Random Dionysian Fandom Chick

cybermathwitch @ 2015-08-21T14:56:00

2015-08-21T19:56:15Z

Random question - if I started posting fandom (and everything else) content on a different blogging platform and just updated with links to that blog here, would anyone be likely to click through and still read it?

I'm still beating my head against the wall of "should I stay or should I go?"-ness and trying to figure out the best way to get back into blogging. Obvs. my attempts so far this summer have been less than stellar ::frowns:: I know that I don't want to try to juggle more than one blog - I want whatever content I post (be it fic, fandom thoughts, introspection, or knitting) to be in one place. But I also don't want to alienate or make things more difficult on the people I know (think?) are already reading my stuff. (And for various reasons, Tumblr is SO VERY MUCH not an option for me.

So:

View Poll: Stay? Go? Link-y?

Weekly Chicken #1

2015-07-05T19:26:28Z

In theory, I've done these before on another blog, but as this is a new start, and the first time I've attempted a Chicken here on LJ, I'm starting at #1. I'm working with my own set of review questions, which are definitely a work in progress and liable to change over time. See Havi's posts at The Fluent Self for the origin of the term "Weekly Chicken".)

Weekly Planning

How many things got planned and then marked out/changed on your schedule and to-do list? Why?
-- Many things ... okay, well, huh. Not as many as I thought, actually, looking back over it. It felt like more. Barre classes, for one thing. Those got moved because I was too tired and too sore and too "migraine-y" to face the thought of them. (I did make it to Yoga though!) Pushing them off will make it harder to go back, I know this, but that just makes me dread it more. Most of the other other things were the mental equivalent of those classes (weekly reviews, blogging, and writing), and the answer to why? I was just too damn tired. And sore. And just kind of a mental zombie. I haven't been getting enough sleep or drinking enough water, and I've been eating too many carbohydrates (and almost-kind-of-sort-of the wrong kinds).

How did your morning and evening routines (and/or daily checklists) do?
During the work week, a remarkable amount of the morning routine happened. (I wrote them in in rainbow colors, I think that helped.) It went off the rails during the long weekend, but meh, that was to be expected. The things that didn't happen seemed to primarily be the water (I have no excuse), conditioning my hair (directly related to having really painful torn nail most of the week - talk about things you don't want to get conditioner on, OW!), and not posting in the Coffee Break thread on Rav (which goes back to not sleeping enough to feel like it or remember in the mornings). The injury has resolved itself, I need to make sure that I put water on the bedside table so that I have it first thing this week, and I need to start eating breakfast at my desk at home (maybe stick a post-it on my computer) so I think of posting. And of course GET MORE SLEEP.

The evening routine was a pretty big disaster. Culprit the first (besides exhaustion) is not checking in with my planner when I get home to remind myself what I want intended to do. It's been a lot of come home, crash on the couch, plan to go to bed early, not actually go to bed early, or go to bed and then stay awake and read, all while not doing anything housework or prep-related. Also watching a lot of Netflix.

Things to try this week: come home, put my planner out (open!) on the desk, take care of whatever needs to happen in the kitchen (pretty much from start to finish), eat dinner, and immediately brush my teeth and wash my face and do the bulk of my evening routine first before I sit down with fic or a book or a show. I've also rejiggered the list just a little bit and added in blogging and writing (I'm doing NaBloPoMo and CampNaNo, so maybe there won't even be the chance to get sucked into anything. Maybe in the later half of the week I'll add in just one episode of X-Files or something. I'll have a better sense of that once I get my weekly planning done.

What were the highlights of the week/what am I grateful for?
SENSE8. GRACE & FRANKIE. NETFLIX MAKES ART, PEOPLE! (seriously, if you're not watching these shows, you absolutely should do so, asap. There are links to trailers below, which are great, but don't even begin to touch on how awesome these stories are.
Getting to spend time w/ Brian in the evenings.
Chatting w/ my BFFs and my Co-Pilot all week. Sometimes it's the little things that can turn your whole day around, and I'm extremely grateful for our modern, connected world.
Fic Updates (see below for specifics)
Getting compliments on my completed socks on instagram from the designer, and my pic getting used on the main pattern page on Ravelry.

Also, this:

This Week's Links / Fandom Musings / Creative/Created Things

Podcasts
The Light Bulb Critical thinking in regards to media and storytelling done right. An excellent, excellent podcast by funny, engaging hosts about all aspects of story and fandom. I ran through several episodes this week, all of them were absolute gold.

Rachel & Miles X-Plain the X-Men: This week, a look at the Mojo-verse and subtext. ;) Excellent as always, and what gets me out the door and into my car on Monday mornings.

Fic
All fic is from AO3 unless otherwise noted. I don't get out much.

Sense8
Change Can Do A Soul Good by AndreaLyn (One year later, Hernando and Lito visit San Francisco to attend Pride and to meet Nomi in person.) Rated M/NSFW, Lito/Hernando and Nomi/Amanita (mild spoilers)

Delicacies of the Soul by AndreaLyn (Hernando plans the menu for their wedding meticulously and with great devotion to all the parts that make up Lito's new world.) Rated T, Lito/Hernando, mentions of Riley/Will (mild spoilers)

us, yesterday, apart, in the twilight by eudaimon (In Berlin, in Bombay, he is watching her dance. Kala and Wolfgang move closer. It's inevitable, really.) Rated E/NSFW, Kala/Wolfgang (mild spoilers)

Avengers
nor need we power or splendor by shellybelle (C/L/N epic of backstory and going forward from here) Rated M/NSFW, (major spoilers for Age of Ultron)

Jurassic World
A Little Bit of Trouble by karategal (His front door had a hole in it.
Owen had a feeling that he knew who was responsible for it, but that didn't change the fact that his door had a dog-sized hole in it. Not to mention the busted window and shredded couch on his porch. You know, this was what happened to your personal property when you became a father-figure to four naughty, misbehaving, and ridiculously intelligent Velociraptors.) Rated T, (no real spoilers / canon-divergent)

Media
Sense8 (Season 1) - Netflix
Beautiful concept trailer:

General overview trailer:

Character Trailers (the voice-over and title cards are a little repetitive, because it's a stitched-together cut of all 8 of the individual character trailers, but it's a fantastic overview of who everyone is to get your interest piqued.):

8Tracks Playlists:
Riley Blue [1/8]
Will Gorski [6/8]
Nomi Marks [7/8]
Kala Dandekar [8/8]
all by Madonna Fiammetta who makes fantastic lists!

Grace & Frankie (Season 1) - Netflix

X-Files (Season 1: "Pilot", "Deep Throat", "Squeeze", "Conduit", "The Jersey Devil", "Shadows", "Ghost in the Machine", "Ice", "Space", "Fallen Angel", "Eve", "Fire", "Beyond the Sea")

Things I Made (knitting, art, writing, etc)
I finished my aforementioned Strie socks from Lara Neel's Sock Architecture in Knit Picks Stroll "Sapphire Heather":

I started "Therapy" by Laura Aylor in Dragonfly Fiber's Dance Rustic Silk in "That Ol' Chestnut" and "Cognac":

I started working on CampNaNo July 2015, likely focusing on the C/L/N soul bond AU (possibly with some Nat&Tony thrown in). My focus this time is getting back in the rhythm and habit of writing more than finishing a concrete story.

And Finally...
Fourth of July was observed last weekend due to remodeling (flooring and painting) happening at the Burrow. Instead of directly observing the Fourth, I spent the weekend attempting to rest and relax (with varying success). I did listen to the annual reading of the Declaration of Independence, though. (It makes me cry, every time.)
And also some notes on the language therein.

cybermathwitch @ 2015-07-05T11:19:00

2015-07-05T16:19:58Z

I'm still getting my Sunday morning house in order (a combination of physical housework - ugh - and planning and digital organizing), but I realized I hadn't, once again, touched this journal since the last kind of mind-dump post a few weeks ago. One of my long-term goals is to blog again, and I've been thinking a lot lately about what shape that should take, and why I want to do it. There's a list of reasons, but at the top are variations on the theme of connecting with other people (some of my very best friends are far away from me, so thank g-d for technology), and wanting to be aware of my life, rather than just sleepwalking through it. I've always been crap at keeping a more traditional journal, I need the outside "accountability" (if you will) of knowing I'm writing to someone else, even if I don't know who that someone else necessarily is, in order to express my thoughts.

I googled NaBloPoMo (a variation on the idea behind NaNoWriMo, which has always worked wonders for me) and found out that BlogHer runs it every month. Boom, there you go. Bonus round? July's theme is "Connect". Excellent.

Because Because Because

2015-05-31T21:26:48Z

Because this might be my favorite meme (ever):

Pick any passage of 500 words or less from any fanfic I’ve written, and comment to this post with that selection. I will then give you the equivalent of a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what’s going on in the character’s heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic, lots of awful puns, and anything else that you’d expect to find on a DVD commentary track.

Fic is at AO3.

What Do Your Days Taste Like?

2015-05-31T21:03:58Z

Thanks to rereading Havi's post about how Friday Chickens were born, I stumble across this question: what are the identities (qualities/meanings) of each day of the week? By which I'm asking what does each day do? What's it like? What purpose does it serve in my week, but also what happens and what needs to be accomplished and what color is it and how does it feel? What music or media goes with it? How do I tell myself "this is Monday" or "this is Wednesday" or whatever?

Have you ever had one of those weeks where you go through the day, and you would swear up, down, and sideways that it was Wednesday? And keep running into the unpleasant realization that nope, it's totally Tuesday? That's the kind of thing I mean. It's also a little bit (more than a little bit) about trying to get a better handle on organizing my time so that I'm using it as effectively as possible, which has all of a sudden become a big, huge Thing for me. And, well, I'm addicted to rituals and routines. As a kid, my family was incredibly, absolutely predictable, down to the ground. So. Much. Routine.

I miss that. I have routines now, too, but they're a little harder for me. It's usually me, myself, or me and one person here, and a different person there, trying to hold onto repetitive movement. Work is static (thank G-d, trust me, I don't do well in changing-shift jobs) but it's up to me alone to define the shape of the time away from work. My husband has an entirely different schedule and set of activities and priorities than I do. And I'm not an alpha personality, folks. It's really difficult and exhausting for me to be the engine of direction, I do much better when I'm spinning my own little circles within the track someone else is carving through time or space (which would also be why I can go and do really well in Barre and Yoga classes but tell me to do the same damn thing at home with a video to guide me? Not gonna happen. There will be something shiny and I will wander away. Also, I want to please/impress my teachers in a class, but the guy/girl in the video could care less about how well I'm following along.)

I'm going to try to ponder on this all week (which may or may not end up as posts as I go, or it could just be a single post next Sunday) and see what I come up with.

But in the meantime, what do your days taste like, or are you completely routine phobic or a routine abstainer (courteously!)?

My tweets

2015-05-16T17:00:58Z

Fri, 19:09: Yeahhhh... about that move... http://t.co/mW00RldUnH

Yeahhhh... about that move...

2015-05-16T00:09:48Z

So, blogger never happened. I'm sure you're all completely shocked. (Whoever "you" are at this point because I have no idea who is or is not still reading this thing.)

I supposed the moral of the story is, if it ain't broke, don't fix it?

Because I really, really Need to get back to blogging again. Whatever has been the matter with me for the last couple of years, a jammed up fifth chakra tops the list, and the more I closed off and closed up and stopped expressing myself, the worse that got. (Go figure.) And I've gotten so scared of fandom in the last few years because I hate conflict (I really, really do) and I worried so much about how people would react to what I thought and felt and said and wrote... or if they'd care, and none of that is useful. It's not healthy.

So, fine. Fine, it's fine, and we'll go back to where we started from and what works and what feels right and maybe stop trying to censor so much. (Well, okay, at work. Best not to be too much more open than you already are at work, not that it's not glaringly obvious to anyone walking by your desk that you're a geek, right?)

If I stop blogging again? Somebody hit me really hard in the head, okay? Right? Yes, good.

Fic and AoU thoughts to follow, eventually, hopefully this weekend.

My tweets

2015-05-06T17:00:53Z

Tue, 16:53: RT @MarkRuffalo: .@Marvel we need more #BlackWidow merchandise for my daughters and nieces. Pretty please.

My tweets

2015-05-04T17:00:57Z

Mon, 09:57: Passion Planner: All-in-One Planner Combines All Your Organizational Needs #passionplanner @passion_planner http://t.co/z06UG8ViuO

My tweets

2015-02-06T18:00:52Z

Thu, 22:45: There's a new post: State of the Workbasket Address (or February is for Finishing 2015): Oh hi there.Assuming ... http://t.co/eua0m6nE4k

My tweets

2015-01-23T18:00:48Z

Thu, 21:46: There's a new post: Thursday Wrap-Up Post: One thing I'm going to be experimenting with here is how much or ho... http://t.co/WNAp1HHBxs

My tweets

2015-01-21T18:00:57Z

Tue, 22:35: There's a new post: Project Mary Sue You and Rebirth of the Blog: I've been a blogger for years, albeit an inc... http://t.co/PUTA1xmPxI
Tue, 23:27: Marked as to-read: Soul Fire by Sera Beak http://t.co/JeNKED05VR

My tweets

2015-01-12T18:01:03Z

Mon, 06:53: Moving Day http://t.co/hTnQsGxOOa

Moving Day

2015-01-12T12:53:52Z

I'm moving. (From Livejournal, I mean.) I have no plans to take down any of the information or posts here, my fic and other work isn't going anywhere, but all future updates on just about anything will now be over here (cybermathwitch on blogspot/blogger). I hope to see you there!

My tweets

2014-12-31T18:00:45Z

Tue, 23:50: Marked as to-read: Samurai Game by Christine Feehan http://t.co/Ys9EZqi00P

My tweets

2014-11-21T18:00:52Z

Thu, 16:53: RT @jmwilson529: Share your MyPanera reward with @NoKidHungry & help fight childhood hunger in America. Click here to help today! http://t.…
Thu, 16:54: RT @CMUDStorySpider: "It's called a mitzvah. It's a person's responsibility to help those around him. Whatever good u do comes back to u in…

My tweets

2014-10-23T17:01:16Z

Wed, 20:18: Dear Yuletide Author (2014) http://t.co/9vpOrvqLTe

Dear Yuletide Author (2014)

2014-10-23T01:18:59Z

First, thank you, thank you, thank you for writing for me this year. :D

This letter is mostly to help give you ideas of what I see/think about the fandoms I've chosen - I know I always find these kinds of things useful, but I know your mileage may vary, and that's okay, too. There are only a few things I would absolutely, positively not want to recieve (my fic hard limits, if you will) - other than that, if the story that you feel like you have to tell is something different than what I've mentioned below, that's okay with me, I'll love it anyway.

Also, any rating you'd like to write is ok with me.

The things that really squick me and I would prefer were not included are chan, mpreg, relationships that hinge on age differences like caretaker/child etc., and any underage sexual activity is right out (although teenagers snogging other teenagers is fine). I'm not a huge fan of character death, either, or of bad things happening followed by bad things happening with a side of "things to make our characters suicidally depressed". Hurt/comfort is fine, so long as there's comfort to make up for the hurt, you know? Dub con is fine, non con depends entirely on how it's handled. I can't handle torture pr0n, basically.

In general what I like in fic is 'shippy stuff, particularly witty banter, and I have a particular love of thick and heavy UST (depending on the couple, and how much that fits their personality, of course.) My biggest sticking point is that characters be in character or have good, well thought out reasons *not* to be in character. ::g:: I enjoy chosen family and team-as-family stories, and stories that explore the character dynamics of a couple or group.

More particularly (thoughts and suggestions you are free to include or not as it moves you):

Reign: (spoilers for season 1)

If we've matched on Reign, I cannot begin to tell you how excited I'll be! (It's one of my big current obsessions.) So, when the subject of Lola's pregnancy came up, prior to Henry's crazy-cakes wedding between Bash and Kenna, I had this headcanon where Bash and Lola get closer, and all the subtext between Lola and Mary is really more text, and they all kind of band together as a foursome (which could be either emotionally, politically, and/or romantically). I ship Mary/Lola, Mary/Francis, Mary/Bash and Lola/Bash individually, and think that Francis/Lola has the potential to be sweet and awesome, too. (I grant you that there's no real text at this point between Bash/Lola, but they seem like they'd have some great chemistry, too.) So I'd love OT4 fic, but just Mary/Lola fic would be fine, or some other combination there-of. Feel free to ignore the end of season 1 and season two if you'd like, or if it's just Mary/Lola fic, the two of them raising the baby would be awesome as well.

Witches of East End:

Wendy is my favorite. That said, I love the relationship between Wendy and Joanna (I've only seen season 1 thus far, though). I also love stories that look at Wendy's role in Freya and Ingrid's lives past. So sisters-being-awesome, or Wendy-being-mom-to-the-girls (I have a headcanon where at least one life involved Joanna Not Coping Well with their previous death and Wendy being the primary care-giver for awhile), or so forth would be fantastic, but any Wendy-being-awesome is good too.

New Mutants:

Illyana is my favorite, so most anything about her would be fabulous. I 'ship Dani/Rahne, but could also be very happy with Dani/Illyana, or Illyana/Rahne (so long as it's overall positive and not deceptive/abusive) or trio fic of the three of them. I'm mostly familiar with the original New Mutants comic, I haven't read the more recent reboots, unfortunately. If they're still teenagers though, please keep the content at most PG-13 as mentioned above? Or gen, or what have you.

If you just want to focus on Illyana, I'd be totally okay with Illyana/Kitty fic, as well, either romantic or just deep friendship.

Maleficent:

I've read quite a bit of Maleficent/Diaval fic, and am really drawn to their dynamic. I particularly like magical realism AUs, so long as they're in character. I like the blend of devoted subject and irreverent "I'm the one who'll tell you things bluntly" that Diaval seems to have with her - I like to think he's part of what keeps her from turning completely cold. I also love the two of them as Aurora's surrogate parents, so including her would be fantastic, but not by any means necessary. The two of them are a nice study in contrasts, which is one of my favorite things in a pairing.

Haven (Duke/Audrey): (warning, spoilers for Haven early season 4)

I think my favorite moment in Haven may be when Audrey comes back in season four, and it's the moment that she realizes that Duke has realized that she's really still Audrey, and they just hold onto each other. I'm a huge Duke/Audrey 'shipper. I used to really like Nathan, but I don't like what's been done with his character in seasons 3 and 4, and I can't wrap my brain around Audrey being at all okay with the way he's been about things. I wish season 4 had taken it's time a bit and played with the idea of Duke and Audrey being the only two who knew who she really was, and were trying to deal with that (and getting closer) without Nathan knowing. I like Jennifer just fine, I just don't really "get" her and Duke together per se.

So, anything (either before or during early season 4) that explores Duke and Audrey's relationship, being one another's rock, understanding the hard things they each have to do sometimes in dealing with the Troubles, and so on. As I said, I'm a huge 'shipper of these two, and would love anything from just character work (of either or together) to something closer to PWP. :D

Again, thank you so, so much for doing this! :D

-- K/CMW

My tweets

2014-10-22T17:00:55Z

Wed, 00:59: RT @thejoshl: PSA: the first AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON trailer premieres during next week's AGENTS OF SHIELD.

Avengers (2012): "The Breaking Light" (1/?) (Clint/Natasha)

2014-08-29T05:05:12Z

Title: The Breaking Light (1/?)
Author/Artist: Koren M. (cybermathwitch)
Disclaimer: Not mine, as per usual. Characters are Marvel and Beacham and DelToro. Lyrics are Vienna Teng.
Pairing: Clint/Natasha, Jane/Thor, Tony&Bruce (see notes)
Rating: Adult, 17+
Warnings: brief references to suicide, general canon-typical violence/badness/etc.
Spoilers: n/a
Type: Pacific Rim AU (fusion)
Word Count: 4031
Summary:
"What we're trying to say is, everyone here? We're all screwed up. We're all valuable, and we're all damaged goods as far as the rest of the program, hell, the rest of the world is concerned. But we're too valuable to throw away. So whatever it is you did, or whatever's wrong with you, it doesn't matter here." He stuck out a hand. "Let's start over. Tony Stark, resident engineering and computer genius. You must be Barton."

Author's Notes:
Yes, there really is a Jarvis Island in the Pacific Ocean. No, it's probably not possible to build even a small Shatterdome there. Call it poetic license.
Please forgive me: a. for this being unbeta'd. (There's a reason it's not up on AO3 yet.) b. for this being a work in progress. I actually do have the endgame already planned, I promise. c. for any errors or inconsistencies with the Pacific Rim canon or timeline. I tried my best to slot it in without jacking up either the story or the movie canon too much. I hope.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to sweetwatersong for turning what originally was a vague musing and general interest in Pacific Rim into a rabid thing with sharp teeth that demanded to be written, and thank you for "doodling" all over it and making it better. ;)

Bruce and Tony can be read as either gen BFFs or as background/pre-shippy. They're being contrary, vague brats and haven't deigned to tell me which they want it to be.

So come out.
You have been waiting long enough.
Your done with all the talk talk talk
And nothing on the table.
It's time to come on out.
There will be no sign from above.
You'll only hear the knock knock knock
Of your own heart as signal.

Clint Barton looked up at the ceiling over his bunk, about a half a second away from literally twiddling his thumbs from the sheer boredom. Or frustration. Maybe both.

The room was too empty. As a kid, the idea of having a room all to himself would've sounded like heaven, but the reality now was awful. The quiet was nice, but the echoing room was a constant reminder that he was alone.

Fuck Barney.

He'd known something was going on with his older brother when he'd started keeping secrets. It shouldn't be possible to hide things in the drift, but Clint deferred to Barney, had always let him take the lead. When Barney would nudge him away from certain thoughts and memories, it was second nature to just let them float away, not look too hard. He'd known about the black market Kaiju dealing, superficially, but it was easier not to ask questions. Just like when they were kids.

He wished he'd looked harder. Maybe he could've stopped things before they'd gone to far. Maybe...

But it was over and done now. Barney was facing a court-martial, and Clint, while technically cleared of any accessory charges, knew it wouldn't be long before he was discharged. They'd always had a rep for being difficult and taking stupid chances; now coupled with Barney's criminal activity and Clint being the one to rat him out, Clint was persona non grata with all the other pilots.

So he spent a lot of time in his room, waiting. For nothing.

There was a sharp rap on the door and he turned his head but didn't bother to get up. "Yeah? Might as well come on in, it's open."

A Marshal Clint had never seen before stepped inside, and Clint slid off his bunk quickly, coming to attention. "Sir. Sorry, sir."

"At ease, Barton." The man was taller than Clint, and the small space made him seem even more imposing, although he wasn't actively trying to be intimidating like some Marshals and PPDC officials did. Clint relaxed, just a little but was still wary.

"Can I help you, sir?"

"Actually, I think I might be able to help you."

Fury looked around for a minute, then took a seat on the small built-in couch like he owned the place. "I assume you know you're damaged goods."

Clint managed to keep his mouth shut, because he couldn't disagree with that assessment.

"Most people think you were dealing Kaiju parts on the black market. Even if you weren't directly involved, your brother was, and you knew about it. Then, you made an even bigger mistake when you turned him in and got him court-martialed."

"He killed an innocent man, sir. I couldn't let that go."

Fury's expression shifted. "I can understand that. But it doesn't change how everyone else sees you now, or the fact that no one wants to drift with you. They don't want to take the chance you'll see something in their head they don't want anyone else to know. It's an unspoken rule, but it's a damn important one."

You don't talk about what you see in the drift.

"So here's the thing, Barton. You don't have a lot of options, Ranger. I figure you're smart enough to realize that either you work with whatever I throw at you, or you go home. And home isn't a very pretty place right now."

Fury had him there. Never mind that he didn't actually have a place to go back to. "Home" in this case would be a work line if he was lucky or the refugee camps if he wasn't. "I have to ask, sir, what exactly am I getting into here?"

"Think of us as an R&D facility. We're working on updating Jaeger tech and trying to solve the problem of where exactly the Kaiju are coming from. Command thinks this damn wall they're making noises about will keep the Kaiju out and they're moving to shut down all the official research facilities. So that's our job now, off the record. We have an... alternate source of funding, so we can do the work other departments would need years of approvals and oversights to do. On paper, we're just the first responders for the smaller islands scattered throughout the Southern part of the Pacific Ocean, and we're supposed to try and head off any Kaiju going towards the mainlands when we can spot them. We've got three active Jaegers, plus a fourth that’s coming in needing a co-pilot."

"Which is where I come in?"

"Which is where you come in."

He was itching to ask what Fury was planning, why he wanted him (or someone in his situation): what it was that he didn't think anyone else would be willing to do? Instead, he clenched his jaw and resigned himself to waiting for the other shoe to drop. He'd gotten good at that over the years. He'd met people like Fury before, and he'd tell him what he needed to know when he damn well felt like it. Hell, he was used to working for people like that. "Well then, sir, I guess you've got yourself a new Ranger."

*****

Two weeks later, he found himself stepping into an elevator in a Shatterdome perched precariously on the smallest island he'd ever seen, and started rethinking his life choices.

The helicopter ride had been choppy as hell, and while Clint certainly didn't get motion sickness and had been out on the ocean in worse weather than that, he'd gotten used to having a hell of a lot more metal between him and the wind and water. All you could see from the approach was a tall, dark gray box that stretched across most of the visible land (there really wasn't much), and the simplistic barely marked landing pad. The woman that met him at the door introduced herself as the facility Director, Hill, and all but shoved him inside out of the storm and into the elevator.

A disembodied voice announced their arrival on the basement level, and Clint considered it a victory that he didn't jump.

Hill chuckled, so something must've shown on his face. "That's JARVIS. He's named after the facility and the island and he's one of Stark's toys. He's got over half the facility linked up to some kind of central AI he's been designing."

"An AI?"

"He's a genius. He's got an ego a mile wide, though. You'll figure that out soon enough. Until we can get a co-pilot and a Jaeger in here for you, Stark gets you. He oversees all the construction and R&D we do on the Jeagers we've got and they can always use extra hands out in the bays."

Clint felt a hollow spot in his chest at the mention of the Jaegers, and wondered again what they were going to do with Upshot Advance. Last he'd heard, she was being overhauled for a new team and being moved to the Lima facility.

"This is your bunk," she said, drawing his attention. "The mess hall's down that way," she pointed to a set of double doors down the corridor. "You can drop your stuff off, and get a hot meal if you hurry. Then try and get some sleep. They'll need you on the deck in bay four tomorrow morning at eight. Breakfast's usually around seven, maybe a little earlier. If you've got any questions, just ask JARVIS."

"Er... how?"

"Just talk. He's usually listening, unless you specifically ask him not to." She had a wicked grin, like she knew something she wasn't telling him, or maybe just that she was enjoying his discomfort at the idea of being constantly surveyed by some kind of computer system. "Good night, Ranger."

"Good night," he managed, but she was already leaving. He sighed, just a little bit, and opened the door.

******

Clint had only really taken the time to drop off his bags, because as soon as she'd mentioned food, he'd realized he was starving. Breakfast back on the mainland had been over twelve hours ago. The cafeteria was smaller than he was used to, but self-explanatory, and most everyone had already gotten food so there wasn't a line to speak of.

He took the tray the server offered him and then searched for a place to sit down. There were a couple seats right in the middle of what seemed like a lively conversation to one side, and on the other side, there was a long, almost empty table with just one occupant, reading a book. Clint waited until he glanced up, then gave him a look that said "okay?" and gestured with his tray towards one of the empty spots.

The man looked surprised, but nodded, and Clint took a seat, closer than the one he'd originally been eyeing.

"Lt. Clint Barton," he introduced himself. "But I guess you knew that, seeing as how I'm the new guy around here."

"Dr. Bruce Banner," the man finally replied, and shook the hand Clint offered, though he still looked surprised. "Sorry. We, uh, don't get that many new people out here."

"They didn't mention I was coming?" Clint wasn't sure why that should've surprised him.

"Ah, no. But the Marshal tends not to mention things until they're necessary."

"Yeah, I got that impression." They lapsed into silence for a little while, Bruce going back to his book and Clint digging in to the (remarkably) not terrible dinner on his tray.

"So, are you a medical doctor, or a scientist?"

Bruce set down his book and smiled. "I'm a PhD. I was a nuclear physicist, before. Now, I work on researching both Kaiju and the possible weaponry needed to stop them."

"What he's not telling you, is that he'd be a Nobel Laureate if things had gone just a little bit differently, but instead he got roped into this madness by me." A third man had come over to the table while they'd been talking and taken over the seat next to Bruce, kicking it back far enough it looked like he was about to tip over.

In a sudden flurry he tipped forward so that it came clattering back down onto all for legs and stuck his hand across the table at Clint.

"Tony Stark. Welcome aboard. I hear you're my new lackey."

"Tony-" Bruce started to intervene but Clint shook the hand offered.

"Yeah, I guess I am. 'S what Hill told me, anyway. I'm decent enough with mechanics if you tell me what to you need me to do."

"Well, that shouldn't be a problem. What brings you to the Island of Fury's Misfit Toys?"

"Huh?"

"'We're all misfits!" Tony quoted. He crossed his arms on the table and rested his chin on them. "Seriously though. What'd you do? Psychological break? Bum knee? Terrible kleptomania habit?"

"I- no. That is, my co-pilot... he, uh, killed someone. So he's being court-martialed. And I ended up here." He watched Tony's eyes widen as understanding dawned.

"You're that guy. I heard about this. He was, what, working the black market? Some pretty high-level shit, too, from what I saw."

Clint felt a part of himself shut down. He'd done this dance a hundred times since the story had broken. "Something like that, yeah."

"You involved?"

Well. No one had ever been quite that blatant about it.

"Tony," Bruce cautioned again, giving Clint the impression that he had to do that with Tony a lot.

"No, it's okay. It's kind of refreshing, actually. To be asked, I mean. Most people just assume one way or the other. No, I wasn't involved, not directly. I knew it was going on, but you gotta understand that in the Drift, you're deliberately pushing memories away. You don't look too close, not at the good things, or the bad things."

The two men exchanged a look that Clint couldn't quite follow, then Tony nodded at him to go on.

"I knew he was selling, but I didn't know he was gonna kill anyone. He didn't plan it or anything, not that that makes the guy any less dead."

"And you reported him."

"Yeah."

"Because of what you saw in the Drift?" There was a hesitancy to the question that Clint understood all too well. For a lot of pilots, their biggest fear wasn't Kaiju, it was what their co-pilot might find in their heads and how he or she might react to it. The idea of someone deliberately sharing what they'd seen was horrifying.

"Yes." He wasn't going to try to justify that decision to anyone anymore.

A flash of some kind of light caught his eye then when Tony shifted in his seat, and he tried not to stare at the glowing circle he realized he was seeing under Stark's shirt, but obviously failed. Tony looked down, then shrugged.

"When the Kaiju attacked LA the second time, I was in a subbasement workshop of my R&D department. There were some explosions and there was shrapnel. A lot of shrapnel. I survived the blast, barely, but there were tiny fragments they couldn't get out. Another researcher cobbled together a magnet to keep it away from my heart, and once I was awake, we started going through the scrap and I built this. Well, an earlier version of this anyway. It's an arc reactor. Clean energy tech I'd been working on before the Kaijus started showing up. We've scaled it up, and it's running some of the new prototype Jaegers."

"How many did you lose?" Clint asked quietly.

"Forty. We had a department of forty-two researchers before the attack. We also had family on the base. Friends. All told, out of a base of over three hundred people, only ten survived."

Then Bruce took over, and pointed to a scar across his forehead. "You'll hear about this, too, if you haven't already. Frontal lobe damage, from working with an experimental PONS unit. Officially they call it "anger management issues", but what they mean is that I've got a violently destructive temper. They should've dumped me, retired me, something, but Stark... I wasn't in the office, but from what I can infer, he threatened to leave if I was fired. They need him too badly to chance it. Especially the way the Kaiju are starting to adapt."

"You don't give yourself enough credit, Doc." A new voice announced, and when Clint looked up, Stark was standing there with his own lunch tray. "What he isn't telling you is that he's the foremost mind on Kaiju physics in the world. Fury would've made them keep you regardless, Bruce, I just got you into a pilot's seat. We pilot the old Iron Hulk out there when need be. It's a little like therapy," he continued. "Let's him bleed off some of that anger, keeps him from wrecking the lab too much, lets me get behind the wheel and really get a handle on how what we're designing works."

"Ah, yes," Banner agreed, wiping his glasses self-consciously with the tail of his shirt. "Something like that."

"What we're trying to say is, everyone here? We're all screwed up. We're all valuable, and we're all damaged goods as far as the rest of the program, hell, the rest of the world is concerned. But we're too valuable to throw away. So whatever it is you did, or whatever's wrong with you, it doesn't matter here." He stuck out a hand. "Let's start over. Tony Stark, resident engineering and computer genius. You must be Barton."

"Call me Clint," he replied as he shook the offered hand.

"You can call me Tony, or just God will be fine," he said it with a cocky grin that Clint could tell got him into trouble. Probably got him out of trouble, too.

They ate in companionable silence for a few minutes, but as more people came in, Tony gave him a very colorful rundown. "That terrifying woman over there with the comm unit surgically attached to her ear is Hill - Fury's second in command."

"Yeah, I met her on the way in."

"Terrifying, I tell you. Hill's the no-nonsense take-no-prisoners by-the-book type, which is also how we stay running. Command thinks she's so hidebound and uptight that she's loyal to them. They'd be wrong."

"Fury, huh?"

"He kind of inspires that kind of thing. You'll see."

"Now, the guy in the suit next to her is our communications and logistics guy. He's pretty much the paperwork machine on the base, and helps cover our asses with the central command. He's also your go-to guy for supplies and funds if you're doing anything that needs them. Or, you know, if there's something you just can't seem to find on your own, if you get my meaning. Not illegals, or anything like that, just... difficult. Challenging. He knows everybody, and everybody owes him, and he's clever about cashing in." Tony craned his head around to see who else might still be in the cafeteria, and quickly ran through a list of names Clint was pretty sure he'd never actually remember the following day. "Most of them are deckhands, a few are tech-types, and those on the end, Ray and Talia, they're Drift techs working with Dr. Ross."

Bruce flinched, just the slightest bit, but Clint noticed and filed that away for later.

By the time the dinner shift was over and the cafeteria crew was all but chasing them out with brooms so they could finish clean up, Clint's head was spinning with information and shattered pre-conceptions about was happening around him. The Island of Misfit Toys, indeed, he thought to himself just before he drifted off to sleep much more easily than he'd thought he would.

*****

Natasha Romanov's dreams were often ugly, twisted things, but they were hers, and she'd been deprived of them often enough that in a strange sort of way, she cherished them. Her newest co-pilot, Shostakov, a highly decorated officer who'd flown fighters during the early days of the Kaiju attacks, didn't seem to appreciate them nearly so much.

Natasha sat on her bunk and rested her head back against the wall between her room and his. If she'd sorted out the moments correctly, it had been a mission to stop a political rival from leaking information about the Red Room's programs. She'd used a very bloody method of convincing him.

The banging on the door brought her focus back to the present, but she didn't get up to let Alexei in. He raged at her, called her a monster, then another voice cut through trying to calm him down. It sounded like he'd managed to wake up the entire hall. She wondered if he'd enjoyed how it had felt to do those things, like she'd been programmed to enjoy it. She could look back now with horror and disgust, but the mission persona they'd put inside her head hadn't minded the horrible things at all.

In the dreams, she still didn't.

Natasha felt a literal tugging at her mind as he walked away, probably towards the command offices. What drew them together was like the annoying buzz of a gnat and she wondered how far away she'd have to go to get rid of it. On the heels of that thought was the realization that if he wasn't willing to pilot with her anymore, the PPDC might give her back to the Red Room, and she found herself chilled by a wave of fear sharper than anything the nightmare ever produced.

*****

Marshal Emere Vidiri didn't seem at all surprised to see her first thing in her office the following morning.

"Ranger Romanova," she said by way of a greeting, but didn't look up from her paperwork.

"I believe Lieutenant Commander Shostakov has already been to see you this morning," she began, and Vidiri put down her pen, folding her hands before her on the desk.

"He did. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that he camped out in front of my office and was waiting here when I arrived. It seems he doesn't want to pilot with you anymore, Ranger."

"Yes, ma'am. I also was... given that impression."

Vidiri was older than most of the other marshals Natasha had worked with. She'd been reassigned from the Sydney Shatterdome, and was noted for running things with both efficiency and a great deal of diplomacy. It was a quality the PPDC appreciated in Hong Kong, where it wasn't uncommon for the Russians, Americans, and Chinese members of the oversight committees to butt heads.

"He’s requested an immediate transfer to another team, and has refused you as a co-pilot. It's unprecedented, to say the least. I explained to him that the probable result of such a request would be that he would no longer be able to pilot a Jaeger, and he accepted that willingly. I would ask what it was you did, but somehow, I don't think it was deliberate."

"No, ma'am."

"I haven't been fully briefed on what you were doing before you came to us, Ranger."

"I'm not entirely sure what I can say about that," Natasha hedged. She wasn’t surprised that the Russian government hadn't given the PPDC an explanation of where they had come from.

Vidiri waved it off. "I don’t expect you to. I'm sure I don't have the proper clearance. Regardless, I'm given to understand there is some very disturbing things in your mind, and Lieutenant Commander Shostakov reacted badly to them."

"That would be a fair assumption, yes ma'am."

"What's to stop it from happening to someone else?"

"Excuse me?"

"I could put you together with another co-pilot, but what's to stop this from happening again? Am I also correct in assuming that this stems from the same root cause that led to Zakarovna and Udikov’s deaths and Vitsin's ‘retirement’?"

"Yes, ma'am. And to answer the first part of your question, I don't know. I'm afraid I'm not equipped to guess how a hypothetical person might handle being inside my mind. It’s not pretty. Or nice. My memories are unsettling at best, horrific at worst, and I can't change them. But I am exceptionally good at what I do, and it is something I very much want to continue doing."

"I have it on good authority that when I put in Shostakov's request, the next step on the part of your government will be to request you be sent back to them for reassignment elsewhere, outside the PPDC." Back to where you came from, was what she didn't say, but Natasha knew what she was trying to imply.

"That would not be my preference of assignments," Natasha managed, while inside she was screaming please don't send me back.

"I figured as much. Which is why I'm not filing these papers until later today. In the mean time, I have someone I would very much like for you to meet."

*****

Marshal Fury, it turned out, was nothing like what Natasha was used to from most Marshals, but had been very like the people she'd grown up around. She had a definite sense that whatever he wanted her for, whatever game he was arranging, it was far wider reaching than simply using her as a tool to get his hands on the Russian tech. It was more disturbing to realize that he knew she was actually a key component of that highly sought after and rumored tech, and not just a simple pilot.

Still, Marshal Vidiri, who Natasha had come to like and respect quite a bit, and who she had never seen act with cruelty or unfairness in her command, spoke very highly of Fury and seemed to trust him. It wasn't enough to make Natasha trust him outright, but it helped. And anything - anything - was better than returning to Russia and the Red Room.

*****

cybermathwitch @ 2014-08-23T19:14:00

2014-08-24T00:14:37Z

I'm doing that thing, that "I NEED to be writing these fics like, yesterday, what?" that causes me to instead surf all the internet and get nothing done. I also need to do the meal planning and grocery list making before tomorrow morning bright and early and clean the kitchen/house/etc.)

I have about ::checks Scrivener:: 9000 words of a Pacific Rim AU (nowhere even CLOSE to done, and not all of those are probably usable - and before anyone says anything, a bit of them are from sweetwatersong and much of it is from last summer).

I have about 6000 words of the not-really-during-IM3-but-it-was-supposed-to-be fic.

I have an almost finished shorter piece for that "Clint calls in the favor" prompt.

I have a neat idea and would love to write the "Clint and Nat as Fate and Cupid" fic.

I have a high-fantasy piece (two, actually) that may or may not have enough story to be postable, and I have one for the "Clint and Nat go back in time" prompt.

I NEED MORE THAN A WEEK.

Or a vacation.

One of those.

(I am seriously, seriously tempted to get the first parts of a few of these postable and do WIPs again (G-D HELP ME!) even though I swore off them after Heavy.

In other news, I want to take every single damn thing in my kitchen and dining room and chuck it out the back door and start all over. Except that wouldn't help how badly designed our kitchen is. Or how tiny it is. Thank goodness it's got a window, I wouldn't be able to stand it if there wasn't any natural light in there.

Oh, err, the high-fantasy AU might be turning out to be Tony/Pepper/Natasha somewhat in the background that leads to Clint/Natasha... is everyone okay with that? I'm not sure if that's a deal-breaker or not.

cybermathwitch @ 2014-08-21T23:31:00

2014-08-22T04:31:37Z

So there's this moment, when you're reading (and liking, for the most part) a fic, and then you read the notes and realize that the author is conflating the dates of the movie releases with the dates of the events depicted within...

And you just have to stop.

Because it goes so fundamentally against your own overall understanding of how the canon works that you just can't.

Or is that just me?

(I have spent SO MUCH TIME beating my head against the damn MCU timeline. I can actually accept quite a bit of time-shifting - the comics always kind of have things happening both with their own internal time logic (event X happened two years ago) that also somehow manages to keep pace with our actual time/trends/technology/etc., and the movies are kind of trying to do that too, but it's flatly canon that Iron Man 2, Thor, and the Incredible Hulk happen in the same week or so of one another.)

That Almost But Not Quite Real Life Update I (Sort of) Promised...

2014-08-17T01:57:07Z

Damn it, I keep sitting down to do the budget and the menu/shopping list for the week (WHICH HAS TO BE DONE TONIGHT) and getting side tracked by the prompt-a-thon. Then thinking I should really work on the Pacific Rim AU, only to see my green folder AND REMEMBER THE BUDGET.

::headdesk::

Since I'm terrible about eating and schedules on the weekend, lunch was at about 4:30 and dinner won't be until late. (Notice how at 8:38 pm I'm saying "won't be until". Yes, that late. Brian still needs to go to the grocery store first because it's hard to make Dismantled Chicken Cordon Bleu without prosciutto. It's just chicken with cheese and mushrooms w/o the pig. For Brian to go to the grocery store, I need to make the shopping list, and to make the shopping list, I need to make the menu and the budget.

You see where this is going? I do!

BUT I WANT TO BE WRITING ABOUT ASSASSINS-TURNED-JAEGER-PILOTS HAVING INTIMACY ISSUES AND TONY BEING A SMART ASS AND JANE DOING AWESOME WORLD-SAVING SCIENCE, DAMN IT!

Meanwhile, my first Prompt-a-thon offering is up. Have somewhat angsty Hozier-inspired "What If?" fic: I Will Not Ask (and neither should you) C/N, PG, no warnings: AO3 or LJ

In other news... if I start talking about food and cooking (specifically, low-carb/diabetic friendly/whole-food-I-hesitate-to-use-the-word-"paleo"-because-my-inner-and-outer-Anthropologists-both-cringe cooking) is anyone else actually interested? I find that I have no one at all to talk to about these things, and I do not function well in a vacuum. (I've been feeling like that about a lot of things lately, from fandom to cooking to household/planning to work issues. I am not a self-sustaining creature emotionally or psychologically but recent circumstances have put me in that position and I'm... not thriving, let's put it that way.)

Alternately, if anyone else is having major "I too, am a child of the 80's" and other Peter Quill feelings? I'm all over that, too. The more I see the movie and listen to the soundtrack, the more I love him.

Okay. Time for more coffee and some number crunching and hunting up recipes. (Recipes bleh. Have I mentioned I hate cooking? Because I have to do all the cooking these days and "bleh" is my official take on the subject.)

I... Er... Hi?

2014-08-10T18:08:30Z

Hi.

I don't have time for life-update right now, per se (I still exist, sort of?) but I need to know if there's anyone (multiple someones?) out there who are willing to read and give me feedback on stuff for the Be-Compromised Prompt-a-thon? I have... lots of stuff. Ahem. And one of my usual betas is indisposed and the other is going to be spending most of the month in the wilderness where there's no internet or phone service. :(

So... thus far, I've got about 6000 words of a Post-Iron Man 3 C/N, Pepper/Tony, Bruce/Betty fic that definitely needs a look-over, and more stuff coming up. (Including a Pacific Rim AU, possibly a Regency AU, and a kind of AU post-Avengers C/N thing where No One is Coping Well and Steve ends up bartending and bouncing in a tiny little bar on the backroads of Indiana.)

You know. So far. I'm still running through prompts.

Happy Thanksgivukkah!

2013-12-01T19:51:41Z

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Chanukah to everyone out there on my flist! I am very, very thankful to have all of you in my life. :D (And congrats to everyone who participated in and/or won NaNoWriMo this year!)

Have completely unbeta'd C/N soulbond 'verse fic**, and I hope you're having a very merry start to the holiday season!

** by which I mean stress the unbeta'd NaNo-inspired ramblings in this 'verse, which may inadvertently (not so inadvertently) be sweetwatersong's fault, because she wanted more Phil.

It hurt. It really goddamn fucking hurt, but Clint continued tugging on the torn fabric as he tried to separate the sticky mess of drying blood, clothing, and skin. He sagged against the wall because he could damn well walk if he put his mind to it but standing still was harder. Harder to keep from swaying because his balance was shot from pain and shock, and he'd rather look like he was leaning casually against a wall than look like he was about to fall over. Weak. Injured.

Not that anyone was going to miss the gaping bullet wound.

"It's not gaping," Natasha snapped angrily and he realized he's said it out loud. She was actually slamming around the first aid kit as she rummaged for supplies, a rare show of loosely controlled emotion. Sturdy, bulletproof casing connecting with hard cement, and he could imagine the impact reverberate up her arms and how good that would feel, bleeding off some of the aggression. "It was through and through," she added, sounding like she was annoyed he couldn't just walk it off.

He knew what she was really saying was "why were you such an idiot and ended up in the line of fire?" coupled with "I cannot lose you, you asshole."

"Still hurts," he muttered, pleased that his voice sounded remarkably steady. That was good. That was great, actually, because it improved his chances of getting away with hunkering down under the thermal blanket with juice and power bars instead of an emergency medical evac. Given the choice, he would take a quiet, solitary safe house with no one around but Natasha and time over recuperating in the always bustling medical department at SHIELD HQ. Or, god forbid, one of the outpost facilities.

Of course at the moment they weren't in a secure safe house, they were in a shitty abandoned factory in the middle of the back end of nowhere Oregon, a place who's only saving grace was that it was a temperate climate in the summer months, so they didn't have to worry about freezing to death.

At least they had their gear, even if the bad guys had managed to disable their tech and comms with a damned EMP.

Natasha stood in front of him suddenly, and he wasn't sure if he'd blacked out for a few seconds of if she'd just done that thing that she could sometimes do where he'd swear she teleported. Then he really didn't care because she was pushing his hands away and began cleaning the rest of the mess with none-to-gentle means. He hissed at the sting of the alcohol, but when he looked down she was looking back at him. He held her gaze for a long moment as her hands stilled, willed her to understand words like "safe" and "alive" and "still fucking here" that he felt too strongly to give voice too.

The words she didn't speak back to him were things like "I almost lost you" and "fear" and "stop forgetting you're human".

His good hand moved roughly, quickly, pushing through and grabbing her hair in a desperate, almost brutal grip, pulling her closer and pressing a kiss against her forehead, and for the first time since they'd started this mission, since he'd seen the last man fall under her knife just after he'd felt the bullet tear through his shoulder, he let the fear and relief and need - just the need to have her there and to remember they were both alive - swamp him. He could feel her fingers digging into his arms, her nails sharp and just shy of drawing more blood.

"Where're we going now?" he asked softly once the last of the adrenaline crest bled away. His face was in her hair, against her neck, his breath soft against her ear.

"You need to get seen by a doctor." He felt more than heard her words against his uninjured side.

"Doctors and gunshot wounds mean police and a really, really messy extraction."

"You could still bleed out."

"There's not enough blood for the artery to be hit. Where are we?"

"Clint-"

"I mean, shit Tasha, I'm trying to do the calculations in my head but it's a little taxing right now."

He was trying to hold up the sarcastic end of the conversation, to try and reassure her, but it was only doing so much good.

"Closest town is Boring."

Clint started laughing, he couldn't help it, but it fucking hurt and turned into a strained cough. "You've got to be kidding me," he managed to get out and was happy to see the corners of her mouth tip up just the tiniest bit.

"Would I joke about that?"

"Can we find a bus route to Portland?"

"I can do you one better and see if there's a vehicle left out there we could hotwire. But first, I'm gonna patch you the hell up, so sit down." She guided more than shoved until he was sitting with his good side pressed against the wall and she could see all angles of the wound. He watched out of the corner of his eye as she hooked a foot out to pull the first aid case closer, and closed his eyes as she opened it, trying to focus on the sound instead of the pain.

"Eyes open, Hawkeye. I need to see you watching me."

"Sorry. Yeah."

"You getting shocky?"

"Been there. Still there."

"Stay with me a little while longer and you can have a treat."

"'m not a kid, Tas-" he tried to protest but cut it off with a hiss when it felt like she up-ended half the bottle of alcohol over the wound. Knowing her, she probably had.

When he could breathe again, when she was packing the wound and slathering him with antibiotics, he tried to get his thoughts together. "if we can get to Portland, I know someone who can help."

"Who?" she was paying more attention - or it looked like she was - to his shoulder than his words, but he knew better.

"Coulson."

"Clint-" her eyes shot to his, all pretense of distraction gone in a split second. "I don't think-"

"He helped us before. We're not even on the run now, just in a shitty situation. We got all the bad guys, nobody's following us. He's a friend, Tasha, he'll help us now."

He saw her weight the options, saw her finally give in. "Okay. Alright? I'm gonna go see if one of the cars is viable. You, sit here, stay conscious, and don't do anything that would get you even more injured."

*****

She kept him awake on the car ride into Portland by, of all things, making him sing "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall", and he had to start over every time he missed a number.

He'd gotten to 76 for the fourth time when they finally turned into the remarkably prosaic suburban neighborhood around 3 am. She made an incredulous face at the setting, and Clint shrugged, then remembered why they were there.

Natasha called him an idiot. Affectionately, of course. Mostly.

Then she got out of the car, tucked herself under his good arm like some kind of human crutch, and deposited him on the porch railing before ringing the fucking doorbell.

There were reasons he loved her.

The man that answered the door looked exactly like he had the last time Clint had seen him, just before he'd left the carrier to report stateside for his new assignment, except that he was in sweat pants and a long-sleeved tee shirt. It was the first time he'd ever seen Coulson's eyes widen quite like that, though, and Clint mentally checked "surprise Phil Coulson" off his bucket list.

"Agents. This is a surprise."

"Agent Coulson. Or rather, Director." Natasha aimed for formality, since he was technically the Training Director, but it mostly sounded irritable. Clint figured she had some legitimate reason for it, since that was how she generally reacted to his getting injured, and she never had gotten a chance to get to know Coulson as anything other than "that guy that threw me in a cell that time".

"Phil's fine, particularly here. I see you've gotten yourself injured again, Barton."

Clint gave him a half-assed salute with his good hand. "Just like old times, sir."

"Any reason why you decided my home was a better choice than the hospital?"

"Better decor? Also, Hill'll have kittens if the police get involved with this particular op, and a gunshot wound is an automatic police call."

Coulson tipped his head in a sort of acknowledgment. "Was anyone left?"

Clint knew what he really meant was "is there any chance someone followed you?" and he let all pretense of humor drop from his face.

"No. I wouldn't do that to you, Phil. Not here, not this."

"Alright then." He stepped aside and gestured them inward. Natasha repositioned herself beside him to help him up and with Phil trailing behind she dumped him into a chair at the kitchen table.

When Coulson flipped on the light switch, the kitchen was thrown into focus, and it was a jarring sight.

It was normal.

Mundane.

There was a stack of dishes, a neat stack, but obviously waiting to be washed, in the sink and a dish towel hanging from the handle of the oven door, not pristine and showroom, but haphazard like it had been done too quickly or as an afterthought. There was a bottle rack along the back of the drainboard with several colorful cups lined up in a neat row. Another sippy cup, empty but obviously in recent use, was still on the table along with a coloring book and a handful of crayons.

There was a smear of spaghetti on the floor.

"Jesus, Phil," was all Clint could manage. He'd been at the wedding, had heard from Bobbi that he and Madeline had had a kid, but this was... just unreal.

"I patched him up on site, but the wound wasn't bleeding badly so I packed it instead of sewing until a medical professional could evaluate it." Natasha reported this just like she would have to Sitwell, or Chang, or Hill, and Clint kind of wanted to roll his eyes at her, but her back was to him.

"Well, let's take a look. God knows I've had enough experience patching him up before."

They'd just managed to get the gauze unwrapped when a whimper came from down the hall and quickly turned into a full-scale howl.

"Just a minute," Coulson said, leaving the rest of the reveal to Natasha and heading after the sound. Shortly, it stopped, and when he came back into the kitchen, a small girl was tucked in his arms. She had her head on his chest, but was obviously awake and staring at both of them with big, curious eyes.

"Amanda? I'd like you to meet some friends of mine. This is Clint and Natasha."

With a shy smile, she waved, then hid her face against Coulson again. "I'm going to put you in your chair and get you some milk, okay?" The little girl nodded, but halfway into the chair she started wiggling, and then thrust her arms out towards Natasha of all people.

"Up!"

Natasha's eyebrows went up just a bit, but after a glance at Coulson and his responding nod she picked the child up as if she'd done it a thousand times before, settling her easily on her hip in a mirror of how Coulson had her just a moment before. Clint just kind of stared for a minute, because it wasn't a juxtaposition he'd ever, ever made in his mind. His shoulder was throbbing, and he decided his jury was still out on what he thought about it.

She carefully maneuvered the girl over to the refrigerator where there were different colored animal magnets to distract her from the wounds Coulson was uncovering. Clint closed his eyes and just relaxed into the unfortunately familiar, if unpleasant, sensations of being checked over, occasionally cracking them open just enough to catch a glimpse of Natasha on the other side of the room.

"It looks like a small calibre, mostly muscle and soft-tissue damage. You need to get a round of antibiotics and some fluids when you get back to base, but it looks like we can go ahead and stitch you up. Natasha, would you mind terribly taking Amanda into the living room where her toys are and keeping her there until I'm done? She's not liable to notice or mind, but just on the off chance I'd rather she didn't repeat anything Clint may say when her mother gets home."

Clint caught the extremely brief flare of surprise on her face but she nodded and slipped through the doorway.

"Where is Madeline, anyway?" Clint asked, because he really preferred distractions while someone was trying to turn him into a pin-cushion.

"In Washington State, at a music festival for the weekend. She's on permanent staff with the Portland orchestra now, but occasionally they travel."

They shared a look, and Clint realized suddenly that Coulson understood certain things in ways that no one else in Clint's experience would.

"I don't know how you managed it, when she was gone that first year," Coulson said softly while he started his work. The emotional dissonance of the conversation, as well as memories, and the reminder of how the night could've gone so very differently were good distractions alright.

"I knew she needed it. I knew she would've been... she wouldn't have been happy with SHIELD, then. Not at first. I couldn't stand the thought of doing that to her."

"But she's happy now?"

"As long as I'm not getting my ass shot up, yes sir."

"So not very often, then." There was a sudden sharp tug, and Clint yelped out a loud curse.

"Not in front of the baby, Barton!" Natasha called from the other room.

"This has got to be one of the crazier nights..." Clint mumbled, just in time to receive another sharp tug on the stitches as Coulson continued his work.