Oh yeah! I could share this here! Something I’d like to finish one day /o/ Right now I’m still focusing on ArtFight. When I can, I want to try to finish this using Clip, though I still don’t know a lot about Clip yet. I’ve only really used it once XD;; (And I only got it for animation. I really love Sai and it’ll be hard to break that love <3 and PS CS6 is still working well for me too.) This was originally done in OpenToonz. And... it got really frustrating to work in for anything bigger like this. (Hense why I got Clip lol)
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 2/?
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Captain America (Movies), Thor (Movies)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Darcy Lewis/Steve Rogers
Characters: Darcy Lewis, Steve Rogers, Clint Barton, Nick Fury, and my usual pack of OCs
Additional Tags: Series, Sequel, despite the title this isn't a songfic, Dreamsharing, this part of the story is more about the romance than anything else, more tags to be added as the story goes on - Freeform
Series: Part 5 of I am Here, and I am Ready
Summary: Summer in New York has been described in many ways: exciting, sweltering, vibrant, reeking from the pits of hell, exhausting, lively, and, as crazy as it makes people, it’s home. It’s also the backdrop for the growing love story between Steve Rogers and Darcy Lewis. There’s a little laughter, a little angst, a little magic, and a little romance. Basically, it’s time to bring things out of the dreamscape and into the waking world.
Chapter summary: New roommates, adventures with pigeons and falling tasers, defective DoomBots, encounters with Avengers who aren’t Captain America, and an absolutely guileless Nick Fury who has no hidden agenda. Not at all.Yeah, it’s just an average day in the greatest city in the world for one Darcy Lewis. Who isn’t paid nearly enough to deal with this.
Four years later...presenting chapter two. Yeah, it’s late. I know. But I adore this verse, and I hope that shows, and that it makes you smile.
Woo /o/ My current Art Fight attacks so far. I... don't know if I'll be able to do more because of what's suddenly happening in my life but I'm glad I got to do some /o/ I'd love to do more though. I've only done a few from my personal list of what I had wanted to do and I'd love to do more random character ones QAQ. I guess we'll see what happens.
In order:
Crover for OceanStars
Ashwee and Cherrly for Cherushii78
Kumo for nova-alien
Charlie for Zachary-Attackary
And finally what I just finished: Magpiewing for Louixie
How many times can you read a chapter over and over before deeming it ready to post?
This is what happens when you wait three years between updates - you forget what you wrote before and are entirely unsure if this new bit meshes well with what you used to write...
Welcome to crack week 2019, and all the props in the world to @dresupi for doing a fab job coming up with these prompts. The first prompt is, appropriately so, ‘Taser Mishaps’. And, for some reason I like to return to the Dreamsverse when I’m feeling a bit out of sorts. It’s like a comforting old friend, where none of my characters really know what they’re doing in this life, but they’re muddling through anyway. This is utter and total crack, mind you, so please don’t come shouting at me that this scenario isn’t realistic. The entire point is the lack of realism here.
I also have been feeling the strong desire to return to 2012 MCU fandom lately, for all obvious reasons, and so these cracky little ficlets in the Dreamsverse take place over the summer of 2012, a younger, more innocent time for my babies. Although, admittedly, I’m totally pulling some characters from the more recent Marvel movies, definitely inspired by a post from @anais-ninja-bitch of late that spurred on some amazing headcanons.
There are a lot of OCs in this verse, and I’m hitting the ground running with them, so if you want to learn a little more about them, you can find the rest of the Dreamsverse at AO3. If you don’t want to read through five long stories though, here’s what you need to know: 1) recently established Shieldshock where Darcy and Steve are neighbors in Brooklyn 2) Darcy has a LOT of roommates 3) No one knows Steve is Captain America, because his public identity is still secret (oh, it was a more innocent time then, and I’m a total sucker for a secret identity…).
Day 1 - Taser Mishaps
“This will not end well,” Barrett says. His face is pinched with worry, and if the wary expression didn’t give it away, the way his fingertips keep tapping out a staccato beat on the worn windowsill say plenty, also.
Steve looks up at Barrett from his perch halfway down the steps between the fire escapes. There’s already a rough edged rip in his t-shirt where the wrought iron had snagged it, the flaps peeling away to reveal a slice of his muscular chest. Beyond that, the slight claw marks in his skin were showing up nicely red against his pale flesh. “I realize that,” he replies with all of the patience he can muster up, “but what choice to do we have?” His other hand has a thick rope wrapped around it, the other end of which is wrapped a few times around Darcy’s waist, just for extra safety purposes.
“Dude, it’s not my taser; I won’t get arrested for having an illegal weapon in this state!”
“Will you two shut up!” Darcy calls back over her shoulder, reaching around to adjust the rope and stop it from digging into her skin. “The pigeons are getting even madder.”
It was purely an accident that Darcy’s taser had gone out the window. She’d had it out in the kitchen, left on the little counter they’d set up in front of the window for some extra space so she could drop it into her backpack. But the day is one of those summer days, where it’s nice and hot but there’s a breeze coming off the water, and it’s just about perfect as long as you can ignore the ever pervasive smell of hot garbage that seems to emanate from the pores of NYC in the warm weather, and the window was open to get some much needed fresh air in the apartment.
So, of course someone ended up knocking into the counter and sending the taser clattering out of the window. It didn’t fall far, only down to an ancient cement ledge on the story below theirs, but that little trip led to an entirely new set of problems. First, the window behind the ledge had been bricked up ages before, so they couldn’t go through the apartment below theirs to retrieve the taser. Second, the ledge had become overgrown with moss and lichen, making it a wonderfully soft location and protected location for a pigeon couple to set up a nest to keep their eggs warm and cozy.
The taser had landed just beyond the pigeons’ nest, and Mama Pigeon really, really didn’t like Steve, much to his chagrin and everyone else’s amusement during the first retrieval attempt. Which is how Darcy ended up in the makeshift harness trying to reach past one very pissed off pigeon to retrieve her highly illegal non-lethal weapon.
Mama Pigeon wriggles in her nest, and puffs her feathers up, giving Darcy a glare that translates all too well across species. “I know,” Darcy says with a sigh. “Just give me a few seconds and I’ll get out of your way?” she all but begs. She reaches out again, trying to curve her arm up from below so that Mama Pigeon doesn’t see her coming and she can just snatch her taser back.
She moves slowly, with careful intent, and she can feel Steve and Barrett’s eyes following her every move. They’re all so intent on watching Darcy, however, that they don’t see the U-Haul van come to a jolting stop in the alley below them. The passenger side door of the van opens, and another one of the roommates, Jess, steps out to stare gape mouthed at the sight above them. “What the fuck is going on?!” she yells up at the crowd on the fire escape.
“Darcy’s taser got taken hostage by a pigeon!” Barrett yells back.
Darcy twists to give Barrett a glare, which makes Steve scramble to get an even tighter grip on the ropes keeping her in place. “I wasn’t the one who knocked it out the window, butterfingers,” she spits out.
“Can we get this over with before you get arrested for illegal carry? And before you scare off your new roommate?” Steve cocks his head in the direction of the street below, at the young black woman who’d stepped out from the driver’s seat of the van and who had joined Jess in staring up at the chaos above them.
“Ooh, good point.” Darcy twists in the other direction to wave at the new woman, which is enough to make Steve lunge forward, quickly wrapping the loose rope around his forearm, and grab for the waistband of her shorts and at her hip to be certain that she doesn’t fall into the open dumpster in the alley below. “Hi! Monica, right? Welcome to the madhouse!”
Down on the street, Monica slides her eyes over to Jess with a knowing look. “You are very, very lucky that this is not the craziest thing I’ve seen in my life,” she says.
“It’s only Tuesday,” Jess replies with a nonchalant shrug, her eyes still watching the attempt at taser retrieval. “Just wait until the weekend.”
Crackfic week, day two: an unexplainable predicament to explain. Follows directly on from yesterday’s Dreamsverse ficlet, which can be found here. All the necessary notes for understanding the Dreamsverse can be found there also, especially the whole summer of 2012 and secret identity bits. These are incredibly fun to write, and they’ve been a great balm for the soul these days, so all love to @dresupi for coming up with this idea. Un-beta’ed and definitely not quality checked, because I am tired and this isn’t getting posted to AO3 just yet.
Someday I’ll write out how Darcy ended up being friends with Monica Rambeau in the Dreamsverse, but that won’t be today. Today is for cracky goodness. More author’s notes at the end of the ficlet, because spoilers. ;)
Day two - an unexplainable predicament to explain
It’s one of those days when Darcy is infinitely grateful she’s an office temp, because it means she’s not obligated to be upright and moving at the crack of dawn, unlike most of the people she knows. The bad thing about crashing at Steve’s apartment after a night full of various suspect cocktails, however, is that there’s that one ray of blinding sunlight coming through the window that manages to drive a spike of pain right into her cranium. She groans lowly, pulling Steve’s unoccupied pillow over her head to block the rest of the world out.
Darcy fully blames the judicious application of tequila the night before for her current state. She and Jess had dragged Monica out to welcome her to the apartment, and they’d ended up at a hole in the wall bad somewhere on Smith Street, pounding back more shots than any sane person should. Things got a little blurry after that. At least from what little Darcy can recollect. There may have been some wandering about, attempting to find the right subway station, she thinks. Then there was also, possibly, an encounter with a police officer. She remembers the blue uniform at least.
Eventually, they’d managed to pour themselves into a cab to get home, and once they got there Jess had leaned on Steve’s doorbell loud and long until he could “come show his drunken girlfriend a good time,” in the words of Jess and Monica at least. Steve, however, was far too much of a gentleman to do anything out of sorts, much to Darcy’s chagrin, and she has some fuzzy memories of him sweeping her up into his arms, carrying her into his bed, stripping off her going out clothes, and making her drink some water and some pills before she collapsed totally.
There’s a small noise behind her, footsteps most likely, and she peels the pillow off of her head to see Steve walking into the bedroom, a steaming mug of coffee in his hands. “Oh my god; you’re the best,” Darcy groans. With a powerful wince she pushes herself upright, holding her hands out for the life giving liquid.
“I’d ask how you feel,” Steve says carefully, settling himself down on the bed next to her, “but I recognize that look of pain all too well.”
“Well, I don’t quite want to die,” Darcy mumbles. Gingerly, she blows across the top of the mug and takes a sip, scorching her tongue just a little bit. “But my head’s got a marching band in it and I don’t quite remember everything about last night. So do with that what you will.”
“You were pretty giggly when you got in,” Steve confirms with an indulgent grin. “But as soon as you hit the bed, you were out.”
“That sounds about right.” She heaves a deep sigh, and looks down at the oversized shirt of Steve’s that’s become her pajamas when she stays over there (if she ends up wearing pajamas. Which, admittedly, doesn’t happen all that frequently). “I should shower. Get the stink of last night off of me.”
There’s a sharp rap at the door, which makes both of their heads swivel in the direction of the sound. “You expecting anyone?” Darcy asks.
“No.” Steve pushes himself off the bed, jaw clenched, and leaves to go answer the door. In the seconds it takes for that to happen, Darcy forces down the pain in her head and finds Steve’s bathrobe, to try and cover herself up a little more completely than just a t-shirt would. By the time she’s covered up and her head poking out of the bedroom, Steve’s back with a rather smug looking Monica trailing behind him. She holds up a loaded paper bag once she spots Darcy. “I come bearing greasy breakfast sandwiches. According to Jess it’s a traditional New York hangover breakfast.”
“Bless you,” Darcy sighs. The grabby hands come out again and soon she’s tearing into the sandwich, cheesy bacon and eggs making themselves at home in her mouth.
“Figure you’d need that after last night anyway,” Monica says. She crosses her arms over her chest and leans against the doorway to the living room, a smirk stealing across her lips. “You were having the best time out of all of us.”
“Don’t remind me,” Darcy grumbles, trying her hardest not to acknowledge the look of smug amusement Steve’s got on his face. “Actually, please do, because my brain’s still fuzzy.”
Monica’s smirk grows even more, and Darcy can feel her stomach drop out from under her. She blames it on the hangover. “Oh, you mean where you almost got arrested for groping a statue?” she states, ever so casually.
“I what?!” Darcy chokes out, a bit of her sandwich getting lodged in her throat for just a moment. She coughs to clear it out, but even over that she can hear Monica’s cackling.
“Wait, really?” Steve asks, and if Darcy wasn’t feeling as crap as she did she’d hit him for sounding far too amused at her predicament.
“Uh-huh,” Monica grins. “So, apparently, or at least according to the legend the cop told me last night, because we know fuck all about the truth,” she begins, the Louisiana drawl in her voice becoming even more pronounced as she settles into her story, “Captain America’s a good ol’ local boy from around here, and so they put a statue up right in front of the Barclay’s Center downtown. After we left the bar last night we got a little turned around and ended up in front of the subway stop there, which coincidentally has the statue placed right outside of it.” She shrugs, giving Darcy a look that can only be called impish. “You did say you were feeling affectionate.”
Darcy pointedly ignores the slight sounds of Steve’s disbelieving choking in the background in favor of gingerly taking the phone Monica’s handing her. She winces again at the sight of the picture, featuring her in all of her glory, a shit eating grin on her face, a hand splayed over the star in the center of the bronze Cap’s chest, and a leg that looked like it was attempting to wrap across his thighs but instead just sort of crookedly draped over it. “Oh, god,” she moans. “I can explain?”
Steve’s still making those weird little choking noises in the background, but as Darcy’s pretty sure he’s not dying of embarrassment, she looks down at the picture again. “Actually, I can’t explain? Maybe the tequila can? Or maybe I just wanted to pay homage to a local hero? Because the pecs of freedom there are pretty impressive.” She shakes her head, her fingers clenching around the cellphone. The hysterical part of it all is that Darcy is fairly certain that her original, drunken statement of feeling affection was entirely accurate, because if she couldn’t have her boyfriend and his super duper secret identity hanging out with her on girls’ night, the bronze replica was the next best thing. Even if, up close and personal, the statue didn’t look at all like Steve, really.
The memory is too little too late, but it’s enough to pass the warm flush taking over her cheeks off as embarrassment instead of affection.
“Can you send me a copy of that picture?” Steve asks, his voice breaking through her fuzzy thoughts.
Before Darcy can react and delete the offending picture, Monica gleefully snatches her phone back and dashes the pic over to Steve, creating copies for all of them to enjoy. “Public fucking menaces,” Darcy groans.
“You did say I needed to change my phone background from the default,” Steve points out, which sets Monica cackling again and Darcy burying her face in the nearest throw pillow because really, all of her friends were assholes.
**********
A/n: Okay, so while I may have fudged the real world dates a bit, the Captain America statue in Brooklyn is a real thing, and at one point in time it was actually located in front of the Barclay’s Center (and yeah, one time when I was meeting my sister and cousins there for a hockey game, I did in fact get a text saying that they were standing in front of the Captain America statue, which is probably one of the crackiest text messages I’ve ever received in my whole life, which is saying a lot). The statue has since been moved to a new location, if I recall correctly, doing a tour of the borough before it lands in its permanent placement in Prospect Park.
Last I heard the Cap statue was set up in the entryway of a Bed, Bath, and Beyond way in the depths of Brooklyn in Sunset Park, of all places. Only in Brooklyn, of course.
You get three for the price of one today, because downtime at this temp job and EndGame have apparently kicked my muse into high gear. So, here are some previews of three stories.
1) The EndGame what-if/fix it (for lack of a better term. Maybe alternate ending is better? Exploring what I thought would have worked better? I dunno. Regardless, it’s the end of EndGame my way). Spoilers ahoy, and no ship in sight (yet. I have plans for this universe):
“You spoke to the Living Tribunal, then?” a new voice breaks in, low and haggard and yet strong enough to resonate around the office. Standing in the doorway is Thor, looking about as worn down as Steve feels right then, ragged and tired, like he’s only being held together by the merest of threads.
“And what’s the Living Tribunal when it’s at home?” Steve asks, because now they’re going well past his wheelhouse into the goddamn Marianas Trench, and the last thing he wants to do is drown in it.
“The judge, jury, and executioner of universal balance.” Thor shuffles over to one of the chairs nearby the holographic image generators and kicks back, slumping down. “What did he say to you?”
“That this universe, as it exists now, post decimation?” Carol shakes her head, “is unsustainable. The balance has been wrecked so badly by what Thanos has done that within a generation, maybe two at the most, everything in existence is going to be reduced to space dust. Something to be absorbed and dispersed around the universe that will come after this one.”
2) The next chapter in the Dreams series, three years after I posted the previous one. I don’t even know where this came from, but I do know that crack week 2019 helped spur it on. Yes, it’s nonsensical, but a desire to return back to 2012 fandom and characters and my two favorite romantic idiots trying to find their way in the world was an appealing one. Darcy/Steve, which shouldn’t surprise anyone by now, especially if they’ve read the series (which you can find here if you’re interested). This bit guest stars everyone’s favorite Hawkguy:
Darcy turns a corner, and crashes into a solid, human figure with an undignified yelp. “Get down,” the human figure grunts out, clapping a hand on her shoulder. So, she lunges to the side just as she feels a rush of movement behind her, followed by a twanging noise and a small explosion. When she looks back, she sees that the DoomBot lurking behind her is now smoking on the floor, an arrow sticking out of one metallic eye. She looks over to the other side of the hall to find freakin’ Hawkeye there, of all people, a fresh arrow nocked in the bow and aimed straight at her.
“Whoa.” She quickly puts her hands in the air, because the crowning achievement of today would be for her to end up with an arrow in her gut courtesy of the Avengers.
“You won’t make it easy on me and say that you’re responsible for these runaway robots so I can take you in quietly and berate someone for their poor choice in friends?” Hawkeye says, pulling the tension on the arrow back just a little bit further. He looks a lot different in his official gear from when she’d seen him on the street with Steve that one time, much more focused and intent on his mission rather than just another guy knocking around. It’s an impressive change.
“Dude, I’m just a temp!” Darcy blurts out. “My agency sent me here for a couple of days so I could scan in some payroll records!” It takes a second for the latter half of Hawkeye’s statement to register, and she gives into the eyeroll. “Look, SHIELD knows exactly who I am, especially after all the NDAs they’ve made me sign after a certain incident in New Mexico. And even if I was going to take my revenge on the world, it wouldn’t be with a pack of defective DoomBots!”
Hawkeye’s about to say something else, when a cluster of Bots comes from either side of the hallway, effectively boxing them in. “Aw, shit.”
“You think?!” Darcy pushes herself against the wall, trying to get out of the line of fire as much as she can.
3) And, finally, an excerpt from a story that I’m working on in the Incrediblesverse, which is directly spurred on because of events in EndGame, even though there are no spoilers (and, tbh, I know already EndGame will never take place in this universe - in my head, the Incrediblesverse takes place in the 2014 timeline where Thanos is done and dusted and will never be an issue there). This bit involves Steve and Natasha, although this story is deeply and undeniably ShieldShock over all:
Steve clutches Joey that much closer; he can tell he’s fascinated and not quite sure what to make of the newcomer. It’s not exactly an unexpected sensation the first time someone meets the Black Widow, he knows. “You coming to crash the party and tell me I’m marrying a spy, Director?”
“Not hardly. Just offering my congratulations.” Natasha crosses her arms over her chest, stepping into the light so Steve can see her fully. “Besides, you know I’ve done my background checks. Darcy’s perfect for you.”
“I’m hesitant to ask how long ago you found out, and how long you’ve been gathering your info on us.”
“Not as long as you’d think.” She shakes her head, the look on her face full of pride, of all things. “You and Bucky did a surprisingly good job of covering your tracks in the aftermath of your supposed ‘deaths’ over the last few years. But, then a little birdie told me a long awaited celebration was happening, and I went from there.”
He knows his eyebrows are arching into his hairline now. “A little birdie told you, huh?”
The smirk grows on Nat’s face. “Well, maybe the birdie didn’t know I was listening. And maybe the little birdie shouldn’t take such sensitive calls right in his office. Security’s good, but not as good as I am.”
