quigonejinn | (no subject)

Yeah. He's... not remotely deep. Is like, all surface, and yet COMPLETELY SUCKS AT IT. Which is amusing.

Guys. Guys. Guys. New Fringe had Alternate!Olivia, and Olivia is basically Cecily Stane in our heads, right? Except now? She has Pepper's hair. The universe ships it, okay.

It was fun and totally awesome for Justin, because he never caught on to how Tony and Bruce would ditch him, or make fun of him using like mathematical equations. Or something.

Oh God. And how Justin, back then, was kind of the default leader because he cared? Whereas Tony was so like WHATEVER/secretlyomgattentionattentionattention, and Bruce was so just there to pass the time and make it so that nobody would ask questions about why he wasn't there. Oh God.

make fun of him using like mathematical equations

You are brilliant.

TOO BAD i don't know enough about math to actually figure out how that would work.

Tony wears those sneakers with red LEDs in the soles which light up whenever he takes a step -- the kind every kid has at one time or another, except his have a power jack in the heel.

And you know that Tony was all about having a puppy follow him around until it started interfering with his ability to pick up the ladies.

He introduced Justin to Rhodey at some function during college and later Rhodey was like WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING TO THIS KID, TONY.

THE GREAT ARC OF THE UNIVERSE IS TOWARDS TWO BUCK CHUCK AND WALKING TO THE INDIAN RESTAURANT.

What do we have to do to to put a high-powered rifle in her hands? Because you know that she is the one who teaches Minnie about the business end of those -- Minnie can, in her sleep, come up with six improvements to make them shoot farther and faster and kill a man a mile away, but she has to reason out how to load a copkiller bullet from first principles.

Doll!Steve.

He's not the actual physical Captain American, unfrozen. He's not a clone, either. He's the body of some poor schmuck and the re-created mental imprint based on early projects and filmstrips and diaries and a lot of guesswork by Topher Brink with input by Nick Fury, who knew the guy like fifty years ago.

Even though it's against every scrap of canon, part of me wants her to be the daughter of Russian immigrants who are really spies who escaped Russia, and she's raised in Brooklyn. And Nick finds her one night in the 80's when she takes down like 3 guys double her size in some skeezy back alley in Hell's Kitchen (because Nick likes visiting home just to make sure it's still a terrible place) and of course decides that she'd make an awesome field agent.

And also he kind of wants to know what's under her tiny black dress (not that it leaves much to the imagination). And therefore knows later in life that of course Tony will go for that like a carrot on a stick.

LIke a carrot dipped in honey and topped with Scotch and rolled around in skimpy, lacy black underwear.

Fuck comic canon. Fuck it. I love the mental image of teenage Natasha, wearing jeans and a white t-shirt, breathing hard with blood on the side of her face and not letting go of the metal pipe in her hands. Oh God.

. . . I love the idea that basically, whatever Tony has to deal with regarding Justin Hammer? IT'S ALL HIS FAULT.

Wow, this post is perfectly timed for me -- I just got back from Iron Man 2!

~~what's a doomthread I don't wanna do this wrong D:~~

dkfj;lkj COME JOIN US. TELL US WHAT IS ON YOUR FANDOM MIND.

(Dude. It's just regular LJ conversation, but with all inhibitions about not jumping into other people's threads removed or staying strictly on-topic or not telling people to WRITE IT WRITE IT GODDAMN WRITE IT.)

“This is, well. This isn’t helpful.”

Fury grunts in response. They’ve been watching old films all fucking night, hundreds of feet of film that’s now been taken apart at their feet, curled and faded. Archive quality back then wasn’t quite what it is now.

Topher picks up another delicate Times article from the war and waves it in front of Fury’s face, like a handkerchief.

“Not helpful. Just tell me what you remember.” Topher lets it drop before getting to his feet and shuffling off, muttering the whole time.

Fury stays sitting on one of the boxes, staring at his hands. It’s been a long time since Cap.

---

Two days later Topher has 78% of an imprint done, sort of like a house that’s totally finished save for the moldings around the doors and windows and the faucets in the kitchen and the bathroom. Maybe missing a few lighting fixtures, the tile floor in one room.

“He was like a rock,” Fury says as he walks in, and Topher nearly jumps, staring owl eyed as Fury sits down on Topher’s couch. “The tide. Predictable. With a dreamer’s eye but a realist’s brain.”

Topher thinks it’s the most cohesive thing Fury’s ever said.

“He believed in trust and passion and knowing yourself. Screw apple pie and baseball, the man wanted equality.” Fury tips his head back, staring at the ceiling and beating something out on his thigh.

“That’s not much. Lyrical though. Have you thought about writing a book?” Even as he says it, all snark intended, he’s turned back to his computer.

Sometime in the next hour or two it becomes 99%. Fury looks over his shoulder and drops in the last 1%.

“Oh, and he loved that goddamn fucking shield.”

---

They pull in favors and get a doll sent in from the New York house – lantern jaw, Aryan good looks and shoulders like a fucking brick house. According to his file he was an amateur boxer wanna-be actor before hand. Now he’s never getting his body back. Topher overloads the guy’s original imprint, destroys it. Keeps the wedge at the back of his desk, but very much intends to forget about it.

The imprint is a work of art, as far as Topher is concerned. It works pretty damn well.

“Cap?” Fury’s the one to speak when the chair clicks off and back up into a sitting position. Blue eyes flutter open, and the man frowns.

“I – where am I?” His voice sounds rough, but Topher notices that he doesn’t panic. He’s too well trained for that. Look first, know second, decide to panic third. Or just don’t freak out at all.

“Alive,” Fury says simply.

Captain America sits up all the way, rubbing a hand through his hair.

“I don’t believe it,” he tells Fury.

---

Natasha introduces him to Tony.

The garage is a mess, and Steve looks around, hands in his pockets as he takes stock of the future, the way it’s played out in this one man’s house. Tony himself emerges from a pile of sheet metal, cursing and brushing his jeans off.

“Hi,” Steve says, rocking onto the balls of his feet and watches as Tony slips under tubing of some kid, held up by books and a motorcycle and – what. “Is that-“

Tony follows his eye line, looking confused.

“A particle accelerator? Yeah, no big, I’m taking it down eventually. CERN just wouldn’t let me play with theirs.” Even as he says it, Steve is crossing to where his shield, his arm, is sitting under the pipes. He pulls it out, staring in horror at how much it’s been ripped apart. “Oh yeah, that. Sorry.”

Tony doesn’t sound it, and just shrugs.

“This is like part of my arm,” Steve tells him, meaning every single word of it.

Meaning it so much that something in the very back of his head says no it’s not.

You’ve never held it before.

It’s not yours.

Steve ignores it. This is his, the way it’s always been.

I. What. Oh god. I've never even seen Dollhouse, but my brain is falling to pieces at how awesome this is and how wrong and how perfect.

He’s too well trained for that. Look first, know second, decide to panic third. Or just don’t freak out at all.

WHO IS THE HE IN THIS. THAT IS THE QUESTIOn. Oh God. That's just unfair.

And we all know how much Tony loves Scotch and skimpy, lacy black underwear. (Which always reminds me of girl!Tony now.)

DUUUDDDEEEE. Oh my god, I need this now, the shirt totally off one shoulders because, hello, it's the 80's, and she's totally scrawny but everyone knows she's got a rack hiding under there. A really awesome rack and a really awesome knowledge of knowing how to find the closest hard, unforgiving thing close to you and then bash someone's head in with it. And if there's one thing Fury loves in his agents it's being able to think on their feet and not be adverse to probably crippling people for life, and Natasha never really had any reservations about that, if they hurt her badly enough first.

DOLL!STEVE. And despite it all, despite the crisis of identity, the crisis of faith in a government that could do this, just program a hero with a loyalty kill switch and a vitamin deficiency that keeps him tied to the helicarrier between missions if he doesn't want his kidney failing, okay?

But despite it all, he kind of likes Tony, in a "he's a good kid" sort of way he can't really shake even though he knows the memories aren't real and he's a decade or two younger, but he does. The guy tries. The guy tries so damn hard to be liked, to be a hero, it doesn't hurt to give it to him every once and awhile. A "good job," or a "couldn't have done it without you." Would be pathetically easy if he didn't have room to talk.

Anyway, that's beside the point. The point is this: Memory engrams are all well and good, but the tech isn't to the point of pure organics yet. Tony, whether he knows it or not, or at least his tech, has had a hand in neurons that fire into processors and processors that fire back. There's a microscopic tangle of wire in Steve's brain that makes Steve Steve, and so when he gets with a shock of alien electricity, and Tony does this thing where he thinks being a hero is getting yourself killed. Well. Extremis. Electricity. Memory Engrams. Tony's better at tech than he is at sacrificing himself proper, okay?

Steve wakes up to himself in a coma, mouth slack and eyes shut, when he turns his --Tony's-- head on the SHIELD medical bed and stares and stares and stares.

Oh my god, you should. The first season is iffy but the second is SO GOOD. Also you kind of have to ignore Eliza Dushku, but whatever.

---

Topher starts the imprint with basic military training, all of it. Grab some Army, grab some Marines, grab some goddamn Coast Guard. It's all the same at it's core, anyway. The special forces are all brainwashed the same way, made to be unmoving and unthinking past the location and neutralization of threats. Captain America is, at his core, just that. Look first, know second, remove threat third. He wasn't trained to panic. The doll will not be imprinted with panic. It becomes a circle - no fear.

Fury looks over his shoulder and drops in the last 1%.

“Oh, and he loved that goddamn fucking shield.”

This is brilliant. Steve as Fury's Pygmalion holy crap.

Tony is terrible at pulling a martyr - he never quite gets there. He tries and tries and ends up with a fried brain or a computer in his head, but he's still alive at the end of the day, because that's the status quo. His status quo, more than anything. And hello Extremis, I love you a lot and of course that's where he was almost dead, but nope, he's going to come back with real super powers, like actual not-just-his-intelligence powers.

Steve wakes up to himself in a coma, mouth slack and eyes shut, when he turns his --Tony's-- head on the SHIELD medical bed and stares and stares and stares.

Gahhhh omg that is so perfect. I want to wrap myself up in this.

Dollhouse is kind of one of those things where the concept and implications are much better than the execution for the most part. But there are some good episodes.

You don't even have to hurt her badly enough. Or hurt her, really. Or even look at her funny. Natasha has a temper and an itch underneath that tidy mouth and smooth, smooth skin, and you never know about it until you're on the floor, trying to breathe: Happy finds out, for example, in exactly that way. The only thing that keeps it in check is that she likes winning even more than beating the shit out of you.

not be adverse to probably crippling people for life

Let me tell you a story about tiny, baby Natasha who just happens to be very, very strong. She has never had Ms. Marvel strength or the ability to lift up cars or rip steel in half or streak across a continent at the speed of sound. It isn't superhuman strength or speed or anything like that. What she has, instead, is freak strength and freak speed that she doesn't know what to do with. By the time she is six, she can lift up her father. By the time she is nine, she plays pickup basketball at the local blacktop with fourteen year old boys and takes it to them and goes home bloody.

Her father tapes her up on the back stoop next to the laundry line and tells her, next time, don't beat on boys too bad. It's not fair.

Why isn't it fair, Natasha wants to know. They're speaking to each other in a mix of languages. It's their private game -- take a little German, take a little Ukrainian, throw in a little Demotic Greek. The game is to see how you can make them fit together in a way that makes sense. Points for clever turns of phrase that work across multiple linguistic languages.

"She doesn't approve, little sun, and she doesn't want you hurt. Remember, she still thinks it's her fault that you're special. "

Natasha bites her lip to keep from saying that she can't help being the way she is, and her father sighs to let her know that he knows it anyways, then goes back to cleaning out the grit and dirt from her knee. When it's over, he pats her on the shoulder and tells her that she is brave, and then they talk about the school and the Knicks and by the time that they're done talking, the bloody mess of her knee has knitted itself back together, smooth as if it had never been scraped down to the bone.

Freak strength. Freak speed. Superhuman healing power.

Edited 2010-05-23 20:08 (UTC)

ooooooo

“That’s not much. Lyrical though. Have you thought about writing a book?” Even as he says it, all snark intended, he’s turned back to his computer.

and

Now he’s never getting his body back. Topher overloads the guy’s original imprint, destroys it. Keeps the wedge at the back of his desk, but very much intends to forget about it.

and HOLY CRAP this:

Meaning it so much that something in the very back of his head says no it’s not.

You’ve never held it before.

It’s not yours.

This is full on awesome, thank you.