#non-powered au

[zemkzone]

... It is the care with which you touched me, the desire in your eyes when you looked at me, the name you whispered against my neck. I do not want last night to be our last.

Barry (Fitz)Allen to Leonard Snart, from Chapter 3 of Perspective: A ColdFlash Regency AU

[bella-dahlia]

An Affinity for Elf Culture

Written for @winterhawkwonderland the 2020 edition, for TrekChik. For my first time writing for a gift exchange, I also decided to write my first non-powered AU cause of course I did. When Bucky Barnes was told he would be doing press and community outreach as part of his prosthetic program, no one mentioned to him it would involve dressing up like an Elf from the North Pole.

The hella cute blonde elf in head to toe purple hadn't been brought up either.

Hiding in his hoodie wasn't going to be an option, was it?

Click here to enter the Winter Wonderland!

[polizwrites]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 5/5 Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Iron Man (Movies) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark Characters: Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, Natasha Romanov (Marvel) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Young!Tony, Genderfluid Character, Developing Friendships, Eventual WinterIron Series: Part 2 of The Kid is Hot Tonite Summary: After graduating college, Tony Stark is being groomed to take over Stark Industries. As he learns his role, he makes new friends and discovers that perhaps he isn't quite who everyone thinks he is. Chapter Five:  Ton-E attempts to find a balance between what is expected of them and who they really are. Natasha and Pepper continue to be supportive of their dear friend, and in a return to the Triskelion, The Incredible Antonio makes a new acquaintance.

OMG - after over a YEAR, I’m finally finishing this  fic (a fill for my  Round One @tonystarkbingo  Coffee Shop square)!   Many thanks to any Constant Readers who come back to this piece after so long - at least I gave y’all a super-sized chapter to enjoy.  

[homoeroticdeathscene]

Ok but like, Howard Stark and Sara Rogers meet in college. It’s a textbook, whirlwind romance. By which I mean, Sara put Howard through his paces. She never let his head get too big, but never let him drop too far into reality, she maintained it was bad for his health. She kept him level and sane. Howard kept her motivated, always encouraging, never expecting too much from her. They were in love. Real, honest and true love.

That is until their little Stevie turned 5.

Howard got itchy, and Steve wasn’t exactly the heir he was hoping for. Scrawny and sickly, he needed a lot of attention to keep healthy. If that wasn’t enough, Sara never truly recovered from the hard pregnancy. She couldn’t be the calm adult to Howard’s scatter brain anymore. Also, Steve didn’t show any real, well genius. 

And that was fine! Really, it was... except that Howard had the attention span of a damn fly, and he was a chronic fuck up. So, when sweet Maria Carbonell started as his secretary, Howard did what men with secretaries who were bored of their husbands did. He had an affair.

Unfortunately for the two of them, Maria got pregnant. That probably wasn't great. Especially for little Tony Carbonell, the stark bastard.

[snarkofstark-archive]

@ssprxmx continued from here

Everything was normal for Tony when he woke up. Stephen was still fast asleep next to him and he couldn’t help but smile at the sight. His husband had worked until the early morning hours because he had gotten called in for an emergency at the hospital. So he definitely deserved to sleep long. Still smiling he leaned over to press a kiss on his cheek before he got up and walked into the bathroom that was connected to their master bedroom.

He took his time to get ready, making sure he looked his best for his work today. Pepper had briefed him about the meeting he had this morning. It would be very important for the company and he couldn’t afford to loose the deal. After a small breakfast he made his way to his office, hoping that his husband would be awake around midday so they would be able to go out together for lunch maybe.

It was just after he had finished his meeting, and thankfully sealed the deal, that he got a notification from Jarvis. Something seemed to be wrong with Stephen. He only gave a quick excuse to Pepper, before he made his way back home as quick as possible. His thoughts were running wild. What had happened? Was his husband alright? It must be bad if Jarvis alerted him and told him to come back home immediately.

“Stephen? Stephen!” He called out for the other man the moment he stepped into their home. The concern was visible on his face when he stepped into the bathroom and found his husband on his knees in their shower. He turned the water off, not caring that his suit got wet, and wrapped a soft towel around Stephen. “Honey? You’re scaring me...what happened to you?”

The brunet was not prepared for the next action. Stephen ripped his shirt open and looked at his chest as if he was searching for something that wasn’t there. God what was wrong with his husband?

His worry only grew when he heard Jarvis voice, telling him about Stephens heart rate. “Stephen. Honey please listen to me.” He gave his hand a squeeze. “You’re alright. I’m here. Everything is fine. Just listen to my voice okay? Try to calm down. Nothing is happening to you.”

[potrix-the-queerschlaeger]

In Vino Veritas + Accidentally Saving The Day, TJ Hammond/Tony Stark.

#77 in vino veritas + #100 accidentally saving the day

Election fundraisers have always been boring, so TJ has no qualms about spending most of the post-dinner party behind the bar, mixing cocktails, and lowkey flirting with the actual bartenders and the socialites getting drinks.

His mom had rolled her eyes at him when she’d caught him, but it had been more fond than annoyed, so TJ’s probably good for now. And he’s actually having fun at one of these things for once.

But, of course, it doesn’t stay that way.

He doesn’t notice who’s stepped up to the bar until he looks up, smile slipping when he sees Sean. They haven’t seen each other in years, haven’t talked at all, and if someone had asked TJ ten minutes ago, he’d have insisted he was totally, completely, 100% over all the bullshit that had happened between them.

Right now, though? He’s not so sure.

Even though nothing has changed, at least not on Sean’s side. He’s still married, still closeted as far as TJ knows. But he’s here, and his pinky finger is draped discreetly over TJ’s on the bar, which can’t be a coincidence, and—

And Sean is hammered. Which TJ realises when he sees him swaying ever so slightly, even before Sean slurs out a desperate, “Babe, please. I—I should never—I love y—”

Sean rears back when the man next to him is being jostled, and spills his drink down Sean’s chest. His angry, “Hey, watch it,” is enough to snap TJ out of his weird, dangerously nostalgic mood, and wave over someone from security to escort Sean out.

“Sorry about that,” the drink-spiller says, wincing apologetically, and hands over the soiled napkins he’d used to dab at his own shirt when TJ gestures for them. “That sounded, uh. Serious? I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

And TJ doesn’t mean to, but before he can stop himself, he blurts out, “No, I’m glad you did, actually.”

Which earns him a raised eyebrow, and the drink-spillers hand offered across the bar. “Well, in that case. Tony, and I’m usually a lot smoother than this.”

“Call me TJ,” TJ says, smiling, and shakes Tony’s hand. “Everyone does.”

(TJ spends the rest of the night talking to Tony, but declines Tony’s invitation to come home with him. He expects Tony to lose interest after that—most people do, once he starts talking about taking things slow, if they were ever really interested in him and not his parents in the first place—but Tony just smiles, and asks, “What about brunch this Sunday instead?”)

[Send me two tropes from this list + a ship and I’ll describe how I’d combine them in the same story.] or [Check out my other mash up summaries.]

[potrix-the-queerschlaeger]

For the fanfiction trope mash up, winteriron, prison au + baby fic ✨💞

#16 prison AU + #33 baby fic

Bucky is twenty-one when he meets the rich, older, gorgeous business man Tony Stark at one of Stark’s charity galas that Bucky and his best friend, Steve, have snuck into. Bucky expects Stark to have them thrown out, but Stark finds the whole thing hilarious, and buys Bucky a drink instead.

They hit it off immediately. Tony, as he insists Bucky call him, is smart and funny, and very easy on the eyes, and the two of them leave together at the end of the night. For a while, things between them are casual; Tony seems to love spending his money on Bucky, and Bucky is definitely into getting spoiled.

But they do fall in love, eventually, Tony introduces Bucky to his secret son the public doesn’t know about, and after only a few short months of dating, Tony proposes. Bucky says yes.

The very next morning, though, the police storm Tony’s penthouse, and arrest Tony. Tony’s put on trial for selling his weapons to terrorist organisations, and, to Bucky’s shock, found guilty.

Bucky isn’t sure what to think; on the one hand, he can’t imagine that the kind, caring man and loving father he’s gotten to know is capable of something like this, but, then again, Bucky knows virtually nothing about Tony’s business affairs.

On top of all of that, Bucky’s made the legal guardian of Tony’s son. He would’ve expected Pepper and Rhodey—Tony’s two best friends—to take the kid, or Tony’s business partner and mentor, Obadiah Stane. And Stane isn’t happy about the situation, either. He tries to fight Bucky on it, but something about the guy has always rubbed Bucky the wrong way—and Pepper and Rhodey agree on that—so he doesn’t give the kid up.

It’s not easy, going to school, having the kid, and suddenly being in the spotlight as the (ex?) fiancé of a guy who committed treason, but Bucky manages, with the help of Pepper, Rhodey, Happy, and Steve. And the more time passes, the more sure Bucky becomes that something about the whole thing is super fishy.

The trial was super quick, for one, and even Tony’s most vocal opponents had been surprised that the court had found Tony guilty despite only having (very little) circumstantial evidence. And then Tony was sent to a high security facility, and neither Bucky or the kid are allowed to visit. There’s no correspondence at all, in fact, no letters, or phone calls, or anything. It’s like Tony’s vanished off the face of the Earth. And Stane keeps fighting for custody of Tony’s son, even though he’s never really shown any interest in the kid before.

It’s all just feels—kind of off.

Which is confirmed when Nick Fury turns up on Bucky’s doorstep one night. He works for some organisation Bucky’s never even heard of, but he claims to have evidence that Tony’s innocent and was framed by Stane, so Bucky listens.

[Send me two tropes from this list + a ship and I’ll describe how I’d combine them in the same story.] or[Check out my other mash up summaries.]

[akaluan]

If Uryu weren't a Quincy (a world with no supernatural powers), what do you think his life would be like? What would he go into professionally after high school?

Oh lord, okay. So, taking out all the supernatural powers from Bleach leaves us with… a bunch of Awkward and Vaguely Traumatized Via Life teenagers. =l

So as I’ve mentioned a few times, Uryuu’s actions depend upon his past. So without /powers/…

(cut for length and because this gets SUPER DARK IN SPOTS)

His grandfather still teaches him archery and that it’s his duty to uphold the Quincy creed; they’re still the Quincy, still have a Legacy to uphold, but it’s a mundane legacy that not many people respect these days – they hold some relation to Important Historical Figures, can trace their ancestry back a couple hundred years, and still have a Clan structure that no one reeeaaaally pays much attention to. The lesser members of the Clan pay lipservice to the main branch, but not much else. And really, there isn’t many of the Clan left, side or main.

The creed is generally about protecting the Clan and destroying aggressors, and child!Uryuu practically worships the ground his grandfather walks on, for all the stories of daring deeds and past battles the Quincy were once part of. His grandfather is much cooler than his father, who’s rarely home.

Uryuu still watches his grandfather die in front of him, this time to human attackers; not even actively malicious people, just… teenaged punks that were being teenaged punks, and took offense at his grandfather telling them no. So they pushed him around a bit, looking to rough him up, convince him to leave them alone… except Uryuu’s grandfather is an /old man/, and this isn’t a world with powers. He falls, and gets hurt, and the teenagers don’t really REALIZE what’s happened until it’s too late, and Uryuu is left behind with the results, scuffed and bruised from trying to get teenagers to just STOP IT when he’s just a scrawny kid.

His mother dies as well. She slipped into a coma and never woke up. A brain tumor took her life.

His father is still in a frenzy to discover happened. It isn’t quite the gruesome 3 day autopsy that canon is, but Ryuuken puts his wife’s body through a large number of tests, trying to figure out where and why. (There weren’t many signs. Persistent headaches, a bit of minor memory loss, but… nothing that caught his attention. Nothing that stood out.)

This version of Ryuuken scrutinizes Uryuu a lot. Asks about headaches, lightheadedness, gaps in his memory… Uryuu moves out as soon as he can. He can’t handle the clinical /hovering/.

(They don’t have an amiable relationship. Uryuu assumes Ryuuken’s just waiting for him to show the same flaw that his mother had.)

Uryuu wants nothing to do with medicine. He /knows/ a lot /about/ medicine, and about all the gruesome, painful ways a human can die – especially from cancer – but… he wants nothing to do with it. With any of the reminders of paramedics coming too late to help, or doctors scrambling to discover a cause. With Ryuuken who never came home, never cared, until suddenly he was either /always hovering/ or /never around/.

He joins the archery team in high school, to honor his grandfather who taught him and his mother who always smiled whenever he showed her some trick his grandfather had taught him. He gets into fights at lot, snarling and snapping, hating basically all teenagers and lumping them under the same header as the teens that cost him his grandfather.

(Yeah, he kinda hates himself too. He’s got enough self-awareness to realize the hypocrisy, but not enough will or any reason to STOP.)

This is how Ichigo and Chad find him. Chad… he’s basically the same as in canon. He’s been where Uryuu is, and he… doesn’t want to see Uryuu continue down that path. (He’s completely at a loss for how to help. He doesn’t have the connection to Uryuu that his Abuelo had to him. He doesn’t have his Abuelo’s wisdom, either. How do you reach out to another, when you’ve only just started to find yourself?)

Ichigo is still stubborn. Still fights punks that try to pick on people they shouldn’t. His mom died saving him from a river in flood, when his eye was caught by something interesting in the water and he didn’t realize the danger until far too late. He still thinks his father is useless, still takes care of his little sisters, still frowns and glowers and fights like walking away is a sin.

Chad wants to help Uryuu. Ichigo… well, he goes along with it.

So they just… keep showing up. Keep helping Uryuu out.

(Uryuu refuses to admit that they’re starting to change his mind, a little bit at a time. Every time Ichigo helps him finish a fight. Every time Chad helps patch the two of them up afterward. The way Ichigo treats other people when not fighting; grumpy but polite, kind, /nice/. Uryuu’s suspicious, waiting for the other shoe to fall, but it never does.)

(By the time they graduate high school, he’s lost the last of his wariness around Ichigo and Chad. They’re probably the only people he fully, one hundred percent trusts.)

Through Ichigo, Uryuu is introduced to Tatsuki and Orihime, and Keigo and [other teen who’s name I forget]. As Uryuu’s social group starts to expand a bit, he ends up…. losing some of his hatred and rage. He starts to realize how /exhausting/ it is to hold all of that close, all the time. His archery improves in leaps and bounds, now that he’s not constantly fixated.

Uryuu starts going to competitions. He starts branching out, into other styles of archery, especially mounted. Amused and a bit vindictive even still, he drags Ichigo and Chad with him to horseback lessons, and then horseback archery lessons. Ichigo is exasperated and SORE, Chad is amused, and happy, and putting up with being SORE because Uryuu’s actually starting to smile. He hasn’t gone looking for a fight in months. Anything is worth that, in Chad’s opinion.

Ryuuken is Not Happy. Uryuu’s spending so much time and effort on becoming competition-worthy in the various archery styles that his grades are Good But Not Great. They get into a shouting match when Uryuu comes back to Karakura, proud and excited and PLEASED. He won gold at his last competition. He’s DOING something. He’s like their ancestors, like the great heroes of old.

Ryuuken tells him he’s wasting his life on something that no one cares about anymore. He needs to focus, needs to prepare himself for the future. Ryuuken’s already signed Uryuu up for after school tutoring, so that Uryuu can make the grade requirements to get into a prestigious medical school.

The shouting match turns into a screaming match. Uryuu storms out and flees to Chad’s apartment.

(It’s Chad that Uryuu spills his story to, over the course of several nights. About his parents, and his grandfather, and his legacy. About everything, including Ryuuken’s expectations.)

(Chad lets Uryuu talk, offering a listening ear and anecdotes from his own life, whenever Uryuu begins to clam up again and act embarrassed at his own words.)

In the end… Ryuuken eventually cancels the tutoring, because Uryuu cuts all contact with him. Uryuu keeps in contact with Ichigo and Chad and Tatsuki and Orihime, and goes into archery professionally. When he makes it into the Olympics, his friends travel out to cheer him on, and when he wins his first bronze medal they celebrate for days.

(Uryuu keeps returning to the Olympics. He brings home medals almost every time, including a few golds at the height of his career.)

(He never speaks of his father during interviews, only his grandfather and his mother and his best friends. He and Ryuuken haven’t spoken more than a handful of words in the years that have passed, and Uryuu no longer lives in Karakura where Ryuuken still resides.)

On the side (and almost constantly, after he retires from the sport) Uryuu writes. Historical fantasy, mostly, taking the stories that his grandfather told him and spinning them into tales that others can enjoy. Ichigo helps him with these a lot, and they end up co-authoring a series together that’s more sci-fi than fantasy, but they both enjoy it and plan to write more in the same universe. Chad even writes filk music for the various books, and makes a bit of money from that.

(Chad is a counselor for troubled kids and teens. It’s hard, but he doesn’t mind. Being able to help even one person is something he enjoys.)

(Ichigo is an author like Uryuu, but he goes into it straight out of high school, writing and trying to get published while he goes to university. His degree is technically in the language department, but he ends up taking a lot of cross-department classes, wanting to know at least a little about a lot of different things.)

(Tatsuki and Orihime find their own goals, and leave Karakura too. Really, the friends keep in contact more over the internet than in person, but that’s okay.)

Aaand that’s basically it? Happy kids, wildly different goals than anyone expected, and no one is Parent V2.

(IDK where the writer bits came from? It just appeared. Oh well.)