam says, checking the clock that reads 1:20 am. "It's been a fun night, but I'm gonna call it."

"Well thank you for letting me rant and drink away my feelings," Emma tells him with a smile. "I really needed it."

"I bet you won't be saying that in the morning," Sam replies as he heads to the door to leave.

"That's a fun fact about me, Sam. I can get blackout drunk and the next morning I won't have a hangover. It's actually really nice," Emma tells him, pride in her voice at the genes she inherited from Grammie’s side of the family.

"We'll see in the morning, you did quite a bit of drinking tonight," he replies as he turns to shut the door. "Goodnight, Baker."

"Goodnight, Wilson," Emma replies as he shuts the door. She then crawls into her bed and turns off the lights, hoping to get some shuteye after the events of the day.

link to the next part

#fanfic #marvel #captain america #slow burn #steve rogers #romance #fanfiction #friends to lovers #Spotify #marvel fanfic series #avengers fanfiction #steve rogers friends to lovers #protective steve rogers #steve rogers slow burn #steve rogers fluff #steve rogers angst #steve rogers romance #steve rogers x oc #captain america fic

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nailsofvecna · 2 years

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You may already be familiar with the giant hogweed: a noxious and invasive plant that is rapidly colonising the riverbanks of the land. As bad as that plant may be, it is nothing compared to its dire cousin, which recently emerged from the uncharted depths of some god-forsaken swamp to threaten the civilised lands. It is imperative that these weeds are stamped out with all possible haste. Be cautious, though: their venom is activated by sunlight. Your best chance is to strike by night, when they are comparatively defenceless!

Additioanlly, I must warn you that a particularly terrifying strain has now emerged from the laboratory of the mad cryptobotanist, Maria Hagzinni. Selectively bred for maximal size, aggression and toxicity, Hagzinni's 'herbaceous horror' is spreading like a plague across the nearby towns. Prime specemins of the horror can reach a towering 30 feet in height and boast full immunity to all forms of herbicidal poison. Their onslaught seems driven by an unquenchable rage, born perhaps from a desire to avenge all of the vegetable lives that humanoids have taken over the years. So far, they have not been able to infiltrate any major population centres, but at this point it seems to be only a matter of time until they do…

#stat block sunday #d&d 5e #homebrew #monster #the return of the giant hogweed #genesis

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junsei-draws-rotasu · 2 years

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As I watch The Noxious Avenger, I’m going to hurl. And here I thought the Cockroach was bad enough

#tmnt 2012 #tmnt 2k12 #tmnt #*shudders*#I hate trash

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hamatoclan76 · 4 years

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I think that "The Noxious Avenger" it's a very good episode.

The plot is about a average man who suddenly turns into mutant who gets toxic powers and a new friend called Joe Eyeball.

I really like how the episode showed him coping with his new mutation and becoming a superhero.

Muckman doesn't seem to happy with gaining attention at first, he's disgusted with his new form and blames the turtles for the mutation.

However he later changes his mind once they tell him they are also "freaks" like him but they continue to protect New York City regardless. Then Muckman decides to help them stop Bebop and Rocksteady.

I think it was very intersting for me so see Muckman adjusting and finding a new purpose: be protector of New York city like the turtles.

#tmnt 2012 #tmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles 2012 #muckman tmnt 2012 #The Noxious Avenger #Joe eyeball tmnt 2012

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cjthestoryteller · 5 years

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TMNT Flashback...

“Are you okay?”

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Ehhhhh… Nine.”

*exchange nervous glances*

“It’s all good, Mucky.”

“Now, just chill here for a sec.”

“We got these guys.”

Click here for more TMNT Flashbacks … 😉

#donatello #michelangelo #donnie #mikey #teenage mutant ninja turtles #b team #muckman #ninja turtles #turtles #tmnt 2k12 #tmnt 2012 #tmnt #the noxious avenger #CJsFlashbacks #TMNTSeason3

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candy2021 · 4 years

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Bed of Roses by Candy2021

#Monster High #MHOC #Monster High OC #Stanford Junko #toxic avenger #noxious offender

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swan2swan · 7 years

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Oh my gosh TMNT just subverted one of my least favorite tropes.

The nasty-looking garbage mutant went and saved a guy from muggers, and then a woman saw him and screamed...but the man he’d saved immediately intervened and said that the mutant was a hero, and the woman turned around and smiled, and suddenly he had a fan club.

There was no “Wait, I can explain!”, no “Get away from me! Get away from me!”...everyone came around to this guy.

...unfortunately, this guy didn’t want attention...

#swan watches tmnt #muckman #the noxious avenger

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tutantmeenageneetleteetle · 2 years

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Leo and Donnie's rooms

So some of the 2012 turtles rooms are seen in the show, while others are left for us to imagine. Now, I'm taking you on a trip through my imagination and I'll explain how I'd say their rooms look. I'm also just generally explaining how their rooms look and where they are according to what is canon and my own calculations.

Leo

Leo's room was not shown on screen, but was shown in one of the comic books¹, but it shows only one side of his room

It is however shown on screen that his room is the first room on the right (season 4, "broken foot")

This boy is an absolute spaceheroes nerd and I'm 99.9% sure he has his comic books on display

Probably has another closet somewhere on the other side of his room, to keep his things organised

The said closet is filled with some clothes, boardgames and puzzles, colored markers and paper, books, other comics besides space heroes, some shiny rocks or trinkets he found, his full journals and a lot of stuff he feels like is too good to throw away but doesn't actually like that much

Has a queen sized bed (and is the only one out of his brothers with a bigger bed)

Makes his bed in the morning

Has the cleanest room out of his brothers, but he does have an empty water bottle collection

Keeps his journal in the bottom drawer of his nightstand, which is the only drawer with a lock

Keeps the key under the left side of his mattress

Has a plant that he managed to keep alive (but also several others that have died because of a lack of sunlight and sometimes because he forgot to water them)

1. Leo's bedroom in the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Amazing Adventures" comics

Donnie

Donnies room is not shown in the TV show, nor it's location, but again it is shown in the comic books²

But, Raph and mikeys room locations have been shown, but not consistently

In the episode "Mikey Gets Shellacne", his bedroom was shown to be on the right side towards the back, and judging from the way master splinter walks when taking his TV³ in the episode "The Noxious Avenger", but in the episode "The Invasion, Part 1" the kraang are shown to be shooting from the right side of his room, which suggests his room is on the left side

More often then not his room is shown to be on the right side though, so I would say that that is where it is

Raph has been shown to come from one of the doors on the right and go into the first room on the left⁴, both either before or after showing a scene where he is in his room.

In the comic Donnie's room is shown, and shown that Raph throws his Sai at Donnies alarm clock⁵, so I'd say that Donnies room is next to Raph's room (because he would be the one that's most bothered by the noise)

In the episode "Broken Foot" Donnie and Raph are seen emerging from two of the bedrooms next to eachother⁶, though both on the right side

Now for the headcanons, I'd say Donnie's room is pretty dusty, because he spends most of his time in his lab

He has a lot of used mugs in his room, until at some point Leo or Splinter had enough and force him to take them back to the kitchen

He made his alarm clock himself, because as a heavy sleeper, normal alarm clocks don't wake him up

Has a bookcase filled with books and some comics

There's also an armchair next to the bookcase where he reads his books

Has some of the blueprints he made hang on his walls

Sticky notes with ideas, reminders, questions and facts everywhere

2. Donnie's bedroom in the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Amazing Adventures" comics

3. Splinter taking Mikey's TV as a punishment in the episode "The Noxious Avenger"

4. Raph entering his room in the episode "Slash And The Destroyer"

5. Raph throwing his sai at Donnies alarm clock in the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Amazing Adventures" comics

6. Raph and Donnie coming from two bedrooms beside eachother in the episode "Broken Foot" (image in reverse)

Bonus:

7. Raph's bedroom in the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" (2012) TV show

8. Mikey's bedroom in the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" (2012) TV show

#tmnt 2012 #tmnt headcanons #tmnt leonardo #tmnt leo 2012 #tmnt donatello #tmnt donnie 2012 #tmnt donnie #tmnt mikey #tmnt michelangelo #tmnt mikey 2012 #tmnt raphael #tmnt raph 2012 #teenage mutant ninja turtles

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criminalmutantsins · 2 years

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TMNT 2012 Episode Ranking(By Season)

S: Rise of the Turtles, It Came from the Depths, & TCRI

A: Karai’s Vendetta & New Girl in Town

B: Enemy of my Enemy, Operation: Breakout, The Alien Agenda, Showdown, & Metalhead

C: Parasitica, Turtle Temper, Mousers Attack, I Think His Name is Baxter Stockman, Baxter’s Gambit, Monkey Brains, & The Gauntlet

D: Panic in the Sewers, I Monster, New Friend Old Enemy, & Never Say Xever

E: Cockroach Terminator & The Pulversizer Returns

F: The Pulverizer

S: The Invasion, Slash & Destroy & Vengeance is Mine

A: The Good The Bad and the Casey Jones, The Mutation Situation, Mutagen Man Unleashed & Into Dimension X

B: Follow the Leader, Newtralized, Of Rats & Men, Target: April O’Neil, Metalhead Rewired, The Wrath of Tigerclaw & The Lonely Mutation of Baxter Stockman

C: Plan 10, Invasion of the Squirrelanoids, The Manhattan Project, The Legend of the Kuro Kabuto & The Kraang Conspiracy

D: Mazes and the Mutants, Fungous Humongous, A Chinatown Ghost Story

E: Mikey Gets Shellacne

F: Pizza Face

S: Battle for New York & Casey Jones vs. The Underworld

A: Buried Secrets, Within the Woods, Race with the Demon, Tale of the Yokai, Return to New York, Annihilation Earth, & Dinosaurs Seen in the Sewers

B: Serpent Hunt, Clash of the Mutanimals, Turtles in Time, Eyes of the Chimera, & The Fourfold Trap

C: In Dreams, Vision Quest, The Noxious Avenger, The Pig & the Rhino, Attack of the Mega-Shredder, & Creeping Doom

D: Meet Mondo Gecko, & The Deadly Venom

E: The Croaking

F: A Foot Too Big

S: Requiem, & Owari

A: The Moon of Thalos 3, Trans-Dimensional Turtles, Earth’s Last Stand, Tale of Tigerclaw, The Darkest Plight, The Evil of Dregg, & Beyond the Whole Universe

B: Tokka vs. The World, Revenge of the Triceratons, The Super Shredder, The War for Dimension X, & The Ever-Burning Fire

C: Mutant Gangland, The Outlaw Armaggon, Riddle of the Ancient Aeons, The Cosmic Ocean, The Power Inside Her, City at War, & Broken Foot

D: Journey to the Center of Mikey’s Mind, The Weird World of Wrym, & The Arena of Carnage

E: The Insecta Trifecta

F: Bat in Belfry

S: Lone Rat & Cubs

A: Usagi Yojimbo Arc

B: When Worlds Collide

C: Monsters & Mutants Arc, Kavakas Arc

D: ‘87 & ‘12 Crossover Finale

F: Mutant Wasteland Arc

#tmnt 2012 #tmnt 2012 season 1 #TMNT 2012 season 2 #TMNT 2012 season 3 #TMNT 2012 season 4 #TMNT 2012 season 5 #episode ranking #tier ranking

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imhereforbvcky · 3 years

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Watch Me Run - Part 15

Masterlist - Series Masterpage - Part 16

Summary: You inherit a family relic that gives you the gift of foresight but there are others who are interested for more nefarious reasons. You turn to the Avengers for help. (Bucky x reader)

Chapter: Bucky supports you as you both learn some hard truths surrounding your family heirloom.

Word Count: 2962

A/N: I know Sundays are the best day to post statistically but it’s Fuck-It-Friday! And if anyone is still reading this it’ll be a literal miracle anyway. I’m sorry I took such a long hiatus. I’ve written the rest though! So no more delays. I just have to edit and post. So easy. I have all the time in the world (famous last words from a lab employee during a viral pandemic)

When you hauled yourself into the old creaking truck with boot laces still untied and a stiff Carhart, two sizes too big and borrowed from the sole closet in the cabin digging at your neck, tiny flurries had already begun to fall. White pinpricks, as small as the stars that had dotted the sky on clear nights in this distant place. But by the time you’d pulled into the isolated rest stop – little more than a red brick shelter with a flickering yellow light and a pay phone – the flurries had grown to a full storm.

Each gust of bitter wind drove a torrent of blinding white snow swirling over the roads, twisting between bare tree limbs, and snaking down the back of your oversized coat. The tiny crystals bit at the tender skin of your cheeks and ears, sharp as the memories they carried.

Mistaking your anxiety over the storm for something you’d withheld about the dream, Bucky had made furtive glances in your direction the entire drive. His frustration filled the cab of the truck like a noxious gas until you tumbled out and followed his brusque strides to the shelter.

“What d’you got?” Bucky demanded of the payphone. You could feel his gaze, sharper than the ice in the wind. “A wizard?”

You heard the scowl in his voice and nearly laughed. This was the big news? You could picture the little tick in his jaw when he clenched it. Just like in the dream from this morning. Except there was no softness now, no gentleness to the hard line of bone. He was your guardian: cold and swift as a winter storm.

The high whine of skidding tires from the highway cut through the muted stillness of the snow-heavy shelter. Your entire body swiveled in time to see red tail-lights, hazy and clouded through the snowsquall.

It was all so familiar you felt transported, pushed through time and made a child again…

Not one ounce of oxygen remained in your lungs, just as then, like an invisible fist had punched you hard below the ribs when the car had hit the granite tunnel wall. The blowing snow crashing against your cheek felt exactly like the rain of broken glass. Hot tears froze on your lashes as your lungs begged for relief.

You’d seek relief for years to come. Peace is a luxury rarely offered to Seers. Where there is knowledge, peace seldom thrives.

Though you did not carry the stone yet then, you’d unknowingly learned much about the duty of a stone-keeper.

The first lesson: blood.

A sea of it slipped like a slow tender finger over quickly cooling skin. Dark red rivers became sticky and crude in the fur trimmed hood of your mother’s coat. The army green parka had darkened nearly black where it had been soaked.

“Mamma,” You called again and again, but unseeing eyes made no answer.

Behind her, in the tangle of metal and ice, your older brother blinked to life. Snow fluttered off of dark eyelashes. Or was it glass? It all stung the same.

He passed you a checkered wool blanket that smelled of cedar. Said he’d return with help. Said not to look, not to call for your mother. Promised it would be okay.

You learned that day that when someone says, “Everything will be okay,” they mean, “Stay calm, because it might not be.” They really mean, “Please remember that I tried.”

From inside the shelter, Bucky struggled to pay attention to the call while you stood at the edge of the shelter, on the precipice of safety and storm. You’d been stone still, enough that he’d almost called out. Just as he’d taken a quick breath in to shout, he saw you roughly shove both palms over your cheeks. There was a tremble to your fingers as they fell away.

Tears, he knew, though he couldn’t see them. But he could see glow of the stone from its copper cage around your neck, and your hands hovering over it in a strange gesture.

Worry settled deep in his bones. The sort of ache that cried for him to close his metal fist around that damned amulet until it crumbled to dust. The kind that screamed for him to take you back to the cabin where it was safe. But Tony Stark was still talking, telling him about legacy and how this was always meant to be your burden.

Bucky didn’t like the sound of it. He could guard you from many things, but he couldn’t protect you from what you carried around your neck.

Like an apparition he stood outside the wrecked car –your grandfather – just as you remembered him except he was there. His eyes glazed milky white, the edges of his long beard lifting in the breeze, and the amulet glowing green as an emerald in the sun from its place around his neck. He seemed a mere shadow, ghostly and thin, but he was there.

“Papa,” you breathed.

There were tears in his eyes as he kissed your mother’s limp hand. He smiled at you, but there was no warmth in it. Why should there be? Nothing remained here but ice and dust. His eyes were flooding with his grief and his lip trembled with guilt.

“It had to be so.” He stroked a hand over his daughter’s hair as if reminding himself that it was true. Mournful eyes followed your brother as he tucked the blanket round you. If you didn’t know different, you might think your grandfather could see. But those pale eyes could see only dreams.

He had dreamed your past when it was still your future, and let it find you anyway.

“Why, Papa?”

“There would have been Decimation,” he explained cryptically, glancing at your mother. “She could not have run like you will. She carries too much in her heart. Children make it very difficult to be a Seer. Her love would have blinded her. It has to be you, little Magpie.”

The tears fell stinging hot over your icy cheeks. You did not tell him how much you carried, how much you loved. It would not change the past.

“Please don’t be angry with me,” he begged, one hand on your brother’s shoulder as he stumbled forward into the frozen white mountain. “Seers are wise; we cannot always be kind. You will see.”

“I wish I wouldn’t,” you cried into the empty, howling wind, pleading with a phantom. A ghost. A dream. ”I don’t want to see any more!”

The first lesson you learned of the stone: blood. You learned it as a small child but did not fully understand it until you held true power for the first time, there at a highway truck-stop shelter.

The price of power is blood.

Long ago, it had been explained to you that the stone was an heirloom. It seemed a romantic notion then, a beautiful trinket, passing through generations.

Now, you knew better. Inheritance is the currency of death. It is a gift bound in blood. For you, the blood of three.

“Hey!” Bucky’s voice sounded distant, and muffled, as if you’d heard it through a thick plaster wall, as if he were a dream.

But no, that wasn’t right. You blinked quickly at the desperate sound of your own name, spoken through cotton wool.

The snow looked the same as in the dream, the memory except… Where it should have been falling in icy spirals, the flakes hung still as stars. You watched for a moment, half dazed, blinking slowly at one hovering inert over the dark waves of Bucky’s hair.

He seemed to clock the motion of your eyes on the snow around him. Motion was good, he decided, after you’d stood frozen, immobile and unseeing for so long. Long enough that he’d dropped the phone receiver in its cradle and run to you. Long enough for his nose to redden in the cold and his hair to grow damp and stiff as he stood with his back to the storm, shaking your shoulders and calling your name.

Now you’d given some sign of life but still dissatisfied with the clouded look in your eye, he pressed gentle hands on either side of your neck, cradling your chin and targeting your attention in exactly one direction.

“Can you hear me?” he asked, urgent but not loud. Wide grey eyes scanned your face and searched for something. Some light, some sign he hadn’t lost you, hadn’t failed you in his singular mission.

With your gaze drifting slowly to meet his, you nodded. Tears had begun to brim and you didn’t trust your voice, now laden with grief.

“Okay, that’s good. That’s real good.” He seemed to be convincing himself as much as you. “Was it another dream? That thing looked like it was on fire.”

Your fingers subconsciously smoothed over the amulet. A nervous habit you hadn’t realized you’d adopted. One you’d seen your grandfather perform half a hundred times.

“Loki again? How long do we have?” he asked quickly, pushing you deeper into the brick shelter. With each step, he took sweeping glances of the parking lot behind him.

“N-no. Not Loki.” You shook your head, trying find the words for what you’d seen. “It was a memory. But… new. I saw things I didn’t remember. What-What’s happening? The snow…?”

“I think you can control it. The amulet,” he answered quietly, watching your gaze drift to the highway. It was virtually silent. The cars had stopped in their tracks with smooth arcs of slush from the unplowed snow hanging in the air beside their tires as if suspended by a sculptor.

Your heart began to race, and your breath came in quick, steaming puffs of panic.

You shook your head. “It can be controlled, I think. My grandfather could, I get that now.” The rough coat sleeve left a mark on your cheek as you scrubbed away an unbidden tear. “I think I know now… I know why he gave the eye to me.”

Bucky only nodded, waiting with comforting hands still on your shoulders, then smoothing your hair, then squeezing your hand, anything to keep you in hand and safe. He knew half of the answer from the emergency phone call: the inheritance of a family older than the record itself. But histories are rarely so personal, so painful that we dare not speak them. And you had been chewing on the words for some time now.

“It’s an heirloom,” you finally explained, eyes locked on the metal caged stone with a potent stew of anger and fresh grief. “Passed through our family so long that no one remembers where or who made it. I remember stories… hiding it from thieves, from powerful men who would use it for money or conquest. Stories of brothers who would kill to gain the inheritance. They all seemed like morality stories you tell children. Learn to share or else. Be cunning not cruel. I thought they were legends…”

“But?”

“But they’re true.” Your voice was a ragged gasp and Bucky’s arms circled you in an instant.

He held you close as you closed your fists into the fabric of his jacket, clinging to the only constant in this storm.

“My grandfather saw the storm,” you explained through smudged tears. “He saw the accident and he did nothing so that I would inherit the stone when Loki came for it. What’s the point of saving the world if the ones you love aren’t in it? If you have to become as heartless as the evil you’re fighting? I don’t want this. I don’t want it to change me.”

You held the relic away from your body for the first time since you’d received it all those weeks ago. It suddenly weighed heavier on its chain. More than metal and stone, it bore down with risk, and duty, and bloodshed. It dragged on your spine as a condemnation of every decision and ill-gotten sacrifice made in the name of the greater good. All of it to hang a stone like an anchor on your neck.

“I think I get it,” Bucky murmured, closing his left hand over your grip on the amulet. “War is hell. it’s full of no-win scenarios and problems you can’t solve without hurting someone. Choices made for you and ones you don’t want to make. But there is no rock or metal on earth that can change you irreparably. I would know.” He smirked and nodded toward his shoulder. The gleaming metal lay hidden beneath his coat, but cool dexterous fingers squeezed tight around yours and the heirloom in your fist.

You chuckled and nodded, more grateful for him than ever before.

“It’s just like with Steve,” he continued. “Power doesn’t change you. Just makes it easier to be who you always were. Stevie always had a moral compass like the other directions didn’t even exist; meant he could never back down from a fight. And here we are, a couple of wars and a hundred years later, and he’s got this whole team chasing a god from another planet because he thinks it’s the right thing. Same old Steve.”

This time you laughed fully, wiping the last tears from your cheeks and glancing up at Bucky. He’d promised to protect you from this alien god; you hadn’t expected him to protect you from your own fears and the past you’d inherited. But here he was guarding you against your own legacy.

“That thing could never make you heartless,” he glanced down at your hands, circling the amulet, still gently held in one of his own. “You have more heart than anyone should. Makin’ my job hell. Putting yourself at risk for a bunch of strangers at a hotel, being the worst shot in Avengers history… That big bleedin’ heart of yours is gonna get us both into trouble one day.”

The phrase struck you in the sharpest way. Déjà vu has a way of snapping you to attention.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked, frowning.

“I’ve heard you say that before.”

The frown deepened to a scowl. There was absolutely no way he had spoken so openly with you before this moment and he didn’t remember it. No way in hell.

“The dream this morning… it makes sense now,” your eyes danced, heart pounding on the knife’s edge between fear and exhilaration. “It was a possible iteration of the future. And you were… we were fine. You were still there with me and we were happy. God we were so happy. And you said exactly that about my bleeding heart.”

“This morning when uh” he cleared his throat, staring at your joined hands. “Over breakfast?”

“Yeah,” you agreed, saving him for once. “When there was a moment.”

“And then just now when the storm reminded you…?”

“It’s been an emotional day!” you defended, “I was a little wired and this stupid storm reminded me of that day when I was a kid and I ju—“

“Do you think,” Bucky interrupted softly, “You have a little more control of that thing than you realize?”

“Huh?” you glanced down at the stone. “Shit. You think I--? You think I’m choosing what to see?”

In an instant the amulet pulsed with light and the whoosh of traffic struck your ears like the crack of thunder after such pristine silence. Bucky pulled your hood up against the now swirling snow.

He sighed and the muscle at the back of his jaw ticked. “I think you need to talk to the wizard.”

There’s a saying in many places: If everything is extraordinary, then nothing is.

A trickster god from another planet is something quite extraordinary. When physically augmented heroes held captive a dangerously powerful being from another world, well known for deception and magic, everything was extraordinary.

And so when Dr. Strange brought Loki to the Avengers Tower, it seemed… ordinary. Except that it wasn’t. The Tower was a place of business and a home for the elite. A safe room, not a prison. There were no cells, no doors that couldn’t be unlocked from inside. It was safe from those without, not from those within.

This was why it didn’t strike Steve Rogers as extraordinary when he opened the door to a technician in the room that had been holding Loki. He was, however, surprised to find no sign of the prisoner.

“Boss came down in a big red suit and took him for a while so I could upgrade security,” the technician explained.

Steve nodded, hands in loose fists on his hips and a frown creasing his brow. “Tony say where they were going?”

“Little above my pay grade to be askin’ Iron Man questions,” the technician chuckled, dropping his screwdriver into a large steel toolbox and rising. “But we’re all set here.” He patted the door twice and nodded to Steve before stepping out into the hall.

Steve chewed on his lip and nodded again as shrewd eyes scanned the room. He stepped forward, toward the open door. “Hey, shouldn’t you—“

He couldn’t finish the query before the corner of the toolbox smashed into the side of his head. Steve crumpled to the floor unconscious, with a stream of genetically modified blood carving a river through his loosely styled hair.

The technician tossed the box aside with a resounding clatter. “Always with the khaki,” he complained in a crisp Asguardian accent as he looked down at the unconscious body at this feet.

A green-gold light shimmered over the visage of the technician, revealing a new form everywhere the light passed until he exactly mirrored the man lying unconscious on the floor.

Part 16 >>

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes #bucky x reader angst #bucky x reader infinity stone #watch me run #wmr 15 #bucky fanfic #bodyguard bucky

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thebibliomancer · 2 years

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Essential Avengers: Avengers #259: DUTY OVER ALL!

September, 1985

On the side of... THE SKRULLS!

That cover text is accurate but its more like ‘on the side of some Skrulls against other Skrulls and also Nebula is a jerk.’

I do like that power squat from that boss looking Skrull though.

Is it the most comfortable thing to do? No. Will he topple over immediately if there’s any space turbulence? Definitely. But is it presenting a powerful statement to the Avengers? Also definitely.

Hm. The Gruenwald Squadron Supreme series starts this month of September, 1985. In another world, maybe I’m a Squadron Supreme liveblogger. I’d be done by this point if I were.

Anyway.

Last times on Avengers: when Vision tried to take over the world, he got Captain Marvel out of the way by sending her to check on Thanos’ abandoned ship, Sanctuary II. A harmless errand that would take her several hours and keep her out of communication in transit.

Obviously, the one day Captain Marvel is sent on a wild goose chase to Sanctuary II is when some mercenaries working for Nebula come to retrieve the ship for her and Monica Marvel winds up kidnapped to another galaxy and forced to pretend she wants to work for Nebula.

Nebula sends her on a suicide mission to reconnoiter a Skrull space base and to make sure its a suicide mission, Nebula shoots an anti-matter torpedo at the base while Monica is in it. Rude.

This time on Avengers:

I guess Monica is completely, really dead forever.

Except Nebula isn’t some fool who goes ‘we never found the bodies so they’re totally dead forever.’ This character who I’ve only just met in context of the Avengers but know from the movies is a smart cookie.

One anti-matter torpedo wasn’t enough to totally obliterate the armada here so some of them probably escaped.

Levan suggested that maybe Captain Marvel escaped too and Nebula tells him ‘if your horniness gets in my way so help me i’ll do you a murder you sad sack’ with a little ‘but what have you done for me lately’ by asking him if he’s of further use to her now that he and Gunthar have helped retrieve Sanctuary II as former Thanos minions.

Levan: “Nebula, let me assure you that you have all my support... my undying support... in this galaxy or any other!”

Gunthar: “I concur, Commander. Only a fool would do otherwise.”

Nebula: “Indeed.”

And then since there’s no kill like overkill, Nebula decides to blow up the planetoid so if there were any survivors that managed to flee, they have nothing to return to.

Yeah, Sanctuary II can blow up planetoids.

All it needs to do is carve a tunnel from the surface to the core with a big ol’ coherent energy beam, drop another anti-matter torpedo, and BAM no more Skrull base.

Its hard to tell how much time passes in comic panels but I’d estimate that took less than five minutes.

Eat shit, Freeza.

While asking for trouble from dragon ball fans is all well and good, over on Earth and one week later, Firelord has trouble of his own.

Firelord: “To think that my cosmic flame would be put to so mundane a task -- as waste disposal!”

When Hercules castigated Firelord for tantruming around, he castigated him all the way into community service.

Damn, I already thought Hercules was awesome, Marvel. You spoil me.

Burning toxic waste isn’t an easy fix because then you just get noxious fumes and noxious byproducts but Firelord’s fire is from the power cosmic so he burned it hot enough to break down any noxious substances.

All that’s left is some slag that Hercules crushes into a ball to dispose of.

A very impressed guy: “Mr. Firelord, that was utterly fantastic! Why, you’ve saved the state millions of dollars in toxic waste clean-up!”

Hercules: “You see, Firelord? You are well on your way -- to making restitution for all the damages you caused in the city! Just a few more such tasks, and your debt shall be repaid in full! In the future, you must take more care in your behavior amongst mortals! I know ‘tis not easy. Why, in my youth, I myself was known to act a bit rashly on occasion!”

To repeat myself, Hercules rocks.

Also, I’m just going to assume that something like this happens off-panel every time heroes cause property damage. Either Tony Stark sighs and pays it off or heroes work off the damages using their powers.

Meanwhile, over at Avengers Mansion, Captain America finds She-Hulk and Wyatt Wingfoot leaving to go on a double date with the Mr. and Mrs. Fantastic.

Apparently the Fantastic Four moved into Avengers Mansion because the Baxter Building was destroyed in Fantastic Four #279 byyy -wiki- Kristoff Vernard launching it into space and blowing it up. Rude kid.

Nice of the Avengers to put them up. Although, they do have plenty of room.

In a funny bit, Wyatt Wingfoot eyes Cap, figures him to be roughly the same size as himself, and wonders where he buys shirts.

Inside the mansion, Cap gets his mail from Jarvis which includes “the usual requests for autographs, some charity solicitations, and a half-dozen pleas for you to endorse certain political parties.”

Cap is a popular guy.

He also receives a bill for some airfare he charged to his Avengers’ card because the airline became aware that the government is reconsidering the Avengers’ privileges and they’d rather the money now before it gets tied up in that whole thing.

Cap also asks Jarvis about Captain Marvel since she’s been missing two weeks now. There’s no news and its not good news because the Sanctuary II that she was checking on has gone missing too.

Captain Steve America heads to find Wasp and finds that in her spare time, she’s been making Black Knight cooler.

ATOMIC STEED.

What a deep cut. I can’t believe Beast just shoved that into storage and forgot about it.

Black Knight could go and ask for his horse back from Valkyrie but she needs the iconography more than he does. Plus, an atomic steed requires less shoveling.

Now, an atomic steed is all well and good because Black Knight has that sort of mix between super advanced technology and weirdo throwback traditions and magic.

I just don’t know if I’ll be as into it when he trades his super cursed sword for a lightsaber and stops shaving. Sure, he’ll be wearing a jacket over armor and that’s good fun but part of Black Knight’s charm, like Hawkeye, is kicking people’s butts with medieval weaponry.

Its apparently also what made Hawkman and Hawkgirl so popular when they were first introduced. That they’d just grab random weapons off a museum wall and go hit people with them.

Unfortunately, Black Knight can’t just tool around on an atomic steed all day.

The message Monica was trying to send from the Skrull base finally gets through the jamming delay and sets off a priority alarm. Or Starfox does when he gets the message. Six of one...

Captain Monica barely manages any message beyond telling the Avengers the Sanctuary II was stolen by alien mercenaries and that she’s at a Skrull base in the Andromeda Galaxy when an anti-matter torpedo rudely cuts off the message.

Wasp: “Starfox, do you have enough to locate that carrier wave’s point of origin?”

Starfox: “Yes... does this mean what I hope it does?”

Wasp: “I should say so! There’s an Avenger to be accounted for!”

Captain America: “One way or another we’re going to find her!”

Yeah! Bring back Captain Marvel!

She’s needed on the set of Marvels!

Anyway.

The Avengers take their special space capable Quinjet out into space with special guest Firelord because even though he’s paid off all the damages, he wants to pay back Hercules by helping him out on this adventure. Pluuuus, the Andromeda Galaxy is where Firelord is from and he hasn’t seen his home since he became a herald.

I can’t believe Firelord is asking the Avengers to swing by on their way back.

I assume. Galaxies are big. What are the odds they’ll just happen to pass by his homeworld?

The special space capable Avengers Quinjet may be able to go out into space but that doesn’t mean it can go to another galaxy. In a timely fashion anyway.

But it really just needs to get them to their actual intergalactic ride.

Starfox: “Behold... the swiftest starship produced by the science of my homeworld of Titan -- sent Earthward by my doting father Mentor.”

Wonder how that conversation went, considering Mentor’s annoyance when Starfox borrowed the computer to look for the best places to hang out.

I sincerely doubt that doting.

“Meanwhile, on one of the many Skrull colony worlds in the Andromeda Galaxy...”

Governor Gorth!

He’s the Skrull governor of planet A Skrull Colony World.

Name your locations if its going to be important, geez.

Anyway, Governor Gorth is informed that Commander Nebula is here to see him so Gorth gets his business face on. And his business bod.

Because Skrulls are shapeshifters he can just shapeshift himself to look more imposing and buff.

Which probably makes a super mushroom noise.

Nebula isn’t impressed by his buff bod or buff attitude. When he insists that she call him Emperor Gorth, she has Levan shoot the buff out of his sails.

Gorth: “See here, you promised to make me emperor! It’s only fair that I look imperial!”

Nebula: “Save the shape-shifting for your underlings, Skrull -- it doesn’t impress me! You’re nothing without my backing!”

Gorth: “A-all right! It’s true!”

Skrulls tend to get more consistently drawn with human proportions these days. Which is weird scrawny bobblehead goblin Skrull erasure maybe. I dunno. They just used to look more alien, in a way.

Although, the way comics be, its very likely that they were leaning into racist imagery. I know the shapeshifting reptilian alien thing does.

Anyway, now that Nebula has shown her employer who is boss, she takes him out onto the balcony to show him the Sanctuary II, a weapon to surpass Metal Gear that will make this backwater colony world the new Skrull throneworld.

Hundreds of parsecs away, which are after all a unit of distance and not time, the ship Starfox borrowed from daddy arrives through subspace to the system where that Skrull base was.

Black Knight: “I still can hardly believe this... until now, I’d thought of sub-space as nothing more than an abstract concept!”

Starfox: “I’d always considered it a convenient intergalactic shortcut, myself!”

Starfox: ‘oh you and your primitive earth science’

They don’t find the base (because Nebula blew it up) but they do find an angry Skrull armada that demands they shut down their engines and surrender.

Starfox gets nettled by this suggestion and wants to tell the Skrulls where they can stick it but Cap(tain America) suggests that they play along since its apparently rare for Skrulls to make requests without shooting first.

Really?

Huh. Not great, the Skrulls.

Starfox space radios that he’ll comply and Captain Marvel pops out of the space radio, jubilant that they got her message.

Out-of-touch Black Knight strikes again, this time with the thought “They sure make Captains a darned sight prettier than they used to!”

Wait, I don’t even know if he knew Captain Marvel. Oh well.

Monica tells them that she has a lot to tell them but it’d be better to hear it from the Skrulls, over in the armada.

So Starfox’s dad’s ship docks with the Skrull command saucer and Captain Monica Marvel takes the Avengers and their plus one Firelord to meet General Zedrao, leader of the Skrull armada.

His officers are uneasy about this because: 1) Avengers on board, 2) a former herald of Galactus!

But he tells them to hush.

General Zedrao: “Your presence has caused great controversy among my staff, Avengers. They wanted me to destroy your ship outright... and they had good reason. You and all who ally themselves with you have been branded enemies of the Skrull Empire. But we must now put old animosities aside... a great threat looms before us!”

Assuming correctly that the Avengers aren’t up to date on space politics, General Zedrao decides to summarize the whole situation to them.

Very kind of him.

So, the problems all started when Galactus at the Skrull homeworld several months ago.

With the head basically chopped off the empire, the whole thing descends into chaos and rebellion. Apparently every single planetary governor stood up and declared themselves the obvious new leader and raised armies to attack any other fool who said the same thing.

General Zedrao: “The weaker worlds fell immediately. Alliances were forged and broken on an hourly basis. In a few days, more Skrulls died at Skrull hands than had perished in the death-throes of Throneworld.”

I’d say this goes to show that a clear line of succession is necessary but having the entire capital of the empire get destroyed in one day is kind of an unprecedented situation.

Rome wouldn’t have fared well if Rome blew up. Not that Rome had a clear line of succession a lot of the time either.

Funny thing is that there actually is a Skrull princess who survived the disaster. But its Veranke and she’s both stupid and a religious zealot and nobody was gonna come running to her as their first choice.

She had some wild ideas about Earth being the promised new homeworld of the Skrulls and her tilting at windmills wiped out a significant fraction of the very little power the Skrulls had left after the Galactus incident and several other disasters.

So, yeah, Veranke doesn’t exist yet and even if she did nobody would rally behind her until things got desperate.

Anyway, during this chaos, a mercenary army made of outcasts from a thousand worlds was organized by Nebula.

Her army conquered every world it set its sights on uuuuuntil it ran into Zedrao’s base.

Zedrao is a pretty cool dude, actually. Even though he has a whole ass armada and an impregnable base, he refused to participate in all of this civil warring. He just holed up in his base, presumably to wait until it blew over and there was a new government.

Try as she might, Nebula couldn’t best the base’s defenses and left, presumably shaking her fist and saying NEXT TIME GADGET NEXT TIIIIME.

But she did come back to throw Monica to her death against the base but whooops Monica broke a hole in the defenses and fried most of the armada’s communications gear and overall just made a mess.

Which was when Nebula lobbed an anti-matter torpedo at the base.

When the torpedo was spotted, the Skrulls tried to evacuate but there Just Wasn’t Enough Time.

So Captain Marvel flew out into space, turned human so she could go pew pew with her energy blasts to redirect the torpedo into one of the orbital generators, and managed to turn back to light in time to nyoom from the explosion.

Afterward, she and General Zedrao talked and decided the best thing to do was to sacrifice the base to convince Nebula the attack worked.

Even though it hadn’t hit on target, the matter/anti-matter explosion still released a bunch of radiation which damaged the armada and it wouldn’t have been a good idea to tangle with the Sanctuary II.

So the armada blew up its own base and then escaped into sub-space.

Its been regrouping and repairing over the week it took the Avengers to get Monica’s message and now its in fighting shape again.

And thaaaaats the story.

Firelord is the first to react, saying that ain’t no way he joining forces with “vermin” like the Skrulls. And also saying that Monica Marvel must be addled by her week among them to suggest it.

Hercules: “Choose your words with care when you speak to an Avenger, Firelord!”

Hercules didn’t ask to be this guy’s babysitter but that’s how things shook out.

Monica agrees that that Skrulls might be unappealing (right in the same room with a bunch of Skrulls, wow rude) but that Nebula must be stopped.

Which Starfox with goofy face agrees because Nebula has the Sanctuary II which Thanos built to rival an entire armada.

Where was he getting his resources? Oh. Right. Pillaging.

But Black Knight tries to ask the real question here.

Black Knight: “Excuse me, but there’s an important question that needs to be answered! Should we really get involved in this? After all, we’re supposed to be the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes... we can’t start policing the whole blasted universe!”

I mean, he’s got a point.

Interfering in space politics is a thorny prospect.

Although nobody here knows about the Illuminati because it hasn’t been written yet, the Illuminati going up to space and trying to intimidate the Skrulls into not attacking again really bit Earth in the ass several several years down the line.

But if the Avengers interfere in this Skrull civil war, are they going to get involved in every big space political mess?

Yes. Yes they will. Or the X-Men. Or the Guardians of the Galaxy, generally featuring several people from Earth or derived from people from Earth.

So this is very much a bad precedent.

On the other hand as Captain Marvel suggests, Nebula is likely to come after the Milky Way after she conquers Andromeda. Zedrao even points out that a big chunk of her mercenary army are from planets in the Milky Way so Nebula is going to look that way sooner or later.

Black Knight: “The old domino theory... if we don’t stop the first one from falling, they all will, huh?”

Captain America: “That’s not always true, Dane, but this time it may be!”

Hahah, I mean. That’s how that line of thought gets you.

It’s funny that Dane, who has been missing for several years, still manages to be disdainful of domino theory.

Anyway, Cap points out that ultimately, its Wasp’s decision since she is the chairwoman.

And she decides that yes, they need to stop Nebula.

Meanwhile, over on the Sanctuary II, Nebula is giving Governor Emperor-Aspirant Gorth the grand tour.

But the grand tour is interrupted by Levan calling on the tv phone to tell Nebula that deep probes have detected the Skrull armada.

In a surprisingly governor-like move, Gorth insists that Nebula lure the armada away from Planet Untitled to spare it the ravages of war but Nebula still has no patience for Gorth acting like just because he’s her employer, he’s her boss and this time shoots him dead, not just deflated.

Nebula: “Prepare a propaganda statement, Levan, saying that Emperor Gorth died in battle with the enemy. Then have all stations made battle-ready! And make certain that everyone knows... we will take no prisoners!”

You are a mean one, Miss Nebula.

And you’re missing out on some shenanigans!

You’re above a planet of the Skrulls! Grab one that you can bully into line and have them pretend to be Gorth! Shapeshifting! Use it!

Follow @essential-avengers because I said pretty please. And like and reblog but only if you choose to.

#essential avengers #avengers #Nebula #a bunch of Skrulls #General Zedrao #Governor Gorth #the Wasp #Starfox #Hercules #Firelord #Captain Marvel #Monica Rambeau #Captain America #Black Knight #the Avengers get involved in a civil war IN SPACE #Firelord is a bad tagalong friend #Nebula is a hostile employee #essential marvel liveblogging

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