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Dec. 29th, 2014 06:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pearwaldorfYear-end ficlet funeral! Things I'm not going to work on, put to bed before the new year starts. I feel like I'm getting better at finishing things I'm starting?
Captain America
The sort-of hipster more like natives in a gentrifying neighborhood AU
Steve looks up from his Moleskine when the waitress nudges him. She hefts the coffeepot inquiringly, and he holds out his cup. After she refills it, he cradles the cup in his hands gratefully. The air’s turned a little nippy in the late afternoon, and he’s been drawing so intently he hadn’t really noticed it was getting kind of cold. “I thought you were supposed to be working?” Beth’s been working at this place since it opened, and he’s been coming here from the beginning. She knows his habits too well: the preferred flavor profiles of his coffee (blah), his allergies (blah), and when he’s slacking (now). She smiles, taking any sting out of the remark. “If you don’t make any money, I don’t make any money, and I’ve heard you complain about what a hardass Jameson is. I’m just saying.”
“I know, I know.” He sighs, and opens his laptop. The redesign for the Bugle’s website is proceeding poorly, and he’s had to sit through yet another meeting with the ad guys to justify why there’s so much whitespace and not crammed wall to wall with banners. He’s promised a another mockup by the end of the week, and it’s Thursday. Beth pats him on the shoulder, and the next time he looks up again from his screen he sees a blueberry muffin at his elbow.
--
He knocks on the doorjamb of the office in the community center where Natasha’s bent over some paperwork. She pushes it away with a sigh, stretching luxuriously before she looks up at Steve. He plunks a copy box full of flyers on the chair next to her.
“Steve, I could have picked these up myself.” The protest in her voice is perfunctory, but there nonetheless. He’s known her long enough that she thinks she has to do everything on her own, but he considers it part of his job here to help her realize that burdens are lighter when shared.
“I know. But it was on my way, so I figured I might as well.” He picks up a flyer from the top of the stack and hands it to her. “Take a look.” The notice about their new immigration clinic open house isn’t fancy, but it’s clear and contains the necessary information in five languages (he tried to do it in seven, but there wasn’t enough room). She smiles as she scans the paper.
“It’s perfect. You’re a gem.”
“Says the former corporate lawyer who just happened to also have an interest in immigration law, and showed up on our doorstep wanting to help.” Steve’s tone is teasing, but he watches Natasha’s face carefully. She’s vague about her past, and he doesn’t want to push. She fixes him with a stare, one he knows must have frightened its share of opposing counsel in its time.
“I did a lot of things for whoever paid me lots of money. Some of them were less than kind. I’m tipping the scales back.” She smirks, pleased with her terrible pun. Steve groans.
“You did not just say that.” Her smile grows wider.
“I did.”
--
The bar is named Riley’s, after an old friend of his. Sam doesn’t talk about him much, but it’s obviously clear the loss took something with him, something he can only talk about in small hours or through copious amounts of drink.
//
The one where Bucky comes to terms with his trauma through dumpling making
Natasha comes home to find the door to her apartment open, and she draws her gun. She finds the Winter Soldier, now shorn of his long hair and dressed in grubby street clothes, sitting in her kitchen. She lifts the gun a little higher, enough that she could shoot him between the eyes if he tries anything. He holds his hands out clumsily, unused to projecting lack of threat. She lowers the gun a fraction, and her shoulder twinges, a reminder of how dangerous he was and can be. He must see something in her face or the way she moves, because she’d swear he looks contrite? apologetic? for a moment.
“What do you want?” There is a long pause while he considers what to say. He is inscrutable, even to her.
“Do you know where I could find some pelmeni?”
--
"What do I call you?"
"Anything you want." His tone is flat, like the topic is unimportant but he's humoring her.
"Should I call you Bucky?" His eyes go wide, and he almost physically recoils.
"I'm going to say no."
A beat.
“I need to call you something.”
“I don't know if I can be Bucky. But I think I can be James.”
--
“Why me?”
“Because I’ve seen what you’ve done, and I knew you’d understand.” A beat. “Also, you’re safe.”
"I'm sorry?" This is a word she's never had applied to her, and it is novel.
“You don’t know Bucky Barnes. Not the way he does.” Another beat. “Maybe one day I’ll be ready for that. But not today.”
//
The Natasha fighter AU
“Look, all I’m saying is ‘scurry around like an insect, bite like a venomous… tiny thing’ doesn’t have the same sort of oomph. We can’t really capitalize on ‘Black Widow’.” Natasha is about to roll her eyes, but Pepper beats her to it, slapping Tony on the arm for good measure.
“First off, a spider isn’t an insect. It’s an arachnid. Eight legs! Middle school biology.” She checks something on her phone and puts it away, evidently satisfied by whatever she saw. “Secondly, I’m the one who thinks up the catchy slogans. We just keep you around to be an asshole for contract negotiations.” Tony makes a face, but Pepper kisses him on the cheek and shoves him out of the locker room. “Go preen. You know you want to.”
//
Random Bucky and Steve ficlet
Sometimes, late at night, when he knows Steve is outside the door, he’ll lie down on the other side, just listening to Steve breathe. Tonight an image comes back to him. The two of them lying in their beds on a muggy night, windows open and praying for a breeze. Steve had flopped over, grabbed his hand. He narrates what he sees in his head, and hears the soft in-out of Steve’s breath stop for a second.
“Real or not real?” The silence goes on for so long he wonders if Steve has suddenly fallen asleep.
“That’s real, Buck.” Steve’s voice is scratchy, full of emotion. “As real as you and me.”
Guardians of the Galaxy
The one where Rocket gets everybody to help him with Groot's regrowth
“You care about him very much.” Rocket turns around on the stool.
“Do you know what the other Flora always called me? Abomination.” He can see the word hits a nerve by the way her posture stiffens, ever so slightly. “I’m unnatural. A thing that shouldn’t exist. I’m well aware of this. But they expected us to do all these things for them anyways.”
“I didn’t know that. It sounds like a terrible way to have to live.”
“Groot was the only one who was nice to me’n the other maintenance creatures. I think he liked that we didn’t judge him for whatever he was with the other Flora.” Gamora lifted her eyebrow inquiringly. “He was super high up or something. He didn’t like to talk about it.
Anyways, one day this Flora came up and started hassling me. I knew this asshole, he was a fucking prick, but I could usually hold out until his attention wandered. But that day, he just wouldn’t stop. Like, he’d get physical sometimes, but I’m tough. It’s like they engineered us to take hits. It was bad this day though. I was curled up in a ball, tryin’ to protect my insides, wondering if this was it. “And there was this roar, like nothing I’d ever heard before, and I opened my eyes. Groot was literally ripping this guy apart. He was pissed, of course, but he was totally methodical about it too, like he didn’t want there to be enough to grow back.” Rocket shakes himself, like the physical motion can toss off the memories that have been dredged up. Gamora reaches out like she wants to touch him, but pulls back, uncertain if this would be allowed.
--
Rocket and Peter have arguments over how much Earth pop he’s playing. What is considered classical by Flora Colossi? Peter comments that Han Solo wasn’t ever quite so invested in Chewie.
“Look, all I’m saying is what if all this exposure to Earth pop is bad for Floras?” He just wants things to be good for Groot while he regrows, is that so terrible?
“I grew up on this stuff! And look how I--” Peter’s mind catches up to mouth and he snaps it shut. “I see your point.”
//
Thor
The one where Thor asks Heimdall to keep an eye on Jane and Heimdall and Jane talk about it
She is not without spirit and bravery though, this he has seen. There are brave ones among the mortals, including those the Prince has fought with on Midgard, but it is rare to see such brilliance and pure unadulterated focus among her kind. Her quest to recreate the Bifrost is unrelenting, and while he does not understand the equipment she uses, the principles behind them are sound.
Sleepy Hollow
Set in early/middle season 1
The light in the old storage room is pale and wan, even for a winter day in New York. It is dark enough that even in the afternoon he has to turn on the lights to read the titles on the spines. He remembers the day the Lieutenant dragged the artificial lamps into the space, setting them up and inserting the ends into the walls. She flicked them on, flooding the room with brightness, and surveilled the effects of her work.
“There. Now our little batcave is actually cheerful.” There was a pleased little smile on her face. It reminded him of the one Katrina had when she was finally able to arrange their home to her liking. The thought of their little abode, occupied for so little time, makes him a bit wistful.
Mass Effect
An abandoned kink bingo fill for dress-up.
Shepard applied the cosmetics with a practiced hand, and he found that it surprised him. Something must have shown on his face, because she quirked her eyebrow (a peculiarly human gesture he never failed to be amused by) at him in the mirror.
“Do you have something you want to say?” He wiggled his mandibles, embarrassed.
“I just never imagined you as much of a makeup person.” She flicked her cheeks with something that made them color more, and appraised herself in the mirror critically. She must have be satisfied with what she saw, because she turned around and smiled. The effect was arresting in a way he didn’t expect, and his breath caught in his throat. She still looked like herself, but more intense, dramatic. Her eyes looked darker and larger, and he found himself unable to stop imagining what other things her mouth could be doing. (This was, of course, incredibly awkward, given the gravity of their impending mission.) He realized he was staring, and looked away. Her smile grew more pleased, almost smug.
“Armor has other purposes than stopping bullets.” She took his arm. “Now let’s go be pretty for the crowd.”
Watching Shepard apply her makeup again, Garrus reflected on how ridiculously different and exactly the same things could be. This time (could it only have been a few days ago?), there was no clone, no mission, no Citadel to be saved from imminent peril, and it was… strange. But good. His only responsibility tonight was to Shepard, and he was grateful. He came up behind her and trailed a talon up her spine, relishing the way she tried not to shiver. She caught his eye in the mirror and smiled conspiratorially before slipping past him to the closet. Shepard emerged, transformed. The dress fastened over one shoulder, leaving the other bare for touching. Through the designs across her stomach and hips he could see tantalizing glimpses of skin, and he gaped, unable to look away. “This is a [Asari designer here] original. I wouldn’t have risked my best dress on a mission.” Her voice dropped a register, husky and inviting. “And then what would I wear to date night?” She ran a finger down the front of his carapace, right on his pectoral ridge. Her touch was light, but he could feel his brain starting to fuzz away already. Something must have shown on his face, because she smiled and moved very very close.
Captain America
The sort-of hipster more like natives in a gentrifying neighborhood AU
Steve looks up from his Moleskine when the waitress nudges him. She hefts the coffeepot inquiringly, and he holds out his cup. After she refills it, he cradles the cup in his hands gratefully. The air’s turned a little nippy in the late afternoon, and he’s been drawing so intently he hadn’t really noticed it was getting kind of cold. “I thought you were supposed to be working?” Beth’s been working at this place since it opened, and he’s been coming here from the beginning. She knows his habits too well: the preferred flavor profiles of his coffee (blah), his allergies (blah), and when he’s slacking (now). She smiles, taking any sting out of the remark. “If you don’t make any money, I don’t make any money, and I’ve heard you complain about what a hardass Jameson is. I’m just saying.”
“I know, I know.” He sighs, and opens his laptop. The redesign for the Bugle’s website is proceeding poorly, and he’s had to sit through yet another meeting with the ad guys to justify why there’s so much whitespace and not crammed wall to wall with banners. He’s promised a another mockup by the end of the week, and it’s Thursday. Beth pats him on the shoulder, and the next time he looks up again from his screen he sees a blueberry muffin at his elbow.
--
He knocks on the doorjamb of the office in the community center where Natasha’s bent over some paperwork. She pushes it away with a sigh, stretching luxuriously before she looks up at Steve. He plunks a copy box full of flyers on the chair next to her.
“Steve, I could have picked these up myself.” The protest in her voice is perfunctory, but there nonetheless. He’s known her long enough that she thinks she has to do everything on her own, but he considers it part of his job here to help her realize that burdens are lighter when shared.
“I know. But it was on my way, so I figured I might as well.” He picks up a flyer from the top of the stack and hands it to her. “Take a look.” The notice about their new immigration clinic open house isn’t fancy, but it’s clear and contains the necessary information in five languages (he tried to do it in seven, but there wasn’t enough room). She smiles as she scans the paper.
“It’s perfect. You’re a gem.”
“Says the former corporate lawyer who just happened to also have an interest in immigration law, and showed up on our doorstep wanting to help.” Steve’s tone is teasing, but he watches Natasha’s face carefully. She’s vague about her past, and he doesn’t want to push. She fixes him with a stare, one he knows must have frightened its share of opposing counsel in its time.
“I did a lot of things for whoever paid me lots of money. Some of them were less than kind. I’m tipping the scales back.” She smirks, pleased with her terrible pun. Steve groans.
“You did not just say that.” Her smile grows wider.
“I did.”
--
The bar is named Riley’s, after an old friend of his. Sam doesn’t talk about him much, but it’s obviously clear the loss took something with him, something he can only talk about in small hours or through copious amounts of drink.
//
The one where Bucky comes to terms with his trauma through dumpling making
Natasha comes home to find the door to her apartment open, and she draws her gun. She finds the Winter Soldier, now shorn of his long hair and dressed in grubby street clothes, sitting in her kitchen. She lifts the gun a little higher, enough that she could shoot him between the eyes if he tries anything. He holds his hands out clumsily, unused to projecting lack of threat. She lowers the gun a fraction, and her shoulder twinges, a reminder of how dangerous he was and can be. He must see something in her face or the way she moves, because she’d swear he looks contrite? apologetic? for a moment.
“What do you want?” There is a long pause while he considers what to say. He is inscrutable, even to her.
“Do you know where I could find some pelmeni?”
--
"What do I call you?"
"Anything you want." His tone is flat, like the topic is unimportant but he's humoring her.
"Should I call you Bucky?" His eyes go wide, and he almost physically recoils.
"I'm going to say no."
A beat.
“I need to call you something.”
“I don't know if I can be Bucky. But I think I can be James.”
--
“Why me?”
“Because I’ve seen what you’ve done, and I knew you’d understand.” A beat. “Also, you’re safe.”
"I'm sorry?" This is a word she's never had applied to her, and it is novel.
“You don’t know Bucky Barnes. Not the way he does.” Another beat. “Maybe one day I’ll be ready for that. But not today.”
//
The Natasha fighter AU
“Look, all I’m saying is ‘scurry around like an insect, bite like a venomous… tiny thing’ doesn’t have the same sort of oomph. We can’t really capitalize on ‘Black Widow’.” Natasha is about to roll her eyes, but Pepper beats her to it, slapping Tony on the arm for good measure.
“First off, a spider isn’t an insect. It’s an arachnid. Eight legs! Middle school biology.” She checks something on her phone and puts it away, evidently satisfied by whatever she saw. “Secondly, I’m the one who thinks up the catchy slogans. We just keep you around to be an asshole for contract negotiations.” Tony makes a face, but Pepper kisses him on the cheek and shoves him out of the locker room. “Go preen. You know you want to.”
//
Random Bucky and Steve ficlet
Sometimes, late at night, when he knows Steve is outside the door, he’ll lie down on the other side, just listening to Steve breathe. Tonight an image comes back to him. The two of them lying in their beds on a muggy night, windows open and praying for a breeze. Steve had flopped over, grabbed his hand. He narrates what he sees in his head, and hears the soft in-out of Steve’s breath stop for a second.
“Real or not real?” The silence goes on for so long he wonders if Steve has suddenly fallen asleep.
“That’s real, Buck.” Steve’s voice is scratchy, full of emotion. “As real as you and me.”
Guardians of the Galaxy
The one where Rocket gets everybody to help him with Groot's regrowth
“You care about him very much.” Rocket turns around on the stool.
“Do you know what the other Flora always called me? Abomination.” He can see the word hits a nerve by the way her posture stiffens, ever so slightly. “I’m unnatural. A thing that shouldn’t exist. I’m well aware of this. But they expected us to do all these things for them anyways.”
“I didn’t know that. It sounds like a terrible way to have to live.”
“Groot was the only one who was nice to me’n the other maintenance creatures. I think he liked that we didn’t judge him for whatever he was with the other Flora.” Gamora lifted her eyebrow inquiringly. “He was super high up or something. He didn’t like to talk about it.
Anyways, one day this Flora came up and started hassling me. I knew this asshole, he was a fucking prick, but I could usually hold out until his attention wandered. But that day, he just wouldn’t stop. Like, he’d get physical sometimes, but I’m tough. It’s like they engineered us to take hits. It was bad this day though. I was curled up in a ball, tryin’ to protect my insides, wondering if this was it. “And there was this roar, like nothing I’d ever heard before, and I opened my eyes. Groot was literally ripping this guy apart. He was pissed, of course, but he was totally methodical about it too, like he didn’t want there to be enough to grow back.” Rocket shakes himself, like the physical motion can toss off the memories that have been dredged up. Gamora reaches out like she wants to touch him, but pulls back, uncertain if this would be allowed.
--
Rocket and Peter have arguments over how much Earth pop he’s playing. What is considered classical by Flora Colossi? Peter comments that Han Solo wasn’t ever quite so invested in Chewie.
“Look, all I’m saying is what if all this exposure to Earth pop is bad for Floras?” He just wants things to be good for Groot while he regrows, is that so terrible?
“I grew up on this stuff! And look how I--” Peter’s mind catches up to mouth and he snaps it shut. “I see your point.”
//
Thor
The one where Thor asks Heimdall to keep an eye on Jane and Heimdall and Jane talk about it
She is not without spirit and bravery though, this he has seen. There are brave ones among the mortals, including those the Prince has fought with on Midgard, but it is rare to see such brilliance and pure unadulterated focus among her kind. Her quest to recreate the Bifrost is unrelenting, and while he does not understand the equipment she uses, the principles behind them are sound.
One night, in his eternal vigil, she visits him in the Observatory. One edge of her shawl starts slipping and she pulls it back into place awkwardly. She is unused to the clothing of Asgard, and he can tell it sits ill upon her. She is a creature of schlubby flannel and loose-fitting comfort, transplanted to grandeur she does not entirely understand, but is awed by just the same. She looks up at him, tiny even for a mortal. He sees her quail infinitesimally, before she squares her shoulders and looks him in the eye. He inclines his head, out of respect yes, but also because he is unused to such adamant resolution from her kind.
“I’m told you kept an eye on me.” He nods again, and she takes this as a cue to sit down. She crosses her legs, childlike, and fusses with her skirts. “I suppose that would sound way more creepy if you weren’t pretty much immortal.” She sighs and leaves them balled up around her legs. “But if you did look at me in the shower, I’d like to know now.” Her comment startles a laugh out of him, loud enough to echo in the silent chamber.
Sleepy Hollow
Set in early/middle season 1
The light in the old storage room is pale and wan, even for a winter day in New York. It is dark enough that even in the afternoon he has to turn on the lights to read the titles on the spines. He remembers the day the Lieutenant dragged the artificial lamps into the space, setting them up and inserting the ends into the walls. She flicked them on, flooding the room with brightness, and surveilled the effects of her work.
“There. Now our little batcave is actually cheerful.” There was a pleased little smile on her face. It reminded him of the one Katrina had when she was finally able to arrange their home to her liking. The thought of their little abode, occupied for so little time, makes him a bit wistful.
Mass Effect
An abandoned kink bingo fill for dress-up.
Shepard applied the cosmetics with a practiced hand, and he found that it surprised him. Something must have shown on his face, because she quirked her eyebrow (a peculiarly human gesture he never failed to be amused by) at him in the mirror.
“Do you have something you want to say?” He wiggled his mandibles, embarrassed.
“I just never imagined you as much of a makeup person.” She flicked her cheeks with something that made them color more, and appraised herself in the mirror critically. She must have be satisfied with what she saw, because she turned around and smiled. The effect was arresting in a way he didn’t expect, and his breath caught in his throat. She still looked like herself, but more intense, dramatic. Her eyes looked darker and larger, and he found himself unable to stop imagining what other things her mouth could be doing. (This was, of course, incredibly awkward, given the gravity of their impending mission.) He realized he was staring, and looked away. Her smile grew more pleased, almost smug.
“Armor has other purposes than stopping bullets.” She took his arm. “Now let’s go be pretty for the crowd.”
Watching Shepard apply her makeup again, Garrus reflected on how ridiculously different and exactly the same things could be. This time (could it only have been a few days ago?), there was no clone, no mission, no Citadel to be saved from imminent peril, and it was… strange. But good. His only responsibility tonight was to Shepard, and he was grateful. He came up behind her and trailed a talon up her spine, relishing the way she tried not to shiver. She caught his eye in the mirror and smiled conspiratorially before slipping past him to the closet. Shepard emerged, transformed. The dress fastened over one shoulder, leaving the other bare for touching. Through the designs across her stomach and hips he could see tantalizing glimpses of skin, and he gaped, unable to look away. “This is a [Asari designer here] original. I wouldn’t have risked my best dress on a mission.” Her voice dropped a register, husky and inviting. “And then what would I wear to date night?” She ran a finger down the front of his carapace, right on his pectoral ridge. Her touch was light, but he could feel his brain starting to fuzz away already. Something must have shown on his face, because she smiled and moved very very close.
