screaming loud enough to turn back the wind

Title: we all won that war
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Anne Sexton
Warnings: AU pre-canon; spoilers all the way to Winter Soldier
Pairings: implied Clint/Natasha & Steve/Bucky
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 1290
Point of view: third
Prompt: MCU, Clint/Natasha, Clint defected instead of Natasha



“Will you keep hunting me if I let you live?” she whispers, gently turning his face so that she catches his gaze. “You have to return with my head or me beside you, yes? What is the price of failure?”

“They’re the good guys,” he says, but he does not believe the words.

“My masters said that, too,” she tells him. “Would you like to hear a third choice?”

He laughs, the sound both bitter and desperate. “Sure,” he says. “Why the fuck not.”

She smiles at him now, a smile she has not worn since last she saw Winter, and she offers, “Come with me instead.”

Title: I am queen of all my sins forgotten
Original, PG, character death
800 words; title from Anne Sexton
Prompt: Fairy tale, the King and his Daughter, It will scare you to your very soul. Angel Heart


( Once upon a time, there was a princess. )




Title: the hour of the ghost
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Disclaimer: not my characters (except for Kat); title from Anne Sexton
Warnings: post-WS
Pairings: Steve/OFC, Steve/Bucky
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 390
Point of view: third
Prompt: Any, any, I woke up next to him/her wishing they were you



( Her name's Kat. She's got unnaturally blonde hair, green eyes, a tattoo on her shoulder that peeks from under her dress. Natasha bought them tickets to a ballet, and Steve takes Kat to a nice place after, and they talk about -- well, history, for her. Three years ago for him. )




Title: shadowborn
Fandom: Highlander
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: none
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 100
Prompt: any, any, A fool can be crowned a King


( Only fools want to wear the crown and sit on the throne. )




Title: shadows eternal
Original/mythology
Gen, PG, 195 words
Prompt: Any, any, queen of the damned


( Once, she had been loved. )




Title: I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: post-Winter Soldier; talk of torture/violence
Pairings: gen with Steve/Bucky leanings
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 215
Point of view: third
Prompt: any, any, "The Road Not Taken" -Robert Frost


( Bucky’s slouched on the other side of the booth, in a hoodie and gloves, one hand still wrapped around his soda even though it’s mostly just melting ice, now. )

So, apparently today tigremere was talking about me and tigris_lilsis at work, describing the differences in people. (I’m assuming there was more to the beginning of the conversation, but that’s not the point of the story.) tigris_lilsis is the kind where if she doesn’t like you, tigremere said, you will know it almost immediately. She won’t bother hiding it. But me? According to my mother, I’m the kind where you will never know I don’t like you. But if you’ve done something to piss me off, even though I will never ever tell you, if I come across you on fire one day, I will not stop to help you. I’ll just walk away. I won’t set the fire, but I sure as hell won’t put it out.

If I don’t like you, my mom told someone today, chances are you’ll never know.

(Also: I asked Mom later. tigris_lilsis will stop to put the fire out, even if she doesn’t like you.)

I thought about it, after she said it. I’m pretty sure she’s right. *shrugs* Does that make me a bad person?

Title: the sunshine is a glorious birth
Fandom: Teen Wolf (TV)
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Wordsworth
Warnings: spoilers for up to the end of season 3; mentions of bad things; minor character death
Pairings: gen
Rating: PG
Wordcount:460
Point of view: third
Prompt: Teen Wolf, Talia + Derek, there's stranger who has her blood and tells her of a dark future


( She knows him immediately, through scent and through sight. )




Title: the miracle is coming back from the last war alive
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from James Humphrey
Warnings: post-Winter Soldier; talk of death/violence/torture
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 210
Point of view: third
Prompt: Any, any, Your mind is the scene of the crime. (Inception)


( He remembers falling. )





Title: When looking westward, I beheld a something
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Coleridge
Warnings: post-Winter Soldier; self-deprecating narration; AUish, mishmash backstory for both Clint&Natasha
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 475
Point of view: third
Prompt: MCU:Avengers (canon or AU), Hawkeye, "The story of a nobody who saved everybody." (The Lego Movie Tagline)



( Clint knows that he shouldn't be on <i>this</i> team -- the smartest men in the world, Captain America, an alien warrior prince, and Tasha, the most dangerous of them all.. )



Title: what monsters fear
Fandom: The Little Mermaid (Disney)
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: dark AU; implied very bad things
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 220
Point of view: third
Prompt: any, any, spirit of dark and lonely water


( There are things that sleep in the deep. )


Title: of choices
Fandom: Highlander
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: major character death
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 100
Point of view: third
Prompt: Highlander, Methos, dilemma


( It comes down to his life or another’s. )

Title: The hot July moon saw everythin’
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Deanna Carter
Warnings: character death
Pairings: Steve/Bucky
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 1780
Point of view: third
Note: this was supposed to be a drabble. It will not become a verse, because it’d be too much like a storm whereon they ride if it did.


( Steve chooses and plans. Bucky does the killing. )

Title: Three times, ‘tis said, a sinking man comes up to face the skies
Fandom: Avengers
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Dickinson
Warnings: mentions of abuse/violence/death/Hydra being a fuckwad
Pairings: gen with MAJOR Steve/Bucky leanings (of course)
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 430
Point of view: second
Prompt: MCU, any, "If you say (any)'s name three times she/he/it'll turn up."

(  Someone, somewhere, is waiting for you to return, to sit in the chair, to submit, to sleep. Someone, somewhere, will die beneath your fists, your blades, your guns. Someone, somewhere, is panicking because you will not arrive in a timely manner. )


Title: It seems too much to hope
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Denise Levertov
Warnings: mentions of character death/violence/torture/brainwashing; spoilers for Captain America: Winter Soldier
Pairings: Steve/Bucky
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 255
Point of view: third
Prompt: any, any, If I'd known what we made would be gone like yesterday...--Goodbye by Glenn Morrison feat. Islove


( There is a world where Bucky never fell. )


Title: amongst the stars
Fandom: Highlander
Disclaimer: not my character
Warnings: far in the future
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 90
Point of view: third
Prompt: Any SF/F fandom, Eldorado to the Moon, Michael Nesmith

( Humanity has come a long way. )


Title: tempest in a teacup (don’t wake the sleeping ones)
Original, gen, PG
515 words
Prompt: Any, any, not a bird in a cage

( There are some beasts so big no cage in the world could contain them. )


Title: end of an age
Fandom: Highlander
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: talk of violence/death
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 295
Point of view: third
Prompt: Highlander, Methos, Meeting his younger self wouldn't be so bad except for how many younger selves he was so happy to leave behind.


( Methos has been many men. )

Title: footprints in the snow
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: So, this is a bit abstract, I think, with a very unreliable narrator who has no fucking clue what is going on inside his head or outside it, so, there's that. Mentions of violence/brainwashing/torture.
Pairings: none
Rating: PG13?
Wordcount: 515
Point of view: third
Prompt: Steve/Bucky, the reason Bucky rescued Steve from the Potomac wasn't because Bucky was remembering Steve or breaking through his programming. It was because all he knows is extreme cruelty from Pierce/Rumlow/etc., and he reacted to the small bit of kindness Steve showed him like an abused dog.

There is nothing inside the asset but falling snow.



Title: all we have to lay on the line
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Adrienne Rich
Warnings: suicidal ideation; mentions of death/violence/torture/brainwashing; codependence; grief
Pairings: Steve/Bucky
Rating: PG13
Wordcount: 2440
Point of view: third
Prompt: During Steve's search for the Winter Soldier, everyone is constantly cautioning him not to get his hopes up, to remember that he's not really Bucky, that he's an assassin, that he's the enemy (never mind the 70 years of torture and brainwashing, not like that had anything to do with it, not like he should be considered Hydra's oldest and longest lasting victim or anything).

I just need someone, maybe one of the remaining SHIELD agents, maybe the new director, Phil or someone else, maybe Tony or Natasha or Clint or Sam, someone to say to Steve, "We need you to be aware that, if it comes to a point where a choice has to be made, we have to be prepared to do what's necessary."

And I need Steve to look them in the eye and say, "If it comes to the point where that choice needs to be made, you should be aware that I'm prepared to stop you."


Natasha called him a ghost. Steve has no idea how long it took Hydra to make him that way, but he’s repaying the debt with blood and fire, and he isn’t merciful.

Title: I seek some nobler hero’s name
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Lord Byron
Warnings: past abuse, identity issues, everything that Winter Soldier implies, takes place after Avengers 2 so they’re all a happy family at Avengers Tower, spoilers for Little Women
Pairings: Pepper/Tony, Jane/Thor
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 1950
Point of view: third
Note: thanks to 5012allinarow for help with Tony Stark
Prompt: any, any, "You do know 'Oi, you!' is not my name, right?"


For months, he doesn't respond to his name. He's a ghost in the Tower, seen out the corners of people's eyes, there for a moment and then not.

Steve is the only one who calls him anything at all, and no one knows if that's wrong or not.

Warnings for discussion of paralysis, fear, pain, and bad language




MRI: unpleasant (I’ve had 3 or 4, I think. Maybe 5?)
MRA: fuck that shit, it felt like I was on fire (only the once, thank fuck)
CT scan: I don’t really remember it? Concussions suck. But I think it might have been cool. Aside from, you know, the concussion.
EEG: not too bad, though the hyperventilation exercise was creepy

I’d just really like my head to stop hurting, okay? Really. That’s all I want.

I had a small episode earlier this week, unlike anything I've ever experienced, and possibly the most physical pain I've ever experienced (including that time I fell of a galloping (cantering?) horse). But my aunt the nurse checked me over and all the readings were normal. But I've had an actualfax migraine since, and my left arm didn't feel right until today. I've gotten used to always having a headache, but it's been awhile since a migraine's lasted this long.

But the episode... god, it was terrifying. Just sudden pain all over my body, bright light in my eyes (brain?), and I couldn't move, and I didn't want to move, and it felt like I was shaking inside, and everything was loud and echoey, and I felt so far away from everything, so removed... and I just. It was hours before I felt semi-normal again, and I freaked my little sister the fuck out, and I couldn't concentrate. I felt so tired but I didn't want to sleep (and my little sister didn't want me to sleep either, scared I wouldn't wake up).

So, yeah. I called my neurologist the next morning. Possibly my migraines are upgrading? Best cast scenario, I think. But I am so tired of my head hurting. I can't even remember how it felt when my head didn't hurt. I've gotten almost no work done for my thesis, and I don't even care because I can barely concentrate half the time. I just... I want it to stop. That's all.

Title: a shadow ajar
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: post season 3; trauma; mindfuck
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 265
Point of view: third
Prompt: Teen Wolf, Stiles, I don’t just want your heart. I want your flesh, your skin and blood and bones, your voice, your thoughts, your pulse and most of all your fingerprints, everywhere.


(  He watches the fox crumble to dust, watches his own face collapse, and he knows -- it's not over yet. )



Title: the weapon with no name
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: Spoilers for Cap2. Mentions of torture/brainwashing/violence
Pairings: Steve/Bucky
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 625
Point of view: third
Prompt: Any, any vs any, the origin of a grudge



( There is a weapon with a title but no name, and he is a powerful weapon indeed. )



Title: the twilight kingdom
Original, gen, PG
720 words
Prompt: Author's choice, author's choice, kingdoms in the twilight, forests forever on the cusp of autumn

( She learned from Maleficent’s failure. There are no loopholes here. )



Title: that season of beginning
Original, gen, PG for mild language
500 words
Prompt: Any, any, anthropomorphic personification of autumn
Title from Truman Capote. Set in 2014.

( At the turn of the year, the four gather, as they always do, plotting out the next year’s weather. )


Title: the start
Original, PG, gen
130 words
Prompt: any, any, every book tells a story

( Once upon a time. )