Week 3 - Retelling a fairy tale
Jan. 15th, 2016 11:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dira posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
mcuflashmemeOnce upon a time in Week 3...
This prompt runs until about this time next week, so hie thee to the Aarne-Thompson Index!
A retelling of a fairytale.
This prompt runs until about this time next week, so hie thee to the Aarne-Thompson Index!
The Tale of the Bear
Date: 2016-01-21 12:23 am (UTC)Read the full story here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/5774011
Snippet: "...Then, one winter night as the snow drifted down upon deep banks all around the cottage, a knock echoed through the room where Steve sat, watching the fire. His heart leapt in his chest and he, likewise, leapt to answer the knock. When he opened the door, he found not a man but instead, a bear.
“Please do not be afraid.” The bear said. “I have come to ask for shelter. It is bitterly cold and I am frozen nearly to death. Please let me sleep by your fire and stay warm.”
Steve knew of the treachery of wolves, but of the temperament of bears, he had never heard. He examined the bear’s face. There was something kind about his eyes..."
no subject
Date: 2016-01-21 07:27 pm (UTC)Title: Stories We Tell Ourselves
Fandom: Captain America (Movies) Star Wars (Movies)
Characters: Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes, Rebecca Barnes, Beth Barnes,
Rating: G
Tags: A short scene from the Star Wars AU that no one asked for or wanted, this is like the happiest it gets for the next 40 years,
Warnings: blood mention, scar mention
"Steve," came a plaintive voice, dragging him slowly up from the depths of sleep. He rolled over on to his side, slinging his arm over his head to block out the sound, only noticing then that the other side of the bedroll was cold: Bucky was gone.
He blinked his eyes open enough to see the charcoal-smeared message on the wall - going up to fix the traps, back at sunsdown - before pulling the blankets more tightly around his thin shoulders and closing his eyes again. Maybe he'd get a few more hours sleep. These days it seemed like all they ever did was sit around and sleep.
"Steve," said the voice again, wobbly this time.
Steve sighed, and rolled over. "Yeah, Becks?"
Becca peered out from her huddle of blankets, eyes wide and blue and exactly the same shape as Bucky's.
"Where's Bucky?"
Steve nodded towards the message on the wall, clearly Bucky's handwriting, and looked back at Becca to see her face crumple. He softened, gathering up the blankets around him and shuffling over to where she lay next to a still-sleeping Beth.
"It’s okay," he said, pointing at each individual word and sounding out the letters, feeling Becca relax against him as she repeated him and, after a moment, understood the message's meaning.
"Sorry," she said, wiping at her nose. "I just. I don't like it when he's not here."
Me too, Steve thought.
It had been happening more and more, recently; sometimes there would be whole weeks where Steve wouldn't see him at all, Bucky leaving before he woke and coming back after he'd fallen asleep, with only short messages to explain why: he was going up to the surface to keep watch for raiders, he was going down into the deeper quarters to scavenge more supplies, he was checking different parts of the buried wreck for structural integrity. Always on his own, because someone had to stay and look after the girls, and always without telling Steve beforehand, because that would inevitably lead to an argument, and Steve was tired of arguing, tired of not having Bucky around, tired of being trapped down here in this safe dark buried place, away from the light of the suns and the dangers of raiders and scavengers.
Becca spoke up, abruptly breaking Steve's reverie. "Will you -- tell me a story?"
"Sure," Steve said. "Which one?"
Becca ducked her head shyly, voice quieting to a whisper. "The one with the sky people."
Steve frowned. "You know how Bucky feels about that one," he said, and then, remembering the empty space in the bedroll next to him when he'd woken up, "but he's not here, so. You want the pictures, too?" When Becca nodded, Steve untangled himself from the blankets and walked over to the dwindling supply of charcoal sticks he'd made with Bucky a while ago.
They'd have to make more, soon, if they wanted to keep writing messages on the wall or, more importantly, making sure Becca and Beth learned how to read and write and do numbers.
The only time he used them was when Bucky's sisters asked for pictures to go with his stories, and that hadn't happened for weeks, maybe moons now. Bucky had said it was fine, that that was one of the reasons they'd made them, but after all the efforts they went through to make their limited supplies last it had seemed wasteful to use them for something so trivial. And there was another part to it, too: the urge to draw had faded. Every time Steve glanced over and saw the box sitting there he felt an ache, the faint echo of memory that it was something he'd used to love, before, that he used to spend hours scribbling down all the pictures in his head.
Steve opened the box and picked up a charcoal stick, rolling it between his fingers. Steve opened the box and picked up a charcoal stick, rolling it between his fingers. He gripped it gently, careful not to break it, and moved towards a section of the wall permanently darkened by many wiped-away lessons and messages and drawings.
"A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away," he began, sketching out the hulking shape of the wreck they lived in, how it might have looked when it was still in the sky, large enough to blot out the suns, "there was the Empire"; with rapid flicks of his hand he surrounded it with several smaller shapes each aimed towards it, "and there was the Rebellion."
He paused, drinking in Becca's awed sigh, the same noise of wonder she made every time Steve told this story despite all the times she'd heard him tell it before before. Steve smiled, and resumed talking, the rhythm of it coming easier once he got started: the small brave Rebel Alliance fighting back against the evil Galactic Empire. Slowly his drawings expanded across the wall: huge battles among the stars, the pilots in their ships - "the bravest of the brave" - and dark cloaked figures with blades of light that had secret powers.
Sometimes Becca - and Beth, who had woken up somewhere along the way -interrupted to ask questions, the most familiar of which was "Can I be a pilot, Steve?", to which he was always sure to answer seriously, "Yes, yeah, of course; you'd be a great pilot", but mostly they kept quiet, transfixed by the strange new worlds coming to life before their eyes, so different to anything they’d ever known.
+++
By the time Bucky got back, the first sun had set a while ago and, judging by the faint orange-blue warmth reflecting off the vast metal expanse of the tunnel to the surface, the second sun was now dipping below the horizon too.
Steve's throat was dry, his words beginning to scrape against his tongue as he continued to talk, his hand aching sharply as he put the finishing touches on the last drawing. The wall was covered with them now, Bucky's message from this morning long since wiped away.
Becca and Beth had lapsed into silence, half-asleep after sitting still for so long. Every so often Becca's head would droop and her head would jerk back up, blinking sleepily. The faint clatter of metal on metal had her waking up properly, the only warning they got before Bucky was suddenly there, face flushed from both the suns and the exertion of making his way down from the surface, brushing sand from the folds of his pale clothing.
"Bucky!" Beth and Becca chorused, getting up and running to greet their brother like they hadn't been dozing just a few seconds ago.
"Hey, hey," Bucky said, grinning as they crowded around him, "give a guy a second."
Quickly, he pulled the goggles from his head and eased the heavy pack from his shoulders before stooping down to pick up Beth, settling her on his hip and reaching out to ruffle Beth's hair.
"Hey, Steve," he said warmly, turning to where Steve was hanging back out of the way, and there was a brief moment as their eyes met that he looked happy, almost. Then his gaze slid over Steve's shoulder, to the pictures on the wall, and his face changed.
"What's this?" he asked, but his faint smile no longer reached his eyes.
"I, um, asked Steve to do it," Becca cut in before Steve could say anything. "I wanted to hear about the, um. The sky people." She trailed off, voice quiet. "I'm sorry, Bucky."
"Hey, no," Bucky said, crouching down. "It's okay, don't apologise," he continued, but when he pulled her in for a one-armed hug his brow was furrowed.
After a few moments he pulled back, setting Beth down again and stepping out of the room, heading for the room at the blocked-off end of the corridor where they kept their supplies and spare clothing. Steve followed.
When they were out of earshot of the girls, Bucky spoke.
"I thought we agreed not to talk about that anymore," he said quietly.
"No," Steve countered, hackles rising, "You said we shouldn't talk about it, and then walked out before we could talk it through."
"Because I knew you'd be like this about it!" Bucky shot back, stepping into the supply room and pulling his shirt over his shoulders, exposing lean muscle, broadened by days on end of phsyical labour.
Steve turned his back, and took a deep breath, barely audible over the sound of water filling the bucket as Bucky stripped down. "Look, it's not a big deal -- it's just a story, Buck."
"We both know that's not true." Bucky soaked a cloth in the water and began to wipe himself down in quick efficient motions.
"It is for them. They don't remember--"
"And apparently neither do you," Bucky accused, cutting him off as he dried himself off and pulled on some pants. A noise of anger bubbled up Steve's throat: of course he remembered. The sight of dark shapes flying in the sky overhead as their village burst into flames was a difficult one to forget.
"It was the Empire," Steve said firmly. "And if we'd stayed around longer, the rebels would've found us, and--"
Without warning Bucky slammed his fist against the wall, sending a hollow metallic echo shuddering along the walls around them. Steve flinched at the the violence of it, too shocked for words as he turned around in time to watch Bucky do it again, and then a third time, leaving a smear of blood where his knuckle split. By the time he stopped he was breathing heavily through his nose, his face flushed and his eyes bright. He brought his hands up - mismatched, now that one of them was bloodied - and scrubbed them over his face.
"Damn it, Steve," he said, voice muffled, but he didn't move away when Steve stepped closer and reached out, putting a careful hand on his shoulder.
"Buck, Bucky, I -- look, I'm sorry for bringing it up.
"You want to join the Rebellion, huh?"
"I want," Steve said, hesitating as he tried to figure out how to put the dull ache in his chest into words, "to be useful."
Bucky turned to look at him. "You are useful. You're good with the girls, good at teaching them, good at taking care of them -- of us. I mean," he paused, "your cooking skills could use some work, but--"
He was interrupted by Steve's mock-indignant "Hey!", and smiled for a moment, before his face grew serious again.
"But if you really want to go, then," Bucky gestured to the small packs lining the shelves, unearthed from the parts of the wreck they could reach, "we've got supplies to last you to the nearest town, and money to get you transport, so--"
"No," said Steve, stopping him short. "I want to stay here. With you and the girls," he added. "Okay?"
Bucky gave him a long look, like he was searching for something in Steve's eyes. Whether he found it or not, Steve didn't know.
"Yeah," Bucky replied after a moment. "Yeah, okay."
And that was the end of it, Steve would have thought, if not for later: the two of them curled up in their bedroll - the girls already asleep, Bucky’s hand bandaged - and the rustle of blankets as Bucky turned to him, voice barely louder than a whisper as he said, quietly: "I want you to stay here, too", and then the quick warm brush of skin as Bucky leaned in and pressed his lips to the scar at the corner of Steve’s mouth, before turning over and going to sleep.
Steve lay awake for a long time.
Okay, I am aware that this is a very, very loose interpretation of the prompt, in which I chose to view 'fairytale' as a story of magical/mythical events (at least in terms of how Steve himself perceives the story and the way he frames it in the retelling to Bucky's sisters), which in this case does also happen to be true, though none of them know that yet. I did debate not posting this, but since technically I did write it in response to the prompt, I figured I might as well put it here anyway.
Tumblr username is the same as here (recently moved from neenaroo)!
no subject
Date: 2016-01-22 04:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-24 01:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 02:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-24 01:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-27 09:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-28 05:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-22 12:39 am (UTC)Fandom: Captain America (Movies)
Relationship: Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson
Characters: Sam Wilson, Jody Casper, Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes
Rating: G
Summary: Sam's nephew wants Sam to tell him a story. Sam comes up with something that may or may not be based on a true story.
This is more inspired by fairytales than a retelling of a fairytale, but it was a lot of fun to write.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 01:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-22 02:41 am (UTC)Author: HobbitSpaceCase/TrashMouse
Summary: A retelling of The Little Match Girl starring the Winter Soldier. It is snowing on Christmas Eve, and Bucky wanders the streets of Brooklyn alone, until he steals a box of matches and decides to light them. With the lighting of each stolen match, Bucky remembers.
http://archiveofourown.org/works/5783242
How Bucky Barnes Stole The Sun
Date: 2016-01-22 04:53 am (UTC)Snippet:
He opened the wrong door and a rich golden light spilled out, thick as honey in the darkened hall, and he was nearly blinded by the brightness of it all.
Squinting into the brilliance bursting from the barely-open door, Bucky tried to work out what he was seeing. A slip of a man, almost a boy, really, ivory and gold, glowing from within. Cloud-white skin, fire-yellow hair, eyes as blue as the sky on the clear summer mornings Bucky still remembered from childhood, back in the days before the world went dark, when his days were carefree and endless and full of games with his best friend—
“Stevie?”
Read the whole thing here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/5784133
no subject
Date: 2016-01-22 10:37 am (UTC)Title: i might always be a sleeper
Author: lostinthefire
Summary: It's not always like the stories say it is but there's still a bit of truth all the same.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-22 02:18 pm (UTC)Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Daredevil (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Matt Murdock/Franklin "Foggy" Nelson
Characters: Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, Matt Murdock, Mother Gothel
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale
Summary: Foggy's trapped in a tower, there is no prince to his princess, and he's done waiting for his story to be written by someone else.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-22 09:35 pm (UTC)Fandom: Captain America
Characters: Natasha Romanov, Bucky Barnes
Additional Tags: Captain America: Civil War Speculation, Canon-Typical Violence, Bucky Barnes in a cage, Natasha Romanov in a glass cage of emotion, Never Pity A Man
-
He’s still wearing the clothes they caught him in. A long sleeved red shirt, a pair of dark jeans. They’ve taken his jacket, and his shoes and socks. His bare feet are pale, with little smatterings of dark hair across the top of them. His toes are long, and incongruously human looking. Even after years of knowing Steve, she’s still never been sure he is - human, that is - and standing in front of the thick glass her memories get tangled up with the last time she did something like this. But that monster had stood fully clothed, and she’s seen this one chained more often than not.
Link on AO3.
The Beast- by Naomi Lasenby
Date: 2016-01-23 01:43 am (UTC)Loki/Natasha as Beauty and the Beast
Set in first Avengers movie
Mind control
(I haven't really learnt tagging yet)
“What will you do if I spare him?” Loki stood in the middle of a glass chamber, staring down the assassin with curiosity.
“Not let you out.” Natasha quickly interjected.
“No, but I like this. Your world hangs in the balance and you bargain for one man.”
She lifts a small shrug. “Regimes fall every day, I tend not to weep over them, I’m Russian. Or I was.”
“Then what is it? Is this love, Agent Romanov?”
“Love is for children, I owe him a debt.” the words echo from her lips, a shadow of a mantra from long ago.
“It’s really not that complicated, I’ve got red in my ledger, I’d like to wipe it out.” She continues.
“Can you though? Can you wipe out that much red? Draykovs daughter? The hospital fire?” the memories flood back to her, as they often do, but she remains calm on the exterior, not betraying her raised heartbeat. She’s done this many times before, used her past to get information. Despite her cold exterior, Agent Romanov has never forgotten what she's done.
“You think saving a man no more virtuous than yourself will change anything? This is the basest sentimentality! This is a child at prayer!” his magnetic voice swells with the force of his words, ringing loose the message she’d heard over the phone two days ago- ‘Bartons been compromised’ - and she raged with her brain to keep on point. Suddenly he’s smacked his fist agaisnt the glass of the cage and is glaring hungrily right at her.
“..this is my bargain you mewling quim!” Loki shouts then adds, barely above a whisper, “Unless you want to trade places with him”.
‘Bartons been compromised’... ‘love is for children’... ‘red inmy ledger’...... “owe him a debt’.. echo loud in her mind. She knows what she came here to do, but she is still reminded of what she owes the man in danger. The act of a tear comes to her eyes, a simple bodily manipulation, and before she pretends to compose herself Natashas eyes meet his; green, quiet and burning and her head tilts in the smallest of nods. She'll get what the team needs, then attend to her ledger.
“You’re a monster”, she chokes out, the final ploy.
A smile flickers across Loki’s thin lips and he cackles.
“Oh no, you brought the monster.”
Her brain kicks back into gear. Banner.
The floor falls out from under her...years since she last lost her footing.
She cowers amid the wreckage..... years since she’s shied from the fight.
Barton..... her debt.....
She meets him on the walkway. He fights back immediately, eyes unnaturally blue and unseeing, lost in a world beyond her. Their fight is vicious, swings and blows and kicks and bites ingrained in the both of them beyond conscious thought. Natasha kicks, launching herself out of the way of his swinging blade and Barton gets propelled into the hand rail with a dull thud. He shakes his head, the blue fading slightly from his eyes, replaced by a flicker of recognition.
“Natasha?”
“Take me.” she whispers and throws her fist into his face.
She is vaguely aware of her body’s movements as she climbs into the quinjet next to the man in green, the sceptre glowing blue in his hand. She is barely noticing the words that spill from her mouth as he questions her about her team. Her body is not her own, and her mind..... her mind.....
Her hand runs down the smooth wooden bannister as she descends the stairs. The room is old, stately, formal yet domestic. Something blue glows from within the display cabinet but she doesnt have time to look closer, her attention is caught by the clatter-clack from the nearby room.
He beckons to her, the tall man in green, and leads her through the stately manor where she grew up. Only this time instead ofother candidates training within the rooms she sees his minions – men in black combat gear, scientists in white coats, an elderly man with white hair and a dress shirt, all eyes unnaturally blue.
Glowing behind them is a long slender staff with a blue orb, pulsating. She steps closer to try and make out its shape, but as she comes within reach of the glass around it, the room behind her empties of scientists and goes silent. Her nerves react instantly to the person who comes up behind her, she ducks low and gracefully slides out of his reach just as she had done many times before. She knows where she is now. Second training room, first floor, Red Room Academy. The mat beneath her now bare feet and the targets on the wall are as familiar as the instructor she’s sparring with. Gregov. She uses her smaller stature and flexibility to slip under his long arms, putting her now behind him and she leaps for his shoulders. The exertion barely causes her breath to pant. She could do this all day. He spins, artfully grabbing the underside of her thigh and turns to throw her to the mat, gathering his force. She uses the raised help to her advantage and wraps her legs around his head, diorientating him. Thrusting him to the floor, she rolls off and away, keeping low to watch for his next move. Gregov takes a staff off the far wall and points it at her, for the next type of combat training. The red-head smiles and turns the the cabinet behind her where she saw a spear of some kind of earlier. But as she reaches for it a hand grasps her wrist still and the training room is filled with sciensts again. tThe tall man in green has a tight hold on her wrist and fiery look in his eyes.
“Don’t touch that!” he snarls. He lets her pull her hand free.
“We have work to do.”
The red-head stood in front of a window, the tall man in green close over her shoulder. He waved his hand in front of the glass and the image shimmered. It cleared to reveal stars like none she had hever seen before. Moving between the constellations were creatures swimming in armour, and a thousand hungry eyes on faces with beaks and bodies with claws for hands.
“This is my army,” he whispered, “they will will me the Earth. And no one, not even your friends can stop them.”
He waved and the glass shimmered again. She saw the man in red don his armour and the man in blue take up a shield. When the man in black with a quiver on his back flicked his bowstring, something hummed inside her. A debt. A ledger with a little less red. The sceptre in the man’s hand glowed a little brighter, and she forgot it all again.
The assassin stood atop the tower and watched the man in green fight the man he called brother, the scientist a crumpled heap next to the device. She watched the man the green, awaiting his need of her, and when he stabbed his great brother and dove from the tower, she knew it was now her turn. She came forward, leaping onto the back of the great man, faltering his intent to follow the man who commands her.
“We are not your enemies, Natasha, try to think!” the great man bellows, an earnestness in his eyes.
He lifted his hammer to protect his face, deflecting the last of the bullets from her gun. Seeing the red-head toss her empty weapon aside, he swung the hammer to the ground, a crack opening in the floor of the balcony, careful not to blast it too close to her. Her eyes cast about for a weapon as he raised the hammer again. The corner of her eye saw the curve of the 3 sceptre, left on the ground when the man in green lept from the tower. Her hand reached for it and her mind was assaulted by images as the sceptre tried to keep her at bay.
- The man in green, his fist tight around her wrist-
- The red room academy, training room mat under her feet –
- The man with the bow, eyes blue, mindlessly fighting her-
- The man in green slamming his fist against a wall of glass, offering her a bargain-
- The stars swimming with an army-
- The sceptre glowing blue-
The light is almost blinding as her fingers graze the cold metal and then in a rush....... he mind was her own again .
The man with the hammer, hair golden and gleaming armour, she remembered is called Thor, and he looked at Natasha and smiled as she looked back at him with recognition. A scream pierced the air and they looked up to see Loki, atop a flying chariot, cursing losing his hold on the assasin. The sceptre in her hand glowed the same blue as thedevice behind her ans suddenly Natasha knew what to do. Giving a quick nod to Thor, he spun the hammer by his side and launched himself towards Loki, and Natasha approached the device.
“I can close the portal.” Natasha called, the piece still in her ear, crackling with the sounds of the battle below. She grinned up at the chariot, and its attempts to dodge the thunder god, and she whispered,
“You thought you were the beast of this story, didnt you?” and plunged the tip of the spear home.