I thought it was a basic caveat when making a multi season TV show that the last season is for tying loose ends. That's when the characters you've spent five seasons and 7 years fleshing out get the ending they deserve.
Instead what the writers chose to give us this season is a completely new Mayday/revolution ready aunt that had me scratching my head wondering if i missed her in my million re-watches. No backstory, nothing. Literally a useless plot device.
I'm supposed to believe we had a secret aunt in hiding all this time who's just lying in wait for what? A shotgun commander wedding?!
You could have made the effort to flesh out roles for allies you've built up over five seasons (hint hint- it's Nick). People we care about. People who's stories we know. Clearly sneaking June and Moira across the border did not require an aunt to open car doors. They've been in and out of Gilead the past few episodes like it's cake walk.
Why introduce new characters now at the tail end? You could easily have had Nick confide in June that he doesn't want to do this anymore and have her convince him to join the revolution more actively. Then go for wedding massacre. Or maybe have Rita call him out for not being able to get her family out making him question his actions as they pertain only to June. Or even Janine could have been made a pressure point to get him to turn. Instead Janine is brutalised, Nick is made a villain and some random aunt is telling us - LET THE REVOLUTION BEGIN. Come on.
Summary: It's been 6 months since coming back to New York. Will you forgive the Turtles for their mistake?
Warning: implied sex, mentions of sex
A lot has changed since you came back from supposed death.
Splinter has explained to the turtles about your death and was furious, they didn't trust you much afterwards. Unlike the other three, Michelangelo tried his best to be around you even though became cold and disconnected. He misses his best friend, you coming back was the best thing that happened to him in a long time. So the fact you barely even acknowledge him or his brothers hurt him a lot.
The first three months were painful for you and for the four turtles, you all barely spoke to each other and only you visit the sewers to see Splinter and told him news about the Ancient One and why you've come back to New York.
The fourth month is when Raph let his anger out on you. You were coming by the lair to tell Splinter the news your team will be arriving in two months time, you wanted to ask him for permission to have Gojo and Geto over at the lair to discuss planning when you encountered Raphael leaning against the entrance of the lair. You gave him the cold shoulder and was about to go around when he yelled at you, telling you how much you've hurt his family.
Which ended up you telling him the truth, how they all thought you were weak and you didn't bring anything to the team, how depressed you got and the only way to live your life is to move on and away from them. Raph didn't know what came over him as he presses his rough lips against yours, sexually frustrated for a while now, you responded as you wrapped your arms around his neck and his hands placed on your ass lifting you from the ground.
That night you unintentionally slept with Raphael.
The next morning, Mikey found you sneaking out of the hothead's room holding your jeans in your hands as you borrowed his t-shirt. And that day, you had a talk with everyone.
About you.
You all gathered around the dining table eating pizza, their usual meal, Splinter sat at the head of the table as everyone ate silently.
"I believe (Y/n) has something to tell us" Splinter announces.
"About what?" Raph says walking in, he snatches a cup of coffee and drinking it.
"Why I faked my death and came back alive" you stated, glancing at Splinter who gave you a stern nod.
You take a deep breath. "So... you still think I'm weak?"
The turtles froze.
"Here" you said bringing out evidence of the Foot Clan you've been gathering for a month. "Still think I didn't bring enough to the table?"
"Or are we gonna pretend that I've been nothing but an ordinary girl sitting on the couch doing nothing"
The tension thickens as you stood from your stop slamming down your hand. "I fucking sacrificed a lot being your friend, I never took you for granted because I loved you guys and all you did was talk behind my back how I'm worth nothing"
"I didn't say anything..." Mikey frowns.
"No but Raphael did, Donatello oh let's not forget Leonardo. What happened then? The hothead complains so everyone joins in?" You spat.
"And you!" You pointed at Leo. "You were suppose to have my back. You decieved me"
Another silence fills the air.
No one knew how to respond, even Splinter who walked out knowingly this is his son's responsibility. You angrily wipe off the tears gathered in your eyes, you hated feeling weak and for the past two years and a half all you've done is prove to yourself that your tough. You can handle things. And if things got all tough, you'd be find because you know you can surpass it.
"I have another month to go before I leave to go back to Japan" you announced.
"You're leaving?" Mikey said sadly.
"You just arrived. I know we barely talked but is there anything we can do to make it up to you" Donnie begs.
"You know it was just banter" Raph spoke up, his voice gentle, totally different from the night before. "We didn't mean to hurt you badly"
"Banter or not, its not an excuse" Leo said, standing up as he takes you hand. "I'm sorry I didn't stand up for you, I'm sorry that I didn't look for more evidence you supposed killed you. I'm sorry"
You gave him a sad smile, "I... I've been wanting to hear that for the longest time. I'm sorry I caused you the pain. Especially..."
Especially you know you had to save me those five times.
Leonardo wrapped his arms around you, as you hugged him back tightly and willingly. The others joined in, hugging you as tight as possible. From Leo's shoulder, you looked up making eye contact with Raph. You both knew what happened the night before was a fluke and won't be happening again, and you both knew, that secret will end up biting you back on your asses.
Written for Stony AUgust over at @stonyauniverse , for week one/alternate professions.
non functional requirements
There’s a man-shaped twig blocking the door to the lecture hall.
“You coming or you going?”
The twig startles – blue eyes darting under wheat yellow hair. Gwen pulls the worn strap of her tote bag more firmly over her shoulder, MacBook weighing it down, grimacing all the while.
“Sorry.” The twig apologises in a surprisingly deep voice, then opens the door for her. Cute gesture if class hadn’t already started and now she’s gotta squeeze past him through the tiny door.
The guy re-evaluates his chivalry after a couple seconds of awkward silence. He ducks through into the hall but lingers, and Gwen sidesteps him to dump her crap on the floor near the closest seat on the second last row.
“Recording’s kicked off, so we might as well. This is lecture four of System Design Engineering.” The lecturer’s voice crackles over the speakers. Looks like he’s just gotten started, so that gives her a couple minutes to get setup. “Today we’ll be going over NFR’s, or non-functional requirements. What they are, how they’re defined. These can apply to any kind of computing systems, system architectures, front end or backend APIs, you name it. Any kind of – sorry, was that a hand?”
“Morning Tony.” Someone greets from close to the front row. Gwen, who’s waiting for her Macbook to complete its primeval, laborious booting up procedure, feels her shoulders sag even further down. God, not this shit again.
“Did your coffee machine explode again?”
“Implode, and no.” The lecturer – Tony – cracks a brief smile. The band t-shirt he’s got on is mostly just wrinkles, his hair flattened straight down the sides like it hasn’t been washed in a couple days. Really gives Gwen such an inspiring picture to look up to for her own prospective career in academia. “And just for that not-so-subtle commentary on my opening salvo today, I’m gonna teach this entire lecture using a metaphor.”
“Was it Justin Hammer?” Someone else calls from the front. “Did he hog the servers to train machine learning models on LinkedIn posts?”
“Fuck no.” Tony says, and winces immediately in the bout of snickers that erupt. “And now you’ve got me swearing on the recording. Gonna put all of you heathens on a bus to the downtown community college, don’t think I won’t do it.”
The students hush in anticipation. Tony blinks, knuckles at his nose under the wireframe glasses, and looks to the ceiling as if in despair. “I mean. I… pre-emptively apologise, and intend no insult to any students, or family of students listening to this, who may have attended community college. Community college is an institution. Just like… jail.”
“You sure your coffee machine didn’t explode?”
“Shut up Miles.” Tony gestures half-heartedly at the screen behind him, where the slide has finally changed.
Gwen’s brought up her note-taking tool by habit on her up-and-running Mac, but she doesn’t have high hopes. It’s not like the guy doesn’t know his stuff, he’s just easily derailed into tangents and rambles and spicy opinions on SpaceX, and Gwen likes to be systematic about learning new things. Start at the beginning, finish at the end, with preferably zero stand-up material along the way. If she’d wanted jokes, she’d put on a late-night show.
And then to add insult to injury, someone creeps up the side and sinks down on the seat right in front of her, blocking her eyeline to the lower third of the screen. The bluish light dances silver over the light-coloured mop of hair… it’s the twiggy dude, from the doorway. Did he just find a seat?
“Think about a relationship.” Tony’s saying, up at the lectern. “Parent and child, cousins twice removed, romantic partners. Whoever. There are the expectations, the responsibilities… the requirements, you could say, which are obviously defined and the bare minimum for the relationship to exist. If you’re a parent, you gotta house and feed your kid. If you don’t do that, you fail at the basic requirements of being a parent. So if you turn up with your deadbeat ass at your kid’s wedding, they’re justified to go all, ‘you’re not my dad’.”
A guy in the third row raises a pen into the air. “Can I explain it like that in the exam?”
“I’m not going to be the only one marking, Ganke, so I’d actively encourage it.” Kinda nice, how he remembered so many names though. Gwen has been in this course for six months and only knows faces. “However, there are certain requirements which may not be essential for the relationship to be defined and functional but are still important. Like if your parent loves you.” A twitch. “Loves the kid, that is.”
In the seat ahead of her, Twig’s shoulders have risen up to his ears, frame gone all stiff. Gwen bites back a sigh and moves over to the next seat, just to eliminate the distraction.
She thinks about Dad in the next breath, awkwardly jabbing at his cereal and darting glances at her over the table, and immediately shoves it down.
“You might be tempted to think of it as how good a system is at fulfilling a base requirement – like how good of a parent they are, depending on if they do or don’t love you. And that’s not incorrect; whether a website is able to serve a high volume of traffic, or have an uptime of ninety nine percent, is absolutely about how good it is at serving its base requirement, which is to present an accessible resource over the internet. But if the thresholds of those non-functional requirements aren’t met, if the website keeps throwing a 404 more frequently than is acceptable, then it impedes said basic requirement. Even though uptime isn’t in the strict definition of the deliverable. You feel me?”
Silence. Someone from the far end meekly chirps a yes.
“Ohhkay.” Tony paces out from behind the lectern, keen eyes scanning the room like he’s actually, really invested. That’s… that’s a nice thing about him too. “Imagine I’m in a relationship, right? My partner and I, we define what a romantic relationship means to us and what we expect of each other going in. Like… monogamy, maybe. Or meeting at least once a week. So as long as I don’t go cruising, or ghost this guy for a month, I’m technically fulfilling my promises as a boyfriend. Those are your functional requirements.”
There’s a tiny murmur in the room at ‘guy’, but it dies out quick. Not exactly a surprise from the man who wears bi flag-coloured sunglasses to Orientation week.
“But to the enlightened, relationships are about more than that.” Tony’s lips curl at one end, like the words amuse him. Or that he’s speaking them? “Dependability. Emotional support. Prioritising the other person’s needs. All that chicken soup for the soul stuff; your non-functional requirements.”
“So I gotta think about it, the third time I reschedule date night. Get lost in a work thing and forget to respond to a text. Several texts. Forget to buy the milk, even though he told me to and put a reminder on my phone. Make life decisions on my own. These things take… a toll.” Tony isn’t making eye contact with the crowd anymore. His eyes skitter up to the ceiling and away again, restless even as his voice continues on methodically. “Maybe my partner can put up with it. Does put up with it. But just because I’m serving the base functionality of a romantic partner, doesn’t mean I can ignore these things. These are also essential to the health of the relationship.”
“But you gotta design for that. I can’t sit there like a dimwit going, ‘oh I’ll just do better next time’ and expect it to magically happen. That I’ll just… be better, with no effort on my part aside from intending to.” Gwen drops her eyes to the plastic tabletop, scratches and pen marks running over the surface. This is weirdly intense. “I have to have the right system in place. Maybe I vow to reply to a text every time I’m downing a cup of coffee. Set up regular delivery orders for milk online. Make it to the date, even if it is an hour too late and not in the place I wanted, just so we’re there together. Plan in advance so that things can get better, instead of crossing fingers and blowing on an eyelash. Do the work.”
She lifts her gaze by an inch, still vaguely discomfited, and catches Twig’s jaw clenching in profile, limned by the light of the screen. He shifts in his seat, raises a fist to wipe brusquely at something under his eye. It’s all very quiet. Tightly controlled.
“And that’s how systems need to function. Sure your primary focus is to get the thing up and running, but you need to think about performance, and security, and reliability when you’re architecting a solution. Two weeks before go live is not the time to realise that you’re pulling from an old-timey relational database when you actually needed caching. That the base components of your system just… don’t work together the way you want.” Tony pauses, blinks a couple times. Like his words have outstripped his thoughts and it’s all starting to come together. Form an obvious conclusion. His mouth turns down, goes wry again. “It gets real expensive to fix things then.”
And so it continues. The hour goes by faster than usual, Gwen startling a little by the time Tony wraps up the lecture, a whole five minutes before time like he always prefers to do.
Or… plans to do, perhaps. Mid-morning lectures, people usually have to empty out of these halls fast to get to the next one, but there’s a disordered cluster of students still lingering around the lectern, shooting the shit and exchanging laughs with Tony. He looks visibly better at the end of the hour, more energetic than he did at the start of the lecture. Like it actually rejuvenated him – which isn’t the worst ideal to look up to as a prospective academic.
Whatever, Gwen isn’t getting ahead of herself. She’s got band to get to.
Of course, when she stuffs her laptop into the tote bag and does a brief check to make sure everything’s in there, she can’t see her fob. Can’t get into the rehearsal room without it, so she gropes for it fruitlessly for a couple of minutes, before resorting to dumping the bag out on her seat. Chocolate wrappers flutter to the ground, a pen cap without a pen rolling down to join them. Handouts from her other classes, worksheets, one physical notebook, a set of drumsticks… no fob.
Ugh. She ducks under her seat to check, nose twitching as the longer end of her bangs ruffle past. There, small and plasticky-blue against the maroon carpet. Fishing it out through the tiny gap is an ordeal, and by the time she has it secure in her pocket, the hall’s empty.
Or not quite. She’s shovelling her stuff one-handed while pacing up the stairs to the exit, when, “–mean to show up at your place of work.”
“You’re my boyfriend Steven, not a stalker. It’s fine.”
Hang on. What?
Tony and some guy – Twig, she can tell by the bony shoulders – Steven, are standing in front of the door. Tony and his boyfriend. Who was in their class. Who was probably not in their class, just physically present in this… particular class.
Tony seems to be frenetically running through similar thoughts, because his mouth just doesn’t stop moving, hands gesturing through the air like a conductor gone loose. “Well, not fine fine. I guess, considering what I – considering all of the… I didn’t know you were in the audience, obviously. I’ll just do as Taylor does and write a song about it the next time.”
Fuck. Can she just… push past them, really quickly? Or right in the middle of them. She’s been to parties where she doesn’t know anybody before, this can’t be any more awkward than that. Probably.
Steven’s already thin lips press tight together. He’s standing very, very straight, not a thing to criticise in that posture. Captain Stacy would be proud.
“Are we,” He starts, deep voice as startling out of that reed-thin frame as it was the first time, stumbling over the words just a little, “breaking up then?”
“What?” Tony breathes, and it’s like it’s stoppered his flow of thought completely.
Steven’s lips flicker up weakly. “You said Taylor.”
“No, no,” Tony’s hands flutter again – he pulls them back and tucks them close over his chest, just a little protective. “Stupid joke, you know me.” And then, just a little wry. “Of all the times to know a modern music reference.”
It’s like he’s laying out bait, an easy diversion. Steven could say something about preferring The Beatles and they needn’t tug on this line of thought, make things unravel.
Maybe it’s why Gwen hasn’t cleared her throat or done anything to clue them off to her presence yet. Something in her is so discomfited, twisted up with the second-hand awkwardness – she can’t let them go on but it would be worse if they saw her – but there’s also a second voice in her head, the one that’s good at moderating and peeling people open from a distance.
if you stop them talking now, when will they try again?
Steven doesn’t take the bait. Something in him strains like he wants to take a step forward, but he doesn’t move. Instead, he says quietly – “I do know you.”
“I know how much you think about us. How much it matters to you to get things right, and I guess I just…” Steven’s mouth purses, soft and unhappy, “take it for granted, all of that work, because it just happens to be who you are. Who you’ve chosen to be.”
“Steve, don’t – we’re both workaholics–”
“We are.” Steve acquiesces, but the words that follow sound implacable. “But you plan around it. Every single thing you said in the lecture, you… you booked those regular grocery deliveries for us, and I cribbed at you about it because they deliver in those plastic bags and the emissions from the delivery trucks–”
“It was a valid fucking point–”
“It was a stupid point, and you were right to tell me that.” Steve says it without hesitation. “I cancelled on our weekend away, again, and you were right to call me out on that this morning too. You just don’t…” A little softer. “Sometimes you don’t say anything.”
A beat.
Tony unfolds his arms, eyes fixed somewhere off-centre around Steve’s collarbone. His voice has dropped to match Steve’s, simmering with something indecipherable. “I was really… happy when you agreed to be with me. Stunned out of my head, sure. But happy. I wanted to get it right. It would have never occurred to me to… with our history, with my history, it just didn’t compute sometimes that…”
Steve cuts in, mouth twisting with it. “That I’d be the screw-up in the relationship?”
“Careful sweetheart.” Tony lifts his eyes, and they’re still warm. “Name-calling is my department.”
But he seems to be taking Steve’s previous words to heart.
“I know…” He swallows. Drops his hands completely, lifts his chin and talks. “I know how much that place means to you, I know how much you’d have killed to have a queer shelter in the neighbourhood, heck in the city, growing up like you did. I want someone who cares about what they do, I’d have been bored to shit with a person coasting by on a job that meant nothing to them. You wanna do paperwork till one am, I’ll be right there on the couch with you marking papers. That is fine, the donations from your own pocket are – don’t cut me off Steve – are fine, even if it is a little like Mrs. March teaching the kids to give away their Christmas meal to the less fortunate. That’s the guy I chose to be with.”
“You need to save the world. You can’t help yourself.” Tony bit into his lip, smile here and gone in a flash. “And I’m just a guy who teaches a couple university classes, while trying to get a startup off the ground for the last five years. But this morning when you…” He sucks in a breath, exhales it soundlessly. “When you looked like you couldn’t imagine how I’d think we wouldn’t cancel… how you disdained the idea of. Of spending time with me, instead of saving the world. Then it felt pretty shitty.”
For a moment, Steve doesn’t say anything at all. His face is pale, cheeks lost of any colour. His eyes have gone red. “I. I’m sorry.”
Tony clears his throat, voice forcibly bright. “Not gonna say you’d never think like that?”
“… doesn’t matter.” Steve says simply. “It’s how I made you feel.”
“There are those unrealistic moral principles I know and love.” Tony’s smiling, only a little watery around the edges. He moves into Steve’s motionless frame, hands reaching out again, this time to catch him by the elbows and smooth down to hang onto his wrists. “We’ll work on it.”
Steve is staring down at their hands, both like they’re condemned and something miraculous. “In the lecture. When you said that the components of the system didn’t work together the way you’d want…”
He looks up. Tony meets his eyes, gives a little shrug. “A better guy would know how important what you’re doing is. Would maybe resent its importance a little less.”
“Tony, I’m not a better person than you are.” Steve’s voice is thick, almost choking with the entreaty. His hands turn in Tony’s loose clasp, gripping back tightly. “Tony.”
Tony gives a little burble of a laugh. Bends over low, forehead brushing Steve’s shoulder. “We’ll work on me too.”
They lean into each other for a moment. Tony’s face is almost hidden behind Steve’s golden locks. “I don’t really care, if you’re better or worse than me. I’m keeping you.”
Steve pulls back. Leans up a fraction to press their lips together, both their eyes fluttering shut.
They pull apart, smiles pulling up on those mouths like mirroring sunrises. Steve leans in for another peck, then quietly pushes the door to step outside. Tony follows him.
Gwen sits down on the floor, fifteen metres away, laptop thunking into the carpet. She bends her head down to her belly, and breathes.
Fuck, she’s going to feel the anxiety of this in her back for weeks.
Band practice is a loss. The entire morning might be a loss. She needs a cupcake, and some grunge music. But even as vague ideas for the upcoming day begin to coalesce, she can feel a curious lightness shoot through her body. Like she can take it. The aches and pains, the barista shift in the afternoon. Like the world is alright, actually, and she’s not gonna keel over just yet.
This is why she doesn’t watch rom-coms.
She pulls herself up eventually and finally exits the hall. And there, by himself in the corner, completely failing to look like he’s doing anything but waiting for her – is Tony.
The world is a nightmare. She doesn’t stutter. “Did you know I was in there?”
Tony looks like he’d be rubbing the back of his neck abashedly, if he were that kind of guy. Instead, he visibly decides to brazen it out. “Not until the last thirty seconds before we left.”
Small mercies.
“Were you… did you have something to talk to me about? My office hours are 2-3, but–”
“Jesus fucking Christ.” Gwen interrupts, entirely out of patience. That’s what’s going through his head right now?
Tony shuts his mouth with a click, eyebrows rising.
“There’s nothing.” Gwen forces. And then, just as involuntary as the swear – “You’re a good teacher.”
Tony blinks. Gwen remembers him bantering about with her classmates, not losing a step.
“Thanks, Gwen.” His nose looks a little red. So do the very tops of his cheeks. He looks unaccountably pleased.
Gwen’s lips tilt up.
“You could do better than him, you know.”
“I wouldn’t want to.” Tony beams at her. Turns around, waves two fingers. “See you next week.”
The rehearsal hall is in the same direction that he’s walking in. Gwen unerringly walks the other way. By the time she loops the quad and makes it there, she’ll have thirty minutes left. Half of band practice is better than none.
She taps a rhythm on her outer thigh, blows a strand of her bangs out of the eyes. Tugs the tote bag higher up. Band, then lunch, and then maybe she can call her dad.
For the prompt: 'soulmate au where no one hears music until they fall in love'
“So you carry it around,” Gamora fingered the headset, black plastic creaking under her thumb, “even though you can’t hear it.”
“I’ll be able to.” When I fall in love. The kind of love that meant Mum was left to raise a child by herself for eight years, but kept on hearing music for the rest of her life. Music that made her dance in the kitchen, blare lyrics in the shower, hum softly in the hospital bed. Music and effect that Peter watched with widened eyes, but never heard.
So he carried the Walkman in his pocket, clamped on the headset every day. Hit play and saw the cassette spin, wondering what Come and Get Your Love might sound like.
It was only too bad that he’d hear Highway To Hell first.
Written for the Stony AUgust event, for week two/time period. Go check them out at @stonyauniverse!
we were infinite (6257 words) by lazywriter7
Chapters: 1/2
Fandom: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Maria Stark & Tony Stark
Characters: Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Maria Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes, James "Bucky" Barnes, Howard Stark
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Middle School, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Childhood Friends, Video & Computer Games, Rollercoaster Tycoon, POV Tony Stark, early 2000s nostalgia, Fluff and Humor, Melancholy, Artist Steve Rogers, Growing Up, Coming of Age, Hyperfixations, Eventual Happy Ending
Summary:
The year is 2002. Boy meets boy. Both boys get obsessed with Rollercoaster Tycoon. They become best friends. And then they part ways, never to meet again.
Probably.
But childhood obsessions have a way of coming back to you.
Tagged by @carsonian , thanks for thinking of me! Also I now have more fics on my Stony to-read list, which I always appreciate.
Rules: List the first line(s) of your last 10 (or however many you have) posted fics and see if there’s a pattern
The Art of Losing
He is sleeping. Light, like the tremble of shoji in the wind. Membrane thin between the worlds.
Reflexes
It started off by accident. Kuro was knocked out on the floor, temple swelling up purple where he’d been bludgeoned by Sanji’s well-polished shoe tip. Usopp was hopping up and down nearby, mouth ablur with how they needed to get out before the new Black Cat recruits showed up.
we were infinite
It starts with a demo disc. Tony doesn’t even notice it at first, jaw slightly ajar at the magazine cover – a masked commando with a knife poised to stab a roaring gunman.
non functional requirements
There’s a man-shaped twig blocking the door to the lecture hall.
Everlong
The Chevy’s wheels sizzle on the asphalt, gravel flying off the highway to clatter on its undersides. The windshield is hazy under the glare of the high noon sun.
playing favourites
Most folks Rocket knew had the good sense to limit their personality to a couple distinctive traits. Some key details. Likes guns. Has a hook for a hand. Will barter ship fuel for Hiberlac silks. Is stupid enough to be called Taserface.
the days, the days (they break to fade)
This is how you’re going to die, Tony thought. You big freaking moron.
When The Stars Come Calling
Funny thing was- he hadn’t even been looking for the damn thing.
life of aesop
“-could you imagine what would happen if I tried to pull something like that?” The woman onscreen has perfectly coiffed hair, parted straight down the centre and streaked with vermilion where it meets her forehead.
Five Bells
“How long is this gonna take?”
“For him? As long as he needs. For us? Five seconds.”
Patterns, hmm. At least two of the latest fics start with some variation of 'this is how it starts', which is hilariously literal. Clearly a Lot of Thought put into those. I seem to typically start with a short-to-medium length sentence and then punch up the detail in the one that follows it. Only two of the above openings include the names of the POV characters. My personal favourites (on reread) are the ones that jump into the voice of the character straight away, instead of the mood of the fic, which is interesting. In those ones I can almost hear them read it out loud. I also don't really see a difference in the opening styles in fics for different fandoms, which is doubly interesting.
Gonna skip the tag game part of it since most folks seem to have been tagged already and my tender ego cannot take the brunt of being unacknowledged this early in the morning XP So if anyone's interested, just go ahead and do it!
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Peter Quill & Rocket Raccoon, Gamora/Peter Quill
Characters: Rocket Raccoon, Peter Quill, Nebula (Marvel), Drax the Destroyer, Guardians of the Galaxy Team
Additional Tags: Movie: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023), Rocket Raccoon-centric, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Character Study, Canon Compliant with Movie: Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Peter Quill & Rocket Raccoon Friendship, Minor Gamora/Peter Quill, Peter Quill Feels
Summary:
“So if I killed Gamora, is it fair to want her back?”
“You didn’t kill her.” Rocket said.
“Of course I did. Right here on this shithole of a mining settlement,” The liquid sloshed over his fingers as Peter pointed with the bottle, with bloodshot eyes and tear tracks down hollow cheeks, perfectly certain as though he oriented himself to that point each day like a compass to magnetic north. “seven hundred metres in that direction. She told me to, and I pulled the trigger. If it were up to my choices, and my actions, then she would be dead.”
“And she is.” Peter said, and drained it all in one, long, miserable swallow.
~
Or, a short conversation on the way to best friendship.
It was like the sound had been keeping the dreariness of the morning at bay; it stopped, and the starkness took over. Pale grey light that warmed nothing that it touched, but still threw long shadows. A shade down the bridge of Tony’s nose, silver still glinting in the bristles of his beard. His eyes… well. Bucky mighta called them ‘ball-shrivelling’, once upon a time.
“Cap.” Tony finally said, after a funereal silence. “I’m guessing you didn’t Mission Impossible down into my living room, in the past couple minutes.”
My living room. Tony didn’t sound like he was saying it to make a point. It was also the first time Steve had ever heard him refer to the Facility as his.
When The Stars Come Calling, Chapter 16, by lazywriter7
