So, first, the post I’m responding to is here, and I’m taking my own advice and not potentially being an ass on someone else’s post.

(To summarize the other post – OP is pointing out that being mentally ill is not an excuse to stop doing things like showering, and sometimes you just need to take a shower. First comment in the thread is someone being an asshat. OP responds and is justifiably upset, and pointing out that they’re talking about things they learned in therapy for their own mental illness struggles. Another person is responding in support of OP after that.)

DBT (dialectical behavior therapy) can be awesome for those it works for, and for those it does, YAY, GO YOU!

However, it doesn’t work for everyone. Sometimes because there’s a chemical imbalance that needs store-bought neurotransmitters to help the brain work right, and no amount of will power or behavioral therapy will fix that.

Sometimes because of co-morbid conditions that make it exponentially harder to do things because of other symptoms – like executive dysfunction or sensory issues.

Sometimes because of chronic physical illness that makes doing things difficult because of limited mobility, chronic pain, chronic fatigue, or other physical limitations.

And telling those people to just get up and do the thing, especially a thing like a shower… isn’t helpful. It can make them angry and want to lash out because they know that it’s not just depression that is keeping them trapped, and limiting their ability to do things. (Also, yes, some people are just asshats, mental health issues or not.)

That doesn’t mean it’s right to actually lash out like the first comment on the other post, especially in a relatively public forum like tumblr. It doesn’t mean they need to tear down people who can benefit from it. And I wish more people were able to remember that, and if they need to scream about that, to do so on their own post, or even just save it to drafts and return to it later, and decide if they really think it’s still a good idea or it’s better to delete the post.

(Do not ask how many times I’ve wanted to tell someone they’re wrong and saved a draft and deleted it, because after thinking about it, I can go “well, it’s not something at all useful for me, but if it’s good for them, go them, I’m going to go be over here ignoring that and doing my thing”.)

And you know, to go to the original post’s example of a thing to “just do” when you’re fighting brain weasels – there are ways to keep clean that do not involve going through the momumental effort it can be to get a shower, and all the steps they take.

Wet-wipes, if you aren’t allergic to the contents*. A small bowl, a jug of water, and paper towels. Wet your paper towel in the bowl, wring it out, use that. You don’t have to get out of bed to wash your face and hands (under arms, under boobs if present, genitals, ass, and feet). Throw paper towel away. Repeat with as many paper towels as you need.

If you have enough energy and motivation and executive function to do so – warm water from the tap and a wash rag. Same routine. Clean without all the fuss of a shower. Maybe at some point you can get yourself worked up to a shower, and if you can’t, that’s still ok. You’ve still got options for keeping clean

Clean clothes – shelf next to your bed. Underwear at the very least. Other clothes if you’re up for that.

Set a timer or alarm for doing things if that works. Enlist a friend or several to remind you about one or another thing. (And if you can, help them with things they need to remember.)

*I can’t, because I cannot find wet wipes I’m not allergic to one thing or another in them.

It’s not just about training your brain. It’s about understanding yourself, and knowing when this sort of thing will work, and when you need to try other things. It’s about knowing that not everything works for everyone, and going “just do the thing” to people for who that doesn’t work for trying is not helpful. About knowing that going “well, fuck you, that doesn’t work at all” isn’t helpful either, because rude and also, just because it doesn’t work for you doesn’t mean it doesn’t work for others.

(And, for anyone wondering – depression and anxiety that stem from poorly diagnosed and untreated ADHD, and several years of bullying both at school and from relatives when a child, some of which was very badly handled and none of which has been professionally addressed because access issues. Chronic pain and other physical issues on top of that, again, not well-treated because access to decent medical care is crap. And do not get me started on accessibility issues of the property.)

violent-darts:

violent-darts:

This is one of the great genuine puzzles to me. 

Your god LITERALLY GAVE YOU A LIST OF WHAT GETS YOU INTO HEAVEN. Your god. Incarnate. In so many words. Very specifically. Why is this list not the absolute centre-piece of everything you talk about?

Like I get not actually following it because he’s pretty demanding and that’s some difficult shit, but shouldn’t you at least be paying lipservice to his DIRECT INSTRUCTIONS? He came down into a body and got horribly killed just so he could tell you these sermons! Why do you spend so much time ignoring them?! 

@rakhil11: #i used to be like this but then i started noticing how much i just believe people when they say things#it’s not fair to judge believers as harshly as so many atheists do

I’m emphatically not an atheist. Like so far from an atheist you can’t see atheism from where I live even with a telescope because of the curvature of the earth. 

The reason it baffles me is as a theist … whose patrons don’t actually give point-by-point explanations of How To Be A Good Person. As a theist who does not in fact get a “when the End Comes, I will divide the sheep and the goats and the sheep will be like X and the goats will be like Y.” 

Mine very, very rarely give me straightforward, clear, direct instructions. There’s lots of reasons for this, most of which are part of why I’m theirs and not in fact a monotheist in one of the more well-known religions. But okay, so you do believe that this is your incarnate god, who came down to earth explicitly to reunite with you and, via his incarnation, tell you how to act. As a believer (albeit in different gods), the true lack of centring of that part of the holy text baffles me. 

This is not me dismissing their “invisible friend” as made up, or any of the other things that truly, an obnoxious kind of atheist does tend to do – because I find that attitude just as obnoxious and offensive as most monotheistic religious believers do, because I myself am faithful. 

This is while extending the fully charity and good faith of assuming they really are believers, and that they’re not just falling back on the culturally-dominant way of beating up on other people. Like, okay: I am accepting your faith as being as real as mine is, that you truly believe in and love and devote yourself to this deity – 

– so why for the love of, indeed, that god do you spend so much time ignoring his direct, explicit instructions for what he wants you to do? And not just failing to live up to them (they are a very high bar, it’s a hard thing to live up to), but outright ignoring them? 

It’s on that level that it’s baffling. On the cynical materialistic level, it makes perfect sense. It’s on the level that says okay, speaking as a believer to a believer: why the fuck do you spend so much time ignoring your god? 

Pirate prompt 4 with Garashir, please. I need more merfolk in my life!

writertobridge:

Pirate Themed Prompts

Merfolk are amazing and deserve more love, tbh.

Now, I immediately thought of making Garak the merfolk here because he’s the non-human in their relationship, but I think there’s a cool element with Julian being the merfolk and Garak being the pirate. It fits well with them. Plus, imagining Julian as a merfolk with purple, teal, and silver scales and a bright smile is just swoon-worthy.

This starts dark, but I promise it’ll get lighter.

A pirate falls in love with a mer-person.

Beyond Scales

It put up a fight when the men were putting it in the tank.

Garak couldn’t say he wasn’t impressed. Especially after the mostly teal tail fin landed with a graceful thwap across one of his men’s faces and sent him sprawling to the ground. But it wasn’t enough. It couldn’t have been. The netting was too tight. It’s arms had no freedom. The merfolk didn’t have legs. So it was sent tumbling into the small tank, sealed away from the sea, ready to be sold to the highest bidder at Tain’s auction house on Cardassia’s mainland. A pity.

They had a two day journey back to the mainland. Garak intended to spend most of it with their prize. Though this men seemed loyal on the surface, he knew they couldn’t be trusted with a merfolk. Too many of them had fallen in love with prizes in the past. It wasn’t worth the risk.

The first few hours, though, Garak cataloged the capture and the fight, then wrote down the specifications the teal tailed delight. Male, tan, brown eyes, black hair, slender, fierce, would likely escape if given the chance. Then he placed the notebook aside, stretched, and ventured to the holding room the tank was in. Inside the room, he heard voices. One was loud. It belonged to one of his men.

“You think you’re so smart, don’t you?” the man asked, “Quoting books that don’t even belong to your people. I bet your people don’t even have books. That’s why you’re all getting caught and being sold off.”

Another man chuckled. Garak stepped in. The two men looked at him, sneers across their faces.

“Careful with this one, Cap’n,” the man from before said, “It reads.”

Keep reading

Radio Free Monday

copperbadge:

Good morning everyone, and welcome to Radio Free Monday!

Before we start, a quick note because I’ve had a handful of issues with this lately – if you want to bring a cause to my attention the best way to go about it is to fill out the Radio Free Monday form (also linked from the sidebar of my tumblr page). It’s not just that I might not see a post tagged to me or that it saves me a ton of time, but also that it makes sure I get the information I need to describe the situation, link the appropriate pages, and name and gender people correctly.

The form doesn’t ask many questions, doesn’t pull any metadata (literally it doesn’t even record the date you entered the information), and is as anonymous as you want it to be – there are options for complete or partial anonymity for the person submitting the item.

Ways To Give:

prismatic-bell linked to a fundraiser for Congregation Beth Yeshurun and their attached day school, which were flooded by Hurricane Harvey, which hit two Jewish neighborhoods in Houston especially hard. The families are currently attending Temple Brith Israel, and the children from the day school have had to scatter among several schools temporarily. You can read more about the damage here, reblog here, give directly to the rebuilding fund, or purchase toys and learning materials or replacement books for the school directly through Amazon.

reesa-chan is preparing for surgery and gathering supplies to make recovery go as smoothly as possible, but they’re coming up short on a few things and surgery is looming. They have a Amazon Wishlist available here and have their paypal giving page here.

Anon linked to a fundraiser for poplitealqueen, who is trying to help her mother get some experimental medical treatment which might allow her mobility without the use of a wheelchair. You can read more and reblog here (including links at the top to Patreon and Ko-fi) or give directly to their Ko-Fi here.

quinfirefrorefiddle linked to a fundraiser for niines9s, who is trying to escape an abusive home and needs funding for housing after graduation. They are offering commissions and also taking donations; you can read more, reblog, and find paypal information at their post.

Anon linked to news about a Christian group, Faithfully LGBT, who are fundraising to aid transgender people with gender-confirming surgeries as a way of atoning for religious discrimination against transgender people. You can read and reblog the story here or give directly to the Tithe Campaign here.

rilee16 is struggling to cover medical expenses after two head injuries last year, and has a fundraiser running to cover living expenses, previous medical bills, and a recent rent increase. You can read more and help out here.

News To Know:

Anon linked to a post called Saving Your Grades From A Mental Health Crisis, which is about what to do if you’re in college and dealing with mental illness.

And this has been Radio Free Monday! Thank you for your time. You can post items for my attention at the Radio Free Monday submissions form. If you’re not sure how to proceed, here is a little more about what I do and how you can help (or ask for help!). If you’re new to fundraising, you may want to check out my guide to fundraising here.

Avengers/Norse Mythology: ABMTW: The Power of Kings

Originally Posted: 8 January 2013
AO3 | DW

Fandom: Avengers (2012), Norse Mythology
AU: Archer, Battle-Mage, Trickster, and Warrior
Series: Loki and Sif
Word Count: 4804
Characters: Loki (MCU), Sif (MCU), Frigga (MCU), Thor (MCU), Fandral, Hogun, Volstagg

“You said this would repay my debt!” Sif visibly reins in her temper, though she still glares at him.

“Did I?” Loki stands, stalking toward her. “Are you so naive as to think one little message delivered – and without telling me the reply in full – would clear you of that debt which you owe me? Would absolve you of the taint of treason, for which the punishment is death should it be brought before the court?”

The knock on his door is entirely expected, and Loki smiles to himself where he sits in front of the fire. He hadn’t been entirely certain Sif would return, but he had been certain, at least, that if she returned, she would come first to him. Seeking to provide him with information, to repay a debt he has no intention of letting her settle so easily. Allow her to think it might be settled with this, but he can find more uses for her than to simply deliver one message.

“You may enter, Sif.” He doesn’t move from his chair, watching as Sif opens the door just enough for her to enter, a frown on her face as she looks over toward him. She moves to take the other seat, and he shakes his head. “I did not invite you to sit.”

A scowl is his response, and Sif shifts her stance, the better to spend time on her feet for an unknown time yet. “There was a Jotun waiting near the other end of that path you sent me on.”

Loki smiles, though he’s somewhat surprised that there had been anyone. He hadn’t seen anyone there in all the times he’d gone to Jotunheim – not that he had gone often, with the lack of anything interesting there. It makes him wonder who had been there, and why they had been there. If whoever it was had some contact with the one whose actions he had taken credit for.

“And why would I care if the Jotun with whom you spoke was waiting where you arrived, or if you had to walk across half the realm to find one?” Loki raises an eyebrow, still smiling, and watches as Sif’s scowl deepens. “Who was he, and what was said?”

“He called himself Helblindi Laufeyson, and he said to bring you to Jotunheim if you have the will to use the Casket of Ancient Winters to help.” Sif meets his gaze, holding it steadily as if she were trying to convince him that she has told him all he needs hear.

“What else?” Loki draws out the last word slightly, his eyes narrowing. “What else did he tell you, Sif?”

Her response is silence, watching him with a stubborn expression, before she reluctantly adds, “He claims that you cannot be Aesir if you would wield the Casket, but a Jotun. That you would have to be Laufeyson, and his brother.”

There is still something missing, but Loki doesn’t demand the rest immediately, remaining silent until Sif shifts on her feet, just the movement of weight toward the balls of her feet. Hoping to leave soon, he’s certain.

“You leave when I dismiss you, Sif.” Loki meets her glare, and doesn’t flinch. “Your debt is not nearly paid, yet.”

“You said this would repay my debt!” Sif visibly reins in her temper, though she still glares at him.

“Did I?” Loki stands, stalking toward her. “Are you so naive as to think one little message delivered – and without telling me the reply in full – would clear you of that debt which you owe me? Would absolve you of the taint of treason, for which the punishment is death should it be brought before the court?”

Sif is silent, and he can hear her grinding her teeth as she continued to meet his gaze. “If you would have my life in recompense for my actions, then you may have it.” Her voice is harsh, anger and humiliation underlying the words.

“I do not want your death, Sif.” Loki reaches out, tilting her chin up. “But I will accept your life for your treason. You need make no oath.” The last is spoken airily, with a smirk on his face that’s cold and vicious.

He can feel her grinding her teeth once more beneath his fingers, her glare heated and furious. Silent in her anger for a long moment before she takes a deep breath, drawing back, one fist across her chest as she drops to one knee. “I, Sif Tyrsdottir, offer my service as a warrior to Loki Odinson…”

“No.” Loki looks down at her, his expression cold and sharp. “Laufeyson, if you must use a patronymic.”

Sif scowls a moment, closing her eyes a moment before she looks up at him again. “I, Sif Tyrsdottir, offer my service as a warrior to Loki Laufeyson, to go where he shall send me, to defend him with my life, and to do all that I might be commanded by my lord.”

Loki doesn’t let his expression change, continuing to look down at her, waiting for a long moment before he speaks. “Should I accept your oath, you who has already proven willing to break an oath you have given?”

“The Jotun Helblindi said the power of the Casket is one only wielded by the king of Jotunheim.” Sif does not move. “He said you would owe nothing for those who died if you were to claim and hold the throne of Jotunheim, that he would claim you as brother and as king if you were to bring the others under your sway.”

Her words have the ring of truth, and there is no sense now that she is holding back information from him. It does not wipe clean her betrayals, but it tells him what he needs to know to go forward once all the wergild that he owes has been paid.

“I, Loki Laufeyson, do accept your oath, and shall return loyalty with consideration and betrayal with death.” He reached out a hand to rest on her head, weaving magic into a coil that unwinds like a striking serpent, and wraps around Sif as tightly as his own son will about a meal. Assurance that she will not betray this oath without more immediate and severe consequences than she suffers for her treason.

Beneath his hand, he can hear her draw in a sharp breath, and shiver violently as even she feels the spell sink in. Sif does not speak, not even to protest, and Loki raises a mental eyebrow at her silence. Restraint isn’t one of the traits he expects of Sif, and that she is managing to achieve such a thing is odd.

Walking back to his chair, Loki settles into it, watching as Sif rises from her kneeling position to stand once more. He contemplates dismissing her immediately, but there is something in her expression that stays him. A myriad of questions she holds back, likely stemming from what the Jotun had said to her. The claim that the Jotun was Loki’s brother by birth, that Loki was Laufeyson – though he knows that the latter, at least, is likely true. Whether there are Jotuns who are his brothers, he is less certain of, but he also knows of no reason for the Jotun to lie about such a thing.

“Ask your questions, Sif.” Loki’s words are quiet, and not the ones that Sif is expecting. Dismissal, yes, but an offer to answer the questions that are a tumolt in her mind, no. Though even with such, she is uncertain that Loki will give her any true answers save those he wishes her to know, and which of them will be truth might be hard to tell from those which will be lies.

He’s watching her as she turns over the risks in her mind and weighs which questions she thinks he might answer true. “Was the Jotun right to call you Laufeyson?” It is the question whose answer will generate the most questions in turn, but perhaps the one she wants to know the answer to the most.

“So I was told when I asked for the truth.” Loki shrugs, his expression blank – not one she is accustomed to seeing on his face. “I cannot be certain it is true, anymore than I can trust anything else the All-Father says.”

If there is a lie in that, Sif cannot see it, and she’s quiet a moment while she tries to decide if she wants to believe what she is being told. “How could you have hidden that you were a Jotun for so long? I cannot think even such an accomplished liar as you would have had the skill to hide such a thing as an infant.”

Loki’s grin is sharp and vicious, making Sif straighten further, the same thrill as in battle stirring in her veins. “How, indeed, would a Jotun infant be able to pass unknown into Asgard, hidden from all the Aesir in the wake of a war against those same?”

He’s not going to answer her, then, but there is something there that Sif thinks is perhaps ugly and dark, that she shies away from for now. She may perhaps have to face the truth he is not saying, but not immediately. Not yet. Already she has too many possible truths swirling in her head, along with the oath she had not been quite sure she wanted to make, but had felt she needed to make. Something to anchor her in the whirl of changes, of truths she cannot tell from the lies, something she can trust – and for all that Loki is a master of lies, he has never broken an oath made, and the oath is as much his with his acceptance as it is hers.

She draws in a slow, deep breath, watching Loki for a long moment. “Might I take my leave, my lord?” That she can sort some of what she has been told, and decide which she will trust to be truth, and which she will dismiss as lies or too uncertain to rely upon.

After a brief moment of silence, Loki nods, gesturing in dismissal. “I will send for you when I have something more for you to do.”

Bringing her fist to her chest in the gesture of a warrior doing homage, she bows briefly before turning to leave the room. Drawing her cloak closer about her as she walks along the halls toward her own rooms in the palace.

Dawn finds Sif at the training grounds, stretching and studying the warriors who come to spar, searching for one which she is willing to challenge. Willing to use to work out her frustration with the changes that are dragging her away from the comfortable familiarity of her life. A smile crosses her face when she spots Thor coming from the palace, though it fades when she does not see Mjolnir at his side. Even when he does not use it, Thor is rarely without his hammer, and she cannot help but wonder if this latest adventure to Earth is to blame.

“Thor!” She raises a hand to signal him to come over, watching his expression as he grins and changes direction to join her at the edge of the practice ring she has all but claimed for her use this morning. There’s something shadowed about his face, something that dims the usual open joy his grin signifies. Another change, though this one is perhaps a bit older, as old as his banishment, and the battle upon the Bifrost that she still knows of none of the details.

“Sif. It is good to see you out in the sun again.” Thor clasps her arm in greeting a moment, glancing over her choice of weapon – not her usual glave, but a short sword and the accompanying shield. “You practice with the sword today?”

“It would be a poor warrior who does not keep in practice with all weapons she has learned.” Sif shrugs, not voicing the real reason for her choice. The greater the exhaustion when she returns to her room at the end of the day, the greater her chances of sleeping without troubling dreams or thoughts plaguing her. “Will you spar with me?”

She should perhaps not take her frustrations with Loki out upon Thor, but she wonders if he does not have his own demons plaguing him about his brother, from the shadows in his eyes.

Thor is quiet a moment, an unexpectedly thoughtful expression on his face as he looks over the others gathering, before he nods. “I shall, Sif, though I shall hope I am a worthy opponent for you when I am not wielding a hammer as is my usual wont.”

It is surprising that Thor would not even use one of the practice hammers, though Sif choses to think it is perhaps her explanation as to why she isn’t using her glave that drives Thor to the decision. Both of them with sword and shield, circling each other in the ring and focused on each other more than those who gather to watch them.

Only after they both are panting, with sweat stinging eyes and shallow cuts, do they yield the circle to others, and take note of those watching. The Warriors Three wait to one side, with expressions of mixed wonder and worry on their faces. The wonder is likely at seeing both of their friends working with weapons other than their favorites, and the worry perhaps at the same.

Sif pushes past them without speaking, and she can see them shift to allow Thor to follow her out of the corner of her eye, all four men trailing after her like a pack of lost puppies as she returns to the palace. Thor parts way with her, the Warriors Three following him, when the way to his rooms and hers take them in different directions. It allows her to relax somewhat, though only for a brief while – long enough to clean her weapons and herself – before someone comes knocking on her door.

“Enter!” she calls as she reaches for a belt to hold her tunic close at her waist. Sif’s not certain who she would prefer least at her door, but it is easy to say the Warriors Three and Thor when they are who come inside at her call. Perhaps it would have been Loki if he had been there – or if he had sent some thrall to summon her, which would be even greater a humiliation than she’s already allowed in her quest to rid herself of a debt.

She raises an eyebrow at Thor, who shrugs, settling on one of the couches that decorate the outer chamber of her rooms, Fandral and Volstagg taking other seats nearby without asking. Hogun at least has the sense to wait for her invitation to pick a seat, though the others have taken the best of them.

“You have not before sought me out in my own chambers in such a solemn mood, Thor.” Sif includes the Warriors Three in that with a glance, though they have never sought her out here, save when in the company of Thor and in search of adventure. Too, they have been present on Asgard for her vigil while Thor searched for Loki on Midgard.

Thor is quiet a moment, watching her with a mix of worry, affection, and what she thinks might be a hint of pride. The affection is long familiar, both as they are companions in arms, and because of promises made long past they have yet to either of them fulfill. The worry, too, is familiar, though she’s not sure what might have caused it now. It is the hint of pride that puzzles her, as she can think of nothing she has done to warrent such, unless it is because she has made plain her debt to Loki in his presence. Thor has always put his brother before much else in his life save his own love of adventure.

“The Warriors Three tell me you had waited with my mother while I was gone to Earth to seek out my brother.” Thor smiles, the pride showing through more now, and Sif rolls her eyes at him. “And I know what you said then – and it is something I, too, perhaps ought to have said to him.”

“I do not think he would accept it of you, as certainly he has barely accepted that I would acknowledge my debt to him, for actions poorly done. No matter that worse would have happened had I not done as I did.” Sif looks away a moment, her brows furrowing. She had acknowledged the debt, but none of the Warriors Three had done such a thing, despite their own part in the whole tangle of plot and counter-plot. “I do not know if he would accept any other as owing him a debt for that treason.”

“We owe him nothing.” Volstagg shrugged, no sign of discomfort on his ruddy face. “We did what needed to be done, and he had already done worse that has gone unpunished.”

Sif clenches her jaw against speaking for a moment, then gives Volstagg a brief smile. “You may chose to see it as you see fit, but I will do what I must to wipe clean that dishonor.”

“It is that which worries us, Sif.” Fandral shifts when she looks over at him, almost flinching away from her raised eyebrow. “You didn’t eat while you were sitting that vigil, and you weren’t waiting for Thor. And then last night, no one knew where you went after dinner, nor could find you until nearly dawn.”

At least now she has an idea how long she spent in her journey to Jotunheim. Not nearly as long as she feared, though perhaps longer than she’d hoped. Sif leans back, crossing her arms over her chest as she looks around at the other three. Hogun is unreadable as ever, Volstagg looks uncomfortable, and Thor… Thor looks pained, and no little confused. As if he’s not quite sure what to think, or if he’s not sure who to be more worried about, Sif or Loki.

“And you think that I spent that time where, Fandral?” Sif is glad she manages to sound amused rather than outraged, though none of them can miss what Fandral is thinking. He is always thinking of such things, and Sif has always dismissed his musings as to what she does in the quiet hours of the night, no matter how elaborate or far-fetched they become.

“You were seen coming from Loki’s rooms.” Thor sounds the same as he looks, and Sif spares a moment to think about how it would look to him before she laughes, rolling her eyes at their fantasies.

“I spent more of my time elsewhere, and alone. I only was in there for a brief time.” She could tell them of the trip to Jotunheim, and Helblindi and the exchange of words she carried between Loki and that Jotun. But something about Loki’s earlier answers to her questions, and his desire to keep the information from Odin, stills the words before she can even truly form them. “I would not lay with him, and betray that promise made between us and between our mothers, Thor.”

Thor relaxes, his smile returning and his worry fading entirely, though he is the only one. Fandral looks unconvinced and Volstagg still worried, if somewhat relieved. Hogun she still cannot read, and for once, Sif wishes he weren’t so stoic. It would ease her own concerns if he would voice his.

“Then there is naught to worry for, though I am injured that you would go on an adventure without inviting us to travel with you.” There is something else in Thor’s face other than the cheerful mocking of a warrior who has missed out on some adventure with his shield-mate, but Sif doesn’t want to think about what it might be. If he’s wishing she hadn’t given the answer she had, or if he’s trying to grapple with some jealousy that has no foundation upon which to stand.

“It was no great adventure, merely a short journey.” Sif shrugs, though she wonders how long the path along Yggdrasil’s branches is that she was gone the night through – and yet, not more than a night. “I did not think I needed company for it.”

“But why go to Loki after you returned?” Fandral will not let that bit of knowledge go, and Sif glares at him, wondering if he’s truly as dense as he appears right now.

“The journey was at his behest and for his benefit. I merely returned to him what he wished to have – something which I could not have done had I not gone to his chambers, as he has not been seen anywhere else since Thor brought him home.”

Fandral opened his mouth as if to ask another question, and snapped it shut when Hogun spoke before he could get a word out.

“What Sif does to restore her honor, so long as she breaks no promises and commits no treason in whatever tasks Loki sets her to repay her debt, is no matter to us.” Hogun nods when she looks over at him with surprise, but doesn’t add anything else. She wonders if he doesn’t think he – and the other two of the Warriors Three – owes some debt, for all that he has given no sign that he would approach Loki to repay it. Unless he believes his debt owed elsewhere.

“Indeed, Hogun is right.” Thor reaches out to clap a hand on Fandral’s shoulder a moment. “We would be good to leave off further questions of Sif regarding her repayment of a debt.”

Fandral looks as if he would like to ask something more, but he subsides regardless, and soon conversation turns to the sparring in the practice ring today, and other bouts in the past. Easy conversation, a warrior’s conversation, one far less fraught with unseen dangers she could not fight with a weapon in hand.

Loki watches the fire in his room, his attention turned mostly inward as he contemplates the message – as disjointed as it had no doubt been delivered – Sif had brought back from Jotunheim. He had been honest when he’d told Thor he’d never wanted the throne, but only to be seen as a worthy son, though he’d never realized just how impossible that would be until he’d discovered his heritage and Odin’s lies. Even then, Odin hadn’t been entirely truthful, for how could he know Loki was Laufeyson if he had found him abandoned? Indeed, why would anyone have abandoned an infant inside of a temple, no matter that it might have been ruined?

He shook his head minutely, refocusing on the question that he most wishes to tease apart the answer to. How could he have wielded the Casket while Laufey lived if the power belonged only to the kings of Jotunheim? It should have denied him the use of it, if not harmed him when he tried to use it, if that were truly how it worked.

A knock on his door interrupts his thoughts, and Loki grimaces a moment before he sets aside the mental puzzle, rising to open it rather than calling his guest in. Sif would not come to him until he sends for her, and he thinks Thor would have barged in on the heels of knocking if he’d bothered to knock at all. Odin would have summoned him, and most of Asgard no doubt either wishes him gone or does not yet know he has been brought home.

Which leaves only Frigga to visit him, and Loki meets her gaze with a calm he does not entirely feel when he opens the door. “Queen Frigga.”

She sighs, a sad smile crossing her face at his address. “Might I enter, my son?” She will not let go of that lie, though Loki is unsurprised at that. A mother, no matter that she had lied and never actually bore him, does not readily let go of her children. He wishes only that he could forgive her that lie, or let go of the love he still holds for her, but he has not yet figured out how to do either.

He nods without speaking, stepping aside to allow her into his rooms, and closing the door behind her. Frigga does not speak, even after they are both settled next to his hearth, and he has poured mead from the pitcher he’d fetched from the kitchens with his breakfast. The silence does not feel as strained as Loki had thought it would, though there is a sadness lingering in the air.

“What brings you to my chambers, Queen Frigga?” Loki cannot allow himself to fall into the familiar address, no matter that he wants nothing more than to call her simply mother. Cannot allow the lie to hide the truth now that he is aware of it.

“Can a mother not wish to simply see her son, and be reassured that he is well in body, if not in spirit?” Frigga reaches out a hand as if to touch his, and withdraws it when Loki flinches.

“You could have done so when Thor brought me back.” Loki does not look at her, watching the flames instead. His hand tightens around his own cup of mead, the metal creaking faintly under his fingers. “You need not deign to come now, when all the palace might know their queen is visiting one who should be condemned as traitor.”

“Some actions were ill-done, but those were not treason. Nor, when your father was in the Odin-sleep, were any of those you took as king. Foolish, perhaps war-mongering, but not treason, for how can a king commit treason against himself?” Frigga takes a sip of her mead, her gaze focused on him. Loki can feel it against his skin like a warm pressure.

“Odin is not my father.” He would never again acknowledge that false bond, even when he cannot let go of the same with Frigga. It is just one more twist in the complicated web of his life. “And when all of Asgard would call all I did a treason, how can you think otherwise?”

“Because I am your mother, and I am a queen, and I know the burdens of a crown and a throne for all that I do not sit upon it myself.”

Loki frowns slightly, turning over her words in his head. There is a thread there, that if he can just tug it free, might be a piece to the puzzle he’s trying to put together. A crown, a throne. A king, rather than the king. Only a king might wield the power of the Casket, perhaps, and not need be the king of Jotunheim, though perhaps might also need be a Jotun. Or, perhaps, a Jotun of a particular line.

“Did Odin tell you the story of how he found me, when he brought me here?” he asks, looking at Frigga once more. He needs more information if he is to be certain of his thoughts, and there are few people on Asgard he might ask for such and trust will give him the truth.

Frigga frowns, nonplussed at his question. “He told me that you had been left in the temple on Jotunheim, abandoned. Perhaps because of your size, for you were a small infant for a Jotun, or perhaps because of the ability you showed even at so young an age to draw a cloak of seiðr over you to appear as those around you.”

“An infant cannot control seiðr, you know that.” Loki will not find the information he seeks through Frigga, which means he shall have to ask better questions of Sif regarding her conversation with the Jotun, or perhaps go to Jotunheim himself to speak with Helblindi regarding what is known there of him. And if he goes to Jotunheim, he will have to be prepared, he thinks, to make good on his offer, and to attempt what Helblindi had implied he must do. “If I appeared as an Aesir, it must have been at the hands of Odin.”

“I do not think it was, but perhaps it was not seiðr, either.” Frigga gives him a brief smile. “You change your shape easily, and even then, you showed such an ability to mimic those around you. Perhaps it was more that than it was seiðr. I cannot say with any certainty, not after all this time.”

No answers, and only more questions. Loki sighs, and turns away from Frigga to regard the fire again. He will send for Sif later, whether he draws his answers from her, or goes to Jotunheim in defiance of Odin’s commands. And if the latter, he will have to ensure that the wergild to the families of the Aesir dead are paid, for he will not be able to return to Asgard, save publically paraded before the people in chains before he is condemned for whatever crimes for which he has not settled debts.

lynati:

spiderine:

cjk1701:

madenthusiasms:

bandersnatchmycummerbund:

vulgarweed:

porcupine-girl:

onethousandroaches:

like, i’m not saying that adults don’t have a place in fandom. they can and they do, and many are perfectly great people.

but if you’re an adult, say, in your mid to late 20s or older, especially if you’re in a fandom that’s filled mostly with teenagers, you do need to be careful about how you interact with young people in fandom.

you need to be careful about the content you produce or share, and if you do something that people take issue with, you need to be prepared to address that in an honest and meaningful way, instead of blocking the young people who are telling you you’ve done something wrong and going on a rant about how “it’s just fiction” and “ship and let ship” and “do whatever you want” and “i’m too old for this.”

if you’re an adult in fandom, you need to be able to recognize how the content you produce might affect young people, and honestly, you should be able to show maturity when dealing with it, because you are still an adult talking to many people who are literal children.

many of those young people will, by default, view you as a sort of authority figure based on your age alone, as that’s what they’re used to. be careful of the lessons you teach them.

Hm. Okay. Here’s the thing.

We all know who you’re talking about and which situations you’re talking about. What you really have an issue with isn’t anything to do with anyone’s age, it’s about people producing things that other people find hurtful, then not responding the way the hurt people would like them to when called out on it. That can and does happen anywhere, regardless of the ages of the people involved. It’s a separate issue that should be discussed and dealt with.

And yes, in some of those recent situations, the ages of the offenders or the offended were brought into the discussion, by both sides at different times. The age difference does complicate things, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the main issue.

You may be thinking “why do you care if I focus on age, it was a salient part of the argument for me, you’re trying to defend adults who don’t care how their words hurt children!” But here’s the thing.

You may not realize this, but in other fandoms adults have been doxxed, have been threatened, have been outed because they were creating things that someone, somewhere deemed “dangerous for minors.” 

Adults who were creating things that were not meant for minors, that were openly and blatantly tagged as being NSFW, explicit, as containing triggering material. I’ve even seen people who weren’t even creating the offending material being harassed, bullied, and threatened, for daring to stand up for the people who were. Not even just online, but in person. I’ve been a victim of it myself, though not to the extent that I’ve seen many others go through.

All because a segment of the fandom decided that because certain content could be dangerous for minors, it should never, ever be posted anywhere a minor might possibly read it. Adults who do post it are responsible for every bad effect it could possibly have on anyone who reads it and are horrible people for not willingly taking on that responsibility.

I know the situations you’re talking about are different. In many of those situations, adults chose to interact with the minors who were complaining about them, and yeah, when you’re choosing to directly interact with a minor you need to tread carefully. 

But once you go down the “adults in fandom are responsible for the minors in fandom” road, if lots of people start clinging to that mindset, that is where it can lead. And that is an extremely serious issue. It can literally destroy careers and ruin lives.

I am not in this or any other fandom to produce content for minors. I have asked many times for minors not to follow me; I don’t block them, but I know quite a few people who block any minor who follows them. I produce enough SFW content that I don’t mind minors being able to, say, reblog it from others on their dash, but I do not want them following me and getting explicit content directly from me, full stop. If it becomes an issue, I will start blocking people.

If you’re a minor, I’m old enough to be your mother. But I’ve got my own kid, and I’m not in fandom to babysit anyone else. When I create or reblog content, I do not and will not take the presence of minors into account when doing so. Because that is not my job. 

Now, right now I’m choosing to get involved in this discussion, which will involve people much younger than me, including minors. So yeah, I’m being careful about what I say and how I say it. And I agree that any adult who willingly engages in conversation with minors needs to do the same.

But I simply can’t agree with your last two paragraphs. Those “literal children” already have parents. If their own parents aren’t monitoring what media they consume, aren’t having conversations with them about problematic messages in media, it certainly isn’t my job to do so. Period. 

This is an excellent time for teens in fandom (and in general) to stop seeing every adult they come in contact with as an “authority figure” and start viewing us as human beings who are living our own lives with our own motivations, problems, desires, and inclinations that have nothing to do with them. That’s something that will serve them well in life.

How people interact with oppressed groups they aren’t a part of who complain about their representation of those oppressed groups is an entirely separate issue that is not about the age of the people on either side. Age can complicate it, especially in that it can be difficult to communicate across a generation gap when people on either side have such enormously different experiences. I think that that has caused some problems.

But any adult who is not willingly choosing to interact with a minor is not responsible for minors who consume their content, and conflating the two issues is downright dangerous.

@porcupine-girl nailed it 100% but this especially bears repeating:

This is an excellent time for teens in fandom (and in general) to stopseeing every adult they come in contact with as an “authority figure” and start viewing us as human beings who are living our own lives with our own motivations, problems, desires, and inclinations that have nothing to do with them. That’s something that will serve them well in life.

Fandom is a good way for teenagers to learn how to interact with people in different age groups as peers. Because that’s what we are, we are fandom peers posting on the same web sites and obsessing over the same shows and  no one in fandom has any authority over anyone else (no matter how much some people might try to claim it). I am not your teacher, your parent, your babysitter, or anyone in any position of authority over you or anyone with a responsibility for taking care of you. Nor am I willing to take on that role. The vast majority of the billions of adults in the world fit that description. Only a very few, ones you know in real life, are responsible for you personally – and soon that number will be none as you become an adult yourself.

I block anyone with an age under 18 listed in their profile if they try to follow me – not with any animosity, I’m just not interested in interacting with kids on a fandom level. This is a completely valid option and I think it’s a wise one. 

Plus the original post here is predicated on the assumption that fandom belongs to people in their early 20s and younger and the rest of us are just hangers on. Sorry baby, look at the demographics; you’re the minority. We’re not in your house. I, for one, am happy to interact with anyone I have interests in common with and bond over those interests; I think people of all ages have exciting perspectives and interesting minds. But I don’t want to be treated like a second class citizen by anyone, and as said above, I am interested in interacting AS PEERS ONLY. I ain’t your mommy and I have enough people IRL trying to leech emotional labor off me, I got none for strangers on the internet.

I have watched my friends raise their kids in fandom. Literally. Raise. Their. Kids. I’ve watched young things I met carried in arms toddle, walk, run, be 8, 18, 28, marry, come to a convention carrying young things in their arms.

It was assumed that everyone who knew the parent would keep a vague eye on the child because friends don’t let friends’ little ones run into traffic. But at NO POINT was it ever assumed or expressed that the adult fans had to stop being adult fans talking about adult things. If a minor walked into the “How to write explicit bondage” panel, then someone gently suggested that this was not the place for the kid to be. If the kid found the dick pics in the art show, they were told “go ask Mommy what ‘slash’ means.”

I get that the OP wants to protect children, but while it’s my job to make sure someone too little to take care of themselves doesn’t get hurt, it has NEVER, through three generations of fandom, been my job to be anyone’s actual parent or to stop adulting around adults.

Oh, and the line “I’m not saying adults don’t have a place in fandom; they can and they do” – that line? Child, ADULTS BUILT FANDOM. We created the cons and the fanzines and the webrings and the clubs and the fan sites and the VCR tape swaps and the letter writing campaigns and the podcasts. We maintain the fan sites and the fic repositories and the conventions and the rest. Did you think those things just spontaneously evolved? Fuckin’ A we have a place in the culture that we built!

If you’re old enough to be online unsupervised you’re also old enough to police your own fandom experience. Head the tags and warnings, that’s what they are there for.

Also, to be blunt, I am not responsible for anyone’s children. Full stop.

“Try to tag your stuff appropriately so it can be avoided by those who shouldn’t be / don’t want to be seeing it” is a reasonable request, and benefits all ages. 

“There are kids in fandom now, so that means you have to stop having the kinds of conversations that have existed in fandom since its inception, just in case a kid stumbles onto them” is ridiculous. Fandom was an adult space before most of us here were even born, and demanding it change entire aspects of its nature to cater to a demographics shift- as opposed to simply reminding people to be courteous towards the now much-present younger demographic and their needs- is NOT reasonable.

Fandom should be- and is- willing to remodel for the sake of the younger generations, but we’re not going to tear down parts of our house because kids might ignore the “Adults Only, Please” signs on certain rooms. 

On a related note, how many adults have you told to get rid of any books on their shelves with mature themes because their children or visiting children might read them? 

sunnystark:

does anyone else think about iron man 2 and get emotional because tony stark is so obviously depressed, withdrawn, and falling apart but no one notices and just passes off all his reckless behavior as just The Norm (including a lot of fans??) and only when Fury finally brings to light that Tony’s DYING and giving away all his things, making plans for the future of his company, etc does anyone pay even the slightest attention and eVEN THEN no one really does anything about it??

Once he’s replaced the palladium everyone’s like “great everything’s back to normal again” as if that changes the fact that tony withstood a CRAZY AMOUNT of trauma?? He’s always just getting beat around and because he outwardly laughs it off everyone assumes he’s fine I’m so mad someone needs to give him a hug and say it’s okay not to be fine

Avengers/Norse Mythology: ABMTW: Rebuilding From the Foundations

Originally Posted: 29 December 2012
AO3 | DW

Fandom: Avengers (2012), Norse Mythology
AU: Archer, Battle-Mage, Trickster, and Warrior
Series: Clint and Angrboða
Word Count: 3912
Characters: Angrboða, Bruce Banner | Hulk, Clint Barton | Hawkeye, Natasha Romanov | Black Widow, Phil Coulson
Ships: Angrboða/Clint Barton | Hawkeye

The return eye-roll is familiar, as is the accompanying indulgent smile, though there’s something that doesn’t seem quite right. Phil’s alive and there, but there’s something more or something less as well, and Clint isn’t quite sure what.

The melody of a ringtone wakes Anna up at what a glance at the clock proves to be an entirely too early hour for when they’d gone to bed, and she pokes at Clint once she determines it isn’t her phone that’s going off. He sighs, before reaching for the phone, his voice still sleep muddled as he answers. Whatever is said makes him sit up, reaching for the switch for the bedside lamp.

“I don’t know how soon I can get a flight, Nat, unless SHIELD…” he pauses, mid-sentence, as if interrupted. “Huh. Get Stark to send a damned jet, and I’ll meet the plane at the airport, or I’ll catch the next commercial flight out from Missoula.”

Anna gives up on the idea of more sleep, and reaches out to press her hand between Clint’s shoulders a moment before she gets out of bed. There’s packing and some clean-up to do before the flight, and she isn’t going to let Clint leave without her – not with the way the conversation she’s half-listening to is going. There’s something that makes her worry in Clint’s voice, and in the urgency of the conversation.

“Can you tell me what’s happening?” she asks once he ends the call, watching him as she packs clothes back into duffels.

Clint’s quiet a long moment, running a hand through his hair. “Someone who was killed isn’t as dead as he was supposed to be.” He pauses, turning a bit so he can look at her, and reaching for a pair of jeans she’d left out for him. He looks at what she’s packing before smiling a moment. “I was going to ask if you wanted to fly back with me, or catch a later flight.”

A soft smile crosses Anna’s face a moment. “Of course I’m going with you, love. As far as you want me to, or I’m allowed.” She puts the last pair of jeans into the duffel before going to pull the shirts out of the drawer they’re in. “I assume I’m going to be dealing with no few non-disclosure forms and such.”

“Maybe.” Clint shrugs, grabbing a shirt off the stack she’s bringing. He’s quiet as he pulls it on, clearly thinking about something. “I think with what’s going on, maybe I should have told you more about it sooner.”

“Your job is dangerous, I know that.” Anna reaches out to touch his shoulder, holding his gaze. “I can’t miss that. Dangerous jobs sometimes follow a person home, I know that too. I’m not helpless, love.”

“I know.” Clint picks up her hand, holding it tightly in his a long moment before he lets go. “It’s just that it’s more dangerous than it used to be.” He pauses, looking away a moment before he takes a deep breath, his voice quieter than she expects as he says, “I’m not just going up against foreign governments and rogue agents any more, or wierd baby-sitting jobs in the middle of nowhere. Loki…”

“Is just one of the first dangers you faced?” Anna finishes the sentence for him when he’s quiet for several minutes. “And there are others that are going to be like him?”

“And for all I know, they’ll decide to come after the people I love – the people any of us love.” He looks up to meet her gaze again, a frown of worry on his face. And something else, as well. “That story you told me, about Angrboða. How much of it is true?”

Anna stills, studying his face. She hadn’t expected he would ask such a question – though she thinks she should have expected he would understand there is truth behind the myth she told him. “As I recall it, all of it.”

It makes Clint relax a little, as if she’s told him she can hold her own against someone like Loki – which, perhaps, she has. She isn’t as certain she could fight Loki, but that is more that she still, for all her anger at him, and her bitterness, she still finds him physically pleasing. It annoys her, often times, that she still cannot often push him away, though he seemed far better able to do the same to her.

The rest of the time until they leave passes swiftly, packing and cleaning and leaving the ranch house as it was when they arrived, and returning the key to the box in the barn. A plane waited for them at the airport, sleek and small, another of the same sort that brought them out in the first place. Anna is only glad that it means they’re not waiting in a line at either end, so Clint is less wound up.

Even with one of Stark’s jets, Clint is antsy, though he tries to keep it under control. Anna – Angrboða, though he can’t really think of her as anyone but Anna – rolls her eyes, and tells him to pace if it helps any. It doesn’t help the worry about Natasha’s message, but it at least helps to burn off some of the excess energy.

“Coulson’s alive.”

Those words had dragged him from sleep into wakefulness faster than he’d done in the last couple of weeks. He hadn’t even thought about if it was a trick of some sort, just started planning to get back to New York.

“SHIELD isn’t part of this. This was an Avengers mission, and Coulson is one of ours.”

That had been something they all agreed on without any of them saying a word. It had been the Avengers who gathered for Phil’s funeral, Stark who’d paid for it and the headstone, Natasha and Clint who’d dictated the contents of the stone, all of them who’d borne the casket from herse to plot. No matter what SHIELD said, no matter what Phil had been before, he was one of the Avengers, and they would take care of their own, now that they were a team.

“He was still in the suit we buried him in, and he was unconscious before Banner got the IV in. He hasn’t woken up yet. Banner’s running tests to make sure he’s who he looks like.”

Clint isn’t certain if he should be worried about that or not. He had no frame of reference for someone being resurrected, none of them did. A small frown crosses his face, and he returns to where Anna’s sitting beside a window, and settles into the seat next to her.

“Have you ever had anyone come back to life after being dead?” He doesn’t know if she has, but if she is as old as he thinks she might be, she’s the only person who might have a chance at seeing that sort of thing.

Anna frowns slightly, watching him a moment. “No, though sometimes I’ve wished it could happen. I’ve not even heard of anyone who came back from the dead – at least, not outside of legends that I could never find anything to support.”

Vampires, zombies. Things that are just the stuff of legends and horror movies, even when other myths are real. At least he can be sure of that much, although the idea of a zombie-Phil is both amusing and sickening at the same time. Perhaps more amusing than sickening once he has a chance to see Phil really is alive with his own eyes.

A hand on his arm, and Anna resting her head on his shoulder draw him out of his thoughts, and Clint shifts to wrap his arm around her shoulders. It helps, to hold onto her, and keeps him from counting the minutes – no matter how patient he can be on a job, this is a different sort of wait – until the flight touches down on the runway at LaGuardia. When they stop, Natasha is waiting for them at the terminal, glancing briefly at Anna before she raises an eyebrow at Clint.

“Anna’s coming to the Tower with me.” Clint shrugs, meeting Natasha’s gaze easily. He’s not going to send Anna off home until they have an idea what’s going on, and there isn’t a risk to anyone else. Never mind that she’s lived with knowing the dangers of his job for years, and he’s pretty certain she can take care of herself at least long enough for back-up to arrive.

“Ok.” Natasha shrugs, leaving any problems on his shoulders. Both of them know SHIELD and Fury probably aren’t going to be happy about it, but right now, this isn’t a SHIELD matter. It’s an Avengers matter, and they haven’t worked out protocols for this sort of thing yet.

A car is waiting for them outside, complete with driver courtesy of Stark, and the ride to the Tower is quiet, with Natasha sitting opposite them, watching Anna. That Anna is watching her in return with curiosity in her expression makes Clint hope they’re not going to go off and compare notes or something. He might live through it, but he doesn’t fool himself into thinking the two couldn’t make him uncomfortable in the process.

They stop at the room that Natasha says Stark had put in for Clint, leaving the luggage there before making their way to the medical floor, and the room where Phil is asleep in a bed that doesn’t look like a hospital bed to Clint. Banner is sitting in the chair next to the bed, and looks up when they enter, smiling briefly to Natasha, and giving Anna a curious look.

“Anna Boyd.” She doesn’t wait for Clint to introduce her, stepping forward with her hand out. “I’m with Clint.” She’s never used the term girlfriend, though others have applied it to her – never Natasha, though part of that is because she’d asked Clint what Anna was to him.

“Bruce Banner.” Bruce took the offered hand, smiling briefly at her before he looks over at Natasha. “Phil hasn’t woken up while you’ve been gone, but he probably will wake up again soon. Do you want me to stay, or go?”

“We’ll be fine.” Natasha gives him a brief smile, before stepping out of the way to let Banner leave. After, she sits on the end of Phil’s bed, leaving the chair open for Clint. Watching Anna with a bland, blank expression that reads to Clint as wary curiosity and a need to know that she doesn’t want seen.

Anna returns the regard with open curiosity, and it’s a more true expression than Natasha’s, for all that Clint doesn’t think the curiosity is all that Anna’s feeling right now. There’s some wariness underneath that he can see in her eyes, and he suspects Natasha can see too.

“Is there proper tea here?” Anna breaks the silence first, a smile crossing her face that Natasha responds to with a small smile of her own.

“I can make some.” Natasha slides off the bed, tilting her head toward the door. “I can show you around some of the Tower as well, if you’d like.”

“I doubt you’d show me much, but where to find tea and food would be appreciated.” Anna leans over to press a light kiss to Clint’s temple. “I’ll be back in a little while, love.”

He watches them go with a faint sense of foreboding that he shakes off after a moment. Chosing instead to focus his attention on Phil, studying him as he sleeps. His eyes are moving under his lids, as if he’s dreaming, and Clint’s tempted to reach out to wake him, but refrains. Banner had said Phil should wake up again soon. On his own.

It’s most of half an hour before Phil opens his eyes, and Clint can’t stop the words that slip from his lips, relief and worry and all the muddled, mixed emotions making him sound more plaintive than he intends. “I hear you’re supposed to be back from the dead, and you’re not even awake when I get here.”

It takes Phil a moment to look over at Clint, and there’s a worrying blankness to his gaze for a moment before a faint, familiar smile crosses his face. “How short did you cut your mandatory down-time?”

Phil’s voice is quieter, and somehow thinner, than Clint is used to, and he tries to shrug it off, letting the easy smile cross his face, though it fades quickly. “Three weeks.” He doesn’t think he would have cut it so short if it had been anyone else in the hospital bed, save if Natasha were. He’d have come back inside of a week of being away if she’d been injured.

The return eye-roll is familiar, as is the accompanying indulgent smile, though there’s something that doesn’t seem quite right. Phil’s alive and there, but there’s something more or something less as well, and Clint isn’t quite sure what.

“I brought Anna in with me.” It’s not exactly something he should let slip, but Phil’s known about Anna almost since Clint asked her out for a drink the first time. He doesn’t think Phil’s met her, but he feels the need to let Phil know anyway. “Nat’s taken her to get coffee or tea.” Tea, more likely, and questions that Natasha won’t ask in front of Clint. Though Clint knows Anna will drink coffee on occasion, and it’s easier to find coffee here.

A frown crosses Phil’s face, disapproval and confusion mixed in his expression. Clint runs a hand through his hair, as close to a wince as he’ll come, even around those he trusts as much as he trusts Phil or Natasha or Anna.

“She had an interesting story.” The justification sounds weak to him, and he watches Phil for any sign that he thinks it as weak as Clint does. There’s quiet a moment before he adds, “Nat said you’d have an interesting story, too.”

Phil looks away, turning his gaze toward the ceiling, and struggling to sit up. Clint reaches out, finding the controls to raise the bed, and helping Phil get to a sitting position. He doesn’t like that Phil is weak, but he wonders if this is all part of him coming back from the dead. Convelesing, and having to regain strength and muscle tone, like he would after a long illness or severe injury. It would make whoever brought him back either capricous or not strong enough to do more than heal the wound that killed him just enough to let him live.

Natasha watches Anna as she cradles a cup of hot tea, cataloguing gestures and facial expressions. Little things as the silence stretches out – not uncomfortable for Natasha, though usually so for others. Anna doesn’t seem to notice, her expression more remote than Natasha expects. Staring into the distance, in at least the general direction of Medical. Natasha thinks she might even be staring straight at Clint, though she can’t be sure unless she asks JARVIS. Or perhaps Tony, though that’s not a conversation Natasha wants to have.

“There is something off in there.” Anna’s whisper is barely audible, but it catches Natasha’s attention. She tilts her head, turning over the words in her head.

“Just being back from the dead is weird enough.” Natasha shrugs, taking a sip of her tea, watching Anna’s reactions. The flinch, the momentary frown that fades into a more neutral expression quickly.

“I was not speaking of Agent Coulson.” Anna frowns again, her brow furrowing, glancing over at Natasha a moment before returning her gaze to the point on the wall she’d been watching. “Or not of his being alive when once he was dead.”

That Anna is speaking more like Thor is as odd as what she’s saying, but Natasha doesn’t comment on it, merely catalogues it. She’ll talk to Clint later about what he knows about Anna, because right now, Natasha doesn’t have a good feeling about this.

“There’s something weirder than that?” Natasha almost winces at her own words, but shoves it aside as necessary to get information on a potential security risk – or worse.

Anna gives her a sideways look, a strange expression on her face. “There is a lot in the world that’s weird, Natasha. It’s just a matter of perspective.” She shrugs, smiling and hiding whatever it is that she hides behind a mask of polite professionalism. “But that’s neither here nor there. Do you think Clint has had enough time to talk to Agent Coulson about whatever it is he cares to talk about?”

“Maybe, if Phil woke up pretty quickly after we left.” Natasha takes another sip of her tea, wondering at the abrupt change. Like she had a glimpse of something else, something other, and it had vanished behind a wall before she could truly look at it.

“Then shall we return? There’s no point in making Clint think we’re talking about him behind his back.” Anna’s smile is mischeivous and brief, before she sets her mug down and heads for the door.

It forces Natasha to take long strides to keep up, but not before she sets her mug beside Anna’s, glancing down to see that the other mug is untouched. The tea nothing but a diversion, but for what? To give Clint some privacy to talk to Phil, or to give Anna a chance to study Natasha as much as Natasha was trying to study her?

She had begun to bleed across the walls that she builds in her mind to deal with a lifetime when she first heard Clint speak a name she’s avoided for centuries. It’s getting worse here, with the strange feeling of being constantly watched, and the beacon of seidr that is Agent Phil Coulson, sleeping in the hospital bed in Medical. She can all but see him, even through the concrete and steel that seperates the lounge Natasha had shown her to and the room.

It doesn’t make her less Anna, but it does make her more than just Anna, and she’s not had to cope with a life still not over when she’s done this before. Let herself become the full sum of her lifetimes while still living as a mortal, without cutting her ties and fleeing to the taiga and tundra of the far north, where she could lose herself for years while reordering her mind.

Angrboða followed the glow of seidr to the room; Anna followed a mental map to Medical and tried to hold onto herself as the walls crumbled a bit more under the weight of an outside pressure.

“Anna?” Clint had been across the room a moment ago, a blink of an eye ago that had been longer – now he’s holding onto her arm, watching her with a frown, and anchoring her against the pressure. “Are you all right?”

Drawing in a breath, she opens her mouth a moment, staring past him at the man now sitting up in the bed. Agent Coulson, who is watching her with a small, puzzled frown. All but glowing with seidr in a pattern she has never seen before, and does not understand.

“No. I’m not.” She wrenches her gaze away, burying her face in Clint’s shoulder, and focusing on shoring up the barriers between herself and her lifetime. Anna barely registers Clint guiding her from the room, and through halls to the room Natasha had shown them before bringing them to Medical. Is only dimly aware of him sitting her down on the couch there, of him settling beside her, and pulling her close so he can hold onto her.

She’s not sure how much time passes before she’s truly aware of the outside world again, only that she’s stiff and chilled to the bone, and wrapped in blankets that radiate a furnace heat. The barriers not rebuild so much as reset, more of Angrboða bleeding through into Anna, but not yet letting herself slot the lifetime into the memories of centuries.

“Miss Boyd?” The voice isn’t familiar at first, and Anna blinks, turning her head to look over at whoever’s spoken. It takes her a moment to place him, and she smiles at Banner, though it feels strange.

“I’m… better.” She draws the blankets closer, a small frown on her face as she looks around the room. The windows are dark, and the light comes only from a small lamp that’s close to Banner. “Where’s Clint?”

Banner grimaces a little, ducking his head. “Ah. He was sent to get some rest. You’ve been catatonic for almost a week.” He closes the book he has in hand after marking his place. “Natasha’s watching him, as is JARVIS. Do you want to talk about what happened?”

“Not yet.” Anna shakes her head slightly, closing her eyes. They feel gritty, as if she hasn’t blinked in a while. “I need to talk to Clint first.” She needs to tell him something more of the story she started, and she needs to tell him what she’d seen around Agent Coulson. Then she’ll decide what to tell his friends – the ones, she thinks, who are his team, though no one has introduced them as such.

“He probably won’t wake up until morning.” Banner shrugs apologetically. “You can go in there, though.” He nods toward a door that has to be the bedroom of the apartment.

“I know.” Anna shivers as the heat from the blankets starts to seep in, and warm her. She can, but she won’t until she’s warmed up. Tracking where the cord for the blanket radiating heat is keeps her busy for a moment, and she smiles a moment at how it had been layered. “Even this couldn’t keep me warm, could it?”

Banner frowns, and then shrugs. “No. It worried us, but all your other vital signs were steady, and Clint wouldn’t let us take you to medical, so we just did what we could here.”

Anna nods, glad Clint had done that; she doesn’t want to think about what might have happened if she’d gotten too close to whatever is wrapped around Agent Coulson while trying to rebuild the walls in her mind. If she even would have been capable of doing that while so close.

The rest of the night passes with Banner reading his book and watching her from time to time, though whether trying to figure out what had happened, or making sure she doesn’t lapse back into such a state, she’s uncertain.

The sky outside is beginning to lighten when the door to the bedroom opens, and Clint comes out, running a hand through his hair as he looks over toward the couch. “Anna?”

“I’m here, love.” Anna reached for the switch for the electric blanket, turning it off before she stands, though she keeps the one blanket wrapped around her. There’s still some of the chill of earlier, and she would rather insulate herself as Clint comes to wrap his arms around her. She rests her head on his shoulder, leaning into him in reassurance that she is still here, still alive, still Anna, even if she is a bit more than that.

“What was that?” His voice is rough, and there’s a wealth of emotions threading through the question, chief among them, she thinks, being anger and fear for her. “What happened?”

“Someone used your friend to tear down what was not meant to be torn down in that manner.” Anna keeps her voice low, as not to carry beyond the two of them. “I will tell you more later, love, but not among your friends, not yet.”