recs and links

The crew visits Jim in the hospital. Aw, crew.

Adorable movieverse/616 fusion where Clint brings Darcy home for the night and Kate decides she passes muster. Lots of fun banter.

Bucky's hoping for makeouts when he goes to Pepper's to study, but ends up with babysitting. This is an ADORABLE story where teenage Bucky and Pepper babysit Steve, Natasha, and Tony.

“Sir,” says JARVIS, “in response to the tone of your voice I have taken the liberty of drawing you a soothing bubble duck.” An image pops up on screen; it is, indeed, a line-drawing of a duck made out of bubbles. Thor studies Tony’s face for a moment. “I will return with ale,” he says, and exits the room. So JARVIS gets kidnapped and then the Avengers go on a time travel adventure of hilarity. This story made me laugh out loud several times - I had a hard time deciding between the bubble duck and the tomatoes for a pull quote.

"Five years ago, I would have danced on your grave. I was plotting your demise. I would have pulled the plug on you myself." Jim's face is too pale, and the bruises aren't healing. "If you don't wake up, I am going to kill you." Really lovely missing scene from the movie where Uhura visits Kirk in the hospital.

When a Department X trigger leaves Bucky without memories of his former life—or anything at all, for that matter—Steve and Natasha have a tough call to make. Thus, James, bartender and cat-owner, who absolutely hasn't got a metal arm, and whose roommate totally isn't a secret agent, and whose blood-stained nightmares can't possibly be real, comes into being. In retrospect, it never was the best-laid of plans. Oh Steve. Oh, Bucky. I love how Steve can't stay away, because of course he can't, and how some spark of Bucky is still there, beneath all the brainwashing, but even if he never remembers, Steve's going to love him anyway. *happy sigh*

Harley visits Tony in NYC. This is both funny and adorable.

How Pepper joins the Avengers.

Pepper deals in the aftermath of the movie, and makes her choice. I could easily see it playing out this way. Oh, Pepper. ♥

you're not the phoenix in this story, you're the pyre. Tony's greatest talent was never his genius but his resilience. He crashes and burns and rebuilds from the ashes, and you're fiercely glad, fiercely grateful for that. But now they'll be your ashes, your flames, and you deserved so much more. You've been Tony Stark's assistant and his babysitter and his boss and his lifeline, but the role of martyr and monument was never one you sought. Excellent look at Pepper in the climactic scene of IM3.

In which Peggy and Howard et al. get together to found SHIELD. *sniffle*

Missing but necessary scene from IM3.

Steve takes care of Natasha when she's ill.

Pepper keeps the box on her desk and fills it with little mementoes of good things Tony has done: the opera tickets he bought her the time he actually remembered her birthday, and the tickets to the museum gala he gave her when he thought her birthday was in March. The Payless shoebox stays in the back of her closet because it was where her brother had stored his baseball cards and airline-sized tequila bottles, and she hasn't touched it since the day after his funeral, when she filled it with small souvenirs of his life. Tony never asks why she keeps his box on her desk, and that's another reason she stays: he lets her pretend she's the functional one. Really lovely, melancholy Tony/Pepper through the years.

Carol and Rhodey meet up again when they're both superheroes. Aw, I love how much they are bros in this, even when they're having sex.

"Who would win in a fight?" Darcy asks, and ducks as yet another fireball scorches past her head; she can hear and feel her hair frizzle, which is weirdly disconcerting. "Natasha or Thor?" Even the Avengers discuss it amongst themselves. This is pretty cute.

Ficlet where Carol carries Steve around when there's flying to be done. Full of wonderful teamy banter plus lovely Steve/Carol feels.

Steve gets sent in undercover to capture the Winter Soldier. He goes a little off the plan, with interesting results. Hot and heartbreaking, with a little bit of hope at the end. Oh Steve.

In those empty years, he had reacted to such displays in a variety of ways: sometimes he couldn't help but react with tears of his own, choked and burning in his throat, and sometimes there was anger when someone tried to twist it into something hateful and bitter, but there was always another layer of sadness to it. Because those people, no matter how well-intentioned, they only remembered Captain America -- the strong, handsome soldier in the newsreels and propaganda films, the carefully cultivated image that had sold war bonds and kept spirits from flagging the darkest days of war. There were so few of them left who did, or even could, remember Steve, especially the way Bucky did. Sometimes that dissonance was what drove him into hitching jags of ugly emotion, a weight of sadness-pain-loss that could steal his breath for days. Whatever HYDRA had done to trap him in this almost-ageless body, it hadn't dulled its ability to feel, no matter the source of the pleasure or pain. Bucky frees himself from the Soviets' programming and lives a lonely, isolated, empty life until the day he sees the new Captain America on the news and decides to give SHIELD a piece of his mind about not respecting Steve's legacy. It doesn't go exactly how he expects, but he and Steve get a happy ending after all. *happy sigh*

Nice look at Sherlock, pre-series. (subsequently jossed, but still nicely done.)

Pepper and Natasha, post-IM3. Yes! This!

Steph falls into the Marvelverse and teams up with Kate to fight a villain. Eggplant avengers ftw!

"This is a ridiculous holiday," Damian says. Steph swears his face lit up for, like, an instant when Cass showed up (and why does she never get that - wait, no never mind). But you'd never know that now, his characteristic scowl back in place as they traverse the super exciting secret entrance (and laugh if you like, Steph's not even kidding) to the Batcave. "What was so special about Jesus, anyway? He came back from the dead once. That's hardly impressive." Well, maybe not if you know the people Damian knows. Still, that's one severely jaded ten-year-old. Steph and Dick and Cass and Damian and 200 Easter eggs hidden in the Batcave. Adorable.

Steph and Cass team up to save Damian.

Kate and Clint, doing what Hawkeyes do.

Lovely set of post-movie scenes. Spoilers, obv.

"A drinking game?" She was almost disappointed. "What is the point of that when neither of you can get drunk?" "Passes the time," Bucky said. "Camaraderie and morale," Steve said at the same moment. "Brother," Bucky said with a snort, "you can not make drinking vodka sound patriotic." "Apparently he can." Natasha smirked and stretched out her legs. "Let's play a game that makes you think, at least, hm?" Lovely, low-key Steve/Bucky/Natasha. OT3 of my HEART.

Steve walks in on Bucky jerking off in the shower. Hotness ensues.

Joan and Sherlock pretend to be married for a case. this is a really lovely, quiet variation on the trope that felt true to both of them.

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