It’s all right, he tells himself, she’ll be all right, and Tony told him it was just the arm, and it’s all that keeps him going for the next thirty-four hours. He’s on a mission in Astana and he used to think it was a beautiful city, but now it just reminds him far too much of Budapest.
When he gets home, he goes straight to the hospital wing. He knows there should be a debrief, he should drop off his gear, hell, he should shower, but when he heads for his quarters, he somehow ends up taking a left when he meant (or maybe he didn’t mean) to take a right, and then he’s down in medical and it’s the first time he’s ever been there voluntarily.
(Except it isn’t voluntary, not at all; if he’d been there, if he’d had Nat’s back like he was supposed to, like he swore they always would, then he wouldn’t be here at all and Natasha would be down in the rec room with the other Avengers and he’d be watching, watching her laugh, and she can never know how much he loves watching her laugh.)
ficlet by jey. hello secretly-in-love-with-natasha clint feelings!
so who thought this was gonna be a cheerful avengers team pic trying to cheer nat up? ha ha ha sobs
Master Snow-Benders
He’s graduated and orphaned in the same week, feels numb as he walks across the stage, hands buried in the pockets of his gown, cap cocked over the unruly mess of his hair. The tassel dangles in the wind, flicks in and out of his peripheral vision, and his fingers twitch whenever he sees it; he burns with the need to render it immobile, to tape it up or pin it down. He doesn’t, because Obie’s in the audience, first row, and oh, he knows what his parents would say if they were here—he can taste the nervous wringing of his mother’s hands as she murmurs his name and nothing else, his father’s flat, disinterested congratulations. There’s no summa or magna on the diploma; he drank it away, probably, pissed it up against the brick walls of one of Boston’s back alleys, and he’d be sorry, but there’s not really anyone left to disappoint.
“Congratulations, Mr. Stark,” the Dean says, and Tony would correct him, tell him that’s his father’s name, but.
[Bedtime story! Or, well, not really; there will, in all likelihood, be a real bedtime story, complete with rambling, lack of capital letters and baby Jaime, later this evening. This is more, uh, unbetaed, hastily written fic based on this beautiful art by the amazing ironfries! Because, you know, it’s the warmest fuzziest thing in all of the land. In the whole entire land, you guys.]
Tony calls Steve when he lands without even thinking about it, pours himself into the car with the phone held to his ear. It’s the sound of the door closing—or maybe the ring-through, tinny through the speakers—that jerks him back to reality enough to alert him to the fact that, hey, apparently his autopilot tendencies now include informing Steve of take-offs and landings. He’d worry about it, but it’s kind of old news at this point, so he leans his head back against the seat and stares up at the ceiling, trying not to notice how much he wants to fall asleep right here.
![Redditor bbilbay asked the Reddit community if they would be so kind as to cheer up his daughter and her best friend, who had recently been diagnosed with leukemia, by photoshopping “something pretty or fun” into the background of this photo of them together.
The outpouring, to say the least, has been incredible, amazing, breathtaking, phenomenal, and so much more.
[reddit]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ltu5qvEbqn1qzpwi0o1_1280.jpg)
Redditor bbilbay asked the Reddit community if they would be so kind as to cheer up his daughter and her best friend, who had recently been diagnosed with leukemia, by photoshopping “something pretty or fun” into the background of this photo of them together.
The outpouring, to say the least, has been incredible, amazing, breathtaking, phenomenal, and so much more.
[reddit]
