friday meme

[tielan]

From lannamichaels: send me a review of a fic I haven't written and I'll write a snippet of it.

Looks like it's going to be A Friday.

Comments

[senmut]

The Duke must marry. Everyone knows this. Yet you took a refreshing, bright approach to it. Your use of, and subversion of, the tropes around the eligibles was perfect!

[tielan]

She was not, he thought, the prettiest young woman in the room, nor the most charming. Yet there was sufficient distinction in her bearing that she was not short of partners, and enough sharpness in her gaze and vivacity in her replies that made more than one gentlemen blink before smiling.

"The one in Brussels lace," he asked his cousin. "She's no debutante."

"No, indeed," Caroline murmured. "Miss Miranda Levinson, of the Derbyshire Levinsons. She's been on the continent with her family - her father was a diplomat in Vienna. They only came back because the younger sister wanted a season."

He watched as Miss Levinson moved gracefully among the other young ladies, neither distinguishing herself but also not quite managing to blend. "And what the sister wants, the sister gets?"

"Apparently so, in the Levinson household. Or so I heard."

[beatrice_otter]

oooooooooooooh

[senmut]

Excellent!

[james]

I'd never thought of doing this AU like this, but how can you *not* read "Maria Hill, Captain America"? When Captain Hill wakes up after being frozen and everything she knew is gone -- and I won't spoil the twist but I *will* say that this is not a Maria Hill from WWII and it works amazingly well.

[tielan]

"Wanna talk about it?"

"No more than you want to talk about Budapest," she tells Barton, and watches him blink.

"You've done your research, then." The tone is jovial, but she can hear the hardness beneath. It's not surprising. She shouldn't have access to that mission; and if she applied for the reports on Budapest, then she'd be blocked - understandably so. But if Maria Hill, Captain America, doesn't have the clearance for S.H.I.E.L.D's Greatest Hits, then Maria Hill, one-time agent of S.H.I.E.L.D doesn't need it: she was there. She remembers.

"No," she said. "But I was with the squad that opened up the passage out for you and Romanoff." She glances at him. "Code Violet, wasn't it? Four of ours down, and two more possibly compromised. You took one and Romanoff took the other."

Barton's mouth tightens fractionally at the corner. It's not a memory he tries to remember - or, at least, it wasn't in the other universe. And she hates doing this. In spite of her reputation among more than a few S.H.I.E.L.D agents, Maria wasn't heartless; but she also had an instinct for where to punch to get the results. And right now, she needs someone to believe her - and Barton made the mistake of trying to get alongside her.

She needs at least one ally in the midst of this crazy morass; Barton is a good start.

[rmc28]

Oh wow, this is great!

[james]

Oh this is awesome!

[senmut]

Awesome.

[kore]

The fic you wrote where Maria Hill was not snapped and worked with Steve and the gang to hold down the fort during the five year gap was excellent! Especially the way their growing, prickly, yet hopeful romance paralleled the outside effort of rebuilding the real world around them. I loved how Maria interrogated who she was without SHIELD and the other power structures that had governed her life, and what she chose to go on with.

[tielan]

I'm cheating with this one. I'm trying to write the second half to the story I wrote about Maria not being snapped, so you're just going to get an excerpt:

Scott Lang's proposal is the most outlandish, ridiculous, impossible thing that Maria has ever heard. And she's heard a lot of ridiculous, impossible things, including using alien blood to bring Coulson back to life, and thinking a ragtag bunch of misfits could defend Earth when facing threats beyond the capabilities of national and international co-ordination.

But using a technology that hasn't yet been invented to find a way back to specific points in the past, pick up the Infinity Stones before they get destroyed by Thanos, and bring them back here to undo what he did in dissolving half the universe?

Tony encapsulates it perfectly, with the crisp snark for which he is known.

"Quantum fluctuation messes with the Planck scale which then triggers the Deutsch proposition. Which means," he adds as he catches Maria's roll of the eyes, "that when you go back and start grabbing things from the distant past to fix the recent past, then you're changing the present, which... God, why am I even trying to explain it to you? The answer's 'no'."

Lang argues the possibilities. Steve argues the need.

Tony counters them at every turn, refusing to give ground, arguing back with the certainty that always frustrated Steve. They've never been the kind of men to give way, and certainly not to each other. And their visions of the world and their place in it come from very different angles of understanding.

"And what do you think of this, Hill? You've said nothing so far - not even a hello."

"What I think of this isn't going to change what they do about it." Evasion is second-nature to her, she'd rather hold off on confronting a problem until they have all the intel before facing it full-on. Which is where she differs markedly from the Avengers most of the time: they'd rather plunge headfirst into the situation. "And I'm not here to persuade you to join them."

"Maria--?"

Damn Stark for tossing her this conversational grenade!

She doesn't looks at Steve.

In the corner of her eye, she sees Steve tense, and knows he's just realised she hasn't voiced her opinion on all this yet.

Even as Lang outlined the possibilities, pacing back and forth in the compound, Maria had watched Nat and Steve lean forward, hope slowly growing in their expressions, and knew that anything she'd say would go unheard and unheeded. She'd asked questions elaborating on the practicalities, on the science, on the logistics. But in the back of her mind were the consequences. And what she could see of the consequences? Terrified her.

"I came to New York to see my goddaughter," she says plainly. "They invited themselves along to bring this to you. I'm not a part of it."

"But you have an opinion," Tony says. "Because you always do."

"Just because I have an opinion, doesn't mean I need to give it," she counters.

[senmut]

Kudos to this one!

[pensnest]

You've done such a great job with the prompts so far! Feel free to ignore this one if you don't fancy it.

I have such fondness for the rare AUs in which Our Heroes are into gardening, and this is just so beautifully done. It didn't surprise me that Steve is good with old-fashioned veg growing. I was really surprised at Bucky, but in retrospect, it absolutely fits. I'm so glad Maria keeps carnivorous plants in the kitchen—everyone should. And the scene with the squirrel was hilarious! May their gardens ever grow.