Monday: Deja Vu Again and Again
Jul. 23rd, 2012 02:01 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
argentum-ls.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
comment_ficHi, all. Today marks the kickoff of my inaugural week hosting comment-fic. I'm ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
argentum_ls, though you can call me LadySilver. Today's theme is deja vu, because doesn't every Monday feel just like the last one? :) With today's theme, let's explore those times when one just knows one's been here before, the repeated moments, the collisions of awareness when one can sense the inevitable unwinding.
The rules:
No more than three prompts to a single fandom
No more than five prompts at a time
No spoilers in the prompts and if your fill has spoilers, please warn and and leave at least three spaces
Format:
Fandom, Character, Prompt
Fandom, Character/Character, Prompt
Examples:
Highlander, Methos, He doesn't have to have lived 5000 years to know how this conversation is going to go.
Do Over, Joel+Pat, Joel's lived all this before, so it's the events that aren't doubled that stand out.
Teen Wolf, Scott+Peter, (post memory transfer) aftershocks
VR.5, Sydney+Duncan+Sam, The color coding isn't the only way to tell their real memories from the fake ones.
Nothing catching your eye today? Take another look at the lonely prompts?
Have fun! (Betcha knew I was going to say that?) :)
tag=Dejavu
argentum_ls, though you can call me LadySilver. Today's theme is deja vu, because doesn't every Monday feel just like the last one? :) With today's theme, let's explore those times when one just knows one's been here before, the repeated moments, the collisions of awareness when one can sense the inevitable unwinding.The rules:
No more than three prompts to a single fandom
No more than five prompts at a time
No spoilers in the prompts and if your fill has spoilers, please warn and and leave at least three spaces
Format:
Fandom, Character, Prompt
Fandom, Character/Character, Prompt
Examples:
Highlander, Methos, He doesn't have to have lived 5000 years to know how this conversation is going to go.
Do Over, Joel+Pat, Joel's lived all this before, so it's the events that aren't doubled that stand out.
Teen Wolf, Scott+Peter, (post memory transfer) aftershocks
VR.5, Sydney+Duncan+Sam, The color coding isn't the only way to tell their real memories from the fake ones.
Nothing catching your eye today? Take another look at the lonely prompts?
Have fun! (Betcha knew I was going to say that?) :)
tag=Dejavu
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-07-23 07:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-23 07:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-23 07:52 pm (UTC)No Fill (Yet)
Date: 2012-07-23 10:38 pm (UTC)*adds to queue*
no subject
Date: 2012-07-24 03:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-23 08:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-23 08:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-23 10:16 pm (UTC)spoilers for Captain America: Winter Soldier
Date: 2014-05-08 02:37 pm (UTC)(Spoilers for Cap2. All quotes from either it or First Avenger. Definite Steve/Bucky leanings.)
...
Don't do anything stupid 'til I get back, his voice says.
How can I? Captain America's voice says back. You're taking all the stupid with you.
He is sitting in an abandoned building in Virginia, eyes closed, straining what little memory he has. He remembers missions, handlers, how to kill and how to hurt, how to evade authorities, how to pretend to be harmless, how to pass unseen. He remembers how to speak eighteen languages and read five more.
He does not remember what he likes, how food tastes, if he ever enjoyed anything at all.
He does not remember Captain America, but Captain America had said, You’ve known me your whole life.
Don't do anything stupid 'til I get back, his voice says.
How can I? Captain America's voice says back. You're taking all the stupid with you.
His memories cannot be trusted; he knows he has been wiped and remade. Who is he? Who was James Buchanan Barnes? Captain America loved him.
Captain America loves him still.
He lets his head rest against the wall and keeps trying to remember.
Re: spoilers for Captain America: Winter Soldier
Date: 2014-05-14 02:00 am (UTC)Re: spoilers for Captain America: Winter Soldier
Date: 2014-05-14 01:51 pm (UTC)Glad you like it!
no subject
Date: 2012-07-23 10:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-24 12:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-24 01:20 am (UTC)"Yes, we do until you get it through your thick head that I don't like it."
"Yes Danny, I got that the first hundred times you told me."
"Ten why do you always insist on getting it?"
"Because I like it."
"Great then order two fucking pizzas," Danny said disgusted with the whole argument. "You always ask what people want, you take their orders into consideration but when I say no pineapple, you completely ignore me. So yes, we have to have this argument again."
no subject
Date: 2012-07-24 01:39 am (UTC)Lol....
no subject
Date: 2012-07-24 12:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-24 02:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-24 02:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-24 02:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-24 02:41 am (UTC)Avengers movieverse, Loki/Clint + Avengers, et tu?
no subject
Date: 2012-07-24 03:29 am (UTC)1/3 Avengers: Tony/Steve (past Tony+Howard, Steve+Howard)
Date: 2012-07-25 06:40 am (UTC)But he desperately wishes that Howard hadn't been his friend. He was gone for a lifetime. People changed, the world changed. He shouldn't be held responsible for the things a casual friend did twenty years after he was frozen!
It's irrational, and there's a small part of Steve that wants to just walk away. But he can't. There's something about Tony that just draws him in, no matter how hard the genius works to push him out. And for somebody working so hard to get rid of Steve, Tony sends some pretty conflicting signals: he's invited the team, including Steve, to live in his home, and seems to spend all of his free time designing things for them, like Steve's 'practically indestructible- yes I said practically, I know you'll manage it' punching bags.
Maybe it's his own fault for bringing Howard up when he met Tony. But how the hell was he supposed to know his friend- who had been a good man when he'd known him, damn it- had treated his son so badly? At first, Steve had thought it might just be spoiled rich kid whining, but he'd asked Natasha what SHIELD knew, and while she'd refused to tell him, her eyes had said plenty.
So he feels more than a little guilty for having liked Howard Stark. For having sat around drinking with a man who would later hurt his son so badly. Perhaps the most frustrating part of the whole thing is that, while he feels guilty on Howard's behalf, he has no idea what Howard did. Something put that cold pain in Tony's eyes, and the buried sympathy in Natasha's. But he doesn't know what.
"Yo, Blondie!" a voice calls, and as he turns to locate Stark, the punching bag comes to life?!
The thing knocks him flat on his back before he quite understands what's happening, and Stark is laughing and clapping, so he suspects it was intentional, not the work of some unknown super villain.
"What happened to 'it's important to think on your feet'?" Stark asks, standing over him and looking down, clearly pleased with himself.
"I've never prepared for the eventuality that you would go evil and try to kill me," Steve tells him with a groan. Tony at least has the decency to offer him a hand up, and he takes it.
"When we met Clint, he was under mind control. There's a mutant named Mystique who can take on any form she choses. You can't trust that just because I give it to you it's safe, or that just because I'm standing in front of you I'm me," Tony scolds.
"What did he do?" Steve asks, then winces. He didn't mean for the words to escape.
"What? How hard did you hit your head? I am Tony. Who built that, for you to use. Scaring you with it was just a bonus." Tony sounds a bit concerned, which is something at least.
"No, you're trying to get back at me- for Howard. But I have no idea what for, other than that you hold me responsible for whatever your father did," Steve says, knowing he shouldn't, but he's sick of this. It's better to get it into the open.
"You were his greatest creation," Tony says, suddenly serious. "He was a hell of a lot prouder of you than he ever could have been of me. He spent my whole life telling me I'd never live up to you. And then you show up, and it's 'big man in a suit'. Yeah, a suit I built and designed myself. Running on technology I invented. I don't see you looking down on Rhodey, and all he does is strap himself into a suit I made him. Actually, he doesn't even do that. He sits there and lets it strap itself on the way I designed it to. Nobody devoted their life to inventing a magic potion to make me a super hero. I made myself into one. In a cave in the middle of Afghanistan, with shrapnel in my chest and terrorists watching my every move."
Tony is panting now, furious and on edge. He finishes with, "So I don't really care if I never lived up to you for him, or if I'll never live up to him for you. I'm Tony fucking Stark, I'm Iron Man, and that's all me."
2/3 Avengers: Tony/Steve (past Tony+Howard, Steve+Howard)
Date: 2012-07-25 06:41 am (UTC)"What just happened?" Steve wonders aloud.
"Mr. Stark attempted to be honest with you, and share a few of his demons. Regrettably, the conversation went nearly as badly as he anticipated it might." JARVIS' artificial voice is a bit reserved, as if he's wary of Steve's reaction.
"JARVIS," Steve asks, making a decision, "show me anything Tony will let me access about his relationship with his father. And uh, don't tell him unless you have to."
Steve spends the rest of the afternoon in the gym, watching home movies and a horrifying bit of security footage where Howard's best friend attempts to murder Tony. JARVIS wasn't active when Howard Stark was alive, but even in the home movies of Christmases, birthdays, and awards ceremonies, which should have been happy occasions, the tension is obvious.
There are a few Steve doesn't understand at first. He watches Tony's whole high school graduation and doesn't see Howard, and it's not until it's over that he catches the significance of that. Several of the home videos don't contain Howard, but do contain angry offscreen phone calls as someone tries to convince him to put down what he's doing and come to his son's awards ceremony/ birthday/ etc. Once, a woman he thinks is Maria even screams that "The Brooklyn Project is over, and he's gone for good," and Steve realizes that he's the reason Tony's father missed his fourth birthday.
Finally, he says, "Thank you, JARVIS, that's- that's enough."
"There is one more video I believe you should see, sir," JARVIS says, and footage of Tony in his workshop appears before him. It's not current, Tony is wearing different clothes. And he's tinkering with something- the punching bag, Steve realizes. He watches Tony spend hours developing it, design a propulsion system and a rudimentary learning program for it, get into the suit to test it, and start over. Over and over, long past the point where Steve thinks it's perfect.
When the punching bag finally knocks a suited Tony across the room, he flips up his faceplate and grins. "That'll do it," he announces. His voice is less sure when he says, "He'll like it, right, JARVIS?"
"I cannot see why not, sir. It is designed to fulfill his unique needs," JARVIS says.
Before the conversation can continue, Tony shouts, "Dummy, NO! Override, stand down, override!" shutting down the punching bag before it can attack his helper bot. Dummy, who has always reminded Steve a bit of a puppy, the few times he's been to Tony's lab, looks sad when Tony tells him he isn't allowed to play with the punching bag, and Steve can't help laughing.
But these videos have shown him a lot. Howard was a deadbeat, whether he technically lived in the same house as his son or not. And from young Tony's body language the few times they were captured onscreen together, he was likely abusive as well. And Tony may see Howard in Steve, but he also desperately wants Steve to like him, which probably means that Tony doesn't actually hate him.
Well, one of them is going to have to man up and deal with this, and it might as well be Steve. "JARVIS, what time is it?"
"9:15PM, sir. You have been in the gym for approximately seven hours, five and a half of which you have spent reviewing footage," JARVIS answers promptly.
"Is Tony in his lab? And did he get dinner?" Steve checks.
"Mr. Stark has been in his lab since your altercation, Captain. He has not emerged for food."
3/3 Avengers: Tony/Steve (past Tony+Howard, Steve+Howard)
Date: 2012-07-25 06:41 am (UTC)Tony hasn't thought to lock him out of the lab, but he doesn't seem to notice his presence, either. He sets their dinner down on the coffee table in front of the sofa before he speaks. "Tony?"
The genius starts visibly, turning to face him. "Can I help you, Cap?" he asks, all fake smiles and false bravado.
"Neither of us had dinner. I brought sandwiches and soup, come eat with me," he requests.
“I’m fine,” Tony tells him shortly, turning back to his work.
“I brought coffee,” Steve entices, and Tony, seemingly realizing that Steve isn’t going anywhere, gives in and comes to sit on the couch.
“So, why are we suddenly playing happy families?” Tony asks him, taking a bite out of his sandwich.
“I asked JARVIS to show me anything he was allowed to that might... help me understand what you said earlier. He showed me quite a bit. Tony, I’m sorry.”
“JARVIS, you traitor! Cap, whatever he showed you-” Tony says, trying to jump to his feet.
He’s held in place by Steve’s gentle grip on his wrist. “Don’t, Tony. Everything’s okay. I’m sorry I snooped, but I needed to know. And I want you to know-” a thousand things he should tell Tony rush through his mind, but he settles on, “I’m glad you’re the Stark at my side, now.”
It’s awkward and a weird thing to say, but Tony relaxes. “I- thanks, Steve,” he says simply. It’s the first time he’s called Steve by his first name, and the significance is not lost on the other man.
“Let’s dig in before it gets cold- you need to eat more,” Steve suggests.
“Oh, no. Just because you knew my father doesn’t mean you get to act like my mother, Steve!” Tony insists.
“Then take care of yourself, and prove I don’t need to,” Steve teases.
“Fine. I’m eating. You see this? This is me eating,” Tony tells him, speaking with his mouth stuffed with sandwich. He accidentally spews crumbs everywhere, but Steve doesn’t mind. He’s thinking, for the first time, that they just might be okay. Not just Captain America and Iron Man, but Tony and Steve- teammates, and friends.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-24 03:34 am (UTC)