stardustly | au scenarios open post

They say that you can't go home again, and after five years in hell, Oliver Queen had at last returned to Starling City. That said, the saying held true, he was still far from home in his soul. He had left on that boat the son of a billionaire, heir to an economic empire that is Queen Consolidated, a playboy, and a (multiple) college dropout. He'd lost his father, and others too, in that time-span. In addition, he'd lost his whole worldview and mindset as well, everything was different. His father, before taking his own life to save Oliver, had removed the rose-tinted glasses that Ollie used to see the world through. He now knew that his father, and many others, were crooked and evil - he knew they needed to be stopped. Fortunately, five years in hell did wonders for him, and turned him into a deadly weapon. It was time the criminals of Starling City were brought to justice, one way or another...

[ with the lingering promise of freedom right at their fingertips, Veronica quickly shoved another bag into the trunk. a tiny frown pulled at her features because she might not be able to close the trunk with all her 'essential' things. like she could help it she needed outfits for every occasion. did Reggie really need more than one bag? yanking out one bag, she decided to put it in the backseat instead, getting things all set before Reggie came back out of the house and noticed her 'situating' things. ]

REG! COME ON! [ it would be a long drive but the road trip aspect of it would be fun. one last hooray before they needed to be more serious minded students. ] YOU ARE THE FAIREST OF THEM ALL! [ if he didn't hurry he would lose the right to drive and would have to deal with her terror skills. she drove too fast for one thing and had a lot of 'road rage' for another. not really the best combination to deal with. ]

[ Ducking into a rather rundown looking building, Steve let out a relieved breath. The place looked really nondescript and would allow them a small reprieve from not only the fighting but from the constant sound of gunfire. Stripping off his helmet, Steve made his way up the stairs to have some privacy from the rest of the Commandos. He enjoyed the comradely aspect of the group, of course, but he also wanted some semblance of privacy for the first time in months.

The bedroom meeting his eyes looked as rundown as the rest of the place but it actually had a bed. Yes. Flopping back onto it, Steve let out a slow groan, toeing off his boots to let them slip off to the side and land with a soft thud onto the ground.

The scent of food rose to greet him from downstairs but he didn't feel like moving yet. He'd grab for something later. Moving onto his stomach, Steve tried to make himself comfortable, also ignoring the fact he really needed a shower and had made a greater mess of the bed. ]

[ The safety afford to him in Wakanda ended the moment he left the boundary line of the country but he couldn't stand being so secluded anymore and needed missions to take care of. He always thought of himself a soldier and needed tasks to have a direction and a purpose of some sort. The current objective being the extraction of a high level operative of HYDRA to learn the intel he had stored up. The man had deflected and Steve needed to know why before the organization managed to silence him.

Creeping through the bushes, Steve looked up at the warehouse where he tracked the man to. So, he waited for the man to move from the hideout and when he finally made an appearance, Steve didn't even have time to grab for the man before shots were fired.

Damn it.

Rushing forward, Steve tackled the man but the ensuing battle ended with him having a busted lip and the man slipping off to who knew where. Hands resting on his hips, he turned to the direction of where he heard the shots. He only knew of one person with such a deadly accurate shot and he hadn't seen him in years. ]

Come out now, Frank! [ The demand to his tone left little room for argument. ] Let me tell you all about how you ruined my extraction.

[ Sailing on the high seas for so long, Prince Steve decided to have a little fun and grabbed onto one of the ropes to climb his way up to the lookout point but before he reached the area, he allowed himself to swing a little. The gasps below on the deck only made him laugh but the disapproving look of his 'chaperon', sobered him a tad. The man rattling off his antics would only make his aunt more insistent about settling down and assuming the throne. As if he even wanted the responsibility in the first place.

Moving into the perch, he allowed for the wind to whisk through his hair and the sun to beat down onto his face. The last remains of the sun, at least, because soon enough the moon would rise and bring them one step closer to his awaiting kingdom.

He started to call down to the crew to settling in for the night when the tides began to change violently. Odd. ]

All hands on deck! [ His voice called down as he hurried to land his feet back on the deck with the rest of the scurrying members. The waters churned up more, practically slamming into the vessel and try as they might they could not navigate away from the looming rocks heading their way. ]

Brace for impact! [ With a sickening crunching sound the vessel slammed into the jagged rocks, sending everyone and everything flying everywhere. Steve hit the water so hard nearly all the air wheezed out of his lungs and he sunk down like a stone. It took a few moments for him to become aware again but when he did he tried to fight the way back to the surface, lungs burning and chest feeling heavier and heavier by the moment.

No, no, no. He needed to resurface and help his crew - his family. They mattered more to him than anyone else back in the kingdom and he couldn't lose them.

He couldn't. ]

[ Riverdale: the town sounded quaint and Veronica didn't know how to handle it. Big cities she knew how to manoeuvrer around and disappear into her own niche but small towns revealed too much. Why should she care? Well, she had a very big secret and she needed to make sure no one discovered it.

Sighing deeply to herself, Veronica went into the local hangout. Pops? Did she fall into a 50s sitcom or something? With a roll of her eyes, she went over to the counter to order a burger, fries and a chocolate milkshake before taking a seat at one of the booths. She removed her gloves and sat them aside, eyes drifted over to some of the other patrons.

The whole retro vibe would lose its appeal really quick but what could she do? Her mother wanted to move them back to her hometown and refused to listen to any of her arguments on the matter.

Fingertips sparking for a moment, she quickly managed to wrap her emotions back under control just as her food clanged onto the table. Too close. ]

[ The shot rang through the air, the noise reverberating throughout Clarke's body as she looked on in horror at Lexa nearly crumbling to the ground. Without thinking twice, she darted out to catch her and bring them both over to the bed. Frantically, she tore at Lexa's clothing to find where the bullet lodge itself all the while trying to fumble for her makeshift first aid kit she kept with her. ]

You're going to be okay. [ The words were to reassure her as much as Lexa if not more. Tears stinging her eyes, she readied the utensils and disinfected as best as she could before she started to pull the bullet out and stitch up the wound. She finished up by bandaging it, her eyes barely leaving Lexa's face the entire time.

At least, Titus had stumbled away and left them to deal with things. ]

I know we don't have a lot of time but you have to rest for now, I mean it. We can worry about everything else later.

[ Emotions fueled everything, sometimes as soft as a whisper, feather light and fleeting while other times they were consuming to the very depths of a person, pulling them underneath currents without any mercy. But each and every person in their society wanted to feel something because it ensured a soulmate; the perfect other half to make you whole. It sounded rather cliche and fairy book but it held things together when it could have spiraled into ultimate demise.

If someone didn't feel anything but their own sense of self it meant they were one of the very, very rare unmarked ones. The unmarked were scorned and thought of as dangerous because why would mother nature deem someone unfit for another half?

Typically, they were tossed into the outback, far away from everyone else to not taint them all with their instability. Whether such an instability existed mattered very little.

For Steve Rogers, he just so happened to be soulmate-less but he managed to keep it to himself and when he crashed the plane to save the world, it didn't really matter in the end. His tattoo never made sense and he never felt his soulmate there in the back of his mind. No one ever shared his emotions and as much as it pained him, his demise meant Peggy could once again focus on finding her intended rather than lose focus with him.

Waking up seventy or so years later really tossed him for a loop. Anxiously pacing back and forth in the same room they had him in after they explained what happened, Steve waited for the one they assigned to help him 'acclimate'.

The last name being Stark made him both eager and fearful. Both emotions remained when the man entered the room and for the first time in his entire life he felt a surge, a ping and his tattoo felt hot, white hot, in fact resting on his chest.

It never made any sense but little did he know the tattoo was a replica of the arc reactor featured on Tony's chest. ]

[ after talking with claire about the murders, she directed him to talk to her husband since he knew far more about eye imagery and what might motivate the serial killer there. with a shake of his head, ryan grabbed for his phone to text the professor to set up a meeting. ]

This is Ryan Hardy with the FBI. Your wife gave me your number and I wanted to see when would be a good time for you to meet and discuss? She said you'd have more insights with what we're dealing with.

[ sometimes crimes happened suddenly and proceeded to change everything by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, which so happened to be where JJ found herself along with the other witness. the witness she now found herself 'married' to as a witness protection sort of thing. they had tangled up with what seemed like the mafia but the team worried about scratch being involved and he always went to such great lengths to make things happen. they couldn't risk it.

so, now she found herself in the middle of nowhere in an amish-like town. they were given new identities, clothing, the whole lot. they managed to make it seem like she just so happened to be one of the long last cousins to the brook family. the brook's clan owned the land they were staying on, situated in one of the outer housing units, which seemed like it once housed servants but she kept the distaste to herself. ]

How you holding up? I know it's a lot to process but we should talk to get our stories straight on our relationship. We can't rouse any suspension.

[ walking along the docks on his way home, Steve paused in his trek as he noticed an out of the place lump resting along the side. odd. he probably should have continued walking but curiosity pushed him to move closer and take in the crumbled form of a man. he appeared - with a slightly shaky hand, Steve squatted down to check his breathing and heartbeat. both were there and some of the tension left his shoulders in swift relief. not a dead boy then but he still needed to get the guy away from the docks before all the workers filed in because they would - well, it wouldn't be a pretty sight.

shaking the guy, Steve caught sight of a watch on the man's wrist and it looked very expensive, a direct contrast to the rags on his body.

a thief, maybe? knocked out during a heist? ]

[ to say the least, soulmates never really landed too high on Steve's radar even before the serum because he always doubted having one and the other person actually wanting him.

it turned out he not only had a soulmate but an immortal one. they had met a couple of times, each one strained but this time they decided to actually spend some time together and have more of a 'date like' setting.

the selection? an arcade. no one should ever let Steve pick the locations. ]

How are you feeling?
It's been a few days, I know, but I wanted to check on you.

The jungles of Wakanda were no place for a wolf. In fact, he'd already been rather pointedly warned off by T'Challa, who'd been able to smell the canine lurking under his skin a mile away, with an unsubtle hint that there were panthers stalking the jungle at night.

(He couldn't help ruffling the king's fur, and they both knew it. It made for an uneasy cohabitation, to say the least.)

The whole thing made him irritable; it was too hot under his thick coat of sandy fur, he couldn't hunt anything on the palace grounds, and there wasn't even enough cover to hide in the moonlight. He felt entirely exposed - from a security standpoint, he understood why, but it was damn annoying that if he wanted cover, he had to slink around the edges of buildings. (He suspected T'Challa had at least warned the guards about him, or that they were used to seeing strangely intelligent animals at the full moon.)

They'd been hiding in Wakanda for months, and Sam felt especially snappish. When he heard footsteps on the walk nearby where he was crouched in the grass, instinct drove him to leap and bite, burying his fangs in the human's throat.

It was a crazy idea. Absolutely mental, in fact, and this was from a woman who'd fought aliens with Shakespeare. But their lives depended on going undercover and pretending they were married - pretending that T'Challa was a normal person, which, as far as she'd seen, he definitely wasn't - so she just had to grin and bear it.

Which was why they were in a restaurant in Munich - out for a date, ostensibly, before returning to their flat - and Martha was wearing a strappy black dress and heels she really didn't want to have to run in. "Oh, honey, do you think we should get dessert?" she asked, reaching out and touching the back of his hand. "Or would you rather have it back home?" The smile she gave him was ostensibly seductive, but didn't quite reach her eyes.

Fighting in snow was nobody's idea of a good time. Why Hydra couldn't build their stupid bases anywhere warmer was a constant question. Then again if Hydra was smart, they wouldn't be having these problems.

Case in point: attempting to drive a heavily armored truck onto a mostly-frozen lake. Granted they had probably been slightly more concerned with an angry Captain America doing his best to tear the truck apart than they were on where they were driving, but it still ended with the ice almost instantly giving way.

The sheer sound of it had caught Tony's attention more than anything else, and it was pure luck that he'd sen the truck vanish. It was also lucky that Cap's shield was particularly shiny, which meant that when Tony instantly went in after him, he found Steve relatively quickly. That was about where their luck had run out, though. Tony had gotten them out of the water and airborne quickly, but the unexpected ice bath had done the armor no favors. He'd managed to set them down without crashing, but only just. Which meant that they were stuck, alone and with no way to contact anyone, and technically still in enemy territory. In the snow. And it didn't take a weatherman to tell that there as a storm coming.

Tony sighed and carefully crouched down to where he'd set Steve down. "Cap? Steve? You with me?"

Tony might have thrown a considerable amount of time and effort into the whole truce thing, but he still hadn't expected to be actually sent to broker the thing. Sure he could be charming when he put his mind to it, but diplomatic wasn't exactly the first thing that came to mind to describe him. As the unofficial master of New York, he had the power behind him, but here were others that could have made a stronger statement.

If he was a cynical man, he might have said that he'd been sent because someone thought he was expendable. If he worked the truce out, great. If he managed to get himself eaten...well, that worked too.

Not that he was planning on explaining any of that to the were leader currently heading towards him. It was a nice hotel, neutral ground for both of them, and it would a shame to do damage to it so soon. He carefully got to his feet, making sure that his teeth were covered as he smiled, and held out a hand.

"Your highness. Thanks for meeting me."

All of Jim's restless energy drains out of one heel tapping on the white linoleum tile covering Beacon Hills high school reception. To everyone else it looks like nerves. It's the first day of a new school, but for him it's a job—A weird one, sure, but one nonetheless. Hey, if it makes him fit in all the better, so be it. Espionage is so not thing.

The only kids besides him that filter in at the beginning of the school day are the ones dumb enough to misplace phones, keys, or passing over whatever excuse to leave class early. And every single one gives him a quick one-two before he's just another part of the decor of their high school. Perfect.

"—Barnes."

It's about damn time. The receptionist is off her office phone and looking his way.

"Do you go by James or Jim?" she asks him, something he's not used to. People call him what they want, no matter what he does or says.

"James, Jim, whatever," is his response, hands firmly tucked in his jeans and slumped in one of the chair in front of her desk.

"Alright, well, one of the boys in your class is coming down here to pick you up. You'll shadow him the first day. Okay?" She goes on to explain it's a boy named Stiles, although when she says his name there's a definite face she makes. Not necessarily a bad one, just... a face.

"Sure, ma'am." Maybe he'll be able to squeeze info from the guy. They usually send the extroverts to do this kind of job, right?

Edited 2017-08-27 22:15 (UTC)

So far, he'd managed to avoid being alone with T'Challa. It was common courtesy; he knew damn well he made the king's hackles rise by being here, and his presence was only suffered because T'Challa owed Steve a favor. (Imagining T'Challa as a small black kitten with all its fur puffed out made him feel a little better about the antipathy a fair number of the Wakandans in the palace displayed towards him, but not much.)

But his luck ran out one day when he was in the gym and T'Challa came in, followed by a pair of his omnipresent guards. (Of course they were all shifters; he could smell it on them a mile away.) The women's eyes narrowed at the sight of him, and he could swear their irises flashed golden for a moment.

Goddamn territorial cats. He'd never even met another shifter before this, apart from the guerrilla fighter who'd turned him, and now he had too many to deal with, and they all hated him. It wasn't even his fault.

"Don't mind me," he muttered under his breath, grabbing his towel. "I was just leaving." He wasn't anywhere close to done working out - this close to the full moon, he had a lot of pent-up aggression to work out - but he wasn't going to stay here, either.

[ Shadows descended around them as they moved further into the warehouse to search out a lead on the growing darkness plaguing Hells Kitchen. She doubted Frank wanted her tagging along but she refused to be left behind in the aftermath of the fighting on the rooftop and Matt's confession. Every time she thought about it, she felt just as furious and betrayed. How could he not tell her after everything?

Frowning, she walked further inside, flashlight sweeping the area around her, falling onto a guitar. Wait. Grabbing for it, she held the flashlight between her cheek and shoulder. ]

Hey Frank, look at this!

[ The invasion brought with it a churning darkness no one managed to dispel even with their best efforts. But they all needed more information to be able to formulate lasting plans to win against the aggression. For Kara, she wanted to do everything she could to protect the world and the multi-universes she now knew existed. Sadly enough, the others knew the same thing and discovered a force called HYDRA with a wayward lost agent named the Winter Soldier. An ominous name given the deeds attached to him but Winn managed to uncover the agent's rogue status and a way for her to travel to his world to find him first.

The hitch? She might not make it back to their reality, in the very least, not very easily. But she couldn't sit back and let the forces use him across the universes to do evil along with others they wanted to capture.

Dropping down from the portal, her eyes darted around quickly to try and catch sight of one Bucky Barnes. He might be with him group but he should be alone and not with the Avengers. Slowly, she moved around, calling out for Bucky. ]

Clark Kent / Superman

@bragnificent

@takesabeating | ghost au

@thegoodbad.

@wanda. little mermaid AU.

@cheryl (hashtagtwinning).

@lexa.