Avengers AU meets the San Jose Sharks
Rated Teen and Up
Work Summary:
San Jose's greatest heroes have one rule: protect the people who can't protect themselves.
Ryan Reaves thought that meant funding rescue operations and occasionally rebuilding half his tower after a mission. Tyler Toffoli thought it meant carrying a shield until his body gave out. Neither of them expected it to mean accidentally adopting a growing collection of traumatized young superheroes.
It starts with a mysterious vigilante the news dubs Black Widow.
It ends with a family.
Click HERE to read on Ao3 (more chapters available!)
Click HERE to read about the AU and WorldBuilding (in progress)
Ch. 1 Summary:
Billionaire, Engineer, Playboy Ryan Reaves has enough on his plate running Reaves Industries and keeping the world from falling apart in a suit of armor. The last thing he needs is a mysterious vigilante tearing through HYDRA safe houses in Los Angeles. Tyler Toffoli, AKA The Captain, thinks they should help. Ryan thinks they should stay out of it. Neither of them realizes they're already on a collision course with the infamous Black Widow.
Ch. 1 warnings:
mention of violence (through news broadcast)
Word Count: 4,722
Chapter One Under Cut!
The Seventy-Fifth floor of the Reaves Tower overlooked the San Francisco skyline in a way you’d only think was possible in paintings. Floor to ceiling glass windows on two sides, the bay glittering silver-grey to the west, and beneath it all was a city that had collectively decided Ryan Reaves was either its greatest asset, or its most expensive problem.
Ryan obviously had opinions about which one he was, and those opinions were framed and mounted on the wall beside multiple engineering licenses, patents, and signed photographs of himself shaking hands with three different senators, none of whom he particularly liked.
As he stood in front of it all now, wearing a charcoal wool suit with no tie, because he’d never worn a tie in his life and he wasn’t starting today, he half-listened to the morning news play from the TV, sound reflecting off the glass and floor, while SHARKIE (Smart Home Assistant for Real-Time Knowledge, Information, and Emergencies), his own personal assistant he created after one too many failed dates started feeling a bit too lonely, rattled through the day's agenda in that particular tone that somehow managed to be both pleasant and mildly judgmental, even for a robot.
"You have the Reaves Aerospace variance review at nine," SHARKIE said. "The structural team flagged three concerns on the repulsor housing you asked them not to flag. Tyler called at seven forty-two and said, and I'm quoting directly here, 'Tell him I need five minutes before the briefing and it is not optional.' He used his serious voice, Ryan."
‘Stupid repulsors’. Ryan thought to himself.
The suit had never been designed to make himself a hero. The first prototype had been built because he was an engineer who refused to accept that “impossible” was a permanent answer, and because nearly dying in an explosion caused by terrorists who wanted to kidnap and abandon him in somewhere in the Saharan Desert, all to steal his military tech and blueprints, had a funny way of motivating career changes.
Seventy-one iterations later, not that anyone was counting, and the armour had become something else entirely: a symbol. Sleek titanium alloy wrapped around enough repulsor and nano technology to make most governments deeply uncomfortable, had carried him through collapsing bridges, burning high-rises, hostage situations, natural disasters, and more press conferences than he cared to remember. The public called him Iron Man, but Ryan still insisted he was just an engineer with excellent funding and consistently terrible luck.
And Tyler. Oh Tyler. Ryan had met plenty of heroes and “heroes” over the years. Some chased headlines, some chased glory, some simply liked punching things with government approval, but Tyler wasn’t any of those. If Ryan’s instinct was to build solutions, Tyler’s was to stand between danger and whoever couldn’t outrun it. It didn’t matter whether they were senator, a flowershop wonder, or some terrified kid caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, Tyler would plant himself in front of them without a second thought and dare whatever the threat was to try and get through him first.
The irony was that he’d never been meant to survive long enough to be that man. The supersoldier program that created him had been declared a failure almost immediately since the serum never produced the perfect soldier its creators wanted. It left him strong, faster, and harder to kill than any ordinary human, but not invincible and certainly not obedient.
Tyler had walked away from the program before they could decide what to do with their “failed” experiment, carrying little more than an unbreakable shield and an inconvenient inability to ignore people who needed help. Somewhere along the way, the public started referring to him as simply The Captain.
"SHARKIE, he always uses his serious voice." Ryan spoke to the ceiling.
"He used the real serious voice."
Ryan turned from the window, picked up his coffee, which happened to be his third one of the morning, black, because the first two had gone cold while he argued with the propulsion engineers on a conference call around 6 that morning and then looked at the news feed still cycling on the secondary screen. He'd meant to turn it off. He hadn't. The anchor was mid-sentence about a series of incidents in LA.
"—third incident in as few as two weeks," the anchor was saying, a blonde woman with the kind of serious expression that suggested she'd practiced extensively in a mirror. "Authorities are linking this to vigilante activity, though no arrests have been made. Security footage from the scene shows—"
The screen cut to grainy surveillance video. A warehouse, poorly lit, the timestamp reading 02:47 AM. For three seconds, nothing happened. Then a figure dropped from somewhere above the camera's range, moved across the frame in a blur of dark clothing, and three armed men collapsed before any of them managed to raise their weapons. The figure never stopped moving. By the time the camera caught up, they were gone, and the only evidence they'd been there at all was the unconscious bodies and a small fire burning in what looked like a server room.
"Jesus," Ryan muttered, leaning forward slightly. He, once again, set his coffee down on the glass desk without looking, muscle memory guiding it to the exact spot where it wouldn't leave a ring on the quarterly reports he'd been ignoring for three days.
The news cut to another clip. Different location, same timestamp format, this one from what looked like a parking garage. The figure appeared again, appearing more small from the new angle than Ryan would have expected, moving with the kind of efficiency that came from either extensive training or a truly alarming number of repetitions. They disabled a security system in under ten seconds, bypassed a reinforced door in fifteen, and vanished into the building before the guards on patrol even realized something was wrong.
"Witnesses describe the suspect as highly trained and extremely dangerous," the anchor continued. "LAPD has declined to comment on whether this is connected to the recent HYDRA weapons trafficking investigation, but sources close to the department suggest—"
"SHARKIE, pause."
The screen froze mid-frame, catching the figure mid-motion. Ryan tilted his head, studying the image. The resolution was terrible, the lighting was worse, but even through the pixelation the figure moved with an unsettling confidence. They never seemed to second-guess themselves. As if they'd done this before. A lot.
"SHARKIE, run facial recognition on the clips."
"Already attempted. Insufficient data. The subject is wearing a mask and appears to be actively avoiding direct camera angles."
"Of course they are." Ryan picked up his coffee again, took a sip, made a face. It had gone cold. Again. "What about gait analysis? Biometric markers?"
"Possible, but it would require access to LAPD's database, which you technically don't have."
"Technically."
"Technically," SHARKIE agreed, in a tone that suggested the AI knew exactly how many databases Ryan had access to that he technically shouldn't.
Ryan waved a hand dismissively. "Fine. What do we know?"
"Public information only: three incidents, all in Los Angeles, all within a two-mile radius of known HYDRA safe houses. No casualties, but approximately fifteen individuals hospitalized with non-lethal injuries. Local authorities have issued a warrant for questioning, but no identification has been made. The media is calling them 'Black Widow.'"
"Creative," Ryan said dryly. He gestured at the screen. "Play it again. Slow it down."
The footage rolled again, frame by frame this time. Ryan watched the figure move—watched the way they dropped into the frame, the angle of their shoulders, the way they shifted their weight before the first strike. It was clean. Too clean. The kind of clean that came from training that didn't allow for mistakes because mistakes got you killed.
"Huh," Ryan said, which was his way of acknowledging something interesting without committing to caring about it yet.
"Huh?" SHARKIE repeated.
"Just... huh."
"That's not an analysis, Ryan."
"I'm thinking."
"You're procrastinating. The variance review starts in forty-three minutes."
Ryan ignored that, still watching the screen. The figure moved through the frame again, and this time he noticed something else. The way they checked the corners, the way they kept their back to the wall, the way they moved like someone who expected an ambush at any moment. That wasn't just training. That was paranoia. The useful kind, maybe, but paranoia nonetheless.
"SHARKIE, what's HYDRA doing in LA?"
"Officially? Nothing. Unofficially? The FBI has been investigating a weapons and alien tech trafficking ring for six months. No arrests yet, but they've seized three shipments of black-market tech, including 4 palettes of alien technology, two of which were traced back to HYDRA fronts."
"And this person—" Ryan gestured at the screen, "—is doing what, exactly? Cleaning up the FBI's mess?"
"Unknown. Though if I were to speculate—"
"You're a computer. You don't speculate."
"—I would suggest that someone with this level of training and this particular target selection is either law enforcement, military, or has a personal vendetta."
Ryan snorted. "Or all three."
He straightened, rolling his shoulders back, and glanced at the wall of windows. The city was waking up properly now, traffic starting to clog the streets below, the morning fog burning off over the bay. Somewhere down there, people were going about their lives, completely unaware that a highly trained vigilante was tearing through HYDRA safe houses two cities over. It was almost funny, in a depressing sort of way.
"SHARKIE, send the footage to the lab. Have the analytics team run a full breakdown. Movement patterns, equipment analysis, threat assessment. I want to know what we're looking at."
"Threat assessment implies you believe this person is a threat."
"Everyone's a threat until proven otherwise. That's just good engineering."
"That's paranoia."
"Same thing."
Ryan turned away from the screen, heading toward the elevator that would take him down to the lower floors where the real work happened. Floor 75 was for thinking and looking important. Floors 60 through 74 were where the engineers actually built things, and Floor 67 was where the Advanced Development Division lived—the department responsible for everything that was either too experimental, too dangerous, or too legally questionable for the main Research and Development teams.
He'd made it three steps when SHARKIE spoke again.
"Ryan."
"What?"
"Tyler is on his way up."
Ryan stopped. "Now?"
"He's in the elevator. ETA ninety seconds."
"I thought he wanted five minutes before the briefing."
"He did. He's early."
"Of course he is." Ryan turned back toward the windows, because if Tyler was coming up here before the briefing, it meant something had gone wrong, and Ryan preferred to have his back to something solid when Tyler started lecturing him about responsibility or morality or whatever else he'd decided Ryan was doing incorrectly this week.
The elevator chimed.
Tyler Toffoli stepped out looking exactly like someone who'd been awake since five AM and had already run six miles, done two hundred push-ups, and saved a cat from a tree. He was wearing dark tactical pants, a grey sweatshirt that fit him the way clothing fit people who actually used their gym memberships, and an expression that Ryan had learned to recognize as "I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed," which was somehow worse.
His shield was strapped to his back. He never went anywhere without it.
"Morning," Ryan said, not turning around.
"We need to talk."
"That's what you said on the phone."
"I said I needed five minutes."
"And here you are. Early, even. SHARKIE, make a note. Tyler Toffoli arrived early to a meeting. Alert the press."
"Ryan."
There it was. The tone. The one that meant Tyler was about to say something Ryan didn't want to hear, and Ryan was going to have to pretend to take it seriously while also making it clear that he was only pretending.
Ryan turned, leaning back against the window with his arms crossed. "What's wrong this time?"
Tyler didn't answer immediately. He crossed the room in that deliberate way he had, like every step was calculated, and stopped a few feet away. Close enough to talk, far enough that Ryan didn't feel crowded. It was a Tyler thing. He was always aware of space, of proximity, of how much room people needed to feel safe.
It would have been thoughtful if it wasn't so annoying.
"Have you seen the news?" Tyler asked.
Ryan gestured vaguely at the screen, still frozen on the grainy surveillance footage. "If you're talking about the vigilante in LA, yeah. I saw it."
"And?"
"And what?"
"And what are you doing about it?"
Ryan blinked. "What am I—Tyler, it's in Los Angeles. That's cities away. We already had jurisdiction issues trying to go to San Jose for that alien guy, the FBI is already involved, and as far as I can tell, the only people getting hurt are HYDRA operatives, so forgive me if I'm not losing sleep over it."
Tyler's jaw tightened. It was a small movement, barely noticeable, but Ryan had known him long enough to recognize it. That was Tyler's "you're missing the point" face.
"This isn't about jurisdiction," Tyler said. "It's about the fact that someone is out there, alone, taking on HYDRA without backup, without support, and without any kind of oversight."
"Sounds efficient."
"It sounds dangerous."
"Also efficient."
"Ryan—"
"Tyler." Ryan pushed off the window, moving toward the desk. He needed something to do with his hands, and the cold coffee was right there. He picked it up, took a sip, grimaced. Still cold. Still terrible.
"Look, I get it. You see someone doing something risky, and yeah, I’ll admit, they look small, so your instinct is to swoop in and save them. That's your whole thing. But maybe, and I'm just throwing this out there, maybe this person doesn't want to be saved. Maybe they're doing exactly what they want to be doing, and we should let them."
"Or maybe they're going to get themselves killed."
"Everyone's going to get themselves killed eventually. That's how mortality works."
Tyler stared at him. It was the look. The one that said Ryan was being deliberately obtuse, and Tyler knew it, and Ryan knew that Tyler knew it, and they were going to have this argument anyway because that's what they did.
"You're not taking this seriously," Tyler said.
"I'm taking it exactly as seriously as it deserves," Ryan countered. "Which is to say, I'm aware of it, I've got people analyzing it, and I'm not panicking. You should try it sometime."
"I'm not panicking."
"You're doing that thing with your jaw."
"What thing?"
"The thing where you clench it because you're trying not to lecture me."
Tyler's jaw unclenched. Slightly. "I'm not lecturing you."
"You're about to."
"I'm trying to have a conversation."
"No, you're trying to convince me that we need to drop everything and fly to LA to rescue someone who, for all we know, is doing just fine on their own."
"They're taking on HYDRA," Tyler said, and there was an edge to his voice now, the kind that meant they were getting close to the part of the argument where things got personal. "Alone. Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?"
"Do you have any idea how condescending you sound right now?"
Tyler stopped. Took a breath. When he spoke again, his voice was calmer, but the frustration was still there, simmering just under the surface. "I'm not trying to be condescending. I'm trying to tell you that someone is going to get hurt, and we have the resources to prevent that."
"Or," Ryan said, setting the coffee down with a little more force than necessary, "we have the resources to make it worse. We don't know who this person is, what they want, or why they're doing this. For all we know, they're HYDRA. Or they're CIA. Or they're some billionaire's kid with a vendetta and a trust fund. We don't have enough information to make a move, and I'm not about to go charging into a situation blind just because you have a hero complex."
The room went very quiet.
Tyler's expression didn't change, but something shifted in his posture. It was subtle—a slight straightening of his shoulders, a fractional lift of his chin. Ryan recognized it immediately. That was Tyler's "I'm going to be the bigger person" stance, which meant Ryan had just said something that hit a nerve, and Tyler was going to pretend it hadn't.
"I don't have a hero complex," Tyler said evenly.
"You absolutely have a hero complex."
"I have a responsibility."
"You have a pathological need to save people who didn't ask to be saved."
"And you have a pathological need to avoid responsibility by pretending everything is a joke."
There it was. The real argument. The one they'd been having in various forms since the day they met. Ryan built walls out of sarcasm and deflection. Tyler built them out of duty and self-sacrifice. Neither of them was particularly good at admitting when the other had a point.
Ryan opened his mouth to respond, then closed it. Took a breath. Tried again.
"Look," he said, and his voice was quieter now, less sharp. "I'm not saying we ignore this. I'm saying we don't have enough information yet. Let the analysts do their job. Let the FBI do theirs. If this person is in over their head, we'll know soon enough, and then we can decide what to do about it. But I'm not going to drop everything and fly to LA based on three grainy surveillance videos and your gut feeling."
Tyler studied him for a long moment. Then, finally, he nodded. It wasn't agreement—it was acknowledgment. There was a difference.
"Fine," Tyler said. "But when this goes sideways—"
"If it goes sideways."
"When it goes sideways," Tyler repeated, "and people get hurt because we waited too long, that's on you."
"I'll add it to the list."
Tyler turned to leave, then paused at the elevator. He didn't look back, but his voice carried across the room anyway. "You know, for someone who's supposed to be a genius, you're really good at missing the obvious."
"And what's the obvious?"
"That whoever this is, they're not doing this because they want to. They're doing it because they have to. And people who have to do things like this? They're the ones who need help.”
The elevator doors closed before Ryan could respond.
Ryan stood there for a moment, staring at the empty space where Tyler had been. Then he turned back to the window, back to the city, back to the news footage still frozen on the screen.
SHARKIE's voice broke the silence. "He has a point."
"He always has a point," Ryan muttered. "That's the problem."
"You could go to LA."
"I could also finish the variance review and not get sued by the FAA."
"Those aren't mutually exclusive."
"SHARKIE, whose side are you on?"
"I'm on the side of optimal outcomes. Which, statistically speaking, involves you listening to Tyler more often than you do."
Ryan picked up his coffee, realized it was still cold, and set it back down with a sigh. He pulled up the news footage again, watching the figure move through the frame. Efficient. Precise. Dangerous.
Tyler was right. He hated that Tyler was right, but he was.
Whoever this was, they weren't just taking on HYDRA. They were hunting them. And people who hunted HYDRA either had nothing left to lose, or everything to prove. Neither option ended well.
"SHARKIE," Ryan said slowly, "get me everything we have on HYDRA operations in LA. I want locations, personnel, known associates. And pull up the FBI's case files, and yes, I know I'm not supposed to have access, do it anyway. If this person is going after HYDRA, they're following a pattern. I want to know what that pattern is."
"Does this mean you're taking it seriously now?"
"This means I'm doing my job. There's a difference."
"If you say so."
Ryan ignored that, his mind already working through the problem. If this was a pattern, there would be a next target. And if there was a next target, there was a chance to get ahead of it. To figure out who this person was before Tyler's prediction came true and everything went sideways.
He pulled up a holographic display, spreading the map of Los Angeles across the air in front of him. Three red dots marked the locations of the incidents. He added blue dots for known HYDRA locations, yellow for suspected ones. The pattern wasn't immediately obvious, but it was there. A spiral, maybe. Or a grid. Something methodical.
"SHARKIE, what's the common denominator?"
"All three locations were involved in weapons trafficking. All three had minimal security. All three were hit during off-peak hours when personnel were at their lowest."
"So our mystery vigilante is smart. They're picking soft targets, minimizing risk, maximizing impact." Ryan zoomed in on the map, studying the distances between locations. "What's next?"
"Insufficient data to predict with certainty, but based on the pattern, there are four potential targets within the established radius. I can flag them if you'd like."
"Do it."
Four new dots appeared on the map, pulsing orange. Ryan studied them, his fingers drumming against the desk. Tyler wanted to rush in, to save someone who might not want saving. But Ryan? Ryan wanted to understand. To solve the puzzle. To figure out what made someone decide that taking on HYDRA alone was a better option than asking for help.
Because that was the real question, wasn't it? Not who this person was, but why they were doing this alone.
The elevator chimed again. Ryan didn't turn around.
"If that's Tyler coming back to lecture me—"
"It's not," SHARKIE said. "It's your nine o'clock. The variance review team is here."
Ryan glanced at the holographic display, then back at the elevator. Three engineers stepped out, looking nervous. They always looked nervous when they had to come up to Floor 75. Ryan had a reputation for being brilliant and terrifying in equal measure, which he'd cultivated carefully because it meant people didn't waste his time with stupid questions.
"Gentlemen," Ryan said, gesturing at the long dining table. "Let's talk about why you flagged concerns I specifically told you not to flag."
The lead engineer, a man named Patterson who'd been with Reaves Industries for six years and still looked like he expected to be fired every time Ryan spoke to him, cleared his throat. "Sir, the repulsor housing has a structural weakness in the—"
"I know about the structural weakness. I designed the structural weakness. It's not a weakness, it's a feature."
"With respect, sir, the simulations show a fifteen percent chance of catastrophic failure under sustained load."
"Fifteen percent is acceptable."
"The FAA disagrees."
Ryan smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. "Then I guess we'll have to convince them otherwise. SHARKIE, pull up the Mark 71 specifications. Let's show these gentlemen why they're wrong."
The meeting took forty minutes. By the end of it, Patterson looked like he needed a drink, the other two engineers looked like they were reconsidering their career choices, and Ryan had successfully argued that a fifteen percent chance of catastrophic failure was, in fact, well within acceptable parameters for experimental technology.
The FAA was going to hate it. Ryan was looking forward to that conversation.
When the engineers finally left, looking shell-shocked, Ryan turned back to the holographic display. The map of Los Angeles was still there, the orange dots still pulsing.
"SHARKIE, send the target locations to Tyler."
"I thought you weren't taking this seriously."
"I'm not. I'm being thorough. There's a difference."
"You're being thorough because Tyler made you feel guilty."
"I'm being thorough because it's my job. Now send the file."
"Sent. He's already opened it."
Of course he had. Tyler probably had alerts set up for anything Ryan sent him, just in case it was important. Which it usually wasn't, but occasionally was, and Tyler took his job too seriously to risk missing something.
Ryan's phone buzzed. A text from Tyler: Thank you.
Ryan typed back: Don't get used to it.
Tyler: Wouldn't dream of it.
Ryan set the phone down, staring at the map. Four potential targets. One vigilante. And somewhere in the middle of it all, a question that Ryan couldn't quite shake: what made someone decide that this was the only option?
He thought about the footage again, the figure wasn’t working with training alone, this was also survival instinct. The kind that came from experience. From repetition. From a life where letting your guard down meant dying.
Tyler was right. Whoever this was, they weren't doing this because they wanted to.
They were doing it because they didn't know how to stop.
Ryan pulled up the footage one more time, watching the figure disappear into the shadows. Efficient. Precise. Alone.
"SHARKIE," he said quietly, "keep monitoring the situation. If anything changes—if there's another incident, if someone gets hurt, if this person so much as sneezes in a way that looks suspicious—I want to know immediately."
"Understood. Does this mean you're going to LA?"
"It means I'm paying attention. That's all Tyler gets for now."
"He'll appreciate it."
"He'll find something else to lecture me about. He always does."
Ryan turned away from the map, heading back toward the window. The city stretched out below him, vast and complicated and full of people who had no idea what was happening a few cities over. It was almost peaceful, in a way. Almost.
He picked up his coffee one more time, took a sip, made a face.
Still cold.
"SHARKIE, remind me to fire whoever designed this coffee maker."
"You designed the coffee maker, Ryan."
"Then remind me to fire myself."
"I'll add it to the list."
Ryan smiled despite himself, setting the cup down. He looked back at the screen one more time, at the frozen image of the figure moving through the frame. Fast. Efficient. Dangerous.
And alone.
He thought about Tyler's words. People who have to do things like this? They're the ones who need help.
Maybe. Or maybe they were the ones who'd learned that help wasn't coming, and they'd decided to handle it themselves.
Ryan understood that. He'd built a suit of armor for the same reason.
The difference was, he'd had resources. Money. A company. A workshop. A tower with seventy-five floors and enough technology to make most governments nervous.
Whoever this was? They had shadows and surveillance footage and a death wish.
Ryan turned back to the window, watching the sun climb higher over the bay. Somewhere out there, in Los Angeles, someone was planning their next move. Someone was checking their weapons, studying their target, preparing to walk into danger alone because they'd decided it was worth the risk.
And Ryan, despite his better judgment, despite his carefully cultivated cynicism, despite every instinct that told him to stay out of it and let someone else handle the problem. Let someone handle their problem.
Ryan wanted to know why.
He pulled out his phone, typed out a message to Tyler: If you're going to LA, let me know. I'll send backup.
Tyler's response came back almost immediately: I thought you weren't taking this seriously.
Ryan: I'm not. I'm being thorough.
Tyler: Sure you are.
Ryan: Don't make me regret this.
Yet Ryan smiled, shaking his head. He pocketed the phone and turned back to the holographic display, studying the map one more time. Four targets. One vigilante. And a pattern that was just starting to make sense.
"SHARKIE," he said, "clear my schedule for tomorrow."
"You have six meetings tomorrow."
"Reschedule them."
"All of them?"
"All of them."
"May I ask why?"
Ryan gestured at the screen, at the figure frozen mid-motion, disappearing into the shadows.
"Because Tyler's going to do something stupid, and someone needs to make sure he doesn't get himself killed doing it."
"That's very responsible of you."
"Don't get used to it."
"Wouldn't dream of it, Ryan."
Ryan stood there for another moment, staring at the screen. At the figure. At the question that wouldn't leave him alone.
ok so i know i dont really write fanfic and i mainly focus on graphic design, but what if i wrote a hockey rpf fanfic that's a marvel/avengers au???? i feel crazy but i have SO many ideas
Sneak peak (and literally all i have written lol) of the first chapter of my Avengers AU Sharks team :P titles The Sharks*
(for those with screenreaders, or anyone who doesn't want to read off the screenshot, the text is below the cut!)
The Seventy-Fifth floor of the Reaves Tower overlooked the San Francisco skyline in a way you’d only think was possible in paintings. Floor to ceiling glass windows on two sides, the bay glittering silver-grey to the west, and beneath it all was a city that had collectively decided Ryan Reaves was either its greatest asset, or its most expensive problem.
Ryan obviously had opinions about which one he was, and those opinions were framed and mounted on the wall beside multiple engineering licenses, patents, and signed photographs of himself shaking hands with three different senators, none of whom he particularly liked.
As he stood in front of it all now, wearing a charcoal wool suit with no tie, because he’d never worn a tie in his life and he wasn’t starting today, he half-listened to the morning news play from the TV, sound reflecting off the glass and floor, while SHARKIE (Smart Home Assistant for Real-Time Knowledge, Information, and Emergencies), his own personal assistant he created after one too many failed dates started feeling a bit too lonely, rattled through the day's agenda in that particular tone that somehow managed to be both pleasant and mildly judgmental, even for a robot.
"You have the Reaves Aerospace variance review at nine," SHARKIE said. "The structural team flagged three concerns on the repulsor housing you asked them not to flag. Tyler called at seven forty-two and said, and I'm quoting directly here, 'Tell him I need five minutes before the briefing and it is not optional.' He used his serious voice, Ryan."
‘Stupid repulsors’. Ryan thought to himself.
The suit had never been designed to make himself a hero. The first prototype had been built because he was an engineer who refused to accept that “impossible” was a permanent answer, and because nearly dying in an explosion caused by terrorists who wanted to kidnap and abandon him in somewhere in the Saharan Desert, all to steal his military tech and blueprints, had a funny way of motivating career changes.
ok so i know i dont really write fanfic and i mainly focus on graphic design, but what if i wrote a hockey rpf fanfic that's a marvel/avengers au???? i feel crazy but i have SO many ideas
Original artwork! This took 35 hours over the course of 8 days, using Krita via my MacBook Air.
This is the first work of my Pantone Series!
detail screenshots under the cut!
Yeah, I know it's hard, my friend when I go to Uni in Montreal got mugged, they took her phone and it sucked, it was awful, she was stressed and thank god I was able to help her. I know it's hard, as a French kid growing up in an mostly English province, it's tough. Of course, I don't know how it feels to know a whole other alphabet, but I promise you, it gets better. I wish that I could help you, but otherwise, take care.
-The French Canadian
Dear French Canadian,
Thank you for your kind words! I'm very sorry to hear your friend was mugged. Luckily, my situation is VERY different and a lot less drastic than that.
I shattered my iPad screen and took it to a local shop to get fix, the guy there was nice, but like the kind of nice that is so over the top and weird that it borderlines predatory, well he told me my iPad would be fixed in about 1 day. That was 12 days ago and he's now ghosting me. He still has my iPad.
I'm very nonconfrontational and because I'm an immigrant I don't want to be seen as disrespectful or mean or rude or anything so I'm kind of a push over so I guess I'm going to wait and hope lmao
