Avengers unfinisheds
Dec. 15th, 2012 02:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tigriswolfSo, here is all (but one, and not including I was thinking of a son or a taste of lightning) Avengers fic I have in the works. And these are ones I'm really pretty sure I won't be coming back to.
for this prompt on the kinkmeme. I don’t see myself ever adding to this, for some reason. *shrugs*
The older he gets, the harder it is to hide. He sees ex-brothers and sisters on the street, meets their eyes, blinks to give them time to get away. Glances at Nat, at Tony, at Steve – none of them know. He’s fooled SHIELD for years. Lied to Black Widow’s face and survived because she’s never seen the lie.
Running away to the circus was the best decision he ever made. It’s a blanket lie to cover all his skills.
But it’s getting harder to hide. If there’s one thing to thank Loki for, though, it’s the last command he gave - keep your talents hidden, he’d murmured, hand on Clint’s face, looking into his eyes. let them all underestimate you. I may have need of you again.
Loki saw all of him. So far, Hulk is the only other one. He keeps calling Hawkeye ‘kitty,’ and while Tony gives them both shit for it, no one has caught on.
I’m pretty sure this was for this prompt from kayim, but I’m not sure.
Steve hadn’t realized how much he missed this until he has it again, Bucky at his back and snarking, Bucky smiling when the mission is done, Bucky in the gym at the range, Bucky there when he wakes up in a panic, and Bucky there when he closes his eyes to sleep, like they’re boys again, eighty years and a lifetime ago.
Bucky’s alive, has been alive all this time, and every now and then there’s someone else in his eyes, someone dark and cold, but Bucky always comes back. And he won’t tell Steve about it, but he talks to Natasha because the same people had them, took her as a little girl and found him in the mountains, and Bucky and Natasha, they’re the greatest weapons those bastards ever made, but Natasha and Bucky, wearing identical smiles, said their masters were dead, and Clint nodded. Clint nodded because he was there, he had their backs when the Red Room bled out, while Steve was still in the ice.
Steve was in the ice for seventy years while Bucky was unmade. He left Bucky for dead, and Bucky was tortured and used for seventy years.
Bucky just smacks the back of his head every time he starts brooding. He has the Winter Soldier’s memories, and has nightmares, but he doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about it, Steve knows. Mainly from the files Tony had Jarvis hack for him. Bucky has his life separated into Before and After, and After wasn’t him. All the years he was frozen, waiting for the missions, he integrated the memories, somehow – Steve’s not too clear on the medical or psychological details, and he doesn’t want to think about it too much, because the only person he has to punish for it all is himself, and Bucky’s already told him he can’t.
So he pretends those seventy years never happened, anytime he can. He pretends Bucky never fell, that he didn’t go into the ice, that Natasha doesn’t have a secret language Bucky (and Clint, to a lesser degree) speaks fluently, that most of the SHIELD agents above a certain security clearance look at Bucky with thinly-veiled horror.
Loki wears red to the funeral. She sits at the back and listens as humanity praises the fallen warrior, as aesir mourn the fallen prince. Odin All-Father solemnly vows to avenge his beloved son, his stolen heir; the queen Frigga weeps, but her eyes do not stray from Loki.
Nodding her head, Loki’s gaze goes to the pyre. Brother, she promises, I will have my revenge in your name.
.
Loki has never truly wanted Thor dead. Wanted Thor in the dirt, laid low, bloody and bruised, yes. But all of those can be risen from. Thor is gone now, passed into Valhalla – never again will the Thunderer wield Mjölnir and command the storm.
Never again.
It was not Loki’s plan. Loki had no part in at all, was worlds away, courting allies in Múspellsheimr. But he felt Thor fall. Thor’s death was immediate, in battle, complete. Had Loki been there that same moment, not even his strongest magicks could have halted Thor’s travel to Valhalla.
Thor’s killer wore Loki’s face. Thor never could see through illusions.
.
After the funeral, Loki goes to ground. He takes the form of a small child, the better to be underestimated, and lets himself be found by a librarian in upstate New York. She follows all procedures and Loki is inducted into the foster system. He does not speak to any of the humans who interact with him; they give him a new name, Vincent Gage, based on criteria he does not care about, and bandy about terms that have no meaning.
Loki is deep inside himself, planning and plotting and pondering.
Every ‘hero’ in every world is hunting Loki, cowardly murderer of the God of Thunder.
Only Loki seeks the one who actually did it.
.
Vincent Gage is never adopted. He also never speaks. Ten years pass and Vincent sits in corners, staring at nothing.
No word ever comes about Loki.
Sequel to this and for this prompt.
He runs. Leaves his weapons on the floor and runs, hides, goes to ground. He knows that Black Widow - Natasha, Natalia, I’m a monster, how could I have - she will find him, so he starts running again.
But Black Widow is not the only one after him, and when he stops fighting himself, Winter Soldier takes over and keeps them alive. Bucky surrenders total control and curls up in a dark corner in their mind.
Seventy years, give or take. Mind broken apart and pieced back together, body remade how his masters wanted.
- Steve, Steve, dumb kid who never backed down, beautiful smile and graceful hands, Steve, Steve, so strong, Steve, I’m sorry -
Bucky Barnes died. He fell off a train and his body broke and his heart stopped – and he was pulled from the ice, and Red Skull’s experiments meant he woke up, if minus an arm and most of his memories.
In hindsight, seventy years in the future, it’s all too clear. He’s Frankenstein’s monster – except not, because Frankenstein’s monster wasn’t a monster. He tried to get away, to avoid hurting people.
Winter Soldier is one of the greatest assassins in history. He is what his masters made him.
Bucky Barnes is a dumb kid from Brooklyn who wishes his best friend never pulled him from that Hydra base.
I won’t let us die, Winter Soldier tells him. Bucky can feel Winter Soldier dodge, throw a knife, jump, and hit the water in a perfect dive.
We shouldn’t be alive, Bucky replies. Winter Soldier scoffs, so Bucky adds, It’s my body. You’re just… programming.
You know what I know Winter Soldier says. I know what you know. And I can tell you this – Captain America saw us.
Bucky flinches as Winter Soldier smoothly rises from the water. Steve.
I don’t care about Captain America, Winter Soldier says. I’m not you. I never have been. But I won’t kill him. For you – I won’t kill him.
Thank you, Bucky whispers, pulling back as far as he can. There are seven decades worth of memories - not quite, Winter Soldier whispers, I slept some, months or years at a time -to catch up on, to learn what his body has been doing.
So while Winter Soldier finds somewhere safe and starts planning what to do with a life of their own, Bucky tries integrating Winter Soldier’s life with his own.
Finally, days or weeks later, he has no idea how long, Winter Soldier plops down next to him in their shared mind. Bucky looks at him – identical, mostly, but with longer hair, more scars, and a cybernetic arm.
for this prompt. And, dudes, I have Bucky’s family entirely plotted out. I just… never got around to writing the rest of it.
After everything dies down, after Steve helps save the world (again, Bucky would drawl, grinning, eyes bright, Stevie, you’re a motion-picture hero, what d’ya know) after he’d gotten out and gone places and done things, he realizes that he needs to keep getting out and going places and doing things.
He can’t hide anymore. He starts walking around again, and talking to people he sees, and going to art galleries and museums and diners. He starts sketching again, visits libraries, familiarizes himself with computers, and thinks he’s coming along pretty well.
When he was a kid, he liked science fiction. Ever since he joined the army, he’s been living in a story, the kind he and Bucky used to make up. (Bucky wrote the words. Steve illustrated them. For awhile, he daydreamed about them getting famous that way.)
Some days are worse than others. Some days, he wants to stay in bed beneath the covers and pretend he’s home with a cold and Bucky ran out for some soup, but he’ll be back any minute now.
Some days, he wishes he was still in the ice. Those days, he calls the therapist Director Fury assigned him and requests a session.
.
Dr. Collins is a very nice lady. She’s sharp and no-nonsense. Steve talks to her about being a little guy and getting the snot knocked out of him all over Brooklyn. He talks about Ma and the father he never knew. He talks about basic and Project Rebirth. He talks about the Howling Commandos, Hydra, and Johann Schmidt.
He never talks about Bucky. Not even once.
If Dr. Collins knows, she doesn’t let on.
.
It’s Dr. Collins’ idea to contact any of his old friends who might be alive.
Well, it was actually Steve’s idea, but Dr. Collins convinces him to try. He could ask Stark’s son to find all the information, but instead Steve makes a project of it.
The last Commando died the week before Steve woke up. Three of the chorus girls from his USO tour are still alive; he visits each of them, though only one recognizes him.
And Bucky’s little sister lives in Albany. Steve stops breathing when he learns that, staring at Dr. Collins.
“You didn’t mention Sergeant Barnes,” Dr. Collin’s says quietly. “But I have access to all SHIELD’s files regarding you. The fact that you never mentioned him…” She smiles gently. “That tells me a lot, Captain.”
Steve looks away. They sit in silence for a few minutes, until Steve says, “Bucky tried to leave Becca behind a few times, when we were younger. I wouldn’t let him. I knew how it felt, you know? So what if she was littler than us.” He shrugs, keeping his gaze down, fingers picking at the fabric of his pants. “She left us alone as we got older. Friends of her own or staying home with her mom. I didn’t really notice.” Too wrapped up in Bucky, he doesn’t say. He’s never talked about that with anyone, Bucky included. They never needed to talk about it.
Bucky went to war and Steve followed as soon as he could.
Steve glances up at Dr. Collins. “I love Bucky,” he says quietly. “He was… he was my friend and my brother, and…” He swallows. “Every day, I wake up and I think, maybe it never happened. Every day, I see something, and I think, Bucky would love that, or wait ‘til I tell Bucky.” He wipes at his eyes, then squeezes them tightly shut. “I love him, and I miss him, and if I go see his little sister, I don’t –”
Becca had gray-blue eyes just like Bucky, and black hair, and charm. She’d hugged them both goodbye. He never saw her again after Dr. Erksine let him enlist, but – just like Bucky – he sent all his pay to her. There had been no one else.
“Here’s what I’ve found,” Dr. Collins says. “Let me know what you decide.”
Steve takes the memory stick for his laptop computer and flees.
.
Two missions with the Avengers happen before Steve goes back to Dr. Collins. He stands at attention and says, “I’d like to see Rebecca.”
Dr. Collins smiles.
sort of a myth crossover, maybe?
They will call him monster forever. He’ll grin, blood glinting on his teeth, and twist his fingers just so.
Worlds fall. Clever things live to see them rise again.
How ironic, he thinks, that this monster is the cleverest thing of all.
0o0
In a world of ice, he watches the sky. In a desert world, he sketches designs in the sand. In a world of endless oceans, he floats on his back for days, letting the giants and the tiny creatures take their measure.
He is tired. He is ancient.
They call him monster even now, all those fleeting lives, all the historians and their histories. He writes his name in flame and water, and they call him monster instead.
for this prompt on the kinkmeme. I don’t see myself ever adding to this, for some reason. *shrugs*
The older he gets, the harder it is to hide. He sees ex-brothers and sisters on the street, meets their eyes, blinks to give them time to get away. Glances at Nat, at Tony, at Steve – none of them know. He’s fooled SHIELD for years. Lied to Black Widow’s face and survived because she’s never seen the lie.
Running away to the circus was the best decision he ever made. It’s a blanket lie to cover all his skills.
But it’s getting harder to hide. If there’s one thing to thank Loki for, though, it’s the last command he gave - keep your talents hidden, he’d murmured, hand on Clint’s face, looking into his eyes. let them all underestimate you. I may have need of you again.
Loki saw all of him. So far, Hulk is the only other one. He keeps calling Hawkeye ‘kitty,’ and while Tony gives them both shit for it, no one has caught on.
I’m pretty sure this was for this prompt from kayim, but I’m not sure.
Steve hadn’t realized how much he missed this until he has it again, Bucky at his back and snarking, Bucky smiling when the mission is done, Bucky in the gym at the range, Bucky there when he wakes up in a panic, and Bucky there when he closes his eyes to sleep, like they’re boys again, eighty years and a lifetime ago.
Bucky’s alive, has been alive all this time, and every now and then there’s someone else in his eyes, someone dark and cold, but Bucky always comes back. And he won’t tell Steve about it, but he talks to Natasha because the same people had them, took her as a little girl and found him in the mountains, and Bucky and Natasha, they’re the greatest weapons those bastards ever made, but Natasha and Bucky, wearing identical smiles, said their masters were dead, and Clint nodded. Clint nodded because he was there, he had their backs when the Red Room bled out, while Steve was still in the ice.
Steve was in the ice for seventy years while Bucky was unmade. He left Bucky for dead, and Bucky was tortured and used for seventy years.
Bucky just smacks the back of his head every time he starts brooding. He has the Winter Soldier’s memories, and has nightmares, but he doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about it, Steve knows. Mainly from the files Tony had Jarvis hack for him. Bucky has his life separated into Before and After, and After wasn’t him. All the years he was frozen, waiting for the missions, he integrated the memories, somehow – Steve’s not too clear on the medical or psychological details, and he doesn’t want to think about it too much, because the only person he has to punish for it all is himself, and Bucky’s already told him he can’t.
So he pretends those seventy years never happened, anytime he can. He pretends Bucky never fell, that he didn’t go into the ice, that Natasha doesn’t have a secret language Bucky (and Clint, to a lesser degree) speaks fluently, that most of the SHIELD agents above a certain security clearance look at Bucky with thinly-veiled horror.
Loki wears red to the funeral. She sits at the back and listens as humanity praises the fallen warrior, as aesir mourn the fallen prince. Odin All-Father solemnly vows to avenge his beloved son, his stolen heir; the queen Frigga weeps, but her eyes do not stray from Loki.
Nodding her head, Loki’s gaze goes to the pyre. Brother, she promises, I will have my revenge in your name.
.
Loki has never truly wanted Thor dead. Wanted Thor in the dirt, laid low, bloody and bruised, yes. But all of those can be risen from. Thor is gone now, passed into Valhalla – never again will the Thunderer wield Mjölnir and command the storm.
Never again.
It was not Loki’s plan. Loki had no part in at all, was worlds away, courting allies in Múspellsheimr. But he felt Thor fall. Thor’s death was immediate, in battle, complete. Had Loki been there that same moment, not even his strongest magicks could have halted Thor’s travel to Valhalla.
Thor’s killer wore Loki’s face. Thor never could see through illusions.
.
After the funeral, Loki goes to ground. He takes the form of a small child, the better to be underestimated, and lets himself be found by a librarian in upstate New York. She follows all procedures and Loki is inducted into the foster system. He does not speak to any of the humans who interact with him; they give him a new name, Vincent Gage, based on criteria he does not care about, and bandy about terms that have no meaning.
Loki is deep inside himself, planning and plotting and pondering.
Every ‘hero’ in every world is hunting Loki, cowardly murderer of the God of Thunder.
Only Loki seeks the one who actually did it.
.
Vincent Gage is never adopted. He also never speaks. Ten years pass and Vincent sits in corners, staring at nothing.
No word ever comes about Loki.
Sequel to this and for this prompt.
He runs. Leaves his weapons on the floor and runs, hides, goes to ground. He knows that Black Widow - Natasha, Natalia, I’m a monster, how could I have - she will find him, so he starts running again.
But Black Widow is not the only one after him, and when he stops fighting himself, Winter Soldier takes over and keeps them alive. Bucky surrenders total control and curls up in a dark corner in their mind.
Seventy years, give or take. Mind broken apart and pieced back together, body remade how his masters wanted.
- Steve, Steve, dumb kid who never backed down, beautiful smile and graceful hands, Steve, Steve, so strong, Steve, I’m sorry -
Bucky Barnes died. He fell off a train and his body broke and his heart stopped – and he was pulled from the ice, and Red Skull’s experiments meant he woke up, if minus an arm and most of his memories.
In hindsight, seventy years in the future, it’s all too clear. He’s Frankenstein’s monster – except not, because Frankenstein’s monster wasn’t a monster. He tried to get away, to avoid hurting people.
Winter Soldier is one of the greatest assassins in history. He is what his masters made him.
Bucky Barnes is a dumb kid from Brooklyn who wishes his best friend never pulled him from that Hydra base.
I won’t let us die, Winter Soldier tells him. Bucky can feel Winter Soldier dodge, throw a knife, jump, and hit the water in a perfect dive.
We shouldn’t be alive, Bucky replies. Winter Soldier scoffs, so Bucky adds, It’s my body. You’re just… programming.
You know what I know Winter Soldier says. I know what you know. And I can tell you this – Captain America saw us.
Bucky flinches as Winter Soldier smoothly rises from the water. Steve.
I don’t care about Captain America, Winter Soldier says. I’m not you. I never have been. But I won’t kill him. For you – I won’t kill him.
Thank you, Bucky whispers, pulling back as far as he can. There are seven decades worth of memories - not quite, Winter Soldier whispers, I slept some, months or years at a time -to catch up on, to learn what his body has been doing.
So while Winter Soldier finds somewhere safe and starts planning what to do with a life of their own, Bucky tries integrating Winter Soldier’s life with his own.
Finally, days or weeks later, he has no idea how long, Winter Soldier plops down next to him in their shared mind. Bucky looks at him – identical, mostly, but with longer hair, more scars, and a cybernetic arm.
for this prompt. And, dudes, I have Bucky’s family entirely plotted out. I just… never got around to writing the rest of it.
After everything dies down, after Steve helps save the world (again, Bucky would drawl, grinning, eyes bright, Stevie, you’re a motion-picture hero, what d’ya know) after he’d gotten out and gone places and done things, he realizes that he needs to keep getting out and going places and doing things.
He can’t hide anymore. He starts walking around again, and talking to people he sees, and going to art galleries and museums and diners. He starts sketching again, visits libraries, familiarizes himself with computers, and thinks he’s coming along pretty well.
When he was a kid, he liked science fiction. Ever since he joined the army, he’s been living in a story, the kind he and Bucky used to make up. (Bucky wrote the words. Steve illustrated them. For awhile, he daydreamed about them getting famous that way.)
Some days are worse than others. Some days, he wants to stay in bed beneath the covers and pretend he’s home with a cold and Bucky ran out for some soup, but he’ll be back any minute now.
Some days, he wishes he was still in the ice. Those days, he calls the therapist Director Fury assigned him and requests a session.
.
Dr. Collins is a very nice lady. She’s sharp and no-nonsense. Steve talks to her about being a little guy and getting the snot knocked out of him all over Brooklyn. He talks about Ma and the father he never knew. He talks about basic and Project Rebirth. He talks about the Howling Commandos, Hydra, and Johann Schmidt.
He never talks about Bucky. Not even once.
If Dr. Collins knows, she doesn’t let on.
.
It’s Dr. Collins’ idea to contact any of his old friends who might be alive.
Well, it was actually Steve’s idea, but Dr. Collins convinces him to try. He could ask Stark’s son to find all the information, but instead Steve makes a project of it.
The last Commando died the week before Steve woke up. Three of the chorus girls from his USO tour are still alive; he visits each of them, though only one recognizes him.
And Bucky’s little sister lives in Albany. Steve stops breathing when he learns that, staring at Dr. Collins.
“You didn’t mention Sergeant Barnes,” Dr. Collin’s says quietly. “But I have access to all SHIELD’s files regarding you. The fact that you never mentioned him…” She smiles gently. “That tells me a lot, Captain.”
Steve looks away. They sit in silence for a few minutes, until Steve says, “Bucky tried to leave Becca behind a few times, when we were younger. I wouldn’t let him. I knew how it felt, you know? So what if she was littler than us.” He shrugs, keeping his gaze down, fingers picking at the fabric of his pants. “She left us alone as we got older. Friends of her own or staying home with her mom. I didn’t really notice.” Too wrapped up in Bucky, he doesn’t say. He’s never talked about that with anyone, Bucky included. They never needed to talk about it.
Bucky went to war and Steve followed as soon as he could.
Steve glances up at Dr. Collins. “I love Bucky,” he says quietly. “He was… he was my friend and my brother, and…” He swallows. “Every day, I wake up and I think, maybe it never happened. Every day, I see something, and I think, Bucky would love that, or wait ‘til I tell Bucky.” He wipes at his eyes, then squeezes them tightly shut. “I love him, and I miss him, and if I go see his little sister, I don’t –”
Becca had gray-blue eyes just like Bucky, and black hair, and charm. She’d hugged them both goodbye. He never saw her again after Dr. Erksine let him enlist, but – just like Bucky – he sent all his pay to her. There had been no one else.
“Here’s what I’ve found,” Dr. Collins says. “Let me know what you decide.”
Steve takes the memory stick for his laptop computer and flees.
.
Two missions with the Avengers happen before Steve goes back to Dr. Collins. He stands at attention and says, “I’d like to see Rebecca.”
Dr. Collins smiles.
sort of a myth crossover, maybe?
They will call him monster forever. He’ll grin, blood glinting on his teeth, and twist his fingers just so.
Worlds fall. Clever things live to see them rise again.
How ironic, he thinks, that this monster is the cleverest thing of all.
0o0
In a world of ice, he watches the sky. In a desert world, he sketches designs in the sand. In a world of endless oceans, he floats on his back for days, letting the giants and the tiny creatures take their measure.
He is tired. He is ancient.
They call him monster even now, all those fleeting lives, all the historians and their histories. He writes his name in flame and water, and they call him monster instead.