As Time Goes By, Marvel Zombieverse Steve/Tony microfic

[hohaiyee.livejournal.com]

I know it's nowhere near Halloween, but I just came across this very haunting Iron Man cover that Arthur Suydam did for the 5th edition of Marvel Zombies (back in Nov/Dec 2007). It references the Demon In A Bottle storyline, and there is a real Classic Horrors feel to it, more than visceral gore, it is a horror that is also gorgeous and tragic;



I really hope that they have this cover in large poster format, unglossed paper like one of those old movies posters.

Is Casablanca (1942) public domain yet? If I have the means to, I want to do a short zombie movie scene that references it. Undead walking outside an old motel in broad daylight, and inside, you hear the Casablanca song Knock On Wood sung by Dooly Wilson on an old TV set. Pans out and you can see an abandoned bar, and a lone drinker hunched over on her stool, tiredly taping her knuckles on the bar.

Instead, I wrote this Steve/Tony fic, set in the 2149 universe weeks after the outbreak...I'm probably stretching out the timeline here, because I think the Silver Surfer had actually arrived before weeks had past?

[As Time Goes By]

You must remember this
A kiss is still a kiss
A sigh is just a sigh

The underground theatre has long been deserted, a relic of the 40s with sheet draped rows of seats, and dust layered carpets. The small sliverscreen rests behind a narrow stage, where skits and dances were once shown between the movies.

For weeks, an old man have been living down here, sleeping in the green room with his grocery cart of canned food. Steve didn't know what his plans were, beyond that, but a caved in skull has taken care of everything.

They were taking a break from the others, strolling arm in arm through the older district of New York, when Tony noticed that one of the utility panels had been recently tempered with. The old man was in the cleaned projector room, watching Casablanca. The loud duel of the anthems drowned their footsteps, as Steve snuck up, shield in hand...or maybe he was almost deaf because he was wearing a broken hearing aid.

Dinner was eaten in shameful silence. Slowly because they weren't that hungry yet when they started, and slowly because they were praying that their clarity of mind would last. Regaining sanity with the remains of their meal before them, was worse than the intolerable frenzy that the hunger brings. Still, neither Steve or Tony have the mind to dread sanity when they were hungry, the way they dread the hunger when they were sane.

Mindless of the gray grease that sticks to his uniform, Steve sat in the front row, his chin on his fist as the credits ran down the screen, thinking about the sure-voiced gents and effulgent dames he grew up with. Steve said not a word though, when he pulled Tony into his lap, Tony who came back from the green room, necrotized flesh still showing through layers of foundation.

ETA: Lighter Side commentfic (that I would love for someone to draw out nudge nudge wink wink)



Steve frowned, the best he could, what with half his forehead missing (he really should do something cosmetic about it).

"Tony, the team isn't going to be happy about having one more mouth to feed."

"I swear, it followed me home!"

"You still have bits of dinner caught in the creases of your armour."

"Oh, ew, um...here kitty, here...see Steve, it's cleaning me!"

*sigh

Comments

re: RICHAARRDS!

[hohaiyee.livejournal.com]

Reed and Tony is really alike that way, except that Tony is more worldly due to being brought up in business, but in terms of normal human interactions, they kind of Fail. Reed worse than Tony, because he has aspergers (though even without, being a genius lab monkey would still make him a bit different)...but Tony's problem with people comes out without him risking his own life when he should have handed the reigns over, and dating the long string of women who have hurt him. Both are a part of the Illuminati, which bit off more than earth can chew by poking at the Skrulls before they have any defense against the Skrull invasion. That's like going to the Pyromaniac's door, shaking your finger over how they better leave your paper house alone when you have no functioning hose.

Unfortunately, Sue is also a bit like Steve, both of them underestimate Tony and Reed's ability to close off and fuck up. They both have had high esteem of Reed and Tony, Sue because she was a young girl when she had a crush on Reed, and Steve because Tony was the first person he saw when he came out of the ice. Yes, the on the geniuses with the plan to explain it, Tony should have spoke to Steve even before the government, and Reed should have talked with Sue instead of the Mad Thinker...but Steve and Sue KNOWS those two, and should have been more patient and persistent.

...and while Sue and Reed never duked it out the way Steve and Tony did, because for one thing, they are older and have children...and probably because their fighting style tends to be less physical. Though Sue is still very scary. In FF:Civil War, when the break up finally came, when Sue accused Reed of being like the Nazis and Reed clenched his fist, Sue immediately said, "You've just made a fist, use it, put it away, or I'll take it off at the wrist." ...that's like, um, WORSE than beating each other up. Then there was the part where Sue was soooooo angry when Reed persisted in his "I know what's best for everyone and I'm only being a facist(except I'm not!) to Protect You", she put a hole through all the layers of their home with her forcefields! ...Sue completely lost her mind, because while Sue has forcefields, she can't sense if there are other people in the house other than the two of them eh? Where were the children?

Re: RICHAARRDS!

[intravenusann.livejournal.com]

Reed and Tony are quite alike, but for very different reasons. Reed thinks "I am the smartest, I have to do this alone. If I do this, then everything will work out perfectly because I know it will. If things just followed this equation, then they'd be absolutely the most ideal possible." Whereas Tony has A LOT more issues and needs to have control, needs to get perfect, needs to do this ALONE because if he needed other people he'd be 'weak' he'd be admitted that he wasn't strong enough or smart enough, which is basically the same as saying not strong or smart at all to him.

But oh yeah, the skrull thing was like... Wow. They're smart, but maybe not so much common sense? Or whatever that took. Probably common sense. And maybe a little bit of humility.

Sue and Steve are very similar, but Sue sees through Reed a lot more easily. Still, three splits gutted me in Civil War: Cable and Deadpool, Sue and Reed, and Steve and Tony. I'm glad Sue and Reed worked things out, even though... Yikes, I'm glad I dropped Civil War when I did and only came back and read it all recently. Just... ouch. Ouch. Ouch.

Sue Richards is a scary woman. She knows she's not as smart as Reed, but she has heart and she could have kept him from doing some of the morally unforgivable things that he did and when he comes around she does make him promise "no more traps. no more clones" and all that. Well, I suppose he promises that as a bid to get her back, but it's what she wants. The thing that is best, but not at the expense of his integrity. Which is I think the point of their fight--if he's going to make bad choices, either she feels he should follow through on them 100% so she can do something about that, or stop being lukewarm evil. Use it, put it away, or lose it. That did concern me, but I figured even royally angry... maybe they were out with Ben or Johnny or... someone? I can't imagine her having that fight at all if the kids were home. Simply because of not wanting anyone, especially the children, even to hear it. She seems oddly together and forward thinking in Civil War, what with all the stalking she does. She even stops Tony from drinking, God bless her.

As for Steve and Tony, I just don't think Steve has the outlook to be able to understand where Tony was coming from. I also really don't think that Tony wanted it to end peacefully and with as little death as possible, which he says again and again and again. Steve if Captain m-f-in' America and I just don't think he realizes how angry and suspicious and bitter the average person has gotten because of all the collateral damage superheroes insecure. He thinks people remember the good and take the bad as a lesson, like he does. Not because he's 'perfect' like Tony says, but because he's decent, optimistic, idealistic, etc. He does make mistakes, he just learns from them. And Tony is pretty deep in himself during Civil War, and even before that. Pretty much forever, really, he thinks if the problem connects to him that it is his fault and that he, and he alone, must fix it. And so much of that and the darkness in Tony, is so beyond Steve's comprehension that they absolutely cannot see eye to eye. Steve couldn't have understood him by inference and empathy, because he's just not wired like that. And Tony was never going to spill about his feelings and the deep, weird, complex twists of his mind, his hunches, but also his weaknesses and his fears and all that. Which... sucks. As we all know.