For the ship meme- IronFalcon. Your past posts of them made me so fond.
I’m glad to hear that! Sometimes I feel like I don’t handle them very well lol
who’s the werewolf and who’s the hunter
Tony’s the werewolf and Sam’s the hunter. Sorta. Like, he’ll hunt a werewolf if it’s killing or turning people without cause, but he’d really prefer to hunt down bandits and other criminals. (He tells people it’s because it pays better, but really he’s actually just happy to let werewolves not causing problems to live their lives.) He actually meets Tony while he’s traveling through the woods with Redwing on his shoulder. The brown wolf shows up between one step and the next, as if it had always been walking by his side.
Sam ignores it, because he doesn’t want to challenge it or look like he wants to talk to him. He’s been traveling three days and been gone even longer, and he just wants to get home. But then the wolf lets out a pained shriek and jerks backward and Sam has to spin around, gasping softly when he sees the werewolf has gotten caught in a bear trap. It hadn’t been doing anything wrong, and the trap looks like it was left for an actual bear since there’s no wolfsbane or anything on or around it, so he carefully pulls it open for the werewolf to escape and then helps it limp to his house to treat its wound.
“It would be better if you were in your human form,” Sam admits, and then sputters when the wolf shifts easy as breathing and it’s the most beautiful man he’s ever seen.
“Oh!” the werewolf cries in dismay as Sam trips over his own feet and lands face-first on the ground. Luckily Tony finds it sweet rather than amusing once they finally get to know each other.
who’s the mermaid and who’s the fisherman
Tony’s the mermaid and Sam’s the fisherman. Such as they are. Sam actually owns a boat that he takes people sports fishing on. He doesn’t do any actual fishing–doesn’t enjoy it. But he does enjoy taking the boat out, and if people want to pay him to idle on the ocean for a few hours, he’s down for that. Sometimes he’ll sit out with the fishers and listen to them gossip. That’s what he’s doing when Clint starts yelling that he’s caught a big one and Sam normally would brush him off because he’s a drama queen who can’t actually fish but then he almost gets pulled over board and he joins the rest of the group in shouting and grabbing onto him to drag him back on deck. Sam hadn’t thought they’d been out in an area marlin or anything else big but whatever’s on the end of Clint’s hook is putting up the fight of its life. So they all scream when, with one last heave, they bring the fish aboard–but it’s only half a fish. The top half is human.
“I don’t see why you’re the ones screaming when I’ve got a hook stuck in my dorsal that you’ve all been tugging about!” it exclaims haughtily, and they all mumble apologies before Sam gets up to grab the first aid kit and the tool box. The merman, Tony, is injured enough that he can’t just swim away, so Sam offers to let Tony stay with him on the boat for a while. “Well,” Tony sniffs. “I’ve slept worse places I guess. You can order me a pizza when we get back to shore.”
Sam squints at him skeptically and wonders if he’s being played for junk food, but then Natasha carefully presses an alcohol wipe to the edge of the puncture wound and he winces and he figures even if it is being played up, he’s still hurt and they owe him. (And if Tony never wants to leave, well, that just gives Sam more of an excuse to go out to sea.)
who’s the witch and who’s the familiar
Sam’s the witch and Tony’s the familiar. Sam has sort of been expecting an avian familiar, but he’s not going to complain about getting a cat. Cats are common, sure, but they’re also powerful, and Tony is especially so. It would just be really nice if Tony would stop lounging around in his human form. Now, Sam’s not one of those people who thinks that their familiar should stay in its animal form only. He’s not a fucking asshole. But Tony just absolutely abhors clothes. Even when Sam begs, Tony just continues lounging nude.
Eventually Sam throws his hands up and invites his friends over anyway, because maybe they will be able to shame him into at least putting on some underwear. Natasha arrives first and he is so hopeful, because Natasha takes exactly zero shit, especially from men. She looks at Tony for a minute before firmly saying, “Clothes.”
Tony peels one eye open to frown at her, then sneers and says, “No,” and rolls over so his back is to the sun.
“Let him be,” Bucky says, shifting into his human form at her side. “He’s trying to get boned.”
Sam drops the bowl of nuts he’d been about to set out for Natasha to snack on, sputtering.
who’s the barista and who’s the coffee addict
Sam’s the barista and Tony’s the coffee addict. Sam loves it when Tony comes in, because he always works the closing shift and Tony always comes in for a cup of coffee and chatters the entire time. It’s nice to have a little human interaction, especially in the evenings when most people only come in, order, and leave–or worse, overstay their welcome even after Sam has pointedly gotten out the mop bucket and begun cleaning around them. Tony isn’t like that, though, hands curled around his cup as he chatters on, and it isn’t until he’s clocking out right on time instead of ten minutes late that he realized Tony had idly been cleaning as they talked, wiping counters and refilling the sugar display after Sam had left the box next to him. As it turns out, Tony’s not exactly a coffee addict. He just likes hanging out with Sam.
who’s the professor and who’s the TA
Tony’s the professor and Sam’s the TA. Everyone is pretty certain that their professor is in love with his TA and Sam just has no idea. It’s kinda sad. Tony flirts and flirts and Sam just nods, distracted. They wonder if they should try and get Tony set up with someone who’s actually interested in him. Then a rumor starts going around that a student had tried to sleep with Sam for a better grade and as she flirted with him he grabbed a picture of Tony on his desk and slowly pushed it closer and closer to her until she finally gave up.
As it turns out, Tony and Sam have been married since he retired from the air force, but he still keeps quiet about their relationship out of habit because of how long he had to keep it secret from the military. Sam’s only Tony’s TA because he got a later start what with his service (they’d met at a party Rhodey had thrown). They were married before Sam even started school so it’s not a conflict of interest as long as Sam doesn’t have Tony for a teacher.
Everyone still thinks it’s a rumor until one day Tony comes in, points at his wedding ring, and announces, “You see this? This is the wedding ring Sam put on my finger. He’s mine. I am flirting with my husband. Have you guys seriously never noticed we wear wedding rings. Oh my God no wonder you guys are struggling so much with this class you never pay attention to anything.”
Sam is trying very hard not to laugh as he sips from his thermos. It’s got a picture of Tony on it what the fuck seriously how have they never noticed that before.
who’s the knight and who’s the prince(ss)
Sam’s the knight and Tony’s the prince. But like, in a modern way. Tony thinks that having a monarchy is basically dumb as far as politics go and he just wants to go to school and party like a regular young adult. His parents disagree on the monarchy front but they know he’ll be insufferable if they hire private tutors so instead they find a man around Tony’s age and hire him to protect their son.
Sam is mostly in it for the money at first and seriously reconsiders the deal because Tony slips him anytime he can and boy, is he getting a workout. On the other hand, he never finds Tony in bars or getting into fights or getting taken advantage of like his parents had feared–Tony’s at the library, studying in peace; or in a cafe with a couple close friends, drinking coffee and eating a biscotti; or once, memorably, he’s at the park feeding a handful of dried apricot to the ducks.
Something something Sam falls in love with this quiet prince and sometimes helps Tony in his escaping from royal meetings and dodging the more experienced guards that come after them and Tony falls in love with this playful ‘knight’ who helps him escape the drudgery of royal life but also punches out muggers who try to steal his wallet.
who’s the teacher and who’s the single parent
Sam’s the teacher and Tony’s the single parent. Sam thinks he’s got a pretty good rapport with Peter. They razz each other when they see each other and Peter gives as good as he gets. So he is very surprised when he gets an email from Peter’s father with ‘bullying’ in the subject line. Does Peter think he’s bullying him? Fuck, he doesn’t mean to be. Maybe he shouldn’t have got so friendly so fast. In his defense (not that it’s much of one), Peter is a very sassy child. He apologizes as soon as Tony steps into the room and promises that he’ll pull back on the teasing.
“What? I’m talking about a kid named Flash Thompson telling everyone to call my son ‘Penis.’ …Wait, are you bullying my son?”
“Ah,” Sam says, embarrassed. They hash it out eventually though.
Tony calls Peter in from a decathlon meeting to make sure he doesn’t feel bullied by his teacher. Peter looks bewildered. “What? No. Mr. Wilson is great. He thinks Mr. Barnes is a dick and sometimes we watch them wrestle during lunch.”
Tony raises an eyebrow as Sam tries not to melt to the floor in mortification. He told Bucky that the students could see them wrestling when their bickering got too heated. (Tony seems to find this cute though? He leaves a card with his phone number “just in case” and then Peter tells him to fucking call his dad because he’s been going crazy wondering if he’d overstepped and made Sam uncomfortable because he never called.)
who’s the writer and who’s the editor
Tony’s the writer and Sam’s the editor. Sam thinks that this is because Bucky hates him. Tony can’t get a draft in on time to save his life and Sam has literally chased him down for what he had once. (Looking back on it, it was kind of embarrassing. Tony had been eating fries when he’d seen Sam storming toward him and he’d dropped them in terror and bolted. Sam had kicked a rat as he went sprinting after him. God damn New York rats, too competitive with each other and the birds to pause for the sidewalk to clear.)
At one point he considers kidnapping Tony and tying him to a chair until he can get his draft done, but Natasha in HR assures him that this is not only against company policy, but is also actually a war crime. Dear God. Tony makes him want to commit war crimes. Eventually he corners Tony into telling him why he can’t get a book together on time when he’d had no problem doing it for Clint before he’d transferred elsewhere and Tony looks like he’s going to burst into tears as he says that he didn’t find Clint attractive and Sam is so attractive that he can barely manage to face him.
“Well that’s stupid! I’m a competitive asshole who kicked a rat!” Sam snaps. Tony is horrified but also somehow comforted.
(“WHAT THE FUCK,” Bucky bellows when Sam gets him in a headlock.
“This is for assigning Tony to me when you knew he gets stupid around people he finds attractive. I’ve been chasing him for a draft and he’s too fucking embarrassed to give it to me you dick,” Sam hisses.
Bucky squeaks in confusion, choking, and points at Steve, who is trying to sneak out of the room. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out it was actually Steve’s idea, not Bucky’s, and Tony and Natasha watch patiently as Sam chases a screaming Steve around the building, swearing at him for wasting everyone’s time and blaming Steve for the fact that he had to kick a rat on the way to getting a date.)
