~*~HOLIDAY FIC REQUESTS 2011~*~

Yoinked from Brandi and Sammo because I DO WHAT I WANT.

Comment with one of your character and one of mine, or one of my fandoms whatever, and give me a prompt to point the way. I'll write a drabble (possibly a full-sized fic, I make no promises) and try and poke Photoshop into doing something passable. Also if you want a specific date or whatever, that's something to mention as well. Now ask, mortals. 8I

December 3; 4; 10; 11; 17; 18; 24; 25; 31

I WILL FORMAT AND LIST FANDOMS WHEN I'M NOT ON MY PHONE. Feel free also to ask for RP verse fics.

Steve slips out of his room and leans against the door to shut it, listening as the shower turns on just to make sure she's still there. Peggy. Still there.

He smoothes a hand over his mouth to try and get the grin to go away, but it kind of seems to be stuck. The agents have already dispersed, one of them informing him that they have to make a full report to Agent Coulson and to expect company before too long.

It's hard to make himself care. He knows SHIELD will probably want to talk to her at length, but he can't - won't - let them mistreat her, even if it means fighting every agent and Avenger in the organization.

"Focus on one thing at a time, Rogers," he says. "Clothes. ...Where am I going to find women's clothes?"

Darcy's spare room, or Pepper's, or Jane's or Betty's - but the thought of going in their rooms and taking clothes. Steve jerks his head in a little shake just to rid himself of the discomfort it brings on. "There has to be a plan B."

His clothes, maybe. He tries to picture that and instead pictures Peggy drowning in oversized folds of cloth.

...Yeah, that won't really work.

Steve is in the gym of Stark's penthouse, trying to bruise bandage-wrapped fists on the third punching bag he's worked over this week. He's pretty sure Tony is getting annoyed by replacing them, but he doesn't have anything else to do. Since his last conversation with Loki he's been on veritable lockdown, watched almost around the clock in case the trickster decides to pay a visit.

Which is nothing compared to the security they've had on Dr. Banner. Steve hasn't seen him alone once, and he can't help the awful, persistent guilt he feels from that. The worst part is, he doesn't think Bruce even knows why.

With a screech of metal twisting out of shape and the hiss of sand starting to pour from the bag's bottom, it drops. Steve manages to catch it before it hits the wood floor, both arms wrapped around the bag.

Tony would probably be even more annoyed at having to replace the wood panels again.

Steve is on the floor in the far-too-large garage that juts off one side of the mansion. It's one of the few places he's almost guaranteed privacy, since Tony usually doesn't want to talk when he comes in to work on his own vehicles and no one else has much reason to come in here at all.

For his part, Steve is working on the vintage Harley Knucklehead he still can't believe he owns. Even the one he had way-back-when ("way-back-when") technically belonged to the US government. This one, though, is his. A gift from the Avengers, Tony had said, for the Captain's first twenty-first-century birthday. Or his ninety-fourth. Whichever way he felt like looking at it.

The older man had made it seem like nothing. Steve couldn't possibly have disagreed more.

So there he is, checking every bolt and rod, humming quietly to himself as he does so.

It's The Star Spangled Man, for the curious.


Jane Foster is stuffing a piece of toast in her mouth and trying to read one set of notes around another armload of notes as she makes her way from the SHIELD offices in Times Square to the subway. She could take a company car, but she still hasn't quite accustomed herself to reliance on SHIELD, and given her recent track record, she'd as soon let someone else do the driving.


Coulson is being Coulson. In other words, he's early to a meeting with Tony Stark, expects Stark to be late, and so is watching Project Runway on one of the mansion's several big screen TVs in one of its several lounges.

Supernanny reruns are on next.


Tony Stark watches the clock and carefully makes himself late to his meeting with Agent Coulson, who is currently - according to JARVIS - sitting three floors up and five rooms over watching reality TV. Tony is on his third martini, has decided that martini glasses are for squares, and is now drinking out of a mug as he works one of JARVIS's projected simulations of a new suit design while sitting on a couch in one of the small libraries. This suit is tailored for high-altitude subsonic flight and work in other cold, low-oxygen environments. He's been thinking a lot lately about what happened to Rogers. This is his way of getting it out of his system.

"JARVIS. How much longer until Coulson's show is over."

"Twenty-three minutes, sir."

"Let me know when he's two minutes from the good parts."

"Of course."

When Captain America broods, everybody notices. He's short, distant, uncommunicative. Some would even say rude. Fortunately he has an excuse, for the first few days - his arm, still healing. But once it's back in working order (he misses two missions in the four short days that it takes), there's no reason for him to be acting like this. At least, not in anyone else's mind.

Steve is too distracted to notice that they've noticed. He's just thinking about Loki's offer, weighing the Liesmith's words and trying to figure out if he meant what he said about sending Steve back - sending him home. Regardless, Loki couldn't have meant to help. If anything, if he really can do it, it would be to get Steve out of the way.

But that doesn't make him think about it any less.

He tries to go walking at night, but first Darcy finds excuse to go with him, and then the others notice and either follow with failed stealth or send a flock of SHIELD agents to shadow him. He finally smashes the locks on one of the doors in the middle of the afternoon and tells JARVIS that if the computer tells anyone he left, he'll start pulling out wires. He doesn't wait around to hear the dry sarcasm of the AI's reply.

Steve ends up in the one place he can think to go where, clothed in a dress uniform and wearing aviators, no one will bother him but the very young, and there aren't any kids there at this time of day. The Harbor Defense Museum, currently displaying a collection of weaponry from World War Two used in the protection of New York City. Steve presses his hand again the plexiglass over one display, looking at the tarnished barrels of the guns and feeling as old and angry as he did after breaking out of SHIELD's facility after they pulled him out of the ice.

Steve thinks, not unreasonably, that all the fanfare and cross-checking and scouting the place for traps and bugs last night was really completely unnecessary. About as unnecessary as the guards flanking him now, dressed in tidy suits with sunglasses and looking like proper g-men.

He massages one temple, glancing sideways at the nearest one. "You're not coming inside," he says, shortly.

Normally he wouldn't be rude. Normally he wouldn't dream of leaving people standing around waiting for him. But this is different, darn it.

He reaches out and knocks tentatively on the wall next to the door of the place Quorra said she shared with Sam. Well. No. She didn't say it.

SHIELD just kind of... tracked the conversation and found out.

He should know not to go out at night by himself. Not because he's in any danger - Captain America in New York City on a less-than-average day doesn't have much to worry about. But because, almost without exception, he gets lost. Steve tucks his hands into the pockets of his jeans and squints up at the buildings around him, ignoring the college student who staggers by, stops to stare at him, and bursts out laughing before moving on.

He's used to that, too, by now. Apparently dressing conservatively these days isn't a reflection of care for the resources of the country, or a side-effect of living life as a soldier for two years - it's just "dorky." At least he doesn't feel like someone's taped a sign to his back, not since he asked Darcy - Agent Lewis - why he kept getting that reaction.

Of course the fact that she had to explain what 'Because you're a dork' meant didn't really help his... street cred. He chuckles to himself, only a little ironic, at managing to use both terms in one train of thought.

A few streets later he's getting very confused. Usually he's able to find at least one familiar street or landmark to point him in the general right direction, at least until he finds a cab to get him the rest of the way back to the mansion. He's done this enough in the months he's been here that his assigned SHIELD shadows don't pop a vein unless he's not back by morning - in this case, though, that's probably working against him.

Finally Steve sighs and digs into his pocket to pull out his cellular phone. He looks at it for a moment, smiling to himself and wondering what Howard would make of all this. Tiny phones with tinier batteries and communicators and jets that don't need runways to take off.

Well, for all Steve knows, Howard invented most of it. He still hasn't been able to bring himself to look at history texts to see how his friends lived out their lives. There's something too much like admitting he's never going to see them again in doing that.

He flips the phone open gingerly, poking the tiny buttons with his pinky because he's not sure how else to manage the thing, and dials in what he's fairly sure is Darcy's number. Agent Lewis's number. He could try calling someone else, but she's friendly, in her own way. She doesn't treat him like a loaded gun waiting to be pointed at the next Big Bad Guy.

Steve lifts the phone to his ear with a frown. "Uh. Hello?"