recs and links

This captures the Walsh/Schraeger relationship perfectly. And because Casey is an awesome partner. "Wait, wait," Casey says into her cell. "Say what you just said again." "Come on, Schraeger, keep up here," Walsh answers. "I said, I need you to do me a favor and go by that high-end sex shop over in Soho and buy me a vibrator." "That's what I thought you said," Casey sighs. She pinches the bridge of her nose and wills the CrazyTuesday headache away. Davis arches an eyebrow at her and she smiles at him, mouthing Walsh and drawing an air circle next to her temple in the universal sign language for My partner is fucking batshit. "I know I'm going to regret asking, but why exactly do I need to buy you a vibrator?"

The kingdom is in need of a marriage. She wants nothing to do with the suitors. She just wants to be free! And the crowd moans: Did the first girl Pixar movie have to be a princess movie?

“They called him the Winter Soldier,” she explains, “because he came in out of the cold. He was an American, like you. They pulled him out of a gorge somewhere. He fell off a train.” Frozen and broken and bent out of shape, because that was the Red Room’s specialty, taking broken things and remaking them (unmaking them). And Steve, who has gone perfectly still, says, “Bucky.” Steve and Natasha go on an unauthorized expedition to find the Winter Soldier. Excellent - spare and sharp and a little sweet.

"Rumour has it you created a new element for that," he said, gesturing vaguely in the direction of Stark's chest. Stark looked torn between pride and annoyance at the change of subject. "Not exactly, but close enough. Stick around and maybe I'll let you see it." Bruce weighed up his options for a moment. Take a train to somewhere very far away and hope he could lose the attention of SHIELD (not very likely); try to take a plane out of the country (also not very likely, thanks to SHIELD); steal a car, drive to Mexico or Canada and sneak across the border in the middle of the night (see: tailed by SHIELD). Or join Stark Industries as a researcher. Science or not having to work with Tony Stark? He had a contrary urge to say no anyway, but science won. Science would always win. Bruce slowly gets to know his teammates. Really interesting interactions here.

Clint gets de-aged. The rest of the team finds handling him is not as easy as they expected. Oh my god, I cried so much during this story, because it uses Clint's comics backstory and it's heartbreaking. And Natasha... Oh, Clint. oh my heart. "Because my friend, my best friend, Clint Barton, who is the world's best archer, and definitely a brave warrior, was brave enough to tell me those things, to let me know about all the people who had hurt him, and how he made something of himself anyway." Clint's, "We're friends, too?" is so, so quiet, and tremulous and it's clear that he's just waiting for this to be a particularly cruel joke. Natasha opens her mouth, then hesitates. Tony is about to kick her--and he's still in the damn suit--when she says, "No, Clint, we're more than that. We're family. You're the only family I've ever really had."

Traditional Italian recipes for pasta, sauces, breads, soups, ravioli, gnocchi, lasagna, pizza, polenta, risotto, Italian cookies, more than 300 Italian desserts such as tiramisu and cannoli, Italian Christmas recipes, and regional Italian pasta recipes.

Steve knew from the moment he saw the Vibranium shield that it was the one that belonged on his arm. It shone clean and bright, somehow unassuming without paint, a blank canvas rather than a finished piece. Howard Stark dismissed it as a prototype, then said there was no more raw material to make it again, and wasn't that a perfect metaphor for Steve Rogers, transformed from a skinny marink into a super-soldier thanks to the wonders of some lost blue serum and a whole boatload of needles? He liked the neat, unbroken curve of the shield, reminiscent of the sun hanging low in the sky, pale gold in the mornings and sultry red like a girl's best lipstick in the evenings. When he let it spin ahead of him, clearing a path, it seemed like it knew how to fly back to his welcoming hands. It looked epic in a way that the other shields, elaborately shaped and worked, simply didn't, and Steve knew the value of a powerful symbol - even if that was exactly what he didn't want to be, not when boys like Bucky had become men on the fighting fields of Europe and he still had to catch up. Not when he knew there was fight inside him, bursting for him to stand up and do his part. This is a really gorgeous, meditative look at Steve and his relationships with Peggy and Bucky.

Really lovely look at Lincoln settling into the Redverse.

While waiting for the Avengers to come pick her up during a zombie outbreak, Darcy runs into a bunch of different folks all looking to help. (And if Darcy, Wendy, and Cordy teamed up, they would RULE THE WORLD.)

Darcy gets caught up in a hostage situation and has her own little Die Hard experience.

hot and hilarious Clint/Natasha bodyswap.

"Of course I don't have to. I want to. Because life is too short and you don't think anybody has to do anything, not for you. It's going to stop, this everything for everybody else and not for you because I'm here and I will and I want to. Because it feels good and I want to make you feel good." Steve licks his lips uncertainly, eyes huge, and Bucky leans down to kiss him, tangles his hands into dark gilt hair as lips meet lips. It is a long tense moment before Steve sighs, hands that had come up to push at Bucky instead slipping shyly around him as Bucky nips at his lower lip, sucks on it and hums soft approval at the harsh sound in Steve's throat, the restless arch of his body beneath Bucky's pushing up for more contact, more friction, more. Steve's color is high, his breath short as Bucky has to come up for air, something bruised and raw and trusting all at once and it's like the world settles back into its spin because this Steve is HIS Steve. "There you are," he whispers, throat closing. "I'll take care of you, Steve. Let me take care of you." "Jerk," Steve whispers, a caress. "Take care of each other." Really fantastic Steve/Bucky set during the war. Sweet, hot, funny, and achy all at once, plus I love how Peggy is handled here.

This is a really good look at Tony and his relationship with Howard growing up, but the real best part of it is PEGGY. And the ending.

After Loki gets sentenced to exile on earth, he and Darcy slowly become friends. I enjoyed this.

sequel to Protocol 1985 - Steve and Peggy have a more intimate reunion. Lovely.

Tony sputtered into his wineglass and almost choked over the antipasta, what, not want, what was there to not want about Pepper, it was true it'd taken him a while to fit the idea of actual sex into their relationship but then he was sure the same went for her and what was the question? Oh yeah, not want. "You're crazy," he said. "I want, Pepper, I want the whole thing, everything, all of it, even the rules." Wow, did he just say that? Wow, the look on Pepper's face. Really lovely Tony/Pepper.

Darcy takes Steve to Cooperstown.

Thor reads and enjoys Lord of the Rings. This is lovely.

The captain of her guard accompanies her wherever she goes, of course, ever watchful, and she sometimes catches him smiling at her out of the corner of her eye, when he thinks she's not looking. She knows he loved her before she was ever a queen, but still, she can't help but take a girlish pride in the ever-growing respect she sees in his eyes. She's not doing this for her Huntsman; but in a way, perhaps she is. For the embittered soldier he had once been, the grieving widower, the angry drunk, the desperate lout. For the women with scars cutting down their cheeks and the children orphaned by endless wars, for the men who'd stared at her white horse with hungry eyes and the Huntsman's wife who'd fought so valiantly and so futilely against Ravenna's desires. She avenges them with every stalk of wheat, every apple and every pear, every child who no longer has to go to bed hungry. Evocative and lovely.

Five ways the Avengers found out Clint and Natasha were married, and one way they didn’t. Exactly what it says on the tin. I especially liked Bruce's section.

Really lovely and in-character backstory for Natasha and Clint.

Six times a plan the Avengers made didn't come together, but things were ok, and one time it was someone else's plan for them (and things were still ok). &TEAM;

Because how badass and awesome would these two be together? They could rule the world if they wanted to, and be hot doing it.

When they asked who the father was, Toph always had a different answer.

Clint and Natasha get sent back to 1946. They don't like it much. But everything works out in the end. Adorable.

The Avengers save the world from alien invasions with muppets and hilarity.

“She shouldn't trust me. I don't trust me,” Bucky says urgently. “I don't know what they put in my head, or if your friends at S.H.I.E.L.D. really managed to get it all out; it's like I have two sets of memories, and I can't always tell which one is real. I'm not safe to be around, not in a combat situation.” “So you don't trust yourself. That's fine.” Steve reaches out, clasps a hand over Bucky's shoulder. “I'll trust you enough for both of us.” “You—” Bucky looks, for just a moment, as though he might start throwing punches. Then the tension in his shoulders eases—Steve can feel it beneath his palm—and he lets out a weary laugh. “You really haven't changed.” He reaches out and grasps Steve in return, the fingers of his one remaining hand curling firm and fever-warm around Steve's neck. “Still the same Steve.” Steve and Bucky, slotting back into each other's lives and stumbling towards more. Oh heart. (I don't know why Bucky's eyes are brown in this story, when it's movieverse, but whatever!)

Natasha looking out for Clint in the aftermath of the movie.

Bucky plays the piano and then he and Steve have sex, hot and melancholy. (no quotation marks on the dialogue, if that's a thing that bugs you)

"Ladies and gentlemen," says Tony, and he's so fucking delighted with himself that he actually hops from one foot to the other, too gleeful to even stand still. "Allow me to present to you the world's first functioning lightsabre." UTTER AWESOME HILARITY.