After a certain point, she stops asking about the scars. She stops asking about the divots in his shoulders, the white lines peeking through the sunburn he got when they went to the beach last weekend. She stops asking, so he stops having to make up lies or shrugging and saying I was too young, I don’t remember. Instead, she makes up her own little stories behind each one—the one on the side of his left knee he got from falling off a cherry red bike when he was six rather than having been gouged at by an angry ghoul, the ones in the creases of his elbows come from participating in blood drives in high school rather than the too

Watch the night go up in smoke Dean forgets the tape’s sitting in the deck until it blasts through the speakers and startles Sam back into consciousness. His hands reach up to clench around nothing as he gives a shocked cry that probably sounded more like an elephant having a conniption and Dean is once again socked in the gut with the realization that his brother is not totally, one-hundred percent there. He curses and the Impala swerves minutely, churning up gravel at the side of the road and then spitting up dirt by the time he manages to force it onto the shoulder. They end up parked haphazardly and he would’ve been more con

Strawberries & Shawarma —Chapter Eleven: "We need a plan of attack!" —Steve Rogers The Prince of Thunder calmly awoke that morning with a wall of windows gently filtering in sunlight and let out a slow breath before grinning to himself and rolling out of bed. Literally. Like just-fell-off-the-bed-and-hit-the-floor rolled out of bed. That put a bit of a damper on his mood, but Thor wasn't going to allow himself to be so easily swayed, instead picking himself up off of the floor, nodding to the ceiling in response to JARVIS' inquiry of his well-being and decided that it was presumably more appropriate to don some clothing before

Strawberries & Shawarma —Chapter Ten: "Not gonna be that subtle." —Pepper Potts If she was perfectly honest with herself, there was really nothing in the world that Virginia Potts despised more than paperwork. Well, there were numerous other things she really wasn't that fond of, but spending the past three hours sorting through a heaping stack of it had never really been the bane of her existence. It made it more bearable to say that it was all Tony's fault. Pepper found herself re-reading the same paragraph for the umpteenth time before she finally chanced a glance up at Natasha seated opposite her on the divan with her own

all in good faith ch. 1: the theogony "You're kidding me," was the first thing Clint Barton said, plopping himself down in the briefing room and sprawling himself across his seat as best he could. Not bothering to stifle a yawn and the disgruntled mask he wore, he slumped back against the headrest as the only thing his tired mind could focus on was how long he'd been going without sleep and how pointless this current discussion was. His superior, Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division—they really did need to work on that mouthful of a name—Agent Phil Coulson returned the annoyed look he was receiving with one th

Strawberries & Shawarma —Chapter Nine: "At this point I doubt anything would surprise me." —Steve Rogers Natasha had briefly caught a discussion about tampons coming from the men in the other room and decided to save her sanity and go check on Clint. It was just part of her routine, she told herself. She just needed to keep an eye on him because he was still unstable after everything with Loki and it was nothing more than that. Thor's remark yesterday had been nothing more than one of his half-brained assumptions (alright, perhaps not so half-brained, but damn his observations) and it had meant nothing. The master assassin was contempla

Strawberries & Shawarma —Chapter Eight: "Not a great plan." —Tony Stark Tony Stark was in the kitchen. As if that wasn't already bad enough, Tony Stark was in the kitchen trying to cook. Steve watched him bop around a hot stove poking at the eggs sizzling away in a pan with equal parts apprehension and dread. He hardly withheld the urge to wince when Stark shoved his spatula beneath the yokes with an ungodly scraping sound before he promptly flipped them to expose their browning underbellies. Now Steve might not have possessed a great deal of finesse himself when it came to the kitchen, but this was just. . .sad. Tony had alre

Strawberries & Shawarma —Chapter Seven: "I think we need to time-out." —Agent Phil Coulson Clint had gone to bed at nine-thirty and was still lying awake at one in the morning, staring at the ceiling with nothing but his mind and broken images of such terrible things to break the monotony. For the third time in the past five minutes he twisted onto his side—his back didn't overly appreciate the maneuver—in an attempt to find a more comfortable sleeping position and swiftly punched his pillow as hard as he damn well could. In his humble opinion, the thing was too fluffy and soft and squishy and cuddly and nice. The who

Strawberries & Shawarma —Chapter Six: "What just happened? Please tell me nobody kissed me." —Tony Stark The look on Tony Stark's face was rather priceless. A bit more than just a little terrified, but still priceless. In all honesty, Natasha had never seen such a mortified expression on the billionaire—granted, he'd looked none-too-thrilled with the palladium that had been poisoning him the first time she'd met him, but she had to admit that he possessed a pretty good poker face since he'd only ever appeared to her more uncertain than terrified. But that was nothing compared to the paled features of the man that had once