#madetheshield

[empireburned-archive]

        “ If you’re going to request my presence, you could at least do me the courtesy of arriving on time. ”  Her features twisted into an expression of clear displeasure, reddened lips curtly pursed.  Howard may have had all of the time in the world to do as he pleased, but for a young woman attempting to work her way up the chain and be taken seriously by her peers, Peggy was unable to enjoy the same luxury.  “ Perhaps now we can get to the part where you tell me what is so bloody important? ”

@madetheshield​        /        call.

[thawedpatriot]

@madetheshield​ ; ❝ there’s no need to do anything drastic . ❞

“--me? do somethin’ drastic? i’d never dream of it, stark.”

the conviction in his tone is cancelled out by the teasing grin he’s fighting hard to keep off his face. the good captain was, in fact, going to take drastic action-- he’d never had much impulse control, especially not when the action he planned to take was something he could justify. anyone who got to know him understood all too well that if the opportunity to act arose, captain america would be there too.

[notafossil]

     “Howard.” He greets, glancing up at the inventor as he approaches. He doesn’t look like he’s slept in days. Not that that’s anything new.

     “You doing okay?” 

@madetheshield

[fcrgedstrcngth]

@madetheshield asked: ❣ for ana!

for a kiss on the cheek

Ana grinned as her husband’s employer - and her friend - leaned in to give her a kiss on the cheek, but she wasn’t fooled by it, either. “What can I do for you?” she asked suspiciously, though her fond expression never wavered.

[jarvisity]

% : write a drabble about our muses

LAZY ROLEPLAYER SYMBOL.       accepting

        “You ever get tired of being bossed around?”

Easy for one to say when one didn’t appear to know what it meant to be working beneath another. He didn’t have to, when he bore an intelligence too valuable to pull down, a talent too precious to waste. All he needed was a suave personality and tactful vocabulary, both of which he did, to wrap everyone from government officers to military personnel around his fingers as if they were meant to bow down to him like he was the Adonis of advanced technology-----the grand creator of the most powerful weapons on Earth.

The same man sat beside the humble aide of the English General, offering over the cigar.

       “Englishman makes a great butler. So said Wodehouse.”

What a hypocrite, just like how they released the bombs from the sky claiming it was for the sake of world peace. Even as they had to watch innocent lives being sacrificed because they could not all fit on the rescue boats. After working under one influential man who could determine one’s life or death, how could one even think of working for another with greater influence than that?

The aide shifted his gaze away from the cigar, wordlessly declining it.

       “You know why we have a mouth to talk? So that we can be heard.        Machines don’t talk. That’s why I do a lot of the talking, but not so        much of listening. Could use someone to help me with that.”

A snort.

       “And a butler does that?”

Smiles were shared.

       “A friend.”

Perhaps, he could give him the benefit of the doubt. For if a predator knew the value of a friend, then he should know when to keep his claws retracted, when to bite but not tear. Indeed because of that, Edwin had always known that Howard Anthony Walter Stark was a good one.

A very good one.

        “Though I only mention butler because I’m missing one...”

[glacierfront]

@madetheshield

     “You, uh. Found it.”

     It being Manhattan Mocha. It’s been a fairly slow day -- now that Howard is here, she straightens, phone still in her hands, behind the counter. This is, uh. Something of an -- awkward? Meeting place? Based on Tony’s descriptions of him (because they haven’t talked a lot aside from -- you know --) she’s half imagining he’s going to start asking her what she’s doing with her life or judging her college GPA.

     Is there like, a specific way that one can, like. Break up with a parent? And be like, sorry, you don’t actually have to make an effort just because I share some DNA or whatever?

     --There probably. Isn’t any. Huh.

     So, a little uselessly: “I didn’t -- know you were going to. Uhhhh. Visit.”

[starkserved-blog]

“it truly amazes me the amount of mess you manage to create sometimes, sir.”

@madetheshield // starter call

[sapphoetics]

the end of the war came swiftly once steve rogers had made his final descent into the arctic taking most of hydra with him. in the whirlwind, peggy held onto her grief, keeping it tucked between her ribs for safekeeping as she continued on, stony and unrelenting. she returned to new york in the aftermath, doing what she could to put together arrangements for a funeral crowded with people who’d never so much as shaken steve’s hand. he was a figure now, an idol, immortalized in stone as they buried an empty casket for show, giving the soap opera mourners a place to lay flowers and pay their respects.

and steve deserved every ounce of it. he deserved the praise and the spot in the history books. he deserved their tears, but he would have hated every moment of the showy parade and the long winded speeches. even president truman’s staunch eulogy would have had him shifting uncomfortably in his seat. the grim sobriety suited harry, just as it had at roosevelt’s funeral months earlier. the public grieved, domestically and abroad, as hearts were torn between the exuberant end of the war and the ashes they’d all been left with.

reality set in. some couldn’t grapple with those truths.

even then, they sat in silence. howard and peggy each manned with their own glass of brown liquor as they sat on his veranda overlooking midtown. already winter was settling in, drawing peggy further into her wool coat, though it’d already seeped through to her bones. she wasn’t sure she’d ever be rid of the chill–– so young, so many ghosts. they sat side by side, the silence far from strained where each one of them frolicked in their own memory–– what they could have said, what they should have. it was their burden to carry that weight now.

peggy raised the glass to her mouth, taking a short sip that only burned moments later, heating her gut and setting fire to her throat as she shifted her weight in place. she’d had a confession on her mind for months, unsaid and ever present, and her tongue was just loose enough to let it slip. perhaps it would bring comfort to her friend, perhaps it would bring her some too.

                ❛   howard––   ❜          she started, floundering for a beat, her mouth hanging open.              ❛   he loved you, you know.   ❜

                       sc.   /   @madetheshield