Musings from the Moon

So Erica @spaceliondad is amazing, and so I decided to commission her for some sketches of stevetony fluff through the multiverse <3 

Let me tell you what I know about this after living here for nearly thirty years.

This is a modern European country, the home of hot net startups, of Internet giants and (in some places, some very few places) the fastest broadband on Earth. People here live in this century, HARD.

Yet they get nervous about walking up that one hill close to their home after dark, because, you know… stuff happens there.

I know this because Peter and I live next to One Of Those Hills. There are people in our locality who wouldn’t go up our tiny country road on a dark night for love or money. What they make of us being so close to it for so long without harm coming to us, I have no idea. For all I know, it’s ascribed to us being writers (i.e. sort of bards) or mad folk (also in some kind of positive relationship with the Dangerous Side: don’t forget that the root word of “silly”, which used to be English for “crazy”, is the Old English _saelig_, “holy”…) or otherwise somehow weirdly exempt.

And you know what? I’m never going to ask. Because one does not discuss such things. Lest people from outside get the wrong idea about us, about normal modern Irish people living in normal modern Ireland.

You hear about this in whispers, though, in the pub, late at night, when all the tourists have gone to bed or gone away and no one but the locals are around. That hill. That curve in the road. That cold feeling you get in that one place. There is a deep understanding that there is something here older than us, that doesn’t care about us particularly, that (when we obtrude on it) is as willing to kick us in the slats as to let us pass by unmolested.

So you greet the magpies, singly or otherwise. You let stones in the middle of fields be. You apologize to the hawthorn bush when you’re pruning it. If you see something peculiar that cannot be otherwise explained, you are polite to it and pass onward about your business without further comment. And you don’t go on about it afterwards. Because it’s… unwise. Not that you personally know any examples of people who’ve screwed it up, of course. But you don’t meddle, and you learn when to look the other way, not to see, not to hear. Some things have just been here (for various values of “here” and various values of “been”) a lot longer than you have, and will be here still after you’re gone. That’s the way of it. When you hear the story about the idiots who for a prank chainsawed the centuries-old fairy tree a couple of counties over, you say – if asked by a neighbor – exactly what they’re probably thinking: “Poor fuckers. They’re doomed.” And if asked by anybody else you shake your head and say something anodyne about Kids These Days. (While thinking DOOMED all over again, because there are some particularly self-destructive ways to increase entropy.)

Meanwhile, in Iceland: the county council that carelessly knocked a known elf rock off a hillside when repairing a road has had to go dig the rock up from where it got buried during construction, because that road has had the most impossible damn stuff happen to it since that you ever heard of. Doubtless some nice person (maybe they’ll send out for the Priest of Thor or some such) will come along and do a little propitiatory sacrifice of some kind to the alfar, belatedly begging their pardon for the inconvenience.

They’re building the alfar a new temple, too.

Don’t go near big trees in the night

If you live on a farm, don’t look outside the windows at night

I have broken all these rules.

I’ve seen some shit.

If it sounds like your mom, but you didn’t realize your mom is home…. it’s not your mom. Promise.

One walked onto the porch once. Wasn’t fun. But they’re not super keen on guns. Typically bolt when they see one.

You think it’s the neighbor kids.

It’s not the neighbor kids.

Might sound like coyotes but you never really /see/ the coyotes but then wow that one cow was reaaaaaally fucked up this morning. The next night when you hear another one screaming you just turn the tv up a little more. Maybe fire a gun in the air but you don’t go after it. If it is coyotes then it’s probably a pack and you seriously don’t want to fuck with that and if it’s the other thing you seriously REALLY don’t want to fuck with that.

So in the south, especially near the mountains, you just go straight from your car to inside your house, draw your curtains and watch tv.

If you see lights in the fields just fucking leave it alone.

Eyes forward. Don’t be fucking stupid. Mind your own business. Call your neighbors and tell them to bring the cats in. There’s coyotes out. Some of them know. Most of them don’t.

Other than that everything’s a ghost and they died in the civil war. Literally all of everything else is just the civil war. We used to smell old perfume and pipe tobacco in the weeks leading up to the battle anniversaries.

We had ‘witches’ in the mountains (more like ghost-women who will snatch you up by making you wander in a daze around the forest like the Blair Witch before killing you or letting you back out into society but you’re… different). Or devils in springs or abandoned wells (don’t look too long into one or something will follow you). 

But we also had the cornfield demons. I’ve witnessed this many times. You’ll be in the passenger seat looking out the window and see red glowing eyes in the cornfield. No light shining in that direction. Just two red dots a few inches apart faintly glowing in a pitch black cornfield. They’re not the glow of deer eyes in the headlights. More like the embers of a dying fire. Sometimes, as you drive away, you’ll look out the back window or side mirror and you can see the eyes have moved to the edge of the corn field, still watching you. If you bring it up with the driver, they’ll call you paranoid, but grip the wheel a bit tighter and driver a little faster.

I just…yes. This. All of this. And then some.

You don’t have to understand it. You don’t have to believe in it.

anyways fast forward to 20 year old me on my third date with Emily and she mentions offhand that she’s got this box of fic she printed out and saved

it’s a few months later after that and she shows me one of the fics in the box and holy shit that’s my garbage fic from so long ago

Ah yessssssssssssssssssssssss you READ MY MIND tbh like. because asks show up in my notifications and usually i can read the first few words of them, i saw up until ‘cause you’ and went to check which one that was and immediately! my mind! went! NICKNAMES AND ANGST!!!!! sooooo, ask and ye shall receive ehehehehe (i fudged with the timeline a little, but nothing too drastic) (this got longer than i meant it. OH WELL) (mostly canon compliant with the exception of extremis, ignores age of ultron and beyond)

20. the one where you don’t know your soulmate until you hear them say your name

Steve and Bucky find each other young. It’s not completely unheard of, but it is a rare thing. They don’t care about that, though. Why would they? They’ve already found each other, they’re lucky. They grow up together, share their grief and joys.

Then the war happens. Bucky gets his papers, and Steve keeps trying to follow. (Much to Bucky’s horror.) Bucky ships out, and Steve meets Dr. Erskine. It’s months before they see each other again, months of Steve bitter and angry and worried about Bucky, and months of Bucky thanking God every day that Steve isn’t there, that he’s at home and safe.

Captain America, on USO tours, visits the troops in Europe, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Everyone knows that Captain America rescued his soulmate Bucky Barnes from Hydra, and that the Howling Commandos were formed. Everyone knows that the Howling Commandos took out dozens of Hydra bases. Everyone knows that Bucky Barnes fell from a train to his death in the alps, and that shortly thereafter Captain America saved the United States by crashing a bomb-filled plane somewhere in frozen waters.

This is what Tony grows up knowing. He grows up knowing that Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes were devoted to each other, that they had a bond that couldn’t be broken. He grows up hearing stories of them from his father, and Aunt Peggy. Tony knows more about them than what history’s taught. He knows they grew up together, that Steve became Captain America because he wanted to do his part, but also because he wanted to follow Bucky and keep him as safe as he could.

“ConfusedSoldier” (Tony cringes internally at the name and hopes it’s Bucky being ironic) has only a couple of followers.

The Instagram account seems like nothing special, except-

Except it’s filled with pictures of Steve Rogers and…. Tony.

The brunet stares at it, takes in all the details. There’s a snapshot of him bent over the table, head pillowed on his arms and a steaming mug of coffee by his side. 

There’s a picture of Steve post-workout, sweaty and with his pale cheeks flushed but he’s smiling brilliantly. 

Another picture shows Tony engrossed in his work, or messing around with DUM-E. He finds shots of him half asleep on the couch or sleep-soft in the kitchen among pictures of Steve in similar situations.

Occasionally, there is a picture of a stray cat and if there’s been any doubt about whose account this is, some of the snapshots show one of the cats rubbing their faces against a gleaming metal arm.

Tony isn’t sure how to feel. He’s confused, he thinks; confused and intrigued and his heart beats a bit faster against his ribs. 

“Who even showed this to you?”, Tony asks the second he steps out of the elevator. Bucky, comfortably sprawled on the sofa, turns and raises an eyebrow in question. 

“Why”, Tony comes closer, hands gesturing everywhere. “Why did anyone show this to you? I mean- Instagram?”

Bucky’s face goes blank, then pale and next to him, Steve makes a noise that sounds like he’s choked on a laugh. Tony’s attention immediately snaps to him.

“Rogers-” 

Steve smiles, innocently. “Yeah, it was me. You all helped me catch up on pop culture and modern trends, I thought it’d be nice to show Bucky some of it, too.”  He gets up and Tony swears he sees a mischievous glint in these baby-blue eyes. “I’ve got some things to do still”, he explains, passing Tony on his way to the elevator. “Catch you later.”

Tony stares at him until the elevator doors have closed. Steve has always been a terrible liar.

Behind him, he hears Bucky clear his throat and Tony turns back to him. 

“Steve… Steve said people use Instagram to take pictures of beautiful things or just things they like”, Bucky explains, carefully, like he’s worried he might say something wrong. 

Tony’s heart definitely skips a beat. 

But, he can’t hope just yet. He has to make sure-

“Wait”, he says, fingers coming up to tap against the ARC. “So am I on there because I’m beautiful? Or because you like me?”

Bucky looks at him, directly meets his eyes.

“Yes”

Vessels designed specifically for screaming

Avengers Selfies Series - Part One: Team Iron Man (+ Bruce & Stephen Strange)