Avengers (2012)/Norse Mythology: ABMTW: Sand Giving Way to Bedrock

Originally Posted: 31 January 2013
AO3 | DW

Fandom: Avengers (2012), Norse Mythology
AU: Archer, Battle-Mage, Trickster, and Warrior
Series: Clint and Angrboða
Word Count: 4262
Characters: Clint Barton | Hawkeye, Angrboða, Steven Grant Rogers | Steve | Captain America, JARVIS, Pepper Potts, Natasha Romanov | Black Widow
Ships: Angrboða/Clint Barton | Hawkeye

“Are you holding up all right?”

It’s a question that Clint would normally hear from Phil or Natasha, or even Anna. To hear it from Steve rattles him a little. “Mostly.” It’s as close to the truth as he’s willing to get. “Just wondering how this is my life. It’s kinda weird, you know?”

A lopsided smile crosses Steve’s face a moment. “Yeah. It is.” He doesn’t add anything else, just leaves it at that, and Clint relaxes a fraction.

The roof is probably not the best place to go to escape everything right now, but it’s open air and freedom, and away from everyone else. Clint knows he should go back inside soon, should go find something to eat, but after talking to Anna and to Phil, neither of whom are really quite the people he’d come to know and respect and love, if in different manners, he needed the chance to be alone.

He’s actually surprised Natasha hasn’t come up to check on him, but it’s comforting that she trusts he won’t do something stupid. Just think. Just try to figure out how all this became his life, when before it had been so simple. Go where SHIELD told him, annoy Phil with pranks and practical jokes, work on missions with Natasha – and sometimes spend the aftermath of them with her, too – and go to Anna when he could, and wrap himself up in something resembling normal for a week or four.

And perhaps this is just as simple, but he feels like he’s getting out of his depth, and needs solid ground under his feet. He’d thought he’d been getting things back together, been coming to terms with the idea, even, that Anna might be older and more than he thought she was. Then Natasha had called and the sand just washed out from under his feet.

Clint snorts softly at his metaphors, and runs a hand through his hair. Gods and aliens and superheroes and magic, and maybe zombie-Phil – though with a distinct lack of craving for human brains; it’s all just a bit much to take in, but he’ll find his way to solid footing. He just needs time, and he still, officially, has another three weeks, possibly more.

And he can find a way to cope with whatever had been done to Phil, and whatever Anna is beyond herself. Maybe, even, find a way to cope with what had happened when he’d been under Loki’s control, though that he’s not as certain about, not yet. Maybe not ever.

He can hear the door open behind him, but he doesn’t let himself turn, listening to the footsteps as the person approaches. It’s not Natasha, and Clint wonders that she hasn’t given them all warnings to leave him alone. Of course, that would assume that they’d listen, and Clint doubts any of them really would.

“JARVIS told me where you were.” Steve doesn’t come too close, just makes sure he’s in Clint’s peripheral vision before he speaks, and it says something that he can figure out where that is when he’s known Clint for little more than a week, not counting the three where their new little team had been off doing their own things.

“Is there something I need to come inside for? You could have just sent Nat to get me.” Clint keeps his attention mostly on the panorama of the city spread out before and below him. Still trying to figure out where there might be something to keep him from drowning in whatever his life has become.

“Nothing that anyone told me about.” Steve is looking at him, though what he’s looking for, Clint doesn’t have any idea. He doesn’t really know much about the others here other than Nat, save that they’d closed ranks around Phil without any real prompting. Like he’s as important to them as he is to Clint and Natasha. “Are you holding up all right?”

It’s a question that Clint would normally hear from Phil or Natasha, or even Anna. To hear it from Steve rattles him a little. He draws in a deep breath, a little more sand slipping out from under his feet, but, he thinks, maybe for the better. There’s the potential for bedrock there, if he’s willing to take the chance on this whole team; he’s not foolish enough to think that he can take a chance on one of the others without taking the entire package.

“Mostly.” It’s as close to the truth as he’s willing to get, even if he might just take that chance. They’d treated Phil as one of their own. “Just wondering how this is my life. It’s kinda weird, you know?”

A lopsided smile crosses Steve’s face a moment. “Yeah. It is.” He doesn’t add anything else, just leaves it at that, and Clint relaxes a fraction. He’s not sure what he’d expected, but that Steve doesn’t add his own experiences or one-up Clint is nice.

The silence is just as nice, someone there to listen if he talks, someone he isn’t emotionally invested in like he is with Anna or Natasha or Phil. That Steve had been the first person after Natasha to trust him after he’d been hell-bent on killing everyone at Loki’s command, if he thinks about it too much, might be why he’s the one up here, and not Stark or Banner.

“I don’t know if she’s dangerous, but I know she’s not a danger to us.” Clint can trust that about Anna, about Angrboða, even if he doesn’t know much about the glimpses of Angrboða behind Anna.

Steve doesn’t reply right away, his gaze on the city rather than on Clint. “I trust you. We all do. I don’t know her, and we don’t have the same sort of situation we did when you first came out from under Loki’s mind-control.” He’s speaking carefully, as though he’s chosing his words very carefully. “Even if she’s not actively a danger, she could still be a security risk, now. So is Coulson.”

Clint lets out a sharp breath, feeling like he’s been punched, even though he knows that until they know what brought Phil back, and how what happened to Anna is connected to it. “No one else was effected by the spell or whatever shit that was.” He wants to defend Anna, but it’s harder than defending Phil.

“That we can tell.” Steve looks at him now, the steady resolve in his expression tempered somewhat by the sympathy there as well. “I’m not going to insist we tell Fury, even though I think this might be more than we can handle on our own. But we’ve all been in the room with Coulson, and we can’t know if it’s effected us – and I know you’ll trust Anna if she says it hasn’t touched anyone else, but no one else knows her well enough to take her at her word.”

Which is true enough, and Clint doesn’t like it, but he nods anyway, taking a deep breath. Sand under his feet, but there has to be bedrock under there somewhere. Steve is trying to look out for him, for all of them, and the rest of them are doing the same. He just has to keep that in mind, and adjust to the idea that he can trust people outside Natasha and Phil and Anna.

“I can’t just not trust them.” He meets Steve’s gaze easily for a moment, before looking away again over the city.

“I know.” A smile quirks Steve’s lips a moment. “I won’t ask you not to trust them. Just trust everyone else, too?”

“Now I know why you’re up here instead of Natasha.” Clint smirks, finally turning away from the view and walking toward the door inside. Natasha wouldn’t ask him to trust the rest of them, because he doesn’t know if she actually trusts the rest of them yet, either. They’ll both have to work on it, but Clint thinks he’ll get there, at least.

Steve snorts, following him. “She isn’t taking her attention off Miss Boyd right now, and someone had to talk to you, without making it a big deal.”

“Like a debriefing with everyone?” Clint pauses with his hand on the door handle, looking back at Steve with an eyebrow raised.

Steve shrugs. “Debriefing is for after a mission. Whatever’s happening, I don’t think it’s over yet. Might be a good idea if we did get everyone together and make sure we’re all on the same page, with the same information.”

Clint tilts his head in acknowledgement. “Maybe over dinner?” Something better than the last meal he’d shared with the rest of the team, though that’s colored by exhaustion and grief. He might even cook something, since he’s not terribly familiar with the take-out available around the tower.

“I’ll cook something, and make sure Doctor Banner and Stark are there.” Steve’s offer is a bit surprising, but Clint nods anyway, opening the door so they can go inside, and downstairs.

Which leaves Clint to get Natasha, and decide if Anna or Phil should be in on the meeting – since they can’t have both of them there, not without more risk than he’s willing to take. It’s something to talk to Phil about, he thinks, and once he and Steve are down the stairs, he heads for medical so he can do that.

“Good evening, Ms Potts.” JARVIS’ familiar voice made Pepper smile as she stepped into the elevator that would take her from the garage to the penthouse. “Mr. Stark is in his lab at the moment, and Captain Rogers is currently preparing dinner. Shall I inform him that you will be joining everyone?”

“Please, JARVIS.” Since the battle over Manhattan, Tony had been talking about making sure that everyone on the team had a place to stay in the tower, even if they kept apartments or houses or whatever elsewhere. She’d been delighted to find out Steve cooked when he returned to New York, and accepted Tony’s offer of an apartment sort of space. “Is there anything else I should know?”

Tony, after all, couldn’t be relied on to tell her everything, with his focus on his projects, and his desire to protect her from some of the ugliness that happens in his world. She understands the urge, and finds it almost endearing, when she doesn’t find it utterly frustrating. JARVIS has been useful in keeping the moments of the latter to a minimum.

“I have been instructed not to inform anyone of the current status of the upper floors of the tower unless specifically requested to do so by Mr. Stark or Captain Rogers.” JARVIS sounds apologetic, though he adds after a brief pause, “Shall I have Agent Romanov meet you when you arrive at the communal floor?”

Natasha might actually tell her what has happened, and why JARVIS isn’t allowed to tell even her what’s going on. “Please, JARVIS.” She smiles up at the ceiling, though now she’s worried, because Tony’s never prevented JARVIS from informing her about anything that doesn’t directly pertain to him – though if this is about him, she’s going to have to remind him just why he’s not allowed to have important secrets that she’s unaware of.

When the doors open, Natasha is waiting, though the expression on her face makes Pepper raise an eyebrow. “Is everything all right?”

“No.” Natasha tilts her head in the vague direction of the lounge, and Pepper nods as she steps out of the elevator. “No one’s dying, though.” There’s a quirk of her lips that might normally be a smile, and Pepper returns it with a faint smile of her own.

“What went wrong, then?” Pepper settles onto the couch once in the lounge, as Natasha goes to collect a decanter from the bar, and a pair of glasses. She’s not sure what to think, with the delay in reply accompanied by the unspoken suggestion that she should have a drink to hand when given the news.

“I’m not sure.” Natasha pours a finger’s worth of what smells to be brandy, rather than Tony’s scotch, into each glass, and hands one to Pepper. “We found Phil alive a little more than a week ago, at his grave.” She meets Pepper’s gaze for a moment before looking away. “I called Clint, and he brought his girlfriend with him when he came back. She’s. Not entirely human, or something. I don’t know.”

Pepper takes a sip of the brandy, blinking a moment. She’s not sure how to react, either to the news that Phil is alive, or that there’s another not-quite-human person in the tower. So she focuses on what she is certain how to react to, though it’s not really her business.

“I thought Agent Barton and you were involved?” She raises an eyebrow at Natasha, wondering just how it worked, or if she’d just misread the cues.

“We are.” Natasha smiles a bit, and shrugs one shoulder. “It works for us. Clint needs the illusion of normal Anna gives him, from time to time.” An illusion that Natasha has a much harder time with, though she can manage it well enough on her own, as Pepper recalls. If she could call working with Tony and her normal, anyway.

Pepper is quiet for a long moment, before she asks, “How is Phil doing?”

“Alive.” Natasha knocks back her drink, closing her eyes a moment. “At least, everything that we’ve tested says he’s alive. We can’t be sure about that, not now. Even if he is, someone used to him to hurt us.”

Pepper frowns, not quite sure what Natasha’s talking about, and she’s not certain she’d be told, either, if she asked. There’s something a bit too personal there, she thinks, though she could ask Phil, if she gets a chance to talk to him.

Natasha opens her eyes again, watching Pepper for a long moment. “It peeled away something of Anna. A mask, maybe. She won’t talk about it, not to anyone but Clint. I don’t think she trusts anyone else.”

“If she’s only just met you, that’s not really a surprise.” Pepper knows she’s stating the obvious, but right now, she doesn’t know what else to say. “Give her time, and hopefully she’ll open up a little.”

Giving her a brief, wry smile, Natasha shrugs. “I don’t know if it’s really worth it for her to open up more than a little. If she’s who we think she is, she’s as old as Loki or Thor.”

“Do you mind if I tell them all of it?” Clint is leaning against the headboard of the bed, with her curled up against his chest with her feet tucked between his knees. “Everything you told me about Angrboða, even the parts with Loki?”

Anna shrugs, keeping her face buried in the crook of his shoulder. It’s calming her, just breathing in the smell of him, and for all that her internal walls are stable now, there are still moments when she feels like they’re eroding. Sand running through her fingers as she tries to build with stone.

“Whatever they need to know, to protect each other and Earth.” She closes her eyes, wondering for a moment what he’d already told them, what he’d told his friend. “If all of it will help, then yes, tell them. But if you must tell them of Loki, you must tell them of after Loki, as well.”

“So they don’t get the impression he might drop in on you and you’d let him in?” She feels the quiet snort more than hears it. “You’d probably drop him faster than I would.”

“But not kill him. He still owes me answers, and I do not trust that the stories that were told of my children are true.” She doesn’t understand how anyone could imagine treating children like that, even ones with strange talents like her children.

“At least a little bit of one is true.” Clint presses a kiss to her temple, hesitating a moment, and she Anna tilts her head back to look at him. He’s worried, staring off into the distance rather than meeting her gaze. “Hel talked to Phil before he came back. I kinda wonder if she did whatever it was that hurt you.”

The idea that her daughter would harm her makes Anna’s blood run cold, though it doesn’t hurt as much as she expects that it should. “I have been parted from my children too long, if one of them would do that.” She turns her face back into the crook of Clint’s shoulder. “If one would deliberately try to harm me.”

Clint’s arms tighten around her a moment, and Anna takes a deep breath, anchoring herself again. Silence surrounds them for several long minutes, a familiar and welcome calm that’s broken by a knock on the door.

“That’s probably dinner ready.” Clint presses another kiss to her temple before they extricate themselves from each other, though Clint does pull her close in beside him while going to answer the door.

Banner’s on the other side, a brief smile crossing his face before he tilts his head slightly toward the common area. “Rogers sent me to tell you dinner’s almost ready.” A task, Anna is certain, that could be carried out by the AI that inhabits the tower, the JARVIS who’d been one of those watching over Clint while she was unconscious.

“Yeah. Thought as much. I’ll be there in a moment.” Clint returns the smile with one of his own, easy and lopsided and not entirely true. It’s enough for Banner, though, and he walks away in the direction Clint will have to go in a moment. “You sure you’d rather be here?”

“I’ll be all right, love.” Anna leans up to press a kiss to his lips. “JARVIS will be monitoring me, and your friend is far enough away that whatever is wrapped about him cannot do anything to rip at my psyche.”

“Yeah, I know.” Clint gives her a brief smile after a moment, leaning in to press a kiss to her forehead. “I’ll bring you back a plate after.”

“Thank you.” Anna steps back, shooing him toward the door, and keeping her gentle smile up until she’s closed the door behind him. Then, she slumps against the door, closing her eyes. Silent for a long moment before she asks, “JARVIS, are you allowed to deliver a message to Coulson from me? Without first alerting anyone else to the message and its contents?”

“I’m afraid not, Miss Boyd.” The distinctly British tones of the AI sound faintly apologetic, and Anna can’t help but smile, a twist of the lips that doesn’t hold much amusement.

“It’s all all right. I’ll have someone else take the message to him later, then.” If he has spoken with her daughter, if that much of the stories she’s tried so hard to ignore are true…

She slides down the door, resting her head against her knees as she wraps her arms around them. The hurt that would not come earlier, when Clint mentioned it, hits now that she’s alone in the room, and behind it, a wash of anger – deep, cold rage that she had thought faded with the centuries. “She was my little girl, my most beloved child, Loki,” she whispered, taking a deep breath to try to contain the anger.

Anna’s not aware of the seeping, spreading frost making intricate patterns across the floor and up the walls and the door behind her. Not aware of the chill seeping into her skin until the door behind her rattles and shifts in its new frame of ice. She can hear a muffled curse, can recognize Clint’s voice, but it takes her long moments to realize why, or to think to move away from the door.

Not that it allows it to open, thick frost creating patterns across its surface, and the frame warped under a layer of clouded ice. She frowns, trying to figure out how that could happen – even when she’s been lost in the depths of her own mind, she’s never had ice appear around her that couldn’t be attributed to the season. And it’s not seiðr-woven ice, either, but real and solid as anything born of winter’s cold.

“Anna!” Clint’s still outside the door, and Anna opens her mouth to call back, only to have nothing emerge from her mouth. She’s not sure if it’s anger or fear that steals her voice, and makes her shake, or if it might perhaps be something of both. Shaking her head, she tries to shove the anger away, to draw on the calm that has been so much a part of being Anna.

The door rattles once more in the ice, it or its prison creaking with the force, and Anna takes another step away from it, wrapping her arms around her as she stares at it. She jumps when she hears the clatter of metal behind her, and whirls at the thud of someone dropping to the floor. Watching as Clint looks to the door, and then to her, his eyes widening.

“What happened?” He is studying her face like there’s something there he’s never seen before, and Anna wraps her arms a little more tightly around herself.

“I don’t know.” Her voice sounds tiny, and it wavers in a way that she doesn’t recognize, and doesn’t understand. Everything is spiraling out of control and away from the familiar; she should be able to deal with this without falling apart, and she doesn’t know why she feels like she’s losing her grip on everything. She rebuilt her mental walls, and she hasn’t been near Coulson since – hasn’t seen or felt the touch of the strange seiðr since she woke.

Clint’s arms are wrapped around her shoulders, her face buried in his shoulder, familiar scent filling her nose and grounding her, if not as well as she thinks it should. There are other voices, and a shattering sound that makes her shudder. Ice or the door, it doesn’t matter, only that it leaves an opening that Clint guides her out through, pulling her toward the elevators. She’s not quite sure where they’re going, but she follows, more docile than she thinks she’s been since she was a child.

Anna’s lack of resistance as Clint takes her down, toward the reinforced safe room Tony had apparently installed in the basement, is as worrying as the blue tint to her skin and red in her once-grey eyes when Clint had gotten to her. He murmurs to her that they’ll figure this out, they’ll find out what was done to her, but she doesn’t respond, only keeps herself nestled as close to his side as she can manage.

The safe room is comfortable enough, and Anna doesn’t object when he leaves her in there, in a room that could easily become a prison cell. He’d only agreed to the suggestion to move her down here because it’s as far away as she can be from Phil while still being in the Tower rather than in SHIELD custody – and he has no illusions that if she’s not here, SHIELD will take her into custody, if they hear about everything that’s happened in the last week and a half.

“Is she all right?” Pepper is the first one he runs into when he emerges from the elevator, her expression openly worried. She’d looked surprised when JARVIS had interrupted the barely-begun dinner with a polite report.

Miss Boyd appears to be to be experiencing a drop in body temperature, as well as some distress.

“I don’t know.” Clint runs a hand through his hair, holding back the automatic response that how could she be all right, she’s been attacked and we can’t even tell what damage it did or if it’s still happening. “Everyone else still at the room?”

Pepper nods, and falls in beside him as he heads back toward the room that had been his. Clint doesn’t think he’s going to be staying in there longer than it takes Stark to decide he’s better off elsewhere. Not that Clint really cares, so long as he has someplace to sleep. If he sleeps.

His steps slow as he catches sight of the door once more, off its hinges and out of the warped frame. The ice that lays shattered on the floor, and thick around the frame and across part of the wall. That had been surrounding where Anna had slid to the floor after he’d left for dinner, apparently.

“Barton.” Natasha’s voice makes him focus on her, and she watches him for a moment before nodding. She doesn’t really need to say anything, just the quirk of eyebrows and the hint of determination about her eyes and mouth reassuring him that they’ll figure this out, and they’ll fix it if it can be fixed.

He draws in a deep breath, returning her nod, and following her into the room, where Tony and Bruce are already talking in terms that Clint mostly ignores and pretends not to understand when he’s paying attention.

“Will you be all right?” Steve isn’t trying to contribute to Tony and Bruce’s discussion of how it’s even possible for the ice to exist and in the amount and pattern it does. He’s watching Clint instead, concern in his expression, though Clint doesn’t think for a minute that it’s all for his well-being.

“Eventually.” Clint doesn’t know if he will or won’t be, but he’ll be able to do his job, and he won’t snap, and that’s all most of them have to know. Natasha or Phil would probably call bullshit, and he can see something in Steve’s expression that says Steve is tempted to do so as well, but he doesn’t. Which at the moment, Clint is grateful for.

Steve looks away from Clint, and at the ice, a frown on his face as he thinks. “We need to try to get a hold of Thor.”

Either A pirate falls in love with a mer-person with Garak as the merman, or A pirate is caught by the authorities with Garak as the pirate. (Garashir either way.)

writertobridge:

Pirate Themed Prompts

Even though I already wrote a prompt for “a pirate falls in love with a mer-person”, I really wanted to do it again with Garak as the mer-person. I had a different design in mind and I think it’s worth exploring. c:

Warnings for drowning.

A Shadow In The Ocean

“Throw ‘im overboard!”

Cheers echoed across the deck. Julian’s breath caught in his throat. No. They were leagues away from any shore. His hands were tied behind him. He’d never survive. He’d struggle and call for help and then drown, never to be seen again. The surge of fear pulled him form the grasping hands of crew mates – former crew mates, as it was developing – but his panicked pulls weren’t enough. There were too many hands. They grabbed and pushed him to the deck railing. An small metal weight was attached to his bindings. His eyes caught the captain’s on the upper deck. He pleaded in silence. The captain turned away. And Julian was thrown over the railing. He heard the cheers and laughter of men up until he hit the ocean.

Salt water filled his nose, his mouth, his ears. His eyes stung. He clenched them tight. He pulled at the bonds that held his arms. The ropes burned. His fingers throbbed. His legs kicked. He broke the surface. The cheers were still there. He caught a breath, but only one, before the wake of his old ship, his old home, pushed him under again. He tried to break the surface again and again, but each attempted was thwarted by the wakes and waves of the accursed ocean.

He’d only bandaged the wounds of a rebel pirate’s young son. Did he really deserve this?

His legs lost their power. He dipped deeper into the darkening depths. Julian forced his legs to kick again and again, but to no avail. Without his arms and with that weight, the struggle was useless. He pulled at the binds again and again, but each attempt was slower. His lungs burned. His mouth opened. Bubbles rose from his mouth and broke the surface. He didn’t. He sank with the weight tied to his bindings. He opened his eyes. The sun glistened through the surface. It called to him. He couldn’t answer. He could only drift further down and wait for the world to fade. And it did.

Keep reading

Anti-TERF/biological essentialism resources

bonehandledknife:

irzs:

This list is a work in progress & is always growing. If you have any suggestions of additional links, please submit or add on.

What is a TERF?

Biological essentialism is harmful

Common misconceptions

Scientific studies/resources

Quote from: It’s Time For People To Stop Using the Social Construct of Biological Sex

The thing people like Williamson want to cling to the most is the idea that sex is an immutable, universal biological reality that is therefore easy to categorize. Although many are willing to call trans women women (or specifically “trans women” or “transwomen” or even “male women”), they say that that is just their gender. They argue that gender is cultural and that sex is an unchanging biological fact, and that therefore their sex is still male. This is used to support “Womyn born Womyn” spaces, create fear around so-called “bathroom bills,” disallow trans women from competing in women’s sports and even defend violence against trans women. […]

Since “biological sex” is actually a social construct, those who say that it is not often have to argue about what it entails. Some say it’s based on chromosomes (of which there are many non-XX/XY combinations, as well asdiversity among people with XY chromosomes), others say it’s genitals or gonads (either at birth or at the moment you’re talking about), others say it’s hormone levels (which vary widely and can be manipulated), still others say it’s secondary sex characteristics like the appearance of breasts, body hair and muscle mass (which vary even more). Some say that it’s a combination of all of them. Now, this creates a huge problem, as sex organs, secondary sex characteristics and hormone levels aren’t anywhere close to being universal to all men or women, males or females.

When One Gate Closes – Jedi Buttercup (jedibuttercup) – Stargate SG-1 [Archive of Our Own]

Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Stargate SG-1, Thor (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Ba’al (SG-1), Loki (Marvel)
Additional Tags: Gift Fic, Crossover, First Meetings, Pre-Avengers (2012), Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Summary:

“I am Loki of Asgard, little god. Imprison me if you dare.”

My Notes:

I’m the one who gave the prompt, and this is a delightful response to the prompt. I love the interaction between the two, I love how clearly I can hear them speaking, can see the scene as it’s been written. And just, generally, Jedi Buttercup is a fantastic writer, and does an excellent job taking disperate fandoms and putting them together in ways that make sense, and in a way that one doesn’t have to be familiar with both fandoms to understand the story. (Indeed, sometimes not familiar with either more than peripherally.)

When One Gate Closes – Jedi Buttercup (jedibuttercup) – Stargate SG-1 [Archive of Our Own]

queer is a slur, grow up

shidgephobe:

cyanwrites:

‘Queer’ was reclaimed as an umbrella term for people identifying as not-heterosexual and/or not-cisgender in the early 1980s, but being queer is more than just being non-straight/non-cis; it’s a political and ideological statement, a label asserting an identity distinct from gay and/or traditional gender identities.
People identifying as queer are typically not cis gays or cis lesbians, but bi, pan, ace, trans, nonbinary, intersex, etc.: we’re the silent/ced letters. We’re the marginalised majority within the LGBTQIA+ community, and

‘queer’ is our rallying cry.

And that’s equally pissing off and terrifying terfs and cis LGs.

There’s absolutely no historical or sociolinguistic reason why ‘queer’ should be a worse slur than ‘gay.’ Remember how we had all those campaigns to make people stop using ‘gay’ as a synonym for ‘bad’?

Yet nobody is suggesting we should abolish ‘gay’ as a label. We accept that even though ‘gay’ sometimes is and historically frequently was used in a derogatory manner, mlm individuals have the right to use that word. We have ad campaigns, twitter hashtags, and viral Facebook posts defending ‘gay’ as an identity label and asking people to stop using it as a slur.

Whereas ‘queer’ is treated exactly opposite: a small but vocal group of people within feminist and LGBTQIA+ circles insists that it’s a slur and demands that others to stop using it as a personal, self-chosen identity label.

Why?

Because “queer is a slur” was invented by terfs specifically to exclude trans, nonbinary, and
intersex people from feminist and non-heterosexual discourse, and was
subsequently adopted by cis gays and cis lesbians to exclude bi/pan and ace
people.

It’s classic divide-and-conquer tactics: when our umbrella term is redefined as a slur and we’re harassed into silence for using it, we no longer have a word for what we are allowing us to organise for social/political/economic support; we are denied the opportunity to influence or shape the spaces we inhabit; we can’t challenge existing community power structures; we’re erased from our own history.

I’m not kidding. Cis LGs have literally taken historical evidence of queer people’s involvement in the LGBT rights struggle and photoshopped it to erase us:

image

Pro tip: when you alter historical evidence to deny a marginalised group empowerment, you’re one of the bad guys.

“Queer is a slur” is used by terfs and cis gays/lesbians to silence the voices of trans/nonbinary/intersex/bi/pan/ace people in society and even within our own communities, to isolate us and shame us for existing.

“Queer is a slur” is saying “I am offended by people who do not conform to traditional gender or sexual identities because they are not sexually available to me or validate my personal identity.”

“Queer is a slur” is defending heteronormativity.

“Queer is a slur” is frankly embarrassing. It’s an admission of ignorance and prejudice. It’s an insidious discriminatory discourse parroted uncritically in support of a divisive us-vs-them mentality targeting the most vulnerable members of the LGBTQIA+ community for lack of courage to confront the white cis straight men who pose an actual danger to us as individuals and as a community.

Tl;dr:

I’m here, I’m queer, and I’m too old for this shit.

Queer was actually used positively even before the 80s; check out this post: http://mswyrr.tumblr.com/post/157498928460/monanotlisa-river-b-officialqueer

Which includes a source of queer being used in a positive way in print referring to queer being used as an identifier by the 1910s and 1920s!

markwatnae:

tygermama:

remember when you had to send in an email saying you were of legal age in order to get on some fansites?

remember when you lied about your age to get on some fansites?

remember when fic didn’t have any warnings at all?

remember when you had to ask a friend to read a fic for you to be sure you could read it safely?

I remember reading some fics at 13 and being like “whoa that was fucked up” and moving on with my life because it was my fault for reading something that was marked “mature” so I wasn’t about to call out the author for not doing anything wrong just because I was weirded out. I took responsibility for my fandom interactions and didn’t expect other people to look out for me. I knew I was reading stuff I probably shouldn’t have been reading, but I wasn’t forced into it by an adult so no one but myself was to blame. I lied about my age more times than I can remember. It never never crossed my mind to call out people for putting explicit or mature material on the internet simply because I was a minor on the internet and I stumbled across it. 

Avengers/Norse Mythology: ABMTW: Necessary Secrets

Originally Posted: 17 January 2013
AO3 | DW

Fandom: Avengers (2012), Norse Mythology
AU: Archer, Battle-Mage, Trickster, and Warrior
Series: Coulson and Hel
Word Count: 3947
Characters: Phil Coulson, Clint Barton | Hawkeye, Hel | Hela, Jörmungandr, Fenrir, Helblindi, Steven Grant Rogers | Steve | Captain America, Anthony Stark | Tony | Iron Man, JARVIS, Bruce Banner | Hulk

“Lies are a necessity at times.” Hel sighs, closing her eyes a moment before she follows her uncle’s gaze. “As is flattery. But I should hope never among close kin as we.”

She watches from her throne, the seiðr twining about her fingers that trails off into tenous threads that are all but invisible to most, but not weak for all their delicate appearance. The man Coulson had called Clint hasn’t returned to Coulson’s bedside since Angrboða had nearly been unmasked. Nearly, but not entirely, and Hel frowns slightly. Her mother had either gotten better at hiding things, or the spell hadn’t been strong enough. Or both, though she doesn’t think even so strong a soul as Coulson could have carried a heavier burden back to the living and still been able to be believed to be himself.

Sighing, Hel shakes her hand, loosing the threads that cling there, the spell fading into smoke and ash. Even if she did not unmask Angrboða, she rocked her, and perhaps made it clear to those around her she wasn’t as she seemed. With any luck, enough for them to try to call Thor back, away from Asgard. She’d been so close to achieving at least one goal when she’d lured the princes to Jotunheim, but it had fallen apart with one foolish Jotun’s ill-placed grip on Loki.

Hopefully the mortal would do better.

When he wakes up this time, Rogers is sitting beside his bed with a pad of paper in his lap, and a pencil in hand. Sketching something that Phil couldn’t see, though he knows if he asks, Rogers will show him what he’s working on. It’s something he’s learned over the last several days, with only Rogers or Stark for company, and more often the former than the latter.

He shifts, trying to push himself upright, and Rogers looks up, opening his mouth as if to offer to help before he closes it again, waiting. He’s learning, at least, though after a moment, Phil has to nod, and allow the help to get him upright. He doesn’t know how long it will take to regain even the ability to simply sit up on his own, much less the full range of ability he’d had before he had died, but it’s frustrating to have to rely on others in the interim.

“How are the others?” It’s the same question he’s asked every time he’s woken up, and Rogers always is able to answer him – Stark tends to refer him to JARVIS instead.

“Banner has taken Barton a sedative to get him to rest while someone else keeps an eye on Miss Boyd. She’s still not responding to anything, and she’s been getting colder to the touch.” Rogers rearranges the pillows behind Phil to help keep him upright. “Agent Romanov is keeping an eye on Barton while he rests, and Stark hasn’t come out of his lab since last time.”

That covers everyone who resides in the tower, at least as far as Phil’s been able to find out. There are a few others, but he’s not actually asked about anyone else, and it’s clear that if Stark hasn’t come out of his lab, Pepper hasn’t come to visit recently. It makes him curious why she hasn’t, but that’s not a question he can ask Rogers.

“None of the measures to attempt to warm Miss Boyd have worked?” Phil still isn’t sure what to think of the woman Clint had always spoken fondly of, once he’d mentioned her to Phil. His brief glimpse of her, before she’d been all but carried out of the room, hadn’t been what he expected. Anna had been taller and paler than he’d expected from Clint’s descriptions, and there’d been something else about her that he couldn’t quite name.

“No.” Rogers settles back into the chair, obviously here for the long haul again. “Though Banner suggested leaving the electric blanket wrapped around her with the others, in case whatever is bringing her core temperature down stops.”

And leaving that blanket in place would allow them to warm her up after, though that still didn’t solve the question of what mechanism or process is lowering her body temperature.

“Barton still refuses to allow her to be brought to Medical?” He’s been learning what he can about the tower, as it keeps him busy, and somewhat distracted from the lack of progress on his physical recovery.

“He threatened to put an arrow through vital organs of anyone who tried to bring her here while he slept.” Rogers looks troubled by that, but Phil isn’t surprised – and is actually rather glad that they’re keeping Anna away from here. Whatever had harmed her had occurred in this room, and there’s that something strange about her that he can’t quantify.

They lapse into silence for a long moment, while Phil mentally compiles what information he has, and tries to see if there’s any sense to be made of it yet. He’s interrupted by the door opening, and Stark coming in with a tray that Phil isn’t sure he wants to know holds, especially if Stark attempted to cook. Pepper had told him of the omelette incident, and he’d seen the sort of shakes Stark preferred when he was working.

“Don’t worry, all I did was reheat the leftovers.” Stark sets the tray down on Phil’s lap with a flourish before dropping into the chair on the far side of the bed from Rogers. “I do know how to work a microwave, despite any rumours to the contrary.”

“Only when you haven’t taken the microwave apart to improve it.” Phil gingerly lifts the cover from the plate, relaxing when he sees the lasagne on the plate looks neither burnt nor undercooked.

“Hey, that only happened once, and how did you know about it?” Stark looks both annoyed and amused, which means Phil can safely ignore him, and does so in favor of the meal that’s been brought. “JARVIS reports that Robin Hood is actually sleeping, by the way, and Bruce is reading a book while the girlfriend turns into an icicle. Everything else is still normal, which is really weird. Are we sure she isn’t related to Reindeer Games and company?”

“Nothing in her background indicates anything other than human genetics.” Phil still remembers the work he’d done to check into Anna after Clint had started to visit her. “Both of her parents are human, and they were able to provide details of her growing up, both in the form of paperwork and pictures.”

“Pictures can be altered, and documents forged,” Stark points out, tapping the fingers of one hand restlessly on his arc reactor.

“Memories are harder to forge.” Phil isn’t going to dismiss the possibility, but he never had the sense that the Boyds were lying about their daughter, nor that they’d been coached in any way. “Particularly when not only her parents, but an entire community remembers her as a child. Friends from school, old teachers, and neighbors. It would require more effort than most undercover agents would use to establish so complete a background.”

“Then why is she doing the icicle-coma thing? And why did she react the way she did when she came in here?” Stark isn’t going to let it go, probably hasn’t let it go since the incident, though this is the first time he’s actually brought it up in front of Phil. “Are we sure nothing was done to you while bringing you back from the dead?”

“No.” Phil isn’t certain something wasn’t done, but he doesn’t know how he can prove it, or even if he can prove it. All he can do is describe his encounters with Hel – he is reluctant to share those with anyone other than Clint and Natasha, however – and allow Stark and Banner to run every test they can think of that won’t harm him in the process. “But I also don’t know if there is anything that can be done to change anything that might have been done.”

Jotunheim is nearly as chill as Niflheim, and Hel smiles beneath her hood. She has lived more of her life in the ice of the realm given to her in meger recompense for the theft of all she had been, and all she could have had on Midgard, and to walk where it is warmer is always welcome.

“Queen Hel.” A familiar figure steps from the shadows, the smile on her uncle’s face as familiar as once was her mother’s. “He sent a messenger in his stead, a daughter of Asgard who calls herself Sif.”

Hel frowns slightly, before she shrugs. The plan might yet work. “So long as he takes up the offer, then it will be enough. Keep him safe, uncle.” She may not be particularly fond of her father, but he, at least, has been to Niflheim to see her, as her mother may not be. And for that, she does not want to see him fall prey to her own plans, even if his plans should be ruined by her mechinations to keep him safe.

“Should I go to Asgard, then, and bring him home if he should not come himself?” Helblindi watches her with amusement, a faint smile curving his lips. “Or shall you make other plans for him if he should decide not to take up the kingship?”

“I shall alter my plans as needed for what he decides.” Hel sighs, tilting her head back to look up at the stars above. She so rarely sees them when she’s in her realm, but she takes the time to see them when she is elsewhere. “I shall have what I wish, however I must accomplish it.”

Helblindi chuckles, and reaches out to rest his hand on her shoulder. “If ever I doubt he might be of Laufey’s line, raised as he was by Odin Child-Thief, I need only look to you his daughter to know he is.”

Meeting her uncle’s gaze with eyes as red as his, Hel smiles. “And I raised in Midgard surrounded by mortals. You flatter me, uncle.”

“I only speak the truth.” Helblindi shrugs, and turns away to look over the blasted landscape that had once been a broad and smooth plain. “It serves me better than any flattery or lie.”

“Lies are a necessity at times.” Hel sighs, closing her eyes a moment before she follows her uncle’s gaze. “As is flattery. But I should hope never among close kin as we.”

“We should both hope. Both hope, too, that secrets are not needed among kin.” It’s a gentle reminder, and oblique question.

“I shall not keep my secrets too much longer, uncle, but I must for a while yet.” Hel has seen the plans of others fall apart for sharing too much too soon, as well as holding secrets too tightly. “There are still eyes to see and ears to hear that would see and hear too much. As soon as I might, though.”

“So long as you wait not too much longer, neice.” Helblindi falls silent after that, and they do not speak until Hel must leave, and then only words of farewell. She will visit him again when she can, and perhaps by then, her father will be safely on Jotunheim, and her plans accomplished.

“Miss Boyd woke up this morning, very early.” Banner has brought breakfast this time, Stark stumbling off toward his bed half-asleep on his feet. Phil thinks Stark’s been awake for a couple of days now, and suspects Rogers switched the coffee for decaf. “Natasha’s gone to sleep, and Clint’s with Miss Boyd. She didn’t want to talk about something in front of other people.”

“About me.” Phil isn’t surprised by the rueful smile that crosses Banner’s face. “I’m not offended.” He just hopes that whatever it is that she’s discussing with Clint, Clint will tell him about, because if she knows something more about how Phil was brought back, he wants to know it.

“She wasn’t comfortable talking about it with the rest of us there – I don’t even know if she was willing to have JARVIS still monitoring the room. I didn’t ask, but I do know Tony programmed him so any of us could tell him to stop monitoring our rooms.”

That’s also useful to know, and Phil wonders if there’s a room for him that he’ll be able to tell JARVIS to leave be. If, of course, he doesn’t return to work after recovering, though with Fury not having sent an agent – nor having come himself – it makes Phil suspect he’s been permanently benched, despite his return from the dead. Retirement is not something he’d been looking forward to.

“Has there been any contact from SHIELD regarding any of this?” Now that he’s thinking about it, Phil can’t help but ask.

Banner looks down a moment, visibly uncomfortable with some aspect of the question. “We discussed it before you woke up, and Natasha sent them a report telling them there was nothing out of the ordinary at the location – just a false alarm, or maybe someone trying to play games with us.”

Which means Fury and SHIELD are theoretically unaware that he’s even still alive, much less any of the rest of it. “And Fury hasn’t attempted to hack JARVIS, and check on everything himself?”

“Not that Tony has mentioned.” Banner glances at the tray of food that Phil is slowly working his way through, likely gaging his appetite, and trying to establish some sort of baseline for the resurrected dead. “We’re hoping that Natasha’s report will be enough to keep Fury from asking questions for a little while yet.”

“Not too much longer, not with Clint back from his down-time earlier than he should be.” And especially not with coming straight here, instead of to Anna’s, and coming here on his own. Fury will want to know why Clint brought his civillian girlfriend here, of all places. “Does Stark have protocols in place to deal with that?”

“If I may interrupt?” JARVIS sounds as unruffled as ever, but Phil knows that’s part of his programming – though why he always finds it amusing that JARVIS is as calm as he himself manages to project, Phil isn’t quite sure. “Mr. Stark has established protocols for Director Fury, or and other SHIELD agents attempting to enter the Tower. Should Director Fury attempt to enter the building, a full lockdown will be instigated, with power cut from all non-vital functions, including elevators, stairwell doors, and myself.”

Which will leave them stranded and trapped, though Phil hopes Stark took that into account in case of emergency. “And the door from Mr. Stark’s balcony?”

“That entire area will be sealed off in case of a full lockdown, sir.”

Which means even if Fury does hear about Phil’s return from the dead, he’s not going to be allowed access unless Stark allows it, or Phil is well enough to leave the Tower. He finds himself oddly comfortable with that, though it still concerns him that SHIELD is being kept out of the loop.

“Is there a reason you wanted to keep my ressurection a secret?” Phil looks over at Banner, though it’s a long moment before the other man looks up and meets his gaze.

“Director Fury told everyone other than me and Thor that you were dead in order to bring the team together. No one took it well, and no one wants Fury to make you disappear now that you’re not dead.” Banner smiles briefly, one corner of his mouth quirking up. “You’re one of us. The only one of us who could bring the team together. We may be all of us damaged, but we all know how to take care of our own, and to protect our own.”

That is a sentiment that Phil hadn’t expected to hear – he’d been certain the team needed an incentive to bring them together, but he had thought himself just a convenient reason, rather than the only reason. It’s more unsettling than his encounters with Hel, and when Banner gives him a concerned look, Phil suspects he hasn’t hidden how much that means to him as well as he’d hoped.

She sits with her feet tucked under her, one hand stroking gently the fur at her brother’s neck, glaring at the sword that gleams wet with blood, driven through his jaws into the rock below him. “I would take this from you if I did not fear it would trigger Ragnorak.” Her voice is a bare whisper in the gloom of the cave. “And then all plans are for naught.”

A sigh and a whine are all her answer, but Hel has learned to listen to what is not said, to the whisper in the back of her mind that is her brother’s voice. He cannot speak as once he did, as a child, but he can still communicate to those who are his close kin.

“If I can find a way to free you that will not trigger Ragnorak, I shall. All of us, together again, if I can manage it.” Hel leans into her brother, and his tail thumps against the floor of the cave. “But not yet. There is still much to do, and I must wait upon certain plans to unfold, with the mortal and with Father.”

A soft bark that’s almost a chuckle, and another thump of her brother’s tail. Approval, and affection, and it’s all Hel has ever needed from her brother. He cannot protect her, neither of them can, so she will take on that role, and protect them both.

“Anna won’t come here.” Clint had brought lunch, and has been sitting in the chair next to Phil’s bed for the last hour or so. He can’t see a clock to be certain of the time, but he trusts his internal clock to be relatively accurate. “There’s something – she called it a seiðr weaving, which is some kind of spell, I think – wrapped around you, that pushed her off-balance.”

“Is it something that can be removed?” Phil doesn’t think that’s all of it, but he also doesn’t think Clint’s going to share the rest of it yet. Not until he’s comfortable retelling whatever story Anna told him.

“She doesn’t know, but if it can, not by her.” Clint leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I mentioned it to Stark, and he’s working on trying to make something to detect it. Might give us an idea what it looks like, maybe find a way to unravel it.”

If whatever it is that harmed Anna isn’t an intrinsic part of what brought him back from the dead. Phil isn’t sure what they’ll do if that’s the case – the choice between possibly being a danger to others and being dead isn’t really a choice he likes the idea of. It’s one that he can make, but he doesn’t want to have to.

“Is Miss Boyd all right now?”

Clint shrugs, a troubled frown crossing over his face. “Mostly.” He’s quiet for a long moment, staring past Phil at the wall. “She told me a story about someone called Angrboða, before Nat called to tell me about you. Like she was telling a story about her past.”

After the incident with Thor in New Mexico, Phil had researched everything he could about Norse mythology, and particularly Thor and Loki. Angrboða had been one of the peripheral characters, mentioned in relation to Loki and three monsterous children. What he’d seen of Anna in that brief few moments a week ago could fit with the description, for the most part.

“I knew it wasn’t just a story, but it had to have been long enough ago that it’s hard to really accept that it’s real, even after dealing with Loki and Thor.” Clint sighs, looking down at his hands. “Didn’t really sink in until she woke up yesterday. I mean, she’s still Anna, but she’s not.”

There’s something more that Clint’s not saying, and Phil doesn’t ask. Clint will talk about it now with Phil, or he’ll talk about it later with Natasha, or he’ll work it out on a range or in a gym. It’s how he’d dealt with things before, when Phil was his handler, and he doubts that’s changed in the last few weeks.

“Hel is her daughter.” Phil knows that much from his research, and he wonders if this is why Hel had taken an interest in him in the first place – if this is why she had returned him to life, in order to do something to her own mother.

“Yeah. She talked about her.” Clint runs a hand through his hair, looking over at Phil again. “She thinks Loki kidnapped Hel out of her home when she was just a girl, probably a teenager.”

“It’s possible.” Phil doesn’t think it was Loki, though, despite the sort of harm the Asgardian had done while on Earth. “There’s nothing in the mythology to tell who took her children – it only mentions that they were stolen out of her hall.”

“Loki took both the older two.” Clint’s expression is momentarily lost, then he blinks it away. “Brothers, years apart. A lifetime, I think she said – maybe thirty, fourty years?”

If she were referring to a human lifespan of the time, probably, but maybe more, if she were talking about a modern human lifespan. Phil just nods, hoping they’re right on the time frame, though why it should be important he’s not quite certain.

The water would be an intolerable pressure if she were physically present, but Midgard is the one realm she’s never been able to return to since Odin Child-Thief had stolen her from her mother. Still, this is her brother’s domain, and she can at least project a seeming woven of seiðr here.

Jörmungandr’s voice is a rumble in her head, words where Fenrir would only be able to provide impressions. /You are well, little sister?/

Hel smiles, intangible fingers tracing along the ridges of his head, curved scales that radiate the heat of the rift along which he lies. /Well and well-aided. I would wish you home, if it would be safe./

A chuckle makes the earth around him tremble for a brief moment, and one coal-bright red eye opens to look at her for a moment. /I am fond of this form, no matter that I know I might look in part as you or father. And there are few places that might accomodate my size save here./

Sighing, Hel shrugs, once more tracing the curved scales of his head. /I can but make the offer, not force you to take it up. I would that I could free Fenrir, for his fate is worse./

There is a rumble of discontent from Jörmungandr, a shift of his body that will cause earthquakes that the mortals will attribute to Midgard’s unstable surface. /His punishment for existing, and for being the child of our father. It may not be just, but do call it as it is, little sister./

/It is no punishment, it is a torture./ Hel closes her eyes, reining in her own anger at what has been done to her and her brothers. /And it is fate, for we can neither of us help him without triggering Ragnorak. Cruel fate, but it has happened before, and will again if we are not careful./

Jörmungandr sighs, a trail of bubbles trickling past Hel toward the surface. /You shall find it, little sister. You are the most free of us all, and you have the mortals you send back to infuriate the Child-Thief. If we cannot find a loophole, perhaps they will./

/Perhaps./ Hel strokes her brother’s head once more before she nods a goodbye, and lets go of the weaving.