I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream

An Avengers AU by Chaed and Spacelaska http://archiveofourown.org/series/1079001

[chaed-ffnet]

Tony Stark turns his back on SHIELD during the events of Iron Man 2, no longer interested in playing by anyone’s rules but his own.

In this universe, Civil War is not about government oversight or accountability. It’s about the danger of a single man deciding the fate of the world.

How far can Tony push it?

And how far will anyone go to stop the rise of Superior Iron Man?

Read it on: AO3

[spacewhalesrock]

Time to feel SUPERIOR.

[chaed-ffnet]

S U P R E M A C Y Preview 2

Tony would admire the tenacity if it weren’t so pathetic. The guy couldn’t manufacture a functional toaster without it turning into a fire hazard, but sure, let’s put him on the same panel as the man who’d built a miniature arc reactor in a cave. 

A cave.

He wasn’t pulling the victim card, not by any stretch. Tony Stark hadn’t become a household name by being a shrinking violet. But he also didn’t do hypocrisy, and this room was choking on it.

Tony scanned the faces of the senators, bureaucrats, and self-proclaimed experts, all of them posturing like they had the moral high ground on this. Dump them in the Kashmunds with a gun to their heads, let them scramble and sweat, bartering for their lives in a language they didn’t understand, and see if they had the grit to pull off what he had. Then maybe—maybe—they’d earn the right to lecture him. Until then? They were just a lot of hot air in expensive suits.

Tony didn’t bother pretending to play nice. He knew the drill. The committee wouldn’t budge, and this wasn’t about national security to begin with. 

It was about control. 

They didn’t care about protecting the public, they cared about putting him in a box, slapping a government seal on it, and rolling it out whenever they needed to flex some military muscle. To them, Iron Man was just another piece of hardware, another tool in the arsenal. 

But that was fine. They’d see the light soon enough.

[chaed-ffnet]

Supremacy

Natasha’s gaze flicked to the screen, where Tony Stark was basking in the attention of his rabidly adoring—or equally loathing—public. The kind of audience he seemed to polarize. So, nothing unusual there. Men with more money than sense and egos large enough to eclipse their morality were a dime a dozen in Natasha’s world.

Hopefully, she wouldn’t have to sleep with him.

Tonight would be her last night as Natasha for a while. Tomorrow, she'd shed her own skin and slide into the polished heels of Natalie Rushman, a pretty PA with a paper background as a paralegal.

Assignments like these were par for the course, but that subtle, persistent itch returned with every new brief she reviewed. In her line of work, complacency was a quiet killer, and every honeytrap, every small-time seduction or petty score-settling mission made the creeping thought grow louder: What if this was it? What if this was her future now?

It was hard to ignore the insidious possibility that her career was beginning to fade into a series of routine assignments, slowly chipping away at her skill and edge, as efficiently as it eroded her patience. And then one day, they’d simply slot her into a desk job in Analytics, her field days a thing of the past.

Natasha could see the trajectory too clearly: a few more years of being just sharp enough to justify the effort before the “maintenance” would begin: a tweak here, a discreet procedure there, each intervention a reminder of her shelf life, the ticking clock on her utility. One or two breast augmentations, no doubt suggested with the subtlety of a hammer, as if a little more appeal might stretch her run. And for what? A pension, if she was lucky. If she managed to dodge every bullet, avoid every knife in the back, and survive long enough to clock out of this life permanently.

At least with Clint and STRIKE Team: Delta there had been… more. Real missions that needed real skill, real grit—the kind of work where a mistake meant more than a slap on the wrist. Something worth the bruises, the scars, and the long nights.

This job was… antiseptic by comparison.

[spacewhalesrock]

this has been a long time in the coming. check back March 2025 and feel SUPERIOR.

[chaed-ffnet]

July 25th. The big day.

I was as ready as could be for what was about to happen. I had picked out a pair of corduroy pants and slicked my hair back with Brylcreem to rock the vintage. Natasha looked stunning in her slightly altered souvenir dress from her last trip—it was like she'd stepped out of an old-fashioned pin-up girl magazine, all curves and bold red lipstick. Seeing her like that stirred sensations in places that had absolutely no business being stirred at the present moment.

Hill triple-checked our setup before giving us the final okay. "Five minutes, ladies and gentlemen. Let's make them count."

I held out my hand, palm up, and glanced at my partner.

"Ready?"

"Ready."

Natasha clasped her hand into mine and together we stepped forward through the rabbit hole. Or rather back—into 1952.

—A Walk Down Lafayette Street, Chapter 3

[chaed-ffnet]

"So will you do it?" Natasha asked, twirling her empty glass between her fingers.

"Will you?" I countered. Because it was either both of us or neither. Used to be like that during Delta's prime and, as far as I was concerned, that was still the deal.

Natasha gave a faint shrug. "I really don't know," she said. "The reasonable part of me says hands off."

"But think of the stories we'd have to tell," I argued. Internally though, I was cringing. Sometimes my mouth is like a half-tamed horse that has a way of bolting for absolutely no reason at all. Often, that talent gets me in trouble otherwise easily avoided. I had a hunch that tonight was shaping up to be one of those times.

"I don't think Fury wants us to come back with stories, Clint," Natasha said wryly. 

"Yeah, I know. It’s not like… I don't have compunctions about the job itself, you know? A roadside stickup—we can pull that off. We've done ops like that a million times before, and we've done them well." I looked at her, strapping my best serious face on. "It's something else that's got me worried."

Natasha tipped her head inquisitively. "And what's that?"

"A full year and change of living in each other's pockets? Can you even handle that much Barton?"

She quirked her eyebrow at me, deadpan. "Can you handle that much Romanoff?"

Find out on AO3.

[chaed-ffnet]

Sometimes the direst situations can lead to the strongest of alliances.

Trapped in a Chitauri-infested New York, the Avengers are fighting for their lives. While a gravely injured Tony battles with the consequences of his free-fall from space, Natasha tries to escape through Manhattan’s underground. But with the grid down and no help coming, they have to depend on themselves... and whatever unlikely allies they might find along the way. Read it on AO3.

[chaed-ffnet]

He stopped in his tracks, heart pounding as he held the arrow necklace in his hand.

He knew something serious was about to go down even before STRIKE Team Alpha kicked in his door and arrested him for suspected abetment.

Natasha Romanoff had gone AWOL.

And with her, intel so classified that half of SHIELD didn’t even know it existed. -RUSSKI, by Chaed

[spacewhalesrock]

“Do you understand,” Strange began in a tone that sounded like he was about to unleash damnation. “That I have two pregnant women in their third trimester living here? That I just dealt with an outbreak of campylobacter and that we’re in the dead of winter with pneumonia running rampant? Do you understand that there are children in this settlement who might not survive until spring because of what you did?”

“I don’t think—” Kate tried to say.

“We have very limited stocks of medication,” Rogers clarified in a solemn tone.

“Every dose—” Strange continued. “—is precious. Your actions could cause a motherless infant or put a child in the grave. Did you even stop to think for a single second before deciding to steal from the people of this community?”

Peter attempted to interject but Strange cut him off with one raised finger and a face of pure venom.

“Your friend will die,” he said. “With or without those antibiotics. You wasted that medication on a doomed cause. What I can guarantee, however, is that someone else will have to pay for your selfish decision by needless suffering, perhaps even death." Peter looked horrified. Kate's stomach churned with dread at the certainty of Natasha's fate. - 4 Strong, Chapter 27

[spacewhalesrock]

They staked up the tent so they could wrap Natasha up against the cold, and Kate finally got her to agree to a bandage check. By that point, she was too weak to put up a fight anyway. The wound had stopped bleeding, but it was turning dark around the edges. Her belly was hard and hot to the touch.

“Don’t,” Natasha whispered, swatting at Kate’s hand. “Don’t. It’s no good. Just leave it.”

“Peter went to fetch help,” Kate told her, putting the dressings on again as best as she could. “You’ll be alright.”

Natasha’s lips twitched up a little. “Yes. Thank you, Kate.”

They didn’t keep going after that. Tony hung around the fire for a while, maybe keeping an eye out for Peter, but eventually he came to join them in the cramped two-man tent. They wedged Natasha in between them so she got the most of their shared body heat and then they resigned themselves to waiting. Hoping for a miracle, knowing that it likely wouldn’t come. - 4 Strong, Chapter 25

[spacewhalesrock]

The scuffle was continuing outside. Natasha was still trying to get to her feet, her opponent looming over her, repeatedly pressing down on a jammed trigger. On pure instinct—not good sense—Kate charged towards them in just her socks. She launched herself at the man, screaming in both terror and conviction as she scratched his face like an animal.

Before he knew it, Natasha's fist made contact with his chest. He tumbled back, landing hard on the ground, struggling to catch his breath. Natasha loomed above him, rifle pointed right at his forehead. The shot rang out like a thunderclap. Kate stood in stunned horror, staring open mouthed at the motionless figure in the snow. Then came the full realization of what had just happened.

“Oh my God! Oh my God, are you okay?”

It was too dark and too snowy to make out anything but a nod in response. Then Natasha squeezed her eyes shut.

She was not okay.

Natasha forced out two words and they were spoken with an urgency Kate hadn't heard from her since that night in the New York subway.

“Get Tony.” - 4 Strong, Chapter 24

[spacewhalesrock]

“I was at a dinner party once. In Moscow, at the house of the Sokovian ambassador. I was there for a job, just a watch-and-wait, nothing too engaging. But the topic of conversation turned to various end-of-days type scenarios. You know, zombie apocalypse, pandemic, climate change, all the classics.” “Sure,” he said. Must have been a good conversation starter. Even the political elite got bored of the usual tete-a-tete occasionally. “So all the men were bragging about their hypothetical survival strategies. Everyone had been drinking, the mood was laid-back. It was getting pretty lively. There was an older lady there, the host’s mother-in-law, and she turned to me while they were all posturing. She said there was no way she’d want to survive the apocalypse. That sparked my curiosity, so I asked her why.” “And?” “And she said, ‘My dear, what do you think will happen to the women?’”

4 Strong, Chapter 22

[spacewhalesrock]

Peter tried to catch Kate’s gaze, but she wouldn’t look at him. Mr Stark escorted the girls outside. He said something to Natasha that Peter didn’t catch, then Natasha and Kate began to walk away. When Mr Stark came back, it was with sagging shoulders and a bitter expression. “Is she okay?” Peter asked. “No, Pete,” Mr Stark said wistfully. "No, she's not."

4 Strong, Chapter 21

[spacewhalesrock]

“You won’t come after me, Tony, do you understand?” she said, sitting up and racking the rifle. “I need us to be clear on this. I’ll be shooting to kill. If you pop up in my line of sight at the wrong moment...” She glanced at Peter, waiting back by the tree line. “You don’t want him walking away from this alone. So no dumb heroics.” That struck a chord, but it still didn’t have him convinced. “And if you need help?” She patted the rifle. “That's all the help I'll need.” And if that wasn’t enough, she had backups. She’d fashioned two garrotes out of guitar strings, and there was always the nail bomb. She’d made it back in the bunker and carried it all this way. It’d be a last resort, but a brutally effective one. “Just FYI,” Tony said. “I’m not condoning this.”

4 Strong, Chapter 20

[turnthepage11]

@ fic readers who write play by play comments that highlight your favorite passages and why you like them, please know you are the best humans to exist and please don’t stop what you’re doing

[9ofspades]

Breaking tumblr protocol to ask — does this apply even if it’s a really popular fic that already has hundreds of comments?

[unpretty]

absolutely yes

[spacewhalesrock]

"If-" she emphasized the word "-if that place is secure... sheltered... stable... then that's the end of the road, at least for Kate." Startingly, it was a lot harder to say it out loud than it had been to resolve it in her mind. The girl had grown on her, and that was playing with fire in Natasha's line of work and in Natasha's way of life. She had been primed against attachment from a very young age and had been painstakingly careful ever since to maintain an emotional distance from anyone and anything that could become detrimental later on. She'd broken that rule once, thinking she had finally outsmarted the system. It had taken an alien warlock and the collapse of society to prove her wrong, but here she was, disabused. "I've already lost Barton," she said. "The girl might have all those heroic ideas, and she'll follow me as long as I let her. But I would ruin her, Tony, and I don't want that. The best I can do is get her to safety. And that’ll mean leaving her behind."

4 Strong, Chapter 19

[turnthepage11]

@ fic readers who write play by play comments that highlight your favorite passages and why you like them, please know you are the best humans to exist and please don’t stop what you’re doing

[9ofspades]

Breaking tumblr protocol to ask — does this apply even if it’s a really popular fic that already has hundreds of comments?

[unpretty]

absolutely yes

[spacewhalesrock]

Nick Fury might have been a dickhead, but he’d been paranoid on a level that clearly superseded Tony’s own – and probably just a little bit more in the know as to what pain in the ass an alien boosted EMP could be. It wasn’t like he hadn’t thought about protecting the suit against such a threat. He was willing to bet with good confidence that no man-made device would have ever plowed him under. But one right out of the sci-fi drawer? Instant KO. And if it had gotten him, it had gotten the Air Force and the Marines and the Navy too. And since they were still stuck here four months after the fact, he was willing to go out on a limb and add Fury’s flying castle to that list of casualties. Natasha wasn’t admitting to it, but the chances of them hearing anything from SHIELD were a snowball’s in hell.

4 Strong, Chapter 13