#photofic

[justbwilde]

Aidan and Rachel's date

[onthedriftinthetardis]

Hedgehog Day

A Story in Pictures

For @asthewheelwills for her Did you do something to make the world a better place today? promo. Because nice people doing excellent promos to make the world better deserve something, too, and I was in a position to make this. 

Other people doing “make the world better” promos include @jeeno2 and @fleurdeneuf. Thanks to them as well, and anyone else doing something to make the world a better place!

[sylaire]

A/U in which Sylar works for Primatech

"What's so special about her?"

Noah turned back to face him, a coy smile on his face. "Does it matter? Once the threat that's endangering her is eliminated, it'll just be like every other case."

Sylar nodded. "Bag and tag."

"Oh, and one more thing." He stuffed his hands in his pockets, eyeing him from behind his glasses. "I know you have a.. thing for blondes, but try and control yourself. If you pull this off, Angela might just let you take the girl's ability."

"What is it?"

Noah's smile widened. "Cellular regeneration."

Sylar could already feel his heart beating to the time of Claire's.

[sylaire]

In which Claire and Sylar (attempt to) help those struggling with their abilities

She'd gone to him for help, he could see that in bitter retrospect. She'd been upset, worried she had no purpose in life, frustrated that she hadn't been able to keep her friends and family alive. He just smiled in response, thinking he knew better. Old age had taken their nearest and dearest, not Claire, and the work she'd been doing to help other specials was heroic by nature.

The woman they were supposed to protect had the ability to produce fire from her fingers, and the resemblance to Meredith was plain to see, with the drawl of her voice and the blonde shine of her hair. Claire had become attached, projecting her love for her deceased family onto a unstable, troubled soul; he should have seen the signs. With no word from her for three days, they took backup to her apartment, only to find her sprawled across the floor, empty pill container beside her. 

There was a note, a messy scrawl that said it had been too much, the responsibility of controlling her powers.

And then Claire had called it off, called him out, blamed them both for the death when they were powerless to make a difference. The words that poured from her mouth, so full of hate and regret, were the ammunition he needed to self destruct. He'd failed to keep Claire Bennet safe and happy, despite the years he'd spent by her side, and he wasn't going to put her through any more misery. As she slept, he kissed her once on the forehead, and disappeared out the window before he could hear her whisper his name as she dreamt.

[westgateoh]

The thing was, when Fury dragged the new kid into HQ at three in the morning, Phil had been dragged out of bed by Fury’s call of “Get your ass down here and process this punk before I strangle him and throw him out with the morning garbage”. The days leading up to this early morning introduction (the months if Phil were being honest with himself) had become an endless litany of ‘For the love of God, Nick, find me someone I can work with who doesn’t need their hand held through the whole god damned mission.’ Phil had to plan every last detail and have contingency plans for his contingency plans because no one could think on their feet.

When he saw the kid in the processing room he almost groaned out loud. This kid wasn’t going to help Phil’s problem. He was so young. Well, maybe he was only a few years younger than Phil but he was also a mess. Fury had stumbled across him unexpectedly in Brussels (even though he’d been on their watch list for a year and was too oily to pin down) and the kid looked like he hadn’t slept in a week.

His face was streaked in engine oil and sweat, and his dark green t-shirt was plastered to his skin and torn at the left shoulder. His hands were cut and covered in dried blood, and his pants were torn at the knees. He was slouched in the metal chair and his hair, either dark blond or filthy, matted to his head in clumps. He was watching Phil warily with eyes like a predatory cat, narrow and guarded. He answered Phil’s questions in monosyllables and his voice was scratchy and low, like he had a cold. Phil figured he’d check the kid in and then never see him again. Surely he’d wash out of training in a week or two.

Phil was wrong. He started hearing about the kid, Clint Barton, a few weeks later, and it was in awed tones. Sure, he was young, and sure he was unpolished, but Jasper and Maria said his trainers were advancing him up the ranks in record time because he was so sharp, trainable, and competent. He had a mouth, they said, and he’d have a hard time finding a handler who would put up with his bullshit, they said, but he was one of the sharpest recruits they’d seen in years.

Phil hardly believed them. Then one day he was asked to do a one-on-one training session with Barton, dealing with improvised weaponry and field tactics, so he headed down to the recruit lounge to find him. Barton had been instructed to clean up, dress in civilian clothes, and be ready to move. Phil hardly recognized him as the same kid he’d checked in that early morning.

Barton was standing at a window, stretched out and listening to one of the other recruits tell a story. He was loose and comfortable and . . . well, Phil figured at this point that he might have his work cut out for him in more ways than one. His white t-shirt was fitted, but not too tight, he had a chain around his neck and dog tags tucked under his shirt, and the waist-length jacket was a light tan that made his green-flecked eyes stand out. He looked graceful, too, like a gymnast at rest, and he glanced over at Phil with confidence and a glint in his eyes that spoke of readiness, cockiness, and a vague dare.

Phil took a deep breath, raised an eyebrow, and accepted the challenge.

[westgateoh]

(This photofic has depression and a moment of suicidal thought, but it ENDS Hopeful, but be warned.) Takes place a month or two post-Avengers in a world where Phil came back soon after the battle and is healthy again.

“Steve, oh. Hey.” Phil speaks quietly into Clint’s phone in the kitchen, but Clint can hear him from where he’s leaning against the floor-to-ceiling window in their tower apartment living room. It’s raining and it’s dusk, the daylight fading, darkness approaching quickly.

“Yeah, it’s turned into an off-night. Were you two going out?” he hears Phil ask.

Clint is listening, wondering if he’d actually heard his phone ring, but then he isn’t. He’s lost in the lights of the city below Avengers tower, his eyes honing in on any that are a shade of blue. He sees the greens and reds and oranges bleeding into one another, spreading out in front of him like a pulsing web of light leading his eyes back to the blue ones, and the sight sends a shudder through his shoulders. He feels himself lean harder against the glass, wondering if he can fall right through, push his way out like a butterfly from its cocoon and fall, fall, fall so he doesn’t have to see the lights anymore.

Maybe the glass will give, push open like he wishes it would, if only he pushes hard enough.

He doesn’t realize he is actually pressing himself bodily against the glass until Phil is standing next to him threading his arm around Clint’s waist and scooting him away from the window a bit, whispering, “Relax, Clint. You don’t need to get out. You’re safe here. Come on.” Clint shifts his weight from the window back to Phil’s shoulder, letting him wrap him around his waist in more of a hug, letting him grip him tight, hold him in.

Clint feels Phi’s hands on his arms, lets himself feel them, lets them pull his focus away from tinted reflections of empty light and back on calloused, warm hands on his skin, promise and hope. He feels the tightness in his chest loosen and he leans a little more heavily, and closes his eyes.

“Clint?” Phil’s voice is gentle, the tinge of worry light – Phil knows Clint will pull out of this moment, has a faith in that. Sometimes Phil’s faith is the only reason Clint does pull out of it, comes back and sees the room around him again, not just the pull and glow of distant light.

“Yeah?” Clint finally answers, and he reaches around Phil’s grip to run a hand down his face, rubs the blue-tinged cobwebs of the Tesseract away one more time.

“Steve called. He said you two were going to go play pool.”

Clint sees the play for normalcy, the routine; he hears the silent ‘you can do this and you can come back to us’ in Phil’s words. “I dunno,” he mumbles into his hand, and Phil tightens his grip again, safe and solid.

“You should take a shower and then go out. I’ve got some calls to make tonight.”

The plea is strong, but Clint knows this is Phil’s way of helping, too. A pool game with Steve in the nearby bar will let Clint focus on something simple, something mindless, and will also be filled with the noise of laughter and stories, the smell of cigars and cologne, and they’ll drink cheap beer and eat some nachos or pizza and Clint will settle down, settle back into his senses and this new, Loki-free world.

Phil’s right, too, so Clint nods. “Do you mind calling him back and telling him I’ll meet him in the lobby in half an hour?”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” Clint answers. “I’m okay.”

And if the lights on the street startle him in their blandness a while later, if his eyes are drawn upwards to the colors of high neon signs and washed out night sky, well, he gives his head a shake, looks over at Steve as he talks and smiles, and relishes the feel of his boots on the ground, a friend at his side, ignores the empty, blue space in his chest that is, in fact, getting smaller and less painful every day.

[westgateoh]

When the FBI found Barney Barton, they fulfilled a long-standing agreement with SHIELD (actually with Fury, who, along with Strike Team Delta, had saved their asses in what could have become an international incident), and they transferred him to SHIELD HQ immediately, no questions asked. Phil Coulson oversaw the transfer. He didn’t see much of Clint in this brother who had become mythical in Phi’s mind.

Barney was the one who left.

Now he sat, hunched in a chair wearing prison orange and biting his fingernails. He was bigger than Clint, had red hair instead of blonde, and his eyes were hooded and dark. Phil didn’t see Clint’s genes very clearly in this man.

Phil stood in an observation room, going through a small box of belongings. He rifled through the pockets of a tan corduroy jacket and found a wallet and a purple cigarette lighter along with a pack of Marlboros. He rifled through the wallet and a photograph fell out. It had been folded in half, the crease down the middle worn and thin and the edges crumpled. He unfolded the picture and drew a sharp breath, looking back up at Clint’s older brother sitting a few feet away.

The photo was Clint as a teenager, old enough that it must have been taken close to when Barney betrayed Clint by standing silent as Trick and Duquesne beat Clint to a pulp. Phil realized that Clint’s resemblance to his brother was strongest in this photo.

The kid in the photo looked like he was holding so many chips on his shoulder he had to jut it forward to hold them up. He looked like he might sag under their weight. The stubble on his face looked like defiance and the open shirt collar looked like a dare. It was his eyes that made Phil lean back on the metal table behind him, made him think of the brother who Phil knew helped stack those chips, helped build the walls the Clint in the photo wore like a fortress around him. Clint’s eyes were empty, cold, and hard. They were filled with weariness, exhaustion, and resignation. They were waiting for whatever shit the world was inevitably going to throw at him next.

Phil looked up, and Barney had leaned back in his chair, staring at the glass. Phil saw Clint’s young, exhausted eyes staring at him, waiting for him to make a move, to throw the inevitable shit at him. Phil and Fury had two choices: they could disappear Barney Barton forever, just take care of it without Clint’s knowledge or input. Clint wouldn’t have demons unboxed and Barney might not deserve much more than quiet removal from the outside world; or they could get Clint involved and try and find a way to get Barney out of the trouble he was in.

Barney carried a photo of his little brother twenty years later, and clearly pulled it out to look at an awful lot, and he sat in that room just waiting for what was going to get hurled his way.

Phil took a deep breath, picked up his phone, and called Clint. A while later, Phil could have sworn he saw, as Barney gripped Clint in a tight embrace, a flicker of hope in his empty eyes, and it looked awfully familiar to Phil.

[westgateoh]

Clint loved the smell of coming rain.

 It softened the edges of the world for him, settled his heart rate, and made tension seep slowly from his shoulders. He would stand on a sidewalk taking deep breaths and favoring the heavy, clean smell. When the clouds opened, he’d arch into the water, letting it drench him, making no move to get indoors. It felt like purity  soaking his clothes and his hair and his skin, and as his clothes slowly got heavier he always made a wish that some of that purity would seep inside and soak away some of the rust he knew had built up inside him over the years and missions. He’d open his mouth only slightly, not enough to draw attention, but enough that rainwater could run across his tongue, and it tasted fresh, like spring. He would hold very still, thinking maybe, if he stood there long enough, it would wash away a tattered corner of his past.